Death By Darjeeling atsm-1

by Laura Childs

  Theodosia leaned back in her chair and took stock of things. Okay. One down, about forty more to go. She gazed in disgust at her desk. Make that fifty. Hmm.

  “Excuse me.” There was a soft knock at the door. “I’m serving tea to a bunch of divorced lawyers and was wondering what would be most suitable.”

  Theodosia glanced over, pleasantly surprised to find a tall, attractive man in a three-piece suit gracing her doorway. One of her eyebrows raised imperceptibly.

  “You are the distinguished colleague from Ligget, Hume, Hartwell, I presume?”

  Jory Davis flashed a crooked grin. “Guilty as charged.”

  “In that case, I highly recommend a Chinese varietal called Iron Goddess of Mercy.”

  The man in the doorway threw back his head and laughed, a deep, rich, easy laugh that gave Theodosia the perfect few moments to study him.

  Jory Davis wasn’t quite what she’d expected. He was attractive, yes, but in a slightly rugged and reckless way. Square jaw, curly brown hair, piercing blue eyes, probably midthirties. He was well over six feet tall, with broad shoulders and a tiny maze of lines at the corners of his eyes that probably meant he spent much of his free time out of doors. He also moved as though he was completely at ease with himself and wore his three-piece Brooks Brothers suit as if it had been cut just for him. Theodosia noted that Jory Davis wasn’t exactly slick, but he was certainly downtown. She could picture him in a dark, clubby restaurant with leather booths, clinking glasses with other lawyers, celebrating a win. What she was having trouble picturing was Jory Davis in a kitchen with a wire whisk.

  “Please come in, Mr. Davis.” Theodosia stood and indicated the chair across from her. “Can I get you a cup of tea?”

  “Call me Jory. And, no, I can only stay a moment.” He remained standing and dug into his briefcase. “I’m due in court in fifteen minutes, but I wanted to drop off the rest of the information we ferreted out on Hughes Barron.” He glanced up at her. “I hope you still want it.”

  “Of course.”

  He searched intently through the massive amount of papers in his oversized leather briefcase. Finally he grabbed a sheaf of papers and plopped it on her desk. “Here you go.” His smile was dazzling, and his blue eyes sparkled.

  Tinted contacts? she wondered. Or were his eyes really that blue?

  “Thanks,” she said. “How did your vinaigrette turn out?”

  “Good. Great. Thanks to you.” He stood gazing at her for a moment, then said, “Hey, this is a fun office. Lots of interesting eye catchers.” His hand ever so gently touched a bronze head from a Thai temple that sat atop her desk, then moved on to an antique Spode teapot.

  Funny, she thought, how very gently he ran his hand over that delicate china teapot.

  “I meant it about the tea,” said Jory Davis. “And that Iron Goddess sounded interesting. I admire strong women.” He turned to study the framed opera programs and photos on her wall. “Hey, you sail! I keep a J-24 at the marina.” He glanced back at Theodosia over his shoulder. “I’m decorating her this year for the Festival of Lights. You ought to sail with us.”

  Every Christmas, a fleet of fifty or so boats was decked out in holiday lights and set sail from Patriots Point. From there the colorful flotilla paraded around the tip of the peninsula, much to the delight of thousands of onlookers, and ended up at the Charleston Yacht Club.

  “Let me think about it,” said Theodosia, oddly pleased. “I sailed in the festival four years ago on Tom and Evie Woodrow’s boat. It was a lot of fun.”

  “Well, then, you’ve just got to sail on my boat,” said Jory Davis. “Woodrow’s boat is a tub, compared to my J24.” He gathered up his briefcase and stuck out his hand. “Gotta go. Great meeting you.”

  “Nice meeting you,” called Theodosia as Jory Davis disappeared through the doorway. “Who was that?” asked Haley. She stood in the doorway wearing an expectant look on her face.

  “A lawyer friend,” replied Theodosia.

  “I know that. He told me that earlier, when I showed him back here. I meant who is he to you?”

  “Haley, did you need something?”

  “Oh, right. Sorry. You’ve got a phone call.”

  “It’s not Delaine, is it?”

