“So says the thriller writer,” he replied, squeezing her hand. “Let’s go back before we melt. I’ll take a few pictures for Joe Cap,” he added when she looked as if she were going to protest. “We can tell him about it when we go in to file the report. Let’s finish cleaning up inside.”
An hour later, the two of them dashed through the now-pouring rain to Oscar’s Jeep to go into Wicks Hollow.
Teddy had taken a quick shower and put her hair into a thick, loose braid, then pinned it into a knot at the back of her head. It was the only way she’d be able to keep it from exploding into frizz in the damp humidity. She wore black capris with a sleeveless pink top and hot-pink sandals that almost matched her toenails, and felt she looked much more perky than she actually was after such an eventful day and night.
“I’m starving,” she said as they approached the quaint town. It was still raining heavily, so the streets were empty of tourists and there were lots of parking places. “We didn’t have breakfast and it’s after eleven. Why don’t we stop at Orbra’s Tea House? Apparently she makes the world’s best cinnamon scones, and it doesn’t look busy.”
Oscar was amenable to this, and moments later, they surged into the tea shop with soaking umbrellas.
“T.J. Mack! Come in, come in!” The sturdy, statuesque Orbra nearly squealed as she strode from the back of the shop, drying her hands on her calico apron. “And set your umbrellas right there in the stand. Nasty day to be out and about, but you came to the perfect place. Nothing like a good cup of tea to warm the bones.”
“Bring ’em over here, Orbry,” came a gravelly voice from across the room.
Teddy’s head had been bowed against the rain and beneath her umbrella, so until she heard the peremptory voice, she hadn’t realized anyone else was in the shop.
“You sit yourselves right here,” continued Maxine Took, who’d dragged herself out of the chair she’d commandeered at the table near the largest window in the shop. She brandished her walking stick, reminding Teddy that she was going to use it to murder someone in one of her books someday. “And who’s that with you there, Teddy?” Maxine peered at Oscar from behind thick glasses.
“Ayiyiyi, Maxie. Let the poor things sit down before you start badgering them,” said Juanita, who hadn’t gone to the trouble of hoisting her generous bottom from the chair on which it sat.
Before she could react, Teddy, along with Oscar, was ushered to the large, round table in a prime spot in the tea shop. In the center was a Scrabble board, obviously in mid-game. Along with Maxine and Juanita was another woman, probably in her sixties. She had round apple cheeks and cotton-candy-white hair in a modern style. Pleasingly plump and petite, she was dressed in a neat pale blue outfit and wore a large yellow diamond on her left ring finger.
“Sit down, sit down—mind you, now don’t bump the board. I’m kicking Juanita’s patootie right now, and I don’t want her using any excuse to call off the game.” Maxine grasped Oscar’s arm and yanked him unceremoniously into the chair next to hers, narrowly missing bumping him into the table.
“Maxine, you’re the only one who ever tries to cancel a game—when you aren’t winning.” Juanita looked up as Teddy took another empty seat at the table. Today, her nail polish was magenta, matching her bright lipstick (of which only remnants remained at the edges of her lips, likely due to the plate of half-finished scones in front of her). Her bright orange-red hair clashed furiously with the lip color and nail polish, but was offset a little by the dark blue eyeshadow she wore, which matched her paisley top.
The large leather bag with beady-eyed Bruce Banner in it sat on the deep-set window sill next to the table, likely so the little dog could have a good view of both interior and exterior. “You should see all the crafty ways Maxie tries to forfeit a game without actually forfeiting it,” Juanita explained.
“Lies,” Maxine said, pointing a dark, gnarled finger at her friend. “All lies.” But her eyes glinted with humor. “You missed my birthday party, Teddy Mack. Eighty-one, and I’m still as sharp as a tack. Worth celebrating, don’t you think?” Her question was more of an accusation.
“Oh,” Teddy said, genuinely confused. “I’m sorry. I’ve been working so hard on my book I didn’t realize—I don’t even think I knew about it. When was it?” She looked at Oscar for help, but he wasn’t doing anything but ping-ponging his attention between them. He looked as if he were afraid to open his mouth.
