Authors: Becki Willis
This day was so drastically different from the one before. Yesterday
had been a joyful day, filled with hope and love and tenderness. Today was markedly
different. Today was stark and sad. Depressing.
Charity had been so certain that returning the forgotten boxes
was the right thing to do. She thought it might even be fun for the recipients,
like finding a lost treasure after many years. She saw similar stories on the news
all the time, when a long-lost letter finally found its destination after floating
around in limbo for decades. All those stories had happy endings. All those stories
made you smile, made you feel good about life and humanity.
“Yeah, but none of those stories had a Rita Anderson in them,”
Charity reminded herself aloud.
Had she been wrong to track down the owners? Even though Carl
Upjohn shared a beautiful story with her, he hadn’t wanted the box. That missed
delivery had been the best thing that ever happened to him. He wanted no part of
it now, even though it contained a precious gem worth thousands. And Rita Anderson?
The missed delivery was the worst thing that ever happened to her, setting off a
terrible chain of events that ultimately ruined her life. Returning the box to her
only reopened old wounds and fueled her bitter lease on life.
“So what of the other box?” Charity asked into thin air. “Do
I deliver it? I don’t even have a full name, just an address. I can’t very well
call up the number and say ‘Excuse me, does an E. Somebody-or-another live at this
address? Our trucks are running a little behind, but I have a thirty-year-old delivery
I’d like to make’. What if they don’t even want it? What if their story turns out
to be even worse than Rita Anderson’s? Can I bear to hear another soul-wrenching
story like that?”
Charity glanced into the rear-view mirror. She had difficulty
meeting her own blue gaze.
“Okay, okay,” she grumbled. “This isn’t about me. This is about
doing the right thing. It’s about delivering the boxes to their rightful owners.
I’m guessing Harold died before he could make the deliveries himself, but I have
no idea how Aunt Nell wound up with them. Why did she even have them in the first
place? And why did she keep them all these years? None of it makes sense.”
It made no sense, but something told Charity it had to do with
her uncle’s death and supposed suicide.
Hoping to take her mind off Rita and Ashley Anderson, Charity
concentrated on the mystery of her uncle’s death. Carl Upjohn said Harold Tillman
was found dead in his truck along Route 14. She was no expert on the subject, but
who committed suicide on the side of the road in the middle of a delivery shift?
It made no more sense than the trash bag full of forgotten boxes.
She zipped on down the road, oblivious to the breath-taking scenery
around her. Occasionally she glanced down at her GPS, making certain she was still
on the right road. She knew she depended on the handy little gadget too often, even
though the directions weren’t always accurate. Some of the most rural addresses
weren’t even listed, thus her collection of paper maps.
Watch those road signs,
Charity
.
She passed two of them before the numbers sunk in. According
to the signs, Vermont 14 was just up ahead. The very road where her uncle had died.
And it led straight into Irasburg, the home office of the former Kingdom Parcel.
No roadside cross marked the spot where Harold Tillman died.
Charity never knew when she drove by the fateful site. By now, no one even remembered
this secluded stretch of the road was where the Kingdom Parcel driver took his last
breath. No one knew he had spoken his last words to his wife in that very spot.
The location, much like the incident itself, was no longer important in people’s
minds.
Charity found the old fertilizer-plant-turned-shipping-warehouse
with ease. It was right off the highway and down a short blacktop road. Trees had
grown up on the empty lot in front of the property. The town had grown to the west
and south of the plant, leaving the northern property still on the outskirts of
activity. There were no signs that told her not to enter, no gates across the road,
no neighboring businesses to shoo her away. She drove right up to the old building
and studied its empty shell.
“What really happened here?” she mused aloud. “Was it really
just a failed business venture? Or was it something more? Something that cost Harold
his life?”
The building offered no answer. It stood silently as she perused
its outer boundaries and noted the plate glass windows in the front, the loading
docks in the back, the craftily painted sign that identified this as ‘Kingdom Parcel,
est. 1983’.
Cute graphics
, she acknowledged, appreciating all the detail
that went into the sign. Subtle lines and curves, enough to evoke a subliminal message
of mountains, valleys, and maple leaves touting the Northeast Kingdom territory
of Vermont.
On a whim, she got out of the car and wandered up to the front
entrance. She knew it would be locked, but still she pulled on the glass.
Charity stumbled back as the door swung outward. She hesitated
only a moment, glancing around to see if anyone would stop her. If the door was
unlocked, it wasn’t really trespassing, was it?
A dozen offensive odors met her as she stepped into the dimly
lit interior. It reeked as if something had died in here. Squeezing her eyes shut,
Charity issued a brief prayer that it was only a rodent. The tang of old chemicals
hung in the insipid air, a reminder that this was once a fertilizer plant. While
she was at it, she might as well pray that the lingering fumes were no longer toxic.
Stepping further into the room, Charity detected the stench of
stagnant sewer water and the ingrained assault of old cigarette smoke. The electricity
had long since been turned off, leaving the building to bake in its own internal
oven. She deciphered hints of textile dyes… formaldehyde… various petroleum-based
products. Rather than dissipate, the baked-in odors had intensified with time. The
final offense came from the layer of stale, musty air smothering the room. The stagnant
atmosphere was so thick it was practically tangible.
Light filtered through a grimy side window, encouraging Charity
to wander further inside. A receptionist’s desk stood sad and empty near the center
of the room. Another desk occupied a rear nook, under the shaft of light proffered
by the window. The light beckoned her closer.
A tarnished gold-toned nameplate sat askew on the desk, the words
easily legible: Harold M. Tillman, President.
