Murder With Jammin’T

by R A Wallace

  “Where do you want to go today?” Ann asked.

  “I need a few things at the grocery store,” Joyce said. “Not too many. I won’t be able to carry much.”

  David called from the driver’s seat.

  “Don’t you worry about that. When you’re all done shopping, the checkout people at the grocery store can carry it back to the van. I can keep it for you while you’re doing your other shopping and carry it all to your villa when we get back here.”

  Joyce thanked him for the offer and felt herself tear up. She was lucky she had so many nice people around her.

  “How about you?” she asked her friend.

  “I might stop in and see if there are any sales in any of the shops.” Ann pulled at the sleeve of her jacket. “I about have this worn out.”

  ***

  Rhys pulled up to the red light and stopped. “No, I didn’t stop at the diner today. I was working on something at the house. Ava picked the specials up for us today and we had lunch together before I went on shift.”

  “How are things going with her business?” Ian asked.

  “Great. She’s been adding on new people. A lot of her time is being taken up with management things now.” Rhys accelerated when the light turned green.

  Ian pulled out his notes. “Speaking of management, we’re supposed to ask for the manager when we get there.”

  “Do you know the manager there?” Rhys asked.

  “Nah, you?”

  Rhys shook his head as he pulled into the parking lot of the grocery store. He drove around looking for a spot. Just as he found one, another vehicle pulled into the lot.

  Ian pointed at the minibus. “Hey, isn’t that the retirement community logo on the side?”

  Rhys nodded. They’d been seeing it enough lately to recognize it easily. Rhys and Ian watched as the minibus parked in front of the entrance. The driver exited first, then helped the rest of the passengers out. They all filed into the store, some more quickly than others.

  Rhys turned to Ian. Ian nodded without speaking. They both got out of the car and waited while the driver of the minibus parked off to the side of the lot. He stepped out of the vehicle when he saw them approach.

  “Can I help you?” David asked.

  “We were just wondering,” Rhys said. “How often do you transport the residents to town?”

  “There’s a schedule each day. We make regular trips several times during the week,” David explained and gave them the list of times and days.

  “Do the same residents come each time?” Ian asked.

  David took the ball cap from his head and scratched his head before replacing it.

  “No. Well, not in one day and not every day, you know? I mean, they follow their own schedule. Some prefer to go shopping first thing in the mornings, other’s come only in the afternoons, some only go into town once a week, you know?”

  “Does the retirement community keep track of which residents go to town each time?” Ian asked.

  “Sure. We have to for our records,” David said. “Why do you ask?”

  “We’ll get back to you on that,” Rhys said. They both thanked the driver and entered the store. They asked for the manager at the front desk. It took several minutes, but a woman in her forties finally came to the front desk and addressed them.

  “Thanks for coming,” she said. She passed over a disc to them. “The surveillance video is on here. You shouldn’t have any problems catching them. The thief was in clear view of the camera when they did it.”

  “Thanks.” Ian took the disc and held it up. “Do you have a lot of problems like this?”

  “Not really. It helps that we have so many cameras everywhere. Most people are aware of them. In our case, it’s usually the very young who haven’t learned that yet and that’s the case with this one. It was a young kid who couldn’t resist the lure of the candy bar at eye level near the cash register.”

  They took the rest of the information and wrote it down before leaving the store.

  Rhys stared at the minibus from the retirement community as they walked back to the cruiser.

  “The times that the driver gave us. Aren’t some of them when you said Giselle is missing things at Togs?” Rhys asked.

  “What do you think the chances are that other shops in Teaberry have been missing things at times when residents of the retirement community come to town?” Ian said as he got into the car. “The smaller shops don’t have the high-tech video security system that the grocery store has.”

  “What do you say we check?” Rhys drove the cruiser toward Main Street. “I could use an energy drink.”

  One of the twins greeted them as they entered Tea & Thyme. Ian had no idea which one it was. He could never tell them apart.

  “Ma’am.” Ian nodded a greeting. The other twin came out of the back room and joined them. “Can we ask if you’ve been having any problems with thefts?”

  Rhys watched the twins share a guilty look. “Should we take that as a yes?”

  Jill chewed on her lip. “We debated telling you…”

  “We didn’t want to get anyone into trouble,” Janice said.

  “We were hoping it would stop on its own,” Jill added.

  “It’s really only a few small things that have gone missing,” Janice agreed.

  Rhys pulled out his notepad and walked over to the counter where they make their energy drinks. He ordered two to go and wrote down the information as they prepared the drinks.

  They left Tea & Thyme a few minutes later and went into Olde Tomes next. Tia looked up at them from the comfort of the reading chair she was sitting in.

  Tia removed her reading glasses and let them hang by the beaded chain around her neck.

  “Well, what brings you two in?”

  They walked over to the group of chairs she had set up for her customers. Rhys glanced at the titles of the books on the shelf next to him.

  “Which one of these would you recommend for a new parent?” Rhys asked. “Do you have something specific for when you’re having trouble with teenagers?”

  Tia looked over at the shelf considering her options. “Your teenager is giving you trouble?”

