Tempest in a Teapot (A Teapot Collector Mystery) (12 page)

Gilda, who lived in a rooming house five doors down, slipped in the back door wearing a silly scarf and big sunglasses.

“Good lord, what kind of getup is that?” Thelma said, lathered that Gilda hadn’t bothered getting the cleaning supplies she’d asked for.

“I can’t believe, Thelma Mae Earnshaw, that you intend to open the tearoom up after everything,” Gilda whispered, peeking out the front window. “A murder here, you being hauled off to the police! All those people . . . oh!” She fanned herself. “It gives me palpitations.”

“You’re not having one of those hot flashes again, are you? You’re too old for that nonsense. It’s all just mind over matter anyway,” Thelma said.

“It’s not right; it’s just not right! Someone
died
out there in the tearoom!”

“But
I
didn’t kill her, and by staying closed it pretty much says I did. So we’re going to open for late tea. Now, get down in the cupboard and see if we have any ammonia and bleach. Gotta clean up the mess those cops made.”

• • •

S
ophie was surprised to see Belle Époque open for business when she got home. Nana and Laverne were busy in the tearoom, but both said they could handle it because they had Laverne’s niece Cindy helping out. Cindy was just fourteen, but tall for her age, and with a big, broad gorgeous smile that folks clearly warmed to. Sophie liked the girl on sight and knew that any relative of Laverne’s would be helpful and polite, as well as sharp and quick.

She put the supplies away in the kitchen, and looked around. It wasn’t quite In Fashion caliber, but the commercial-grade ovens were spotless, as was the large glass-doored fridge. The counters were clear of all clutter. At first she had thought there was little she could do at Auntie Rose’s Victorian Tea House. Nana and Laverne worked together in perfect harmony after many years, so what could Sophie add?

But her mind had started wandering, as it was wont to do, and she had reimagined the tearoom without the chintz drapes and floral wallpaper. If it was her establishment, she’d get rid of all of that in favor of a simpler decor. It wasn’t a matter of improving the place, just updating it. Or if Nana was still stuck on the typical tearoom look, maybe they could go in the other direction and make it more opulently shabby chic, with cabbage roses and white-painted chandeliers, aqua walls and worn white furnishings.

She stared out the window. Maybe change would be a mistake. After all, Auntie Rose’s was doing great without her input. Were her ideas any good at all? Look what had happened with In Fashion; they had started out great guns, but after the first while customers had dropped off. It wasn’t the food, because that was always top notch. But it took something more to beat the competition in New York, home of some of the greatest restaurants in the world. Still, they could have gotten by, giving her time to find her way, but the investors got nervous and began to pull back. It was almost as if they had wanted it to fail, because every suggestion she had for improvements and upgrades had been met with a
We can’t afford that
or
There just isn’t money in the budget
.

A software-designing friend had floated the idea of “planned failure” on the part of her partners. Planned failure in software design was putting flaws in a program for beta testers so they could toil through problems and see how things worked. But that was not appropriate to the business model of a restaurant, she argued. No one went into business to fail. Did they?

She awoke from her memories and looked around the kitchen. Okay, so her restaurant had failed. But she was still a darned good chef, and she had a tearoom right there. Food wasn’t cheap but it didn’t cost the earth, either, and she could afford to experiment a little. Nana had wanted her to get involved, so she would, starting with food. Auntie Rose’s offered luncheons and tea, the usual expected light fare like finger sandwiches and salads.

But there was no reason that soups couldn’t be added, and maybe even some pasta dishes. Everyone loved Italian food; maybe they could add a little Italian fare to the other more traditional English tea offerings. Why offer only what folks could make at home in ten minutes when you could give them taste challenges? She rolled up her sleeves, put a net over her abundant hair, washed her hands thoroughly and set to work. First she would make some things for the Silver Spouts meeting that evening. It would be good to test her creations on non-customers first, to get reactions.

Then she would have some fun, really go overboard with the inventiveness, on new dishes for the tearoom lunch crowd. Zuppa Maritata, first, a traditional Italian wedding soup, and maybe a nice bread pasta for the soup, a
passatelli
. It was good to be in a kitchen again.

