Steeped in Suspicion

by Eryn Scott

  “I heard you didn’t come to her funeral,” I said, finally.

  Carl’s expression hardened, confirming he got the implications hidden within my statement. He exhaled a dry laugh. “Yeah, well, neither did you, so …” And with that turned his back to me and walked away.

  Swallowing a frustrated growl, I opened my trunk and grabbed my groceries. My overnight bag was also in the trunk, so I slung that over one shoulder.

  Inside, Asher watched me surprised as I stomped into the kitchen.

  “Bad drive?” he asked, shooting me a sidelong glance.

  “The end of it.” I let my bag of clothes fall to the floor then set the bags of food on the kitchen counter and started putting the groceries away. “Ran into Curmudgeon Carl out there.” I jabbed a thumb toward the neighboring house.

  Asher ran a hand over his jaw. “And I’m guessing it didn’t go well.”

  I scowled at him for a moment before remembering he wasn’t the one I was mad at. “No, but he basically told me he hated my grandmother’s tea shop enough to do just about anything to get rid of it, and the only way he could get out of their current easement rental was for her to die.”

  “I’m not surprised to hear that,” he said. “Those two had weekly yelling matches across their lawns.”

  Crumpling up the empty grocery bags, I tossed them under the kitchen sink where Grandma used to keep hers. I set the fruit in a bowl on the counter, turned on the heat under the kettle, and sank forward, resting my elbows on the tile countertop. My thoughts returned to Wallace’s question about me keeping the shop open. I hadn’t been a tea person before, but the fact that I’d started water for a cup instinctually after a bad day highlighted how much that had changed.

  Returning to explaining my confrontation with Carl, I shook my head. “When he talked about her he had such hate, such disgust in his voice.”

  Asher waited as if he perceived that wasn’t all.

  After a moment, I added, “And he criticized me for not being at the funeral which is becoming something of an Achilles heel for me in this whole ‘trying to avenge my grandma’ idea.”

  “You’re doing all you can now,” Asher said.

  I exhaled but didn’t feel any better. The kettle whistled, so I turned off the heat and began making myself a cup of tea, opting for a single bag instead of a full pot of loose leaf tea like Asher had shown me how to make.

  “Want me to go next door and poke around a bit? See what I can find?” he asked.

  I stopped what I was doing to cock an eyebrow at him.

  “I may not be able to go into the town hall building,” Asher said, “but I spent plenty of time at the neighbors' houses growing up.”

  That was right. He had gone inside Daphne’s house, no problem.

  Thinking it over for a moment, I said, “What are you going to find? A note that says, ‘I did it’? Honestly, we don’t even know what we’re looking for at this point.” I sat down with my mug of tea waiting for it to steep.

  Asher tipped his head to one side. “I don’t have to look for anything. I could do some light haunting.” At this he wiggled his fingers at me.

  I narrowed my eyes. “The finger thing makes me think you don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Psh. I’ve haunted people before,” he scoffed. “A board creaking here, leaving a door open there …” his eyes lit up as he seemed to think of another, “closing a door that was open when there’s no wind around.”

  Chuckling, I said, “No, that’s okay. I would hate to impart that kind of terror on the man, as much as he may deserve it. Why don’t we go over the clues again? Maybe we’ll see a way forward after that.”

  Sitting across from each other at the small kitchen table, Asher and I went through the clues while we waited for my tea to steep. Asher explained, again, how he’d been on the beach and had noticed a shadow leaving the house. I tapped my foot as I listened.

  “Okay, so we’ve got the shadowy figure,” I said, standing to pull out the tea bag once four minutes had passed.

  I tossed it into the compost bin on the counter before rejoining Asher at the table. Settled back in my seat, I sipped my tea while I let my mind steep in the clues.

  “We’ve also got the campaign she was running against a human mayor,” I added. “Aside from that, Carl has reason to kill her, and he lives next door so he would be close enough to sneak inside.”

