Murder at Teatime (15 page)

Her words had the fulsome ring of a script for
Search for Tomorrow
, thought Charlotte. She also sounded a little like Blanche DuBois.

“I worshiped the ground that man walked on,” she continued in a maudlin tone, sniffling into a hankie. “He was so like Mr. Harris—he passed away in 1962—so smart and clever at explaining things. I was so lucky to have been able to come to Ledge House. Before I came here I was just at sixes and sevens all the time without a man to take care of me. And now this. It’s just too much.” She leaned forward to touch Charlotte’s arm. “Honey, this conversation’s mighty hard on me. Since Frank’s death, I’ve just gone to pieces. You wouldn’t mind if I had just a wee tad of bourbon to calm my nerves, would you? Mind you,” she added, rising from her seat, “I don’t ordinarily touch spirits, but my nerves are just worn to a frazzle.”

“Please, go right ahead,” said Charlotte, declining a drink herself. She noticed that Grace’s nose was rubricated with the telltale broken blood vessels of the heavy drinker. Judging by the level of alcohol in the bottle of Old Grand-dad she fetched from a bottom cupboard, it had been resorted to on more than one occasion as a tonic for frazzled nerves.

Pouring herself a tumblerful, Grace quickly emptied more than half of it in a series of demure sips. “Oh, yes,” she said, with a little shiver of pleasure. “Makes me feel like a schoolgirl on a Saturday night.” She giggled and looked around her as if the world had suddenly come into focus.

“What kind of tea did Dr. Thornhill drink?” asked Charlotte.

“He always had one of Fran’s herb teas. He didn’t believe in caffeine, you see. He said it poisoned the system.” A shadow passed over her face at the mention of the word poison. She continued: “He had a different tea each day. Rose hip, peppermint, chamomile, lemon verbena. His favorite was lovage; it tastes kind of like celery.”

Lovage was the herb that Kitty had mentioned in connection with the poisoning case in Belgium, the herb that monkshood had been mistaken for.

“Do you remember what kind of tea Dr. Thornhill had on Tuesday?”

“I can’t recall the name,” she said, reaching out a shaky hand to tap her cigarette ash in the ashtray, and missing. “It was a new one that Fran had just brought over that afternoon. I’d show you the package, but the police took it. She likes to test her new blends on the family. Come to think of it, I don’t think she told me what was in it.”

“Did you prepare it, or did Fran?”

“Usually, I do, but Fran did on Tuesday, because it was the new blend.”

Why a new tea on that particular day? Charlotte wondered. And why had Fran prepared it? But if Fran was guilty, why call attention to herself by preparing the tea? She could have just let Grace do it as usual, and slipped the poison in later. Her attention drifted off to the subject of poison, while Grace’s drifted off to the soap opera. Poisoning was reputedly a woman’s crime, but she wondered if that was accurate. True, poisoning required cunning and subterfuge, the traditional weapons of the powerless. She was reminded of another case of monkshood poisoning that she had read about in one of Thornhill’s books. It involved a group of wives in a Hungarian village whose husbands were called away to military service. When the husbands returned and started demanding their wives’ submission, they began mysteriously dying off. More than sixty husbands were poisoned by their wives, one of the largest mass poisonings in history. Now
that
was a woman’s crime. But even more important than cunning and subterfuge, she thought, would be the murderer’s feeling that he or she could get away with it, the feeling of infallibility. And that feeling, she reflected, was distributed in equal measure in both sexes.

“Anyway, he didn’t like it much,” Grace continued. “He said it tasted kind of peppery. Do you think that was the poison in it?”

“Could be,” replied Charlotte. She remembered that the alkaloid aconitine had been described as having a hot, sharp taste. “Mrs. Harris,” she said. “Think carefully. Do you remember any time that afternoon during which someone could have added the poison to the teapot?”

“Lordy, yes,” said Grace. She leaned back and crossed her arms. “I told that State policeman all about it. I was carrying the tea tray out to Frank when the doorbell rang. It was Wes Gilley delivering the lobsters I’d ordered for Frank’s birthday party. I was going to serve lobster thermidor.”

“What happened then?”