  “No, it’s more the other way around. She seems to know what she’s doing. It’s me that’s making the mistakes.”

  Tia laughed as she stood. She pulled a book from a shelf and handed it to him.

  Ian looked over at Rhys. “You done shopping now?”

  Rhys flipped open the book.

  Ian explained their hypothesis about thefts in the smaller shops. Tia was nodding when he finished.

  “I can’t say that I’m missing any books,” Tia said. “It’s the small things, you know?” She pointed at a stack of bookmarks. “Like bookmarks.”

  “So, nothing expensive?” Ian clarified.

  “Right. That’s the thing. At first, I thought I was going crazy. Then I started counting things at the beginning and end of each day.”

  “You didn’t think to call the police?” Ian asked.

  “For things as insignificant as a bookmark?” Tia shrugged. “I was afraid you would think it was a waste of your time.”

  Chapter Twenty-One

  He hadn’t told her the exact day he was planning to get back to Teaberry. He’d narrowed it down to an approximate month even though he knew it would be today. He didn’t know why he hadn’t told her. Maybe it was because, deep down, he knew she wasn’t going to be waiting for him. Not this time.

  He called her when he was a couple of hours away. He told himself it was because he wanted to make sure she was home. Make sure she wasn’t working. He wasn’t sure what her schedule was. He wasn’t even certain where she was working now.

  Gabe slammed the palm of his hand against the steering. It was all his fault. He knew it. But that didn’t make it any easier to accept. Maybe if he talked to her one more time. Maybe she’d change her mind again, just as she had many times in the past. This wasn’t the first time she’d told h
im it was over. It was the first time he believed her when she said it.

  He could hear it over the phone. Not the words, those didn’t matter. It was her voice. When he heard how tired she sounded. Tired of him. Gabe stared at the house where she lived. He wondered what she was doing on the other side of the door. Was she crying? Or had she already shed all the tears she was willing to waste on him.

  Shaking his head, he opened the car door and got out. He’d come this far. He wasn’t going to give up now. Gabe climbed the wooden step to the small porch. He noticed the fractured tread dip with his weight. He pounded on the door and called to her, but she refused to open it. Refused to even answer his calls to her. He shouted her name, loud enough for the neighbors to hear as he pounded on the front door. Still, she refused to answer. Finally, he felt someone grab his hand. He turned around, swinging.

  “Gabe! Stop it!” Dan said.

  Gabe stared at his older brother.

  “This is my house!” he shouted.

  “Not anymore.” Dan looked as tired as LeAnn had sounded. They stared at each other for several moments.

  “Come on.” Dan held Gabe’s arm and pulled.

  Gabe looked back at the front door.

  “What about my stuff?” he asked numbly.

  Dan kept pulling. “There wasn’t much there and I already got it.”

  “I want to talk to LeAnn,” Gabe insisted.

  “You’re several years too late for that.”

  Gabe dug in his heels halfway to his car and refused to budge.

  “Why? Does she have someone else? Is she cheating on me?” Gabe demanded.

  Dan turned back to the man who looked so much like him on the outside they were almost twins. On the inside, they had nothing in common.

  Dan pointed at the house. “What self-respecting man would let her live in that dump?”

  Gabe pulled his arm back and swung at Dan. His brother easily deflected it and twisted Gabe around pinning both arms to his sides, just as he used to do when they were kids. It forced Gabe to stare at the house.

  “Look at that! It hasn’t been painted, the front step needs replaced, and it needs a new roof. Where were you when that should have been done, Gabe? LeAnn was here all alone, trying to keep it up herself. And what did you do to help? Every few months you called her with another hare-brained idea and told her to send you more money.”

  Gabe struggled to free himself, but Dan held on.

  “And your family is no better. We left her here all alone because if we could forget she was here, we didn’t have to do anything about it.” Dan pushed his brother away in self-disgust. “I’m no better than you are.”

  “She never said she needed anything,” Gabe defended himself. It sounded weak, even to his own ears.

  “You need to follow me.” Dan turned and walked back to his truck. He started it up and waited until Gabe had gotten into his own vehicle before pulling away.

  Gabe had no idea where Dan was leading him until he pulled into an old lot that had needed repaving a decade ago. Dan got out of his truck and waited for Gabe to join him.

  “What are we doing at the old garage?” Gabe looked at the old block building. The sign out front was the same one he remembered as a kid. The place used to be open back then. Gabe could remember stopping here on his bicycle because the insides of cars always pulled at him, drawing him in.

  Dan didn’t answer. He walked around the side of the building and took the steps leading to the second story above the garage. Gabe followed closely, leery of the old treads along the way. Dan pulled out a key and unlocked the door.

  Gabe followed him in and looked around. What was left of the carpet was filthy. He could see an old linoleum pattern underneath where sections of the carpet were worn away. There were boxes in the middle of the room. It was basically an efficiency. The only separate room was a small bath off to the side.

  “What are we doing here?” Gabe asked, even though he had an idea.

  “You need a place to live.”

  “I have a place to live. With my wife,” Gabe said stubbornly.

