Sweat Tea Revenge

by Laura Childs

  “There seems to be . . .” began Theodosia, who had hung in the doorway.

  “Please,” said Tidwell.

  “Cocaine,” finished Theodosia.

  Tidwell swung about to face her. “You’ve had it analyzed in a laboratory?”

  “Obviously not,” said Theodosia.

  “Then kindly refrain from any comments or hasty conclusions,” said Tidwell.

  Theodosia folded her arms. She wasn’t unfamiliar with how Tidwell operated. She’d encountered the man before in certain other cases. His modus operandi seemed to be to intimidate, anger, then analyze. Not exactly a warm, fuzzy way to operate. On the other hand, Theodosia had to admit that Tidwell was really quite brilliant. Most people who encountered him were initially fooled by his bulk and apparent buffoonery. But Tidwell was a former FBI agent who had single-handedly tracked down serial killers, forgery rings, and drug traffickers. Thus Theodosia had developed an enormous respect for him.

  After Tidwell had sniffed and snooped for a few minutes, he turned toward Theodosia, who still hung in the doorway, and said, “You were saying when I first arrived? Something about a paperweight?”

  This was Theodosia’s cue. “Because of the apparent head wound.”

  “On the deceased,” said Tidwell.

  “Yes,” said Theodosia. “And there seems to be a paperweight missing from the collection.”

  Tidwell turned toward the shelf full of paperweights. “Possibly.” He studied the collection as rain continued to pound monotonously on the roof and the lights faltered and blinked again. Then he said, “There are guests downstairs.”

  “Almost fifty,” said Theodosia.

  “They must be detained,” said Tidwell. He made a small gesture and two uniformed officers darted toward him. “Please make a suitable announcement to the guests, then record their names, addresses, and phone numbers.”

  “I do have a guest list,” said Delaine. She’d crept back to hang at the doorway, too.

  “Like I said,” said Tidwell, nodding at his officers. Once the two uniformed officers had taken off, Tidwell stood in the doorway looking out into the hallway and addressed the rest of them. “Has anyone checked the nearby rooms?”

  Frank Rattling stepped forward and cleared his throat. He was skinny with lank hair slicked back against a prominent skull. “Not yet. Do you think we should?”

  “You’re the innkeeper?” asked Tidwell.

  “I am,” Rattling nodded, while his wife, Sarah, stood nervously by. “We have only one other room occupied in this particular wing. The guest is a fellow by the name of Chapin.”

  “Which room was Mr. Chapin in?” Theodosia asked. She knew she was insinuating herself into the investigation but didn’t much care. She’d discovered Granville, after all. So in her mind that made her an integral part of all this.

  “The room next to this one,” said Rattling. “Room three-fourteen.”

  “Has anyone checked that room?” asked Tidwell.

  “No one’s checked anything,” said Theodosia. Or even thought to check adjoining rooms.

  Frank Rattling marched a few steps down the hall, managing to look both flustered and officious. He rapped his knuckles against the door of 314. “Hello?” he called out loudly. “Anybody in there?”

  “Open the door,” said Tidwell.

  “We don’t like to intrude upon our guests,” said Sarah. She was a pale woman with watery eyes who wore her dark hair pulled back in a low bun.

  “Open it now,” Tidwell ordered.

  Rattling pulled an old-fashioned ring of keys out of his jacket pocket, searched through them, and finally found the one he wanted. He knocked again, then inserted the key in the lock and turned it. The door slowly swung open with a loud creak as several pairs of eyes followed its progress.

  When no one called out from the bed or bathroom, Rattling took one tentative step into the room. “Hello? Mr. Chapin?”

  “He’s not there,” said Theodosia. For some reason, she knew he wouldn’t be.

  “No luggage,” said Frank Rattling, looking around. “No personal items, either.”

  “But his room is rented for two more days,” said Sarah Rattling, looking puzzled.

  “I’d say this Chapin fellow has checked out,” said Tidwell.

  “Unofficially, anyway,” added Theodosia.

  * * *

  While the officers worked the crowd downstairs, Tidwell set about questioning all the people who were congregated on the third floor. By the time he questioned Theodosia, Bill Glass, the stepson Charles Horton, and several bridesmaids, and finally got to Delaine, she was overwrought, angry, and frustrated.

