Shades of Earl Grey atsm-3

by Laura Childs

  “May I go in and take a look?” she asked.

  Frederick Welborne held up a finger. “Yes, but give me a moment.” He retreated quickly to his office, returned with two yellow hard hats.

  “You’ll have to wear one of these,” he told her. “Regulations.”

  “No problem,” said Theodosia as she slipped the hard hat on her head.

  Frederick Welborne smiled faintly at the sight of all that auburn hair spilling out from beneath the yellow work hat. “It looks good on you, you’re a natural,” he told her as he led her into the Magnolia Room, where Camille and Captain Buchanan’s cocktail party had been held, then through the doorway into the Garden Room.

  “The room looks a bit different, doesn’t it,” said Frederick Welborne.

  Theodosia gazed about. The Garden Room had looked awful the night the roof collapsed, but now it was barely recognizable. Carpet had been torn up and metal scaffolding crowded the room. The ceiling, which had formerly been a glass arch, had been rebuilt as a temporary flat ceiling of plywood.

  “What’s going to happen to this room?” asked Theodosia. She gave a little shudder. Now that she’d returned to the scene of Captain Buchanan’s death, she was struck by the full magnitude of what had really happened here. Or is it the scene of a crime? she wondered.

  “Mr. Welborne? Telephone.” A bell hop in a burgundy uniform with matching cap stood at Frederick Welborne’s elbow. They turned and followed the bell hop out into the hall.

  “Joey here went through all the carpeting after it was torn up,” Frederick told her. “Looking for the ring. But he didn’t find anything.”

  “No, sir,” said Joey with what seemed like genuine regret. “And I really did look.”

  “I believe you,” said Theodosia. “Thank you, thank you both,” she said, smiling at the two of them.

  “We’ll stay in touch,” said Frederick as he scurried off down the hall to take his phone call.

  “I take it business has been slow?” Theodosia said to Joey, noting that despite his youthful name, Joey wasn’t exactly a kid. In fact, Joey looked like he might be in his early sixties.

  “Glacial. I’ve been here twenty-six years and never seen anything like it. We had two big wedding parties cancel out on us. And then, yesterday, a ladies luncheon group just turned on their pointy little heels and left. Guess they got spooked because the workers were taking the roof down.”

  “The roof came off yesterday?” asked Theodosia.

  Joey nodded. “What was left of it. That’s what that second dumpster’s for. The metal struts and such. Got to separate stuff these days. Even landfills are getting particular. Or maybe it’s because they recycle it, I don’t know.”

  “Joey,” said Theodosia, “is there a way for people to know about the events that go on here?”

  Joey cocked an eye at her. “What do you mean?”

  “When the Lady Goodwood has receptions and parties and such, is that information published? Or posted somewhere?”

  Joey scratched his chin, thinking. “We have a newsletter,” he told her.

  “A newsletter,” repeated Theodosia. “And your mailing list would be... how large?”

  Joey shrugged. “I don’t know, maybe a couple thousand.” He stared at her intently, then his lined face seemed to light up as another idea dawned. He snapped his fingers. “We have a web site, too,” he told her proudly. “That probably reaches a whole lot more folks.”

  I’m sure it does, thought Theodosia with grim determination. Maybe even the person who came here that night and left with a diamond ring in his pocket instead. “Thanks, Joey,” Theodosia told him.

  Joey touched his hand to the short brim of his cap. “No problem.”

  Walking across the parking lot to her Jeep, Theodosia found that her gaze was once again drawn to the two large brown metal dumpsters. Jingling her car keys in her hand, she walked across the parking lot to the side of the building where the dumpsters sat. One was piled high with glass and remnants of old carpet. The other, for all practical purposes, looked empty.

  Intrigued, she walked up to that dumpster, stood on tiptoes, and peered in. It wasn’t empty at all. Joey had been right. This dumpster was half-filled with metal struts and rails. The bones of the greenhouse roof, she thought to herself. The skeleton.

