Tempest in a Teapot (A Teapot Collector Mystery)

by Amanda Cooper

  “Gosh, no! I don’t go in any kitchen unless I have to.”

  “You can’t cook?”

  Gretchen looked smug. “I didn’t say I couldn’t, I just don’t. Honey, every Southern girl with a proper mama is taught how to make biscuits and gravy, grits, greens, the whole bit. I can cook a ham hock with the best of ’em, but I’ll deny it if you ever tell anyone!” She laughed, a lovely tinkling sound.

  Sophie could see how one could be charmed by Gretchen Harcourt, and wondered how much of the Southern girl act was fake, as Cissy seemed to think it was. “So you don’t know for sure what the argument was over and why Marva left?” Gretchen shook her head, so Sophie asked, “Do the police know Marva was there?”

  “Good lord, I don’t know. And I am not going to be the one to tell them. Hollis would have my head on a platter if I told the cops his mother was at that tea party.”

  Then I will, Sophie thought. She was also going to have to track Cissy down, with the excuse of talking about the party, and pump her for information about a number of things, including whether she had invited Belinda Blenkenship to the engagement tea. Of course, Cissy would want to know the truth about the murder because she sure would not want her grandmother accused of the crime. “Okay, let’s figure out where we are with this bridal shower. I’m going to do a brief tea talk, and the presentation of the tea-a-ra.” She explained what that was to Gretchen, who clapped her hands and said it sounded darling. “Cissy will wear it while she opens her gifts.”

  Sophie took notes as they talked. Gretchen was going to take care of the invitations that very day and because of the late date would hand deliver them, except to the out-of-town folks.

  “Can you give me a list later of all the invitees?” Sophie asked. “I need to know food allergies, et cetera.”

  “I never thought of that, though I should have after that dreadful engagement tea. Vivienne made such a big deal out of her allergies.”

  “I heard that,” Sophie said, looking up from her notes. “Did she say what she was allergic to?”

  “There was a list. Shellfish. Peanuts. Red dye. MSG.”

  “Red dye?” That pinged in Sophie’s mind, as she considered the plate of red-velvet cupcakes.

  “Just one of many.”

  “Was it common knowledge, her allergies?”

  “Well, sure. She made it known at the country club, anyway. I can’t say more than that.”

  “Uh, Gretchen, who put out the cupcakes? Do you remember?”

  “Well, that helper, Gilda, brought them out.”

  “But who arranged the platter?”

  She paused for a long moment, looking uncomfortable. “I haven’t a clue. I told you, I wasn’t in the kitchen. We had already eaten the awful finger sandwiches and hard-as-a-rock biscuits or scones, or whatever you call them, by then. I wasn’t going to risk a cupcake. Why, is it . . . is it important?”

  “I don’t know. Probably not.”

  “I have to go,” Gretchen said, suddenly. She stood and fussed for a moment with her cuffs and purse, but then said, “Look, you’re not going to tell anyone that Forsythe and I were out there talking, are you?”

  “Why would I?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. It’s just . . . it might look bad. Lots of folks don’t like Forsythe. He can be . . . mischievous, in what he says.”

  “Mischievous?”

  “You know . . . imply things, make comments, snarky, but funny.”

  That was the second person who had warned her about Forsythe. “I see. I have no reason to mention that you were both on the street talking,” Sophie said.

  She looked relieved, but simply twiddled her fingers in farewell and sailed out the door into the May sunshine.

  Something was off there, but Sophie couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Gretchen had looked uneasy, certainly, at the mention of the cupcakes, but she didn’t look guilty.

  Back at Auntie Rose’s Sophie barely had time to unload her purchases from Libby Lemon’s and make a quick call to the police to give them the info that in case no one had mentioned it, Marva Harcourt had been at the engagement tea party before the deadly cupcake incident. Then she was thrown into the afternoon’s schedule. It was a busy day, with a Red Hat luncheon, a bridge club outing and two bus tours, as well as lots of other drop-in customers.

