Vintage Teaberry Malice

by R A Wallace

  They asked for Sheila Urmson when they entered. They were told that Sheila was with a resident at the moment but would be down shortly. It took several minutes for her to arrive in the entrance area where they waited.

  Sheila had moved as quickly as she could when she got the call and was a little out of breath. “Hello! Sorry to keep you waiting.”

  They turned to see a woman in her forties dressed as a nurse. After introducing themselves, they asked her the same questions they’d asked Trevon.

  “Yes, I think I may have seen him,” Sheila said.

  “When was this?” Jerry asked.

  “I go to Mr. Birnbaum’s in the morning around 8:30. I drove one of the golf carts they make available for us for when we visit residents. I just parked on the street in front of his villa. But, you know, there isn’t always room to park in the driveway when you visit a villa. The residents have cars and golf carts. The young man had to park in the overflow parking and then walk to Mrs. Durant’s villa.” Sheila looked from Jerry to Erica to make sure they understood.

  “You saw him walk down the street and go to Mrs. Durant’s villa?” Jerry said to show that they did.

  Sheila nodded. “Around 8:30 in the morning on the day she died.”

  Jerry and Erica asked more questions but that was all that Sheila knew. They returned to the office to ask about any video Leslie may have discovered. They found an excited Leslie and Gina staring at a computer monitor when they entered the office.

  “Look, there he is,” Gina said. The camera had caught Alex Milner parking in the overflow lot and walking toward Mrs. Durant’s villa.

  Jerry glanced down at the timestamp, then looked at Erica. “Looks like this was Saturday morning at 8:30.”

  Erica smiled.

  Chapter Five

  The garage was filled with boxes full of old clothes, old furniture, and other remnants of a lifetime of accumulated things, many of which Mr. and Mrs. Givens had long ago forgotten they had. Twelve year old Bella Prescott peered into the garage with interest. Seventy four year old Mr. Givens stared into the garage remembering with fondness the many times he had used to tinker with things in there when he’d been younger.

  Mrs. Givens scowled and wondered why she’d never followed up on her many threats to give it a good cleaning over the years. Pushing up her sleeves, she grabbed on to her broom and took a step inside.

  “Now Joni, you aren’t going to do anything crazy, are you?” Ham asked his wife of fifty three years. He stole another glance at his tool bench. It had been several years since he’d really used anything there. Still, a man needed his tools.

  “Ham, we’ve discussed this. The community sale is a great opportunity for us to clean this place out,” Joni said with resolve.

  Bella listened quietly to the two of them as they spoke. She’d learned a long time ago that it was best to let them work things out before she offered any suggestions.

  “But Joni, I spent a lifetime collecting some of those things.” Ham let out a loud sigh as he stole another gaze at his work bench.

  Bella watched Mr. Givens then turned her focus to the homemade wooden table on the far wall of the garage that had his attention. From where she stood, she could see a pile of indistinguishable objects. Some of them still had a shiny metal look to them. Tools? He was worried about tools?

  “That’s just the thing, Ham. What is anyone going to do with it all when we’re gone?” Joni fretted. She looked over at an old sewing machine that used to belong to her mother. Joni had faithfully kept it oiled for all the years she’d used it. It was only recently that her arthritic hands no longer allowed her to work easily with fabric and fine threads.

  Bella followed Mrs. Given’s wistful look to something that looked like an old suitcase. She frowned, wondering why it looked familiar. Then she remembered. When Bella had accidentally ripped her new dress a few years ago, she’d been afraid to tell her mother. Even at nine, Bella knew they could barely afford the dress. Mrs. Givens had dragged the suitcase out and produced a magic sewing machine that fixed the dress. It had been a shared secret that Bella and Mrs. Givens had kept from Ava. Bella smiled at the memory.

  “Maybe we could look at each item and see how important it is? Then we can make a pile of the things you want to sell at the community sale. That will make more room to keep some of the things you want.” Bella turned and looked at the elderly couple that she’d come to think of as grandparents.

