Chapter 4

Sipping on the cup of tea Mr. Jeff prepared and slid across the table at me, my mouth filled with sweet taste and my tongue watered. Naturally, I preferred coffee but this tea was amazing; it tasted sweet and was filled with bergamot. I smacked my lips a couple of times before I wiped them with the back of my right hand and stared across the table at Mr. Jeff, with expectant eyes. My head still throbbed, but it was something I could handle till I made it home.

"I waited up that night for Lester," Mr. Jeff explained further, sipping occasionally on his cup of tea and giving sighs in satisfaction. Between us on the table, steam spiraled out of the mugs and evaded into the air. "It was late. A little past midnight and I didn't even hear him scratching against the doggy door. I had no idea how he wandered out the yard until I realized the fence was broken. Just right there—" he pointed again, this time with his right thumb over his right shoulder at the kitchen door without even looking back. "Come I'll show you."

My mug hit the table with a heavy clank when I dropped it and eagerly followed Mr. Jefferson toward the kitchen back door. The old man pulled the door open and stood by the pane, partially obstructing the fresh air that came at us with full force from reaching me. I stood behind him and took a peek over his left shoulder. From close up, the garden sprawled farther than I'd expected and looked way more bigger than it did from inside the kitchen, through the window. Sweet smell lingered in the air, swindling about with ease and cascading down my lungs with even more freedom. I exhaled deeply.

"There—" mr. Jeff continued pointing his index finger. "—do you see that? I tried to fix it myself, since my neighbor wasn't making any attempt to, but it just isn't the same. Lester couldn't have broken it, so I knew a human did."

Of course, I couldn't see with his head obstructing my line of vision. I stepped forward and craned my neck to see exactly where he was pointing without leaning against him or subconsciously pushing him off. The soles of my feet ached and trembled and my breathing became shaky and unstable. Close up, Mr. Jefferson's hair smelled of strawberry and banana flavored shampoo and not what I expected him to smell like. From a distance, I could then sight the spot he was pointing—

—A large part of his white wooden fence he shared with the next house seemed to have been broken and had been replaced by brown planks nailed against it vertically to hold the broken spot together. I frowned. My eyes wandered over and past the fence to the house on the other side. I knew that house and also knew of the people that once lived there before they sold it and now it seemed like it'd been sold and handed over to another family again. It looked renovated, classically, compared to how it looked way back when Mrs. Brown lived there when I was a kid and her grand-daughter, Deborah went to preschool with me every morning before they sold the house and moved away. Even though I and Deborah never truly got along other than the mutuality that my mother loved to have little chit-chats with her grandmother and go grocery shopping for her, I remembered her mentioning they had to sell the house to pay for a medical operation on her. I couldn't remember what ailment. Deborah Lippmann was a very sickly child.

My eyes widened when realization struck and I looked down at Mr. Jefferson to sight a nasty scowl pulling up his face. "Do you think?" I muttered, letting my eyes drift to the fence in examination once again. "That your new neighbor did that to the fence on purpose?"

Mr. Jefferson solemnly nodded. He backed away and shut the door, along with the fresh air and amazing fragrance of budding flowers. He proceeded back into the kitchen with I trailing closely behind, lost in thoughts.

"Whatever is going on kid or whatever happened to Lester, I have a gut feeling my neighbor knew about it," Mr. Jeff said. "I wanted to call the cops but thought against it. What if I'm wrong. What if he knows nothing about my dog? What if the fence is just a coincidence?"

What if I am wrong? I thought, panicking within myself. What it all my conclusion was wrong and I was wasting my time finding clues that would eventually lead to nothing. When I returned to my tea, it was lukewarm already and the steam had seized from spiraling into the air. I was very glad Mr. Jefferson wasn't asking any questions concerning why I needed to know all those stuffs I was interoggating him on. "Shouldn't I know why you said this could save the world?" I half-heartedly expected him to ask all of a sudden, but he didn't. I was then feeling like an idiot for having come across as desperate minutes earlier when I didn't even got have the information I needed.

I could feel Mr. Jeff studying me across the table even though I didn't look up to meet his eyes. "Whatever is happening kid," he began with a mild tone, concern in his voice. "I do not want you to get in trouble with some middle-aged psycho. I suggest you not get involved with this, unless—" he took another sip out of his mug, "—you have valid reasons to do so, like you mentioned earlier."

"Thanks for having me, Mr. Jefferson," I said,  impatiently rising up from my seat with a livid smile. "And also for the really nice tea. I enjoyed it."

Not wanting to come across as rude, I walked around the table and dropped the mug  in the sink myself, heart thumping against my chest. I exhaled deeply the scent of the warm, comfortable kitchen, musing once again how the old man could take care of a house all by himself: everything in the kitchen was neat and tidy. Saucepans stacked neatly on a shelf above the worktop. Mugs in the neatly arranged cupboards.

"Thanks for the tulips, too," Mr. Jeff appreciated, drumming his fingers rhythmically against the table. "I never expected any good from teenagers around here. Too bad I'm moving to the home for the elders in a couple of days. Now that Lester's gone, nobody to keep me company in this big house."