Tempest in a Teapot (A Teapot Collector Mystery) (17 page)

“Everybody who is anybody knows each other in this town, but . . . well, I don’t know if Cissy knows Mama Harcourt or not.”

“Why did Mrs. Harcourt leave early?”

“Oh, that awful old woman insulted her. Florence tried to smooth things over, but Marva got in a fight with Cissy’s grandma—or as much of a fight as a clubwoman ever engages in—and stormed out. Does it matter in some way?”

“No,” Sophie assured her. “Like I said, I’m just surprised. If Cissy doesn’t know Mrs. Harcourt, why was she invited?”

“Vivienne and Florence know her. Marva and Holly Harcourt are solid-gold members of the country club, like the two Mrs. Whittakers.”

Sophie digested that for a moment. Had Vivienne Whittaker threatened some kind of status quo when she tackled Mr. Harcourt? Had she threatened to disclose something about the new development? Was she upset about how her son got his advancement? Maybe she was worried it would come back to haunt him. But still . . . that was an awful lot of supposition, and it didn’t give any proof that Marva Harcourt was the one to plant the lethal cupcake. “So, just to get this straight, Vivienne and Florence invited her to Mrs. Earnshaw’s engagement tea for her granddaughter?”

“Well, yeah, I guess. When you put it that way, it sounds kind of . . . interfering. Is . . . is there something wrong, Sophie?”

She ignored the question. “But both Florence
and
Vivienne wouldn’t have invited her to the tea. Which one actually did the inviting?”

“Florence, I think.”

“So what was the fight between Marva and Thelma about?”

Gretchen sighed wearily. “Oh lord, it was stupid. First off, I think Thelma was in a snit because she didn’t know Marva and was put out that Florence had invited her. Then something happened in the kitchen; I guess Marva insulted the place—”

“Wait, in the kitchen?
Marva
was in the kitchen? Why?”

“How should I know?”

Sophie remembered what Gilda had been complaining about, the folks milling around in the kitchen “helping.” What a great opportunity to arrange the cupcake platter with the one poisoned cupcake. But it still didn’t say how the killer directed that cupcake to Vivienne, unless they knew her preference for yellow, or vanilla, or something like that. If Marva had left before the tea, then she couldn’t have been the one who made
sure
Vivienne got the poisoned cupcake. A dedicated risk taker might have planned it that way, though, and then skedaddled to get out of there so she wouldn’t be under suspicion. That insult and the resulting fight and her storming out could have been just the cover Marva wanted. “So you weren’t in the kitchen when all this was happening?”

“Gosh, no! I don’t go in any kitchen unless I have to.”

“You can’t cook?”

Gretchen looked smug. “I didn’t say I couldn’t, I just don’t. Honey, every Southern girl with a proper mama is taught how to make biscuits and gravy, grits, greens, the whole bit. I can cook a ham hock with the best of ’em, but I’ll deny it if you ever tell anyone!” She laughed, a lovely tinkling sound.

Sophie could see how one could be charmed by Gretchen Harcourt, and wondered how much of the Southern girl act was fake, as Cissy seemed to think it was. “So you don’t know for sure what the argument was over and why Marva left?” Gretchen shook her head, so Sophie asked, “Do the police know Marva was there?”

“Good lord, I don’t know. And I am not going to be the one to tell them. Hollis would have my head on a platter if I told the cops his mother was at that tea party.”

Then I will
, Sophie thought. She was also going to have to track Cissy down, with the excuse of talking about the party, and pump her for information about a number of things, including whether she had invited Belinda Blenkenship to the engagement tea. Of course, Cissy would
want
to know the truth about the murder because she sure would not want her grandmother accused of the crime. “Okay, let’s figure out where we are with this bridal shower. I’m going to do a brief tea talk, and the presentation of the tea-a-ra.” She explained what that was to Gretchen, who clapped her hands and said it sounded darling. “Cissy will wear it while she opens her gifts.”

Sophie took notes as they talked. Gretchen was going to take care of the invitations that very day and because of the late date would hand deliver them, except to the out-of-town folks.

“Can you give me a list later of all the invitees?” Sophie asked. “I need to know food allergies, et cetera.”

“I never thought of that, though I should have after that dreadful engagement tea. Vivienne made such a big deal out of her allergies.”

“I heard that,” Sophie said, looking up from her notes. “Did she say what she was allergic to?”

