Chapter 5
Theodosia returned to the Indigo Tea Shop just in time for lunch. And just in time to find…
Oh no.
…Bill Glass, the snoopy publisher of Shooting Star, sitting at one of her tables. He was tapping away on his phone, clearly waiting (loitering?) so he could quiz her about last night. No doubt wanting to write a salacious story for his gossip magazine.
Approaching his table with a heavy heart, Theodosia said, “Glass.” She saw that a kindly Drayton had served him a cup of tea.
Bill Glass set his phone down, spun in his chair, and cocked an inquisitive eye in her direction.
He wasn’t a dreadful-looking man with his dark eyes, olive complexion, and slicked-back hair, but he tended to be annoying and pugnacious.
He was always snooping around for a seedy story or trying to snap a photo of someone in a compromising or unflattering pose.
Glass was also a train wreck when it came to clothing. Today, Glass wore a black hoodie covered with colorful Korean graphics, droopy jeans, and scuffed gray Keds with the beginning of a hole in the left toe. A Nikon camera was draped around his neck.
“Love the outfit,” Theodosia said once she was standing in front of him. “You’ve joined a K-pop band?”
“Huh?” Glass shouted back at her as if he were hard of hearing. He had no clue what she was talking about.
“Never mind. Listen, if you’ve dropped by to get the grisly details concerning last night’s Firefly Tea, you’re too late. Ken Lotter from K-BAM was already here this morning.”
Glass slammed his teacup down onto his saucer, making it clatter and jump. “That pompadoured, pencil-neck poser. He thinks he’s hot stuff just because he’s on TV!”
“Will you kindly watch your tone?” Theodosia warned as she slid into the chair across from him.
“Sure, yeah, okay,” Glass said, looking only vaguely apologetic. “But come on, doll, if you talked to him then you gotta give me something.”
“Not when you call me doll, I don’t.” Theodosia wasn’t consciously rude to Bill Glass because he’d helped her out of a few close scrapes.
Also, the gracious Southern demeanor that was baked into her like a traditional Southern hummingbird cake simply wouldn’t allow it. So she mostly tolerated Glass.
“Okay, how about I call you sweetie?” Glass asked.
Theodosia shook her head. “Probably not.”
He gave her a sly smile. “Cupcake?”
“Never will you ever.”
“Why don’t you try calling her Miss Browning,” Drayton said. He’d approached their table carrying a teapot.
“That’s no fun,” Glass said.
“Still, if you’re nosing around looking for information, you’d best be polite,” Drayton said as he poured Glass a refill.
Glass grabbed his cup, downed a big swallow, then fanned at his mouth and choked out a single word: “Hot!”
“Yes indeed,” Drayton said, looking more pleased than he should have.
After coughing and clearing his throat, Glass slipped back into character. “Fact is, I’m hot for any tea you guys want to spill.” Chortling wildly at his own stupid joke, he said, “Get it? Spill the tea? And you guys own a tea shop?”
“I fear I shall split my sides laughing,” Drayton said in a dry tone.
He’d always considered Glass to be a bit of a bumpkin and this confirmed it.
Then, tapping his watch face, he said to Theodosia, “We really need to prepare for lunch.” It was his polite way of extricating her from a going-nowhere conversation.
“Thank you, Drayton,” Theodosia said as he drifted away.
She had started to get up from her chair when Glass said, “I hear Brody Van Courtland is a real piece of work.”
“What do you mean?” Theodosia asked, sitting back down. Maybe there was a choice piece of information she could learn from Glass after all.
“According to my snitch at the police station, Brody’s been in all sorts of trouble.
Dozens of speeding tickets. The man is a notorious motorhead—gets his jollies from driving fast, expensive cars.
He was also caught with a few ounces of cocaine a while back but his spiffy smart lawyer got him off the hook. ”
“Interesting,” Theodosia said. Still, Brody Van Courtland sounded no different than dozens of young trust-fund guys who partied hard around Charleston.
“Let’s see, what else? Oh, word on the street is that Brody found himself a new girlfriend.”
“But you don’t know anything concrete,” Theodosia said.
“Not a whole lot, but I’m gonna poke around,” Glass said. He gave Theodosia a conspiratorial wink. “I’m guessing maybe you are too.”
* * *
Five minutes later, luncheon guests began to arrive.
Theodosia greeted them warmly, showed them to tables, and gave a rundown on Haley’s menu.
Today’s starters included blueberry scones, strawberry and goat cheese salad, and Frogmore stew.
Entrées included chicken salad on pumpkin bread and tomato and brie cheese tea sandwiches as well as mushroom lasagna.
For dessert there was chocolate peanut butter pie.
After carefully inspecting his wall of tea tins, Drayton decided to brew a Darjeeling tea as well as a Grand Keemun tea as the perfect accompaniments to Haley’s menu.
And then the rush was on. Theodosia took orders, ran them in to Haley, then swung by the front counter to grab freshly brewed pots of tea from Drayton. Minutes later, she grabbed the orders Haley had managed to crank out—how she did it was amazing!—and delivered them to her waiting luncheon guests.
It was an intricate ballet that Theodosia negotiated each day. And, truth be told, she wouldn’t have it any other way. When she was pouring tea, engulfed in clouds of fragrant Darjeeling or heady Assam, it was the closest thing to heaven.
Once things had settled down to a dull roar—with guests relaxed, eating, and sipping their tea—Theodosia decided to take two minutes and slip into her office.
Down the back hallway, past the velvet celadon curtain, just past the kitchen, was her small, cluttered office.
