Murder in a Teacup

by Vicki Delany

  “We’ll talk about this later,” Lewis said before he turned and walked away.

  “We certainly will!” Julie-Ann called after him.

  When Lewis had gone, holding his mother’s arm and being trailed, reluctantly, by his children, Julie-Ann turned to us. “I’m a bookkeeper, and I have my own company. I specialize in small family businesses and local nonprofits. Sandra’s on the board of a lot of charities, and if she isn’t on the board, she’s friends with those who are. She knows a lot of people in our town, and everyone of any importance. A couple of carefully placed rumors and she would have ensured my reputation was ruined. I agreed to come on this stupid vacation to get her to back off, let her think I was considering going back to Lewis, while I shored up my defenses. By the way, any feelings Ed and I had toward each other in the past were long behind us, and the meetings we’d had over the past few months were strictly about business. He was no friend of Sandra’s, either, but he thought she was mellowing in her old age and wanted to try to get on. More fool him.”

  “Why didn’t you tell the police this?” I asked. “After Ed died.”

  “Tell them what? That a sweet old lady who didn’t want me to divorce her grandson asked me to make one more attempt at saving my marriage by coming on an all-expenses-paid vacation, so she must be a murderer? I knew she and Ed didn’t get on, but if Sandra killed everyone she considered her enemy, the population of Grand Lake would be depleted considerably. Even after Ed died, I didn’t see any reason for Sandra to have killed him. Why’d she do it, anyway?”

  I glanced at the police officer guarding the door. Williams had gone inside. I remembered that Julie-Ann had been quite happy to accuse Trisha of killing Ed. There was more than one poison-tongued person in their family. “I don’t know. We’ll have to wait to find out.”

  “I’m assuming our family farewell dinner isn’t going to happen. I can only hope Heather made the new flight bookings before she was hauled off to the pokey.” Julie-Ann walked away.

  “Happy families,” Bernie said. “Not. Rose, why don’t I walk you to the house? You also need to lie down.”

  “What I need is a gin and tonic, and heavy on the gin. I’ll have to take your arm, young man,” she said to Matt, “as my cane has been confiscated as police evidence. I do hope I get it back. I like that one.”

  Matt stood up and graciously extended his arm. Rose slipped hers through it. “Are you coming, love?” she said to me.

  “Not yet. Once again, I feel compelled to sit here and watch the police rifle through my place. Good thing nothing happened in the kitchen. Maybe this time, they’ll stay out of my baking.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Simon said as Detective Williams came out of the tearoom, munching on a strawberry tart.

  Chapter 23

  The others returned to the house, but I stayed in the tearoom garden with Simon sitting quietly at my side until the police had finished what they had to do and left. The few curious guests had drifted back to their rooms long ago. Redmond phoned me, saying she’d be around in the morning to take Rose and my statements. Something else had been bothering me, and I told her about it. She said she’d see what she could do.

  Simon and I walked to the house together. Darkness had fallen, but a full moon hung in the sky, lighting our way. He took my hand in his and I left it there, glad of its warm strength. We found Bernie and Matt in rocking chairs on the veranda, the chairs pulled close together, a bottle of red wine on the table in front of them. “Where’s Rose?” I asked.

  “She went to her room,” Bernie said. “I suggested she sit with us and have a drink, but she wants to be alone.”

  “I’ll go check on her.”

  “Perhaps better not to. I offered to sit with her, but she said no. She’s pretty shook up. More, I think, at her misjudging Sandra so badly than at what happened.”

  “Sounds like a lot of people misjudged Sandra,” Matt said.

  Bernie had her phone open on her lap. She typed a line and pressed a button and closed it.

  “What are you doing?” I asked.

  “Matt’s helping me with the plot points of the book I’m stuck on.” Bernie gave him a big grin. “Isn’t that nice of him?”

  He looked up and gave me a wink.

  Bernie slipped the phone into her pocket. “When did you first realize—”

  “Not now,” I said. “I’m beat and I’m also shook up and I need to process this.”

  “Can I pour you a drink?” Matt asked. “Simon?”

