Gunpowder Green atsm-2

by Laura Childs

  “Isn’t this cozy? I had no idea you all knew each other.” Delaine Dish had slipped across the room and now raised a thin, penciled brow at Theodosia. She seemed to be waiting expectantly for some sort of explanation. Theodosia wondered how much Delaine had overheard.

  “Hello, Delaine,” said Lizbeth pleasantly. “Nice to see you again. Theodosia and I are getting pretty excited about the upcoming Spoleto Festival. She and I are both serving on committees.”

  “Spoleto,” purred Delaine. “Yes, that does happen soon, doesn’t it?”

  “It’s my third year on the ticket committee,” said Lizbeth smoothly.

  “The ticket committee,” said Delaine in her maddening, parrotlike manner. “Sounds terribly interesting.”

  “It is,” said Lizbeth, ignoring the fact that Delaine’s comments, delivered in a bored, flat tone, implied it wasn’t interesting at all. “As you probably know, tickets for the various Spoleto arts events are sold in packages.”

  “Mn-hm.” Delaine leaned in close and narrowed her eyes.

  “And our committee works out the various pairings.” Lizbeth ducked her head and grinned, and Theodosia could see that she was having a little fun with Delaine now. “Actually,” continued Lizbeth, “it’s kind of like seating guests at a dinner party. You try to pair the interesting ones with the shy ones. In this case, we pair the real blockbuster events with some of the events that people might perceive as sleepers but are, of course, really quite stimulating.”

  “What a quaint analogy,” murmured Delaine.

  “Delaine, come have your tea leaves read.” Drayton appeared at Delaine’s elbow. “Be a darling and go first, would you?” he whispered to her. “Help break the ice for the other guests.”

  Theodosia grinned as Delaine reluctantly allowed herself to be led over to Madame Hildegarde, a sixtyish woman in a flowing purple caftan, who was now ensconced at the small table next to the fireplace.

  Some forty minutes later, most everyone had departed. Angie Congdon, who owned the Featherbed House, one of the most popular B and Bs on The Battery, shared the honors for correctly guessing the murderer along with Tom Wigley, one of Drayton’s friends from the Heritage Society.

  “Drayton,” Haley urged, “you come have your tea leaves read.”

  “Oh, all right,” he agreed reluctantly.

  “Don’t be such a curmudgeon,” Haley scolded as she slid her chair over to make room for Drayton. “Madame Hildegarde just told me I was going to meet someone verrry interesting. Maybe she’ll have something equally exciting for you.”

  “Maybe she’ll predict when this storm will end and I can get out and work in my garden,” fretted Drayton.

  Madame Hildegarde gazed at Drayton with hawklike gray eyes. “Drayton doesn’t care for prognostication,” she said with a heavy accent. “Doesn’t want to look ahead, only behind.” She laughed heartily, taking a friendly jab at his penchant for all things historical.

  “You know how it works,” Madame Hildegarde told him as she poured a fresh cup of tea. “Your teacup represents the vastness of the sky, the tea leaves are the stars and the myriad possibilities. Drink your tea.” She motioned with her hand. “And turn the cup upside down. Then I read.”

  Drayton complied as the remaining guests gathered round him to watch.

  “An audience,” he joked. “Just what I don’t need.”

  But Lizbeth Cantrell and her aunt Millicent, Theodosia, Delaine Dish, and Miss Dimple and her brother crowded around him, anyway. The rain was pelting against the windows now, and there was no question of leaving until it let up some.

  “You want to ask a question or just have me read?” Madame Hildegarde asked Drayton.

  “Just read,” he said. “Give it to me straight.”

  “Oh,” cooed Miss Dimple, “this is so interesting.”

  Madame Hildegarde flipped over Drayton’s cup and carefully studied the leaves that clung to the bottom inside the white porcelain cup.

  “Oh, oh, a love triangle,” joked Haley.

  Madame Hildegarde held up a hand. “No. The leaves predict change. A big change is coming.”

  Drayton frowned. “Change. Goodness me, I certainly hope not. I detest change.”

  Madame Hildegarde was undeterred. “Change,” she said again. “Tea leaves don’t lie. Especially not tonight.”

