by Laura Childs
Curled up on her couch, a handmade afghan snugged around her, Theodosia sipped a cup of Egyptian chamomile. The taste was slightly sweet, reminiscent of almonds and apples. A good evening calm-you-down tea.
Calming was exactly what she needed, because instead of conducting a quiet investigation and perhaps discovering a lead on Hughes Barron’s murderer, she seemed to have uncovered a number of potential suspects.
Timothy Neville hated Hughes Barron with white-hot passion, despised the man because of Barron’s callous disregard for historic buildings and architecture. Somehow Timothy had known that Hughes Barron was making a play for the Peregrine Building. Timothy’s assumption had been that Hughes Barron would have made significant changes to it. Would that have enraged Timothy Neville enough for him to commit murder? Perhaps. He was old, inflexible, used to getting his way. And Timothy Neville had a bottle of sulfuric acid in his study.
She had told Drayton about her discovery last night, after they’d departed Timothy Neville’s house. He’d reinforced the notion that sulfuric acid was, indeed, used to remove rust and corrosion from old metal. But Timothy Neville going so far as actually pouring a dollop in Hughes Barron’s teacup? Well, they didn’t really have the toxicologist’s report, did they? And neither of them could recall Timothy Neville’s exact movements the night of the Lamplighter Tour. They only remembered that, for a short time, he’d been a guest in the back garden at the Avis Melbourne Home.
Then there was Lleveret Dante. From the conversation she’d overheard outside Sam Sestero’s office, Hughes Barron’s portion of Goose Creek Holdings fell neatly into Lleveret Dante’s hands as a result of Barron’s death. Plus, the man was obviously a scoundrel, since he was under indictment in another state. Theodosia wondered if Dante had fled Kentucky just steps ahead of an arrest or, like so many unsavory business characters today, had a slick Kentucky lawyer working on his behalf, firing off a constant barrage of appeals and paperwork until the case all but faded away.
Finally, there was Tanner Joseph, executive director of the Shorebird Environmentalist Group. She had brought him into their lives, had invited Tanner Joseph into the safety and security of their little tea shop. Could an environmentalist be overzealous? Consumed with bitterness at losing a battle?
Theodosia knew the answer was yes. The papers were full of stories about people who routinely risked their own lives to save the whales, the dolphins, the redwoods. Did those people ever kill others who stood in the way of their conservation efforts? Unfortunately, the answer was yes on that point, too. Redwoods were often spiked with metal pieces that bounced saw blades back into loggers’ faces. Some animal rights activists, bitterly opposed to hunting, actually opened fire on hunters. It wasn’t inconceivable that Tanner Joseph could be such a fanatic. History had proven that passion unchecked yields freely to fanaticism.
Theodosia shucked off her afghan, stretched her long legs, and stood. She padded to the kitchen in her stocking feet. From his woven rag rug in front of the fireplace, Earl Grey lifted his fine head and gazed at her with concern.
“Be right back,” she told him.
In the kitchen, Theodosia took an English shortbread cookie from one of the pretty tins that rested on her counter. From a red and yellow tin decorated with pictures of noble hunting dogs she took a dog biscuit.
Doggy biscotti, she thought to herself as she returned to the living room where the two of them munched their cookies companionably. Could be a profitable sideline. Just last month she’d seen a magazine article about the booming business of gourmet dog treats.
Finishing off her cookie, Theodosia swiveled around and scanned the floor-to-ceiling bookshelf directly behind her. She selected a small, leather-bound volume and settled back comfortably again to reread her Agatha Christie.
The book she’d chosen was a fascinating primer on poison. She read eagerly as Agatha Christie described in delicious detail a “tasteless, odorless white powder that is poorly soluble in cold water but excellent to dissolve in hot cocoa, milk, or tea.”
This terrible poison, arsenic, Theodosia learned, was completely undetectable. But one tablespoon could administer ten to thirty times the lethal dose.
As if on cue, the lights flickered, lending a strange magic lantern feel to the living room. Ever the guard dog, Earl Grey rose up a few inches and growled in response. Then there was a low hum, as though the generators at South Carolina Light and Power were lodging a mighty protest, and the lights burned strong and steady again.