  One table in particular intrigued Sophie. The group was a gathering of Gracious Grove businesswomen, among them Libby Lemon proprietor Elizabeth Lemmon, a middle-aged woman with fluffy, dark hair drawn back with a yellow headband. It was the same group that the proprietor of GiGi’s French Pastries belonged to, though she was not present. Sophie introduced herself, and mentioned how much she had enjoyed going in to the kitchenware store. Then she asked about joining their women’s group, since the tearoom was run by her and her grandmother, Rose Freemont.

  “We’d be pleased to have you both!” Elizabeth said. She glanced over at one of the other women at the table, who nodded. “We also have a political action group many of us belong to. Some of the older women in Gracious Grove think we’re a little too active in that way. Would you be interested in joining that?”

  “Not right now,” Sophie said, glancing around the room. She’d need to get back to checking on tables and bussing them. “I’m not a very political person, actually.”

  “And you haven’t been back in Gracious Grove long. I’ll bet once you see how this town has changed in the last ten years, the way the good-old-boy network is using the town like its personal fiefdom, you may decide to join.”

  Sophie let that sink in a moment. “Do you mean the mayor and council might not be acting in the best interests of the town?”

  Most of the women nodded and one snickered. Elizabeth said, “I won’t say all that I believe, but yes, we think there is money changing hands inappropriately for things like land zoning and bylaw changes. We feel that conflict-of-interest laws aren’t being followed and we’re worried about the future of Gracious Grove.”

  Someone on the other side of the room was waving her hand and asking for another pot of tea; Sophie acknowledged them as her mind spun, thinking about the newspaper headlines and all she had heard of annexation and development deals and the network of businessmen running it all. “Ms. Lemmon, what would happen if someone stood in the way of their plans?”

  “What do you mean?” She looked alarmed, her lined face pinched in a worried expression.

  “Never mind.” She didn’t want to be precipitate and say something she ought not to say. “I have to excuse myself, ladies,” she said. “Let me think about this some.”

  “Certainly. But regardless, we would welcome you and your grandmother to sit in on a meeting of the Gracious Grove Businesswomen’s Association. No pressure.”

  Sophie smiled and nodded, then went to the aid of her customer.

  When they closed up, she shooed her grandmother and Laverne out and cleaned up the place herself, vacuuming, wiping down the tables and chairs, dusting, doing a load of linens in the professional washer and dryer tucked away in the corner of the kitchen, and setting up the tearoom for the next day. Cut tulips and daffodils would be delivered first thing in the morning, and the tables would look lovely, as always.

  Occasionally she glanced over at Belle Époque and noticed the lonely-looking light in one window of the upstairs apartment. How had Thelma Mae Earnshaw gotten the way she was? She was grumpy, yes, but surely not a killer? Nana said there was no way the woman had killed anyone, and her grandmother knew peoples’ hearts. But why the heck had Thelma turned in Francis Whittaker when she had not a shred of evidence that he’d done anything wrong?

  Or did she have evidence she just wasn’t sharing? No, that was impossible, or Francis would be under arrest by then, surely. On an impulse, she took out a container of the Zuppa Maritata she had made and skipped across the alleyway to the back door of Mrs.
Earnshaw’s home and knocked.

  “C’mon in,” she heard from above. She tried the door; it was unlocked! That was trust or living dangerously, to leave the door unlocked when there was a murderer around.

  “Mrs. Earnshaw?” she called out. “It’s Sophie Taylor. Can I come up?” She peeked up the stairs just as the elderly woman came to the top.

  “I thought it might be Phil or Cissy.”

  “No. I just . . . I made too much soup and I was wondering if you would try some and tell me what you think?” She ascended the steps and followed the woman to her small kitchenette.

  “All right,” she said, slowly. “I’ll try it.”

  Sophie heated up the soup, found a bowl on the drying rack and filled it, then set it in front of Mrs. Earnshaw. She peered at it suspiciously, then took a spoonful. Soon, she was scooping it into her mouth quickly and finished, with a sigh. “That was real good, young lady. So you really are a cook?”

