She sent me a hopeful look. “Do you think so?”
“Could be, or it could be some other problem altogether.”
“That’s what I thought after I saw her that night. Then when I heard those choir women at Stanley’s funeral say they thought Samantha killed her father for the inheritance, I began to wonder.” Dorothy looked at me, embarrassed. “I know. I shouldn’t listen to gossip, but when it went around town that Stanley left everything to his daughter in his will, I worried it might be true.”
“Tell you what. I’ll go see Samantha once we get through the tea and offer a listening ear—if she wants it.”
“Thank you, Pastor. I feel much better now,” Dorothy said, blowing her nose again. “Now let’s finish up the cucumbers so we can get cracking on those lemon squares.”
As I sliced the final cucumber, I recalled Samantha’s words in the diner after her father’s death: “What are we going to do? I don’t know what to do. What if someone finds out?” And my stomach turned.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Saturday morning at seven forty-five, I hurried over to the church with my lists and the ham slices and cream cheese spread to get a head start on the preparations for the eleven-thirty tea. The tables had all been set up and decorated last night, with the exception of last-minute-addition Megan, Bonnie, and Riley’s, which was half done. They had left early to search out more decorations and promised to be in first thing this morning to finish their table.
I ran through the final prep in my head as I walked toward the parish hall. Sandwich fixings? Check. Patricia had made up her delicious salmon salad last night and stuck it in the church refrigerator, ready for spreading onto buttermilk bread this morning. Dorothy had stored the cream cheese, butter, and dill mixture for the cucumber sandwiches in a plastic container in the fridge, next to the container of cucumbers sprinkled with water to keep them from drying out overnight, and I had the final sandwich ingredients in my hands. I planned three assembly-line stations with two sandwich makers apiece.
Scones and cream? Check. Elizabeth had delivered the Devonshire cream from Whole Foods last night as promised, and Patricia and Liliane would be bringing the two kinds of scones.
Desserts? Check. Dorothy’s famous lemon squares were in the fridge, while Lottie’s brownies sat covered on the counter. Susan’s miniature fruit tarts would arrive with her this morning.
Tea? Check. In addition to my beloved PG Tips (which we were calling English Breakfast for a more elegant cachet), we were also serving classic Earl Grey, and a peach herbal for those who needed decaf—or as I thought of them, the decaffeinators.
Flowers? Check. Bonnie had placed her gorgeous flower arrangements on each table last night. The profusion of yellow, coral, cream, lavender, and two-shades-of-pink cabbage roses in china teapots elicited exclamations of delight from the prep workers. The main centerpiece took pride of place on the food table—a stunning arrangement of roses, lavender, delphiniums, and my favorite, pink peonies.
Entering the kitchen, I froze. The loaves of bread we’d left sitting neatly on the counter were ripped open and dumped onto the floor. Patricia’s bowl of salmon spread, the plastic wrap removed, lay tipped over on the counter, the contents spilled out, leaving a faint scent of fish gone bad. I turned and surveyed the rest of the room in a daze. Next to the ruined salmon salad stood the expensive jars of Devonshire cream, opened. Wait, is that mold? I stepped closer and peered inside. Not mold. Black pepper. Someone had put pepper into each bottle of cream, rendering it inedible.
The cucumbers Dorothy and I had sliced yesterday were dumped into the sink. The two pans of Lottie’s petite brownies that had been sitting on the counter last night were down to one pan now. Oh no, what about the lemon squares? I rushed to the fridge, where I was relieved to find both pans intact. Small consolation. Now I knew what the police term malicious mischief meant. Vandals had broken in and destroyed things. But why? Had anything been stolen? I looked around to check. The only thing missing was one pan of Lottie’s brownies. Apparently, the thief is a chocoholic, but how did he—or she—get in? I looked for broken glass from a window, but there was none. Did someone not close the door tightly when we left last night? Who was the last to leave?
A shriek sent me rushing from the kitchen into the parish hall.
Megan, Riley, and Patricia stared openmouthed at the tables. “What happened to my mom’s flowers?” Megan said, her hand to her mouth. My eyes tracked her horrified gaze to see that all the roses on every table—save the food table centerpiece—had been snipped off, leaving a bunch of naked stems in each teapot.