  As she gazed at the twisted metal, Theodosia recalled the strange oval-shaped metal ring she’d seen attached to one of the ceiling struts. She hadn’t given the metal ring a lot of thought. After all, she’d been balancing precariously on a monumentally tall ladder just moments after Captain Buchanan had been buried in rubble. More than a few things had been occupying her mind.

  But as she stood with her hand on the rough edge of this heavy metal dumpster, something prickled at Theodosia’s thoughts.

  If someone had crashed through the roof, had actually descended inside the Garden Room, then how did they get back up again?

  How exactly did one manage an acrobatic feat like that?

  She supposed you could use a pulley of some kind. Or something akin to the high-tech “spider” apparatus that filmmakers loved to feature in spy films like Mission Impossible.

  Could the ordinary person just buy that type of equipment right off the shelf? Better yet, could an ordinary person even negotiate that type of equipment?

  Did Cooper Hobcaw have the strength and flexibility to manipulate a spiderman rig like that? she wondered. Maybe. He was a runner. Or at least he claimed to be a runner.

  Could Claire Kitridge? She looked fairly lithe and limber.

  And what of this Graham Carmody? Was he agile, too? Or didn’t he have to be. Did he just show up as a waiter and then work his angle?

  The questions burned in her mind like wildfire.

  Chapter 15

  Graham Carmody sat at his Dell computer scanning the Internet auction site. This was the best part, he told himself. This was what made it all worthwhile.

  Oh, finding the objects was exciting, he couldn’t deny that. There was the thrill of the hunt, which always set his pulse to racing. But once the object was digitally photographed and put up on the web site, then things really got interesting. Because that’s when he started making money.

  Graham loved checking and rechecking the bids, especially when one of his choice items was reaching its final days. It was exciting to note when his reserve price had been met, even better when bidding heated up and competitors from all over the world began to play a cat-andmouse game with each other, sneaking in new bids at three in the morning!

  What a marvel the Internet was. And what a brilliant way to move merchandise. So fast, so inexpensive, and so highly anonymous. Whoever had really invented the Internet (and he was quite sure it hadn’t been Al Gore, more likely a bunch of brainy military tech weinies) should be awarded a gold medal. Because the Internet had become the repository for all of civilization’s accumulated knowledge. And an international marketplace for all of civilization’s goods.

  Graham Carmody stretched his long legs, scratched at the scruff of ginger-colored beard that sprouted on his face. He’d have to can it in a little while, get his shit ready for tomorrow. Starting tomorrow noon he’d be working nonstop for the next couple days. A docents’ luncheon at the art museum, then the gig at Symphony Hall. Friday and Saturday evenings were booked solid, too. Working as a temp for Butler’s Express didn’t leave a lot of room for extracurricular activities, but it certainly got him into lots of interesting places. Oh well, hit it hard now, retire early...

  Reaching for a cigarette, Graham Carmody stood up suddenly, letting his computer chair snap back. He glanced at the walls of his study, at the tasty antiques and oddities that occupied the wooden shelves. He didn’t even remember where he’d picked up that pre-Columbian statue. Or that silver tray. Oh well. Didn’t matter.

  Overcome by fatigue now from too many hours spent staring at the computer screen, he paced the length of the room, glancing out the window into the back garden of the small si
ngle house he rented. What luck he’d had in finding this place. Mrs. Gerritsen, an older lady and recent widow, had been looking for a young man to rent the downstairs from her. Give her a sense of security, she’d told him. He gazed at his rumpled reflection in the window. Security. Him. Sure. You bet, Mrs. Gerritsen. Anything you say, babe.

  A sudden movement outside caught his eye. He stepped closer to the window, cupped his hands to the glass, and tried to peer outside.

  Is someone out there? Moving around in the alley?

  He darted through the doorway into the kitchen and threw open the back door.

  Hey! he called, leaping down the back steps, intent on throwing a good scare into whoever was sneaking around out back.

  But all he saw were shadows. All he heard was the whisper of the wind through Mrs. Gerritsen’s dead flower stalks.

  Graham Carmody stood on the sidewalk in his bare feet. Nothing, he finally told himself. Probably just a stray cat trying to paw its way into the garbage bag I set out earlier. He’d seen the damn things around before, thought maybe Mrs. Gerritsen secretly put out food for them.

