Tea & Treachery

by Vicki Delany

“It’s not Jack Ford, I hope,” Lincoln Goodwill said. “We’ve been looking everywhere for him. His car’s parked in front of the house, but he’s not around.”

  “I’m afraid so,” Williams said.

  “Jack Ford?” From the depths of the crowd of onlookers, a woman snorted in laughter. “What do you know? Glad to hear it.”

  I didn’t have time to wonder what that meant.

  “Did you have plans to meet Mr. Ford this morning?” the policewoman asked.

  “We did,” Lincoln said. “We’d arranged to meet here—I mean next door—at nine o’clock. Who are you?”

  “Detective Amy Redmond. North Augusta PD.”

  “You must be new,” Roy said. “I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Roy Gleeson, North Augusta town councillor.” They shook hands.

  “Detective Redmond joined us only last week,” Williams said. “From Boston. She’s brought her big-city way of doing things to our quiet little town.”

  The words were said in a light banter, but I sensed a thread of underlying hostility. If Amy Redmond had brought fresh new ideas, they were not welcome in Chuck Williams’s patch.

  “This is dreadful news,” Lincoln said. “What do you think happened?”

  “Good question.” Roy Gleeson lifted his hand and pointed directly at Rose. “Whatever happened, you can be sure she had something to do with it.”

  Chapter 7

  “Another cookie?”

  “Why, thank you.” The guest smiled at me. “ Those are delicious. Can I have the recipe?”

  “I’m afraid not. Family secret.” I smiled, but it wasn’t easy. I took my tray of offerings to the next table.

  Even Detective Williams had had to stop thinking about accepting my offer of a snack when Roy Gleeson practically accused Rose of shoving Jack Ford over the cliff.

  Whereupon the scene had descended into something out of a French farce.

  Roy Gleeson accused Rose; Rose in turn accused Gleeson and Lincoln Goodwill; Edna told Gleeson his mother would be ashamed of him if she could see him badgering an elderly lady; Williams told Bernie to stop taking pictures; Bernie told him she was a writer and asked if she could interview him one day, and he said yes; Lincoln Goodwill had said he was going home; Williams said that was okay, while Redmond said it was not; the curious little girl asked Redmond if she’d ever shot anyone; and one B & B guest insisted he wanted to check out immediately.

  And then the coroner arrived.

  Amy Redmond stood back and put her fingers in her mouth. She gave a whistle that was so loud, birds lifted from trees.

  “If we can have some order please. Thank you.” She turned to me. “Detective Williams would like to interview you and your coworkers and Mrs. Campbell in private. Do you have a room available in the house we can use?”

  “Yes, we do.”

  “Thank you. You mentioned something about coffee and cookies. Perhaps these gentlemen and anyone else who has something to tell us can enjoy refreshments in your dining room while they wait their turn.” She smiled at me. I cracked a smile in return.

  No fool, this one.

  She nodded to the uniformed officer who’d been watching the proceedings.

  “Inside, everyone,” he said. “You’ll be spoken to in turn.” Like a sheepdog herding sheep, he moved the whole motley crew toward the house.

  “Me first,” shouted the little girl. “Take me first!”

  “Shush,” her mother said.

  “I’m sure you have a room in a house this large where we can interview witnesses with some privacy,” Redmond said to me.

  “We do.”

  “Let’s go inside then. We’ll talk to you first, Ms. Roberts.”

  “I’ll be off . . .” Lincoln Goodwill said. “You know where you can contact me if you need me, Chuck.”

  “Certainly, sir,” Williams said.

  “I don’t think—” Redmond said.

  Williams interrupted her. “Mr. Goodwill is here to conduct business. He owns the house next door and is trying to sell it. Seems natural enough he’d be around this morning. Clearly, he had nothing to do with these events.”

  “That’s rubbish!” Rose said. “He’s into it up to his eyeballs. I wouldn’t be surprised if—”

  “You are not helping, Rose,” I said. “Edna, my grandmother needs to sit down. Why don’t you take her into the dining room?”