  Drayton cleared his throat somewhat uneasily. “Someone else try,” he urged. He was obviously unhappy being the center of attention and having a spotlight placed on his future.

  “I’ll try,” volunteered Lizbeth Cantrell.

  “Excellent,” said Drayton as he slipped out of his chair and relinquished it to Lizbeth Cantrell. “Another brave soul hoping to have her future divined.”

  Madame Hildegarde poured a small cup of tea and passed it over to Lizbeth. She drank it quickly, then, without waiting to be told, flipped the teacup upside down and pushed it toward Madame Hildegarde.

  “I’d like to ask a question,” she said.

  Madame Hildegarde locked eyes with Lizbeth as the fire crackled and hissed behind her. “Go ahead,” she urged.

  Theodosia held her breath. In that split second, she knew what was coming. She knew what Lizbeth Cantrell was going to ask. And she wished with all her heart that she wouldn’t. Because, deep inside, Theodosia was afraid of what Madame Hildegarde’s answer would be.

  “Who killed Oliver Dixon?” Lizbeth Cantrell asked in a whisper.

  A hush fell over the room. Madame Hildegarde reached for the cup, her opal ring dancing with fire, and began to turn the cup over slowly.

  As she did, the tea shop was plunged into sudden darkness.

  A heavy thump at the front door was followed by a loud crash. Then Haley screamed, “Someone’s at the window!”

  “What’s happening?” shrieked Miss Dimple. “What was that noise? Where are the lights?”

  A second crash sounded, this time right at Theodosia’s feet.

  “No one move,” commanded Theodosia as she began to pick her way gingerly across the room. Guided by the flickering firelight and her familiarity with the tea shop, she headed unerringly toward the counter. “There’s a lantern behind the cash register,” she told everyone. “Give me a moment and I’ll get it.”

  Within seconds, the lantern flared, illuminating the tea shop like a weak torch`ere and catching everyone with surprised looks on their faces.

  Haley immediately rushed to the door and threw it open. There was no one there.

  “They’re gone,” she said, confusion written on her face.

  “Who’s gone?” asked Theodosia as she came up behind her and peered out. Up and down Church Street not a single light shone. The entire street was eerily dark.

  “The shadow, the person, whatever was here,” Haley said. “It just vanished.”

  “Like a ghost,” said Miss Dimple in a tremulous voice.

  “There’s no such thing as ghosts,” spoke Drayton.

  “It looked like a ghost,” said Miss Dimple rather insistently. “I saw something at the window just before we heard that thump. It was kind of wavery and transparent. Did you see it, too, Haley?”

  Haley continued to gaze out into the street, a frown creasing her face. “Someone was here,” she declared.

  Theodosia spun about and turned her gaze on Madame Hildegarde. “The teacup, what was the answer in the teacup?” she asked.

  Madame Hildegarde pointed toward the floor and, in the dim light, Theodosia could see shattered fragments strewn across the wood planks.

  “Gone.” Madame Hildegarde shook her head with regret. “All gone.”

  Chapter 21

  Sunday morning dawned with swirls of pink and gold painting the sky. The rain had finally abated, and the few clouds remaining seemed like wisps of cotton that had been tightly wrung out.

  The slight haze that hung over Charleston Harbor would probably burn off by noon, but by ten A.M., tourists who’d been hunkered down in inns, hotels, and bed-andbreakfasts thro
ughout the historic district, fretting mightily that their weekend in Charleston might be a total washout, began emerging in droves. They meandered the sidewalks, taking in the historic houses and antique shops. They shopped the open air market and bought strong, steaming cups of chicory coffee from vendors. And they strolled cobblestone lanes to gaze upon the Powder Magazine, one of the oldest public buildings in the Carolinas, and Cabbage Row, the quaint area that inspired Porgy and Bess, George and Ira Gershwin’s beloved folk opera.

  Whipping along Highway 700, the Mayfield Highway, in her Jeep, Theodosia was headed for the low-country. She told herself she was making a Sunday visit to her aunt Libby’s, but she also knew she’d probably do a drive-by of Ford Cantrell’s place, too. Sneak a peak, see what all this game ranch fuss was about.

