The Grim Steeper

by Amanda Cooper

  Dana pulled up with Cissy in the passenger’s seat of her car. Cissy jumped out, waved to Sophie, shouted “We’re late!” then trotted into Belle Époque as Dana pulled around back and parked. Thelma’s establishment was almost identical to Auntie Rose’s in front. Not surprising, Nana said, since Thelma had her grandson, Phil, copy her ten years before when she had the front redone. It, too, had a hedge, though it was scrubby and undergrown, and unlike the flowering crabapple tree in front of Auntie Rose’s, Belle Époque featured a small ornamental tree. Sophie snorted back a laugh. She’d name Nana’s crabapple tree Thelma.

  Dana approached from behind the tearoom. There was something different about the always-gorgeous woman, Sophie thought, examining her. She was wearing cinnamon-colored jeans and a heavy cable-knit sweater with a fleece vest over it. Somehow she managed to make even that warm outfit chic. Then Sophie looked down at her footwear. “You’re wearing Uggs! I thought you said they were ugly. I thought—”

  “That was before Eli said I made them look hot.”

  Sophie chuckled and asked her friend to retrieve the box of tea stuff from the tearoom. In between dashing in and out of Auntie Rose’s to fetch things, Dana chattered nonstop about Eli. They had met in the summer in Butterhill, an hour’s drive away, while Sophie and the others were up there at a teapot collectors’ convention where a murder had happened, a murder that her nana was a suspect in! Eli had gotten himself assigned to the case, concerned about his aunt and grandfather, and intent on apprehending the killer. Dana had spotted him immediately and fell for his good looks, intelligence, but most of all his care for his family. The couple’s relationship had moved swiftly, but Sophie was still surprised at one of Dana’s confessions.

  The setting sun lit the golden streaks in her gorgeous mane of hair, which she tossed back over her shoulder. She turned toward Sophie. Her voice trembling with excitement, she said, “Soph, I think Eli is going to ask me to marry him.”

  “Really?” Sophie paused as she reclipped the tablecloth for the outdoor table and stared at her friend. “But you’ve only known each other . . . what, three months? Not even?”

  Dana shrugged. “When you know, you know. And I know. I knew right away, and I think he did, too. I love him and I want to marry him.”

  It seemed awfully quick to Sophie, but who was she to judge? “He seems like a great guy.”

  “He is a wonderful man, kind, thoughtful, sweet. He loves his family, and he’s good to his nieces and nephews. He’ll make a great father.” She grinned and dropped a saucy wink. “And it doesn’t hurt that he is smoking hot.”

  Next door, Cissy hauled a table out front as Gilda gabbled at her, flapping her hands. Poor Cissy, having to deal with cranky Thelma and flighty Gilda. “Dana, I’ve got this under control. Do you want to go help Cissy?”

  “No. But I will anyway.”

  Sophie laughed. The Earnshaw-Peterson family was sometimes a trial to get along with. As much as she had tried to get Thelma involved with her and Julia’s plans for their street’s part in the Fall Fling, Mrs. Earnshaw seemed to have a chip on her shoulder and had refused or, rather, ignored her offer. At least Cissy was there to help, but her old friend, usually a pleasant companion, could be petulant and moody if she felt she wasn’t the center of attention. Dana crossed the drive and helped Cissy, who brightened up and sent Gilda back in to work with Thelma on the inside preparations.

  Laverne pulled in, driving the stately old car she had owned since it was new, in the seventies. She parked in back, where Auntie Rose’s and Belle Époque had a modest joint parking lot, room enough for a dozen or so cars. Laverne stuck her head around the corner. “You need any help out here?”

  “No, I’m good. Just go in and make sure Nana doesn’t try to do too much.”

  “Honey, I’ll try, but she’s a grown woman. You can’t stop her from doing what she wants.”

  “I don’t know what I’d do if I lost her.”

  Laverne’s dark eyes were warm with love. “I know, Sophie. She’s the big sister I never had. You know I’ll take care of her.”

  “I don’t know when I became such a worrier.”

