Elementary in Teaberry

by R A Wallace

  Salina’s face creased into a scowl as she lifted her hands in the air. “I thought you already knew.” She pointed at the officers. “I figured they told you when they hauled you in for questioning.”

  “How could you do it?” Kirk’s voice was half anger, half pleading. He shook his head then wiped a hand across his mouth. When he spoke again, his eyes had hardened. “He was my competition. What were you thinking?”

  “That’s it? That’s why you’re mad? Because I had an affair with your competition?” Salina ignored Rhys’s attempt to come between the sparring couple. She dodged Rhys and pointed at her husband. “It would have been fine as long as it wasn’t another electrician? Is that what you’re saying?”

  “Ma’am.” Rhys held up both hands, palms out.

  “Sir.” Ian took a step closer to Rhys as he turned to face Kirk.

  “Why have you been so mad if you didn’t know about that?” Salina shouted. “You’ve been pouting ever since they questioned you.”

  Kirk dodged Ian as he pointed back. “Who cares about that? I heard you were badmouthing my business expertise. There’s nothing wrong with my electrical business.”

  Salina’s mouth dropped open then snapped shut just before she pulled back and swung.

  “Sir!”

  “Ma’am!”

  “Hey! Cut that out!”

  “That’s it. You’re both coming downtown now.” Ian reached for Kirk’s arms and turned him around to restrain his hands. Behind him, Rhys was doing the same with Salina.

  “Look what you made me do,” Salina shouted at her husband.

  “Out,” Ian said as he reached for Kirk’s arm.

  “I’ll call for another car,” Rhys said as he led Salina from the house. “I don’t think we want these two in our back seat.”

  ***

  Jerry pushed himself up from his seat and left the closet-sized room he used for his high-tech investigations. He found Erica finishing another call at her desk.

  “Anything?” He stopped next to her and glanced at her notes.

  She threw her pen on the desk as she shook her head. “You?”

  He rubbed the back of his neck. “I’m just not seeing what I expect to see.”

  She swiveled around in her chair to face him. “What does that mean?”

  “I’ve gone through Gregg Eastman’s phone multiple times.” His eyes went to the murder board.

  Erica stood. “You said he had a lot of business calls on there. Makes sense to me. He ran a business.”

  “Yeah, but the call logs, the texts, even the metadata that I found. It’s all business.” Jerry shook his head then pointed at the murder board. “It doesn’t match up.”

  Erica held her hands up in surrender. “I know you’re talking about his phone but I’m not following you. Just tell me what your gut is saying.”

  “My gut tells me there’s something wrong with his phone.” He crossed over to the murder board. “Where are his private calls? He couldn’t work all the time. There should be calls to family. Friends. Where are those?”

  Erica followed him over. “Okay, now you’re speaking my language. You’re saying the guy had another phone.”

  “He must have. It’s the only thing I can think of.” Jerry turned toward the noise in the hallway.

  Erica followed his gaze. They both listened to a man and woman arguing. The voices grew louder until the two people in question finally came into view being led by Rhys and Ian.

  Erica crossed her arms. “That’s quite a shiner.”

  “I’ll say,” Jerry agreed. “He’s really going to feel that one tonight.”

  “Wonder which one hit him? Kirk or Salina?” Erica asked.

  “Whoever it was, they must have a good hook.” Jerry watched as Ian and Rhys escorted the pair through the main office then turned to Erica. “We need to talk to Gregg Eastman’s family. Find out what other phone he might have been using.”

  “I can take that one. I’ll talk to the victim’s family,” Erica said as she crossed back to her desk to get her notes. “I got a text from Gabe just before you came out. He’s asking us to stop and see him.”

  Jerry left Erica looking up contact information for Gregg Eastman’s family and took the short drive to Gabe’s Garage. There was more than one Waters Food truck sitting in the parking lot. Jerry assumed they had been dropped off for service since the last time he was at Gabe’s Garage. He found the bay doors open. Country music greeted him as he stepped out of his car and crossed over to one of the bays. He found Gabe’s feet poking out from under a car. Jerry crossed over and turned the music down.