“Don’t worry about Maxine,” said the third woman, who’d been silent until now. “She just likes to fuss—and to get presents. The prettier the wrapping, the better. Anyway, I don’t think you were even in town for her birthday—which was back in June.” She smiled at Teddy, reminding her of a softer, less formal Queen Elizabeth II. “I’m Iva Bergstrom. It’s a pleasure to meet you—you are T.J. Mack, right? Declan’s cousin, the famous writer?”
“Of course that’s who she is. Why do you think I asked her to sit down? And her companion here.” Maxine sniffed and made a show of eyeballing Oscar. “What’s your name there, boy?”
“Maxine, Juanita, and Iva—I’d like you to meet my friend Dr. Oscar London,” Teddy said. “He’s a microbiologist who teaches and researches at Princeton.”
The tips of Oscar’s ears turned a little pink at her pompous announcement, but Teddy didn’t mind. She figured the best way to nip in the bud any commentary from Maxine was to come out with guns blazing.
And it worked.
“Princeton, you say?” Maxine asked with genuine interest. “Microbiology?”
“Yes, ma’am,” he replied.
“Oscar brought his own lab with him,” Teddy added, casually tossing her housemate to the wolves. “He set it up in the keeper’s cottage. He even brought his own refrigerator and a centrifuge. And what’s the other thing? Oh, a shaker.”
“You brought your own refrigerator?” Juanita exclaimed, her Hispanic accent particularly thick. “That’s a man who’s prepared. I like a man who’s prepared.” She gave him a very warm smile, and Teddy smothered one of her own.
“Stop flirting with the boy, Neety,” Maxine said. “You’ve had Melvin Horner in your sights for years now. He’s the town veterinarian,” she explained for the newcomers. “Too bad you can’t get him to put a ring on it like Iva here did.”
“Now, Maxine, I told you it’s only a gift, not an engagement—”
“What if I don’t want a ring?” Juanita shot back, cutting off Iva’s protest. “What if I just want to jump his bones whenever I want—then go back to my own house afterward?”
“Or better yet, do it at yours and kick him out after,” Maxine said with a nod. “That’s the way I always did it.”
“Exactly.” Juanita sniffed, and the two smiled at each other like the old friends they seemed to be. “Isn’t that what Cherry’s doing with that hot and sexy William Reckless?”
“He sure is ringing her bell,” Maxine said, shaking her head. “That man’s one long, tall, cold drink of water.”
Whatever might have come next was forestalled when Orbra elbowed her way into the conversation. She towered over them, all six-foot-plus of her, and offered menus to Teddy and Oscar. “All right, you three wildcats, let them alone so they can order. I can see poor Ms. Mack is—er, is it all right if I call you T.J.?”
“Call me Teddy. All my friends do, and that’s my real name,” Teddy said.
“Thank you, Teddy.” Orbra seemed particularly tickled by this. “Now, what can I get the two of you? It’s on the house today, so get whatever you like—you’ve given me so many hours of enjoyment, reading and listening to Sargent Blue and his adventures. I’m just honored you’re here. Maybe we could take a picture and I could frame it and hang it on the wall?”
“Of course,” Teddy replied, looking up from the menu. “I’ll be happy to sign it if you want.”
Orbra looked as if she might float away on cloud nine. “That’s very nice of you, T.J.—er, Teddy.”
“The scones are good today,”
Maxine said—implying they weren’t always, and clearly needing to reinsert herself in the conversation. “She ain’t serving those lavender-blueberry ones she tried out on us one time. Thought I was gonna choke on ’em, even with the clotted cream to help ’em go down.”
“You ate three of them,” Juanita said, rolling her eyes. “And I thought they were divine, Orbry. I do wish you’d make them again.”
Orbra turned a cool smile on her friend. “I happen to have a batch coming out of the oven in a few. I’ll make certain not to put any of them on your plate, Maxie.” She gave Teddy an arch smile as Maxine sputtered. “What kind of tea would you like, dearie? I’ve got a lovely zhen vin pearls white tea that’s delicate enough for summer, but has a bit of a caffeine kick. The gunpowder green is very smooth, if a bit grassy if you like that style. Or if you want herbal, there’s a cherry-mint blend I’m trying out that seems to be going well. Blended with rooibos leaves.”
