The Perils of Peaches (Scents of Murder Book 3) (18 page)

The two men left the table and the kitchen.

“Should I go too?” Ben asked.

“No, we only brought one bag each. But Barkha’s father tends to, as businessmen say, micromanage.” Barkha’s mother reached across the table for her hand. “Dear, your father and I have been worried. And not just because you haven’t called. You missed your cousin’s wedding, and she cried the night before the festivities began. I know she would have asked you to be in her wedding party. You have nice friends and a lovely house, but you need to be among your family and those who understand you best.”

Barkha’s cheeks flushed. “Mom, I don’t know. I just don’t feel like I belong anymore. My faith . . .”

“Your faith is a very nice thing. Jesus was a good teacher, but you can still be Hindu.”

“No, I can’t.”

Her mother pulled her hand back and sat up straight. “Your father thinks this is a phase, a crisis of your youth, and being unmarried and unfocused.”

“My crisis isn’t because of those things. I’m thirty-three, and I know I could be married if I wanted to, but Tushar—”

The front door opened and roar of voices made us all look toward the kitchen doorway.

“My daughter is spoken for, and it is only a matter of time . . .”

“The decision will be hers.”

A clatter of luggage on the wooden entryway floor. “If you truly care, you will let her be.”

Barkha’s father entered the kitchen. He stopped just short of the table and adjusted his collar. “Pardon me, it’s a bit warm here. About as humid as Atlanta, too.”

Red-faced, Jerry came in behind him and took his seat.

Poor Barkha. She’d wanted some comfort food and a quiet meal with friends. I looked at Hannah, who made a puckered frown. I know, sweet pea. I know.

Jerry’s beeper went off on his belt, and he grabbed it. “Excuse me, I need to call the station.” He took out his cell phone and left the table once again.

“So, Andromeda, what is it that you do?” asked Barkha’s mother.

“I’m a soap maker, and have my own shop.”

“Oh, you must be busy.”

I opened my mouth to respond, but Barkha’s father asked, “And you, Mr. Hartley, what do you do?”

“I own and operate a restaurant in town, called Honey’s Place.” Ben helped himself to another serving of Barkha’s melt-in-your-mouth fish dish that I knew I couldn’t pronounce the name of.

“Barkha, I’m sorry, but I need to leave.” Jerry strode quickly to the table.

“What’s wrong?” She moved to his side and touched his arm.

“I’m heading to the hospital. Franklin Bradley was found off River Road in his car, up against a tree.”

Chapter Fifteen

Barkha’s parents and Ben were talking business in the living room while Barkha and I cleaned the kitchen. Actually, Ben and her father talked business management while her mother played with Hannah. Truthfully, after one look at all the pots and pans Barkha had hidden in her laundry room during supper, I was grateful she didn’t have us do her dishes alone. Ben and I would have never figured out where everything went.

“Thank you for coming tonight. It could have been a lot worse.” Barkha dried a large skillet, and put it inside a cabinet under her stove. “I should have known my parents would do something drastic like show up on my doorstep unannounced.”

“Was it as hard as you thought it would be?” I scrubbed another smaller skillet, the one she’d used to cook the fish.

“I’ll have to let you know about that eventually.” She sighed and leaned on the kitchen table. “I don’t know what they’re expecting. I’m still me, but not like I was. If that makes any sense.”

“I’m probably not the best person to give you advice. But I do remember reading about Paul in the Bible, when he talked about being a Roman citizen, a Jew, and a Pharisee. Something about him listing his credentials and being ‘all things to all people.’” There. The last bit of grease had left the pan.

Barkha nodded. “I’ve read that before. I just didn’t think about myself in that way.”

“You know, in a way I almost envy you.” I gestured to the room. “I’ve lived here my entire life, with the same kinds of people who pretty much all think the same. That’s kind of dangerous in a way. It’s easy for me to think that everyone’s just like me. But you . . . you grew up different. And your culture is a gift. You can be a bridge to reach people that I can’t. I could tell your mother that Jesus loves her, and that He died on the cross and rose again to reconcile her to God, and that she doesn’t have to work towards a better next life or worry about karma. That she can accept God’s free gift. But it wouldn’t mean as much to her. Because I don’t know her and my life has nothing to do with hers. But you . . . I believe eventually she’ll see how you live your life, and she’ll listen to you.”

“Wow,” was all Barkha said. “Have you ever thought about becoming a counselor?”

I smiled. “Um, no, not really.”

“You have a gift of seeing people, and I mean that. Some doctors don’t have that kind of insight.” She put the lid on the bowl of yogurt, and I thought I glimpsed a tear in her eye before she turned her back to tuck the bowl into the refrigerator.

“Maybe I will. I don’t know. One day.” Then Barkha’s words from earlier that day came back to me. “Oh. I meant to ask. What else were you going to tell me when you invited us to supper tonight?”

Barkha wiped her hands on the dish towel. “Hang on. I’ll be right back.” She left for the entryway, and returned carrying a folder. We sat down at a clear corner of the table.

“Okay, here’s our pharmaceutical order. Eunice is responsible for ordering all medications and samples. Dr. Bradley’s name is on the paperwork, but the drug reps mostly deal with her. I really never liked the idea of one person having the bulk of the responsibility like that without any checks and balances. Hiram trusted her implicitly, he said.”

I scanned the invoice she handed me. “I recognize most of these drugs.”

“Look at the list of the morphine and oxycodone. We don’t order those often, and the quantities are small.” Barkha removed another piece of paper from the folder. “And here’s the medicine locker inventory. Every time a drug is put in the cabinet, it’s counted. And when it’s removed, it’s logged.”

“So what’s the problem?”

Barkha darted a glance toward the entryway door. “The invoices and the incoming inventory don’t match up.”

