by Laura Childs
“Tawney’s luncheon is in the back room, I guess. The party room.”
“Funeral party room,” Drayton said. They walked down a hallway lit with pink lights and hung with etchings of old Charleston scenes, and into a room that was actually called the Garden Room, probably because it seriously resembled a greenhouse. That is, glass windows formed two of the walls and afforded a nice view onto a small garden, while part of the ceiling was curved glass. Large potted plants were scattered everywhere and lacey ferns hung from the ceiling. There were a half dozen large circular tables and one long table where a buffet lunch was being served.
“I feel like I’m trapped inside a human terrarium,” Drayton said.
“It is kind of weird to have rain pattering down on top of you,” Theodosia said, glancing up at the partially glassed ceiling.
“But, I must say, the food smells delicious.”
“What are we waiting for?” Theodosia said.
They ambled over to the buffet table, got in line, and grabbed their plates.
“Look at this,” Theodosia said as she lifted the lid on a silver chafing dish. “Barbecued oysters.”
“They knew we were coming,” Drayton said. “Yum.”
Theodosia took three oysters and moved on. “They’re also serving ricotta-stuffed crepes with, hmm, I think huckleberry sauce.”
“This is very well-done,” Drayton said. “Tawney spent some money on this spread. Now I’m kind of hoping she’s not the guilty party.”
“Jasmine rice perloo and Parmesan crusted snapper down here,” Theodosia said, moving along the line. She held no illusions either way about Tawney. The woman could be guilty or innocent. In fact, just coming here to spy on her today meant Theodosia was leaning slightly toward a guilty verdict.
Theodosia and Drayton grabbed glasses of wine and seated themselves at one of the round tables. Tawney sat at the front table, drinking what appeared to be a martini straight up and accepting condolences from several of the guests. Charles Townsend was at another table, conversing with an older, silver-haired woman that Theodosia recognized as a prominent socialite and denizen of the Historic District. She went by the moniker Miss Callie, but Theodosia didn’t know her last name.
Brooklyn Vance and Earl Bullitt had also showed up for the luncheon. They’d loaded up their plates and, now that more guests had arrived and seating was at a premium, circled each other like a couple of wary alley cats.
Theodosia nudged Drayton. “Look at Brooklyn Vance. She looks like she wants to claw Bullitt’s eyes out.”
Drayton nodded. “Maybe do us all a favor.”
Theodosia had just headed back to the buffet table to grab another couple of oysters when the proverbial poop smashed into the fan.
The door to the Garden Room burst open and two uniformed police officers walked in. They were both tall and imposing, looking natty and official with their gold badges and neatly pressed blue shirts and slacks.
“Excuse me,” one of the officers called out in a loud voice. “We’re looking for Charles Townsend.”
21
Conversation came to a screeching halt as every pair of eyeballs in the room roved about nervously and then landed squarely on Charles Townsend. For the police officers, it was as if a giant red arrow had been drawn and a target painted on Townsend’s startled face.
The officers hurried over to Townsend. Theodosia caught the names on their ID tags as they went by. One said BEASLEY, the other said POWERS.
“Mr. Townsend,” Officer Powers said. “If you would please come with us.”
Blood drained from Townsend’s face as he rose shakily from his seat. “What’s this about?” he managed to squeak out.
“We’ll explain it to you on the ride to the precinct station,” Officer Beasley said.
“No! I want to know now!” Townsend cried. He looked terrified.
“We need to ask you a few questions,” Powers said. His words were in no way harsh, but they weren’t super friendly, either. Just the facts, ma’am.
“Am I under arrest?” Townsend’s voice quavered then rose to hit a high note of hysteria.
Powers reached out and put a hand on Townsend’s shoulder. “Please calm down, sir.” Then, “We’ll explain it all downtown.”
“Help!” Townsend screeched at the top of his lungs. “Somebody help me!”
