Free The Perils of Peaches (Scents of Murder Book 3) by Lynette Sowell

deflating balloon. “I’ll see you soon.”
    I dragged my sour mood all the way to the nearly empty parking lot of Bradley Medical. Ben had said I didn’t need to do any sleuthing about Dr. Bradley’s death. True, I didn’t need to. But if I found something interesting in the course of going through Dr. Bradley’s office, I could pass it along to Jerry.
    When I entered the reception area of the medical offices, the smell of furniture polish smacked me with a lemony punch. The vacuum cleaner’s cord coiled like a snake and made a trail across the Berber carpet. I stepped over it to reach the source of the pungent scent.
    “I’m here. Eunice.” A wave of lemon scent nearly knocked me off my feet as I went into Dr. Bradley’s private office. “You didn’t lock the front door.”
    She was hunched over, polishing the walnut credenza. “Nobody’s coming back to get us, The good doctor’s gone, and the place was already robbed once.”
    “What’s going to happen to the practice now? Have you heard anything about a will?” I wandered over to Dr. Bradley’s desk. A few medical charts remained stacked by his computer. Those definitely needed to be filed.
    “Oh, yes, the will.” Eunice flushed. “Dr. Bradley left Franklin his share of the practice. Plus a tidy little cash fund. And he left me seventy-five thousand dollars.”
    “Wow.” I sat down on his desk chair and shivered. Maybe this wasn’t the best choice of seat. “Did Dr. Bradley’s lawyer already have the reading of the will? Or is it a little soon for that?”
    Eunice moved to the bookcase and started dusting. I couldn’t see any dust, but if the woman wanted to work off her nervous energy, I wasn’t about to stop her.
    “Hiram—Dr. Bradley—always kept a copy of his will in his personal files. I’m not sure if he knew I’d seen it.” She leaned her magenta head against the edge of the tallest shelf. “I didn’t know he cared enough to leave me anything . . .”
    Maybe he had, or maybe he hadn’t. But I wasn’t about to delve into that subject further and disappoint her. All I could see was a man who’d built plenty of walls around himself and no one could get in. Not even the receptionist who’d faithfully served him for over twenty years. Did he realize how much she cared for him? Could he only respond by giving her money . . . after his demise?
    “He didn’t seem very demonstrative in life,” I ventured. The understatement made me want to laugh.
    “Oh, yes, I think he could have been. He just felt things too deeply for words or actions.” Eunice resumed her dusting. She paused long enough to run her fingers over the spines of the medical books. “I wonder what’s going to happen to all of his books.”
    “Maybe we’d better find out from Franklin.” I couldn’t imagine the guy with the tousled blond hair, surly expression, and slacker wardrobe running a medical practice. For one thing, he’d need another doctor because the caseload was too much for one.
    “Franklin seems far too young to know what to do with all of this.” She gestured to the room. “Hiram put many instructions in his will that had to do with the practice, but I really didn’t pay attention to those. Except that I’d still have a job. But if Franklin decides to close the business . . .”
    I nodded. “Well, I think the best thing to do is get this place straight and ready for whatever comes next.”
    “Frank certainly won’t pitch in and help. He hasn’t been by here at all since he came to talk to the chief. All he did was call the office and tell me to get the place in shape, and that he knew his uncle had decades of clutter for me to sift through.”
    I glanced at my watch. Only forty-five minutes before I had to pick up Hannah. “Tell you what. We can do surface things today. I think if there’s decades of clutter, then that clutter can wait a while longer. Maybe we can do a fund-raiser if we sell off his books or something. I don’t