Teddy, who’d been looking over the extensive list of teas, was glad for a recommendation. She didn’t know the difference between an oolong and a pu-erh, or what on earth rooibos was. And then there were emerald greens, and leaves, and pearls… The only words that looked familiar were chai and Darjeeling. “The zhen pearl tea sounds great—”
“As long as she don’t burn it,” Maxine interjected. “Orbry knows you don’t brew white tea or green tea higher than one-seventy, but she brought me a jasmine pearl green once and it was singed. Nearly burned my tongue off, and there was a bitter aftertaste—”
“One seventy-five, you mean. And that was because Annie was new,” Orbra snapped. “I know better than that, and you know it, Maxine, so quit your tattling. Annie was new and she poured the wrong temperature water over the tea leaves, and now Maxine won’t ever let me forget it. That was ten years ago, for crying out loud.”
Teddy glanced at Oscar, who seemed just as fascinated—if not taken aback—by the complications of tea brewing as she was. “I didn’t realize you had to brew tea at certain temperatures,” Teddy said, deciding she could put that in a book someday. “You really have to do that?”
“It’s like serving wine at the right temperature,” Juanita explained. “It’s not that it ruins the taste—”
“It scalds the leaves,” Maxine grumbled. “Boiling water’s okay for herbals, but—”
“—but it just tastes better at the right temp.” Juanita smiled. “I owned a few restaurants before I sold them off and retired, and we were very careful to keep the wines we offered at the right temperatures. Just makes the picky people happy,” she added with a meaningful eye-roll at her friend.
“Her restaurants—they were called Nita’s—were written up in Midwest Living,” Maxine said. “So you can bet your patootie Neety did it all right. Damn it, I sure do miss that chicken mole you used to make, with the crispy fried spinach on top. And your homemade corn tortillas. It was just the right amount of spicy and peanut-y. And your rojo sauce.”
Juanita smiled. “I’ll make them again, just for you, Maxie. As soon as you beat me at Scrabble.” Her grin turned crafty.
“All right, all right,” Orbra said, slamming her hand on the table and making the Scrabble tiles jump. “Knock it off, you two. Teddy and Oscar will never come back if you don’t stop talking about jumping bones and arguing. Now, what can I get for you, there, young man?”
“Don’t order coffee,” Juanita said in a stage whisper. “There’s not one bean on the menu.”
“Um…I like Tetley tea,” Oscar replied.
“Tetley?” Orbra sounded as if he’d just ordered roadkill. “Tetley tea?”
Maxine’s eyes went wide, and she looked at Juanita, and they both looked at Iva, and all three seemed to be holding their breaths. Under her breath, Maxine was making uh-oh sounds.
“You mean the stuff they sell in the stores…in tea bags?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Oscar said. “My grandmother—she’s from England—she used to always serve me Tetley tea when I was sick. She’d put honey and very, very thin slices of lemon in it because I didn’t like milk the English way.”
Orbra seemed to deflate a little. “Well, that’s good and fine, young man, but I’m afraid I don’t have any Tetley here. We only offer the finest loose tea at Orbra’s Tea House, sourced directly from the growers. But I can make you a nice Darjeeling with honey and very thin lemon slices, and I venture to say it’ll be just as good—or better—than what your granny used to make.”
The ladies at the table released their breaths, and Teddy winked at Oscar, who was either oblivious to the undercurrents or didn’t care.
She rather suspected it was the latter. He was fun like that.
“Very well. I’ll get those pots going for you, and I’ll be bringing little sandwiches out shortly. Egg salad, cucumber, chicken salad, and pimiento cream cheese.” Orbra, who towered over the table, arched a brow as if to challenge anyone to ask a question or decline a flavor. Then she whisked off to the kitchen.
She’d hardly left when Iva closed her hand over Teddy’s arm. “So you have a ghost up at Stony Cape Cottage!” Her eyes were dancing with delight.
“Yes, that’s right,” Teddy replied, a little shocked by the sudden change of topic. “How did you hear about that?”
The three ladies burst out laughing. “Honey, there’s no secrets in Wicks Hollow—especially when it comes to ghosts,” Juanita said, petting Bruce Banner’s tiny head so enthusiastically that it bounced a little. He didn’t seem to mind. “And Iva here can sniff out a supernatural event better than a bloodhound.”