“There was a list. Shellfish. Peanuts. Red dye. MSG.”

“Red dye?” That pinged in Sophie’s mind, as she considered the plate of red-velvet cupcakes.

“Just one of many.”

“Was it common knowledge, her allergies?”

“Well, sure. She made it known at the country club, anyway. I can’t say more than that.”

“Uh, Gretchen, who put out the cupcakes? Do you remember?”

“Well, that helper, Gilda, brought them out.”

“But who arranged the platter?”

She paused for a long moment, looking uncomfortable. “I haven’t a clue. I
told
you, I wasn’t in the kitchen. We had already eaten the awful finger sandwiches and hard-as-a-rock biscuits or scones, or
whatever
you call them, by then. I wasn’t going to risk a cupcake. Why, is it . . . is it important?”

“I don’t know. Probably not.”

“I have to go,” Gretchen said, suddenly. She stood and fussed for a moment with her cuffs and purse, but then said, “Look, you’re not going to tell anyone that Forsythe and I were out there talking, are you?”

“Why would I?”

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just . . . it might look bad. Lots of folks don’t like Forsythe. He can be . . . mischievous, in what he says.”

“Mischievous?”

“You know . . . imply things, make comments, snarky, but funny.”

That was the second person who had warned her about Forsythe. “I see. I have no reason to mention that you were both on the street talking,” Sophie said.

She looked relieved, but simply twiddled her fingers in farewell and sailed out the door into the May sunshine.

Something was off there, but Sophie couldn’t put her finger on what it was. Gretchen had looked uneasy, certainly, at the mention of the cupcakes, but she didn’t look guilty.

Back at Auntie Rose’s Sophie barely had time to unload her purchases from Libby Lemon’s and make a quick call to the police to give them the info that in case no one had mentioned it, Marva Harcourt had been at the engagement tea party before the deadly cupcake incident. Then she was thrown into the afternoon’s schedule. It was a busy day, with a Red Hat luncheon, a bridge club outing and two bus tours, as well as lots of other drop-in customers.

One table in particular intrigued Sophie. The group was a gathering of Gracious Grove businesswomen, among them Libby Lemon proprietor Elizabeth Lemmon, a middle-aged woman with fluffy, dark hair drawn back with a yellow headband. It was the same group that the proprietor of GiGi’s French Pastries belonged to, though she was not present. Sophie introduced herself, and mentioned how much she had enjoyed going in to the kitchenware store. Then she asked about joining their women’s group, since the tearoom was run by her and her grandmother, Rose Freemont.

“We’d be pleased to have you both!” Elizabeth said. She glanced over at one of the other women at the table, who nodded. “We also have a political action group many of us belong to. Some of the older women in Gracious Grove think we’re a little
too
active in that way. Would you be interested in joining that?”

“Not right now,” Sophie said, glancing around the room. She’d need to get back to checking on tables and bussing them. “I’m not a very political person, actually.”

“And you haven’t been back in Gracious Grove long. I’ll bet once you see how this town has changed in the last ten years, the way the good-old-boy network is using the town like its personal fiefdom, you may decide to join.”

Sophie let that sink in a moment. “Do you mean the mayor and council might not be acting in the best interests of the town?”

Most of the women nodded and one snickered. Elizabeth said, “I won’t say all that I believe, but yes, we think there is money changing hands inappropriately for things like land zoning and bylaw changes. We feel that conflict-of-interest laws aren’t being followed and we’re worried about the future of Gracious Grove.”

Someone on the other side of the room was waving her hand and asking for another pot of tea; Sophie acknowledged them as her mind spun, thinking about the newspaper headlines and all she had heard of annexation and development deals and the network of businessmen running it all. “Ms. Lemmon, what would happen if someone stood in the way of their plans?”

“What do you mean?” She looked alarmed, her lined face pinched in a worried expression.

“Never mind.” She didn’t want to be precipitate and say something she ought not to say. “I have to excuse myself, ladies,” she said. “Let me think about this some.”

“Certainly. But regardless, we would welcome you and your grandmother to sit in on a meeting of the Gracious Grove Businesswomen’s Association. No pressure.”

Sophie smiled and nodded, then went to the aid of her customer.