  Nana had a vintage electric samovar stored in the attic. Sophie had retrieved it, cleaned it up and now had it full of water, from which she would make fresh pots of Auntie Rose’s tea as the evening progressed. Nana had insisted on using some of her jumble of assorted teacups and saucers for the full Auntie Rose experience. Sophie stacked them up, plugged in the samovar and got the plastic tubs of treats, setting them on a stool beside the table. She set up a couple of the domed treat plates and filled them, stacking more on a triple cake stand.

  She checked her watch. It was seven, and their section of the tea party stroll was just starting. In fact, as she looked down the street, she could see some folks parking cars and gathering, starting at SereniTea, as she and Julia had suggested. Gracious Grove, as a dry town, had an inordinate number of tearooms and cafés. The committee had decided that groups would be directed to the three “districts” in the town where tearooms were clustered. The first had been visited at five, the second at six, and their string, SereniTea, Belle Époque and Auntie Rose’s, was last.

  Sophie and Dana at Auntie Rose’s, and Cissy and Gilda at Belle Époque were to stand outside, pour tea, talk about the blends and hand out treats. Sophie was going to guide inside those who wished to warm up or have a tour of Nana’s teapot collection. Poor Cissy was wrapped in a winter coat and still hopped from foot to foot, her fragile frame not affording her enough internal heat to ward off the October evening chill.

  A few strollers started with Auntie Rose’s. Some folks said the tea tasted off but when Sophie took a cup herself, it tasted fine, and most found it perfectly delicious. Maybe some weren’t used to the blend, or the strength. Kimmy Gabrielson and her book club arrived and took their time, enjoying the tea and treats. Kimmy and Dana chatted, then the group wandered on to Belle Époque and from there to SereniTea.

  The treats were a big hit with everyone. Nana had made lemon bars and Hello Dolly squares, while Sophie had made macarons—delicate egg white, powdered sugar and almond flour cookies—in the college’s royal blue, as well as cupcakes with blue icing, dusted with silver. Dana, who skipped back and forth between the two side-by-side establishments, reported that Thelma was offering platters of store-bought cookies, which was probably a safer bet than her usual homemade fare.

  It seemed a thin crowd to Sophie, but at about a quarter to eight she found out why. A large group moved down the street toward them, many more than were supposed to come to each establishment together. She noticed the tall figures of Dean Asquith and his wife, Jeanette, in the center of a group of older, well-dressed individuals. With them was Mac MacAlister; what was the basketball player doing on the tea stroll? He was accompanied by an older couple, the woman tiny and birdlike, but the gentleman almost as tall as Mac, his large head covered in a spray of sparse hair with faint tinges of a ginger hue among the gray hairs; the pair had to be his parents, or even grandparents.

  The big group also comprised duos and singles: Vince Nomuro with a natty tweed duffer cap pulled low, and Brenda Fletcher wearing a black-and-white peacoat with a fluffy white scarf; Heck Donovan, looking as hangdog as usual in a rumpled trench coat, and Penny with an odd assortment of colorful scarves wrapped around her; Julia and Jason strolling together, looking uneasy; Sherri Shaw, of all people, whose exotic style had been toned down. She wore a tan shawl-collared wool coat over camel dress slacks.

  The crowd broke up into smaller clusters. The dean and his wife stuck close to the well-dressed men and women who Dana explained to her were Cruickshank College’s Board of Governors, mostly responsible for fund-raising, cultivating alumni to encourage gifts and bequests, and scholarship programs. Dean Asquith appeared grim, as he tried to herd them together and keep them close while avoiding his mistress, who lingered nearby, though
she never spoke to him.

  It was an oddly assorted group. It appeared to Sophie that the MacAlister clan refused to break away, grimly shadowing the dean like jaguars following a wildebeest. Jason waved to Sophie, and she waved back, but he stuck by Julia close to the dean’s group, as did the coach and his morose wife. Vince, eyeing them all with trepidation, sipped tea and kept his eye on Asquith, though his assistant drifted away and texted on her phone in a pool of light from the streetlamps.

  Lurking beyond the college crowd were a few strays. Tara Mitchells hung back in the shadows snapping photos, her flash illuminating startled expressions. Maybe she was shooting the tea party for the Clarion. Sophie hoped that was it, and that she wasn’t there to stir up trouble. There was a nice-looking dark-haired fellow who appeared to observe; he never got a cup of tea, nor did he eat anything, he just watched. Kimmy Gabrielson had evidently parted from her book group and joined with the college crowd. She trotted up to Mac, taking him by the arm and pulling him aside. They spoke for a moment, with vehemence on her part, but he shook his head and pried her grasping hand off his arm. She appeared miffed and stood with her arms crossed over her bosom, looking like she was trying not to cry.