“Oh no! Not here too.”
Former cop Patricia sent me a sharp glance. “What do you mean, too?”
I told them about the food destruction. A scowling Patricia headed to the kitchen, but Riley and Megan remained rooted to the spot. “Who would do such a horrible thing?” Megan wailed.
Trailing my vestry senior warden, I heard Patricia’s gasp, followed by an expletive.
“I know. I’m so sorry about your salmon salad.”
Patricia pulled out her phone.
“What are you doing?”
“Calling Harold.”
I laid my hand on her arm. “Please don’t.” I showed Patricia the rest of the damage, ending with the missing pan of brownies. Then I directed her to the locked and unbroken windows. “The kitchen door was locked when I arrived.”
“So was the parish hall door. I unlocked it.” Patricia opened the outside kitchen door and examined the lock. “No scratches or indications that someone jimmied the lock.” She closed the door and narrowed her eyes. “This wasn’t a break-in. Whoever did this had a key.”
That’s what I was afraid of.
We exchanged glances. Patricia put her phone away.
Someone from Faith Chapel had deliberately sabotaged the tea.
A tearful Megan and Riley entered the kitchen, followed by Susan, carrying a tray of her mini fruit tarts. “What the hell?” Susan said, upon seeing the ruined food. “Sorry. Heck.” She set the tarts down at the farthest end of the counter away from the spoiled fish.
Riley then informed us that the sugar bowls on every table contained salt, not sugar. When she set down her bag of decorations, she’d inadvertently knocked over the sugar bowl on their table. In the process of cleaning up the spilled granules, she had licked a stray granule off her finger and tasted salt. She then checked all the other tables and found salt as well.
Why did I suddenly feel like Lot’s wife?
At that moment, the back kitchen door flew open to admit Dorothy, Lottie, and Liliane bearing bags of scones. “Good morning, everyone,” Dorothy sang out. “Isn’t this a lovely day for a tea?”
Silence.
“Why all the glum looks?” Then she saw. “Oh my goodness!” Dorothy dropped her bag of scones and sat down heavily on a stool, gripping her cane.
“What happened?” Liliane asked, her eyes widening at the carnage.
Lottie cried, “Everything’s ruined! We’ll have to cancel the tea.”
“Oh no, we’re not canceling anything,” I said. “We all worked too hard on this.”
“But the salmon salad can’t be used,” Dorothy said. “We’re not going to have enough sandwiches now.” Then she noticed the opened jars of spoiled cream on the counter. “Not the cream!” Her eyes glistened with unshed tears, and her mouth quivered. “We can’t have an English tea without Devonshire cream.”
Looking around at the dejected group, I said, “Hang on a minute. Let me think.”
Lord, how I wish Virginia were here—she’s always good in a crisis, particularly a food one.
“Snap out of it!” Cher’s Moonstruck voice sounded in my head.
Wait a minute: food crisis and Virginia. I had helped my sister-in-law cater events in the past, and there were occasionally food hiccups and sometimes full-on crises. Virginia never let it throw her, though. She always had a plan B. We needed a plan B. I thought for
a few moments, then pulled out my phone and did a quick Google search. Got it.
“Okay, everyone, here’s what we’re going to do.”
I sent Megan and Riley to the market to pick up more bread and the other items I needed. Susan told the teens that if the market came up short on anything, they should go to the diner and Mike would make up the food difference. Then I directed Lottie to dump all the salt from the sugar bowls and replace it with sugar. After she finished that, she could fill the jam and lemon curd dishes. Before I could ask, Patricia dumped the ruined cream and salmon salad into the trash, along with the spoiled cucumbers. She took the trash to the dumpster. Susan wiped the counters down, and Liliane opened the windows to air out the kitchen. I tasked Dorothy with placing all the scones on the tea trays.
Then I called Bonnie.
“Megan already told me,” she said, crying. “I can’t believe it. Who would do something like this?”
“I know. I am so sorry this happened to your beautiful flowers. Thankfully, they left your amazing centerpiece alone.” Then, since time was of the essence, I asked if she could come a little early and bring seven single roses or carnations that I could place on each table in bud vases. “And Bonnie?”
“Yes, Pastor?”
