Death by Darjeeling

by Laura Childs

  “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 “innocuous 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.

  Dante paced back and forth impatiently as he waited for the elevator. Every time he spun on his heel, his white suit coat flared out slightly. Made him look like a top spinning on its axis.

  What a bizarre vision, Theodosia thought to herself as she rose on tiptoes and peered around the corner of the telephone booth to catch a final glimpse of the man. And yes, her hunch was correct. The man was wearing white socks and shoes as well. Well, that iced the cake. Aside from his hideous temper, Lleveret Dante was obviously a strange duck, one that would bear watching.

  CHAPTER 23

  IN MOST CITIES and states, the position once known as the coroner has evolved into that of medical examiner. Coroner, at one time, meant any person in authority—a sheriff, judge, or deputy—who was empowered to make the final pronouncement that a person was deceased. But as forensic investigations became more sophisticated over the years, most jurisdictions found a pressing need for a medical examiner, one person in charge who was a doctor as well as a trained pathologist.

  In Charleston, the coroner was still an elected four-year position and had been since 1868. Before that, justices of the county court selected coroners. Previous to that, they were appointed by the king of England.

  Theodosia stood in the ornate marble entrance of the County Services Building. She had wandered over when she realized it was just a block down from the Endicott Building, where she’d just experienced her first sighting of Mr. Lleveret Dante.

  I can’t do this, she told herself. There’s no way I can waltz downstairs to the coroner’s office and be convincing.

  Yes, you can, goaded a determined little voice inside her head. It was the voice that often pushed her, told her to take chances. You’re here. What have you got to lose?

  Well, she thought, if Burt Tidwell had been snooping around Sam Sestero’s office, looking for information about Hughes Barron and Lleveret Dante, then I might not be barking up the wrong tree after all.

  Theodosia gripped the metal railing and, like Alice tumbling into the rabbit hole, descended the circular staircase that led to the basement.

  “County Morgue, help ya?” a receptionist with a heroic beehive hairdo was screeching loudly into her headset. She held court behind a black laminate counter where she alternately handled incoming calls, signed for deliveries, and paged through The National Enquirer. A second ringi
ng phone line was currently vying for her attention.

  “I’m here to check on a body,” Theodosia told the receptionist. She clung to the counter for support. Even though she felt giddy and scared, she tried to sound casual, as though she’d done this a hundred times before.

  The woman smiled briefly and held up an index finger. A third line had begun to ring.

  Theodosia noted that the receptionist’s two-inch-long acrylic nails were painted blood red. Very Vampyra.

  “Delivery,” announced a man in a blue uniform who suddenly appeared at Theodosia’s elbow. He thumped a large cardboard box onto the counter. The office was suddenly as busy as Grand Central Station.

  “Which one, honey?” the receptionist asked Theodosia as she signed for the newly arrived packaged and consulted her clipboard. “No!” the receptionist suddenly bellowed into her headset before Theodosia could reply. “We do not issue death certificates! Cremation permits, yes. Death certificates, no. That would be Records and Registration.” She raised her penciled eyebrows skyward in frustration and rolled her eyes.

  “Hughes Barron,” Theodosia said finally.

  But the receptionist was still wrangling with the caller. “Did this person die outside of a hospital?” the receptionist asked. “They did? Sir, you should have given me that information in the first place. That means you need a burial transit permit.” She covered the mouthpiece with a chubby hand and addressed Theodosia.

  “Sorry, honey. Check down the hall. Second door on the left, ask for Jeeter Clark.”

  The antiseptic green hallway was a traffic jam of occupied gurneys, shiny, silver conveyances all holding body bags. Full body bags, Theodosia noted. The noxious smell of formalin and formaldehyde assaulted her as she squeamishly edged past.

  “Jeeter?”

  Jeeter Clark jumped to his feet, startled. He’d been drinking a can of orange soda pop and munching a ham sandwich. When he saw it wasn’t his boss at the door or a disgruntled bookie come to call, he seemed to relax.

  “Jeez, lady, you scared me.” Jeeter put the hand that held his half-eaten ham sandwich to his chest. He was wearing green scrubs, the kind doctors wear in an operating room.

  “Didn’t mean to,” said Theodosia. “The receptionist said I’d find you in here.”

  “Trudy sent you?” he asked.

  “Sure did,” said Theodosia, falling into his folksy pattern of speech.

  “Okay, sure,” Jeeter replied, satisfied that she had business there. “You must be from Edenvale.”

  Theodosia suddenly realized that, dressed as she was in black jacket and slacks, this man had just mistaken her for one of the many funeral directors who routinely called on the County Morgue to pick up bodies!

  Oh, be honest, now. Wasn’t this what you had in mind all along?

  “No, Indigo,” said Theodosia, almost choking on her words. Lord love a duck, she thought. Now I’ve really done it.

  “Not familiar with that one,” Jeeter muttered. “And you’re here to fetch . . . ?”

  “Barron. Hughes Barron,” said Theodosia, again trying to sound like a disinterested funeral professional who did this routinely. Whatever that was supposed to sound like.

  Jeeter snatched up a clipboard and consulted it. And, wonder of wonders, Hughes Barron’s name was listed.

  “Yeah, I got that name,” said Jeeter. “ I suppose you want to know when the body’s going to be released.”

  The ridiculousness of the situation made her bold. “That’s right.”

  Jeeter squinted at his clipboard. “You guys are always trying to bust my hump, aren’t you? Well, I guess you gotta make a buck, too.” He scanned what must have been a fairly long list. “Let’s see, lab work’s done. They’ve taken tissue samples. Lung, stomach, liver, brain . . .”

  “Does it say what killed him?” asked Theodosia.

