Live and Let Chai

by Bree Baker

  I raised my head and gave the detective my most pleading look. “We fight every day.”

  “Why is that, exactly?”

  I rolled my shoulders and massaged the knotted muscles along the base of my neck, biding time and choosing my words carefully. “Mr. Paine’s on the town council, and he didn’t want me to open my café. He has a thing about businesses being located inside residences. Had,” I corrected myself.

  “And you opened anyway.”

  “Yes.” I willed my quivering lips to still. “It was within my rights, but he didn’t like it, so he came by every day to complain and drink free tea.”

  His brows arched dramatically. “You didn’t make the man who gave you so much trouble pay for his tea?”

  “No.”

  “Why? You weren’t friends. He didn’t even want you to have the café. Why would you give him free drinks?”

  I worked to settle my breath and folded my hands on the table. Why had I? It was the right thing to do, wasn’t it? Under Detective Hays’s scrutiny, I was no longer sure. “Once the café opened, Mr. Paine found something new to fuss about—he came around regularly to complain I didn’t provide an ingredients list for customers. I thought I could get him to change his mind about the idea of the café if he enjoyed the product. You know. Kill him with kindness.” I winced at my word choice. “I didn’t mean that.”

  “Which part?”

  I shook off the sarcastic remark. I wouldn’t allow him to bait me. “I figured Mr. Paine would eventually see I’m a nice person running a respectable business, making quality products that he and the town could be proud of. It wasn’t like I opened a Hooters or had some grand plan to make Charm the next Hilton Head.”

  “You don’t like Hilton Head?”

  I rubbed my eyes, beginning to get frustrated. “Hilton Head is fine, but Mr. Paine hated commercialization. That’s all I’m saying. And Sun, Sand, and Tea wasn’t going to hurt his vision for the town. I thought I could win him over. Show him that my café added to the local charm.”

  Detective Hays mulled that over.

  The silence stretched palpably between us, unraveling my already frayed nerves.

  “I would never have hurt Mr. Paine,” I pleaded, desperate to convince Detective Hays of my truth. “Even if I had wanted to, which I didn’t, I wouldn’t have used my tea to do it. A stunt like that would dishonor my family and completely ruin my business.”

  I’d be lucky to sell another glass all week after Detective Big Mouth’s earlier comments. Charm was a fairly superstitious town, with as many legends and tall tales as actual facts, and locals seemed to prefer to former to the latter. I gripped the table edge. I would become a campfire story. The Sweet-Tea Slayer, or something equally awful.

  I swallowed a boulder of emotion and concentrated on Detective Hays’s blank cop expression. “Think about it. No one will want my tea after this. I’ll have to close my shop. I won’t be able to afford to keep my house, and I’ve only lived there for three months.” Panic replaced the shock and numbness in my limbs. I rubbed a circle on my chest where it was constricted with pain. “I can’t go back and live with my aunts again.” I launched myself to my feet and paced the floor.

  Detective Hays put a hand on the butt of his sidearm and pushed slightly away from the table, as if he expected me to throw myself at him over the table.

  His silence unnerved me, and I began to babble. “My aunts are bananas. Kind. Sweet. But totally batty. I just can’t.” I turned on him. “Why would you hold up my tea jar like that and ask to have the contents tested? You implied that my tea was the murder weapon while half the town was drinking it. They’re all probably on their ways to have their stomachs pumped now.”

  A dark chuckle rolled in my throat, and I dropped back onto my chair.

  “What?” Detective Hays relaxed his position, apparently satisfied he wouldn’t need to shoot me.

  “Irony,” I said, dropping both palms onto the table. “He’s finally getting what he wanted, and he won’t be around to see it.”

  “Can you think of someone else who may have had reason to hurt Mr. Paine?”

  “No.”

  He shot me a disbelieving look. “So, everyone else in town liked him? He only had an issue with you?”

  “Of course not. He was a cranky, crotchety old man who got on everyone’s nerves, but he was one of us. Part of this big, weirdo family.” I waved my arms around my head like a lunatic.