When the lights had dimmed momentarily, Theodosia’s startled reaction had been to close her book. Now she sat with the slim volume in her lap, staring out the rain-spattered window, catching an occasional flash of lightning from far away.
She considered what she had just read. Arsenic was amazingly lethal and extremely fast acting. Death occurred almost instantaneously.
But from what she had been able to piece together, Hughes Barron had walked into the garden under his own power and probably sat at the far table, drinking tea, for a good half hour. So Hughes Barron must have died slowly, perhaps not even knowing he was dying. Poisoned, to be sure, but some type of poison that deliberately slowed his heart until, like a pocket watch not properly wound, it simply stopped.
CHAPTER 30
DRAYTON WAS DEEP in thought behind the counter, his gray head bent over the black leather ledger. He scratched numbers onto a yellow legal pad, then added them up using a tiny credit card-sized calculator. When he saw the total, he frowned. Painstakingly, he added the numbers again. Unfortunately, he arrived at the same total the second time through.
Sighing heavily, Drayton massaged the bridge of his nose where his glasses had pinched and looked out at the tea shop. Haley and Bethany were doing a masterful job, pouring tea, waiting on tables, coaxing customers into having a second slice of cream cake or taking home a few scones for tomorrow’s breakfast. But once again, only half the tables were occupied.
Clearly, business was down, and his numbers told him they were down almost 40 percent from the same week a year ago. Granted, Thanksgiving was two weeks away, Christmas just around the corner. With the holidays would come the inevitable Christmas rush. But that rush should have showed signs of starting by now, shouldn’t it?
The tourist trade brought in revenue, to be sure, as did the special tea parties they catered, like the bridal shower tea yesterday or the various birthday celebration teas. But the real bread and butter for the Indigo Tea Shop was repeat customers from around the neighborhood. For whatever reason (although in his heart Drayton was quite confident he knew the reason) many of the locals were skittishly staying away.
“We need to talk.” Drayton’s quiet but carefully modulated voice carried above the light jazz that played on the radio in Theodosia’s office.
When she saw Drayton standing in the doorway, trusty ledger and sheaf of papers clutched in hand, she snapped off the music. “Rats. You’ve got that look on your face.”
Drayton crossed the faded Oriental carpet, hooked a leg of the upholstered side chair with his toe, and pulled it toward him. He deposited his ledger and papers atop Theodosia’s desk and sat down heavily in the chair.
“It’s not good,” she said.
“It’s not good,” he replied.
“Are we talking tailspin or just awfully slow?” asked Theodosia.
Drayton chewed his lower lip thoughtfully.
“I see,” said Theodosia. She leaned back in her high-backed leather chair and closed her eyes. According to the Tea Council of the USA, tea was a five-billion-dollar industry, poised to boom in much the same way coffee had. Tea shops and tea salons were opening at a dizzying rate. Coffee shops were hastily adding tea to their repertoire. And bottled teas, although she didn’t care for them personally, were highly popular.
All of that was great, she mused. Tea was making a comeback, big time. But all she wanted to do was make a secure little living and keep everyone here on the payroll. Would that be possible? Judging
by the somber look on Drayton’s face, perhaps not.
Theodosia pulled herself up straight in her chair. “Okay, what do we do?” she asked. “Try to roll out the Web site fast? Open up a second front?” She knew the battlefield analogy would appeal to Drayton, since he was such a World War II buff.
“We probably should have done exactly that earlier,” said Drayton. His eyes shone with regret rather than reproach.
Theodosia’s manicured fingers fluttered through the cards in her Rolodex. “Let me call Jessica at Todd & Lambeau. See what can be done.” She dialed the phone and, while waiting for it to be answered, reached over to her bookcase and grabbed the stack of Web designs. “Here. Pick one.” She thrust the storyboards toward Drayton.
“Hello,” said Theodosia. “Jessica Todd, please. Tell her it’s Theodosia Browning at the Indigo Tea Shop.” She covered the mouthpiece with her hand. “They’re putting me through,” she said.
Drayton nodded.