“Let’s keep this between us. You know how fast word travels. No need to upset our guests and spoil their afternoon.”
“You got it.”
Once Megan and Riley returned from the store, I gathered everyone around and said, “What happened here stays here. No one else needs to know about this. For some reason, someone, or someones, wanted to disrupt this community event, but we’re not going to let them. Are we?”
“No,” Riley said.
“What was that?”
“No!” the rest of the group chorused.
“Well, all righty then.” I wanted to close with an inspiring Downton Abbey quote, but the only one that came to mind was Maggie Smith asking, “What is a weekend?” I decided to go with an old sports-movie quote instead. Punching the air, I said, “Now let’s go out there and win one for the Gipper!”
Megan and Riley gave me blank looks.
The over-seventies smiled, and Susan burst out laughing. “Okay, Knute Rockne. Or is that Ronald Reagan?”
Then I gave everyone their marching orders. While Susan quickly sliced the replacement cucumbers, I began whipping the mock Devonshire cream—the recipe for which I had found on my phone—and the others started assembling sandwiches.
Half an hour later, with everyone’s help, the sandwiches were finished and the mock cream—not as thick as the real stuff—rested in individual serving bowls in the fridge, waiting to be placed on tables at the last possible moment. Dorothy cut her lemon squares while Susan placed her mini fruit tarts on the top of each tiered tray and Lottie and Patricia topped the petite brownies with whipped cream and a cherry.
I left the kitchen to go put the individual flowers in the bud vases. When I reentered the hall, I blinked at what I saw. Bonnie, Megan, and Riley were just finishing lush new floral arrangements in the denuded teapots. Instead of a mass of cabbage roses, each teapot now held clusters of pink-and-white mini carnations, three complementary roses, greenery, and one ruffled pink peony in the center. The snipped off cabbage-rose heads nestled against the base of each teapot, offering a fragrant foundation.
“Wh … how … how did you do that?” I asked.
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way,” Megan said. “Right, Mom?”
“Right,” Bonnie said, hugging her smiling daughter, while Riley grinned.
“Thank you so much. Everything looks beautiful.” I glanced at my watch. Twenty minutes until show time. I puffed out a sigh of relief. Everything was running like clockwork. Harold, Christopher, and the rest of the male servers would be arriving at any moment.
“Hope,” Patricia called from the kitchen. “Can you come here, please?”
“What’s up?” I asked as I returned to the food hub.
“We’re short on the third dessert. There’s not enough brownies for each table.”
Lottie looked downcast.
I groaned. I had forgotten all about the missing pan of brownies. Too late to send anyone to the store to buy cookies. I looked around the expectant group. What could we use to fill in for the absent petite dessert? My Walkers shortbread would be perfect, but I didn’t have time to go home and get it. Besides, there were only three left in the package.
Pulling out my phone, I punched in a number. “Bethann, can you do me a huge favor?”
* * *
The tea was a rousing success.
“Oh my goodness,” said an elderly woman from First Baptist. “Look at those beautiful floral arrangements with the gorgeous peony in the center.”
“And all the fabulous table decorations,” her younger friend said. “I’ve never seen anything like this. I feel as if I’m in England or Scotland.”
As predicted, Riley’s painting of the English cottage garden on fabric was a huge hit. “It’s so beautiful,” several tea guests exclaimed. “Exquisite,” one woman breathed. The latter sought out Riley to say she’d commission her to paint something similar for her home.
After welcoming everyone and offering a blessing, I announced that we had encountered some unexpected technical difficulties and had had to make some last-minute adjustments to the menu. “I can tell you, though, that I’ve been nibbling in the kitchen all morning,” I said, “and everything is absolutely delicious, so please dig in.”
The women raved over the food, inhaling the ham sandwiches and saying they liked the touch of childhood whimsy in the heart-shaped PB&J sandwiches and the bite-sized Twinkies sliced horizontally and then vertically in half to resemble a cream puff of sorts. The scones were the biggest hit, however.
“So decadent.”
“I know. Who would have thought to put jam and cream on a scone? Yum!”
Baptists broke bread with Catholics, Episcopalians chatted with charismatics, Buddhists sipped tea with Presbyterians, and nondenominationalists swapped recipes with New Agers and nonchurchgoers. As Father Christopher refilled the teacups at my table, he murmured in my ear, “Great job, Hope. Another home run.”
