Twisted Tea Christmas

by Laura Childs

  Theodosia knew the practical, rational answer. It was because of Fogheel Jack. He was the mysterious, unknown killer who’d murdered two women some seven years ago and was apparently back for a return engagement. Even her customers, sipping tea and nibbling fresh-baked scones at her quasi-British, slightly French-inspired tea shop, furtively whispered his name.

  Who was he?

  Where was he?

  When would he strike next?

  The Post and Courier had made no bones about last week’s murder, a headline boldly declaring Fogheel Jack Is Back! That murder had taken place in a small park over near the University. The strangling an almost exact reenactment of the two seven-year-old, still-unsolved crimes.

  Fogheel Jack. That’s what rabid journalists had called him back then. And the name had stuck. Obviously.

  Some of the TV stations had gone so far as to speculate that this brutal killer had been roaming the country and returned to Charleston because he found it to be more to his liking, a kind of preferred hunting ground.

  Enough of that nonsense, Theodosia told herself as she chugged along. Last week’s murder had happened miles from here. So there was no way . . .

  A faint sound up ahead. The scrape of shoe leather on pavement?

  Theodosia slowed, listened carefully, then stopped dead in her tracks. Cocked her head and listened harder.

  But the only thing she heard was the constant pounding of rain and the occasional whoosh of cars over on Archdale Street.

  I’m being silly. Acting like a fraidy-cat.

  Resuming her pace, Theodosia headed down the final passageway. This was normally a gorgeous place to sit and watch sunlight play on palmetto trees and purple wisteria. To watch butterflies and honeybees cavort. Not happening today. Instead, she hurried past fog-strangled clumps of azaleas as thunder rumbled overhead and rain pelted down. Blinking, wiping her eyes, she found it difficult to navigate the narrow path let alone avoid its deepening puddles.

  Theodosia cautioned herself to hold steady. After all, St. Philip’s Graveyard was just ahead. After that she’d be home free.

  Unfortunately, she had to contend with this blinding rain and doggone fog.

  Theodosia ducked her head and continued on as damp vines clutched at her ankles. Finally, through a scrim of shifting fog, a moldering tomb came into view. Then another seemed to pop up. And even though this was most definitely a creepy graveyard (ghost hunters claimed they’d seen glowing orbs here), Theodosia had never been so happy to see it.

  The brick path doglegged left and Theodosia followed it around a square marble tomb with a kneeling angel on top. Cold, wet, feeling like a drowned rat, she couldn’t wait to . . .

  Another noise.

  Theodosia’s shoulders hunched reflexively as she came to an abrupt stop.

  Is someone besides me wandering around in this miserable weather? A graveyard visitor or lost tourist?

  She waited nervously as electricity seemed to thrum the air like so many high-tension wires.

  What to do?

  An answering slash of lightning lit the boiling clouds overhead. And illuminated a strange tableau taking place some thirty feet in front of her.

  Two figures. Locked in some kind of unholy embrace. As if caught and buffeted in the eye of a hurricane.

  Then utter darkness enveloped the scene and rain drummed down even harder.

  Her heart practically blipping out of her chest, Theodosia wondered what she’d just witnessed? Lover’s quarrel? Crazy horseplay? Someone being attacked?

  Lightning strobed and crackled again, yielding a startling revelation. One of the figures was now stretched out atop a low tomb.

  Behavioral experts say that faced with imminent danger, most everyone has an immediate fight or flight reaction. Theodosia didn’t opt for either of these. Instead, she shouted, “Hey there!” Tried to make her voice sound loud and authoritative.

  A hooded figure in a long black shiny coat rose slowly and turned to face her. The image suddenly struck her as somber and frightening, like a creature out of a horror film. Or the Headless Horseman character from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow. She stared, trying desperately to make out the man’s face—she thought it was a man—but was only able to discern dark hollows for eyes and a horizontal slash of thin lips.

  “What are you . . . ?” she shouted again, even though it was difficult to make herself heard above the onslaught of the storm.