  Earl Grey sat complacently beside her in the passenger seat, his long ears flapping in the wind, velvet muzzle poked out the open window as he drank in all manner of intoxicating scents.

  With all this sunshine and fine weather, the events of last night seemed almost distant to Theodosia. Of course, even after the power had come back on some ten minutes later, Haley had insisted that someone had been lurking outside. And Miss Dimple had clung hopefully to her notion that a ghost, possibly induced by all the psychic energy they’d generated, had paid them all a visit last night.

  Theodosia was fairly sure that if anything had been at the window last night, it had been a window peeper. A real person. Which begged the question, Who in his right mind would be sneaking about on a cold, rainy night, peeping in windows?

  On the other hand, maybe the person hadn’t been in his right mind. Last night’s peeper could have been angry, worried, or just frantically curious about someone who’d been attending the mystery tea.

  Theodosia frowned and, just above her eyebrows, tiny lines creased her fair skin. Then she made a hard right, jouncing onto County Road 6, and her facial muscles relaxed. She was suddenly engulfed in a tangle of forest, a multihued tapestry of green.

  Years ago, more than 150 thousand low-country acres had served as prime rice-growing country, producing the creamy short-grain rice that had been Carolina gold. Fields had alternately been flooded and drained as seasons changed and the cycle of planting, growing, and harvesting took place. Remnants of old rice dikes and canals were still visible in some places, green humps and gentle indentations overgrown now by creeping vines of Carolina jessamine and enormous hedges of azaleas.

  Many of these rice fields had also reverted to swampland, providing ideal habitat for ducks, pheasants, and herons. And over the years, hurricanes and behemoth storm surges, the most recent wrought by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, had forged new courses in many of the low-country creeks and streams.

  As a child visiting her aunt Libby, Theodosia had explored many of the low-country’s tiny waterways in a bateau, or flat-bottomed boat. Poling her way along, she had often dabbled a fishing line into the water and, when luck was with her, returned home with a nice redfish or jack crevalle.

  “Aunt Libby!” Theodosia waved wildly at the small, silver-haired woman who stood on the crest of the hill gazing toward a sparkling pond.

  “You’ve brought the good weather with you,” said Libby Revelle as she greeted her niece. “And none too soon. Hello there, Earl Gray.” She reached down and patted the dog, who spun excitedly in circles. “Come to tree my poor possums?”

  Libby Revelle, who loved all manner of beast and bird, spent much of her time feeding wild birds and setting out cracklins and pecan meal for the raccoons, foxes, possums, and rabbits that lived in the swamps and pine forests around her old plantation, Cane Ridge. Of course, when Earl Grey paid a visit, the critters she had so patiently coaxed and cajoled suddenly went into hiding and all her goodwill gestures went up in smoke.

  Theodosia put her arm around Libby as they started toward the main house. Theodosia’s father, Macalester Browning, had grown up here at Cane Ridge, and her parents had lived here when they were first married.

  Built in 1835 near Horlbeck Creek, Cane Ridge had been a flourishing rice plantation in its day. Now it was an elegant woodland retreat. With its steeply pitched roof and fanciful peaks and gables, the main house had always reminded Theodosia of a Hansel and Gretel cottage, although the style was technically known as Gothic Revival.

  “Tell me the news,” coaxed Libby as they settled into creaking, oversized wicker chairs and looked out toward the woods from the broad piazza that stretched around three sides of the house. “How are Drayton and Haley?” Libby asked. “And did you ever decide to hire that sweet little bookkeeper?”

  “Drayton and Haley are fine,” said Theodosia. “Like oil and water sometimes, but they’re delightful and caring and keep things humming. Our new bookkeeper, Miss Dimple, is an absolute whiz. What a load off my mind since she’s been handling payables and receivables. Why did I ever think I could handle the books myself?”

  “Because, my dear, you believe you are capable of handling just about anything. In most cases, you can, but when it comes to the business of accounting, I think that’s best left to an expert.”

  Theodosia smiled to herself. When her mother passed away, Aunt Libby, newly widowed, had stepped in and helped with so many things in the realm of child rearing. One of those was homework. Theodosia had excelled in subjects such as English and composition and history but had foundered at math. Algebra was gut-wrenching, geometry a foreign puzzle. Libby had seen her consternation and struggle with numbers and encouraged her gently. But Theodosia had never really gained complete mastery in that area.