  “No, thanks,” I said.

  “I’ll walk you home.” Simon came with me to my door. I let Éclair out, and while she snuffled under bushes in search of squirrels, we stood on the porch, watching the movement of the sea and listening to the sound of waves lapping at the shore and the whispers of the wind in the trees.

  I took a deep breath and felt the clean, salty air fill my lungs. “Thank you. I’m okay now. You should probably come to the kitchen first thing tomorrow. Redmond will want to talk to you, too.”

  “Good night, Lily,” he said.

  “Good night.”

  He kissed me on my cheek. He smelled of good Cape Cod earth.

  He turned and walked away, and I called to Éclair.

  * * *

  “Poisonous families.” Rose shook her head. “No good comes of grievances allowed to fester. Perhaps I’ll give your mother a call, love. It’s been a while since we had a nice chat.”

  I touched her shoulder. “Why don’t you do that? Maybe invite her down for a few days. She can have my room. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

  We were gathered in the kitchen of Victoria-on-Sea the morning after the drama in the tearoom. To my surprise, Rose had arrived before me. She was unable to sleep, she’d said.

  “Sandra killed Ed,” Bernie said. “I still have trouble believing it. That old lady.”

  “We old ladies can be more competent than you young people realize,” Rose said. She’d dressed in her usual colors and had applied her makeup with her normal heavy hand. She looked, I thought, perfectly chipper. Nothing like that English stiff upper lip.

  “Fear not, Rose,” Bernie replied. “I’m well aware that you can do anything you put your mind to.”

  About the last thing I felt like doing this morning was making breakfasts. But if there’s one job that has to be done regardless of what mood one is in, it’s feeding people. The McHenry family I’d gladly see starve, but we did have other guests. “You didn’t leave a note telling me how many people we have for breakfast, Rose,” I said.

  “I scarcely know, love. The house is full, but if the McHenry family show their faces, I’ll be surprised. Other than Julie-Ann and the children, that is. Do what you think best.”

  I took down the mixing bowls.

  Redmond had texted me at six to say she’d be around to take our statements at nine o’clock. I thought it considerate of her to wait until I finished with the breakfasts.

  She must have texted the others, too, as minutes after I’d unlocked the kitchen door, first Simon and then Bernie came in. Matt wasn’t far behind.

  Even Edna arrived at work early. “Frank got a call as we were finishing up dinner. He was out the door while still hopping on one foot putting on his socks. More excitement at Tea by the Sea.”

  “Never a dull moment,” I said. “Unfortunately. Since you’re all here, you might as well work. Simon, make the muffins. I have apple cinnamon planned for today. Matt, fruit salad. Bananas are on the table and you’ll find everything else in the fridge. Bernie, start on the tomatoes and mushrooms. Rose—”

  “Why don’t I make the tea?” Rose said.

  “Excellent idea,” Edna said. “Okay, fill me in. Sandra McHenry and Heather French have been arrested. That’s a shocker.”

  “Sandra killed Ed French,” I said.

  “Allegedly,” Matt said from the depths of the fridge.

  “Not according to me. Sandra killed Ed because Ed wanted money from Heather, and Hea
ther planned to give it to him.”

  “That makes no sense,” Edna said. “Why didn’t Heather just say no to Ed and tell Sandra to mind her own business?”

  “Heather didn’t say no,” I said, “because she and Ed had come to an agreement. She had a lawyer draw up a contact to settle the dispute. From what I saw last night, Heather’s totally dominated by Sandra, and Sandra didn’t trust Ed not to keep demanding more money.”

  “Sandra,” Rose said, “considered everything that went on in her family to be her business. I failed to realize to what extremes she could go.”

  “She fooled us all,” I said. “Me, most of all, with the feeble-old-lady bit. I should have realized, knowing you, Rose, what elderly women are capable of.”

  Rose sniffed. “I hope you’re not suggesting that if anyone else around here is murdered, I’m a good suspect.”