Nobody moved a muscle. With their mouths virtually hanging open, every guest simply stared at Townsend as if they were an audience watching some sort of experimental surrealistic play. What was happening onstage—the Sturm und Drang of it all—wasn’t their business. They didn’t want to get involved.
“Please won’t someone help me?” Townsend yodeled again as Beasley gently took Townsend’s other arm and the two officers eased him toward the exit.
“Do you think we should somehow intercede?” Drayton whispered to Theodosia. He was clearly uncomfortable with the situation.
“Why should we if Tawney isn’t doing anything?”
They both craned their heads to get a look at her. Tawney’s eyes were focused on her drink as she basically tried to ignore the fuss.
“Besides, what would we do?” Theodosia asked as Townsend continued his whimpering protestations. “Grab Townsend and try to make a getaway? We’re not exactly the Lone Ranger and Tonto with horses saddled up, ready to gallop out of town.”
Drayton’s mouth twitched. “You paint an amusing image.”
“Made only more ridiculous if Tidwell were the sheriff,” Theodosia said. Then she added, “Which he kind of is.”
* * *
* * *
Thirty seconds later, the incident with Charles Townsend was pretty much forgotten. Guests talked, chuckled, ate, and drank. They streamed back to the buffet table for seconds.
Theodosia, on the other hand, had turned her attention to Brooklyn Vance and Earl Bullitt. They’d ended up at the same table and now, through some bit of musical chairs, were seated next to each other. Not only that, they had their heads inclined toward each other and were talking in what looked like a conspiratorial manner.
“Look at Brooklyn and Bullitt,” Theodosia whispered to Drayton.
Drayton glanced at them and said, “That’s odd. Even though Bullitt has all the charm of a rattlesnake, they look positively friendly.”
“Don’t they.” Theodosia stood up and casually walked toward their table. She was hoping to catch some of their conversation. And, boy, did she get an earful!
“Now we’re going to get some answers!” Bullitt was saying.
“I just knew it,” Brooklyn responded. “I had a feeling Townsend killed the old man and stole the flag.”
“He surely could have,” Bullitt said. “I understand he was front and center at the hot-air balloon rally.”
“Townsend could have ducked out, grabbed the drone from his car, and sent it skyward,” Brooklyn said. “Then, once the damage was done, he could have ditched the controller and come running back to the scene. Nobody would have been the wiser.”
“Nobody,” Bullitt agreed.
Strange bedfellows. This was the one thought that spun wildly through Theodosia’s brain. Now the two enemies were actually talking to each other? About the murder?
And, as Theodosia tried to make sense of this, she suddenly wondered if Brooklyn and Bullitt might not somehow be coconspirators. Had the open hostility she’d witnessed at the Floral Teacups Competition been a complete sham? Were they somehow working together?
Most frightening of all, were they the killers?
* * *
* * *
Theodosia and Drayton batted this idea back and forth as they drove to Drayton’s house.
“You told me Brooklyn Vance and Earl Bullitt fought like cats and dogs at the Floral Teacups Competition,” Drayton said.
“They did. But now I have to wo
nder if it was all for show.”
“You mean they might have been throwing up a smoke screen?”
“There’s a lot of that going around,” Theodosia said. She pulled up to the curb in front of Drayton’s house and said, “Good luck. I see the photographer’s already here.” A brown van that said WOODY HOVEL PHOTOGRAPHY was parked in front of Drayton’s one-hundred-seventy-five-year-old home that had once belonged to a prominent Civil War doctor.
“And so it begins,” Drayton said, looking unhappy. “I gave a key to Barbara Layton, the photo editor at Southern Interiors Magazine. She said she’d have the lighting and everything set up for the first shot by the time I got home.”
Theodosia nodded toward Drayton’s home. “Is Honey Bee at home?” Honey Bee was Drayton’s Cavalier King Charles and the love of his life.
“She’s staying with a neighbor today.”
“Well, good luck with the shoot.”
Drayton lingered, not getting out of the car. “Theo, if you’re not too busy at the tea shop, maybe you could come over and help out?”