  You’re just feeling jumpy, kid. Time to log some serious sack time. Graham Carmody turned and went back inside his house.

  Graham Carmody, Graham Carmody. The name had played like a litany in Theodosia’s head. He’d been one of the waiters at Delaine’s party; he’d also worked at the Heritage Society the night the Blue Kashmir necklace disappeared. Coincidence or convenience?

  And so it wasn’t any surprise that at nine o’clock that night Theodosia pulled out the Charleston phone directory, paged through the C’s, and ran her finger down the index of names until she actually found the name, Graham Carmody.

  Over on Bogard Street. Not all that far from here.

  She’d stood in her hallway, gazing at her reflection in the mirror, debating how she could pull this off. Go for a jog and take Earl Grey along in case she needed a convincing ruse? Or just drive there and snoop?

  In the end she jumped in her Jeep and drove there. Parked a block or so away. Flipped the switch that killed the dome light, then slipped quietly out the door.

  Theodosia had scouted the house from the street first. It was your typical Charleston single house. Long and narrow, one room wide, butted up against the street. Charleston folklore held that residences had once been taxed according to how much street frontage they occupied. Hence the evolution of the conservatively narrow Charleston single house.

  This one was clapboard, though many single houses were far grander and built of brick or stucco. Graham Carmody’s house looked fairly well kept for its age, Theodosia decided. It had probably been built just before the turn of the century. The previous century.

  And look, next to the front door. Two mailboxes. The house had obviously been turned into a duplex of sorts. Is Graham Carmody the landlord or the renter? she wondered.

  Going around to the back of the house, walking down the alley, she’d seen him through the window, working on his computer.

  Graham Carmody was surprisingly pleasant looking. Young, probably late twenties. A trifle scruffy, but still the kind of guy Haley would find attractive. Would call hunky.

  Theodosia had been staring in at him from outside, drawn unconsciously forward, when the tip of her shoe had struck something.

  A black vinyl garbage bag.

  Was it his? she’d wondered. Should she look inside? Better yet, should she take it?

  Feeling a trifle foolish, but still curious, she’d snatched up the black bag and slung it over her shoulder.

  That’s when the man in the window had reacted. Had bolted out of the room in a flash.

  Theodosia had known he was coming after her. He’d seen something, her movement or shadow when she grabbed the bag, and was rushing out to check!

  But she was down the alley and around the corner before Graham Carmody ever hit the flower beds. Then she crouched behind a huge clump of magnolias, trying to control her breathing, knowing Graham Carmody hadn’t been wearing shoes, but praying he wouldn’t run down the alley after her anyway.

  He hadn’t.

  Theodosia waited a full five minutes, during which time she felt like a surreptitious Santa with a bag of who-knows-what thrown across his back.

  She took a roundabout route back to her Jeep, unlocked the door, slid into the driver’s seat.

  Keeping one eye on the rearview mirror, she drove a circuitous route back to her apartment above the Indigo Tea Shop. Finally, when her breathing had returned to normal and she’d parallel parked in the spot behind her shop, she turned her attention to the black garbage bag that rested beside her on the passenger seat.

  Digging a fingernail into the soft plastic, she ripped the bag open. But instead of the orange juice cartons, candy bar wrappers, and empty cereal boxes she’d expected to see, there were printouts. Computer printouts. Mounds of them.

  Frowning, Theodosia snapped the Jeep’s dome light on and stared at the sheets of paper.

  They were activity printouts from an Internet auction site. Dates and times of bids. Amounts of bids.

  She sat stock-still and stared out the front window of the Jeep. If Graham Carmody is a cat burglar, what better way to fence his stolen goods than on an Internet auction site! It would be a way to draw millions of buyers from all over the world and still remain anonymous!

  Yes, she decided, this definitely bore looking into. And the sooner the better.

  Chapter 16

  Timothy Neville had weathered many crises in his eighty years and many problems during his tenure as president of the Heritage Society. But neither he nor any of his people had ever come under such merciless scrutiny before.

