The Heart of Teaberry

by R A Wallace

  “What are you doing?” She pushed against his chest, but his arms didn’t budge.

  Angry eyes looked up at Cole.

  “The black van that just went past. That’s the second time it’s done it,” Cole said. He watched the van for a few moments. “Wait. They’re turning around. I think they’re coming back this way.”

  Julia stopped struggling. “What are they doing now?”

  “I don’t know. I think they’re trying to figure out which garage to try.”

  Julia tried to look over his arm to see the van but couldn’t. He was much taller than she was and his arm blocked her view. She looked up at him instead.

  “Maybe they’re using something to try to hack into the codes for the garage openers,” Julia said.

  That made sense. They had read about that when they were researching security for the mayor’s office. Cole nodded then ducked his head down toward Julia like he was going to kiss her when the van got closer to them.

  “I think we need to get out of here,” Cole said quietly. “Can you run in those shoes?”

  Julia nodded against his chest. Cole looked back at the van. Suddenly, all the doors opened. Cole watched as a bunch of kids jumped out and started running toward them.

  ***

  Caitlyn checked the GPS for the next delivery. She had made deliveries to this neighborhood often, and she knew that the address she wanted was actually in a little cul-de-sac off one of the other roads. She just wasn’t sure exactly where it was. The neighborhood was one of those developments that had been built by the same outfit. Most of the houses looked alike because the builder had only used a handful of different models. The only real way to tell them some of them apart at a quick glance was by unique landscaping or different colored siding.

  The GPS told her to turn to the left. The problem was, she was sure she needed to turn to the right. Well, pretty sure anyway. She stopped at the corner and checked her rearview mirror for traffic. Then she looked at her GPS. It took her a moment to realize that the address she’d keyed in was one digit off. That was probably why it was confused. The address she had entered didn’t exist.

  She looked around to orient herself. The movement as a garage door opened caught her eye. She waited for a car to pull out because she didn’t want to start moving when it did and hit it. Nothing happened. A few moments later, a car came toward her then pulled into the drive and stopped in the garage. A couple of kids got out. The garage door closed.

  She returned her focus to the GPS. Rather than trying to reconfigure it while sitting on a busy street, she turned the corner and took one of the lesser used streets. She thought it was odd that several of the garage doors were open as she drove past the houses trying to find a safe spot. That wasn’t usually the case this time of the day. Most people were still at work. After pulling over to the side of the road, she entered in the correct information for the address she wanted. The GPS recalculated and gave her an alternate route to get back on track to where she needed to be.

  Caitlyn checked her mirrors and looked for pedestrians or anything else moving before pulling back out onto the road. That was when she noticed the black van at the other end of the street. The van was stopped in the road and all the doors were open. There were two kids running toward her and then a bunch of kids behind them. It looked like they were chasing the two kids in the front. Caitlyn leaned forward. She didn’t know who the girl was, but she recognized the tall kid holding onto the young girl’s hand and dragging her along with him.

  Caitlyn quickly accelerated until she met them on the street, then threw the van into park and pushed the button to automatically open the van door on the side.

  “Cole, get in!”

  Cole didn’t hesitate. He lifted Julia and practically threw her into the van, then jumped in behind her.

  ***

  “Are you kidding me?” Doug asked for the third time.

  Caitlyn sipped her wine and waited for him to calm down. Given that he was still pacing back and forth in the living room and had been ever since he’d arrived, she figured it might take a while.

  “How long did it take the police to arrive?” Doug asked.

  Caitlyn knew that he’d been alerted to the situation not long after it had happened. Someone in dispatch happened to be married to one of the volunteer firefighters. After that, the news had spread like wildfire.

  “Not long at all. I swear it wasn’t more than a few minutes. I think Rhys and Ian were already patrolling nearby. They were aware of the problem and were actively searching for the kids.”

  Doug raked his fingers through his hair.

  “Okay. What happened once they got there?”

  “Almost as soon as Rhys and Ian arrived on scene, the kids that were chasing Cole and Julia started running back to their van. They weren’t fast enough though. Another patrol car arrived coming from the other direction and blocked them in. It didn’t take long at all for more police cars to show up. Cole and Julia explained why they were there and that’s when I told Rhys about the garage doors I’d passed.”

  Doug stopped pacing. “What about the garage doors?”

  “I had passed several garage doors that were open. It seemed odd to me but what was really odd was the garage door that opened without a car inside. A little while later, a car pulled in. I saw some kids jump out before the garage door closed.”

  “Why was that odd?” Doug asked.

  Caitlyn gave a half shrug. “I’ve delivered flowers there before. I knew an elderly couple lived there. I told Rhys and when they checked it out, they caught the kids in the act.”

  Doug expelled a breath then walked over and sat next to Caitlyn.

  “You’re sure you’re alright?” he asked.

  She reached over and gently touched his face with her hand.

  “I’m positive.”

  Doug caught her hand and held it.

  “You know how I told you that it didn’t matter if we got married right away?”