“This was Harold’s desk?” Charity murmured in surprise. She stepped
around to the other side, where a chair should have been. “That’s odd. Why would
the president of a company have his desk out front?” Her fingers left a trail in
the dust as she imagined the man who sat here. She really knew nothing about her
uncle.
The desk gave out few hints about the man. Telephone, a small
long-since withered plant that found new life through a healthy growth of dust,
and a combination calendar/desk protector. The ink was faded, but each Wednesday
night was marked with a star, and she could still see notes scribbled on dates toward
the end of the month. If his suicide were pre-meditated, why would he schedule a
dentist appointment and a three-day fishing trip?
Chalking it up to one of those things she would never know the
answer to, Charity tugged on the top drawer. A half dozen pens, scattered paper
clips, a petrified pack of chewing gum. Nothing significant.
The lower drawers were more revealing. One of the bottom drawers
held a grimy glass and a half-empty bottle of whiskey, the other an empty set of
hanging file folders. Either someone had cleaned out his desk or he never did much
work here. Charity had trouble opening the middle left drawer, but finally it stuttered
open.
“Okay, he gets points for having a picture of his wife,” Charity
announced aloud. “Those points get taken away, however, because he has it hidden
in his desk drawer.” With a smart nod, she set the framed photograph in its rightful
place atop the desk.
The only other things of interest — in fact, the only other things
in the space — were two picture frames hanging on the wall. One was a newspaper
article with the headline ‘Local Man Starts Kingdom Parcel Delivery Service’, complete
with a grainy photo of three men and an attractive brunette. A long ribbon was strung
across the front of this very building and they used a huge pair of red scissors
to cut it in half. One man’s face was shaded by his hat, the other was looking down,
but Harold Tillman wore a huge, proud smile upon his long face. The other photo
was a solo of Harold, holding a small trophy that said ‘New Business of the Year’.
Charity remembered finding that very statue at the cottage. Judging from the smile
on Harold’s face, he was quite proud of that little piece of gold plastic.
As she started to turn away, Charity noticed the signage hanging
on the wall behind Harold. Apparently, the local Chamber of Commerce awarded the
honor at their annual Valentine Banquet. A frown creased her forehead. It was hard
to imagine that a man so proud of himself in February could take his own life just
one short month later.
“What could have driven you to such depths of despair?” she wondered.
Harold merely grinned back at her, offering no explanation. Charity made her way
back around the desk, stopping to snag her aunt’s photo. “You know what, Aunt Nell?
I don’t feel right about leaving you here. I think you’ll go back with me.” She
tucked the frame against her chest, dust and all.
The light made a weak effort to reach the hallway and beyond.
More curious than she was afraid, Charity braved the shadows. There were four doors
down the first hall, two of them marked as restrooms. An opened door identified
it as the office of Mansel Debarge, but the room was completely empty. The last
door was missing its nameplate. A large window on the outer wall illuminated the
room well enough for her to see that all the office furniture was gone. The sole
items left in the room were a brass coat rack, leather sofa, and a liquor cabinet,
still fully stocked.
Her bravery faltered as she reached the second corridor, the
one that ran horizontally across the back of the old warehouse. Using the flashlight
feature on her cell phone, she made a cursory sweep of the hallway. Three doors
in the far distance, one with a thick chain across it, another that obviously led
outside. Closer in, she saw two sets of swinging doors, no doubt leading out to
the loading docks and the warehouse itself.
Deciding she had enough adventure for the day, Charity turned
off her light and moved back toward the offices. A noise from the front stilled
her steps and made her sink guiltily back into the shadows. Was it a security guard
come to run her off? A policeman come to arrest her for trespassing? A vagrant,
perhaps, there to stake his claim on the poached property?
There was a decided bump from the front office. She thought she
heard a voice.
Inching as far as she dared toward the center hallway, Charity
was still hidden in darkness. She heard the voice again, a man either talking to
himself or into a phone. She strained to hear what was said.
“Don’t see a soul. Her car’s out front, but no sign of the girl…
Don’t worry; I know what to do… She has no idea who she’s tangling with.”
Charity bit back a cry. What was the man talking about? He must
have her confused with someone else, but there was no mistaking the menace in his
words. She had the impression he was a man who would take action first, and ask
questions later. The chill slithering up her spine warned her that the action would
not be pleasant.
She had no choice. She slipped through the first set of swinging
doors. Once on the other side, she put a steadying hand out to stop their tattletale
motion, then turned to examine the cavernous space before her.
It was one huge area, illuminated only by a high bank of windows
on the outer walls. A chill seeped through the cracks and a half dozen broken panes,
settling into the concrete floors and the thirty-foot rafters with bone-numbing
intensity. No trace of summer heat could be found in the dim recesses of the old
warehouse.
Charity hurried down a set of steps that led to the warehouse
floor. The huge space was totally empty, except for a string of stainless steel
tables set up across the front, and a few rows of metal warehouse shelving, all
empty. There were three distinct bays, each with its own roll-up overhead door,
all super-sized with windows that had been painted-over for added privacy. Even
if she could reach the doors before the man came looking for her, she doubted she
had the strength to open one.
Time was ticking, and she still had no plan of escape. When she
saw the swinging door open, she dove under the nearest table. It was a lame plan,
but the only one she had.
A man stepped through the same door she had entered, his baldhead
shining in the dim light. It was her imagination, she was sure, but he looked evil,
even from this distance.
Charity crouched beneath the table, thankful this one was shoved
close to the concrete steps. When the man shone his flashlight into the cavernous
space, the beam traveled right over the top of her hiding spot. The danger would
be if he came down onto the floor and looked back in this direction.