  Tara Mitchells was taking notes, Sophie noticed; it would do the academic adviser well to not wear her heart on her sleeve, because no matter what she said, it appeared she had deeper feelings for the basketball player than just a professional relationship, on her part at least. Dana approached her and they chatted for a moment, then Kimmy walked away, back toward downtown Gracious Grove, where she had probably parked. Even as Sophie kept an eye on them all, she served and chatted with the three older gentleman and two ladies, the Cruickshank College Board of Governors members.

  “These are lovely macarons,” one tall older lady said, giving the cookies the correct French pronunciation, rolling the r. She was neatly dressed in a gray wool skirt suit with a dark blue caped jacket, her iron-gray hair stiffly waved under a sophisticated little hat. A Cruickshank College crest adorned the jacket. “I haven’t had such lovely ones in ages, certainly not here in America.”

  “Thank you!” Sophie said.

  “Did you make them?”

  “I did. I make them regularly for the tearoom, usually in pink and green, Auntie Rose’s colors.” She told them about her education in New York, and her restaurant, In Fashion.

  “And you run this establishment?” the woman asked, looking up at the Auntie Rose sign.

  “No, this is my grandmother’s place. My name is Sophie Taylor.”

  The woman stopped and eyed her. “Ah, the instructor’s friend.”

  Sophie noted the frostiness in her tone. “Ma’am, I don’t know what you’ve heard, but Jason is not involved in that grading problem. I’ve known him a long time, and he’d never do anything underhanded.”

  “Young lady, when you have lived as long as I, you will know that even people you think you know can surprise you, and not in a good way. He and Dean Asquith do not get along; Dale has told us all about it. It sounds like spite or revenge to me. I’d be more careful who you back.”

  Sophie stifled the urge to snarl, and simply said, “He didn’t do anything, and if Dean Asquith says differently, then he’s the one who will look like a fool.” She took a deep breath; there she went running her mouth again. Judging by the woman’s angry stare, it hadn’t gone over well. Stiffly she added, “If you’d like to go in, my grandmother, Rose Freemont, and her business partner, Laverne Hodge, are inside giving tours and talking about her teapot collection.”

  “That would be lovely,” the woman replied, her tone frosty. “I may want to hold a tea here one day for my sorority sisters. I went to Cruickshank, you know, in the sixties, and now I am chairwoman of the Board of Governors.” Sophie opened the door and held it for the group. Vince and Brenda surged in after the board members. The dean’s gaggle had lingered at Belle Époque. Cissy was doing her best to help them, but it didn’t look like it was going well, and it didn’t help that Gilda appeared to be berating the dean. What on earth?

  Dana slunk across the lane to listen in, then scooted back, her eyes gleaming with malicious amusement. “Gilda is telling them what horrible people they are for sidelining Thelma and ignoring her. She told the dean’s wife that Thelma Mae Earnshaw was twice as good as Rose Freemont, but that Rose was always stealing her thunder and copying her ideas.”

  “Oh, lord, Dana, we have to do something!”

  The dean waved Gilda off and led the way to Auntie Rose’s. He cast a long, steady look back, and Gilda, eyes wide, shot into the tearoom.

  “That is one exceptionally strange woman,” he was saying to his wife, as they strolled up to Sophie’s tea table. He eyed Sophie. “I know you. You’re Jason’s young friend.”

  Jason moved forward. “Sophie Taylor, sir. You met the other night at the basketball game reception.”

  Sophie glanced at him; his voice was tight with tension. What was up?

  The dean leveled a long, steady look at Jason, his heavy-lidded eyes expressionless and his mouth turned down. “Yes. Just so. Why was that . . . that woman saying you steal all their ideas?” he asked, turning to Sophie.

