by Laura Childs
“But what’s the very best one? Which one’s your favorite?”
Theodosia thought for a moment. “How about I bring you a pot of Mango Tango, a tisane with a lovely blend of passion fruit, mango, and blueberries?”
“Sounds great!” said the woman.
Theodosia brewed her tisane, delivered it, then scurried into the kitchen to help Haley with her tea trays.
“What can I do?”
Haley was slicing sandwiches into triangles and placing them carefully on the trays. “Just grab that tray of edible flowers,” she said. “And sort of scatter them among the sandwiches and bars.”
“No problem,” said Theodosia. Two years ago, when the economy seemed to be tanking, Theodosia had suggested that they skip the edible flowers for the time being. But Haley wouldn’t hear of it. To her, a tea tray wasn’t complete unless it was a feast for the eyes as well as the stomach.
“Okay,” said Haley, placing the last sandwich and taking a step back. “How do they look?”
“Gorgeous, as always,” said Theodosia.
“Then let’s deliver them,” said Haley. She grabbed one three-tiered tray while Theodosia grabbed the other. Slowly, carefully, they made their way out into the tea room.
Drayton saw them coming. “Ladies,” he announced to the table of eight in his melodic baritone. “May I present your luncheon tea trays.” There was a spatter of applause and then he was quickly pointing out the quiche and elaborating on the sandwiches and chocolate bars.
Theodosia, meanwhile, had spotted Bill Glass standing at the front door. She swept over to him and said, slightly out of breath, “You came.”
“I told you I’d drop by,” said Glass. He waved a stack of flimsy newspapers in her face. “Brought you a few copies of Shooting Star, too. I figured you might like to pass them out to your customers.”
It was the last thing Theodosia wanted to do, but she accepted the tabloids, thanked Glass profusely, and then stuck them behind the counter.
“And I brought my camera,” said Glass, indicating the Nikon he had slung around his neck. “So you can look at my wedding snaps. Well, prewedding, anyway.”
“Great,” said Theodosia. She was frantically busy and didn’t have time to drop everything and take a look this instant. So she said, “How about you sit down and have some lunch first?”
Glass narrowed his eyes. “You really mean it? Usually you’re trying to give me the bum’s rush.”
“I don’t do that,” said Theodosia. She grabbed his arm and steered him over to a vacant table in the corner, where she hoped he wouldn’t be too intrusive. “You relax here and I’ll be back with some scones and sandwiches.”
“Jeez, thanks,” said Glass.
“Haley,” said Theodosia, as she squirted around the doorway and into the kitchen, “I need a quick plate for Bill Glass.”
“What?” said Haley. “What’s that jerk doing here?”
“He took photos the day of Delaine’s wedding,” said Theodosia. “He’s going to let me look at them.”
“Oh.”
“Just throw a scone and a couple of sandwiches on a plate; that’ll be good enough.”
“Hold everything,” said Haley. “If we’re going to do this, we have to do it properly.” She mounded a citrus salad on a plate, then added a scone, two sandwich wedges, and a brownie bite.
“Perfect,” said Theodosia.
“Wait,” said Haley, as Theodosia snatched it up. “What about a cup of Devonshire cream, too?”
“No. We don’t want to make him feel that welcome.”
* * *
While Glass was munching away, Theodosia poured refills for the tea club. They were busily exchanging their gifts with each other and tearing them open. Mildly curious, she hovered at their table to see what kind of teacups the ladies had found. Theodosia always prided herself on being able to source vintage teacups and teapots at various antique stores, tag sales, and yard sales. But lately, everyone seemed to be having the same idea. So it was getting tougher and tougher to find unique pieces.
“Oh, my!” exclaimed a woman named Jenny who was a frequent visitor to the tea shop. “Look at this!” She held up a floral decorated cup.
“Haviland,” said Theodosia. “Their tulip-and-garland pattern.”
“Is it old?” asked Jenny.
“From the forties,” said Theodosia. “So old enough.”
