by Laura Childs
Sighing heavily, Drayton massaged the bridge of his nose where his glasses had pinched and looked out at the tea shop. Haley and Bethany were doing a masterful job, pouring tea, waiting on tables, coaxing customers into having a second slice of cream cake or taking home a few scones for tomorrow’s breakfast. But once again, only half the tables were occupied.
Clearly, business was down, and his numbers told him they were down almost 40 percent from the same week a year ago. Granted, Thanksgiving was two weeks away, Christmas just around the corner. With the holidays would come the inevitable Christmas rush. But that rush should have showed signs of starting by now, shouldn’t it?
The tourist trade brought in revenue, to be sure, as did the special tea parties they catered, like the bridal shower tea yesterday or the various birthday celebration teas. But the real bread and butter for the Indigo Tea Shop was repeat customers from around the neighborhood. For whatever reason (although in his heart Drayton was quite confident he knew the reason) many of the locals were skittishly staying away.
“We need to talk.” Drayton’s quiet but carefully modulated voice carried above the light jazz that played on the radio in Theodosia’s office.
When she saw Drayton standing in the doorway, trusty ledger and sheaf of papers clutched in hand, she snapped off the music. “Rats. You’ve got that look on your face.”
Drayton crossed the faded Oriental carpet, hooked a leg of the upholstered side chair with his toe, and pulled it toward him. He deposited his ledger and papers atop Theodosia’s desk and sat down heavily in the chair.
“It’s not good,” she said.
“It’s not good,” he replied.
“Are we talking tailspin or just awfully slow?” asked Theodosia.
Drayton chewed his lower lip thoughtfully.
“I see,” said Theodosia. She leaned back in her high-backed leather chair and closed her eyes. According to the Tea Council of the USA, tea was a five-billion-dollar industry, poised to boom in much the same way coffee had. Tea shops and tea salons were opening at a dizzying rate. Coffee shops were hastily adding tea to their repertoire. And bottled teas, although she didn’t care for them personally, were highly popular.
All of that was great, she mused. Tea was making a comeback, big time. But all she wanted to do was make a secure little living and keep everyone here on the payroll. Would that be possible? Judging by the somber look on Drayton’s face, perhaps not.
Theodosia pulled herself up straight in her chair. “Okay, what do we do?” she asked. “Try to roll out the Web site fast? Open up a second front?” She knew the battlefield analogy would appeal to Drayton, since he was such a World War II buff.
“We probably should have done exactly that earlier,” said Drayton. His eyes shone with regret rather than reproach.
Theodosia’s manicured fingers fluttered through the cards in her Rolodex. “Let me call Jessica at Todd & Lam-beau. See what can be done.” She dialed the phone and, while waiting for it to be answered, reached over to her bookcase and grabbed the stack of Web designs. “Here. Pick one.” She thrust the storyboards toward Drayton.
“Hello,” said Theodosia. “Jessica Todd, please. Tell her it’s Theodosia Browning at the Indigo Tea Shop.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “They’re putting me through,” she said.
Drayton nodded.
“Hello, Jessica? I’m sorry, who? Oh, her assistant.” Theodosia listened intently. “You don’t say. An online brokerage. And you’re sure it won’t be any sooner? No, not really. Well, have Jessica call me once she’s back in the office.”
Theodosia grinned crookedly as she set the phone down. “Plan B.”
Drayton lifted one eyebrow, amused at the magnitude of his employer’s energy and undaunted spirit. “Which is?”
“Until this entire mess is cleared up, a dark cloud is going to be hanging over all of us.” Theodosia stood, as if to punctuate her sentence.
“You’re probably right, but you make it sound terribly ominous,” said Drayton. “What is this plan B that you spoke of?”
Theodosia flashed him a brilliant smile. “I’m going to a funeral.”
Chapter 31
It isn’t for naught that Charleston has been dubbed the Holy City. One hundred eighty-one church steeples, spires, bell towers, and crosses thrust majestically into the sky above the low-profile cityscape, a testament to Charleston’s 300-year history as well as its acceptance of those fleeing religious persecution.