  Detective Hays frowned. Clearly, he didn’t understand. Wait until he’d been here a little longer.

  A new idea popped into my mind. “Was that your moving truck I saw you with earlier?”

  He dipped his chin in silent affirmation.

  “You live here now?”

  “That’s generally what a moving truck indicates.”

  I was suddenly unsure how I felt about that. “It’s not usually like this here,” I said, feeling the need to defend my town. “It’s usually nice. Quiet. Folks get along. There’s an unspoken camaraderie when you share a small space like this island. It’s different than anything I’ve encountered anywhere else. You’ll like it, if you don’t mind everyone in your business.”

  “I definitely mind.” He tapped the blank paper before me with one tan finger. “I’d like a list of anyone else who you believe might have a reason to harm Mr. Paine.”

  “Anyone else? Like, besides me?” I scoffed. “I just told you I couldn’t have killed Mr. Paine. It’s illogical and mean.”

  “And you’re always what?” he asked. “Reasonable and kind?”

  “I try to be,” I admitted. Though buying a fixer-upper home on a whim and arguing with an old man didn’t support either notion. “I’m not writing down a list of people for you to badger, if that’s what you’re asking. Talk to people. They’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”

  He cocked his head over one shoulder. “Like you’re doing?”

  I was tired of the sarcasm. “I can’t tell you what I don’t know. I didn’t hurt Mr. Paine, and I have no idea who did. That’s all I know.”

  Someone knocked on the door, then pushed it open. A policeman I recognized from high school gave the detective a pointed look.

  “Excuse me,” Detective Hays said, rising to his feet. “Write your statement and sign it. Add the date.” He strode through the open door and vanished.

  He didn’t come back.

  Eventually, I turned to the notepad and began to recount the events of my evening, logging them as neatly as I could with shaking hands, the memories as vivid and visceral as if I were reliving each awful one. Grief knotted in my throat as I described seeing Mr. Paine in the weeds. Trying to wake him. Thinking he might’ve had a stroke or heart attack or some other thing that just happened to people all the time. Then learning it was murder.

  The paper was stained and spotted with my tears and bleeding ink when I finished nearly an hour later.

  I poked my head through the open doorway, notebook clutched to my chest. “Hello?”

  The familiar officer smiled at me from his post beside the door. “All finished?”

  “Yeah.” I held the paper out to him.

  “Thank you. You’re free to go. Your aunts are in the lobby to drive you home, and Detective Hays will meet you there.”

  I blinked. “At my home?”

  “Yes.” The officer scanned my writing, lifting the pages on the pad one by one. “Judge Helix has issued a search warrant.”

  Images of dirty dishes and discarded undergarments raced through my head. Detective Hays was putting his hands on my things, searching for evidence that I was a killer, and probably judging my character based on the disastrous condition of my home.

  I turned on my heels and made a break for the lobby, half wishing I’d never left my house tonight and half wishing I could shove Detective Hays back into that
moving truck and send him home to wherever he came from.

  Chapter Three

  Detective Hays was rooting through my café pantry when I got there. I’d passed four other men in official-looking jackets on my way up the porch stairs, who seemed to have finished whatever they were up to. Each man had a little tackle box or clipboard in his hands, and all were headed for the vehicles lining my walk.

  “What are you doing?” I asked, horrified, as Detective Hays collected things from my shelves.

  “Finishing up.” He set the armload of items on the counter between us. “The technicians are finished, but I still have a question. What is all this?”

  “Herbs.” I eyeballed the tins, boxes, and bags scattered before me. “Rosemary, dill, fennel. Nothing sinister there.”

  He lifted a finger to the narrow wall of planters opposite us, each one exploding with green leaves, shoots, and sprouts. “I thought those were herbs.”

  “They are.” I went to the hall closet and grabbed a knee-length cardigan to wrap myself in, then pulled the tie out of my hair. I avoided the mirror and all reflective surfaces on my way back to the kitchen. “Some herbs are best fresh and others are best dried.”