  “You heard about Oliver Dixon,” said Theodosia.

  “I’ve heard about Oliver Dixon from the horse’s mouth,” said Libby.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Lizbeth Cantrell stopped by this past week,” said Libby. “Told me that her brother was being questioned, asked lots of questions about you.”

  “I figured as much,” said Theodosia.

  “Did she ask you to help?” asked Libby.

  Theodosia sighed. “Yes.”

  “Are you going to?”

  “I told her I’d try. I’m not sure there’s much I can do, though,” said Theodosia.

  Libby leaned forward in her chair and grasped Theodosia’s hands. “Don’t sell yourself short,” she said. “You have a relationship with the investigating officer.”

  “You mean Tidwell?”

  “Yes. Of course.”

  “I’m not sure I’d call it a relationship,” said Theodosia, who considered their standoffish treatment of each other as bordering on adversarial.

  “Then call it a nodding acquaintance,” said Libby. “But you are in a position to affect and impact his thinking.”

  “I suppose so,” said Theodosia, not quite convinced.

  Libby smiled. “Good.” She released Theodosia’s hands and sat back in her chair. “Then do what you do best. Nose about, ask questions, trust in your instincts. You’re good at solving mysteries, Theodosia. We all know that.”

  “And if Ford Cantrell really is guilty?” asked Theodosia.

  “Then he’s guilty,” said Libby. “But at least you tried. At least you put forth your best efforts. I know Lizbeth would appreciate that.”

  Theodosia stared toward the pond. With the sun a great golden orb in the sky now, it caught each gentle ripple and cast diamonds across the water. Around the edge of the pond, bright green fronds of saw grass waved gently in breezes that carried just a hint of salt.

  Theodosia shifted her gaze to the left of the pond, to the small family cemetery. Dogwoods were beginning to bloom, and crape myrtle poked over the crumbling stone wall that surrounded the small plot. Her mother and father both rested here, under the ancient live oak that spread its sheltering branches above them. Her mother had died when she was eight, her father when she was twenty. The sorrow she had once felt had long been replaced by gentle sadness, tempered with warm memories that would always be there, always live on.

  “Liz
beth Cantrell was around when Mother was so sick, wasn’t she?” said Theodosia.

  “Indeed she was,” said Libby.

  “I’d forgotten a lot of that, but now it’s coming back to me.”

  They sat and watched as Earl Grey emerged from the woods, plunked himself down in a sunny spot, and set about chewing at a clutch of cockleburs that clung stubbornly to his left shoulder. There was no need for the two of them to talk. Over the years, they’d said it all. They were all the other had; there were no other relatives. They knew in their hearts how important they were to each other and cherished that knowledge. Their kind of love didn’t require words.

  Finally, Libby pushed herself up from her chair. At seventy-two, she still had a lithe figure and proud carriage, still walked with a bounce in her step.

  “I think it’s time we thought about lunch. Margaret Rose baked cranberry bread yesterday, and I threw together some chicken salad earlier. Why not fix trays and eat out here where we can enjoy the view? It’ll be ever so much nicer.”

  Theodosia hit the wooden bridge on Rutledge Road much too hard, almost jouncing her and Earl Grey out of their seats.

  “Sorry, fella,” she murmured as the dog looked up with questioning eyes. Earl Grey had played and chased and worried critters for the better part of three hours and then fallen asleep on the backseat, which Theodosia had laid flat for this second part of their trip.

  “I know the turn for the Cantrell place is somewhere along here,” she said out loud. “I just haven’t been down this particular road in fifteen years, so it’s all a little foggy.”

  Twenty minutes ago, she’d passed the restored Hampton Plantation where Archibald Hampton, the former poet laureate of South Carolina, had lived. She was pretty sure the old Hampton place was on the way to the Cantrells’ place, so she had to be on the right track.

  “There is it....Oh mother of pearl!” Theodosia cranked the wheel hard to the left and still overshot the turn. Slamming on the brakes, the Jeep shuddered to a halt. At the same exact moment, she felt the right side of her vehicle sink down into squishy soil.