by R A Wallace
Thomas set his tray down and turned to look at Sarah. She was staring at him. He walked over and took her tray from her. After setting it down, he took her hand and led her over to the sofa. He nudged Kaylee over as he and Sarah took a seat.
“I think it’s a great idea to talk about Keshia. In fact, I have something I’d like to share.” Thomas looked over at Sarah on his right. He was still holding her hand. Then he turned back to Kaylee on his left and took hers with his other hand. “You first, Kaylee. What made you think of Keshia.”
Kaylee knew that she had a guilty look on her face. She didn’t want to admit that she’d been spying on her own mother, but she wanted to know what was going on.
“We thought you two were planning to get a divorce,” Kaylee said defensively.
“What?” Sarah leaned forward and looked around her husband. “Why would you think that?”
“Because you seemed so upset.”
Sarah let out a sigh and leaned back. “I don’t mean to get upset. It’s just hard to come back here sometimes. I remember Keshia the most when we’re here where she died. She was so sick. I thought at first that she would pull through, that it was only a typical childhood cold. But she just seemed to get so tired, too tired to fight the illness. It came on so fast and it was too much for her.”
Kaylee had a sudden realization. “Is that why you’re always saying that you don’t want us to give up? Because you think Keshia did?”
Thomas frowned and turned to Sarah. “I never made that connection.”
Sarah’s eyes widened. “I guess I never did either,” she said slowly. She leaned forward again to look around Thomas. “I am so sorry. I shouldn’t have transferred my sadness over losing Keshia onto you for all of these years. I swear I didn’t mean to. I know in my heart that Keshia didn’t give up. She was just so sick. There wasn’t anything the doctors could do.”
“Mom, I’m not giving up with school. I just want to make sure that I find one that works best for me.” Kaylee held her breath until her mother managed a tremulous smile.
“Okay, sweetie. I know that you love school. You should find one that makes you happy. You deserve that.”
Thomas looked between the two of them. “Are you ready for my news now?”
Sarah wiped at her eyes and huffed out a laugh. “Sure. What’s your news?”
“I met with Jennifer. She’s going to set up a trust fund for a scholarship in Keshia’s name.” Thomas looked first at Sarah and then Kaylee.
“Really?” Kaylee was relieved to hear that was why he was meeting with a lawyer.
Thomas turned to focus on Sarah. “It’s for any female Teaberry high school graduate interested in getting an engineering degree.”
It took a moment for Sarah to realize that her mouth was wide open in surprise. She brought her hand up and covered it.
“Are you okay with that?” Thomas asked her.
Sarah nodded. She wiped at her eyes some more and then she smiled. “Yeah. I’m really okay with that. She would have been graduating from high school next spring. A scholarship in her name is a really good idea.”
Nate appeared at the door. “Did I miss something?”
The other three began laughing even as Sarah continued to dab at her eyes. Thomas waved Nate in and nudged Sarah and Kaylee to make room. “Have a seat. We want to talk about Keshia.”
Chapter Twenty-Three
Megan parked her truck in the parking lot near the main office at the tree farm early the next morning. She found Toni in the office working on the computer. Toni looked up and forced a smile when Megan entered.
“Mind if I ask you a few questions?” Megan asked.
Toni’s smile faltered. “About what?”
Megan explained that Linda had asked her to look into Clay’s death.
“Do the police really think she did it?” Toni asked with a glimmer of hope. It made her feel guilty to wish her problems onto someone else, but it was better than having them thinking that Mack was the killer.
Megan recognized the look on Toni’s face. “Were you thinking it might have been someone else?”
“I…” Toni sighed. “I’m a horrible person.”
Megan smiled gently. “Or, maybe just human.”
“I didn’t kill my brother. I know in my heart that my husband didn’t kill my brother. But I watch a lot of television. I know the police always assume it’s someone close to the victim.”
“If the police are looking at someone else, they aren’t looking at you?” Megan guessed.
“Exactly. You know, I loved my brother, but he had a lot of faults. I’m not really surprised that someone killed him. He’s had so many women, there has to be hundreds of angry husbands out there. I’m sure the women weren’t always happy when he dumped them either. He usually took as much money from them first as he could get.” Toni shook her head. “I don’t know why I’m telling you this.”
Megan smiled wryly. “I believe you knew my first husband, Josh?”
Toni nodded. “Yes. My brother was like that.”
Megan thought about some of the things she’d learned about Clay. “Did he try to get money from you also?”
“For as long as I can remember. He had a method to it, though, to try to get as much from the two of us that he could. He usually asked my husband for money. He was always hitting me up for part of the farm.”
“Your dad left the whole farm to you.” Megan didn’t phrase it like a question. Everyone knew Toni owned the tree farm.
“My dad understood Clay.” Toni looked away from Megan, her thoughts turned inward. “I do feel guilty though.”
“About what?”
“Our last conversation. We fought about it again. He called me the night of the class reunion demanding that I give him part of the farm. I assumed that he was at the reunion at the time he called me. I could hear a lot of people in the background.”