“I’m confused.”

“I mean. Either someone’s not keeping good records of the narcotics, or someone’s been pilfering the drug supply before the medicine even reaches the cabinet.”

“How long has this been happening?”

“At least six months, going by these records.”

“Is it just the narcotics, or are all the drug counts inconsistent?” I was afraid to know the answer to that one.

She sighed. “It’s just the narcotics. Whoever’s doing this isn’t getting rich, but they can make a good side income by selling them.”

“Eunice,” I said before I could stop myself. “I saw her earlier today, making some kind of exchange with the bag boy who works at Finley’s. She told me she was tipping him for carrying a bag out to her car for her. But it looked more like he’d slipped her some money, not the other way around. Turns out he’s on the Greenburg High football team and supposedly a star athlete, according to his mother. I think he bears checking out. It could be nothing.”

“You’re right, it could be nothing.”

“I just don’t like seeing something suspicious every time I turn around . . .”

“I know. I feel guilty, being relieved that my name’s going down lower on the suspect list while we keep finding out other people aren’t what they seem. I know love is supposed to believe the best about people, but you just never know.” Barkha shook her head.

“ You’re letting Jerry know about this, aren’t you? This is a big motive to murder someone, especially if Dr. Bradley found out about the discrepancy.” I handed the inventory sheet back to her. “Did you ask Franklin about the drug discrepancy?”

“I did. All he said was that I needn’t worry about inventory, that he and Eunice would handle it just like Dr. Bradley and Eunice had before he passed away. Which of course he can’t do, because he’s not authorized to order controlled substances without my authority.”

I thought for a moment. “Well, one of them is trying to hide something.”

Tonight should have turned out differently. Not long after we finished our meal and nibbled on dessert, Ben and I packed Hannah up and went home. Part of me wanted to be there for Barkha, but this meeting with her parents had been a long time coming.

“I hope Barkha’s going to be all right,” I said as we headed down the road home.

“I’m sure she will be. Maybe you should call later to check?”

“I don’t know. I don’t want to pry. I know she’ll fill me in.”

“And Dr. Bradley’s nephew in a car accident. That was a shock.” Ben downshifted as we turned into our driveway.

“Yes. I wonder if it was a simple accident or something more.” Then again, I was probably connecting dots that didn’t match up. An overactive imagination, picturing yet another Bradley dark secret, with someone now following Franklin since his first subject was dead.

We carefully took a sleeping Hannah and her gear from the back seat. Ben slung her diaper bag over his shoulder. “Do you think someone would try to hurt Franklin?”

“I don’t know.” Hannah’s head slumped onto my shoulder, and I slammed the truck door closed. “It’s a mess. What can I say? I guess I should be grateful I’m through working there.” I shifted Hannah to my other shoulder. “Let me change her diaper and lay her down, and then I’ll make us a pot of decaf. We can talk more.”

He kissed me gently. “Have I told you lately how much I love you?”

“Very, very early this morning when I was half-asleep.” I smiled at him. “But you can always tell me again.”

While I tried to change Hannah’s diaper without waking her up—no easy feat, especially when the phone rang—I went around the block in my mind one more time about Dr. Bradley. What if someone was going after Franklin now? Not that there was any indication of that just yet.

“I started the coffee.” Ben’s voice boomed in the doorway.

“Hush.” I swung around and put a finger on my lips. “You wake her, you take her.” I took one last look at Hannah, then turned on her night light.

Ben and I went back to the kitchen. Once the coffee was ready, I poured a fresh cup. “I’ve been thinking,” I said.

“Uh-oh.”

“About Franklin possibly getting attacked.”

“About that. Jerry called. He thought you’d like to know that Franklin’s going to be all right. He’s got a broken nose, some broken ribs and possibly some bruised organs, but it’s too early to tell. They’re going to keep him for a couple days. No severe damage to his car, but someone ran him off the road into the ditch. His injuries don’t point to a car wreck, either.”

“Did he say if he knew who did it?”

Ben shook his head. “They were going to send him for a CAT scan, so Jerry said he’d go back to question him later.”

I sipped my coffee. “One thing I was thinking about, as I was saying earlier, if someone killed Dr. Bradley by lying in wait for him, why attack his nephew so openly? That doesn’t make sense. Maybe Franklin’s attacker and Dr. Bradley’s killer aren’t the same person.”

“Makes sense to me.”

“Which means, I still need to find out how they killed him.” I frowned at my cup. “Barkha and I talked about it before, but now she’s got all this going on with her family in town, so I think she’s got bigger concerns right now than sleuthing.”

“Try the Internet. You could find the most obscure means of death right there.” Ben shrugged. “Maybe some of what you’ll find there won’t be the most reliable, but I bet there’s something out there.”

“You’re a genius. But I need to check someone else out too.”

“Who’s that?”

“Eunice.” Then I explained about Eunice and what I’d seen. “She acted really strange about the whole key issue, too. Like she didn’t like the idea of the police investigating further into the drugs and the break-in.”

“Eunice, huh?”

“Why do you ask?”

“She comes into Honey’s sometimes with her sister. I think she really cared for Dr. Bradley, the way she sounded.”

“I thought you usually don’t pay much mind to customers’ conversations.”

“Not usually, but after what happened to him, I sort of noticed her more. And not because of her hot pink hair color.”

“Why didn’t you say something before?”

Ben unlocked the kitchen door. “There’s other suspects. My guess would be the nephew, even with the ‘solid’ alibi, or Terrance.”

“This is why I don’t want to think Eunice would hurt Dr. Bradley. I believe she really loved him.”

“What do you think would have happened if he discovered what Barkha found out about the narcotics? Would he have let it slide? Or would he have confronted Eunice like he confronted Barkha, and possibly fired her and turned her in to the authorities?”