  She pointed at the work bench. “I could put some hangers up on the wall over that table and hang up some of the tools. That would make a lot of space.”

  “Well…” Ham said hesitantly. Hope could be heard in his voice.

  Bella took two folding chairs leaning against a wall and set them up just outside the garage door and facing into the garage.

  “You two sit here. I’ll bring boxes out to you and you can tell me which pile we should put them in. We’ll have one pile to keep and another to sell,” Bella explained.

  “That sounds like a lot of work, dear.” Joni knew she wasn’t up to it, but Bella seemed energized at the thought.

  “We have another ten days. If we keep working at it a little each day, we’ll be done in no time,” Bella said with the confidence of youth.

  Joni looked over at Ham. He reached a gnarled hand across and patted hers. “There is something in there that Bella would like.”

  Joni frowned in thought for a moment then the lines on her face deepened as she smiled at the thought. She shared a knowing smile with Ham then looked at Bella dragging the closest box she’d found over to them.

  “One of the boxes has presents in it for you,” Joni said mysteriously.

  Bella stopped dragging when she reached them and opened the box. She held up a few articles of old work clothes. Ham gave a thumbs down, so Bella began dragging the box off to one side.

  “What are the presents?” Bella asked.

  “Oh, you’ll know it when you find the box,” Joni said with a twinkle in her eye. She hadn’t seen them herself in decades. It was the one thing they owned that would make Bella happy.

  Bella continued to drag items over to them to get a thumbs up or down. After about an hour, she knew that they were tiring and suggested that they quit at the next box until tomorrow. Bella promised to help them again after school. She had to get down on her knees to push the last box for the day. It was the heaviest she’d encountered so far. She wondered what could possibly be inside.

  When she finally got the box to the couple, she sat back on her haunches and pulled up the four folded sections of the box lid. Her eyes widened in delight when she saw the contents. She wiped her dusty hands on her pants, then slowly reached in and pulled out one of the dark blue covered books. It looked like there were dozens more inside the box. She slowly turned it around and read the name of the author out loud.

  “Carolyn Keene?” Bella said, lifting her gaze to Mrs. Givens.

  Joni smiled at the look of awe on the young girl’s face. She’d had that very same look when it had finally been her turn to possess the books.

  “Those were mine when I was a little girl. The books are actually from the 1930s, but they were my sisters’ books before they were mine. I was the youngest of five girls,” Joni explained. “I had to wait until my sisters grew out of them before they came to me.”

  Bella opened the book then looked up at Mrs. Givens. “Would you mind if I read these? I promise I’ll take care of them.”

  “Oh, sweetie. I’d like you to have them,” Joni said. “Maybe someday you can give them to your children.”

  ***

  Jax opened the garage door then stood staring at the debris inside. When he’d rented his house, it had come fully furnished because the owner had recently passed away. Although the former owner’s children now own the house, they live in another state. They’d made it to Teaberry to handle the funeral arrangements and clean out the personal effects of their parent including any paperwork and some of the clothes. B
ut they hadn’t had the time to deal with the rest of the things left behind.

  When Jax had heard about the Teaberry Community Sale, he’d called the owners and offered an idea. Jax would keep most of the furniture but clean out the rest of the property, make the items available at the sale, and send any proceeds to the owners. His hope was that he’d clean the garage out enough to actually be able to use it. The owners had been thrilled with the idea and suggested to Jax that anything he couldn’t sell could be donated or tossed.

  He heard a noise and looked across at his neighbor’s drive. He found Trina and her mother, Didi, standing in their driveway with their garage door open. Two year old Jasmine was riding a small plastic trike nearby. Jax walked over to compare disasters. He knew that Didi parked her car in the garage at night, but Trina left hers in the drive. That meant they could at least fit one car inside.

  “How bad is yours?” Jax peered into the garage.