  “There will be no more murders around here,” I said. “And that’s that. When Ed and Trisha arrived, Heather told her father she’d invited them. But later, she told me it was Sandra’s idea, although Sandra said at one point she wished Heather hadn’t invited Ed. I thought nothing of it, but I should have. Sandra had orchestrated the whole thing. She knew they’d be here, therefore malice aforethought was involved.”

  “What about the foxglove?” Simon asked.

  “More feeble-old-lady distraction. Who would have thought Sandra would creep out of the house in the night and nip around to Linda Sheenan’s place to steal plants? Yet, that’s what she did. I suspect she slipped Heather’s car keys out of her bag. Heather might have known she took them, or she might not. She pretended not to notice a lot of things when it came to her grandmother. Sandra had invited Ed and Trisha here with the intention of killing Ed and would have been on the lookout for something she could use that wouldn’t cast suspicion onto her. Linda’s foxglove garden is visible from the road, and the McHenrys were out and about quite a bit. If she hadn’t seen the foxglove, I’ve no doubt she was resourceful enough to come up with another idea. She would have wanted to kill him well away from Grand Lake, where people who know the history of the McHenry and French families might have asked questions.”

  “And getting the foxglove into his tea?” Bernie said. “She couldn’t have known Tyler would steal Simon’s bike and cause a distraction.”

  “No, but she probably had the foxglove on her, waiting for the right time to use it. She probably planned to slip the stuff into the bag Trisha kept in her purse when the opportunity presented itself.”

  “Throwing suspicion onto Trisha? Why would she do that?”

  “Sandra didn’t have anything against Trisha, but she wouldn’t have much cared if Trisha went to prison for the crime.”

  Bernie shuddered. “Did anyone else just feel a cold breeze blow through here?”

  “Rose is making tea,” Edna said. “Must be hell freezing over.”

  “You can’t get good help in the Colonies these days.” Rose poured boiling water into a sturdy brown teapot.

  “I’m starting to get an idea for my next book,” Matt said.

  “Everything I’m telling you is nothing but guesses and conjecture on my part,” I said. “You’ll have to talk to Detective Redmond for details you can use in a book.”

  “And wait for it all to wend its way through the courts. I’ve waited longer for material before. Maybe this won’t work as a book on its own, but part of something larger. I wonder if there’s much of a history of elderly people being murderers. Do you know, Rose?”

  Rose carried the teapot to the table and sat down. Simon stirred batter, and Matt and Bernie continued chopping. Edna seemed to be enjoying having help and had made no move to start carrying things into the dining room. Éclair ran from one person to the other, tail wagging, tongue drooling, ears up, happy to have company this morning. Robbie perched on a shelf, not happy to have company this morning. I placed sausages in the hot frying pans.

  “Everyone, so they say, is capable of murder if the conditions are right,” Rose said. “What’s stopping people of a certain age isn’t motivation, but physical ability. Then again, some of us have learned to get over it, as the young people say.”

  “And that,” I said, “is why no one even thought to suspect Sandra. When everyone else was in the garden fussing over Tyler and Simon’s motorcycle—”

  “Me, most of all,” Simon muttered.

  “Rose and Sandra went inside. You told me the ladies’ room was occupied, so you used the men’s while Sandra stood guard.”

  “The ladies’ room was occupied while everyone was supposedly outside?” Bernie said. “Why didn’t I know that? You didn’t think to ask who might have been in there? That person might have been the killer, hiding until the coast was clear.”

  “Oh,” I said. “You’re right. I never thought . . .”

  “Some detective you are, Lily Roberts.”

  “Except that Lily did solve it.” Simon poured batter into the muffin tins.

  “Except for that,” Bernie admitted.

  “While Rose was otherwise occupied, and no one was watching her, all Sandra had to do was nip across the room and dump foxglove into Ed’s teapot. Put the lid back on the pot and be once again standing at the men’s-room door, all innocent and smiling, when Rose emerged. A matter of seconds.”

  “For someone who could move quickly,” Matt said.

  “When she wanted to,” I said.

  “Did Heather know what Sandra was planning?” Matt asked. “Or what she’d done after the fact?”