  Whereas from the snooty doctor, Sebastian, on that date her mother had arranged, being called a cook had been an obvious insult, it certainly wasn’t coming from Mrs. Earnshaw. “I am. Trained and everything. Are you all alone? Don’t you have any guests staying?”

  “Nope. Tell you the truth, it’s getting a bit much to run this place as an inn. I sure could use the money, but looking after ’em is too much.”

  “You should have someone move in and pay room and board. That way there would be someone here, but you wouldn’t have to cater to them.”

  The woman looked thoughtful, but didn’t answer.

  “Mrs. Earnshaw, the day of the engagement tea, did anyone else come to the kitchen besides the folks at the tea?”

  “No. Why?”

  “No reason. Just curious. I heard today that Marva Harcourt was here, but you and she argued and she stormed out. What did you argue about?”

  Her sagging jowl wobbled as she grimaced. “She said I had stuff in the fridge way past its due date, and I asked her what she was doing snooping in my fridge.”

  “Had she been fussing with anything else, like the cupcakes?”

  “Not so’s I noticed, but everyone was everywhere that day. Gilda was whining that Mrs. Harcourt and her daughter-in-law were fussing about something; Florence Whittaker was acting snooty, saying the sandwiches weren’t fresh enough; Vivienne Whittaker was giving orders like it was her own place . . . it was a mess. Why?”

  “Just an idea I had.” Sophie noticed the weariness on the older woman’s face, and the lines of pain on her forehead and bracketing her mouth, and her heart went out to her. “I’ll let you go on to bed, ma’am.”

  Sophie went back to Auntie Rose’s, made a cup of tea, sat down at the kitchen table and pulled her notebook out of her bag. Instead of bridal shower tea party plans, though, she began to make notes about who could have killed Vivienne Whittaker. It pretty much had to be someone at the engagement tea party, though Phil, by virtue of having been in the kitchen just minutes before, was a possibility.

  So . . . Phil Peterson, Florence Whittaker, Francis Whittaker, Gilda Bachman, Thelma Mae Earnshaw, Marva Harcourt, Belinda Blenkenship and even Gretchen Harcourt, though she claimed she wasn’t in the kitchen. Oh, and Cissy Peterson! She couldn’t completely eliminate Cissy, though it was clearly impossible that sweet, reserved Cissy Peterson could have murdered her mother-in-law-to-be.

  Tapping at the back door startled her. She got up and looked through the glass, then opened the door. “Jason! It’s so good to see you!” She threw her arms around him and hugged him—he was taller than she remembered—then, suddenly shy, backed away. “Uh, I’m having a cup of tea. Would you like tea or coffee?”

  “Whatever you’re having.”

  “Sit! I’ll get you a cup.” When she returned to the table, Jason was looking at her list with a quizzical expression.

  “What’s up with this?” he asked.

  She shrugged and eased into the chair next to him. “It’s unnerving to have a murder happen right next door. I saw Vivienne dying. It was . . . awful.” Her voice trembled and she cleared her throat, trying to get ahold of her emotions.

  “So this is a list of everyone at the party, or maybe a list of who could have done it. But it was poison, right? Was the killer necessarily right there?”

  She told him her reasoning so far.

  “And you know for certain that the poison was in the cupcake?”

  “I’m pretty sure, yes. Look, I have an idea. Tell me if this makes sense.”

  Chapter 16

  It had all started with the conversation she had with her grandmother about how you could make sure a person would choose a certain cupcake from a plate, she told him. Then she paused for a moment, gathered her thoughts and went on. “Someone who knew about Vivienne Whittaker’s allergy to red dye would know she wouldn’t touch red-velvet cupcakes, nor any cupcakes with red or pink icing. Of course, it seems like pretty much everyone knew about her allergy, so that doesn’t narrow the field. But if you wanted to poison her, and you knew there were going to be red-velvet cupcakes at an event, then all you had to do was make sure there was one non-red-dye cupcake on the platter.”

