Gunpowder Green (19 page)

“Hello, Delaine,” said Lizbeth pleasantly. “Nice to see you again. Theodosia and I are getting pretty excited about the upcoming Spoleto Festival. She and I are both serving on committees.”

“Spoleto,” purred Delaine. “Yes, that does happen soon, doesn't it?”

“It's my third year on the ticket committee,” said Lizbeth smoothly.

“The ticket committee,” said Delaine in her maddening, parrotlike manner. “Sounds terribly interesting.”

“It is,” said Lizbeth, ignoring the fact that Delaine's comments, delivered in a bored, flat tone, implied it wasn't interesting at all. “As you probably know, tickets for the various Spoleto arts events are sold in packages.”

“Mn-hm.” Delaine leaned in close and narrowed her eyes.

“And our committee works out the various pairings.” Lizbeth ducked her head and grinned, and Theodosia could see that she was having a little fun with Delaine now. “Actually,” continued Lizbeth, “it's kind of like seating guests at a dinner party. You try to pair the interesting ones with the shy ones. In this case, we pair the real blockbuster events with some of the events that people might perceive as sleepers but are, of course, really quite stimulating.”

“What a quaint analogy,” murmured Delaine.

“Delaine, come have your tea leaves read.” Drayton appeared at Delaine's elbow. “Be a darling and go first, would you?” he whispered to her. “Help break the ice for the other guests.”

Theodosia grinned as Delaine reluctantly allowed herself to be led over to Madame Hildegarde, a sixtyish woman in a flowing purple caftan, who was now ensconced at the small table next to the fireplace.

 

Some forty minutes later, most everyone had departed. Angie Congdon, who owned the Featherbed House, one of the most popular B and Bs on The Battery, shared the honors for correctly guessing the murderer along with Tom Wigley, one of Drayton's friends from the Heritage Society.

“Drayton,” Haley urged, “
you
come have your tea leaves read.”

“Oh, all right,” he agreed reluctantly.

“Don't be such a curmudgeon,” Haley scolded as she slid her chair over to make room for Drayton. “Madame Hildegarde just told me I was going to meet someone
verrry
interesting. Maybe she'll have something equally exciting for you.”

“Maybe she'll predict when this storm will end and I can get out and work in my garden,” fretted Drayton.

Madame Hildegarde gazed at Drayton with hawklike gray eyes. “Drayton doesn't care for prognostication,” she said with a heavy accent. “Doesn't want to look ahead, only behind.” She laughed heartily, taking a friendly jab at his penchant for all things historical.

“You know how it works,” Madame Hildegarde told him as she poured a fresh cup of tea. “Your teacup represents the vastness of the sky, the tea leaves are the stars and the myriad possibilities. Drink your tea.” She motioned with her hand. “And turn the cup upside down. Then I read.”

Drayton complied as the remaining guests gathered round him to watch.

“An audience,” he joked. “Just what I don't need.”

But Lizbeth Cantrell and her aunt Millicent, Theodosia, Delaine Dish, and Miss Dimple and her brother crowded around him, anyway. The rain was pelting against the windows now, and there was no question of leaving until it let up some.

“You want to ask a question or just have me read?” Madame Hildegarde asked Drayton.

“Just read,” he said. “Give it to me straight.”

“Oh,” cooed Miss Dimple, “this is so interesting.”

Madame Hildegarde flipped over Drayton's cup and carefully studied the leaves that clung to the bottom inside the white porcelain cup.

“Oh, oh, a love triangle,” joked Haley.

Madame Hildegarde held up a hand. “No. The leaves predict change. A big change is coming.”

Drayton frowned. “Change. Goodness me, I certainly hope not. I detest change.”

Madame Hildegarde was undeterred. “Change,” she said again. “Tea leaves don't lie. Especially not tonight.”

Drayton cleared his throat somewhat uneasily. “Someone else try,” he urged. He was obviously unhappy being the center of attention and having a spotlight placed on his future.

“I'll try,” volunteered Lizbeth Cantrell.

“Excellent,” said Drayton as he slipped out of his chair and relinquished it to Lizbeth Cantrell. “Another brave soul hoping to have her future divined.”

Madame Hildegarde poured a small cup of tea and passed it over to Lizbeth. She drank it quickly, then, without waiting to be told, flipped the teacup upside down and pushed it toward Madame Hildegarde.

“I'd like to ask a question,” she said.

Madame Hildegarde locked eyes with Lizbeth as the fire crackled and hissed behind her. “Go ahead,” she urged.

Theodosia held her breath. In that split second, she knew what was coming. She knew what Lizbeth Cantrell was going to ask. And she wished with all her heart that she wouldn't. Because, deep inside, Theodosia was afraid of what Madame Hildegarde's answer would be.

“Who killed Oliver Dixon?” Lizbeth Cantrell asked in a whisper.

A hush fell over the room. Madame Hildegarde reached for the cup, her opal ring dancing with fire, and began to turn the cup over slowly.

As she did, the tea shop was plunged into sudden darkness.

A heavy thump at the front door was followed by a loud crash. Then Haley screamed, “Someone's at the window!”

“What's happening?” shrieked Miss Dimple. “What was that noise? Where are the lights?”

A second crash sounded, this time right at Theodosia's feet.

“No one move,” commanded Theodosia as she began to pick her way gingerly across the room. Guided by the flickering firelight and her familiarity with the tea shop, she headed unerringly toward the counter. “There's a lantern behind the cash register,” she told everyone. “Give me a moment and I'll get it.”

Within seconds, the lantern flared, illuminating the tea shop like a weak torchère and catching everyone with surprised looks on their faces.

Haley immediately rushed to the door and threw it open. There was no one there.

“They're gone,” she said, confusion written on her face.