  Detective Hays had followed me, watching with careful eyes. “Some herbs can be deadly.”

  So could some women, but I wasn’t one of them. “Those,” I said, pointing to the mess he’d made on my counter, “are not. I use ordinary, run-of-the-mill plants that won’t make anyone sick. And certainly not dead.”

  “You know which herbs can kill, though, don’t you? Which to avoid. How much is safe, how much is too much.”

  I bit the inside of my cheeks and crossed my arms.

  “No answer?”

  “Yeah, right,” I said. “If I admit I know those things, you’ll add it to your case against me, and if I don’t, then I’m a poor excuse for an organic Southern chef.”

  “I’m not trying to build a case against you. I’m just following the evidence. Your tea led me here.”

  I tied the belt on my cardigan and slid behind the counter. “Can I fix you something to drink?”

  The sides of his mouth turned down. “No, thank you.”

  I shook my head. “If you come into my café and rummage through the kitchen at this hour, you get tea. What kind will it be?” I pointed to the menu board. “I’d recommend my Peach Tea, but it seems to have disappeared.”

  “We confiscated it for testing,” he said.

  “Of course you did.” I filled a jar with ice and shoved it under the pour spout of my largest tea dispenser. “That’s too bad. You would’ve liked that one. I guess you get the house special instead: Old-Fashioned Sweet Tea.”

  He eyeballed the drink before lifting it to his lips. “Where are your aunts? I thought they were driving you home.”

  I rested a hip against the counter and sighed, admiring the quaint, beachy look of my new café and hating that I might be about to lose it all. “I asked them to drop me off. I love them, but I can’t take all the fussing tonight. This day has already been too much.”

  “You lived with them before?” he asked.

  I wondered how he knew, but then I remembered my freak-out at the police station and my cheeks heated. “Yeah. I grew up at the family homestead with Aunt Clara, Aunt Fran, and my grandma. And for the record, I shouldn’t have been so negative earlier. My aunts aren’t bananas. I’m just terrible under pressure.”

  He lifted his gaze to mine. “Homestead?”

  I nodded. “My family has been on the island a long time. My aunts’ home and property are handed down.” It was strange talking to someone in Charm who didn’t already know everything about my family. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure what to share and what to keep to myself.

  “Got it.” Detective Hays finally took a long sip of tea, eyes widening. “This is good.”

  “Yeah.”

  He examined the glass thoughtfully. “You know, my grandma used to tell me not to marry a woman until I knew how she made her sweet tea. I never understood it, but I think of it every time I have a glass.”

  “Your grandma must’ve been from the South, because clearly she was a wise woman.”

  “Charleston,” he answered, having another sip, “and she was very wise.”

  “Is that where you’re from?” I leaned slightly forward, careful not to miss whatever he said next.

  “Originally. I’ve lived quite a few places since then.”

  “Is that what happened to your accent?”

  His smile fell. “No. I worked on losing that.” He drained his glass and set it reverently aside.

  I felt creases gather on my forehead. Why on earth would anyone want to lose their accent? I refilled his glass and returned it to him. “You know,” I said, going back to his earlier question, “your grandma knew that sweet tea-making is personal, and if a woman trusts you with her sweet tea secrets, she’s not planning on letting you go.”

  His eyes narrowed slightly, but he didn’t respond.

  “You seem to have calmed down,” I noted. “Maybe my tea is drugged.”

  His chest rose and fell in one long breath. “It’s been a long day.”

  “Do you still think I killed Mr. Paine?”

  His pale gray eyes locked on mine for the first time since my return home. “I know you argued with him regularly, and whatever killed him could have been in your tea. That gives you both means and motive.”

  “No,” I corrected. “I didn’t have a motive, because I don’t believe there are reasons for murder. People are people. We don’t have to like them all, but we can’t go around killing them, either.”