Another woman held her teacup up. “What do you know about this one?” The teacup featured multicolored floral bouquets on a white background and had a jaunty handle and a scalloped saucer.
“That’s H&G Bavaria,” said Theodosia. She gazed at another teacup set. “And that one’s a Shelley. I think it’s called Dainty Pink Polka Dots.”
“Because of the polka dots, no doubt,” said Drayton. He held up his teapot. “Refills anyone?”
* * *
“Pretty tasty stuff,” said Bill Glass, when Theodosia sat down across from him. “I guess you really do make a living selling these little dinky sandwiches.”
“I guess I do,” said Theodosia.
“Did you catch the front page of my tabloid?”
“Of course.” The headline blared, MURDER AT THE ALTAR! BIGWIG ATTORNEY BLUDGEONED TO DEATH. “Very pithy. Right to the point.”
Glass narrowed his eyes at her. “You think it’s too sensational.”
Theodosia shrugged. “It’s what you do. It’s your specialty, isn’t it?”
Glass grabbed a brownie bite from his plate and popped it into his mouth. “I’ll tell you something,” he said, as he chewed noisily. “These guest photos I took are nothing special. All those self-proclaimed socialites turned out to be a bunch of stiffs.”
“Let me take a look,” said Theodosia.
Passing his camera to her, Glass showed her which button to push to advance the shots. “I took maybe thirty or forty shots of the guests, then I got another dozen or so shots of the dead guy before the cops kicked me out.”
“Nice work.” What Theodosia was most interested in were the guests, of course. She had the guest list with everyone’s name, but she wanted to see what they were wearing. She wanted to know if someone’s outfit might account for that beige fiber she’d found stuck to the window frame.
“See anything interesting?” Glass asked, as she clicked through the photos.
“Not yet,” said Theodosia. Looking at the photos this way was difficult at best. They were small and Glass was too close for comfort, breathing hotly down her neck. She wished she could upload the photos to her computer and peruse them when she was alone. Still, she persisted.
“Pretty good, huh?” said Glass. “I mean my composition and framing.” He seemed to delight in bugging her. On the other hand, he was always annoying and overly chatty. That was his normal state of being.
“Everything’s wonderful,” Theodosia muttered. Glass had taken shots of the guests milling around, as well as the floral arrangements and tea table. There were also close-ups of the more prominent guests—a state senator and a board member from the Charleston Opera.
It wasn’t until about the thirtieth shot that Theodosia came across Allan Grumley. He was chatting with two other guests that Theodosia didn’t know and had been caught while talking. His mouth was skewed wide open, his eyes were rolled sideways and the angle made him look positively manic. But it was Grumley’s clothing that stopped Theodosia dead in her tracks. Although the photo wasn’t flattering, she could still see that Grumley was wearing dark checked slacks and a light-beige sport coat.
18
Theodosia studied the shot intently.
Allan Grumley is wearing a beige jacket. Almost the same color as the thread I found. Could Grumley have murdered his law partner?
Theodosia figured the odds were three to one that he had. There was something hostile about Grumley, some
thing strange. Plus, he was acting stiff and almost disrespectful to Delaine. So, even if he’d been only a tertiary suspect before, he’d certainly been elevated to prime suspect now.
Theodosia clicked on with resolve. Eight shots later she came across Delaine’s nemesis, Simone Asher.
Hello, there, Simone. Fancy seeing you here.
Simone was posing for the camera, standing sideways with her head cocked over her shoulder in a classic fashion model stance. She was wearing a skirt suit with a tightly fitted jacket and a super short skirt. And both pieces were tailored from a light-beige linen.
Theodosia considered this. She hadn’t expected to find a real link to the fiber, and here she’d already found two. Correction, make that three. Because Charles Horton, though not in any of these shots, also had a light-colored blazer. So what did all this mean? That it was all a strange coincidence? Or that one of the people close to Granville was the murderer? She pondered this idea for a few moments, then said to Glass, “Can you do me a favor?”
Glass stuffed a last bit of scone into his mouth, then gazed at her with dark-eyed suspicion. “It depends.”