  Asher scratched at the side of his nose. “Though it doesn’t quite make sense why he would do something now instead of the last decade since your grandma opened the shop.”

  “True.” I pursed my lips to one side, wishing I’d gotten into mysteries at some point in my reading career.

  I’d always preferred happy, fun stories where the worst thing to worry about was whether or not the two main characters would fall in love, not intense things like life and death. But now that I found myself solving a real life mystery, any guidance would’ve been nice.

  “And while the new mayor has a reason to want Grandma out of the way, we’re not sure if he was even in this area that night.” I tapped my fingers on the table. “Plus killing a person over a small town election seems intense.”

  Asher sighed. “Yeah.”

  Slumping back into the seat, I let my shoulders sag.

  “So how long are you going to stay?” he asked, worry etched in the fine lines visible on his face.

  “That’s up to Police Chief Clemenson. Beyond that, I’ll run out of money if I don’t go back to work soon.” I cringed, thinking of my tiny basement apartment in Portland—my tiny but still expensive apartment. I inspected the kitchen and tugged at my sweater.

  “You could stay here, run the teahouse,” Asher said.

  “I don’t know the first thing about tea,” I said, glancing down at the mug in my hands that argued otherwise.

  “I could teach you that. I listened to your grandma and watched customers enough, I could show you.”

  “Was her business even profitable?”

  “I think so. I’d have to go through her books, but she owned the house and lived a simple life, so there wasn’t much to pay for.”

  “But I have a life in the city.” Even as I said it, I knew it wasn’t true. Heat crept into my cheeks. “I-I’m going to go call my mom,” I said, getting up and walking away before Asher responded.

  On my way out of the room, I stopped at my bag and dug around in a pocket until I pulled out a hair tie. The coastal winds had done a number on my long hair. It felt glorious to pull it up into a messy bun.

  The sun was dipping below the watery blue horizon line as I stepped out onto the deck. My fingers shook as I dialed my mom’s number, so I pressed the phone up against my cheek to steady it.

  “Hi, honey.” Mom’s voice came through warm but tinged with worry.

  “Hey, Mom.”

  “How is it?” she asked. I could tell she was trying to slip the question in nonchalantly, but there was a tightness to her words that revealed the weight my answer would hold.

  I wet my lips, staring out at the setting sun glittering off the ocean. “Beautiful. I mean, you remember.”

  She was silent on the other end. Then she cleared her throat. “Of course I do. I’m worried about you, honey.”

  In that moment, I should’ve told her so many things: that Grandma didn’t die of natural causes, how I wish I had talked to her again before she died, that I’d found a dead body on the beach, and how the dead man had known me. I probably also should’ve tried to explain to her how there was a ghost here and we might be friends in a weird way or how I was liking the idea of staying here for a while.

  What I actually told my mother was, “I’m meeting with the realtor tomorrow. She says there’s an offer on the table, for the house and the business.”

  I had the urge to smack my hand onto my forehead.

  “Not surprising,” Mom said with a smile in her tone. “That’s great,” she said.

  And just like that, the tension left
her tone. It must’ve transferred to my shoulders because I stiffened, feeling awful about the amount I wasn’t sharing.

  “Sally finally kicked out that boyfriend of hers today,” Mom said, jumping into gossip about a librarian we worked with.

  I beamed. “Finally.”

  Mom and I settled into our usual comfortable chatting rhythm after that. I told her I would call her soon once I knew more about the offer and what my time line out here would be. It all seemed innocent enough since I wasn’t lying, just omitting … a lot.

  But as I hung up the call, my fingers gripped tight to my phone. It was the only anchor I had left at the end of a day that had made me question everything. And the fact that I’d shared none of it with my mom—my best friend—was most concerning of all.

  10

  That night, I tossed and turned in the guest bed, my conversation with my mom playing in my mind on repeat. Guilt wrapped around me like a set of unruly sheets twisted around my legs.