  Then Theodosia was struck silent as the man lifted a gleaming blade and tilted it in her direction. It was a strange gesture. He could have been threatening her, he could have been offering a benediction.

  The air felt charged with danger as Theodosia slowly spread her arms wide, as if in surrender, and took a step backwards.

  That’s when the man turned and slipped away into the shadows.

  Unnerved, Theodosia waited a few moments and then crept forward. Really, what had just happened? What had she witnessed?

  Slowly, cautiously, her heart beating like the wings of a frightened dove, Theodosia advanced on the small dark figure that had been flung carelessly across the tomb. It looked . . . almost like a bundle of rags. Was it a person? She thought so.

  Peering at the crumpled figure, she said, “Hello? Do you need help?”

  There was no answer.

  She took another step forward.

  That’s when it all changed for Theodosia. That’s when she saw streaming rivulets of blood mingled with rain as it hammered down.

  2

  Flustered and trying to fight off the blind panic that threatened to engulf her, Theodosia fumbled for her phone and managed to punch in 9-1-1. When a dispatcher came on the line her words poured out in a torrent.

  “There’s been a murder! At least I think it’s a murder. In St. Philip’s Graveyard. I need help!”

  “Where are you?” the dispatcher asked. A male voice, all business but concerned-sounding too.

  “I just told you. St. Philips Graveyard.”

  She heard mumbling in the background, several voices all merged together, and someone saying ten-fifty-three and a possible one-eighty-seven. Police codes, she guessed. Then the dispatcher was right back with her.

  “An alert’s been sent, help is on the way,” he said. “But you must remain on the line, do you understand?”

  “Okay . . . okay,” Theodosia said. She was trying to stay calm, to sound as if she was in control of her faculties, but it was difficult. Rain continued to pour down, seeping under her collar and running down the back of her neck, chilling her to the bone. She was also standing in total darkness, surrounded by ancient, crumbling statuary and tombstones. A carved skull stared at her with hollow eyes. A lamb with a missing head stood guard just to her left. And of course there was that poor body. With so much blood leaking out.

  “Are you still there?” the dispatcher asked. “Talk to me. I need to know that you’re okay.”

  “I’m here, I’m okay.” Theodosia said as she clutched her phone with a cold, death-like grip.

  “There’s a cruiser two minutes out, so you need to hang in there as best you can.” Against the constant drip, drip, drip of rain he sounded worried.

  Theodosia nodded, even though she knew the dispatcher couldn’t see her.

  “Okay,” she said finally. “I’m still here.”

  “Are you in any physical danger?”

  Theodosia looked around. “Right now? I don’t think so. But . . .”

  She ground her teeth together as her curiosity reared up hard and fast, getting the better of her. Clouding her judgment.

  She crept forward, the heels of her loafers sinking into soft, dark moss as she edged across soggy ground. Then she stopped and peered speculatively at the woman. She’d been flung haphazardly across a low pockmarked marble tombstone, almost as if she’d been put there on display. As if her
killer wanted to say, Look what I did.

  The scene was macabre. The woman’s face and arms looked bleached white, like bones picked clean. And every time lighting flashed, and wind ruffled the woman’s clothing and hair, it was like watching a herky-jerky old-time black-and-white movie.

  But wait . . .

  It took Theodosia a few moments to become fully aware of the khaki book bag with a purple emblem, sodden and half-hidden under the woman.

  “Dear Lord,” she said, her voice low and hoarse. “Could it be Lois?” Lois Chamberlain was the retired librarian who owned the Antiquarian Bookshop a few doors down from the Indigo Tea Shop. She sold khaki book bags that looked a lot like this one.

  Theodosia lifted her cell phone and spoke into it again. “I think . . . I think I might know her.”

  “You recognize the victim?” the dispatcher asked. Surprise along with a hint of doubt had crept into his voice.

  “I recognize the book bag anyway.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “I’m afraid it might be Lois Chamberlain from the Antiquarian Bookshop,” Theodosia said. Then the lighting strobed again, set to the tune of a kettle drum thunderclap, and she saw long reddish-blond hair hopelessly tangled and streaked with blood.