  “This was to be your wedding day?” Tidwell asked. He leaned against a dresser, jotting notes in a black spiral notebook. Delaine was scrunched on the bed surrounded by crumpled tissues. Because of her jangled and overwrought nerves, Theodosia had been allowed to remain with her.

  “Excuse me?” said a tearful Delaine. “Do you think I sit around in an eight-thousand-dollar ball gown just for the sheer joy of it?”

  “Just answer the question,” said Tidwell.

  “Please,” Theodosia said to Delaine. “Just try to cooperate.”

  “I am cooperating,” Delaine muttered through clenched teeth.

  “And when was the last time you spoke with Mr. Granville?” asked Tidwell.

  “I don’t know,” said Delaine. She glanced at Theodosia. “Maybe an hour and a half before you found him?”

  “I think that’s about right,” said Theodosia.

  Tidwell jotted another note. “And that was when the two of you were heard arguing?”

  Delaine frowned. “Not really arguing. More of a . . . disagreement.”

  “Not to put too fine a point on it, Miss Dish,” said Tidwell, “but those are generally one and the same.”

  “Let me rephrase my answer, then,” said Delaine. “Dougan and I were having a discussion.”

  Tidwell’s furry eyebrows rose in twin arcs. “Concerning?”

  “About . . . our honeymoon,” said Delaine. “Dougan wanted to, um, alter the timetable slightly.”

  “How so?” asked Tidwell.

  Delaine frowned. “Um . . .”

  “He wanted to cut it short?” said Tidwell.

  Delaine shrugged. “We discussed that possibility, yes.”

  Tidwell snapped his notebook closed. “Is it not true, Miss Dish, that the two of you were engaged in a shouting match? A rather heated conversation that was overheard by any number of people?”

  Delaine’s hand fluttered to her chest as she fought to project an air of supreme innocence. “I don’t believe that’s true at all.”

  “Several witnesses reported hearing a terrible argument,” said Tidwell.

  “Who said that?” Delaine snarled. “Was it Horton, his stepson?”

  “Excuse me,” said Theodosia, interrupting. “I think I see the direction this conversation is headed, and it’s really quite unnecessary. I was with Delaine pretty much the entire morning.”

  “With her every second?” said Tidwell. One side of his mouth ticked upward.

  Theodosia squinted as she recalled her morning. “Well, I did run down to check on the guests. Then I had to grab a couple pots of tea from the kitchen. Oh, and then the flowers were delivered to the back door.”

  “So not every second,” said Tidwell.

  “I suppose . . . no,” said Theodosia.

  “What else were you arguing about?” Tidwell asked. “And please answer honestly, because I assure you I’ve amassed quite a bit of information in questioning other witnesses.”

  Now Delaine looked embarrassed. “Just teensy little things.”

  “Such as an old girlfriend?”

  “Well . . . that might have come up,” said Delaine.

 
“I was told you became extremely agitated when you learned Mr. Granville’s former girlfriend was a guest downstairs.”

  “Simone Asher!” Delaine blurted out. “He invited her without even consulting me! Can you imagine such a thing?”

  “I’m sure it was quite upsetting,” said Tidwell.

  “It certainly was,” said Delaine, fidgeting with the edge of her veil.

  “Enough that you wanted to call off the wedding?” asked Tidwell.

  Delaine stared at him with increasing hostility.

  “Were you so upset that you wanted to do bodily harm to Mr. Granville?”

  “No, of course not!” cried Delaine. “I wouldn’t hurt Dougan; I loved him!”

  Tidwell rose to his feet. “Please do remain in your room, Miss Dish, while I send up our crime-scene technicians.”

  “Why on earth!” sputtered Delaine.

  “Fingerprints?” asked Theodosia.

  Tidwell nodded.

  “I am not a criminal!” Delaine shouted.

  But Tidwell just nodded politely.

  * * *

  Theodosia stood outside the door of room 313, watching a uniformed officer string black-and-yellow crime-scene tape. POLICE LINE, it screamed. DO NOT CROSS! How could a day that was supposed to be filled with prayers and flowers and celebration end in such a fiasco? she wondered. It seemed unimaginable.