“Why was he so insistent about getting the farm?” Megan asked.
Toni shook her head. “I don’t know for sure. When he first got here, he told me that he was thinking of moving back here.” Toni shrugged. “With Clay, though, you just couldn’t always believe what he said. I can’t believe he would have settled down and worked here. He was only ever interested in money and having fun.”
“Could he have sold his share of the farm?” Megan wondered out loud.
Toni shook her head. “I would never have given him the chance. I had no plans to sign over part of the farm.”
Megan sat in her truck after speaking with Toni and waited for the heater do its magic on the window. She studied the class reunion seating chart given to her by Libby Danes as she sat there. She found the page that had the table for Linda and Claire. She could see that Clay was seated at the very next table, but he wasn’t actually facing Linda and Claire. In fact, he would have had his back to them.
She wondered if perhaps his proximity to them had been a random thing after all. Verna would surely have known that Clay had dated both women in school and that it had cost the women their friendship. She wondered if Verna had put them next to each other on purpose, thinking that it would be an uncomfortable evening for them.
Looking at the names of the people sitting at other nearby tables, she was surprised to see one name in particular. Using her finger to draw a line, she realized that the person sitting in Clay’s direct line of vision was Verna Prince. The woman who had made up the seating chart. Verna would have been able to stare directly at Clay all through dinner. She needed to speak with Verna again. As soon as the windows were clear, she put the truck in drive.
Assuming that the dietician would be at work at the retirement community, Megan pulled into the parking lot at the front office a short time later. She found a familiar retiree staffing the front desk. She had spoken to Gina several times in the past when working on other puzzles.
“Megan! It’s nice to see you again,” Gina said. “You’re here for another puzzle, aren’t you?”
&nb
sp; “I was wondering if I could speak with Verna Prince. I tried calling her, but she isn’t answering her phone. I didn’t want to just show up in her office and interrupt the routine here.” Megan watched Gina pick up her handset and push some numbers into the phone. She could tell by Gina’s side of the conversation that Verna had called off work today.
Gina set down the handset. “Sorry. She isn’t in.”
“Do you know where she lives?” Megan asked.
Gina looked sorry. “No, and even if I did, I couldn’t tell you. I’m sorry.”
Megan smiled. “I understand. Thanks for your help anyway.” Megan turned to leave.
“Wait. You haven’t spoken to Hattie yet,” Gina said. “I thought that’s why you were here.”
“Hattie?” Megan frowned, wondering why the name sounded familiar. Then she remembered. Hattie was Claire’s mother.
Gina was nodding vigorously as she pulled out a map of the retirement community. “Yes, she mentioned to me that she wanted to speak with you.” Gina marked up the map and handed it to Megan. “That’s how you get to her villa.”
The woman that opened the villa door looked confused at first but then she smiled. “You look like your parents.”
Megan returned the smile. “That’s what people say.” She followed Hattie into the villa and took a seat. “Did you know my parents well?”
“Oh, my yes. I was their teacher, you know, back when they were in school.” Hattie nodded to herself. “They were good kids. They stopped and visited me not that long ago when they were in town.”
Megan wasn’t surprised to hear that. Her parents were now living in Florida since her father had retired from the post office. She knew they visited with as many people as possible from Teaberry whenever they stayed with her.
“Gina said that you wanted to speak with me?” Megan asked.
“Yes. I’ve been talking with some of my friends here. They told me that you’ve helped them with mysteries in the past. I wanted to talk about Claire and Linda.” Hattie frowned at herself. “Well, that’s not quite right. I wanted to tell you what the others have said about Verna.”
“The others?”
“Yes, that’s right. Josie used to be the cook at the school. She told me that she saw Clay and Verna together back in the day when they were kids in school. You know, as a couple.”
Megan wasn’t surprised. It sounded like Clay had dated most of the girls in the school. She wondered why Verna hadn’t mentioned it.
“Laura also retired from the school. She heard Verna say something just recently and, according to Laura, Verna was still pretty mad about it all.”
“What was that?” Megan asked.
“Verna told her that she had wasted her entire life waiting for a man and had just found out that he wasn’t worth it.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
It was dark outside and there were several inches of snow on the ground with no sign of the storm letting up any time soon. In contrast, the kitchen was warm from the oven that had been going most of the afternoon. In addition to cooking meals, Megan was also working on her Christmas cookies.
Dan looked over at the cookies currently cooling on a rack. He’d already eaten three. And that was on top of all of the other batches that he had sampled throughout the afternoon. If he had anymore sugar, he’d probably be up all night.
“Do you need me to stir?” Dan watched Megan as she stirred the chocolate fudge in the pot on the stove.
“No thanks. It does get pretty hard to stir and you can’t stop because the sugar would burn and ruin the fudge but it’s all worth it once the fudge is done. It’s really soft and chewy. It’s almost ready, I think. Do you mind putting the thermometer in to check it?” Megan shifted to the side so Dan could stand next to her.