  “It’s Burt Tidwell,” whispered Haley. She put a finger to her mouth. Since Bethany was working out front, Haley obviously wanted to keep this phone call hush-hush. “Line two. Shall I close the door?” she asked.

  Theodosia nodded to Haley as she picked up the phone and vowed not to let Burt Tidwell spoil her good mood.

  “Mr. Tidwell,” she said brightly.

  “Miss Browning,” he acknowledged gruffly.

  “And how is your investigation proceeding?” She tossed him a leading question in hopes of getting a little feedback.

  “Extremely well,” Tidwell answered.

  Theodosia slipped out of her loafers and wiggled her toes in the sunlight that spilled in through the leaded panes. He has nothing, she thought. Diddly-squat, to use an inelegant term. But she would humor him. Oh, yes, she would humor him and keep going with her own investigation. And she would surely play to what seemed to be a sense of vanity on his part concerning professional prowess.

  “I trust you’ve gotten your lab results back,” said Theodosia.

  “I have indeed.”

  Damn, she thought. This fellow is maddening. “And...” she said.

  “Exactly what I suspected. A toxic substance.”

  “A toxic substance,” repeated Theodosia. “In the teacup.”

  “Yes.”

  “But not in the teapot.” She could hear him breathing loudly at the other end of the line. Short, almost wheezy breaths. “Mr. Tidwell?” she said with more force.

  “After forensic investigation by the state toxicology lab, it was determined that the teapot did not contain any toxic substance. Only the teacup.”

  “Would you care to share with me the nature of that substance?”

  “It’s still being analyzed.”

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “Miss Browning,” said Tidwell, “did you know that Hughes Barron was looking at a property on your block?”

  “The Peregrine Building,” she replied.

  “So you were aware of this?”

  “I heard a rumor to that effect.”

  “His purchase could have impacted you, don’t you think?”

  “In what way?”

  “Oh, a commercial development could change the character of your block. Might possibly affect business.”

  Theodosia caught her breath. “Mr. Tidwell, are you trying to imply that I’m a suspect?”

  Now Burt Tidwell let go a deep, hearty laugh. “Madam, until I conclude an investigation, I consider everyone a suspect.”

  “Surely that can’t be efficient.”

  “It is merely the way I work, madam. Good day.”

  Theodosia slammed down the phone. Of all the nerve! First he let it be known that Bethany was a suspect! Then to imply she might be! A cad. The man was truly a cad. Any grudging respect she had felt earlier had just flown out the window.

  She stared at her desktop angrily. Then, with both hands, she pushed everything off to the left. Files began to topple, and she let them. One of the story boards slipped to the floor. Pink message slips that had been stacked in order of date and time were suddenly jumbled.

  But she had just given herself a good expanse of wood on which to work. A place to start fresh, to think fresh. She set a piece of plain white paper in front of her. At the top of it she wrote the name, “Hughes Barron.” Under that she wrote “Poison?”

  Like the beginnings of a family tree, she jotted two names underneath. “Timothy Neville” and “Lleveret Dante.” Because she didn’t have another suspect, she put a third mark, a question mark, alongside the two names. Somehow it felt right.

  She ruminated and read through the papers Jory Davis had brought her until Drayton poked his head in some forty minutes later.<
br />
  “Getting a lot done?”

  “Yes,” she lied. Then thought better of it. “No. Sit. Please.” She indicated the tufted chair across from her desk.

  Drayton sat down, crossed his legs, and gazed at her expectantly.

  She fixed him with an intense stare. “How well do you know Timothy Neville?”

  Chapter 21

  Miss Dimple smiled broadly at Theodosia. “Mr. Dauphine will just be a moment,” she said. “He’s on the phone. Long distance.”

  “Thank you,” murmured Theodosia as she wondered why people always tended to be more patient when the person they’re waiting for is talking long distance versus a local call. Strange that distance makes us polite, and nearness makes us impatient.

  After her conversation with Drayton, she had made her way up four flights of stairs in the Peregrine Building to the office of Mr. Harold Dauphine, the owner. Theodosia knew the man had to be at least seventy-five years old. His plump secretary, Miss Dimple, couldn’t be that much younger. Did they scoot up and down these stairs all day? she wondered. Could that be the key to longevity? Or, once they arrived for work in the morning, did they just perch up here, recovering from the effort?