“I’m wondering if you could e-mail your photos to Detective Tidwell. Because, well, he hasn’t seen these yet, right?”
“Not yet. I don’t even think he knows about them.”
“I think it might be helpful if he took a look,” said Theodosia.
“Because of the murder investigation?”
“That’s right.”
Bill Glass’s hand snaked across the table and his index finger came to rest on top of his camera. “I’m guessing you think there’s an important clue in one of these photographs?”
Theodosia wasn’t about to tell Glass any more than she had to. “There could be.”
“And that’s why you think Detective Tidwell would want to see these?”
“Something like that.”
Glass studied her for a moment, then said, “All right. I’ll e-mail them to Tidwell. But I’m going to want first crack if any kind of story or arrest comes out of this.”
“I’m sure Detective Tidwell would agree to that,” said Theodosia. Yeah, right.
“Okay,” said Glass. “I’ll send them as soon as I get back to my office.”
“Thank you,” said Theodosia. “I really appreciate it.”
Glass pointed a finger at her. “You owe me. You know that, don’t you?”
“Okay,” said Theodosia. “And you know I’m good for it.” At least I think I am.
* * *
“I can’t believe you were civil to that scoundrel,” said Drayton, once Bill Glass had left. Drayton never called anyone a jerk or a sap or even a scumbag. He was too polite for that. Instead, he called them a scoundrel. It was an old-fashioned term, but generally spot on.
“I pretty much had to be nice to Glass,” said Theodosia. “Because I wanted something from him.”
“You were looking at his photos?”
“The ones he took at Delaine’s wedding,” said Theodosia.
“Did you find anything interesting?”
“Maybe,” said Theodosia. And then, because Drayton had always been her closest confidant, she spilled the beans about going back to Ravencrest Inn and finding the beige fiber stuck in the window frame. And then she told him about Allan Grumley and Simone Asher both wearing clothes made from beige linen. And then she tossed the stepson, Horton, into the mix, too.
Drayton gave a low whistle. “Which leads you to believe the killer could be any one of them?”
“It’s possible,” said Theodosia. “Of course, it could be someone else entirely.”
“Still,” said Drayton, “you came up with some very interesting evidence. The problem I see is, how do you go about obtaining conclusive proof? Aside from breaking into their homes and ransacking their closets.”
“I asked Bill Glass to e-mail the photos to Detective Tidwell. That way he can get a court order to go into their homes and ransack their closets.”
“That’s smart thinking,” said Drayton. “If that’s how the law really works.”
“We can only hope,” said Theodosia.
“Excuse me,” said Haley. “I hate to interrupt, but we just received an awfully strange delivery at our back door.”
Theodosia and Drayton exchanged glances. A what now kind of glance.
“Oh,” said Theodosia, suddenly remembering the call she’d made earlier. “I think I know what it is. And it’s definitely for me.”
“Really?” said Haley, scrunching up her face. “Because it’s very unusual.”
“I think I need to see this mysterious item for myself,” said Drayton. “Whatever it is.”
They all trooped past the kitchen and through Theodosia’s office. When they pushed their way out the back door, it would barely open because of the large metal trap blocking it.
Haley squeezed outside and kicked the trap with her toe. “Are you gonna rent a boat and drop that thing in the water? Are we that hard up for fresh seafood?”
“That’s not a lobster trap,” said Theodosia. “It’s a live trap for raccoons.”
“You’re going to trap raccoons?” she said.
“I’m going to try,” said Theodosia. “One’s been hanging around my backyard, trying to mess with my goldfish.”
“Not again,” said Drayton. “I thought you drove that poor beast off.”
“I did, but he’s back for another go-round,” said Theodosia. “Or at least one of his kin is.”
“I’ve got an idea,” said Haley. “When you catch him, maybe I could bake a raccoon pie.”
Drayton’s eyes practically crossed. “Surely, you’re not serious!”