The First Presbyterian Church, known as Scots Kirk, was founded in 1731 by twelve Scottish families.
Saint Michael’s Episcopal Church, established in 1751, was where George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette worshiped.
The Unitarian Church, conceived as the Independent Church in 1772, was appropriated by the British militia during the Revolutionary War and used briefly to stable horses.
It was in this Unitarian Church, with its stately Gothic design, that mourners now gathered. Heads bowed, listening to a sorrowful dirge by Mozart echo off the vast, vaulted ceiling with its delicate plaster fantracery that painstakingly replicated the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey.
Theodosia stood in the arched stone doorway and shivered. The weather was still chilly, not more than fifty degrees, and this great stone church with its heavy buttresses never seemed to quite warm up inside. The stained glass windows, so beautiful and conducive to contemplation, also served to deflect the sun’s warming rays.
So far, more than three dozen mourners had streamed past her and taken seats inside the church. Theodosia wondered just who these people were. Relatives? Friends? Business acquaintances? Certainly not the residents of Edgewater Estates!
Theodosia knew it was standard police technique to stake out funerals. In cases of murder and sometimes arson, perpetrators often displayed a morbid curiosity, showing up at funerals and graveside services.
Would that be the case today? she wondered. Just hanging out, hoping for someone to show up, seemed like a very Sherlock Holmesian thing to do, outdated, a trifle simplistic. Unfortunately, it was the best she’d been able to come up with for the moment.
“My goodness, Theodosia!”
Theodosia whirled about and found herself staring into the smooth, unlined face of Samantha Rabathan. She noted that Samantha looked very fetching, dressed in a purple suit and jaunty black felt hat set with a matching purple plume.
“Don’t you look charming in your shopkeeper’s black velvet,” Samantha purred.
Theodosia had made a last-minute decision to attend Hughes Barron’s funeral, hadn’t had time to change, and, thus had jumped into her Jeep Cherokee dressed in a black turtleneck sweater, long black velvet skirt, and comfortable short black boots. She supposed she might look a trifle dowdy compared to Samantha’s bright purple. And it certainly wasn’t uncharacteristic of Samantha to insinuate so.
“I had no idea you were friends with Hughes Barron,” began Theodosia.
Samantha smiled sadly. “We made our acquaintance at the Heritage Society. He was a new board member. I was...”
She was about to say long-term member but quickly changed her answer.
“I was Lamplighter chairperson.”
Theodosia nodded. It made sense. Samantha was always doing what was proper or decorous or neighborly. Even if she sometimes added her own special twist.
The two women walked into the church and stood at the rear overlooking the many rows of pews.
Samantha nudged Theodosia with an elbow. “I understand,” Samantha whispered, “that woman in the first row is Hughes Barron’s cousin.” She nodded toward the back of a woman wearing a mustard-colored coat. “Lucille Dunn from North Carolina.”
The woman sat alone, head bowed. “That’s the only relative?” Theodosia asked.
“So far as I know,” Samantha whispered, then tottered up the aisle, for she had already spotted someone else she wanted to chat with.
Slipping into one of the back pews, Theodosia
sat quietly as the organ continued to thunder. From her vantage point, she could now study the funeral attendees. She saw several members of the Heritage Society, the lawyer, Sam Sestero, and a man who looked like an older Xerox copy, probably the brother, Edward, of Sestero & Sestero. There was Lleveret Dante, dressed conservatively in brown instead of a flashy white suit. And Burt Tidwell. She might have known.
But no Timothy Neville. And no Tanner Joseph.
The service was simple and oddly sad. A gunmetal gray coffin draped in black crepe, a minister who talked of resurrection and salvation but allowed as to how he had never really acquainted himself with Hughes Barron.
Struck by melancholy, Theodosia wondered who would attend her funeral, should she meet an early and untimely end. Aunt Libby, Drayton, Haley, Bethany, Samantha, Delaine, Angie and Mark Congdon of the Featherbed House, probably Father Jonathan, and some of her old advertising cronies.
