by Tracy Kiely
CHAPTER 17
The only time a woman really succeeds in
changing a man is when he’s a baby.
—NATALIE WOOD
IMPATIENT FOR MY meeting with Detective Stewart, I arrived at the Flowering Teapot early. The atmosphere was tranquil; a fair number of customers sat lingering over their tea, enjoying the soft afternoon light and the scents of banana and nutmeg from the day’s special. Apparently the shop’s only anomaly amid all the calm, I sat down at an empty table. My stomach was in knots and I nervously picked at my fingernails.
As soon as she saw me, Lily came over. “Elizabeth! How nice to see you again. What can I do for you?”
“I’m meeting Detective Stewart here.”
“Really?” Her voice rose. “Why? What’s going on?”
I opened my mouth to tell her but thought better of it. Besides, what exactly was I going to tell her? That Detective Stewart thought he had evidence against Aunt Winnie? That I found a necklace with strange initials on it? It would be all over town within fifteen minutes. “Oh, nothing much,” I lied. “He just wants to double-check some things about the other night.”
“Well, I hope they find whoever did it soon. It’s all anyone can talk about around here.” She gestured at the other patrons in the shop, some of whom were openly staring in my direction. If they thought I was interesting now, I’d be absolutely fascinating once Detective Stewart showed up.
“Let me bring you some tea,” Lily said, as the small silver bell on the door tinkled, announcing a new arrival. It was Detective Stewart. With his presence, the atmosphere in the shop changed. The lazy, relaxed feeling was gone, and in its place there was a charged anticipation as everyone surreptitiously watched his movements.
Looking every bit the bull in the china shop, he lumbered in my direction, leaving a trail of slushy snow in his wake. Behind him, Pansy shook her head disparagingly at the mess before going for a mop. Detective Stewart’s heavy black overcoat added at least three inches of mass to his already stocky frame and his bulky snow boots clomped loudly across the floor. With a brief nod to Lily, he sat down in the chair opposite me. “Hello, Ms. Parker,” he said gruffly.
“Hello, Detective Stewart,” I replied. “I’ve just ordered some tea, would you like some as well?”
“Um … do you have coffee?” he asked Lily hopefully.
“Of course,” she answered.
Relief spread across his broad face. “I’ll have coffee, please.”
“Coming right up.” Lily bustled off.
Detective Stewart shifted uncomfortably in his chair, and it occurred to me that my suggestion to meet here had been unintentionally brilliant. Detective Stewart was out of his element and ill at ease. Using this to my advantage, I said, “So what do you think about what I told you on the phone? What do you think it means?”
“You mean the necklace?” He shrugged slightly. “I admit it’s odd, but it doesn’t prove anything. However, we do have some new evidence that does suggest—”
“What do you mean it doesn’t prove anything?” I interrupted. “Someone is missing a necklace that she—or he—doesn’t want anyone to know about!”
Lily returned carrying a tray with two steaming pots. Detective Stewart poured out a cup of coffee for himself and took a sip. His large, blunt hands looked ridiculous holding the delicate cup.
“Ms. Parker, I’m not saying that what you saw isn’t without merit, but—”
“Have you checked it out? What about the initials? Whose initials are they?”
“I don’t have the answer to that,” he said. “But I’m working on it.”
“You’re working on it? What does that mean? I’ve been thinking about this, and the only people not already known around here are the Andersons. Are they who they say they are?”
“As far as I’ve been able to tell, they are indeed who they claim to be.” Reaching into his overcoat, he pulled out his scruffy black notebook. Flipping it open, he read, “ ‘Henry Anderson, age fifty-eight. His first wife, Valerie, died seven years ago from breast cancer. Runs an antiques business. Married Joan Baxter, age fifty-six, four years ago. It is her first marriage. Together they run an antiques store called Old Things.’ ” He closed the book and regarded me calmly.
