by R A Wallace
Vintage Teaberry Malice
A Teaberry Farm Bed & Breakfast Cozy Mystery
R. A. Wallace
2018
Author’s Note
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, dialogue, places, and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. Material in this book is not intended as a substitute for legal or medical advice from qualified professionals. The author has no connection to any software or website mentioned.
© 2018 R. A. Wallace. All rights reserved.
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter One
She could hear the sound of laughter coming through the front windows of her villa as other residents of the Teaberry Retirement Community passed by. Having the windows open to the breeze was a pleasant change from being cooped up inside with the air conditioner running. Not that she was complaining. It was another beautiful Saturday evening. She heard a group of residents hail each other from their golf carts. It was followed by a loud conversation. They must have stopped directly in front of her villa to talk about their plans for the evening. There were a few different activities scheduled for the evening and many in the community typically took advantage of the opportunities.
Gina planned to do the same thing as soon as she was done stapling the final newsletter and events calendar for the next month. She liked to get them distributed early so that people could plan their time. Many chose to receive theirs via email and she had already sent those out. There were others who were not yet comfortable with modern methods of communication or they simply preferred to have the hard copy to reference throughout the month. Gina printed out enough copies each month and then got a little exercise delivering them around the campus.
She didn’t really mind. In fact, she enjoyed seeing so many different people, many of whom had been lifelong friends. It also gave her a chance to perform wellness checks. Although not technically a requirement of her part-time duties as a receptionist in the office, Gina knew that many in the community relied on each other. It was just another reason why she enjoyed living where she did.
She stacked the stapled flyers into a box and carried it out to her golf cart parked in the driveway of her villa. One of her neighbors, Vera, was out watering the flowers in front of her own villa. Gina waved.
“Off to deliver the flyers?” Vera asked.
Like Gina, Vera was a seventy-something. Unlike Gina, Vera had moved to Teaberry later in life with her husband. He was now gone, but Vera had come to think of Teaberry as home and had made many friends in the retirement community. She was dressed for a casual evening out.
“Want to come with me?” Gina asked.
“Not this time. Some of the girls are picking me up for dinner before the movie. We’ll be at the restaurant if you get done delivering in time.” Vera paused and waved as a golf cart went by.
Gina returned the greeting of the passengers as they went by in their golf cart then turned back to Vera. “I’ll do that. Otherwise, I’ll just see you all at the clubhouse for the movie.”
She slid onto the bench seat of the golf cart, checked all of her mirrors, and disengaged the brake. She exited her drive slowly then picked up speed as she drove to her first stop. She had made the same trip each month for years. Although the occupants of the villas changed over time, the route she took remained the same. It allowed her to do a loop around the large campus making stops to drop off flyers when necessary.
In some cases, she rang a doorbell and chatted with the occupants for a bit before continuing her route. In other cases, she left the flyer either in the storm door or in the decorative mail boxes many put up for just such an occasion. At the larger residence halls, she dropped off a stack and the office worker took care of distributing them.
She slowed as she reached Alice Durant’s villa. She had tried over the past decade to get along with Alice, but the two women had never found a common ground while living at the retirement community. Gina pulled her golf cart into Alice’s driveway and set the parking brake. Alice was not one of the people with a decorative mail box at her door. Alice typically had her house door closed and locked, but Gina could still stick the flyer in the storm door and be on her way. When leaving them in the door, she would put the flyer at about eye level and close the storm door on it to hold it in place. That way, the next time the occupant opened their entry door, they would see the flyer.
Gina climbed the two steps to Alice’s door and opened the storm door. She was startled to see that the entry door was also slightly open. She couldn’t ever remember that being the case. She wondered if perhaps something was wrong. Hesitantly, she knocked on the entry door then rang the bell. Receiving no response, she called into the house.
“Alice? Are you there?” She pushed the entry door open wide enough for her to walk through. Perhaps Alice had fallen and was hurt. It didn’t happen often in the community, but it did happen.
Gina stood in the living room and looked around. She’d never been in Alice’s villa before, but many followed a similar floor plan. This villa was on the smaller side and only had the one bedroom. She was standing in the center of the villa and it had something of an open floor plan. She turned to the left and walked toward the kitchen which was really an extension of the living room in that there was no wall separating them. You could see everything in the kitchen and the living room at the same time. Part of the living room closest to the kitchen was used as a dining area. The laundry area was beyond the kitchen. The sliding glass door in the kitchen led out to a screened porch.
Not finding Alice, Gina turned around and walked in the opposite direction toward the bedroom at the other end of the villa, calling Alice’s name as she did. After walking through the living room, she peered into the bathroom as she passed it. It was empty, so she continued walking and found the bedroom at the end of the hall. The door was closed. Again, she knocked and called Alice’s name. Taking a deep breath, she then opened the door. That was when she knew why Alice hadn’t answered her.