  “Or maybe . . . her daughter?”

  Could that be Cara? Theodosia wondered.

  “Officers are thirty seconds out,” the dispatcher said in her ear. “Two cars coming.” He seemed more concerned with their timely arrival than the dead body Theodosia was staring at. “Are you hearing sirens yet?”

  As if on cue, dual high-pitched wails penetrated her consciousness.

  “I hear them, yes. They’re getting close.”

  Then they were more than close. Gazing across a tumble of moss-encrusted tombstones through swirls of fog, Theodosia saw the first cruiser turn off Church Street and bounce up and over the curb. Without cutting its speed, the car skidded across the sidewalk, maneuvered around the side of the church, and churned its way toward the graveyard. Slewing across wet grass, the car rocked to a stop just as its reinforced front bumper hit a tilting tombstone with a jarring clink.

  A second cruiser followed as lights pulsed, sirens blared, and a crackly voice yelled at her over a loudspeaker.

  It was kind of like Keystone Cops, only it wasn’t.

  Guns drawn, serious-looking uniformed officers sprang from both vehicles.

  “Here. Over here,” Theodosia called out. She raised her hands in the air to let them know she was an unarmed civilian. “I’m the one who called it in.” So please don’t shoot me.

  The EMTs arrived right on their heels. Siren screaming, red lights flashing, jumping from the ambulance and rushing to tend to the victim. They cleared her airway, used a ventilator bag, did chest compressions, administered some sort of injection to try and jumpstart her heart. Nothing seemed to work. The woman—Cara?—appeared to be dead.

  “Soft tissue trauma compounded by a hyoid fracture,” one of the EMTs murmured. “Ligature cut deep. Not much we could do.”

  One of the officers, a man who’d been holding a flashlight so the EMTs could work, walked over to Theodosia. His nametag read DANA.

  “You’re sure she’s been . . . ?” Theodosia touched a hand to the side of her own neck to indicate a strangulation.

  “Looks like,” Officer Dana said.

  Theodosia’s face was a pale oval lit only by bouncing flashlights and the glowing blue and red bars on the cruisers. “So it could have been . . . ?” Her voice trailed off again.

  Officer Dana aimed suspicious cop eyes at her. “You’re thinking Fogheel Jack? Let’s hope not.”

  But Theodosia knew it probably was. She’d been born with masses of curly auburn hair, blue eyes that practically matched her sapphire earrings, an expressive oval face, beaucoup smarts, and a curiosity gene that simply wouldn’t quit. Right now her smarts and her curiosity gene were ramping up big-time, telling her this was definitely the brutal handiwork of the killer known as Fogheel Jack.

  Another officer, Officer Kimball, walked over to them as he spoke into his police radio. He said, “K” into the radio, then looked at Officer Dana. “We need to lock down the scene until they send an investigator.”

  Theodosia took a step forward. “Pete Riley?” Her voice sounded soft and muted amidst the clank of activity and barked orders.

  Officer Dana looked at her sharply. “You know him?”

  “He’s my boyfriend.”

  “I don’t know who got the call out tonight,” Officer Kimball said. He sounded unhappy and resigned, as if he’d rather be anyplace else. “We’ll have to wait and see.” He sighed. “Anyhoo, Crime Scene’s on its way.”

  “I’ll get some tape from the vehicle,” Officer Dana offered.

  Halfway through stringing yellow and black crime scene tape from a grave to a mausoleum and then winding it around another grave, Officer Dana glanced up at a large figure that was bobbing toward them. The figure slipped behind a tall obelisk, then re-emerged again.

  “Looks like the big boss himself came out,” Officer Dana said.

  Theodosia peered through dark swaying strands of Spanish moss and decided that could mean only one thing.

  “Detective Tidwell,” she murmured, just as Detective Burt Tidwell, head of the Charleston Police Department’s Robbery and Homicide Division, appeared. He was dressed in a baggy brown suit the color of sphagnum moss. What little hair he had left was acutely disheveled, his eyes were magpie beady, and his oversized belly jiggled. As he drew closer Theodosia saw a soup stain marring his ugly green tie.