“You know I’m not exactly an art director. Or stylist.”
“But you’ve honchoed photo shoots before,” Drayton said. “So you understand the intricacies as well as how to, um, manage people.”
“If you want my help, I’ll check in with Haley and come back here as soon as I can.”
“Thank you,” Drayton said as he climbed out of her Jeep. “I knew I could count on you.”
* * *
* * *
“Hey, look who’s back,” Haley called out as Theodosia came through the front door of the Indigo Tea Shop.
“Honey, you look kind of peaked,” Miss Dimple said. “You must have been in the cold and damp all morning.”
“Kind of,” Theodosia said. And then there was the police action at the luncheon. But the aroma of fresh-brewed teas, the flickering candles, the fire crackling in the fireplace, was soothing and welcoming.
“You want me to fix you a cup of tea?” Miss Dimple asked. She wasn’t happy unless she was mothering someone.
“Miss Dimple’s been playing tea sommelier all morning,” Haley said. “Getting pretty good at it, too.”
“I wouldn’t say no to a cup of oolong,” Theodosia said.
“Coming right up,” Miss Dimple said.
Theodosia glanced about the tea shop. Only two tables were occupied. “So it’s been really quiet today, huh?”
“Like a tomb,” Haley said. “Six tables at lunch and what you see here is the tail end of it. So this was the perfect day for you and Drayton to be AWOL.” She hesitated. “Wait. Is Drayton coming back?”
“Doubtful. He pretty much has to be at the photo shoot all afternoon,” Theodosia said. “You know how fussy he is about his house.”
“Don’t I know it.”
“And I think the magazine asked him to pose in a couple of shots.”
“He’ll despise that,” Haley said. “They’ll want him to wear a tweed jacket and smoke a pipe or something. Try to look like an English lord of the manor.”
“Drayton asked me to come back and help out. That’s if we’re not too busy here.”
“Well, we’re not. The only spark of life was a huge take-out order from the Lady Goodwood Inn. I think they were having refrigeration issues.”
“Here you go, dear.” Miss Dimple slid a cup of tea across the counter to Theodosia.
Theodosia took a grateful sip. “Delicious. Thank you.”
“Oh,” Haley said. “Bill Glass dropped by. He left a few copies of Shooting Star for us.”
“Such a nice man,” Miss Dimple said.
“You know, he’s really not,” Theodosia told her.
Haley reached behind the counter and grabbed one of the copies. “Take a look. It’s actually pretty interesting.”
The first thing Theodosia saw on the front page was a hugely unflattering photo of Brooklyn Vance and Earl Bullitt. They’d obviously been caught mid-argument with their mouths gaping wide open, looking like a couple of T. rex dinosaurs about to rip each other to bits. Delaine was standing in the background. Not surprising, she looked great.
“This is weird,” Theodosia said. She studied the photo a second time, again wondering if they could be working in collusion. Then she turned the tabloid facedown on the counter. “Is there anything else going on that I should know about?”
“Angie Congdon called,” Haley said. “Said she needed to talk to you.”
“Did she want me to call her back?” Theodosia asked.
“No, Angie said she had to run a couple of errands. She sounded pretty frazzled.”
“I can’t imagine why,” Theodosia said. Poor Angie. Her first husband Mark had died a few years ago. Now, when she should be celebrating her engagement, her fiancé had been summarily fired from his job and she was desperately trying to untangle him from this drone attack mess. She’d had a tough string of bad luck.
Theodosia went into her office, kicked off her boots, and shoved her feet into a comfy pair of loafers that she kept there for emergency purposes. She speed-checked her e-mail and then paused to thumb through a tea magazine, noting a nice feature article on Yixing teapots.
She raised her head when she heard a knock at her door. Haley.
“Did you want something to eat?” Haley asked. “Because I have some clam chowder in the kitchen. Serve it with a cream scone, if you’d like. And add some cinnamon honey butter.”