  Gabe pulled himself out on a crawler and sat up. “Hey. Thanks for coming.”

  “Your text said it was important,” Jerry pointed out.

  “It is.” Gabe crossed over to a truck with the Waters Food logo on the side in the other bay. “This was dropped off by one of the Waters Food employees.”

  Jerry watched Gabe lean over the front and look inside the engine compartment. “We confiscated the other one with the bloody jacket in it.”

  “Yeah. That was the truck Grady was driving most recently.” Gabe pointed at the truck in front of him. “I’m told this is the one he had been driving prior to that. He had to switch.”

  “Why?”

  “This one was leaking something. Grady was planning to bring it in to me to check out. He switched to another truck in the meantime, figuring this one would be out of commission until I fixed it.”

  Jerry reached for his notepad. “I’m going to need the name of whoever dropped it off.”

  Gabe held up a finger. “I haven’t gotten to the important part yet.”

  Jerry’s brows went up.

  “Grady thought there was an oil leak or something.”

  “You’re going to tell me that wasn’t it.”

  Gabe shook his head. “Someone tampered with the brakes. Grady’s lucky whoever did it didn’t know what they were doing or he could have lost his brakes at a very bad time.”

  ***

  “I’m not here to buy anything, I’m not here to buy anything.” Megan saw the mounds of mulch in the distance. On the other side of a fence, there were plants everywhere. After leaving her car, she walked through a gate to get into the area where the plants were. The fruit trees with their balled roots called to her. “I’m not here to buy anything.”

  “Hey, Megan. Trina mentioned you were coming.” Jax stopped next to her. He followed her gaze to the fruit trees. “I didn’t think you needed any more fruit trees?”

  Megan made a face. “I don’t, but every time I come to your nursery I lose my resolve.”

  Jax laughed. “I know what you mean. I want to take all of the flowers we have and plant them around my house.”

  Megan followed him into the office. “I would think you would get that out of your system with your landscaping business.”

  “You would think,” Jax agreed as he joined Trina at the cash register.

  Megan motioned toward Trina’s bump. “How are you feeling?”

  Trina put her hand on her stomach. “I’m not guessing boy or girl. I just know whatever it is, it’s going to swing from trees or run marathons. Jasmine was never this active when I was pregnant with her.”

  “I’ll bet having the office of your business located in a house is really helpful,” Megan said.

  “I think it will be when the baby is born.” Trina’s eyes slid to Jax for a moment. “I’m starting to worry that it isn’t working out for Jasmine. I think she needs to interact with kids her age.”

  “I can see that.” Megan explained Caitlyn’s idea for marketing. Jax and Trina didn’t hesitate with their response.

  “Count us in,” Trina said.

  Jax came around to Megan’s side of the counter. “Are you working on a puzzle?”

  “Gregg Eastman?” She tilted her head to one side. “Maybe just a bit. It was Gabe and LeAnn that found him. Do you know something that might help?”

 
Jax motioned to Trina. “We were talking about it before you came.”

  “Trying to figure out if we knew anything that might be considered one of your puzzle pieces,” Trina added.

  “There was one thing,” Jax said. “It wasn’t unusual for me to see Gregg’s work truck parked at his different work sites.”

  “Makes sense.” Between plowing snow in the winters and his landscaping jobs in the summer, Megan knew that Jax got around town quite a lot.

  Jax scratched his ear. “It also wasn’t unusual to see other cars there.”

  Megan could tell he was uncomfortable but didn’t understand why. She shifted her focus to Trina.

  “Cars driven by women,” Trina said. “Who were visiting him at his job sites.”

  That Megan understood. “You think he was taking extended work breaks.”

  Trina and Jax nodded in unison.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Erica had to wait for several fleet trucks to pull into Waters Food. “I guess I never realized just how many of these trucks drive around delivering food to individual houses.”