“I still say there’s something going on there. The night after Gerald’s murder, I found Joan in the dining room. She said she’d been outside smoking. She said that Henry hated her smoking, which was why she was hiding it. But then I saw Henry outside smoking himself!”
“Lots of couples have secrets from each other.”
“I still say there’s something going on there,” I repeated stubbornly.
“And as I said, we’re looking into that.”
“Well, you don’t seem to be looking very hard!” I leaned across the small table and pounded my forefinger onto the linen tablecloth for emphasis. “This is important! And there’s something else. On the morning of the murder, when I was bringing out the coffee, I overheard Joan. I didn’t think anything of it at the time—in fact, I forgot all about it until this afternoon. Joan seemed upset and she said to Henry, ‘I can’t wait until this is all over.’ Now, why would she say that?” I asked. “By her own account, she was looking forward to the evening, so what was she afraid of? And there’s more. Joan and Polly were seen talking together in town today.”
Detective Stewart put down his now empty cup; he had drained its contents in two quick gulps. Wearily rubbing a hand across his face, he said, “Ms. Parker, two people talking in the street isn’t a crime.”
“No, but you have to admit that it’s suspicious, especially when these same two people who are supposed to have no prior relationship were also talking outside in a blizzard, no less! Aren’t you curious to know what they were talking about?”
Detective Stewart stared at me. “Are you always this bullheaded?”
“When it’s my aunt’s life on the line, yes. What’s your excuse?”
We glared at each other while being stared at by most of the shop’s occupants. Detective Stewart put his head back and laughed. It was a harsh noise, like a car speeding down a gravel driveway in reverse. The few customers who hadn’t been staring at us now abandoned all restraint and turned to watch.
“Detective Stewart? Are you all right?” I asked. I was pretty sure he was laughing, but he could have been having some kind of seizure.
“I’m sorry, Ms. Parker. Excuse me. You always seem to take me by surprise.”
I wasn’t sure if that was a compliment or not. “Detective Stewart,” I said, getting back to the topic at hand, “my aunt did not kill Gerald Ramsey. I’ve known her all my life and for you to think such a thing—for anyone to think such a thing,” I said, a shade louder for the benefit of the shop’s customers, “is ridiculous.”
Detective Stewart lowered his voice. “Your loyalty to your aunt does you credit, Ms. Parker.”
“Elizabeth.”
He nodded his head. “Elizabeth. As I was saying, your loyalty to your aunt does you credit, but there are facts associated with this case that are hard to overlook.”
“Such as?”
He held up his hand and ticked off the items on his beefy fingers. “Well, for one thing, there’s the fact that Gerald Ramsey desperately wanted your aunt’s inn.”
“So?”
“So,” he continued, “this wasn’t just simple coveting on Mr. Ramsey’s part. He was taking distinct measures to force your aunt to sell him the property. We know for a fact that he was using his influence on the zoning board not only to change certain requirements but also to establish new ones, the sole purpose of which seemed designed to drive your aunt out of business.”
“I already knew that,” I said. “Aunt Winnie told me herself my first night here. And I can tell you that she wasn’t concerned in the least about it. My aunt is tougher than you realize. She knows how to handle bullies like Gerald Ramsey.”
The eyebrow that I had grown to despise during
my New Year’s Day interview with him now shot up. “Don’t go looking for innuendo where there is none,” I said quickly. “She wasn’t going to let Gerald Ramsey use the zoning board against her. She had her own plan to retaliate, a plan that didn’t include murder. She has a friend on the local newspaper here and she was going to make this story public. You know, corruption on the zoning board, greed run amok, that kind of thing. She was going to fight back, but within the confines of the law.”
Detective Stewart had taken out his notebook during my tirade and was jotting down notes.
“Is that all you have?” I asked, although I knew his answer before he gave it.
“No,” he said. “There’s the fact that other than the actors, your aunt was the only one who knew when the lights were going to be turned off. She herself turned them off.”