  At one o’clock, I gave up trying to sleep, draped an afghan over my shoulders, and padded down the stairs to the library. I’d left a few lamps on, and the yellow light drew me in like I was a confused summer moth searching for an anchor.

  The library had been the room I slept in when we came to visit as a family. If I had an anchor here, in this house, this room was it. Skylights dotted the ceiling, and each towering wall was full of either bookshelves or windows. In the middle of the room was a large Persian rug, two wingbacked recliners, and a leather couch. On one wall there was a piano, on the other, a desk. The desk held more of Grandma’s sticky notes to herself. I smiled at her reminders to make a bank deposit and to call Henry.

  Asher had said Grandma’s spirit wouldn’t settle for a while, possibly for months or years, but I wondered if when it did, she would come back here. Asher had come back to the house he’d grown up in, where he’d spent most of his life. So that should mean whenever Grandma was ready, this would be the place she should come too. She loved it here, always saying the beach was her true home.

  I walked up to the window I used to stare out of as I drifted off to sleep, wondering if the familiarity of the space might have the same effect even though I was older. In the dark of night, the white-capped waves shone in the moonlight. The constant crashing foreverness calmed my racing mind.

  “Don’t be alarmed.”

  I let out a squeak and spun around. Asher sat in a recliner next to a dim, yellowed lamp.

  He cringed. “Sorry. This is my favorite room to be in at night.”

  I exhaled any tension that had built in my surprise. “Me too.” I settled onto the old, worn leather couch and pulled the blanket tighter around my shoulders. “In fact, I think it’s why I couldn’t sleep up there. I used to sleep down here when I would visit during summers, staring out at the stars and listening to the waves as I drifted off.”

  It was odd how even a hundred feet away in the bedrooms, the waves felt so far away, their white noise muted in a way that made me long for it to surround me, envelop me like this blanket.

  “I miss sleep,” Asher said with a wistful smile. He glanced at the book sitting open on the table next to him.

  “What are you reading?” I asked, laying my head back on the back of the couch as I let my eyes wander up toward the twinkling stars.

  “The same two pages for the last two weeks,” he said. “I miss the teahouse customers. They were a group of readers, and I caught quite a bit over their shoulders.”

  “Oh,” I said, and hopped up to flip the page for him. “Sorry, that must be awful not being able to read.”

  He raised his palms in a “whatcha gonna do?” gesture. “I got desperate last week and tried to use a burst of energy to flip the page of a book in your grandma’s bedroom. But I put too much energy behind it and ended up throwing the book across the room and was foggy for the rest of the day.”

  “Foggy?” I asked as I returned to the couch.

  Asher squinted. “I can technically use energy to move things, but it’s hard to control and takes a lot out of me. I can’t see, hear, or think straight for a period after, depending on how much energy I expend. Back when I went through my angry phases, I tumbled from one energy crash to another, floating around in a fugue in between each poltergeist-type activity. Made some of those decades go by quickly.”

  “I’m sorry. That sounds awful.”

  “It was, but now I have you.” Asher’s grin was full of expectation, and it settled onto my shoulders like an overflowing return bin at the library.

  As if he caught the discomfort that crossed my face, he gestured to the book next to him. “If you’ll excuse me though, I’ve been waiting to see what happens to these siblings who’ve all climbed into a wardrobe that leads to another world.”

  “That used to be my book,” I said, remembering how much I loved the story.

  “It’s quite good,” he said. “Though, I’m not sure I buy any of this magical business.”

  I giggled. “A ghost that doesn’t believe in magic.”

  “Spirit,” he corrected.

  Between the twinkling stars visible up in the sky, the warmth of the worn couch, and the familiar comfort of being in the library, my whole body relaxed. “Would you like me to read to you? I can start at the beginning.”

  Asher’s face lit up, and I took that as answer enough. Hopping up a second time, I plucked the book off the side table and cradled it in my lap.

  The constant sound of my voice coated the room, and we fell into the story while the waves crashed outside.