Chapter 11

T
he tearoom was closed, but it needed to be set up for the weekly Silver Spouts meeting, which meant rearranging the chairs and tables. Sophie did the hard work of moving tables and chairs, with her grandmother’s direction. When Nana tried to help, she shooed her away.

“You’ve done more than enough. It’s my turn to do this stuff.” She stood back and eyed the arrangement, a semicircle of chairs pointing toward the servery and two tables behind the chairs with serving pieces ready for all of the treats they would eat after the meeting. “I was surprised to see Belle Époque open when I got back today.”

“Thelma couldn’t resist. I know they
were
going to stay closed because Laverne went over to help Gilda lock up. But Thelma came home and I guess later she called Gilda back to work.”

“Mrs. Earnshaw couldn’t pass up all the money from the curiosity seekers.”

“Oh! Speaking of curiosity seekers . . . when Laverne went over, it was with a purpose.” She told Sophie what Laverne had discovered about the cupcakes.

“So there were two
different
sets of red-velvet cupcakes?” she said.

“Sounds like it. One set homemade, one set store bought. So if we find out who brought the red-velvet cupcakes, we can eliminate them from the possible murderers.”

“Why?” Sophie asked.

“If they brought red velvet, then they didn’t bring another type of cupcake, right?”

“You mean because the yellow frosting on Vivienne’s face was clearly not from the red-velvet cupcakes,” Sophie said. “But maybe bringing red-velvet cupcakes was a cover-up.”

“Oh. You could be right. You are the bright one, my Sophie!”

“But it would still be interesting to find out who brought the cupcakes, right? And we can’t assume that just because the bakery clamshell said red velvet, that there were red-velvet cupcakes in it. Nor does it mean if there
were
red-velvet cupcakes in it, they were necessarily store bought.”

“This is getting more complicated by the minute!” Nana exclaimed, one hand to her forehead.

“Come on, forget about it for the moment,” Sophie said, taking her grandmother’s arm. “Let’s get changed for the meeting.”

Sophie had pictured the Silver Spouts as four or five grandmotherly ladies with knitting bags, but that was not the case. Laverne had come back to Auntie Rose’s and brought her niece, Cindy, with her, as well as her elderly father, Malcolm. The Hodge Seneca heritage was strong in Malcolm’s face, the straight, long nose and downturned mouth giving no hint of the quiet, mild-tempered gentleman he was. Sophie greeted him affectionately—he was an old friend—with a hug he returned with surprising strength for a man in his nineties.

The rest, other than two old friends of Nana’s, were strangers to Sophie.

“Sophie, come, let me introduce you to everyone,” Nana said. “You know Annabelle and Helen,” she said, stopping at each old friend.

They made the usual noises of welcome and Helen, the sharper of the two, asked, “We’re all so pleased for Cissy, catching such a promising young man as Francis Whittaker. When will we hear wedding bells for
you
, Sophie dear?”

“You do still need someone else in your life before you can get married, right?” she asked. “Or has that changed?”

One fellow chuckled under his breath, and she eyed him with interest. He was dressed very nicely, but with an old-fashioned air. He was slim and tall, she noted, with a sports jacket and bow tie; that alone in Gracious Grove set him apart, as most men wore polo shirts and khakis, or a T-shirt and jeans. His thinning fair hair was combed back and parted in the middle, like a banker in an old photo.

“Sophie, this is a newer member of the club, Forsythe Villiers,” Nana said, leading her over to the fellow, who leaned against the archway that separated the tearoom from The Tea Nook. “He just started collecting a year ago but already has a fine collection of art deco teapots. You two are sure to hit it off.”

His pale-gray eyes bright with interest, he bowed over her hand. “And why is that, Mrs. Freemont, other than the obvious, that Miss Sophie is as lovely as her grandmother?”

“I collect art deco and art nouveau teapots and accessories,” Sophie said, watching him place an air kiss a correct one inch above the back of her hand. It could have seemed affected but he played it naturally, so she believed the formal manners were just a part of his character. “I’ve actually got a couple to show the group tonight.”