  He snorted. “If only it was so simple.” He slid off my bar stool and stretched to his full height.

  “No more questions?”

  “Not tonight, but do me a favor and don’t leave town, Miss Swan.”

  “Detective?” a portly man called from my open front door. “We’re ready to go.”

  Detective Hays nodded to him, then deposited a business card on the counter. “Details have changed, but the number’s the same, if you think of anything I should know.” He walked away without a goodbye and pulled the door shut behind him.

  I flipped the lock, then rushed back to the counter and grabbed the card.

  United States Marshals Service

  Grady Hays

  Deputy U.S. Marshal

  Criminal Investigator

  “U.S. Marshal?” I asked the card. When it didn’t respond, I turned it over, looking for more information, but found none. I ran to the front window and watched as he climbed behind the wheel of a giant black pickup truck and drove away.

  Who was this guy?

  • • •

  I woke early the next morning, having fallen asleep after cleaning my entire house and taking a mental inventory of what was missing. Shockingly, everything seemed to be in its place, minus the contents of my medicine cabinet and a gallon or so of peach tea. I supposed the detective and his crew thought a killer might keep her poisons in the aspirin or cough syrup bottle, but that seemed silly and a little too obvious to me.

  I took my time dressing and finding a mental happy place before shuffling downstairs to the café. I’d styled my chestnut locks in barrel curls and dashed a bit of mascara on my lashes, hoping to look as pleasant and harmless as possible for any customers who dared to visit. The vintage floral swing dress I wore was probably overkill, but I figured it wouldn’t hurt.

  By noon, the silence in the cafe was wearing on me: not a single soul had ventured into Sun, Sand, and Tea since I’d flipped the sign to OPEN an hour earlier.

  I took my broom to the back deck and stared at the sea as I swept. Lou, the nosy gull, cocked his head and watched, but didn’t offer any help. How was this happening to me? My new start had just gotten started. Words like unfair, unjust, an
d despicable came to mind. I threw myself onto a wooden chair and forced the angry thoughts out with the tide. The truly unfair thing was what had happened to Mr. Paine. My perspective was selfishly skewed.

  “I wish there was a way to make things right,” I told Lou. “And a way to change what people think about my shop before it’s too late to recover.” I needed to convince people I hadn’t hurt Mr. Paine, and I wished there was a way to rewind time and save him too, but there simply wasn’t.

  Sweat beaded on my brow, so I went back inside, frustrated. I tied an apron around my waist, then grabbed a few colorful sticks of chalk to update my menu board. Assuming no one would request the peach tea for a while, I wrote Southern Strawberry in its place.

  By two o’clock, when no customers had appeared, my heart had sunk low in my chest. I sliced cucumbers and drizzled homemade ranch dressing on top, then munched mindlessly, silently willing someone to walk through my front door.

  At three o’clock, I turned the sign from OPEN to CLOSED and went for a walk to clear my head. A scruffy white cat watched me from the beach until the boardwalk carried me out of sight, walking until I hit Main Street and my aunts’ shop came into view.

  Blessed Bee was a yellow clapboard house situated between identical pink and blue houses. The pink shop sold ice cream, the blue shop books. My childhood friend Amelia owned the bookstore. I’d yet to meet the owners of the new ice cream parlor, but it was on my to-do list.

  Striped honeybees were stenciled over the large window at Blessed Bee, and the welcome mat had a hive on it. The interior was open and equally yellow, though paler inside than out, and featured lots of white shelves and crown molding. A sky-blue ceiling ran overhead, sprinkled with fluffy white cloud shapes. Clara and Fran made everything from lip balm and face scrub to suckers and soap, all with pure, organic honey drawn directly from their own hives. They’d hoped I would join them in their beekeeping adventures one day, but my near-paralyzing fear of bees had eliminated that career choice as an option.

  Soft classical music played on hidden speakers throughout the store, and a smattering of shoppers gave me wayward looks as I approached the counter. I forced a tight smile and pressed the little silver service bell with one finger.