  Jerry looked over at a large building he assumed was used as some sort of warehouse. There were several tractor trailers backed up to the loading docks. “Me neither. I was vaguely aware that they shipped to grocery stores.” He motioned toward the tractor trailers. “They load those big trailers up and ship them out of here.”

  “Can’t blame the neighbors for complaining about the noise,” Erica said as she watched the tail end of the smaller delivery trucks pull in for the night. “Even the small trucks that just deliver locally to homes would be a lot of extra traffic. Can you imagine listening to tractor trailers pulling in and out at all hours?”

  “I wouldn’t want to live here,” he acknowledged. “A lot of the people I spoke with said they were here first though. Or when they bought their place, Grady and Rhonda Waters were just operating a regular farm.”

  “Like everyone else,” Erica said as she pulled into the lot behind the last delivery truck.

  They were refrigerated trucks with the Waters Food logo on the side. Images of some of their products were also shown to tempt people into logging online and ordering a home delivery of frozen meals, appetizers, and desserts.

  Erica parked in front of the smaller building used for the main office. Jerry reached the entrance first but Erica was close behind. They found Rhonda Waters standing in the middle of the room with her arms wrapped around herself.

  “Mrs. Waters, we know this is a difficult time,” Erica said.

  Rhonda huffed out a breath then covered her mouth with her hand to stop the words before she spoke them. She took a deep breath. “I’m sure he didn’t do it.”

  “Then help us prove that,” Erica said gently.

  “How?” Her eyes were filled with suspicion.

  “We’d like the video from your surveillance cameras,” Jerry said.

  “What?” It wasn’t what she was expecting to hear. She took a step toward the large front window and looked out, her head nodding as she moved forward. “The trucks are parked outside.”

  “The surveillance video should show if anyone was near the truck that had the bloody jacket in it,” Jerry said.

  “We don’t have a court order requiring you to cooperate,” Erica pointed out. “But we can get one if we need it.”

  “No.” Rhonda shook her head quickly. “I’ll get the video. It’ll show that Grady didn’t do this. I’m sure of it. I have access to the system. The computer is in the back. I know how to do this.”

  Jerry nodded at Rhonda as she moved quickly past him. “We’ll need everything from the day of the murder until the jacket was found in a Waters Food vehicle.”

  Erica turned to look through the front window. From the view she had, she could see more of the local trucks returning back to Waters Food at the end of their delivery day. Most employees immediately got into their personal vehicles and drove off. Others milled around to talk. She didn’t have to hear them to guess the subject. By now, it would be common knowledge that one of the owners was being questioned for murder. The fact that a patrol car now sat at the office would only fuel the speculation.

  “Here.” Rhonda looked harried as she appeared from the back room holding up a portable drive. “I know this will prove Grady is innocent.”

  After handing the drive to Jerry, she pulled the front edges of her suit jacket together then crossed her arms. Erica and Jerry left the office a few moments later. Erica looked over the roof of the patrol car as she opened the driver’s side door. There were about a dozen or so employees standing in a group. The employees stopped talking and watched as the officers got into the patrol car and drove away.

  “You going to look at that now?” Erica asked.

  Jerry held the portable drive in his hand. “No. I’d rather do it on my workstation. I want to make some images from it first.”

  “You mean, like backups?”

  “That too. What I really want to know is, what else has been stored on this portable drive over time?”

  When they reached the main office, Ian and Rhys were walking out.

  Erica stopped in front of them and pointed at Rhys’s eye. “Quite the shiner.”

  “In his defense, Mrs. Moody has an impressive right hook,” Ian said.

  Rhys shot Ian a look then pointed at his partner. “He ducked.”

  Erica kept walking. “You should have too.”

  Jerry heard Ian laughing as he continued through the main office to his closet-sized workspace. After making copies of the image from the portable drive, he ran through the video feed from the period prior to the bloody jacket being found by Gabe in the Waters Food truck. He was running a segment in a loop when Erica leaned against his doorframe.