“I’m very sensitive to the metaphysical,” Iva said as she patted Teddy’s hand. Her round cheeks were pink with pleasure, and her blue eyes danced. “I read a little bit of tarot, and I’m currently rearranging my condo using feng shui applications. If you ever want someone to look over your office—where you write your books—and make sure it’s got good feng shui, you just let me know. But that’s enough about me. Tell us about your ghost!”
“Well, it appears to like to hang around at the top of the lighthouse,” Teddy said slowly. Oscar, she noticed, was not participating in the conversation. Instead, to her surprise, he and Maxine appeared to be in an intense conversation of their own—and for once, the octogenarian’s voice was at a normal volume and didn’t dominate the table.
“Does it manifest into a specific shape?” Iva asked. “Does it do anything?”
“It screams,” Juanita said. “I told you that.”
“Yes, yes, I know,” Iva replied impatiently. “But I want to hear it from Teddy herself. Otherwise, how will we figure out what to do?”
“What to do? You mean…like how to put it to rest?” Teddy asked. Not that she hadn’t had a similar thought herself—after all, that was the reason for ghosts, wasn’t it? Something had to be fixed in order for them to rest in peace.
“Well, obviously something’s wrong, or it wouldn’t be haunting the place,” Iva said. “Now, tell me all about it.”
Teddy glanced at Oscar, who was still talking to Maxine. Now he was animated, using his hands to gesture and demonstrate something. She heard him say something about algal blooms and vibrio—whatever that was.
She turned back to Iva. “It’s like a green phosphorescent cloud. And it just kind of hovers there—I haven’t seen it form into anything substantial.”
“It’s green? So we have a real Mystery of the Green Ghost,” Iva said with a smile. When Teddy looked at her funny, Iva replied, “That’s the title of a book my younger patrons used to check out of the library many years ago: The Three Investigators and the Mystery of the Green Ghost. That was a wonderful series for youngsters—much better than that prim and perfect Nancy Drew, in my opinion—I enjoyed those too, but the original ones written in the twenties, rather than the cleaned-up versions they did in the fifties. She was a little sassier in the originals.
“Anyway, the Three Investigators was mostly written for boys, but a lot of my girls devoured them too. In that book,
the green ghost took the form of an old Chinese man. And it was a sickly neon-green color—the ghost, I mean.”
Teddy blinked at the very detailed non sequitur and wished desperately for tea and food. Her brain was feeling very soft and mushy. “I see. You’re a librarian?”
“Yes, indeed. For over forty years. Loved every minute of it, and I have an entire noggin filled with all sorts of random information and trivia.” Iva smiled, tapping the side of her head. “I understand Sargent Blue is a librarian too—or was, until he decided to get into the spy business.”
“Yes, that’s right.”
“Smart idea, making a main character a librarian. You wouldn’t believe the stuff we pack away over the years—literally and figuratively.” She tapped her temple again. “And I’ve always thought the narrow, dark stacks tucked deep in the second basement of a university library would be the perfect place for a killer to be stalking his prey.”
Just then, Orbra returned, pushing a multilevel cart. On top were two mismatched teapots, each made of lovely, hand-painted china. Next to them were two teacups and saucers made of china so delicate that they were translucent.
On the second level of the cart were two-tier trays laden with scones and sandwiches on paper-thin bread. The bottom level of the cart had small plates, cloth napkins, and an assortment of jams, jellies, clotted cream, and butter. Teddy’s mouth began to water.
Even as Orbra set out the tea service, Iva continued her questions. “Does the ghost do anything besides just hang around up there at the top of the lighthouse?”
“The first time we saw it, it was right there, suspended on the gallery next to us,” Teddy replied. “Right by the door. But last night, it was lower, and a little further away from the lighthouse. And the color was a little different—more neon green. It might have just been from where we were standing.”
If Oscar wasn’t all that interested in investigating the ghost, at least she had someone else to bounce ideas off on. “Also last night, the appearance was much earlier than usual. It was around ten o’clock instead of one thirty. I don’t know what that means.”
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