  “Miss Browning?” Miss Dimple was smiling at her. “Can I offer you a cup of coffee?”

  “No, thank you.”

  Theodosia sat and marveled at the decor of the office. The whole thing was like a throwback to the fifties. Gray metal filing cabinets, venetian blinds, an honest-to-goodness Underwood upright typewriter. You could film an old Perry Mason episode right here. She half expected to see Miss Dimple don a green eyeshade.

  Theodosia thumbed through a dog-eared copy of Reader’s Digest, skimming the “Quotable Quotes” section. She stared out the window and wondered about Hughes Barron’s partner, Lleveret Dante, and she thought about Drayton’s reaction to her suspicions about Timothy Neville.

  As much as the look on Drayton’s face had betrayed his skepticism about Timothy Neville, he’d still listened carefully to her.

  “Well,” Drayton had said after hearing her out, “it’s interesting speculation, but it’d be another thing to prove. I certainly don’t discount the fact that Timothy Neville has an abominable temper and is capable of causing harm. Most people have a dark side. And I certainly think you should find out more about this man, Lleveret Dante. Tell you what, why don’t you come along with me tomorrow night? Timothy Neville is having a small concert at his home. One of the string quartets he plays in for fun. There will be people from the Heritage Society as well as people from the neighborhood that you undoubtedly know. You can listen to some good music, then have a jolly snoop in his medicine cabinet, if you like.”

  If Drayton had been pulling her leg, his serious demeanor hadn’t betrayed the fact. So she’d agreed. She had to harness her enthusiasm, in fact, because tomorrow night would be, just as Drayton had said, the perfect opportunity to snoop. And she had a sneaking suspicion Timothy Neville wasn’t the righteous pillar of the community that most people thought he was.

  “Mr. Dauphine can see you now, Miss Browning.”

  Theodosia stood and smiled at Miss Dimple. The woman was aptly named, she thought. Even looked like a dimple. Round, sweet, slightly pink.

  “Always nice to see a neighbor, Miss Browning.” Mr. Dauphine struggled to his feet and shook her hand weakly.

  “Nice to see you again,” said Theodosia. She noted that Mr. Dauphine’s office was just as antiquated as the reception area, right down to a rotary phone and an archaic dictation machine, what they used to call a steno.

  “Of course,” said Mr. Dauphine, “I don’t come in every day like I used to. Been taking it a little slower.” What should have been easy laughter segued into a hacking cough.

  “Are you all right, Mr. Dauphine?” said Theodosia. “Can I get you something? A glass of water?”

  Mr. Dauphine waved her off with one hand. “Fine, fine,” he choked. Pulling a plastic inhaler from his jacket pocket, he shook it rapidly, depressed the button, and inhaled as best he could.

  “Emphysema,” Mr. Dauphine explained, tapping his chest. “Used to smoke.” He helped himself to another puff from his inhaler. “You ever smoke?”

  “No,” she replied.

  “Good girl. I’d advise you never to start.” He looked at her and smiled. Despite his obvious frailties, Mr. Dauphine’s eyes shone brightly, and his mind seemed quick. “Now,” he said, “have you come to make an offer on my property as well?”

  Theodosia tried not to betray her surprise. She’d come looking for information about Hughes Barron and Lleveret Dante, and Mr. Dauphine had just nicely opened up that conversational front.

  “Not really,” she told him lightly. “But I take it you’ve been under siege of late?”

  Mr. Dauphine laughed. “I was, but not anymore. Fellow who wanted to buy this place died.”

  “Hughes Barron,” she said. How interesting, she thought, that everyone she talked with lately couldn’t wait to tell her that Hughes Barron had died.

  “That’s the one.” Mr. Dauphine leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms over his thin chest. “He make an offer on your place, too?”

  “Not exactly,” said Theodosia slowly. “But I did want to get in touch with his lawyer.”

  “Sam Sestero,” said Mr. Dauphine.

  “Sam Sestero,” Theodosia repeated, committing the name to memory. “Do you, by any chance, have Mr. Sestero’s phone number?”

  “Miss Dimple keeps all that straight for me. I’m sure she can give it to you.” His hand reached out and depressed the button on an old-fashioned intercom system. “Oh, Miss Dimple, see if you can find Mr. Sestero’s number for Miss Browning, will you?” He turned back to Theodosia. “As I recall, Mr. Sestero’s office isn’t far from here.”