“But I already told you, you could guess that the lights were going to be turned off after reading the invitation. It said that there would be ‘screams in the dark.’ I think that’s why when the lights did go out no one was really surprised. We were all halfway expecting it. Now, I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to assume that if I was expecting it, then so was the murderer. All he or she had to do was keep an eye out and be at the ready.”
The traces of a smile—or a grimace—played on his lips. I think he was enjoying this. However, all he said was, “It’s a possibility.”
“It’s more than a possibility,” I countered, ready to argue the point more, but he held up his hand.
“I’m not done,” he said. “There’s also the matter of your aunt’s past.” His hazel eyes grew serious. “She assaulted a man with a gun, shooting him in the leg.” No smile played on his lips now; his expression was deadly serious.
“That was self-defense, and the courts cleared her of any crime,” I said. “A fact that you undoubtedly already know.”
“I’ve been with the force long enough to know that being cleared of a crime is not the same as being innocent of a crime. And I don’t particularly care for people who mete out vigilante justice.”
My stomach twisted, but I pressed on. “She wasn’t circumventing the law. She was helping a friend get out of an abusive environment. While they were there, the man came home, drunk and volatile. He threatened them. She was protecting herself and her friend.”
“She could have killed him.”
“Not according to my aunt.” I heard myself blurt out the next words before my brain could stop them from tumbling out. “She told me that she was too good a shot to have killed him. She knew where to hit him so that he wouldn’t be able to chase them.”
This stupid indiscretion earned me not just one raised eyebrow, but two. His brows were practically parallel with his hairline.
“And that brings me to a point, unfortunately, you already know about,” he said soberly. “The reflective tape on Mr. Ramsey’s suit coat matched the roll we found in your aunt’s office. Add to that the fact that the murderer is not only used to handling a gun, but is proficient at it and—”
I stuck out my chin. “And what?”
“And,” he said, his hazel eyes sympathetic, “we have the makings of a very strong case against your aunt.”
He might as well have kicked my stomach with his heavy, lumbering boots. I gasped before I could answer. “This is nonsense. Any one of the guests that night could have put the tape in her office.” My tone sounded firm, but even to my own ears, I didn’t sound convincing.
“I am sorry, Elizabeth. I know that you believe in your aunt’s innocence and I promise you that I’ll check out what you’ve learned.” He tapped his notebook. “But I really think that your aunt should get a good lawyer.”
“This is ridiculous. I haven’t been in town five days and I’ve already met several people who had a reason to kill Gerald Ramsey. My aunt can’t be the only suspect!”
“I never said she was the only suspect, I just said that she is one.”
I frantically searched my mind for other options. Grabbing at one, I said, “What about Gerald’s first wife, Tory? Wasn’t there something about her death that implicated Gerald?”
A surprised expression crept into Detective Stewart’s eyes. An appreciative one quickly replaced it. “How did you … ?” He shook his head. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter.” With a sigh he continued. “Yes, as a matter of fact there were questions surrounding the death of the first Mrs. Ramsey. She was having an affair at the time and the police thought that her car accident might not have been all that it appeared. But Mr. Ramsey had an alibi, as did her lover. Nothing ever came of it.”
“Didn’t she have any family? Could there be someone out there who might have thought Gerald had something to do with her death and …”
“… waited twenty years to kill him?” he finished.
I was saved a response, which I suspected would have included a vulgar suggestion as to what he could do with his notebook, by the jangling of the shop’s door. It opened, admitting none other than Ms. Jackie Tanner.
Peering in our direction, she sang out, “Elizabeth! I thought that was you!” She was still wearing the yellow hat. All that was missing from her outfit were the field glasses I was sure she employed to stalk her victims. As she bore down on us, Detective Stewart squirmed in his chair.
Marching to our table with a determined stride, she yanked a nearby chair over and sat down. “What a coincidence this is,” she chirped happily. “What are you two doing here?”
Under the cover of the table, Detective Stewart pressed his foot gently on mine. “I was just getting a cup of coffee when I happened to see Ms. Parker here.”