“We’ll compare notes later, shall we?” he asked, squeezing her fingers and releasing.

“Certainly.”

Next was an elderly gentleman, Horace Brubaker. He was the only member, Nana said, who had more teapots than she did. He had been collecting for a very,
very
long time. Nana then led her to a teenage boy who stood blushing and eyeing Cindy. “This young fellow is Josh Sinclair; he’s Lina Sinclair’s grandson. You remember Lina, Sophie. She owned the big green house three doors down when you were a teenager.”

Sophie remembered Lina Sinclair quite well . . .
too
well. That woman was as crabby as Thelma Mae Earnshaw, but without the charm.

“Lina moved into assisted living almost a year ago now. Josh and his folks were cleaning up the house to sell—it still hasn’t sold—and they all came here to lunch one day. He came over to help out with the yard work, got interested in teapots and started collecting! We’ve never had a full-fledged member this young, but Josh collects English teapots, and has a couple of rare ones!”

“Josh, hi. So . . . why teapots?” Sophie asked.

With a quick glance over at pretty green-eyed Cindy, who sat with her hands folded on her lap, watching, he swept his unruly reddish-brown hair out of his eyes and said, “My
great
-grandma gave me a teapot the last Christmas before she died. Everyone laughed—thought she was nuts . . . uh . . . senile—but I understood why she did it. She knew it would mean something to me. We used to talk about English history and I told her I was going to research the family background in England, so she gave me a teapot with the Sinclair crest on it.”

“That’s really interesting,” Sophie said. He was so well spoken for a sixteen-year-old boy! She cocked her head and listened as he went on.

“I . . . uh . . . I write a blog on English history, and do the minutes for the Silver Spouts meetings.”

“That’s great!”

Nana took Sophie’s arm and moved her on to the last member present that evening, a young Asian-American woman with straight, dark hair perfectly cut to shoulder length, and wearing skinny blue jeans with a patterned chiffon blouse. “And this is SuLinn Miller. She’s new to Gracious Grove and new to the Silver Spouts. She collects Chinese and Japanese tea vessels.”

“Where did you live before GiGi?” Sophie asked after commenting on the tea information.

“New York,” she said. “My husband and I had an apartment on the Lower East Side. I loved it so much!”

“Sounds like you miss it.” Sophie examined the other woman with interest; here was someone to talk to about New York!

“I really do. I’ve never lived in a smaller town, and it’s a little hard to get used to. You know, I’ve actually eaten at In Fashion. I was so sad to hear it had closed!”

Sophie shrugged, but murmured a “
thank you
.” That was the last thing she wanted to talk about this evening, but fortunately her grandmother called the meeting to order before she needed to respond further. Sophie took a seat by Laverne, who proceeded to gossip in her ear about each of the members.

Nana talked about a proposed bus trip to Wadmalaw Island, in the low country of South Carolina, to visit the last remaining American tea plantation. She then asked for members’ opinions on an alternate trip, to Trenton, Tennessee, where the world’s largest collection of teapots was housed. Many were the
veilleuses-théières
type, or night-light tea-warmer teapots, very old and very valuable. It was decided to put it to a vote during the end-of-the-month meeting, when all twenty-one members would hopefully attend. Josh took notes and promised to make up a ballot for the vote.

Laverne chattered on; Sophie learned that Josh was sweet on Cindy, whom he had met a couple of times before at meetings, but that Laverne, as much as she liked the boy, did not want them to get too friendly. Cindy was only fourteen and too young for all that “love nonsense.” Cindy could hear her aunt and looked like she wanted to sink through the floor. Sophie tried to quiet her friend down, but Laverne seemed to be purposefully raising her voice just enough that Cindy heard.

Sophie changed the subject to the other Silver Spouts she had never met before. Laverne proceeded to tell her about SuLinn Miller and Forsythe Villiers.