  Dan looked tired again. “That ship has sailed. What you do from now on is up to you, as long as you leave LeAnn alone.”

  Anger infused Gabe’s face with red. “What, you’re taking her side?”

  “Someone needs to. I’d say it’s long overdue.” Dan gestured around the tiny space.

  “I paid the first month’s rent. The rest is on you.”

  Gabe felt the familiar panic rise up. “What do you mean? What am I supposed to do with this place?”

  Dan shrugged. “Teaberry hasn’t had a decent garage since this place closed down. Why don’t you use all that experience you’ve gained over the years and do something responsible with it?”

  Gabe looked around the small space.

  “It takes money to do that. Where am I going to get it?” Gabe asked.

  “Man up, brother. LeAnn isn’t going to give you the money for this too. You need to earn that on your own.”

  “This is crazy.” Gabe swung his arm in a wide arc around the tiny space. “I need to focus on LeAnn and getting her to let me go home. Not waste my time cleaning this dump up. There’s nothing here for me.”

  Dan took a deep breath and locked eyes with his brother.

  “Gabe, there’s nothing left at LeAnn’s for you either. You used up all the love she had for you.”

  “She’s my wife. I want her back,” Gabe insisted.

  Dan shook his head. “If there were anyway that could possibly happen, it will be if you straighten up your act. You need to stand on your own two feet and show her that you can be responsible.” Dan pointed at his brother. “I can tell you right now that won’t happen overnight. It’s going to take time, and a lot of it. And at the end of it all, you might still find that you waited too long to try.”

  Gabe felt his stomach churn. “I don’t know how to run a business on my own.”

  “You’ll figure it out or you’ll figure out what you need to learn to do it.” Dan rubbed the back of his neck. “Look, stay here or walk away. I don’t care. Whatever you do, it’s your decision. Just don’t blame the rest of us if you fail. This is all on you.”

  Dan started to walk away.

  “Wait!” Gabe took a step to follow him. “Listen. Thanks for this. I know I didn’t deserve the time it took for you to deal with all of this. I’ll try to do something with it, to make something of myself.”

  Dan turned to look at him. “For your sake, brother, I hope so.”

  Gabe huffed out a laugh. “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “You’re not a kid anymore chasing cars, Gabe. You’re thirty-two. You need to grow up sometime. Now’s as good a time as any. I’m hoping you surprise me. I’m hoping you surprise us all.”

  “You just aren’t holding your breath?”

  Dan tossed the key over to Gabe. “Good luck.”

  Gabe watched his brother walk away.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  The new endcap of the aisle was laying in parts and pieces in multiple places. Cole picked up the directions and read through them again, but they didn’t make any more sense the third time around. Finally, he gave up and tossed the instructions into the cart that also held some of the smaller pieces. He stood back and stared at the area where he needed to assemble the new endcap.

  He looked over at the next aisle that had an older version of the same thing already in use. It would be easier to follow that example than to try to understand the directions. Grabbing the first upright beam and the cordless screwdriver, he positioned it roughly where he thought it should go.

  “You’re going to need to measure the distance between the two beams,” the voice behind him said.

  Cole turned to look at Julia.

  “Aren’t you?” she was focused on the beam he was holding against the end of the aisle.

  Cole turned back to look at the other endcap. The brackets for the shelving unit were fixed. She was
right, they would need to be a specific distance apart.

  “Yeah, thanks. The instructions were impossible to read.” He set the beam down and went over to the other endcap with the measuring tape.

  “What brings you in here?” he asked. He couldn’t imagine Julia needed anything at the feed store.

  She didn’t answer him at first. When he realized that she hadn’t spoken, he glanced up from the measuring tape. She looked uncertain. He straightened and focused his attention on her.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah,” she said quickly.

  Too quickly, he thought. He narrowed his eyes at her.

  “You aren’t mixed up in anything that’s going to require police intervention again, are you?”

  Julia felt the smile on her lips. “Actually, I was almost arrested recently.”

  “What?”

  She nodded. “It was a mistake. The owner of the shop thought I was shoplifting.”

  “What happened?”

  “The officer recognized me. They decided that I wasn’t their problem and they let me go.” Julia looked away for a moment, hesitant again.

  “What aren’t you telling me?” Cole asked.

  Julia took a breath. “She offered me a job.”

  “Who did?” Cole was confused.

  “The owner of Togs. You know, the clothing store?”

  Cole was only vaguely aware of the shop. He’d certainly never been in there.

  “When do you start?” he asked. He picked up a marker and measured the distance he needed for the new endcap, making marks for where the new beams will need to be positioned. She still hadn’t answered by the time he was done so he looked up at her again.

  She shrugged. “I told her I’d think about it.”

  Cole laughed. It was a short, hard sound. “Seriously? The rest of us would do anything to get a job. One falls in your lap and you, what? Hold out for more money?”

  Julia frowned and looked away. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Then what?” He positioned the first beam and shot the first screw in to hold it in place.

  “I’ve never had a job before. I don’t know how to do it. What if I mess up?” She crossed her arms.