“Hello, Jessica? I’m sorry, who? Oh, her assistant.” Theodosia listened intently. “You don’t say. An online brokerage. And you’re sure it won’t be any sooner? No, not really. Well, have Jessica call me once she’s back in the office.”
Theodosia grinned crookedly as she set the phone down. “Plan B.”
Drayton lifted one eyebrow, amused at the magnitude of his employer’s energy and undaunted spirit. “Which is?”
“Until this entire mess is cleared up, a dark cloud is going to be hanging over all of us.” Theodosia stood, as if to punctuate her sentence.
“You’re probably right, but you make it sound terribly ominous,” said Drayton. “What is this plan B that you spoke of?”
Theodosia flashed him a brilliant smile. “I’m going to a funeral.”
CHAPTER 31
IT ISN’T FOR naught that Charleston has been dubbed the Holy City. One hundred eighty-one church steeples, spires, bell towers, and crosses thrust majestically into the sky above the low-profile cityscape, a testament to Charleston’s 300-year history as well as its acceptance of those fleeing religious persecution.
The First Presbyterian Church, known as Scots Kirk, was founded in 1731 by twelve Scottish families.
Saint Michael’s Episcopal Church, established in 1751, was where George Washington and the Marquis de Lafayette worshiped.
The Unitarian Church, conceived as the Independent Church in 1772, was appropriated by the British militia during the Revolutionary War and used briefly to stable horses.
It was in this Unitarian Church, with its stately Gothic design, that mourners now gathered. Heads bowed, listening to a sorrowful dirge by Mozart echo off the vast, vaulted ceiling with its delicate plaster fantracery that painstakingly replicated the Henry VII Chapel at Westminster Abbey.
Theodosia stood in the arched stone doorway and shivered. The weather was still chilly, not more than fifty degrees, and this great stone church with its heavy buttresses never seemed to quite warm up inside. The stained glass windows, so beautiful and conducive to contemplation, also served to deflect the sun’s warming rays.
So far, more than three dozen mourners had streamed past her and taken seats inside the church. Theodosia wondered just who these people were. Relatives? Friends? Business acquaintances? Certainly not the residents of Edgewater Estates!
Theodosia knew it was standard police technique to stake out funerals. In cases of murder and sometimes arson, perpetrators often displayed a morbid curiosity, showing up at funerals and graveside services.
Would that be the case today? she wondered. Just hanging out, hoping for someone to show up, seemed like a very Sherlock Holmesian thing to do, outdated, a trifle simplistic. Unfortunately, it was the best she’d been able to come up with for the moment.
“My goodness, Theodosia!”
Theodosia whirled about and found herself staring into the smooth, unlined face of Samantha Rabathan. She noted that Samantha looked very fetching, dressed in a purple suit and jaunty black felt hat set with a matching purple plume.
“Don’t you look charming in your shopkeeper’s black velvet,” Samantha purred.
Theodosia had made a last-minute decision to attend Hughes Barron’s funeral, hadn’t had time to change, and, thus had jumped into her Jeep Cherokee dressed in a black turtleneck sweater, long black velvet skirt, and comfortable short black boots. She supposed she might look a trifle dowdy compared to Samantha’s bright purple. And it certainly wasn’t uncharacteristic of Samantha to insinuate so.
“I had no idea you were friends with Hughes Barron,” began Theodosia.
Samantha smiled sadly. “We made our acquaintance at the Heritage Society. He was a new board member. I was . . .”
She was about to say long-term member but quickly changed her answer.
“I was Lamplighter chairperson.”
Theodosia nodded. It made sense. Samantha was always doing what was proper or decorous or neighborly. Even if she sometimes added her own special twist.
The two women walked into the church and stood at the rear overlooking the many rows of pews.
Samantha nudged Theodosia with an elbow. “I understand,” Samantha whispered, “that woman in the first row is Hughes Barron’s cousin.” She nodded toward the back of a woman wearing a mustard-colored coat. “Lucille Dunn from North Carolina.”
The woman sat alone, head bowed. “That’s the only relative?” Theodosia asked.