I followed his cue. “Yes. Aunt Winnie’s told me so much about the wonderful food here that I just had to sample it.”
Jackie looked pointedly at our food-free table. “I see,” she said. Turning on Detective Stewart, she continued. “Now, Detective, tell me, when are you going to arrest someone for this terrible murder? It just gives me palpitations to think that I stood in that room with a murderer!”
Detective Stewart raised his eyebrow at her use of the word palpitations. I wondered if he was thinking the same as I—that a more likely description of her feelings would be “rush of excitement.”
“We are working toward a solution,” he said, glancing at me.
Jackie did not miss the look. “Are you two working on this together? How exciting!”
Detective Stewart stumbled over himself to clarify his meaning, but Jackie went on. “You sly thing, Elizabeth! You never said a word earlier.”
“Ms. Tanner,” began Detective Stewart.
“Now, don’t you worry about a thing, Detective Stewart. I am the soul of discretion. Your secret is safe with me.” From beneath the folds of her hat, she winked at him and without hesitation peppered him with questions intermingled with various comments and observations.
Detective Stewart was no match for her. He blanched when she referred to me as an undercover field agent. He clenched his jaw when she wondered if the killer would ever be found. His face flared red when she suggested that maybe the local law enforcement manpower wasn’t up to this kind of investigation.
I leaned back in my chair and enjoyed the remarkably entertaining spectacle of a usually intimidating Detective Stewart being verbally trounced by Jackie. Finally, he could take no more. She wasn’t listening to his responses anyway. In a jumbled rush, he pushed his chair back and, muttering something about a previous appointment, bolted from the shop.
Watching him go, I chuckled. Apparently, I had unlocked the secret to unnerving Detective Aloysius Stewart—tea shops and Jackie Tanner. His namesake would have been sorely disappointed.
CHAPTER 18
There is danger when a man throws his tongue
into high gear before he gets his brain a-going.
—C. C. PHELPS
I DIDN’T NEED to look out my window the next morning to know that another storm was brewing. The intense pounding in my head told me that. Trying t
o avoid all contact with light, I stumbled to the bathroom, where I blindly groped for either the aspirin or my sinus medicine. Finding a bottle, I gulped down several chalky tablets and sank back into the comforting warmth of my bed.
While I waited for the ferocious pressure in my skull to subside, I thought about Aunt Winnie. Although she had tried to hide it, she had taken our disappointing interview with Jackie pretty hard—we all had. On a certain level, we had assumed that given Jackie’s extraordinary ability to know everything about everyone, she would provide a vital piece for our puzzle. I had wanted to keep Detective Stewart’s increased suspicions from Aunt Winnie, but it seemed folly to do so in light of the fact that the reflective tape had been found in her office. It suggested to all three of us that someone was trying to frame her. After I’d gotten back from my meeting with Detective Stewart, Aunt Winnie, Peter, and I had sat in the kitchen drinking coffee and trying to think of who could be behind this. We found ourselves exactly where we had been in the beginning, with a handful of suspects and no real evidence against any one of them.
It was well after midnight when we trudged off to bed, depressed and tired. Our best hope in deflecting the police’s attention away from Aunt Winnie had been the necklace. Unfortunately, this appeared inconsequential to the police in light of Aunt Winnie’s past. We had been left with two absolutes: that the police suspected Aunt Winnie of murdering Gerald, and that the real killer was still out there. It had made for an unsettling night.
When the light no longer made me wince in pain, I gingerly eased myself out of bed. Normally, I loved watching the cool early morning light play across the glossy wood floor, but not today. Today the light merely seemed intent on tormenting me. I dressed sluggishly and crept downstairs to start breakfast. On the stairs, my foot came into contact with something hard. It was Henry’s watch—again. I picked it up and continued down.
Pushing open the kitchen door, grown somehow heavier since last night, I staggered into the kitchen. Peter and Aunt Winnie were busily moving about. “Morning,” I said. At the sound of my voice, which even to my ears sounded like a wounded frog, both of them spun around.