  “I don’t know. Judging by the bit of conversation the two of them had when . . . when Sandra was about to kill me, she didn’t have a lot of respect for Heather.”

  “Heather fixed the brakes. Not Sandra,” Simon pointed out.

  “Sandra might be spryer than she put on, but she is eighty years old. She’s not capable of crawling around on the floor of the garage or doing detailed work in the near dark. It’s highly unlikely she knows anything about cars, anyway. But Heather does.”

  “Sandra probably told Heather it was a prank. Or a way of putting a fright into Lily and me to stop us asking questions. Remember,” Bernie said to Rose, “no one knew you’d be coming with us that morning.”

  “If that’s supposed to console me about the actions of my friend”—Rose sipped her tea—“it does not.”

  “Hello!” a voice called from the dining room. “Anyone here?”

  Edna picked up her tray. “And it’s off to work we go.”

  I returned my attention to the stove and flipped the sausages.

  “I’m thinking of bringing Rose’s grandmother into my book,” Bernie said to Matt. “She can be the brains behind the detective agency, thinking it all through back at the office while the two younger women follow her instructions. What do you think?”

  * * *

  Most of what I surmised, Amy Redmond told me, was right. Probably right, anyway.

  Allegedly.

  We met in the drawing room over coffee and apple and cinnamon muffins. I gave her my statement, going over what I’d guessed (incorrectly) and what I’d tried to accomplish (and would have failed at, if not for Rose and her cane). Before calling in the others, Redmond filled me in on what was happening down at the police station.

  Sandra remained tight-lipped, demanding she be treated in a way that respected the dignity of her years. Heather, on the other hand, was talking. Crying mostly, but talking despite her lawyer’s advice. Unfortunately, Heather didn’t have a lot to say. Sandra had been furious when Heather told her she wanted to come to an agreement with Ed and pay him some of what he claimed he deserved—just to get him to go away.

  “It seems, from what I can gather, that Sandra has Heather firmly under her thumb. Much of the estrangement between Heather and her parents and her brother comes from Sandra’s meddling. Basically, she likes pitting one party against another and leaning back to enjoy the fallout. It appears to be her modus operandi on the boards she’s been on in Grand Lak
e. Not many people in that town think well of her, but most of them have been afraid to say so. She has a long reach and she doesn’t forget an injury.”

  “I’m surprised she took my grandmother in. Rose is pretty sharp.”

  Redmond gave me a soft smile. “I suspect Rose simply didn’t have anything Sandra wanted. Except friendship. I’d guess Rose isn’t a woman who listens to gossip.”

  “No, she doesn’t. She prefers to make her own judgments about people. Finding out what Sandra is really like . . . Well, that’s hard on her.”

  “Other than Julie-Ann, who did have occasional business transactions with Ed French, the McHenrys haven’t had anything to do with Ed or Trisha for years. Which seems to be the way everyone wanted it. But Sandra kept tabs on Ed and Trisha, the way she kept tabs on everyone. I called the health food store in Grand Lake this morning.”

  “Why would you do that?”

  “It’s a small store in a small town. The clerk is friends with Darlene McHenry. She confirmed that she told Darlene about the special tea Trisha was buying for Ed. Just local gossip, she thought nothing of it. Trisha told the clerk Ed was trying to be more conscious of looking after his health.”

  “And Darlene told Sandra.”

  “Yup. Sandra might have been planning to get rid of him for some time, but the opportunity never presented itself. Ed seems to have been fairly patient about waiting to get his share of his brother’s money. There is, by the way, nothing we can find that indicates he threatened Heather in any way. He sent her a few emails over the last six months, asking if they could get over old grievances and talk, and to remember they’d both loved Norman. Three weeks ago, Heather replied that she was talking to her financial advisor and she’d have something for him soon. Sandra must have realized time was running out, but she wouldn’t have wanted to do anything to Ed in Grand Lake, where everyone knows everyone else’s business and the police hear the local gossip. What better than a nice family vacation at a neutral B and B on Cape Cod?”