“Who's gone?” asked Theodosia as she came up behind her and peered out. Up and down Church Street not a single light shone. The entire street was eerily dark.

“The shadow, the person, whatever was here,” Haley said. “It just vanished.”

“Like a ghost,” said Miss Dimple in a tremulous voice.

“There's no such thing as ghosts,” spoke Drayton.

“It
looked
like a ghost,” said Miss Dimple rather insistently. “I saw something at the window just before we heard that thump. It was kind of wavery and transparent. Did you see it, too, Haley?”

Haley continued to gaze out into the street, a frown creasing her face. “
Someone
was here,” she declared.

Theodosia spun about and turned her gaze on Madame Hildegarde. “The teacup, what was the answer in the teacup?” she asked.

Madame Hildegarde pointed toward the floor and, in the dim light, Theodosia could see shattered fragments strewn across the wood planks.

“Gone.” Madame Hildegarde shook her head with regret. “All gone.”

SUNDAY MORNING DAWNED
with swirls of pink and gold painting the sky. The rain had finally abated, and the few clouds remaining seemed like wisps of cotton that had been tightly wrung out.

The slight haze that hung over Charleston Harbor would probably burn off by noon, but by ten A.M., tourists who'd been hunkered down in inns, hotels, and bed-and-breakfasts throughout the historic district, fretting mightily that their weekend in Charleston might be a total washout, began emerging in droves. They meandered the sidewalks, taking in the historic houses and antique shops. They shopped the open air market and bought strong, steaming cups of chicory coffee from vendors. And they strolled cobblestone lanes to gaze upon the Powder Magazine, one of the oldest public buildings in the Carolinas, and Cabbage Row, the quaint area that inspired
Porgy and Bess
, George and Ira Gershwin's beloved folk opera.

Whipping along Highway 700, the Mayfield Highway, in her Jeep, Theodosia was headed for the low-country. She told herself she was making a Sunday visit to her aunt Libby's, but she also knew she'd probably do a drive-by of Ford Cantrell's place, too. Sneak a peak, see what all this game ranch fuss was about.

Earl Grey sat complacently beside her in the passenger seat, his long ears flapping in the wind, velvet muzzle poked out the open window as he drank in all manner of intoxicating scents.

With all this sunshine and fine weather, the events of last night seemed almost distant to Theodosia. Of course, even after the power had come back on some ten minutes later, Haley had insisted that someone had been lurking outside. And Miss Dimple had clung hopefully to her notion that a ghost, possibly induced by all the psychic energy they'd generated, had paid them all a visit last night.

Theodosia was fairly sure that if anything had been at the window last night, it had been a window peeper. A real person. Which begged the question,
Who in his right mind would be sneaking about on a cold, rainy night, peeping in windows?

On the other hand, maybe the person hadn't been in his right mind. Last night's peeper could have been angry, worried, or just frantically curious about someone who'd been attending the mystery tea.

Theodosia frowned and, just above her eyebrows, tiny lines creased her fair skin. Then she made a hard right, jouncing onto County Road 6, and her facial muscles relaxed. She was suddenly engulfed in a tangle of forest, a multihued tapestry of green.

Years ago, more than 150 thousand low-country acres had served as prime rice-growing country, producing the creamy short-grain rice that had been Carolina gold. Fields had alternately been flooded and drained as seasons changed and the cycle of planting, growing, and harvesting took place. Remnants of old rice dikes and canals were still visible in some places, green humps and gentle indentations overgrown now by creeping vines of Carolina jessamine and enormous hedges of azaleas.

Many of these rice fields had also reverted to swampland, providing ideal habitat for ducks, pheasants, and herons. And over the years, hurricanes and behemoth storm surges, the most recent wrought by Hurricane Hugo in 1989, had forged new courses in many of the low-country creeks and streams.

As a child visiting her aunt Libby, Theodosia had explored many of the low-country's tiny waterways in a bateau, or flat-bottomed boat. Poling her way along, she had often dabbled a fishing line into the water and, when luck was with her, returned home with a nice redfish or jack crevalle.

 

“Aunt Libby!” Theodosia waved wildly at the small, silver-haired woman who stood on the crest of the hill gazing toward a sparkling pond.

“You've brought the good weather with you,” said Libby Revelle as she greeted her niece. “And none too soon. Hello there, Earl Gray.” She reached down and patted the dog, who spun excitedly in circles. “Come to tree my poor possums?”

Libby Revelle, who loved all manner of beast and bird, spent much of her time feeding wild birds and setting out cracklins and pecan meal for the raccoons, foxes, possums, and rabbits that lived in the swamps and pine forests around her old plantation, Cane Ridge. Of course, when Earl Grey paid a visit, the critters she had so patiently coaxed and cajoled suddenly went into hiding and all her goodwill gestures went up in smoke.

Theodosia put her arm around Libby as they started toward the main house. Theodosia's father, Macalester Browning, had grown up here at Cane Ridge, and her parents had lived here when they were first married.

Built in 1835 near Horlbeck Creek, Cane Ridge had been a flourishing rice plantation in its day. Now it was an elegant woodland retreat. With its steeply pitched roof and fanciful peaks and gables, the main house had always reminded Theodosia of a Hansel and Gretel cottage, although the style was technically known as Gothic Revival.

“Tell me the news,” coaxed Libby as they settled into creaking, oversized wicker chairs and looked out toward the woods from the broad piazza that stretched around three sides of the house. “How are Drayton and Haley?” Libby asked. “And did you ever decide to hire that sweet little bookkeeper?”

“Drayton and Haley are fine,” said Theodosia. “Like oil and water sometimes, but they're delightful and caring and keep things humming. Our new bookkeeper, Miss Dimple, is an absolute whiz. What a load off my mind since she's been handling payables and receivables. Why did I ever think I could handle the books myself?”