  “But how could you be sure she would even eat that one?” Jason asked. “Maybe she doesn’t like sweets, or maybe she was full. How would you know that someone else wouldn’t snatch it up before she got it?”

  “True. It was an awful risk. Unless someone knew her habits, and maybe knew she would never refuse a sweet. That would indicate someone really close to her, right? Like Francis or Florence.” She chewed her lip and frowned down at the paper, then looked up to find Jason’s gaze steady on her. “What?”

  “I was just recalling that expression. When you were working hard on an algebra problem, you’d look like that.”

  She flushed, remembering school vacations in Gracious Grove when she and Jason would work on their homework together, sometimes in this very room, while Nana cooked. “I remember,” she said, softly. She stared back down at the sheet, but it blurred in front of her eyes. “Jason, if I could go back in time—”

  “But nobody can, right?” he said. “So, why are you trying to figure this out?”

  Snapped back to reality by his no-nonsense comment, she replied, “I just don’t want the wrong person railroaded. Like Phil Peterson; he’s such a screwup, but he wouldn’t kill someone.”

  “He wasn’t even there, was he?”

  Knowing it would go no further, she told him what she’d seen, Phil sneaking out the back door as the others were arriving in the front. “If I was the police, I’d be wondering if Mrs. Earnshaw called them with Francis’s name because she’s protecting someone, and the only people she would try to protect would be Phil or Cissy.”

  “You have a devious mind,” Jason said.

  “I lived in New York for seven years working in the food industry. You have to be devious to navigate your way through the restaurant world, especially when you’re dealing with food critics.” She thought more about the cupcake conundrum. “I need to figure this out. Maybe Nana will know something.” She would talk to Cissy, too, the next day, and see if she could get a sense of what all had happened in the kitchen before the tea started.

  There were a few things she could investigate. First, who knew Vivienne Whittaker had a red-dye allergy before the event? It seemed to be common knowledge and something she had spoken of openly in the past. Second, who had the chance to not only bring the poison cupcake, but place it on the plate? Third, who had access to cyanide, or knew someone else who did?

  “Sophie?”

  She looked up. “Mhmm?”

  “I’m glad you’re back in Gracious Grove. I was wondering . . .”

  She held her breath, waiting for an invitation to go out to dinner. Or something else!

  “You obviously know a lot about starting a restaurant; do you think there’s a market i
n our town for a fine dining establishment?”

  That was not what she was expecting. She scrambled to think. “Uh . . . well, maybe. It’s a popular tourist area. The problem is that they wouldn’t be able to serve alcohol if they were in Gracious Grove proper, and for those accustomed to a wine list that could be a problem. Why do you ask?”

  “A colleague of mine is talking about sinking a lot of money into starting a restaurant and I’m concerned.”

  “Colleague?”

  “Yes, you met Julia.”

  “She’s starting a restaurant?”

  “I guess it depends somewhat on that new development and the plans for it, but she has promised to invest her 401(k) in it.”

  “If it’s in the new development, then liquor laws in Gracious Grove won’t affect her.” Sophie stared down at the paper in front of her. Jason seemed quite tied up with the other professor’s intentions. “Are you investing, too?”

  “No way. Investing in a restaurant is like throwing your money in the garbage, one of my financial friends says.” His eyes widened and he stared at her. “Uh, I’m sorry, Soph, I didn’t mean—”

  “It’s okay. It’s nothing I haven’t heard before.” She frowned, as something he said sank in. “So, it depends on the new development, you said; where did she hear about it?”

  “It’s no secret. You’ve seen the signboards, right?”

  She nodded.

  “I guess it’s been in the works for a while, and some folks have heard about it and started making plans.”

  “I just didn’t know anyone was already talking about building or leasing the commercial space.” To change the subject, she said, “You’re pretty good friends with Francis, right?”

  He shrugged. “Lately he’s been hanging out with me more than he used to, I don’t know why.”

  “He’s been trying to clean up his image for a long time,” Sophie said. “Did you hear about Phil’s trouble a few years back, when Francis was in architecture school at Cornell?”