  And now Tidwell was making motions that seemed to suggest Delaine was a prime suspect. Of course, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Delaine might have railed at Granville this morning, might have screamed like a banshee over their honeymoon plans, but she certainly hadn’t murdered him. Theodosia knew that the one thing that Delaine desired above all else, the one thing she couldn’t magically conjure or buy for any amount of money, was to put the title Mrs. in front of her name.

  And now her chance at that had been shattered. Yes, Granville’s death was tragic, simply tragic.

  Theodosia hunched her shoulders and turned to leave. Time to go home, she decided. Time to take off this silly bridesmaid’s dress. To go downstairs and confab with Drayton and Haley, her tea shop cohorts. Get a hug and a kiss from her boyfriend, Max. Try to salvage something good out of this day.

  Only someone had suddenly loomed in her way. “What?” she said, raising a hand, feeling a little threatened. Then she saw it was Bill Glass. He stood in the hallway, cameras still slung around his neck, looking disheveled and a little on edge.

  “What are you doing here?” Theodosia asked. “Still angling to get that million-dollar shot?”

  Glass shook his head. Like her, he’d lingered long after the body had been wheeled out, seemingly pondering the crime scene. “No, but this pretty much confirms what I’ve heard all along.”

  Theodosia turned toward him. “Confirms what? What are you talking about?”

  “That this place is unlucky,” said Glass. He flapped a hand. “Get a load of Granville’s room number.”

  Theodosia glanced at the door. “Three-thirteen,” she said tiredly. “So what?”

  “You don’t know?” said Glass.

  “Know what?” Really, Glass could be awfully tedious.

  Glass’s brows pinched together and he looked suddenly somber. “You didn’t know this place is supposed to be haunted?”

  4

  “It hardly feels like we’ve had any weekend at all,” sighed Drayton. It was Monday morning and the Indigo Tea Shop wasn’t yet open for business. He and Theodosia were seated at a small table next to the stone fireplace. Haley, their youthful chef and baker extraordinaire, had just ferried out a plate of scones, fresh from the oven. Though the atmosphere was cheery, the three of them were not.

  “We’ve barely had any downtime,” Theodosia agreed. “Between the wedding fiasco on Saturday and being debriefed by various investigators yesterday, our real lives were completely obliterated.”

  “But just think how Delaine feels,” said Haley. She rarely had a soft spot in her heart for Delaine, but today she’d done a complete about-face and was really quite sympathetic.

  “She feels awful,” said Theodosia.

  “Seriously now,” said Drayton. “Do you think Delaine ever really loved Granville?” He plucked a scone from Haley’s serving plate and placed it on his own smaller plate. “She always struck me as being pretty much of a serial dater.”

  “She loved him,” said Theodosia. “As much as Delaine could love anyone.”

  “Except for her cats,” said Haley, pushing stick-straight blond hair behind her ears. “Dominic and Domino. Her two Siamese. I think she loves them more.”

  “You’re probably right,” said Theodosia. Delaine was a pain and a gossip and a little bit crazy, but when it came to small animals she was an absolute saint. She took in strays, bottle-fed abandoned raccoons, and braked for turtles, snappers as well as painted. Delaine had even spearheaded a major fund drive last year to finance a special cat and kitten wing at the Loving Paws Animal Shelter.

  “Delaine was awfully desperate to get married,” Drayton said as he split his scone in half and dropped on a frothy dollop of Devonshire cream.

  “Desperate to find love,” added Haley.

  “Since their engagement,” said Drayton, “poor Dougan Granville struck me as someone who’d suddenly awoken to find himself caught in a leg trap.”

  Theodosia considered their words. Yes, Delaine’s rush to the altar had been like watching a NASCAR race: lots of torque, muscle, and speed. And, yes, maybe she had been a little desperate to find true love. But who doesn’t want love? To experience the thrill and heart-thumping happiness that it brings? Wanting to love someone, to be in love, was certainly nothing she could hold against Delaine.

  “Now what’s Delaine going to do?” Haley wondered.