“Well, I set the tray on the sideboard in the parlor and answered the door. Wes didn’t have change for a twenty. That’s when I went upstairs to see if I could get change from you girls. I figure someone could have added the poison to the tea while it was sitting there on the sideboard.”

The perfect opportunity, Charlotte thought. The poisoner must have concealed the poison on his or her person. But how? The crushed root, which is what she supposed he had used—it was the most poisonous part—would be moist and runny; it would require some sort of container.

“Did you see anyone in the parlor when you came down?”

“No, but that doesn’t mean anything. The tea tray was just sitting there for a good five minutes. I remember worrying about its getting cold. Frank was a bit perturbed when I finally brought it. You see, it was past four by then. I know because
The Edge of Night
had already started.”

“One last question, Mrs. Harris, if you don’t mind.”

“Of course not, honey,” she said, patting Charlotte’s arm affectionately. “Anything to bring a villain to justice.”

“Did you know that Dr. Thornhill had plans to remarry?”

“Lord-a-mercy—that man,” she said, shaking her head. “I knew there was talk of it, but I didn’t believe it, not for one minute. You see,” she said, leaning forward, “I knew Frank would never have
married
a woman like that. Just between you and me and the lamppost, she was nothing more than a common you-know-what. When she was up here over Memorial Day weekend, she didn’t even go through the
pretense
of sleeping in her own bed.” She leaned back with a self-satisfied air and poked a finger through her lacquered curls to scratch her scalp. “Oh, Frank would have remarried eventually,” she continued. “Why, he was a real man, if you know what I mean. Goodness knows a man like that needs a woman in his life. But what Frank needed was a woman of culture and refinement”—she paused to pat the spot she had just scratched—“not a trashy gold digger like her.” She nodded confidently. “He would have come to his senses eventually. Take it from me.”

“I’m sure he would have,” Charlotte agreed.

Grace leaned forward again, a fresh cigarette dangling from the fingers of her limp-wristed hand. “Of course,” she said, her blue eyes glittering, “There’s not much chance of that happening
now
, is there?” She smiled smugly and leaned back again, puffing on the cigarette she held between her twisted fingers.

Guiding Light
had ended, and she switched the channel.

“
General Hospital’s
on now,” she said.

“Thank you for your cooperation,” said Charlotte, rising to leave.

“I’m happy to help. Anything to bring a villain to justice.” She paused and then added, “You know, my Ellie Sue will be just thrilled to hear I met you. You wouldn’t mind giving me your autograph for her, would you? She’d just love to have it. She has a little autograph collection.”

“Not at all.”

“Oh, wonderful. I have a picture of you right here,” she said, reaching into her handbag and withdrawing a photo from an old magazine interview. “Just write ‘To Ellie Sue: I’ll always remember the good times I shared with my dear friend, your mother. Wishing you love and happiness, Charlotte Graham.’”

Charlotte wrote the message across the corner of the picture in her bold scrawl, adding another name to the ranks of her good friends across the world.

“Thank you,” said Grace, retrieving the picture and putting it back in her handbag. “That’s my baby,” she said, pointing to the snapshot of a young mother with her two children that was taped to the refrigerator door.

“She’s very pretty,” said Charlotte politely.

“Oh, yes, she was homecoming queen at Georgia Teachers College. Her boys are Bobbie and Chuckie. I’ve got five grandchildren. My other daughter, Mary Ann, has three.” She held up the locket that she wore around her neck, and showed Charlotte the picture of a baby. “This is the youngest, my little Betsy.”

Charlotte admired the pictures of the grandchildren, and turned down Grace’s offer to show her the other pictures of her grandchildren in her room. “I’m afraid I have to be going,” she apologized. “Maybe some other time.”

“I’m always here,” she said, getting up to check the cake in the oven. “Always right here.”

9

On the way back through the parlor, Charlotte stopped to study the layout. The room had access to the kitchen and the dining room on one side, the library on the other side, and the veranda at the rear. Then there was the front door and the twin staircases. Grace couldn’t have picked a more vulnerable spot to leave the tea. That is,
if
the tea had been poisoned by someone else. The suspect with the least motive had turned out to have a strong motive after all. It was clear that Grace had had romantic designs on Thornhill, however delusional they might have been. And, like Fran, she knew a good deal about herbs. It might have been a case of, “If I can’t have him, nobody else will.”