  Edna threw me a grateful look. She tucked Rose’s arm in hers, patted her hand, and said, “Come with me, dear. Let’s have a nice cup of tea to settle your nerves.”

  “I’ll give you a nice cup of tea,” Rose growled. But she allowed Edna to lead her away.

  A man rounded the house at a run, a big black Nikon camera hanging around his neck. “North Augusta Times!” he called, pushing his way through the crowd. “Detective Williams, do you have a statement for the press?”

  Williams puffed himself up, straightened his shoulders, and lifted his chin. “Not at this time.” He put on a serious expression while the photographer took his picture.

  In contrast, Redmond moved silently out of range.

  Not wanting to have my picture in the papers, either, I followed my grandmother into the house. She and Edna took a seat at a table for two. I gave Rose a small nod as I passed, leading the police into what we grandly called the drawing room.

  To my surprise, and obviously to Detective Redmond’s, before she could take a seat or ask a single question, Williams ordered her back outside to supervise the gathering of forensic evidence. She left the drawing room in a towering but silent rage, leaving me with Williams and a uniformed officer who didn’t seem to know how to talk.

  Once she’d gone, and the door had shut behind her, I calmly and efficiently—I hoped—told Detective Williams where I’d been and what I’d been doing this morning and how I’d come to discover Jack Ford at the bottom of the bluffs.

  He hadn’t asked me a single question about my previous encounters with Ford before telling me I was dismissed and asking the officer to show Bernie in next.

  Before going into the dining room to try to play the charming hostess, I’d called Cheryl and Marybeth and asked them to do what they could in the tearoom without me. They were able to make sandwiches, and I had an adequate supply of scones and pastries in the freezer in case of an emergency.

  A man dead on our property counts as an emergency.

  Edna had brought in the chocolate chip cookies I’d made for the children’s tea as well as some of the Buckingham Palace shortbread. When Bernie’s interrogation was over, I sent her into the kitchen to make more pots of coffee and tea, and Simon helped her ferry plates and cups back and forth.

  A couple of cops wandered into the dining room and wandered out again, clutching fistfuls of cookies.

  As I served and chatted, I kept one eye on the hallway. When it was Rose’s turn to be questioned in the drawing room, I asked Edna, in earshot of the police, to stand outside the room and help my grandmother when she was finished. What I really meant was for Edna to try to listen at the door and tell me what was going on. Too many people were coming and going for me to be able to stay hidden and eavesdrop.

  I hoped Rose didn’t say anything that would have her dragged out in handcuffs.

  About fifteen minutes later, Edna appeared at the door of the dining room. She gave me a quick nod and flicked her thumb down the hallway, telling me Rose was finished and was returning to her rooms. I nodded in acknowledgment.

  I wasn’t the B & B owner here; Rose was. I needed to get to my tearoom, and it should be up to Rose to placate her guests. But I didn’t want Rose having any more encounters with either the police or Gleeson and Goodwill.

  “More tea?” I asked a woman sitting by herself next to the windows and paying a lot of attention to the comings and goings.

  “Thank you. That would be great. Do you know what’s happening outside? So exciting, isn’t it, having the police poking around?”

  “Exciting, yes.” I poured the tea.
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  The police were finished with us sooner than I would have expected.

  The guests dispersed, Edna left, Bernie went home, declaring she was desperate to get out of her dress, and Simon returned to the gardens. The weekend housekeeper, Mrs. Zagorsky, arrived at eleven, as usual, and was running the vacuum cleaner through the dining room prior to doing up the bedrooms.

  Rose remained out of sight.

  Williams found me sitting on a reproduction antique chair at the reception desk in the hallway outside the drawing room, ordering supplies on my phone. I’d kept in touch with Cheryl and Marybeth, and they told me they’d gone through a prodigious amount of not only what I’d prepared for today but also my emergency supplies. I’d be working all night, trying to get more baking ready for tomorrow.

  “We’re done here for now,” Williams said. “You can have your house back.”

  I got to my feet. “Thank you.”

  “We’ve cordoned off the section of lawn near the staircase and the stairs themselves. No one’s to go there.”

  “I understand.”