“That sounds great,” Theodosia said. “But I ate too much at the luncheon as it was.”
“Where was it held?”
“The Veranda Bistro.”
“Good food?” Haley asked.
“Pretty good. Not as creative as your menus though,” Theodosia said.
Haley flipped a hank of long blond hair over her shoulder and turned to leave. “Why am I not surprised.”
Haley went back in the kitchen and Theodosia went back to her tea magazine. As she skimmed an article on tea spots in Paris, she heard voices out in the tea room. Slightly raised voices. Uh-oh, some kind of trouble?
Theodosia was about to get up and see what the fuss was about when Angie Congdon suddenly appeared at her office door. Her face looked drawn and tense and her hair was slightly unkempt. But that could have been from the rain.
“You went to Don Kingsley’s funeral?” Angie asked Theodosia. She was cranked and in full-blown need-to-know mode. No Nice to see you, no Hi how are you.
“I just got back,” Theodosia said.
Angie walked a few paces into Theodosia’s office. “And I just got done putting the Featherbed House up as collateral for bail money.”
“What?” Theodosia stood up so fast her chair almost flipped over backward. “Because Harold’s been arrested?”
“No, but it’s only a matter of time. I can feel the noose starting to tighten.” Angie staggered another step and collapsed in the tufted chair across from Theodosia. Tears sparkled in her eyes, and her voice shook with fear. “I’m afraid I’ll lose everything if Harold is arrested and this murder isn’t solved!”
“Angie, no,” Theodosia hastened to say. She came around her desk and sat down next to Angie, put her arms around her. “That’s not going to happen. You don’t know about this, but right after the funeral, at the funeral luncheon, two police officers came in and took Charles Townsend away for questioning.”
“What!” Angie pulled back, her expressive eyes wide with surprise. “What are you saying, Theo?”
“Maybe . . . I don’t know, I probably shouldn’t read too much into it, but I got the distinct feeling that perhaps they were going to charge him.”
“You mean charge Townsend with murder?”
“I’m taking a wild guess, but possibly they might do that.” Theodosia knew she was hedging her words like crazy, but she desperately wan
ted to make Angie feel better.
“Really? That’s what you think will happen?” Angie asked.
“The police are dealing with a messy triple homicide,” Theodosia said. “Which puts them under tremendous pressure. And I know for a fact that they’re itching to close the book on this. As quickly as possible.”
Angie clapped a hand to her chest. “Praise the Lord. That means Harold is off the hook!”
As Theodosia gave Angie an encouraging nod, her common sense kicked in to warn her, to tell her to slow down. Maybe Harold is off the hook. Then again, maybe he’s not.
22
Drayton’s home was a hive of activity when Theodosia arrived. Everyone, including Barbara Layton, the photo editor from Southern Interiors Magazine, Woody Hovel, the photographer, Woody’s two assistants, a stylist, two lighting guys, and two interns, was working like crazy. This photo shoot not only looked like a big deal, it pretty much was.
Theodosia spotted Drayton wringing his hands and looking generally miserable as he stood in the dining room with his back up against a barrister bookcase. As she walked toward him, strategically dodging lights and stepping over black cables that snaked across his blue-and-persimmon Persian carpet, his expression brightened somewhat.
“How’s the shoot going?” Theodosia asked.
Drayton turned soulful eyes on her. “Basically, I’m enduring it. You know what a private person I am, Theo, so this is baptism by fire for me. Everyone shouting ideas and moving my precious furniture around. It’s almost too much to bear.”
Theodosia glanced around the dining room. Drayton’s Chippendale table held an eight-piece setting of his prized Limoges china, plus Baccarat stemware and Talisman Rose silverware. Two silver candelabras and an enormous bouquet of red roses and hot-pink freesia served as centerpieces. His favored oil painting of Charles Grey, the 2nd Earl Grey and former British Prime Minister (who served from 1830 to 1834), hung on the far wall.