As Charlotte was standing there John entered the front door. He was dressed in khaki shorts and a khaki drill shirt and was carrying a tripod in one hand. A 35mm camera hung from around his neck.

“You look as if you’ve been out in the African bush shooting pictures of wild game,” she said with a smile.

“No, only out in the Gilley Island bush shooting pictures of wild waves crashing against the rocks.”

“For Stan?”

He nodded.

“He showed me some of your photos. They’re very good.”

“Can I take that as an indication that you wouldn’t be averse to my photographing you?” he said, with a suave little smile.

Damn. She’d opened herself up to that one. “Okay,” she said brusquely, “but let’s do it right here, shall we?”

“Fine,” he said. “It’s nice light, soft. It will just take a minute. Why don’t you sit there?” He pointed to one of the wicker chairs. “I’ll get a close-up against the Chinese screen—a profile, maybe; it should be very nice, with your black jacket and your black hair.”

“How’s your work going?” she asked as he removed a roll of film from one of the film containers taped to his camera strap.

“Well, very well in fact,” he said as he loaded the film. He paused. “I don’t know if I should be confessing this to someone who’s helping the police with their investigation, but Frank’s death doesn’t exactly hinder my career. He wasn’t a great champion of my work, as you know.” He smiled. “However, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t come to the conclusion that because I stand to benefit from his death, I was the one who killed him.”

“I’m finding out that there are a lot of people who stand to benefit from his death—you’re not alone in that.”

“Strangely enough, I miss him now that he’s gone,” he continued as he tried out different angles. “The man you love to hate, and all that.”

It was odd how people missed their enemies, she thought as he snapped the shutter. The spouse who is hated is as deeply mourned as the spouse who is loved. Hate or love, the ties were equally strong.

“Now you can do something for me,” said Charlotte, once he had finished.

“What’s that?” he asked as he rewound the film.

“Repeat for me what you told the police about Tuesday afternoon.”

“Sure. What do you want to know?”

“What you saw when you came downstairs.”

“Nothing. I didn’t even notice the tea on the sideboard. Chief Tracey asked me about that.”

“Did you go out the front door?”

“Right out, and over to the gardener’s cottage.”

“And you didn’t see anyone?”

“No one. Not even Wes Gilley, although his truck was parked out front. Chief Tracey kept asking me if I was sure I hadn’t seen anyone at the front door. It was obvious that he thought I should have seen Gilley.”

Then where was Wes? she wondered. He should have been at the front door, waiting for Grace to come back with his change.

“I’m afraid I’m not much help,” he continued. “Would you like to join Daria and me for some tea? Hopefully, we’ll live through it.”

Charlotte smiled at the black humor; everyone had suddenly become very suspicious of their food and drink. She declined, and thanked him for his help. As he headed up the stairs to the bindery she reflected that there were only three possible reasons why John hadn’t reported seeing Wes One, Wes had left the door for some innocent reason; two, Wes had concealed himself to avoid being caught in the act; and three, John was lying. She suddenly realized how little she knew about him, and made a mental note to ask Tom to check him out.

She found Felix stretched out in a chaise on the veranda, with a book in one hand and a glass of Scotch in the other. He was fastidiously dressed as usual in a white suit, but he had made some concessions to the country in the form of large, dark sunglasses and a floppy white-duck hat, the combination of which made him look like an Arab potentate traveling incognito. Settling herself on the chaise beside him, she asked what he was reading.

“Moby Dick,”
he replied as he lifted the book, a finger marking his place. “My favorite chapter—‘The Whiteness of the Whale.’”

Surveying the white expanse of his stomach, Charlotte thought that reading about white whales must be right up his alley.

“For pleasure I read Melville, Dickens, and last but not least, detective stories. The detective story has been called the ordinary recreation of noble minds. I am a great fan of the police procedural. With regard to our interest in police matters, we have something in common,
nicht wahr
, Miss Graham?”

“As a matter of fact, that’s why I’m here.”

“I thought as much. The case of the poisoned book collector. Very tragic—my oldest and dearest client. And I suppose you want to know my whereabouts at the time of the murder?”