How about Jory Davis? Would he crowd in with the other mourners? Would he remember her fondly? Should she call and invite him to dinner?
Theodosia was still lost in thought when the congregation launched into its final musical tribute, a slightly off-key rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
As was tradition at funeral services, the mourners in the front rose first and made their way down the aisle, while those folks in the back kept the singing going as best they could. That, of course, put Theodosia at the very end of the line for expressing condolences to Hughes Barron’s only relative, Lucille Dunn.
She stood in the nave of the church, a small woman with watery blue eyes, pale skin and brownish blond hair worn in a tired shag style. The mustard color of her coat did not complement her skin tone and only served to make her appear more faded and worn out.
“You were a friend?” Lucille Dunn asked, her red-rimmed eyes focused on a point somewhere over Theodosia’s right shoulder.
“Yes, I was.” Theodosia managed an appropriately pained expression.
“A close friend?” Lucille Dunn’s pale blue eyes suddenly honed in on Theodosia sharply.
Lord, thought Theodosia, where is this conversation going?
“We had been close.” Close at the hour of his death, thought Theodosia, then was immediately struck by a pang of guilt. Here I am, she told herself guiltily, lying to the relative of a dead man. And on the day of his funeral. She glanced into the dark recess of the church, almost fearful that a band of enraged angels might be advancing upon her.
Lucille Dunn reached out her small hand to clutch Theodosia’s hand. “If there’s anything you’d like from the condo, a memento or keepsake, be sure to...” The cousin finished with a tight grimace, and her whole body seemed to sag. Then her eyes turned hard. “Angelique won’t want anything. She didn’t even bother flying back for the funeral.”
“Angelique?” Theodosia held her breath.
“His wife. Estranged wife. She’s off in Provence doing God knows what.” Lucille Dunn daubed at her nose with a tissue. “Heartless,” she whispered.
From a short distance away, Lleveret Dante made small talk with two commercial realtors while he kept his dark eyes squarely focused on the woman with the curly auburn hair. It was the same woman he’d seen acting suspiciously, trying to stake him out at Sam Sestero’s office. The same one he’d followed back to that tea shop. And now, like a bad penny, she’d turned up again. Theodosia Browning.
Oh, yes, he knew exactly who she was. He enjoyed an extensive network of informants and tipsters. Highly advantageous. Especially when you needed to learn the contents of a sealed bid or there was an opportunity to undercut a competitor. His sources had informed him that the Browning woman had been in the garden the night his ex-partner, Hughes Barron, had died. Wasn’t that so very interesting? The question was, what was she suspicious about? Obviously something, because she’d been snooping around. She and that overbearing fool, Tidwell. Well, the hell with them. Just let them try to put a move on him. He knew how to play hardball. Hell, in his younger days, he’d done jail time.
Gravel crunched loudly on the parking lot surface behind her, and Theodosia was aware of heavy, nasal breathing. It had to be Tidwell coming to speak with her, and she was in no mood for a verbal joust.
She spun around. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. She knew she was being rude, but she didn’t care.
“Keeping an eye out,” Tidwell replied mildly. He pulled a small packet of Sen-Sen out of his jacket pocket, shook out a piece and stuck the packet back in his pocket without bothering to offer any to her.
“You should keep an eye on him.” Theodosia nodded sharply toward Lleveret Dante. Down the line of cars, Dante had pulled himself apart from a small cluster of people and was hoisting himself up into a chocolate brown Range Rover. Theodosia noted that the SUV was tricked out ridiculously with every option known to man. Grill guard, fog lights, roof rack, the works.
Tidwell didn’t even try to hide his smirk. “There’s enough people keeping an eye on him. It’s the quiet ones I worry about.”
Quiet like Bethany, Theodosia thought angrily. “When are you going to get off Bethany’s case?” she demanded. “The more you continue to harass her, the more you look like a rank amateur.”
Bert Tidwell guffawed loudly.
“Oh, Theo!” a voice tinkled merrily.