  Caitlyn nodded but didn’t speak. She had understood his point at the time, but she hadn’t liked it.

  “Well, scratch that. I’m an idiot. I don’t think we should wait.” Doug slid from the couch and went down on one knee. He took a ring from his pocket and slid it on Caitlyn’s finger.

  Tears formed in her eyes. She looked down at the ring on her hand.

  “Is this the plastic decoder ring you got out of the cereal box the other day?”

  Doug nodded.

  Caitlyn leaned forward and kissed him.

  “It’s beautiful.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  There was a light dusting of snow on the ground when Megan drove into town the following day. She knew from experience that it would be gone by mid-morning, perhaps leaving behind some puddling here and there.

  She had mapped out her route to speak with the other students in Chad Selway’s writing class based on the available times she had been given and their geographic location. Her first stop for the day was with a woman named Carol.

  Megan parked her truck in front of a ranch-style home in a quiet neighborhood and approached the house. She could see a curtain move as she neared the door. She had barely pressed the doorbell when the door was opened by a woman that Megan guessed was in her forties. She looked more like a teacher than a student with her short, no-nonsense hair style, khaki skirt, and turquoise and white plaid camp shirt over a solid white tee. In her hand she held matching turquoise ultra slim reading glasses.

  “Hello. I’m Megan Parker. I was hoping you could speak with me about Chad Selway.”

  “Of course. Come in. I’m Carol. Some of the other students in the class mentioned that you’ve already spoken to them.”

  Megan followed the woman to an attractive living room and sat next to her in a matching reclining chair.

  “Have you been in touch with the other students?” Megan asked.

  “Yes, but not in person or anything. We have a message board in the class that we ca
n use to ask each other questions as we work on assignments. It gives us a way to communicate even when we aren’t in class,” Carol explained.

  Megan thought that sounded nice. It hadn’t been an option when she’d taken classes over a decade ago.

  “I think I would have liked that,” Megan said.

  “It’s really been helpful for me, I know that much. I’ve had trouble with some of the assignments so far.” Carol made a face. “I guess that came out wrong given that the poor man is no longer with us.”

  “I understand. What kind of trouble did you have?”

  “I think it was mostly a genre thing. I write historical fiction.” Carol left her explanation at that as though it should be enough.

  Megan wasn’t sure what that meant in terms of the assignments.

  Carol must have noticed the confusion on Megan’s face.

  “A lot of the assignments had to do with planning for the future,” Carol added.

  “And you prefer to write about the past.” It made a little more sense now.

  “The course had just begun not too long ago, though. I’m sure there was a method to his madness, so to speak, and it would have become more apparent as the semester went on. I mean, he must have known what he was doing, right? The college did hire him to teach the class.”

  True. Megan thought again about what the neighbor, Les, had told her about Chad’s tendency to spend time with his female students. She knew from the information given out by the news reports that Chad was in his early forties. Carol was somewhere in the ballpark age-wise.

  “Did he ever offer to review some of your work outside of class?”

  Carol gave a self-satisfied smile and a nod.

  “He did, actually. He said that he was impressed with my writing and actually offered to come to my house to offer his editing services for free.” A small frown appeared between her eyes.

  “He didn’t make it?” Megan guessed.

  “No, he was killed before he could come.” Carol’s eyes tracked over to a small pile of papers.

  Megan assumed it was a manuscript for her book. She asked Carol a few more questions, but the woman wasn’t able to tell her much more.

  “Have you heard from the college what they’re planning to do about your class?” Megan asked as she prepared to leave.

  “No, not yet. I hope they make a decision soon.”

  The next stop brought Megan to an older neighborhood near the area of town where the old mills still stood. Many of the buildings had been repurposed and taken over by companies in forestry, metal works, and other areas. The houses here were two story and close together with small yards, many of them sitting up a short distance from the road on small hills.

  Megan climbed the steps and rang the bell. An elderly woman answered the door but as soon as Megan introduced herself, the woman turned and yelled for Oliver.

  A man in his thirties appeared a moment later and the elderly woman disappeared inside the house. Megan followed Oliver to a small living room and took a seat on one side of a low couch.

  “I read on the message board that you’re looking into Chad’s death. Why is that? You aren’t a writer, are you?” Oliver asked.

  Megan smiled. The man looked at her as though she were a competitor of sorts. She didn’t want him to have that impression but was also curious why he might think so.

  “No, I’m not a writer. What genre do you write in?”

  “The best one of all. Horror.” He gave an enigmatic smile. He wore his jet-black hair shaved on the sides but long on the top. He allowed the long hair to drape over the right side and down to his shoulder. He had a habit of pushing his heavy black rimmed glasses back up on his nose even when they hadn’t moved.

  “Were you finding the writing class helpful?”

  Oliver shrugged. “Not really. To be honest, I didn’t understand the reason for a lot of the assignments he had given so far.”

  Megan thought back to what Carol had told her. She had said something similar but assumed that eventually they would appear more relevant. She wondered why Oliver didn’t agree.