  “I’d like to get rid of a few things,” Didi said vaguely.

  The two car garage had space for only one car. The other side was piled high and threatening to spill over on top of her car.

  “I have an idea,” Trina said. “If you help us clear this stuff out, we’ll handle the customers for both places on the days of the sale.”

  Jax didn’t have to think about that twice. He didn’t want to be stuck at the house for two solid days waiting for someone to stop by and offer fifty cents for something he didn’t even own.

  “Deal.”

  Jasmine pushed her trike with her feet towards Jax, then held up her arms. “Up!”

  Jax lifted her easily and stared into the garage, contemplating the best plan of attack.

  “Maybe if we try to separate things out and group like objects, it’ll be easier,” he suggested.

  “You mean, you want to group all of the clothes together from both garages, then all of the furniture, that sort of thing?” Didi asked.

  Trina nodded her head. “Makes sense. We need to keep Jasmine busy though, so we don’t have to worry about her getting in to anything.”

  “I can keep her in the house while you two work out here,” Didi offered hopefully as she peered into the garage.

  Jax watched Didi walk back to the house with Jasmine in her arms then looked into the garage again. “Your mom’s pretty smart.”

  “Uh, huh,” Trina said as she pulled her medium length black hair back into a tail and headed into the chaos of the garage.

  Chapter Six

  After a three hour drive to the outskirts of Pittsburgh, Leah found the address of the estate sale she hadn’t wanted to miss. Although the Teaberry Community Sale had many from the area dropping pieces off for consignment, Vintage Teaberry still needed to make regular acquisitions and sales. And, according to the ad, this particular estate sale was supposed to have a lot of antique pieces that Leah knew from experience would tempt her customers.

  It was an old farm, one of Leah’s favorite kind of picks. Formerly a large dairy farm, the old house was huge. The ad had mentioned china, dolls, quilts, tools, farm equipment, and much more. Leah wasn’t interested in the equipment, but she was excited about seeing the other items.

  She and Daryl had already discussed possibly renting storage space until the community sale was over. It would free up space in their shop for their regular items. Pulling into the drive, Leah could see that her colleagues in the antique business were out in force. She finally managed to jam her van into a small space on the edge of a field. She exited her car and then reached back in to grab the rest of her things. She was nearly done when she heard a voice behind her.

  “Well, I wondered if you’d be here.” The man who said it didn’t sound happy.

  Leah turned and found Sebastian Windemere. Some of her anticipation for a good day at the auction dimmed. For reasons she could not explain, the man had disliked both her and Daryl on sight. Whenever he attended the same sale, he went out of his way to be rude to them.

  Leah plastered on a smile. “Sebastian. Good to see you again.”

  She finished grabbing her things and closed the door of her van. Then she turned and began walking toward the house. She’d known she’d be at a farm, so she’d dressed accordingly including her sensible shoes. She stole a glance at Sebastian and tried not to smile when she saw the burrs from the growth in the field latching on to Sebastian’s expensive suit pants.

  “I was hoping from the ad that there might be some worthy acquisitions from this sale. However, if you’re here, they must not be at the level I was hoping for.” Sebastian made an effort to step faster so that he would outpace Leah, but the woman had longer legs than he did. The long section of hair he combed over the top of his head was flapping up and down with his efforts.

  Leah was about to respond when she saw Sebastian lose his footing in a furrow of the field. She quickly moved toward him and reached for his arm, helping him to right himself.

  With Leah’s help, Sebastian managed to regain his footing before falling but he gave her a nasty look once he did. He yanked his arm from her grasp and then huffed away toward the house.

  Leah stood for a moment staring at him, then she shook her head and continued her own walk toward the house. As she began looking at the items that would be available for bidding once the auction officially began, she forgot about Sebastian. Whoever had made the quilts had been both prolific and highly skilled. She couldn’t believe the quality. One of them appeared to be a hand-sewn grandmother’s flower garden. Another was a wool challis variation of the log cabin pattern.