Right now it held a half dozen unopened boxes of tea trivets and tea towels, a wooden crate full of special Hao Ya black tea that had been shipped over from Anhui Province in China, and a stack of wide-brimmed straw hats.
Her desk was cluttered with tea magazines, supplier invoices, and a few books of self-published tea poetry by a local author.
None of that mattered at the moment. Theodosia settled into her office chair and turned on her desktop computer.
She was anxious to run a Google search on Roger Birch, the real estate developer Gordon Twombley had told her about.
In seconds she had dozens of hits. On the website for Birch Tree Holdings, Birch’s eponymously named company, she discovered that his business interests were widespread.
Birch Tree had housing developments in Charleston and North Charleston, and had even spread its tentacles to retail developments in Mount Pleasant and condos in Avondale.
Digging around the website, Theodosia found a professional and very flattering photograph of Roger Birch, looking silver-haired, suntanned, and successful as he posed on his rather large yacht with the name Liquid Asset.
The site also contained a somewhat bland mission statement and touted his company’s expertise in real estate development and property management.
Mr. Birch and his company appeared to be highly successful, but Theodosia wondered if she’d find something more if she dug below the surface.
Continuing her search, it didn’t take long to discover a couple of unflattering articles about Roger Birch that had appeared in the business section of the Charleston Post and Courier.
It seemed that state money earmarked for low-income housing grants had somehow been funneled to Roger Birch in the form of low-interest loans that were used for private condo conversions.
Accusations of cronyism and bribery of a city official had been leveled against Birch, but nothing seemed to stick.
It would appear that Mr. Birch was Teflon coated.
“Slippery when dry,” Theodosia murmured to herself as she hurried back out to the tea room.
“So here’s the thing,” she said to Drayton as she stood at the counter, fiddling with a tin of Irish breakfast tea. “I did some research on a guy named Roger Birch who, according to Gordon Twombley, is trying to buy Mrs. V’s home.”
“Interesting,” Drayton said.
“And it turns out Birch is not exactly Boy Scout material. State funds for low-income housing somehow got misappropriated and funneled into his sticky little hands.”
Drayton gave a slow reptilian blink. “Dear me, you’re telling me Mr. Birch is unsavory?”
“I assume all real estate developers are somewhat shady just because…” Theodosia stopped mid-sentence, suddenly noting that Drayton had a strange expression on his face. “Wait a minute, do you know this guy Birch?”
“Not personally. But I know of him in a slightly circuitous manner.”
Theodosia was intrigued. “Explain please.”
“Birch Tree Holdings happens to be cosponsoring one of the Heritage Society’s upcoming symposiums. It’s being billed as a panel discussion along with an extensive photo display that celebrates the architecture of our illustrious Historic District homes.”
“Seriously?” Theodosia decided this could be somewhat serendipitous. “Just when is this symposium scheduled to take place?” Drayton was on the board of directors of the Heritage Society and considered a fairly big wheel.
“Tomorrow afternoon.”
“Really,” Theodosia said. She drummed her fingers against the counter, feeling a blip of excitement. “Maybe we should attend your symposium and try to make Mr. Birch’s acquaintance.”
Drayton picked up a teapot, poured out a cup of Darjeeling, and said, “So you view Birch as a possible suspect in Mrs. V’s murder and you’re raring to confront him.”
“Not really confront him,” Theodosia hedged. “That sounds a little too aggressive. But it is a strange coincidence that Birch had tried any number of times to get his hands on Mrs. V’s house and then she suddenly winds up dead.”
Drayton shook his head. “Roger Birch is a powerful man, any hint of accusation on your part could be dangerous.”
“If I’m super careful there won’t be any kind of problem.”
Drayton’s brows shot up. “Oh no? Where have I heard that before? Theo, you never think something’s going to happen until it happens.”
* * *
At twenty past one, lunch had been served (successfully!), most of their guests had departed, and it was still a good hour before they’d be hot and heavy into afternoon tea time.
Which meant Theodosia had time to replenish the shelves of her antique highboys with tea towels, trivets, and tea mugs.
She pulled a carton of tea towels out of her office and started sorting through them.
Half of the towels had images of teacups with the words My Cup of Happy.
The other half had a colorful embroidered image of a bouquet of wildflowers.
Theodosia had just arranged a few towels next to jars of golden DuBose Bees Honey when the front door whapped open and a determined-looking woman strode in.
She was tall, possibly in her early thirties, with an angular face and short ink-black hair cut in a choppy geometric style that looked as if it had been designed by the famous architect Frank Gehry.
She was dressed in a dark blue jacket that was nipped at the waist, a matching skirt, and high black leather boots.
Looking around the tea shop with wild eyes, the woman shouted, “Theodosia! Where’s Theodosia? ”
Thinking there had to be some terrible emergency—a car crash, or a smash-and-grab robbery that had just happened outside—Theodosia jumped to her feet and hurried to the front of the shop. “I’m Theodosia. What’s wrong? How can I help?”
“You!” the woman shouted, pointing a purple-shellacked index finger at Theodosia. “You’ve been negligent and careless and I intend to sue you for all you’re worth!”
Can this woman be serious? No, of course not, Theodosia told herself. And who the heck is she, anyway?
Theodosia shook her head and, in a slightly mollifying tone, because surely this woman was completely mistaken, said, “I’m afraid you’ve got the wrong—”
“My mother-in-law was brutally murdered last night at your tea party!” the woman shouted, before Theodosia could utter another word.