  I fell into step beside him as he walked through the dining room toward the French doors. “Do you have any idea what might have happened?” I asked.

  “If I do, I won’t be sharing my insights with you,” he said.

  “Just asking.”

  “Tell me about this place. You run it?”

  “Not me. I own the tearoom by the main road. My grandmother’s in charge of the B & B.” Too late, I realized I’d stepped into a trap. Rose had, probably foolishly, continued to try to present herself as frail and slightly dotty. Not someone capable of running her own business. “Uh . . . ,” I said. “She has good staff.” As if on cue, over our heads the vacuum cleaner roared to life.

  Williams left, and I went into the kitchen. I needed to sit down, I needed a cup of coffee, I needed to think about what on earth was going on, and I needed to get to the tearoom and try to salvage the rest of the day. But most of all, I needed to talk to Rose.

  My phone buzzed with an incoming text.

  Bernie: Everything okay there? Cops gone?

  Me: Gone from the house. Still at the cliff and beach.

  Bernie: Need anything?

  Me: No. Thanks.

  Bernie: Okay then. Now to important stuff: tell me about that gardener!!!

  Me: Nothing to tell. Qualified. Looking for a job.

  Bernie: You sneaky girl. He’s hot, hot, hot. And that accent!!

  Me: I hadn’t noticed. Bye.

  Next, I texted Rose: Coast is clear. Where are you hiding?

  She answered immediately: Private room, of course.

  I groaned. Of course.

  I left the kitchen via the doors to the hallway and strolled casually past the drawing room. The door was open and no one was inside. Trying not to be too obvious about it, I ensured no one was around. The sound of Mrs. Zagorsky humming tunelessly while she made beds and tidied bathrooms drifted down the wide oak staircase. The downstairs utility closet, used for storing table linens, was tucked under the stairs. I opened the door. Two of the shelves had been removed and were leaning against the wall, and stacks of neatly folded and perfectly ironed linens were piled on the floor. I reached for the lever beneath the uppermost shelf and pulled. The bottom section of the wall slid open on silent hinges. I bent over and crawled in.

  The tiny room was comfortably furnished with a small table and a single wingback chair removed from service after a guest dropped a lit cigarette onto the soft seat. The guest had also been removed from service and shown the door. Rose’s laptop was open on the table; a tiny lamp illuminated the screen and keyboard.

  “You shouldn’t leave things out of place when you come in here,” I said to her in a quiet whisper.

  “Edna has finished for the day and Mrs. Z. has no reason to be in the downstairs linen closet. If one of the guests has the cheek to poke around behind closed doors, I’ll tell them I’m hunting for mice.”

  “I assume you heard everything?”

  “Not everything. Unfortunately, I had to wait in the dining room for them to question me, so I didn’t hear what you or Bernie had to say. You can fill me in. Do you think Jack Ford was murdered?”

  “Rose, I have no idea. But whatever happened to him, I wish it hadn’t been here.”

  The room, being under the staircase, had no windows. It was next to the drawing room, and not only was the adjoining wall excessively thin, but discrete holes had been driven through the lath and plaster, and were concealed on the other side by a picture of an eighteenth century warship in full sail hanging over them.

  We had not made the secret room, but we loved knowing it was there.

  This house had been used as a B & B before Rose bought it, but the previous owners had not lived in it. She wanted a full suite for herself on the ground floor and hired a contractor to make the necessary modifications. Before going ahead, Rose had carefully studied the architectural plans of the house, and discovered some, shall we say, discrepancies. Such as this carefully placed and hidden room.

  Only Rose and I knew about it.

  She got to her feet and switched off the lamp. In the darkness, I crawled back into the linen closet and listened at the door. All was quiet, so I opened the door, peeked out, and stepped into the hallway. Rose followed, and I slid the partition back into place, and replaced the shelves and linens.

  “That Inspector Williams . . . ,” Rose said.

  “Detective Williams,” I corrected.

  “Whatever. He’s surprisingly incompetent. Either that or excessively lazy.”

  “Don’t play him for a fool, Rose,” I said.

  “He is a fool. I suspect that young woman is not. She’ll get to the bottom of it.”