  “That’d be on the pathologist’s report.” Jeeter slid open a drawer, ran his finger down a row of file folders, and pulled one out. He flipped it open and thumbed through a dozen or so sheets. “Bradycardia,” he announced.

  “Bradycardia,” repeated Theodosia.

  But Jeeter wasn’t finished. “Heart and respiratory failure induced by a toxic substance.” Jeeter looked up. “Some kind of poison. Guess they haven’t got a complete report from the lab yet.” He smiled at Theodosia affably. “They’re always backed up. But don’t worry, that’s no problem. You can take him anyway. Funeral’s in two days, huh?”

  Was it?

  “That’s right,” said Theodosia. “The family was planning to hold services Thursday morning.”

  “Then you’ve got plenty time to get him prepped and primped. In fact, if your meat wagon’s out back, I can have one of my guys haul him out right now.”

  “Thanks anyway,” said Theodosia, fighting hard to keep a straight face, “but I’ll be sending my meat wagon by this afternoon.”

  CHAPTER 24

  LLEVERET DANTE SAT scrunched down in the front seat of his Range Rover. He’d been sitting there for a good ten minutes when he saw the woman with the curly auburn hair and black slacks suit emerge from the Endicott Building.

  He’d caught her out of the corner of his eye as he strode past her after leaving the office of that idiot, Sam Sestero. Something about the tone of the woman’s voice or the way she had appeared so decidedly blasé had raised his radar. Suspicious by nature, he had tuned her in, like a wolf with his nose to the wind. Once again, his sixth sense hadn’t disappointed him. The woman had seemed to be watching him. Spying on him.

  He’d waited for her to emerge from Sestero’s building. Then what a big surprise he’d gotten as he watched her saunter down the street and disappear into the County Services Building! That had blown his mind slightly, but it had also confirmed his suspicions. He knew damn well what was housed in the basement of that innocuous building.

  Such a curious coincidence that his lawyer’s office was just down the street from where the body of his dead partner lay on a metal table.

  But even more curious was that this strange woman was so interested in both of them.

  He would follow this woman, to be sure. Find out who she was, where she lived. Tuck that information away for future use.

  CHAPTER 25

  I CAN’T BELIEVE what I just did, I can’t believe it! Theodosia repeated to herself as she drove back toward the Indigo Tea Shop.

  She was truly waiting for the proverbial bolt of lightning to descend from the heavens and strike her dead. She’d told so many fibs today that her head was spinning. And she figured her karma bank had to be operating at a deficit.

  No, Theodosia consoled herself as she spun down Tradd Street, this is a murder investigation. You think Burt Tidwell worries about stretching the truth when he’s questioning a suspect?

  She braked suddenly to avoid sideswiping a horse-drawn carriage packed full of tourists.

  No way, she grumbled to herself. Burt Tidwell probably pulls out a rubber hose and threatens his suspects. And that’s only after he’s intimidated them into tears.

  “You’re finally back!” exclaimed Drayton. “You must have had an amazingly long meeting with Mr. Dauphine. Did he regale you with tales of his days in the Merchant Marines during World War II?”

  Drayton was seated at Theodosia’s desk, wholesalers’ catalogs spread out around him. He had gathered up the papers and files Theodosia had dumped earlier and arranged them in neat little stacks on her bookcase.

  “Don’t even ask,” said Theodosia as she plopped her handbag on the side chair. “Oh, Brown Betty Teapots.” She squinted at the colorful brochures from her upside-down view.

  “We’re positively down to the dregs on teapot selection,” said Drayton. “I know you’ve been preoccupied lately, so I thought I’d make the first pass on a reorder. Besides these traditional English Brown Bettys and Blue Willow pots, Marrington Imports has some stunning contemporary ceramics. A trifle edgy, but still your taste.” Drayton slid the catalog toward her. “A
nd look at these Victorian styles with matching tea towels.”

  “Wonderful,” agreed Theodosia. She sat down and balanced on the edge of her side chair, staring straight across at Drayton’s lined countenance. “But, Drayton, don’t apologize for doing my job. I should be thanking you. As the Indigo Tea Shop’s benevolent taskmaster, you keep us all moving forward.”

  “Thank you, Theodosia,” said Drayton. A smile lit his face, and a look of satisfaction softened the lines around his eyes. “That means a lot to me.”

  Theodosia jumped up and peered into the little mirror that hung on the back of the door. It was slightly pitted and wavy from age, but she gamely reapplied her lipstick and fluffed her hair.

  “My goodness!” She whirled about, suddenly remembering her three o’clock meeting. “Tanner Joseph. I was supposed to meet with him. About the labels for the holiday blends!”

  “No need to panic,” Drayton replied mildly. “He’s here.” Drayton consulted his watch, an ancient Piaget that seemed to perpetually run ten minutes slow. “Has been for almost fifteen, no twenty-five, minutes. Haley took the initiative. She offered to give him the nickel tour.”

  “She did?” Theodosia allowed herself to relax. For all Haley’s indecision about choosing a major and amassing enough credits to graduate, she could sometimes exhibit an amazing take-charge attitude.

  But it was Bethany, not Haley, who was seated across the table from Tanner Joseph as Theodosia parted the green velvet curtains and stepped somewhat breathlessly into the tea room.

  “Mr. Joseph,” said Theodosia as she approached him, her smile warm and apologetic. “Forgive me. I am so sorry to have kept you waiting.”

  “Hello, Miss Browning.” Tanner Joseph rose from his chair. Dressed in a faded chambray shirt and khaki slacks, he looked more like the executive director of a nonprofit group that he really was, and less the beach bum from two days ago. “Nice to see you again, but please don’t apologize. Your very capable assistant here has been kind enough to bring me up to speed.”