  “You,” Tidwell said when he caught sight of Theodosia. Clearly they knew each other.

  Theodosia gave a half shrug. “I was taking a shortcut back to my tea shop and I . . .” Her voice trailed off as Tidwell held up a hand. Then she cleared her throat and said, “I think I know her.”

  That grabbed Tidwell’s attention. He peered at Theodosia from beneath heroic bushy eyebrows and said, “You recognize the victim?”

  “I think it might be Cara Chamberlain, Lois’s daughter.”

  “The bookstore lady,” Tidwell murmured. Besides being a meticulous, boorish, ill-tempered investigator, he was extremely bright and well read. “You’re sure it’s Lois’s daughter? Are you able to make a positive ID?”

  “I think so.”

  His head shook setting off a jiggle of jowls. “You need to be absolutely sure before we do any kind of notification.”

  “Then I don’t . . .”

  Theodosia’s words were once again cut short by the arrival of the Crime Scene team. Their shiny black van pulled up next to the police cruisers. Men in black jumpsuits got out and immediately established a hard perimeter—setting up lights on tripods and even more yellow crime scene tape. When the entire graveyard glowed a ghastly yellow, they began to record the scene, using still cameras as well as video cameras.

  “Anybody touch her?” one of the techs asked. He aimed his question directly at Theodosia and Tidwell. They both shook their heads.

  “Good. Step back then,” he said.

  “Any footprints?” Tidwell asked. “Can you pull plaster casts?”

  The tech looked skeptical. “Dunno. There are a few prints but they’re already mushy and filled with rain.”

  Theodosia stood there feeling helpless and bedraggled. Her normally curly hair was plastered to her head and she’d crossed her arms in a futile attempt to stay warm. Still, a keen intellect shone in her eyes as she watched the proceedings.

  Strangely, the night was shaping up for even more action. A shiny white van with a satellite dish on top had just rolled in. Theodosia figured it was TV people who’d tuned in on their scanner and gotten wind of the murder.

  “Oh, hell’s bells,” Tidwell said when he saw the van. “The media jackals have arrived.”

 
“What have we got? Lemme through, lemme through,” came the high-pitched, semi-authoritative voice of Monica Garber. She was the lead investigative reporter at Channel Eight, a tenacious pit bull of a woman who lived for the thrill of sinking her teeth into a fast-breaking story.

  Officer Kimball held up a hand and tried to block her, said, “Ma’am, you need to stay back.”

  “Stuff it,” Monica Garber snarled as she sailed right past him. She was mid-thirties—around Theodosia’s age—attractive in a hard-edged way, and always projected her own brand of on-air sassiness. Tonight she was tricked out in a form-fitting hot pink blazer, tight black jeans, and short black boots. Her long dark hair flowed freely about her shoulders.

  Theodosia didn’t think Monica Garber would be particularly thrilled when she discovered who the victim was. Cara Chamberlain was a journalism student who’d taken the semester off to do a news internship at Channel Eight. Thus, she was practically one of their own.

  How would Monica Garber handle her emotions when she realized the victim was Cara?

  Turns out, not very well.

  Once Monica pushed her way past the police line and registered that it was Cara lying there, she promptly fainted. Would have fallen and split her skull open on a hump-backed tombstone had not Bobby, her cameraman, lunged forward and caught her at precisely the last second.

  “Nuh, I’m okay,” Monica protested when she regained consciousness a few moments later. Then, as she looked over at the body, her eyes rolled back in her head and her knees wobbled like a Jell-O ring being passed around a Thanksgiving table.

  “Get her out of here!” Tidwell shouted.

  Bobby the cameraman and the young man who’d been manning the boom microphone got on either side of a shaky, protesting Monica Garber and half-carried, half-dragged her away.

  “Good,” Tidwell said. “Now, if only this tedious rain would let up. I have additional personnel on the way and we need to . . .” He half-spun, noticed Theodosia again, seemed to seriously study her, and said, “Miss Browning. A favor if you will.”