  “What kinds of assignments?”

  Oliver looked over Megan’s shoulder as he considered his reply.

  “Well, like the one on material goods.”

  “What about them?”

  Oliver looked back at Megan. “You know. Which ones mean the most to us.”

  She would probably have trouble writing on that topic also.

  “I can see why that might be hard. But maybe he was trying to help with character development?” she suggested.

  Oliver made a face indicating that he wasn’t sure he agreed but he didn’t want to argue with her.

  “I guess.”

  “Can you think of any reason why anyone would want to kill Chad?”

  “Not really. I mean, I hardly knew him. He was pretty nosy, though. You know, always asking us questions.” Oliver looked guilty for a moment, then turned defensive. “I mentioned it on the class message board when we heard about his death and no one disagreed with me.”

  “Have you heard what the college is going to do about the class?” Megan asked as she stood to leave.

  Oliver shrugged. “I hope they refund the money. I’m not sure it was really helping anyway.”

  Megan heard a voice calling Oliver’s name from another room in the house.

  “Coming, Ma.” Oliver rolled his eyes.

  Megan thought about her conversations with Carol and Oliver as she drove to Teri’s house. It was a newer development on the outskirts of Teaberry. The streets here seemed wider and the large houses had more space between them.

  The woman who answered the door had prominent laugh lines around her eyes and mouth and a pair of glasses propped on the top of her head. She was smiling when she answered the door.

  “According to the message board, I’m to be visited by a young woman asking questions,” Teri said.

  Megan smiled back. “Megan Parker. Thank you for seeing me.”

  Teri led Megan to a large, airy living room overlooking a fenced-in back yard. There was a beautiful stone patio on the other side of the sliding glass door that allowed a great view of the yard. Megan could see immaculate flower beds that were patiently waiting for spring to arrive.

  “It was such a shock to hear about Chad’s death,” Teri said as she sat in a deeply cushioned chair across from Megan. “I just couldn’t believe it when I first heard it.”

  Megan could see a laptop computer on a small writing desk across the room.

  “How did you hear about it?”

  “One of the other students in class posted a message about it,” Teri said.

  “Did you know any of the other students before you took the class?”

  “No, but I feel that I do know them now, a little. I’ve been jotting down ideas about them.”

  “Ideas?”

  Teri’s eyes twinkled. “You never know when you might end up as part of a composite for a character.”

  “I see.” Megan couldn’t imagine what someone would write about her, but knowing that Teri had been studying her classmates might be useful.

  “What did you learn about them?”

  “Oh, let’s see. For the most part, we all write in different genres. You can almost tell by looking at us what they are. You’ve heard that pet owners often resemble their dogs, for example?” Teri paused and grinned. “It seems that writers and genres are the same way.”

  An image of Oliver writing horror stories flashed into her head.

  “What about Chad? Do you know what his genre was?”

  Teri frowned. “No, now that you mention it. I can’t say that his was apparent. His assignments were all over the board.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “For example, he had us writing about our computer habits.”

  “What about them?”

  “He wanted to know what we used a computer for and how often. That sort of thing. I had trouble getting started with
that one. I talked to him about it after class.”

  “That helped get you started with it?” Megan thought about her own computer habits. She relied on it for a lot of things.

  “I guess. He suggested I start with writing about how good my skills were. Oddly enough, he claimed his skills weren’t that good. I thought that was funny.”

  “You would think a writing teacher would use a computer a lot,” Megan agreed.

  “I know, right? Chad said he needed help all the time but, luckily for him, he had a neighbor who was a computer geek and he helped him a lot.” Teri’s smile slipped. “I guess Chad wasn’t so lucky, really.”

  “Did he offer to review any of your work outside of class?”

  Teri’s smile came back but this one was polite and distant.

  “I told him I was married.”

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  The young girl answering the door to the second-floor apartment reminded Megan of a much younger Caitlyn. She was probably in her very early twenties. She was petite and wore her hair in a similar pixie cut to the one that Caitlyn wore. Unlike Caitlyn’s dark hair, however, Mandy’s hair was a blonde so light it was nearly white. She had huge blue eyes that appeared to mirror her feelings. Right now, Megan saw hesitation in them.

  “Hi, I’m Megan. Your classmates have been talking with me about Chad. Would you mind if I come in and ask you some questions about him? It won’t take long.”

  Megan followed Mandy into the central living space. The living room and kitchen were basically the same space separated by a half wall with a counter. Her apartment was the second floor of an older home. Megan assumed the owners lived downstairs and were using the rent to help subsidize their retirement income. Her suspicions were confirmed a moment later.

  “You didn’t park in the driveway, did you? The owners are elderly and it’s hard for them to get around. They should be home any minute.” Mandy stood clasping her hands in front of her.

  Megan smiled trying to get Mandy to relax.

  “No, I parked my truck on the street.” Megan took a seat and watched as Mandy wavered, apparently wondering what to do next. “I won’t take long, I promise.”