  He fairly shook with indignation as he strode down Church Street. Dressed in a double-breasted camel hair blazer and cocoa brown slacks, Timothy was the picture of style. His jacket with its nipped-in waist, his paisley yellow ascot, his highly polished shoes, had been chosen with great care this morning. But after the events of this morning, and his infuriating phone conversation with Vance Bernard, the chairman of the Heritage Society’s executive advisory committee, Timothy Neville was beyond caring. In fact, he was positively livid. And when Nell Chappel of the Chowder Hound Restaurant waved hello to him as she collected her morning mail and headed into the kitchen to set a nice pot of she-crab soup to simmering, Timothy didn’t even take notice.

  “Drayton. A moment of your time, please,” said Timothy as he strode into the Indigo Tea Shop like a martinet, ramrod stiff and utterly devoid of any extraneous pleasantries.

  “Timothy... oh, of course,” said Drayton. Clutching a teapot in each hand, his tortoiseshell half-glasses sliding down his aquiline nose, Drayton was completely taken by surprise. “Give me a minute,” he told Timothy. “Take that table over there,” he said, pointing with his chin, “and I’ll be right with you.”

  Timothy strode over to the table, sat down. Even though he sat perfectly erect, with one leg crossed over the other, his pleated slacks falling elegantly, his face was a thundercloud.

  “Timothy,” said Theodosia as she rounded the corner from the kitchen. “Good morning, this is a surprise.” Stopping in her tracks, she suddenly took a good look at him. “What’s wrong?”

  “Everything,” he snapped. “I don’t even know where to begin.”

  “Simply start at the beginning,” said Drayton as he arrived at Timothy’s table, somewhat breathless. “Haley,” he called, “can you get a plate of scones for table three and another pot of Darjeeling for table two?”

  She nodded.

  “Now tell us,” said Drayton. “What’s happened to put you in such a state?”

  “The Charleston Police came to the Heritage Society some forty minutes ago, that’s what happened,” said Timothy. “Apparently they received an anonymous tip that Claire Kitridge was somehow involved in the recent thefts that have plagued our neighborhood.”

  “That’s absurd,” said Drayton while Theodosia inwardly cringed.

/>   Timothy held up a gnarled finger. “Wait,” he cautioned, “it gets much worse. Because of the recent death and apparent theft at the Lady Goodwood and the theft of the Blue Kashmir necklace, the police took this tip rather seriously. Claire, on the other hand, did not take the police seriously.” Timothy grimaced. “That was her mistake.”

  “What happened?” asked Theodosia, a sick feeling suddenly gripping her.

  “Oh, they asked Claire a few routine questions. Where do you live? How long have you worked at the Heritage Society? That type of thing. Then they wanted to know if they could have a look inside her desk. Claire said yes, knowing she had nothing to hide.”

  “I still don’t see the problem,” said Drayton. “Didn’t you tell them the notion of Claire as sneak thief was utterly ridiculous?”

  “Of course I did,” sputtered Timothy. “Until they rifled through the bottom drawer of Claire’s desk and found Delaine Dish’s missing watch.”

  “What!” said Drayton. Now it was his turn to sputter.

  “You know, that fancy Chopard with all the diamonds,” said Timothy.

  “But Claire didn’t steal it . . . wouldn’t steal it,” fumbled Drayton.

  “Of course she wouldn’t, she’s above reproach. You know that and I know that, but the police . . .” Timothy shrugged. “Well, it isn’t good. Obviously, the discovery of Delaine’s expensive watch is very incriminating.”

  “They came looking for a watch without benefit of a search warrant,” said Theodosia slowly, “and the whole thing’s based on an anonymous tip? I’d say that’s awfully fishy.”

  “So fishy it stinks!” declared Drayton.

  “Doesn’t it,” said Timothy, his voice brimming with bitterness. “And now our illustrious executive advisory committee wants Claire Kitridge fired. Of course, they’re calling it a temporary leave of absence, but it’s just a matter of time before it becomes a formal disciplinary firing. Unless, of course, we somehow find the person responsible . . .” Timothy’s voice faltered and he gazed at Theodosia in despair.