  “She’ll be in mourning for a decorous period of time,” said Drayton. “And then she’ll find herself another boyfriend.” He popped a bite of scone into his mouth and peered at Theodosia. “Don’t you think?”

  “Probably,” said Theodosia. But what else was Delaine supposed to do? Shuffle around in an ankle-length black hopsack dress and light candles under the moonlight? Mourn her lost fiancé until the end of time? Hardly. Life goes on. Albeit at a somewhat slower pace when one resided in Charleston.

  “Have you spoken to Delaine?” asked Haley.

  Drayton raised his eyebrows at Theodosia. “I’m pretty sure that question was directed at you.”

  “Yes,” said Theodosia. “She called me last night.”

  “How was she holding up?” asked Drayton. He really did have a spot of sympathy for Delaine. But he was the stiff-upper-lip type who prided himself on displaying the minimum allowable amount of emotion.

  “She’s miserable and angry and sad,” said Theodosia. “And absolutely furious at Tidwell.”

  “Is Delaine really a suspect?” asked Haley.

  “I think we’re all suspects,” said Drayton.

  “Anyway,” said Theodosia, “if there’s a very weak bright spot in all of this, it’s that Delaine has finally accepted Granville’s death.”

  “She’s dealing with the harsh reality,” said Drayton. “Processing it.”

  “Poor Delaine,” Haley said again. “I really do feel sorry for her.”

  “My sympathy also lies with Detective Tidwell,” said Drayton. “Even though he questioned a number of people, there isn’t much to go on. If Granville’s death was, in fact, a murder.”

  Haley looked puzzled. “I thought you guys said somebody conked him on the head with one of those fat glass paperweights.”

  “Could have been an accident,” said Drayton. “He could have been, um, imbibing in his drug of choice and the paperweight rolled off and hit him.”

  Could it really? Theodosia wondered. Did heavy glass paperweights just levitate off the shelf of their own accord? And then
strike someone’s cranium with such brute force that his brain was mortally compromised? No, she thought not. It had to be murder. The big question was, who was the mysterious killer who had insinuated his way into Granville’s room?

  Could it have been the mysterious guest in room 314? Or had there been a secret enemy among the downstairs wedding guests? Someone who’d sneaked up the back stairs and dealt that deadly blow? Or was it someone else? Theodosia knew it could be someone from Granville’s not-so-distant past who wanted to settle a score. An angry, unhappy client perhaps, or someone involved with DG Stogies, his cigar store venture.

  But cocaine was involved, Theodosia mused. So it must have started out as a druggie rendezvous. From the looks of things, Granville had sat down with someone for a chummy, prewedding toot of coke. Of course, the presence of cocaine seemed to add an extra element of danger. But who in Granville’s or Delaine’s inner circle might have been—or still was—a drug user? Or, worse yet, a drug dealer?

  “Tell me about the cocaine,” said Haley, almost as if she’d been reading Theodosia’s mind.

  “It was spilled on the table,” said Drayton. “And there was white powder under Granville’s nose.”

  “Wow,” said Haley. “That’s crazy weird.” She thought for a moment. “That tells me Granville wasn’t straight at all. He was kind of out there. A doper.”

  “Obviously,” said Drayton, rolling his eyes.

  “Maybe he got the coke from his stepson,” said Haley. “What’s the guy’s name again?”

  “Charles Horton,” said Theodosia.

  “That’s awfully harsh, Haley,” said Drayton. “Considering you don’t even know Horton.”

  “I met him,” said Haley. “And he seemed a little hinky.”

  “You think everyone over the age of twenty-five is hinky,” said Drayton.

  “Not quite,” said Haley. “You guys are okay. But if you ask me, Tidwell ought to put Horton on his suspect list.”

  “Maybe,” said Theodosia. But on a scale of one to ten, Horton seemed more like a one. Or maybe a two.

  Drayton lifted the lid off a Brown Betty teapot and peered in. “This Darjeeling is probably steeped by now.” He lifted the teapot and poured a stream of hot, steaming liquid into Theodosia’s cup. Then he filled a cup for Haley and for himself. “A first flush from the Kumai Tea Estate.”