When they closed up, she shooed her grandmother and Laverne out and cleaned up the place herself, vacuuming, wiping down the tables and chairs, dusting, doing a load of linens in the professional washer and dryer tucked away in the corner of the kitchen, and setting up the tearoom for the next day. Cut tulips and daffodils would be delivered first thing in the morning, and the tables would look lovely, as always.

Occasionally she glanced over at Belle Époque and noticed the lonely-looking light in one window of the upstairs apartment. How had Thelma Mae Earnshaw gotten the way she was? She was grumpy, yes, but surely not a killer? Nana said there was no way the woman had killed anyone, and her grandmother knew peoples’ hearts. But why the heck had Thelma turned in Francis Whittaker when she had not a shred of evidence that he’d done anything wrong?

Or did she
have
evidence she just wasn’t sharing? No, that was impossible, or Francis would be under arrest by then, surely. On an impulse, she took out a container of the Zuppa Maritata she had made and skipped across the alleyway to the back door of Mrs. Earnshaw’s home and knocked.

“C’mon in,” she heard from above. She tried the door; it was unlocked! That was trust or living dangerously, to leave the door unlocked when there was a murderer around.

“Mrs. Earnshaw?” she called out. “It’s Sophie Taylor. Can I come up?” She peeked up the stairs just as the elderly woman came to the top.

“I thought it might be Phil or Cissy.”

“No. I just . . . I made too much soup and I was wondering if you would try some and tell me what you think?” She ascended the steps and followed the woman to her small kitchenette.

“All right,” she said, slowly. “I’ll try it.”

Sophie heated up the soup, found a bowl on the drying rack and filled it, then set it in front of Mrs. Earnshaw. She peered at it suspiciously, then took a spoonful. Soon, she was scooping it into her mouth quickly and finished, with a sigh. “That was real good, young lady. So you really are a cook?”

Whereas from the snooty doctor, Sebastian, on that date her mother had arranged, being called a cook had been an obvious insult, it certainly wasn’t coming from Mrs. Earnshaw. “I am. Trained and everything. Are you all alone? Don’t you have any guests staying?”

“Nope. Tell you the truth, it’s getting a bit much to run this place as an inn. I sure could use the money, but looking after ’em is too much.”

“You should have someone move in and pay room and board. That way there would be someone here, but you wouldn’t have to cater to them.”

The woman looked thoughtful, but didn’t answer.

“Mrs. Earnshaw, the day of the engagement tea, did anyone else come to the kitchen besides the folks at the tea?”

“No. Why?”

“No reason. Just curious. I heard today that Marva Harcourt was here, but you and she argued and she stormed out. What did you argue about?”

Her sagging jowl wobbled as she grimaced. “She said I had stuff in the fridge way past its due date, and I asked her what she was doing snooping in my fridge.”

“Had she been fussing with anything else, like the cupcakes?”

“Not so’s I noticed, but everyone was everywhere that day. Gilda was whining that Mrs. Harcourt and her daughter-in-law were fussing about something; Florence Whittaker was acting snooty, saying the sandwiches weren’t fresh enough; Vivienne Whittaker was giving orders like it was her own place . . . it was a mess. Why?”

“Just an idea I had.” Sophie noticed the weariness on the older woman’s face, and the lines of pain on her forehead and bracketing her mouth, and her heart went out to her. “I’ll let you go on to bed, ma’am.”

Sophie went back to Auntie Rose’s, made a cup of tea, sat down at the kitchen table and pulled her notebook out of her bag. Instead of bridal shower tea party plans, though, she began to make notes about who could have killed Vivienne Whittaker. It pretty much had to be someone at the engagement tea party, though Phil, by virtue of having been in the kitchen just minutes before, was a possibility.

So . . . Phil Peterson, Florence Whittaker, Francis Whittaker, Gilda Bachman, Thelma Mae Earnshaw, Marva Harcourt, Belinda Blenkenship and even Gretchen Harcourt, though she claimed she wasn’t in the kitchen. Oh, and Cissy Peterson! She couldn’t completely eliminate Cissy, though it was clearly impossible that sweet, reserved Cissy Peterson could have murdered her mother-in-law-to-be.

Tapping at the back door startled her. She got up and looked through the glass, then opened the door. “Jason! It’s so good to see you!” She threw her arms around him and hugged him—he was taller than she remembered—then, suddenly shy, backed away. “Uh, I’m having a cup of tea. Would you like tea or coffee?”