  “What do you know?”

  “Me? I know nothing. Nothing at all. No one Inspector Williams questioned claimed to know anything. I find it hard to believe that the late, unlamented Jack Ford was early for his meeting and decided to go for a stroll along my stretch of beach. But stranger things have happened. It has nothing to do with us.”

  “I won’t say I told you so, but I told you to get that gate fixed.”

  “Ask your young gardener to do that. I must say, he’s surprisingly handsome, isn’t he?”

  “Is he? I hadn’t noticed.”

  “You spend too much time in that tearoom, Lily.”

  “That tearoom is my livelihood,” I said.

  “Pshaw. The gardener at Thornecroft ran off with the cook’s assistant. That was my lucky break. I was promoted from kitchen maid to cook’s assistant. And as Mrs. Beans was a sloppy old drunk the family kept on out of loyalty—or perhaps she was bribing them—that meant I was, in fact, the head cook at Thornecroft.”

  I’d heard more than enough stories about the kitchens at Thornecroft over the years. “Yes, Rose. I know all that. It has nothing to do with what’s going on here. I have to get to the tearoom.”

  The front door opened, and a laughing couple in their midtwenties came in, arms wrapped around each other. Rose had earlier told me they were on their honeymoon, but she needn’t have bothered. It was written all over their faces and screamed out from their body language.

  “Good afternoon, Mrs. Campbell.” The woman was presumably addressing Rose, but she kept her eyes on the face of her new husband. “Another beautiful day.”

  “I hope the police activity hasn’t bothered you,” I said.

  She laughed. “Heavens no. We’ve been standing as close as we dare, watching. It’s like CSI come to life! Or a good police procedural novel. I belong to a mystery book club back home in Albany, and I can’t wait to tell my friends all about it. We’re going to wash up and go over to the tearoom.”

  They climbed the steps, smiling at each other and staring deeply into the eyes of their beloved. If they didn’t pay more attention to where they were putting their feet, I thought, we’d have another accident.

  I turned to see Rose studying me.

  �
�What?”

  “Young love. There’s nothing on earth like it.”

  “I wouldn’t know.”

  * * *

  At two o’clock, I was finally able to get away from the house, and I headed for the tearoom. The parking lot was full, and every table on the patio was occupied. I wouldn’t have time to bake many more pastries, so we might be able to offer only a cream tea this afternoon. The cookies in the freezer had been obliterated. As well as offering them to B & B guests ordered to remain in the house and to any cops who wandered through, I’d asked Edna to take some down to the forensic technicians and the officers guarding the scene.

  Never hurts to be friendly with the local police.

  She’d reported back that they were searching the top of the bluffs and the area at the foot of the stairs.

  I was opening the gate to the tearoom garden when I heard the sound of sirens approaching. A cruiser took the turn into our driveway on two wheels. It roared past me and came to a screeching halt in front of the house. A uniformed officer was driving, with Detective Williams in the front passenger seat and Detective Redmond in the back. They leapt out and raced up the steps.

  Guests enjoying their tea on the patio stood up to see what was going on, and others peered out the doors and windows. Someone pulled out binoculars they no doubt normally used for birding.

  I ran. I reached the house as the front door was opening in answer to Williams pounding on it. Rose’s face peeked out. She blinked in confusion. “Oh, good afternoon, Inspector. Did you forget something?”

  I galloped up the stairs. “What’s happening?”

  “I have further questions for you, Mrs. Campbell,” Williams said.

  “Let them in, Rose,” I said. The door swung open.

  “Tea, Inspector?” my grandmother asked.

  “Let’s go into the drawing room, shall we?” I glanced at Amy Redmond. Her face was impassive, but her eyes darted around the hallway, taking in the floor, tiled in black-and-white checks, the pale green wallpaper, the reproduction eighteenth-century English portraits, the recent photo of the queen framed and hanging over the reception desk, the neat stacks of Cape Cod tourist brochures laid out next to the vase of fresh flowers on the desk, the staircase with the scarlet runners and oak bannisters, the closed double doors leading into the dining room.