  I woke to warm sun streaming on my face, the sound of seagulls cawing, and the familiar weight of a book on my chest. I must’ve fallen asleep during my read aloud last night. Asher was no longer in the room with me.

  Keeping the blanket wrapped around my shoulders, I padded toward the kitchen. But before I made it there, I caught sight of Asher staring out of the large picture windows in the tearoom.

  “Good morning, Rosemary,” he said without turning.

  “Whatcha looking at?” I came up next to him, following his gaze across the garden and the driveway, into Carl’s yard.

  The man was puttering around with those same clippers, beheading flowers and lopping off leaves as if they were responsible for all of his strife.

  “I don’t have a good feeling about him.” I rubbed at my eyes in an attempt to wake up.

  Asher didn’t add his own feelings. After a quiet moment, he asked, “So are you ready?” He grinned in a way that showed me how he must’ve looked when he was a little boy. “I told you I would teach you the tea business, didn’t I?” he said when I peered at him in confusion. “In case you open back up, that is,” he added with a nervous smile.

  “Oh,” was all I could think to say. I’d agreed to that before I’d talked to my mother, and suddenly it felt like I was deceiving both of them. “Thanks,” I amended. Then I eyeballed my sleep T-shirt and flannel pants. “I might go change first, if that’s okay.”

  He swept his arms toward the staircase like a gentleman of old. “By all means.”

  As I jogged up the stairs to the spare bedroom, I realized that he was a gentleman of old if he was actually from the early 1900s. The fact that he’d kept up with technological innovations and cultural changes had fooled me enough to forget that. But deep down, he was still an old-timey guy imprisoned in the wrong century.

  Washing my face quickly, I changed into some jeans and a light sweater. Even though it was technically spring, the old house held on to the chilly nighttime air like a child clinging to a favorite stuffed animal. My feet thumped on the drafty wood staircase as I jogged down a few minutes later, running my hand along the smooth wood railing like I used to as a kid. Long hair in a bun on the top of my head, I finally felt awake and ready to take on this lesson.

  I pulled up a stool and rested my elbows on the bar. “Ready.”

  He cringed. “Uh, this isn’t a sitting kind of lesson. I teach hands-on, and unfortunately”—he
held up his hands and wiggled his fingers—“I can’t help, so you’ll be doing the hands-on part.”

  “Fair enough,” I said with a chuckle and got up from the stool.

  Over the next hour, he taught me how to measure the tea, steep it, the different methods my grandma had used based on the different desired strengths, and finally, how she made her custom blends. As I moved behind the bar, I found more sticky notes Grandma had left herself. One even had a tea recipe written on it. I reminded myself to try that one when I got more comfortable with the tea-blending process.

  Halfway through my third cup of practice tea, I’d snuck into the kitchen to pour myself a bowl of cereal from my shopping trip yesterday. And by the time I’d graduated to learning the minutiae of water-pouring techniques and leaf agitation, I was feeling like maybe I was a tea drinker after all.

  I leaned back into the old chair I occupied in the tearoom and closed my eyes. We’d moved over to a table by the window. I’d wanted to take advantage of the morning sun streaming inside, the chill having never left my toes even after putting on wooly socks.

  Letting my hair out of the bun it had been in all morning, I ran my fingers through it. The dark mahogany color of it matched the brown woods rampant in the tearoom.

  “Your hair is very long.”

  Asher was watching me, and a tickle of heat crept into my face.

  “I don’t cut it often.” I studied the ends, combing out a few tangles with my fingers. “When I had to lose all of it during my treatment, I became terrified it would never grow back. I should probably be over the trauma of that by now, but I still never want to take it for granted, and I’ve kept it long ever since.”

  His mouth tipped up. “Makes sense to me.”

  A warmth that had nothing to do with the rays of sun coming through the window spread through me. Talking to Asher was so easy. I hadn’t experienced this kind of openness with anyone but Mom in so long. But he got me, listened. I felt like I could talk to him about anything.