***
Rhys moved aside as the emergency crew pushed the gurney out the villa door. Ian, another officer, was outside interviewing some of the residents. Rhys had asked Gina to remain on the screened porch while he touched base with the emergency crew. Then he returned to the porch to continue his discussion with Gina.
Rhys took the seat across from Gina. The woman had handled everything fairly calmly so far. Rhys had gotten the impression that Gina had performed wellness checks before. But Rhys didn’t want to stand above Gina as he continued questioning her. The woman’s evening had already been difficult enough. He folded his tall frame onto the small metal chair across from Gina. Nothing about the metal chair was designed for comfort.
Rhys made the effort to gentle his voice. “Ma’am, can you tell me who the next of kin might be?”
Gin
a shook her head. “She only ever had the one visitor. A young man. I don’t remember his name.”
“You met him?” Rhys looked up from his notes.
“I work in the office part-time. We don’t require visitors to check in, but if it’s their first visit they often stop to get directions to a specific villa,” Gina explained.
Rhys nodded. It made sense. It was a very large campus and it was the first time he had been here. The only way he and Ian had found the villa was to drive around and look for all of the flashing lights on the ambulance.
“So, he stopped in to get directions to this villa,” Rhys prompted.
“Yes, the one time. I don’t remember his name or if he even gave one,” Gina said. She was tired. She could tell her mind was a little fuzzy.
Rhys thought for a moment. “Would it be on any of the paperwork the community keeps on the residents?”
“Oh!” Gina nodded quickly. “Yes, I’m sorry. I’m a little tired. Yes, that should be in her file. I can get that from the office if you’d like. I have a key at my place.”
Rhys offered to drive Gina to the office, but she said she’d take her golf cart. They agreed that Gina would stop at her place first and they would all meet up at the office once Rhys and Ian were done asking questions.
Rhys had one final question before he was ready to leave. “What makes you think the death wasn’t natural?”
The standard procedure when a resident passed didn’t include calling the police. That had been Gina’s idea.
“She never left her door open for one thing. Then there was the way she was lying there. I don’t know how else to explain it. Something just doesn’t seem right,” Gina said simply.
Rhys followed Gina out and stopped by Ian. He was chatting with some of the residents who had stopped to check on the commotion. Ian disengaged from the conversation and he and Rhys walked back to their patrol cars.
“Well, what do you think?” Ian asked.
“The EMTs weren’t certain.” Rhys opened the door of his car. Ian’s was parked behind his. “They were leaning toward natural causes.”
“Are we going to follow up on it?” Ian asked. Although Ian had been on the Teaberry force longer than Rhys, he had come to appreciate the younger man’s experience and insight.
Rhys thought for a moment. He looked around at the curious onlookers who had gathered. Many were now in groups, talking to each other and periodically gesturing toward Alice’s villa and then Rhys and Ian. “I think it’s a good idea. What do you think?”
Ian shrugged. “One of the neighbors thought they saw someone here early this morning.”
“So, we’ll have the coroner check on the deceased to confirm?” Rhys made it sound like a question. He wanted to make sure they were on the same page.
“Wouldn’t hurt,” Ian agreed.
They stopped at the office and took the information Gina provided for the next of kin and promised to follow up with her on the results of what they found.
Gina watched the police car leave the campus. She hoped they would keep their word about checking on things. She’d made many wellness checks over the years. This was the first time she’d ever questioned the cause of death. Although, in her mind, there wasn’t any doubt. And that meant that the rest of them weren’t safe either.
Chapter Two
Sunday morning arrived showing hints of autumn with cooler temperatures. Megan rose early and followed the tantalizing smell of coffee to the kitchen. She stopped to rub Emma’s ears as her furry companion munched on her breakfast. Megan’s guests this weekend were animal lovers. They’d asked her to allow Emma the run of the house while they were there and had lavished the green-eyed black cat with a lot of attention all weekend.
Cybil and Geoff Lansdowne were sixty-somethings enjoying their retirement. They’d found Megan’s bed and breakfast online and had been charmed with the idea of picking their own apples in autumn. Residents of Louisiana, they were currently taking a road trip through Pennsylvania with plans to visit New York and work their way through that state next. Although scheduled to depart mid-morning, they were hoping for one final ride on the four wheeler into the woods.
As they sat out on the porch the previous evening with Megan and Dan, they’d confessed to never seeing an actual teaberry plant. Knowing that there were many such plants growing in the woods on Teaberry Farm, Dan had suggested the ride this morning after breakfast.