“But I am,” said Haley. “You’ve lived in the South for long enough, Drayton. Haven’t you ever eaten squirrel?” There was a funny light twirling in her eyes now. “Or ’possum?”
“Gracious, no!” said Drayton.
“Well, those varmints are awfully good eatin’,” said Haley. “So I’m thinking, why stop there? Why not expand our culinary horizons to include raccoon?”
“No, definitely no,” said Drayton. “I put my foot down at that.”
Haley was grinning now. “Come on, Drayton, live a little.”
Exasperated, Drayton shook his head and said, “You know I don’t appreciate your bizarre brand of humor one bit.”
“But I had you going,” said Haley. “Right? I had you going?”
“If that’s what you choose to believe, fine,” said Drayton.
* * *
By three o’clock, business at the Indigo Tea Shop was winding down. Two tables remained. Drayton was putting away his tins of tea, probably organizing them first according to country of origin and then tea-growing region; and Haley was singing a slightly off-key rendition of Katy Perry’s “Last Friday Night” in the kitchen.
Still thinking about the thread (a shred of evidence?) and the charge that had been on Granville’s American Express bill, Theodosia bid a hasty good-bye to them and strode down Church Street to Heart’s Desire.
“Hey, Brooke,” she called out as she let herself into the shop and a tiny bell tinkled overhead.
Brooke Carter Crockett looked up from her workbench behind the counter where she was polishing a white agate, recognized Theodosia immediately, and grinned. Brooke was a spry fifty-something woman with a cap of white hair cut into a perfect-for-her pixie. She specialized in high-end estate jewelry and was also a skilled jewelry designer. Brooke had created a series of sterling silver turtle pendants to help raise money for the preservation of the local loggerheads. And she crafted the most exquisite Charleston charm bracelets. Some of her charms included tiny sweetgrass baskets, palmetto trees, crayfish, church steeples, wrought-iron benches, bags of rice, and models of Fort Sumter.
“I’ve got something you might be
interested in,” Brooke said as she jumped up to greet Theodosia.
“What’s that?” Theodosia asked. There was always some tasty jeweled tidbit in Brooke’s shop that tickled her fancy. Problem was, it wasn’t always in line with her budget.
“I was in New York last week,” said Brooke. “At the Caravel Jewel and Gem Show. And I managed to pick up a few choice estate pieces, one of which reminded me of you.” She unrolled a thick piece of black velvet, then reached down, slid open her glass case, and pulled out a cameo pin. She set the pin on the velvet, where it gleamed enticingly.
“That’s gorgeous,” said Theodosia. “And it’s hand-painted?”
“Right,” said Brooke. “We’re used to seeing carved cameos, but during the Victorian era many cameo images were painted by hand. This one was done on Limoge porcelain.”
Theodosia gazed at the tiny, elegant cameo. It depicted a French noblewoman with high color in her cheeks and a low-cut bodice. Her auburn hair was tumbled into a messy pompadour and she wore a single strand of pearls. For some reason, it did remind Theodosia of herself—if she’d been born into an earlier era and had her portrait captured on a delicate brooch.
“I really love this,” said Theodosia.
“See?” said Brooke. “I knew it the minute I laid eyes on it. You don’t wear a lot of jewelry, but when you do, you tend to gravitate toward unusual, one-of-a-kind pieces.”
“This piece is certainly unique. Dare I ask how much?”
“Three hundred dollars and the painted lady goes home with you,” said Brooke.
“Can the lady reside here for another week?” Theodosia asked. “Until I sort through my finances?”
“Absolutely. In fact, I’ll tuck her in my desk drawer for safekeeping.”
“These other estate pieces are gorgeous, too,” said Theodosia. Nested on a black velvet tray were a large amethyst ring, a string of pistachio-colored Baroque pearls, and a silver bracelet that looked like it might be an early Tiffany design.
“A lot of people are selling their jewelry these days because they’re hard up for cash,” said Brooke. “I heard from a couple of Florida dealers that, right after the Bernie Madoff fiasco, women in Palm Beach were selling their family jewels for a song.”