“Like this?” Dan asked.
“Yes. I’m pretty sure it’s ready, I just want to make sure. Does it say it’s at the softball stage? It should be somewhere around two hundred and thirty-four degrees.” She glanced up at Dan as he studied the thermometer.
“Yep. That’s what it says.” Dan moved out of the way. Megan turned off the heat and removed the heavy saucepan, placing it on another burner that was cool. She added the butter and vanilla and stirred it some more. The consistency of the fudge magically changed exactly the way she’d hoped it would.
“I never realized how much of a workout you get just making fudge,” Dan said as he watched her.
Finally, she spooned the fudge into a pan that she’d sprayed with oil. After flattening the fudge down with the spatula, she took the saucepan to the sink and put it in the soapy water.
“What happens now?” Dan asked.
“You have to wait until it cools before you can try it.” Megan grinned up at him. “Think you can make it that long?”
Dan eyed the fudge longingly. “How many more cookies will you need to bake altogether?”
“Oh, dozens and dozens. I’ll have some for our guests next weekend. I’ll give away a lot of them as gifts to the people we know in Teaberry. I usually make up trays with all of the different kinds and wrap them up so they’re pretty.”
“I never knew you could freeze cookies and they’d still be good weeks later,” Dan said as he moved toward the sink. He’d been trying to help her by washing some of the pots and pans she used while baking.
“There are some that I don’t freeze, but most of them are just fine.” She began putting away the ingredients for the fudge but paused to write vanilla on her shopping list. The bottle was almost empty.
“Was that Jerry I heard you talking to on the phone earlier?” Dan rinsed the saucepan and set it in the sink to drain.
“Yes, he was telling me about Verna Prince.” Megan picked up a clean linen towel and walked over to the sink. “Oddly enough, she was actually one of the few women that Clay hadn’t been interested in. I guess back when they were in school, it was Verna who wanted the relationship. She was the one who kept chasing him. After all this time, she hoped he would finally be ready for her. She convinced him to meet her at the tree farm early in the morning by promising him money and then threw herself at him. Apparently, he just laughed at her.”
“Did she confess?” Dan washed the measuring spoons and rinsed them. After setting them in the sink, he began working on the measuring cups.
“Oh, yeah. According to Jerry, she was pretty incensed that anyone would question why she’d killed Clay. She figured anyone could see that he deserved it.”
“I’m not going to say that’s true, but the guy did seem to have a lot of issues. How is his sister taking it?”
Megan dried the measuring cups. “I think Toni is sad about losing the brother she always wanted.”
“You mean, the one who would have helped her make a success of the tree farm?” Dan rinsed the spatula and handed it to Megan, then pulled the plug in the sink.
“Yes. Based on what Jerry was able to learn, it sounded like Clay was hoping to pressure Toni into giving him a portion of the tree farm. He was planning to sell it immediately for the money and take off again.”
“Was he really planning to divorce his wife?” Dan dried his hands on a towel.
Megan shrugged. “Who knows. Yolanda publicly insisted that they were very happy, but she apparently told her friends that she was planning to leave Clay.”
“Promise me we’ll never be like that.” Dan leaned down and kissed Megan.
“It’s not a life I would want.” Megan finished putting everything away and then began bagging the cooled cookies. “I did figure out one small thing that was bugging me.”
Dan grabbed another zippered bag and also started taking cookies from the cooling rack to help. “What’s that?”
“It was the seating chart for the class reunion. I couldn’t figure out why Amos was sitting at the table with Linda for dinner. It wasn’t where his name was listed.” Megan zipped her bag up and picked up the empty rack to put it away.
“That’s easy,” Dan said. “I
f someone had put me at table that you weren’t at, I would just switch the names.”
Megan looked at him and shook her head. “It must be a guy thing.”
Megan’s Recipe
Chocolate Fudge
2 cups sugar
3/4 cups milk
2 tablespoons light corn syrup
2 ounces unsweetened chocolate square or 4 tablespoons cocoa
2 tablespoons butter
1 teaspoon vanilla
Mix all but the butter and vanilla in a heavy saucepan. Cook over medium heat until softball stage (234 degrees) stirring constantly. Remove from heat. Stir in butter and vanilla. Pour into a greased 9x9 inch pan and let stand until cool.
Books by R. A. Wallace
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Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy Series
Tempest in Teaberry Book 1 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Trouble at TeaFest Book 2 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Teaberry Mystery Theatre Book 3 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Teaberry Baking Contest Book 4 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Teaberry Farmers Market Book 5 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Teaberry for Two Book 6 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Maid in Teaberry Book 7 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Teaberry Tea & Thyme Book 8 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Vintage Teaberry Malice Book 9 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Teaberry Blues, Brew & BBQ Book 10 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Teaberry Three Part Harmony Book 11 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
Teaberry Class Reunion Book 12 in the Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy series