“That SuLinn . . . she’s a real nice girl, but shy, I think. Got the most amazing teapots, though! She brought a couple of them for her talk to the Silver Spouts . . . you know, everyone who wants to join has to do a little talk. Her ma came from Japan and taught SuLinn the tea ceremony. She’s going to show us sometime.”

“What does she do here in Gracious Grove?”

“Well, now, I don’t know if she does anything. They don’t have any kids yet. Her husband is an architect at Leathorne and Hedges, the same place where Francis Whittaker works, but I don’t know if SuLinn has a job of her own. That Forsythe fellow, he works at the same place. He doesn’t seem to be friends with Francis—I asked him outright—but they’re in different departments, so maybe that just stands to reason in a big company like that.”

“What does
he
do there?” Sophie asked, trying to keep everyone straight. It was starting to get confusing.

“He’s an accountant.”

Nana, who spoke about tea growing in general after proposing the bus trip, had been sending them quelling looks for a while, so they both hushed up.

It was Sophie’s turn. She retrieved her two teapots from a table behind them. “I’ve chosen a couple of my favorite teapots.” She talked about the metal teapot first. “You’ll notice the design . . . it’s shaped like an art deco light sconce, flared upward in a fan shape, with an oversized black Bakelite handle and finial on top. It is highly collectible and reasonably valuable, but still not my favorite.”

She had their attention; this was good. Her nerves began to ease. “This beauty is my favorite,” she said, holding up a teal-blue Fiestaware teapot. She gave them a brief history of Fiesta dinnerware, the beginning of the Homer Laughlin company in 1936 and through the various designs. “I love the colors of Fiesta,” she said. “The solids are so gorgeous—bright and bold—and they combine utility with beauty. I like it so much I collect and use the dinnerware!”

The Silver Spouts applauded politely, with Horace Brubaker clearing his throat and thanking her for an informative talk, and inviting her to come see his Fiesta collection anytime. The meeting was over, Nana announced, and the social part of the evening commenced. “I want you all to enjoy the treats this evening,” Nana said, “since my granddaughter, the famous chef, made most of them!”

Sophie blushed and had to restrain herself from rolling her eyes. There must be some middle ground between her mother’s resolute ignoring of her career choice and her grandmother’s unwavering fawning over it. Okay, maybe fawning was a little harsh, but Nana sometimes went overboard in her praise. “I didn’t do much,” Sophie said, straightening her sleeves. “I visited the patisserie downtown today and made some pastries inspired by what I ate there. I baked what I’m calling Baklava Scones, sweetened with honey and studded with walnuts.” She and Cindy brought out the trays of goodies while Laverne and Nana made tea, a smoky Earl Grey for some, a strong, black, orange pekoe for the others.

SuLinn approached Sophie after most had their plates and were munching enthusiastically. “You’re so brave, standing up there impromptu and speaking! I find it hard to speak to groups. Just after I joined I had to bring a couple of
my
teapots to show folks and tell them what they were.” Joining the Silver Spouts meant the member had to agree to display and talk about their teapot collection. “I just read off index cards. I don’t think I looked up once.”

“It wasn’t easy for me at first. Speeches in school were awful! But I’ve been hardened to it. As a chef it was part of my job to go out on the floor and talk to the guests, see if they’re enjoying the food.”

“Yes, I remember. My husband and I had the A-Line Skirt Steak at In Fashion. You stopped by our table to ask how it was. My husband told you it was wonderful!”

A-Line Skirt Steak, so named merely to fit their fashion district theme, was a simple marinated, grilled skirt steak with caramelized onions and a balsamic reduction. Sophie sighed. “It
was
good, wasn’t it? Simple is sometimes best.”

Forsythe joined them and greeted SuLinn with a chaste peck on the cheek. “So, Miss Sophie, I understand you were at the heart of the excitement, the murder of Mrs. Vivienne Whittaker!”

She found his ghoulish interest a little unsettling, as she looked into his glittering gray eyes. Why did it excite him so? “I was there. It was awful.”

SuLinn gave him a look and said, “It must have been. You poor thing! Did she . . . did she suffer?”