  There were also several pieces of furniture that she was interested in, but she particularly liked some of the porcelain figures and there was some antique luggage in amazing condition. Leah jotted down a few notes before walking over to the crowd of people waiting for the auctioneer to begin the bidding.

  She nodded to a few of her colleagues that she’d seen at other sales then focused on the female auctioneer as the woman began her explanation of how she planned to run the sale. It looked like they were going to sell the household goods first and then move on to the farm implements and other outdoor equipment. That suited Leah just fine. She wouldn’t have to stay for the entire sale.

  She watched in silence as the dinnerware and some other kitchen items were auctioned. She thought the prices were about at the level she’d expected. That was a good sign. She hoped it meant she could get some of the items she wanted at the prices she was hoping to pay. Leah straightened when she saw some of the quilts being queued up. As soon as the dinnerware was sold, they moved in the quilts. The auctioneer explained that a few of the best quilts would be sold separately. They rest would then be sold as a group.

  The bidding started slowly but Leah quickly saw that many in the crowd were interested. As the auctioneer continued calling, Leah periodically gave her nod to add her bid. As the price climbed, the number of people placing bids thinned until Leah was one of the very few left. Just as she was certain she had the winning bid for the grandmother’s flower garden quilt, another bid was placed from someone else in the crowd.

  Leah frowned in dismay and turned toward the motion in the crowd she had seen. It was Sebastian. He had waited until she’d thought she had it and now he was trying to buy it out from under her. Leah continued bidding, driving the price up. Finally, when the price was well beyond what she would consider paying, she stopped bidding. Sebastian gave her a self-satisfied smile from across the crowd.

  The rest of the afternoon followed the same suit. Leah left with very little purchased. She’d managed to get some of the porcelain figures and an antique suitcase that she had particularly admired, but she thought it was only because Sebastian had left for a brief time to use the portable restroom. Leah drove the three hours back to Teaberry disheartened.

  She found Daryl at the front of the shop, helping someone else from the community as they dropped off some items for consignment for the sale. Leah waited until they were alone to explain what had happened.
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  “You think he was targeting you in particular?” Daryl asked, his voice filled with concern. His wife loved antiquing. He understood how upset she would be to have someone deliberately block her from something she loved.

  Leah let out a sigh. “I don’t know. I mean, he didn’t do it with any of the other bidders.”

  Daryl frowned in thought. “Why do you think he would do that?” The man had never been civil to them, but he’d never been aggressive either.

  “I don’t know. I just don’t understand it. They were particularly nice quilts. I can see why anyone would want them,” Leah said hesitantly.

  “But to wait until the last moment to pounce on each of your bids?” Daryl said doubtfully.

  “I know, that’s the thing.” Leah looked around the shop. “It looks like you’ve had a busy day.”

  Daryl nodded absently. “We’re running out of space with all the things people are dropping off to sell on consignment for the community sale.”

  “Hopefully, our idea for the sale will ultimately prove to be a good one,” Leah said, her mind still on the auction and the items she’d lost out on.

  Maybe if she got busy, she’d forget about her unsettling day. She could enter the new items that had been dropped off today into their database. It would help them to keep track of the sales and commissions.

  “Many in the community seem to think it’s a good idea already,” Daryl pointed out. “There’s a lot of excitement about it.”

  Leah smiled at her husband. “I know you’re worried about me. Don’t be. There will be other sales.”

  “I think I’ll go to the next one,” Daryl said.

  Leah gave her husband a troubled look, but she didn’t disagree.

  Chapter Seven

  The video from the retirement community had given them several clear images of the man who had visited Alice Durant early in the morning on the last day of her life. It had taken Jerry longer to pull the license plate number from the image due to the angle of the camera in relation to the car. He’d finally gotten a partial number and had run it against the system in conjunction with the make, model, and color of the car.