Mr. Hartwell waved at me from atop his new riding mower. Mrs. Hartwell stood on the front porch yelling as he lost control and ran over a patch of her gerbera daisies. Mrs. Boudreaux of Perkins Street—I had to label them by street since Louisiana produced Boudreaux like it did mosquitoes—was painting the rocking chairs on her front porch a bright blue. They looked good against the bright white siding on her house.
“Looks great!” I called out as I ran by.
She looked up and waved. “Come by and sit in a couple days.”
It was the sort of invitation people in Sinful made every day. It didn’t matter to Mrs. Boudreaux that I’d only spoken to her once and that was at church when I’d accidentally stepped on her foot. I’d complimented her, and that required an invitation to chat. Some days, I found it charming. Other days, I found it intrusive.
Today, I didn’t think about it at all. My mind kept going back to Gail Bishop. Who would want to murder someone like Gail? By all accounts, she was a nice woman, and nice women rarely had enemies. Sometimes people were jealous, but it took a lot more than a little envy to resort to murder. And poor Nolan. He’d been so irritated with Celia and so pleased with himself for tripping her. It probably wasn’t something Gail would have done, but despite her niceness, I don’t think she minded overly much.
What would Nolan do now? Was he dependent on Gail to manage day to day or was he capable of doing it alone? Ida Belle and Gertie should be able to fill me in on all of that at lunch. I didn’t think Nolan’s disability had anything to do with Gail’s murder, but in order to work on theories, I needed to know the entire picture. So many things that had happened in Sinful had roots in the past. I’d learned quickly that the more you knew about someone, the more likely you were to figure out what was going on. The less you knew, the more likely you were to step right in it.
“Fortune?” I heard a woman’s voice call out.
I slowed to a walk and looked at the park in the direction of the call.
The young woman I’d met in the General Store the day before waved at me from a swing set. Penelope, but she’d called herself something else. A fruit. Apple. Pear. Peaches! That was it.
I started to wave and continue on, but then changed direction and headed into the park. Peaches and I were probably two of the last people to see Gail alive. She would want to talk about it, and in doing so, might give me a lead. You never knew what gossip was making it through Sinful, and the younger crowd probably had different tidbits to share than Ida Belle’s older contacts.
“Nice day for the park,” I said as I stepped up.
Peaches’ baby was in a swing made for infants and she was pushing her gently. The baby let out a happy scream every time the swing went forward.
“She loves it outside,” Peaches said. “I have a hard time with her when it’s raining.”
“Ought to be even more fun when she starts school.” I could remember being cooped up inside every day when I wanted nothing more but to be outside in the sunlight. I usually turned my frustration and boredom into causing trouble.
“I don’t even want to think about it,” Peaches said. She was silent for several seconds. “Did you hear about Gail Bishop?”
I nodded. “It’s hard to believe.”
“I said the same thing! I was telling Brandon—he’s my husband—that I just saw her yesterday at the General Store. I never thought…”
“Of course not. How could you?”
“Yes. I suppose that sounds silly. You can’t just look at a person and know they’re going to be murdered. Still, if it had been someone like Celia Arceneaux, I would have been shocked but not surprised. I don’t know if that makes sense.”
“It does to me. I only just met Gail yesterday, but she didn’t strike me as the type of person who incited people to violence.”
“Not at all! She’s one of the nicest people in Sinful. I’ve worked with her a couple of times on charity events. Between her job in New Orleans and Nolan, she didn’t have a lot of time to spare, but she always helped when we had something going on in town, even if it was only for an hour or two. She spent all her time taking care of other people. Why in the world would someone want to harm a person like that?”
“It doesn’t seem to make sense,” I said. “Does anyone have ideas?”
Peaches shifted her gaze to the ground. “Oh, well, I couldn’t say.”
Another thing I’d learned is that in the South, “I couldn’t say” often meant “I’ve heard things I shouldn’t repeat because it’s crass.”