  Theodosia found that it wasn’t far at all. In fact, Samuel and his brother, Edward Sestero, the two managing partners of Sestero & Sestero Professional Association, turned out to have their offices just down from the stately Romanesque buildings at the intersection of Meeting and Broad Streets, known affectionately to Charlestonians as the Four Corners of Law.

  Chapter 22

  “You idiot! You must have been out of your mind!” Brimming with anger, the man’s voice reverberated loudly down the cavernous hallway, bouncing off marble floors with thunderous consequences.

  “What was I supposed to do?” a second voice countered. This voice was also a loud male voice but pitched higher, with a tone more pleading than enraged.

  Theodosia stopped in her tracks. She had been wandering down the hallway of the venerable old Endicott Building, looking for the office of Sestero & Sestero. From the angry sounds coming to her from around the corner, it would appear she might have found it.

  “I expect my attorney to show a little smarts!” screamed the first voice.

  “What was I supposed to do, for crying out loud?” This from the second voice now. “The man’s a detective first grade. Tidwell could haul my ass before a judge and charge me with obstructing an investigation.”

  Tidwell? Theodosia put a hand to the corridor wall and edged forward quietly, instantly on the alert.

  “What about attorney-client privilege?” the first voice countered stridently.

  “Oh, please.”

  “You rolled, you miserable little weasel. That’s all there is to it.”

  “Calm down, Mr. Dante. Nothing could be further from the truth. I merely answered a few innocuous questions. You’re acting as if it was a subpoena from a Federal Court judge. Take it easy, awright?”

  Well, well, thought Theodosia. So the infamous Mr. Lleveret Dante was paying his lawyer a little visit. And wasn’t he awfully hot under the collar. Screaming and badgering and carrying on, giving the other man, obviously Sam Sestero, an earful.

  On the heels of that thought came the notion that Sam Sestero might not be the sharpest tack around if he thought for a minute that Burt Tidwell had been asking what he termed “inno
cuous questions.”

  “I’m in enough hot water as it is!” yelled Lleveret Dante. “All I need is for the AG in Kentucky to make an inquiry down here!”

  The AG? Surely, thought Theodosia, Lleveret Dante had to mean the attorney general. That would wash with the information Jory Davis had given her about Lleveret Dante being under indictment in Kentucky for a mortgage flipping scheme.

  “Did he ask about the partnership agreement?” screamed Lleveret Dante.

  There was a mumbled answer.

  “You pathetic wimp, I bet you told him about the business-preservation clause.” “Mr. Dante, I revealed nothing.” “If that idiot Tidwell knows I automatically received

  Barron’s half of the business upon his death, he’ll put me under a microscope! You ought to be disbarred, you worthless sack of shit!”

  Isn’t it amazing what one overhears in hallways, Theodosia mused. So Hughes Barron and Lleveret Dante did have a buy-sell agreement, with what Dante termed a “business-preservation clause.” That meant, in this case, that should one of them die, the other automatically received the dead partner’s share of the business!

  But wasn’t that more of a death clause? And couldn’t it also be a motive for murder?

  A door slammed shut, and Theodosia was suddenly aware of footsteps coming toward her.

  My God! It had to be Lleveret Dante who was barreling down the hallway at full steam. She could hear footsteps ratcheting loudly, the man huffing and puffing like an overworked steam engine. In a matter of seconds, he would be rounding the corner, and she would be face-to-face with him.

  Frantically casting about, Theodosia spied an old-fashioned wooden telephone booth next to a pedestal water fountain. She dove into the phone booth, grabbed the receiver off the hook, and held it to her face.

  “Oh, did she really?” said Theodosia loudly, pantomiming a phone call. “Is that a fact. Then what happened?”

  Lleveret Dante stormed past her, and Theodosia finally grabbed her first look at Hughes Barron’s infamous business partner.

  Lleveret Dante was a short man, maybe five foot five at best, with a shock of white hair that went off in all directions, as if he might have a giant cowlick on top of his head. Dante’s face was the color of a ripe plum against the crisp white of his three-piece suit.