  How to explain? She took a deep breath. “That’s Gilda Bachman, sir. She works for Thelma Mae Earnshaw, the owner of Belle Époque. She’s, uh . . . overly loyal and imagines schemes where there are none. Julia Dandridge and my grandmother, Rose Freemont, got together to plan our Fall Fling offerings. We tried to include Mrs. Earnshaw but . . .” Sophie shrugged. “She wasn’t interested.”

  “Dale, enough chitchat,” his wife said. “We came to sample the tea.”

  Sophie served tea and told the dean that the Board of Governors members had gone inside. He and his wife entered Auntie Rose’s to look around; Sophie was relieved, knowing that Nana and Laverne would soothe the gentleman and make a good impression. But the couple was only in there a few minutes when he came out and shoved his cup at her, splashing tea over her clean white chef’s coat. “Is this your idea of a joke?” he bellowed, his words echoing in the crisp evening air.

  “I beg your pardon?”

  “My tea is salty. Is this because of Jason and his troubles at Cruickshank? If that’s the case, you have chosen poor timing for a joke or some . . . some petty revenge.” His voice was carrying. They were joined by the board members and the others, who drifted out the door and toward the dean. “This is outrageous!” he declared, as his audience grew.

  The chairwoman sniffed, clutched her purse to her chest and said, “I’m not surprised.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Sophie said, mortified. She took a sip of what tea was left in is cup; it was salty. What was going on? “I’ll make you a fresh cup, sir.”

  “Never mind. I don’t want any now. Who knows what would be in it next?”

  “But I assure you, sir—” Sophie glanced over at Belle Époque and saw Thelma Mae Earnshaw’s pouchy face in the wide window of the tearoom. There was a grin on the woman’s face. Somehow, some way, that woman had something to do with the salty tea. Sophie had thought Mrs. Earnshaw’s long history of dirty tricks was over, but apparently not.

  Chapter 8

  The college group stalked away in the wake of the dean’s departure. Vince and Brenda trailed them, and they were shadowed by Sherri Shaw, Tara Mitchells and the unknown dark-haired fellow, who caught up with the dean and drew him aside.

  “She did it! I don’t know how, but she did it,” Sophie muttered to Dana.

  “Did what?”

  “Tampered with our sugar.” Sophie grabbed a fistful of the sugar packets and held them up to the light. Sure enough, a couple looked like they had been slit open. She tore into one of the tampered-with packets, licked her finger and tested the contents. “I don’t believe it! This is the absolute worst. She actually filled these with salt and put them in with our others.”

  “Who did?” />
  Sophie cast a look across the lane. “Somehow, some way, Thelma Mae Earnshaw did it.”

  The strolling tea party ended in a jumble of good-byes, voices calling out through the dark, people hugging and saying adieu. Some folks lingered, chatting. Others headed for cars, parked along the street or downtown. Sophie watched, pondering the evening, wondering what would become of Jason now that she had single-handedly torpedoed his shot at making nice with the dean. It was depressing. She felt like marching right over and telling off Thelma Mae Earnshaw and her frizzy-haired henchwoman Gilda, but she knew she would never do it. It had been hammered into her early (by Nana) to be respectful of her elders, even if those elders were frustratingly juvenile and impossible to deal with.

  And besides, she had done much worse by railing at the chairwoman of the Board of Governors, who was likely at that very minute poisoning Jason’s chances by spewing lies into the dean’s ear.

  Jason loped toward her. “Soph, how are you doing?”

  “I’m so sorry, Jason!” she wailed, as he hugged her tight. She explained about the salted tea and the dean’s accusations, and her own attempt at intervention in his plight.

  “Not your fault,” he said, stroking her hair and hugging her tight. “Not your fault at all. It’s not over ’til it’s over. That’s what they say in sports, and I believe it.”

  “So it’s okay? Do you know who he’s going to announce as the guilty party?”

  His expression in the dim light from the lamp over the table looked evasive, to Sophie. “We had a talk earlier, that didn’t . . . well, it didn’t go quite as I’d planned. But I’m going to talk to him again right now, corner him and make him listen. I won’t be blamed for something I didn’t do,” he said, his voice hard with anger. “I’m going to point out to him that if he pins it on me and an investigation finds the real culprit, it won’t look good for the college.” He hugged her tightly, then released. “I have to go if I’m going to catch him. I saw him talking to that woman, his, uh . . .”