“So far as I know,” Samantha whispered, then tottered up the aisle, for she had already spotted someone else she wanted to chat with.
Slipping into one of the back pews, Theodosia sat quietly as the organ continued to thunder. From her vantage point, she could now study the funeral attendees. She saw several members of the Heritage Society, the lawyer, Sam Sestero, and a man who looked like an older Xerox copy, probably the brother, Edward, of Sestero & Sestero. There was Lleveret Dante, dressed conservatively in brown instead of a flashy white suit. And Burt Tidwell. She might have known.
But no Timothy Neville. And no Tanner Joseph.
The service was simple and oddly sad. A gunmetal gray coffin draped in black crepe, a minister who talked of resurrection and salvation but allowed as to how he had never really acquainted himself with Hughes Barron.
Struck by melancholy, Theodosia wondered who would attend her funeral, should she meet an early and untimely end. Aunt Libby, Drayton, Haley, Bethany, Samantha, Delaine, Angie and Mark Congdon of the Featherbed House, probably Father Jonathan, and some of her old advertising cronies.
How about Jory Davis? Would he crowd in with the other mourners? Would he remember her fondly? Should she call and invite him to dinner?
Theodosia was still lost in thought when the congregation launched into its final musical tribute, a slightly off-key rendition of “Amazing Grace.”
As was tradition at funeral services, the mourners in the front rose first and made their way down the aisle, while those folks in the back kept the singing going as best they could. That, of course, put Theodosia at the very end of the line for expressing condolences to Hughes Barron’s only relative, Lucille Dunn.
She stood in the nave of the church, a small woman with watery blue eyes, pale skin and brownish blond hair worn in a tired shag style. The mustard color of her coat did not complement her skin tone and only served to make her appear more faded and worn out.
“You were a friend?” Lucille Dunn asked, her red-rimmed eyes focused on a point somewhere over Theodosia’s right shoulder.
“Yes, I was.” Theodosia managed an appropriately pained expression.
“A close friend?” Lucille Dunn’s pale blue eyes suddenly honed in on Theodosia sharply.
Lord, thought Theodosia, where is this conversation going?
“We had been close.” Close at the hour of his death, thought Theodosia, then was immediately struck by a pang of guilt. Here I am, she told herself guiltily, lying to the relative of a dead man. And on the day of his funeral. She glanced into the dark recess of the church,
almost fearful that a band of enraged angels might be advancing upon her.
Lucille Dunn reached out her small hand to clutch Theodosia’s hand. “If there’s anything you’d like from the condo, a memento or keepsake, be sure to . . .” The cousin finished with a tight grimace, and her whole body seemed to sag. Then her eyes turned hard. “Angelique won’t want anything. She didn’t even bother flying back for the funeral.”
“Angelique?” Theodosia held her breath.
“His wife. Estranged wife. She’s off in Provence doing God knows what.” Lucille Dunn daubed at her nose with a tissue. “Heartless,” she whispered.
From a short distance away, Lleveret Dante made small talk with two commercial realtors while he kept his dark eyes squarely focused on the woman with the curly auburn hair. It was the same woman he’d seen acting suspiciously, trying to stake him out at Sam Sestero’s office. The same one he’d followed back to that tea shop. And now, like a bad penny, she’d turned up again. Theodosia Browning.
Oh, yes, he knew exactly who she was. He enjoyed an extensive network of informants and tipsters. Highly advantageous. Especially when you needed to learn the contents of a sealed bid or there was an opportunity to undercut a competitor. His sources had informed him that the Browning woman had been in the garden the night his ex-partner, Hughes Barron, had died. Wasn’t that so very interesting? The question was, what was she suspicious about? Obviously something, because she’d been snooping around. She and that overbearing fool, Tidwell. Well, the hell with them. Just let them try to put a move on him. He knew how to play hardball. Hell, in his younger days, he’d done jail time.
Gravel crunched loudly on the parking lot surface behind her, and Theodosia was aware of heavy, nasal breathing. It had to be Tidwell coming to speak with her, and she was in no mood for a verbal joust.
She spun around. “What are you doing here?” she demanded. She knew she was being rude, but she didn’t care.