Theodosia and Bert Tidwell both looked around to see Samantha bearing down upon them. “What is it, Samantha?” “I was going to ride with Tandy and George Bostwick,
but they’re going to go out to Magnolia Cemetery, and I need to get back for an appointment. Can you be a dear and give me a lift? Just a few blocks over, drop me near your shop?” she inquired breathlessly.
“Of course, Samantha. I’d be delighted.” And without a fare-thee-well to Burt Tidwell, Theodosia wrenched open the passenger door for Samantha, then stalked around the rear of her Jeep and climbed in.
“What was that all about?” Samantha asked as she fastened her seatbelt, plopped her purse atop the center console, and ran a quick check of her lipstick in the rearview mirror.
Theodosia turned the key in the ignition and gunned the engine. “That was Bert Tidwell being a boor.” She double-clutched from first into third, and the Jeep lurched ahead. “Thanks for the rescue.”
“It is you who . . . Oh, Theodosia!” cried Samantha with great consternation as the Jeep careened onto the curb, swished perilously close to an enormous clump of tea olive trees, then swerved back onto the street again. “Kindly restrain yourself. I am in no way ready for one of your so-called off-road experiences!”
Chapter 32
By the time she dropped Samantha at Church Street and Wentworth, Lucille Dunn’s words, “If there’s anything you’d like from the condo, a keepsake, a memento,” were echoing feverishly in her brain. So Theodosia sailed right on by the Indigo Tea Shop and drove the few blocks down to The Battery.
Pulling into one of the parking lots, Theodosia noted that the wind was still driving hard. Had to be at least twenty knots. Flags were flapping and snapping, only a handful of people strolled the shoreline or walked the gardens, and then with some difficulty.
Out in the bay, there was a nasty chop on the water. Overhead, a few high, stringy gray clouds scudded along. Squinting and shielding her eyes from the hazy bright sun, Theodosia could see a few commercial boats on the bay, probably shrimpers. But only one sailboat. Had to be at least a forty-footer, and it was heeled over nicely, coming in fast, racing down the slot between Patriots Point and Fort Sumter. It would be heaven to be out sailing today, gulls wheeling overhead, mast creaking and straining, focusing your efforts only on pounding ocean.
“If there’s anything you’d like from the condo, a keepsake, a memento.”
Enough, already, thought Theodosia as the thought jerked her back to the here and now. Lucille Dunn had obviously mistaken her for a close female friend of Hughes Barron. Of that she had no doubt. Okay, maybe that wasn’t all bad. It gave her a kind of tacit permission to go to Hughes Bar
ron’s condo.
Well, permission might be an awfully strong word. At the very least, Lucille Dunn’s words had bolstered her resolve to investigate further.
But what condo had Lucille Dunn been referring to? Had Hughes Barron actually lived at that ghastly Edgewater Estates? Or did he have a place somewhere else? She vaguely recalled Drayton saying something once about the Isle of Palms.
Theodosia sat in the patchy sun, watching waves slap the rocky shoreline and tapping her fingers idly on the dashboard. Only one way to find out.
She dug in the Jeep’s console for her cell phone, punched it on, and dialed information.
She told the operator, “I need the number for a Hughes Barron. That’s B-A-R-R-O-N.” She waited impatiently as the operator consulted her computer listings, praying that the number hadn’t been disconnected yet and there’d be no information available. But, lo and behold, there was a listing, the only listing, for a Hughes Barron. The address was 617 Prometheus on the Isle of Palms. It definitely had to be him.
Grace Memorial Bridge is an amalgam of metal latticework that rises up steeply from the swamps and lowlands to span the Cooper River. The bridge affords a spectacular view of the surrounding environs and offers a bit of a thrill ride, so sharply does it rise and then descend.
Theodosia whipped across Grace Memorial in her Jeep, reveling in the view, grateful that the one- and sometimes two-hour backup that often occurred during rush hour was still hours away.
Twenty minutes later, she was on the Isle of Palms. This bedroom community of 5,000 often swelled to triple the population in the summer months when all hotels, motels, resorts, and beach houses were occupied by seasonal renters, eager to dip their toes in the pristine waters and enjoy the Isles of Palms’ seven unbroken miles of sandy beach.