She poured herself a cup of coffee then looked out the kitchen window. Although it was still early in the morning, Dan had already gone out to feed the chickens and check on the rest of the animals. Megan could see Dan walking back toward the house with a basket of eggs. She poured another cup of coffee for Dan and started taking out the pans she would need to cook breakfast.
By the time she had gotten everything started on the stove, she heard the Lansdownes talking as they came down the hall toward the dining room. Megan turned to fill a carafe with fresh coffee but found Dan already doing it. She smiled her thanks and turned back to the stove as Dan carried the carafe into the dining room. She could hear their voices as they greeted each other.
She finished with her preparations and then began transferring the food from the kitchen to the dining room. She found Cybil and Geoff standing at the large picture window facing the orchard. Cybil turned to greet Megan with a large smile on her face.
“There are deer in the orchard,” Cybil said.
Megan set a tray of food on the table. “Yes, they eat any apples that fall and they’re also the reason why the branches all seem evenly trimmed. They eat any branch they can reach.”
Cybil turned in surprise and looked at Megan. “Oh, I just assumed that you’d cut them all that way. The branches are all exactly the same height off the ground.” Cybil turned and looked out the window and reassessed the fruit trees.
“That makes sense now,” Geoff said after doing the same thing.
After breakfast, Megan quickly handled the dishes while the Lansdownes cleaned up and began packing. Once finished, they met on the back porch and Dan picked them up with the four wheeler shaped like a golf cart. Dan and Geoff rode in the front. Megan and Cybil sat in the back, facing away from them.
Dan first took them through the orchard so they could grab some apples for the road. They stopped at the paddock to pet the miniature donkeys, Flora and Dora, and to check out the sheep in the fields. Then he headed for the woods. He stayed on the main trail through the large wooded area. It was an old logging trail that led through the woods to their neighbor’s farm. Tom Jenkins often used it to visit Megan and had kept it maintained in the past. Now that Dan and Megan were married, Dan had taken over the task.
Dan took advantage of the trail to bring firewood back to the house. He chain sawed any blowdowns in the woods after storms. Megan helped him to transport the cut wood back to the house and stack it. As a result, he and Megan had spent a lot of time in the woods and had a good idea of where to find teaberry. Dan stopped the four wheeler on the main trail and got out, pointing to an area where the sun was able to penetrate the coverage of the trees.
“You can usually see the red berries by this point in the year and they stay on the plant for the winter,” Megan explained.
“Deer will eat the plants as will several other animals,” Dan added as Cybil pulled out her phone and snapped a picture.
After answering a few more questions about the woods, the group climbed back onto the four wheeler and went back to the house. Not long after, Dan and Megan were wishing the Lansdownes a pleasant continued journey in front of the house. They waved as the car pulled from the driveway then turned back to the house.
“They were a nice couple,” Dan said as he rested his arm around Megan’s shoulders and pulled her toward him.
Megan hummed in agreement. It had been a pleasant weekend.
He followed her into the kitchen. “Do you need me to help with any of the cleaning?” He knew she’d tear down the bed in the guest room and
wash sheets.
Megan shook her head as she checked her phone. There was a message from Erica to call her. Megan held up the phone so that Dan could see before tapping her phone to call Erica back.
Erica answered on the second ring. “Hey, how are you two today?”
Megan told Erica about their guests. “How about you guys? Any more activity going on with the babies?”
Erica huffed out a laugh. “They are definitely getting rambunctious down there. Listen, I just called to give you a heads-up. I know you’ve been out to the retirement community a lot lately.”
“Is something wrong?” Megan asked, her eyes flashing to Dan with concern.
“That’s just it. We aren’t certain yet. There was a death, but the EMTs were thinking natural causes.” Erica paused as Megan interrupted.
“A death?” Megan thought about the many residents of the community she had spent time with recently. They had all been so nice. Some had helped her with the mystery surrounding the janitor’s death at the elementary school.
“Yeah. Hold on,” Erica said.
Megan could hear noise as Erica checked for a name.
“Alice Durant,” Erica said. “Anyone you know?”
Megan felt relief, then guilt. She didn’t recognize the name. “It’s not someone I spoke with. How are you involved?”
“The police were called out because the woman who found the body…” Erica mumbled as she scanned her notes for another name. “Gina. Gina called it in.”
Megan visualized the friendly part-time receptionist at the office. “I know Gina.”
“What was she like? Pretty sharp?” Erica asked.
“I thought so, yes,” Megan answered.
“Rhys thought the same thing.”
Megan pictured Erica frowning on the other end of the phone. “So, you’re going to look into it?”
Erica sighed. “We’ll see what the coroner says later today. But she’s going to be ticked if we called her out on a Sunday for nothing.”
“Well, I hate to say it, but I hope she’s ticked.” Megan didn’t like the alternative.