The trio of Riley, Megan, and Bonnie won the prize for Best Decorated Table for their fun and creative reimagining of the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party. I presented them with a gift basket of assorted teas and chocolates. “You’ll have to fight over the See’s Candy.”
* * *
Afterward during cleanup, Lottie avoided me. I took her outside, away from everyone, and said, “Do you have something you’d like to tell me?”
Lottie broke down weeping. “I’m so sorry, Pastor Hope. I didn’t want to do it, but Marjorie and I have been friends for a long time. I owe her a lot. She was so angry, and she has a way of making people do what she wants.” She squared her shoulders and looked me in the eye. “That is no excuse, however. What I did was awful and unforgivable.”
“Nothing’s unforgivable, Lottie,” I said softly.
Another outbreak of weeping followed.
“It could have been worse. All the food could have been ruined, leaving me with no alternative than to cancel the tea, but it wasn’t. Just a few items. I think perhaps you had something to do with that, yes?”
Lottie nodded. Then she told me everything.
* * *
Fifteen minutes later, after securing Lottie’s promise not to talk to Marjorie, I knocked on the cradle Episcopalian’s door, a plate of leftovers in hand.
“Lottie, I’ve been trying to reach you,” Marjorie said, flinging open the door. “Oh, it’s you.”
“May I come in?” I extended the plate to her. “I brought goodies from the tea—everything was delicious. I’m sorry you missed it. It was quite an event.”
Marjorie’s nostrils flared, and she turned her back on me. “I have nothing to say to you.”
“But I have something to say to you. We can do this inside or out here on t
he porch, where your neighbors can see and hear. It’s up to you.”
She huffed and retreated into the house. At least she didn’t slam the door in my face.
“Marjorie,” I said as I followed her into the living room. “It was never my intent to steal the tea away from you. I understand you were hurt and angry—that was why I came here and apologized and tried to make amends. But then I showed you the sketch of Ruby Garnette, and that was that.”
Marjorie whirled around at the sound of Ruby’s name.
Was that fear I saw on her face?
“Where did you hear that name?” she stammered.
“From a Nevada City docent. There’s a beautiful oil portrait of Ruby in the theater there,” I said, “painted by your great-grandfather Richard Chamberlain. He loved her, didn’t he?”
“No! She was nothing but a dance hall hussy.” Marjorie spat the words out. “A soiled dove who shared her body with any man who had two shiny nickels to rub together.”
“What happened?” I said gently. “Did she cheat on your grandfather and he found out and killed her?”
“No. Supposedly she ‘fell in love’ and became a one-man woman.” Marjorie snorted. “Grandpa Richard was completely besotted. She really snookered him. Thought she could hitch a ride on the gravy train of the Chamberlain money for the rest of her life.”
“They got married?”
“A Chamberlain and some harlot named Ruby Garnette?” Her voice dripped with disdain. “Not likely. His mother, my grandmother Cordelia, would never allow that to happen.” Marjorie’s eyes took on a haunted look. “And she didn’t.”
I stared at her, realization dawning. “Your great-great-grandmother killed Ruby, didn’t she?”
Marjorie sat down hard on her Victorian sofa and released a weary sigh. “Now that you know our dirty laundry, I suppose you’re going to start blackmailing me too, just like Stanley did.”
The pieces fell into place. Extortion. “That’s why you sold your house to Stanley. He found out about Ruby.”
She nodded. “Years ago at Chamberlain House during one of my Christmas Eve open houses, Stanley was snooping around, unbeknownst to me. He found a leather-bound journal that had belonged to my great-grandfather.” Marjorie passed a shaking hand over her face. “Two weeks later Stanley paid me a private visit, journal in hand. He announced that Cordelia Chamberlain, my grandfather’s mother, had murdered a dance hall floozy to prevent her from marrying her son.” Marjorie’s eyes narrowed. “I’ll never forget the contemptuous look on that vile man’s face or the way he talked to me. Stanley said he wondered what that information would do to the respected Chamberlain name and reputation if it was made public.”
Hope, Faith, and a Corpse Page 22