  “Anything?”

  He motioned toward his monitor. “What do you make of this?”

  She watched the loop in silence for several moments. “Do you recognize him?”

  “Ralph Stanko. One of the neighbors.” Jerry laced his hands together and rested them on the top of his head. “I interviewed him. He didn’t care for the traffic generated by Waters Food.”

  “What about the truck? It’s close to the office,” Erica pointed out.

  “Yeah. I have a clear view of the hang tag on the mirror and the truck number. That’s the one Gabe found the bloody jacket in."

  “The video is a little dark because he’s doing it at night.” Erica continued watching the loop. “But there are a lot of lights left on in the various parking lots. There must be one fairly close to this truck given how well we can see.”

  “You have to wonder why the guy didn’t think about surveillance cameras,” Jerry said.

  “It’s like he picked the truck that was lit up the best so he could see what he was doing,” Erica agreed.

  “But I’m not seeing him put anything into the truck that resembles a bloody jacket.” Jerry dropped his hands and swiveled around in his seat. “And something spooks him before he finishes messing with the truck.”

  “We found evidence of tampering with the other truck Grady Waters was driving first.” Erica held up one finger. “Okay, let’s get this straight. You looked at all the videos within the timeframe of the murder and Gabe finding the bloody jacket.”

  Jerry held up two fingers. “We didn’t see anyone putting a bloody jacket into the truck.”

  Erica held up three fingers. “We did see someone who started tampering with the truck but then got spooked. He ran away before he finished the job.”

  Jerry held up four fingers. “We still don’t know how the bloody jacket got into the truck.”

  “Yeah.” Erica pressed her fingers into her eyes. “Back to the drawing board.”

  ***

  Megan covered the cast iron skillet and lowered the flame before turning around. “This just needs to cook for a bit. By the time the men are done in the barn, we should be ready.”

  “How’s this?” LeAnn added more diced tomatoes to
the salad she was making.

  “I think it looks good, thanks.” Megan eyed the last loaf of bread. “I can slice that up.”

  Sharon tempted Aaron with a spoonful of food. “I’m sure there will be more than enough.”

  “Thanks for making a potato salad earlier.” Megan leaned against the counter and sighed.

  “I know that sigh.” Sharon teased Aaron with another spoonful. “You’re thinking about the puzzle.”

  “I can’t believe Gabe actually found a bloody jacket in the guy’s truck,” LeAnn said as she rinsed her hands.

  “Yeah,” Megan said slowly. “Doesn’t that just seem a little too…”

  “Convenient?” Sharon supplied.

  Megan made a face of indecision. “I don’t know. I can’t say that I know Grady Waters well, but who does that?”

  “You don’t think maybe he just forgot it was there?” LeAnn shrugged when the others looked at her. “Not everyone is a cold-blooded killer. Maybe he was stressed after the fact?”

  “Not thinking clearly?” Megan considered it.

  “Wanted to get caught,” Sharon suggested.

  LeAnn pointed at Sharon. “That’s a good point.”

  “I don’t even understand why the police are still investigating it. They have the bloody coat. Who else could have done it?” Sharon asked.

  LeAnn nodded her agreement. “The coat even had his name on it.”

  Megan glanced at the clock. “You know what would be good? Some green onions to go with dinner.”

  “My favorite,” Sharon said as she set the spoon down. Aaron reached for it.

  “I can help clean them,” LeAnn offered.

  “I just need to get them from the greenhouse first,” Megan said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “Need help?” Sharon smiled as Aaron tried to feed himself with the spoon.

  “No, I’m just going to run out.” Megan reached for a jacket hanging on the back of a chair and swung it around her shoulders. Halfway to the door she stopped and turned around. “The jacket.”

  “What about it?” Sharon asked.

  Megan slid the jacket from her shoulders. “This is Dan’s.”