Plum Tea Crazy Read online

  Titles by Laura Childs

  Tea Shop Mysteries

  DEATH BY DARJEELING

  GUNPOWDER GREEN

  SHADES OF EARL GREY

  THE ENGLISH BREAKFAST MURDER

  THE JASMINE MOON MURDER

  CHAMOMILE MOURNING

  BLOOD ORANGE BREWING

  DRAGONWELL DEAD

  THE SILVER NEEDLE MURDER

  OOLONG DEAD

  THE TEABERRY STRANGLER

  SCONES & BONES

  AGONY OF THE LEAVES

  SWEET TEA REVENGE

  STEEPED IN EVIL

  MING TEA MURDER

  DEVONSHIRE SCREAM

  PEKOE MOST POISON

  PLUM TEA CRAZY

  Scrapbooking Mysteries

  KEEPSAKE CRIMES

  PHOTO FINISHED

  BOUND FOR MURDER

  MOTIF FOR MURDER

  FRILL KILL

  DEATH SWATCH

  TRAGIC MAGIC

  FIBER & BRIMSTONE

  SKELETON LETTERS

  POSTCARDS FROM THE DEAD

  GILT TRIP

  GOSSAMER GHOST

  PARCHMENT AND OLD LACE

  CREPE FACTOR

  Cackleberry Club Mysteries

  EGGS IN PURGATORY

  EGGS BENEDICT ARNOLD

  BEDEVILED EGGS

  STAKE & EGGS

  EGGS IN A CASKET

  SCORCHED EGGS

  EGG DROP DEAD

  Anthologies

  DEATH BY DESIGN

  TEA FOR THREE

  Afton Tangler Thrillers writing as Gerry Schmitt

  LITTLE GIRL GONE

  SHADOW GIRL

  BERKLEY PRIME CRIME

  Published by Berkley

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2018 by Gerry Schmitt

  Excerpt from Glitter Bomb by Laura Childs copyright © 2018 by Gerry Schmitt

  Penguin Random House supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader.

  BERKLEY is a registered trademark and BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the B colophon are trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC.

  Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

  Names: Childs, Laura, author.

  Title: Plum tea crazy / Laura Childs.

  Description: First edition. | New York : Berkley Prime Crime, 2018. | Series: A tea shop mystery ; 19

  Identifiers: LCCN 2017042055| ISBN 9780451489609 (hardcover) | ISBN 9780451489623 (ebook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Browning, Theodosia (Fictitious character)—Fiction. | Women detectives—South Carolina—Charleston—Fiction. | Murder—Investigation—Fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Mystery & Detective /Women Sleuths. | GSAFD: Mystery fiction.

  Classification: LCC PS3603.H56 P58 2018 | DDC 813/.6—dc23 LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017042055

  First Edition: March 2018

  Cover art by Stephanie Henderson

  Cover design by Annette DeFex

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes contained in this book.

  Version_1

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  A special thank-you to Sam, Tom, Grace, Roxanne, Bob, Jennie, and all the amazing people at Berkley Prime Crime and Penguin Random House who handle editing, design, publicity, copywriting, social media, bookstore sales, gift sales, production, and shipping. Heartfelt thanks as well to all the tea lovers, tea shop owners, bookshop folks, librarians, reviewers, magazine editors and writers, websites, broadcasters, and bloggers who have enjoyed the Tea Shop Mysteries and helped spread the word. You make this all possible!

  And I am forever grateful to you, my dear readers, who have embraced Theodosia, Drayton, Haley, Earl Grey, and the rest of the tea shop gang (even crusty Timothy and a slightly addled Delaine) as family. Thank you so much and I pledge to bring you many more Tea Shop Mysteries!

  CONTENTS

  Titles by Laura Childs

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Acknowledgments

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  Recipes

  Resources

  Excerpt from Glitter Bomb

  1

  Tall sailing ships, their masts and sails outlined with glowing white lights, ghosted across Charleston Harbor in a glittering parade. Canvas snapped, wooden hulls creaked and rocked, and an enormous crowd of onlookers, completely galvanized by this amazing spectacle, let loose shrieks of joy.

  “This is fantastic,” Theodosia Browning said as she lifted a hand to her face to block out a sliver of ambient light. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “Magnificent,” Drayton Conneley declared. “There hasn’t been this much razzle-dazzle since the Union shelled Fort Sumter back in 1861.”

  It was the night of the Gaslights and Galleons Parade. Two dozen tall ships had sailed here from all points of the globe—Britain, France, South America, even Singapore—to dazzle the thousands of people who had gathered in White Point Garden on the shell-strewn banks of Charleston’s famed Battery. Of course, Theodosia and Drayton, as invited guests of Timothy Neville, were thrilled with their perch high up on the third floor widow’s walk that graced their friend’s Archdale Street mansion.

  “Wouldn’t you love to be sailing on one of those ships right now?” Theodosia asked Drayton in a dreamy voice. Running the Indigo Tea Shop was her number one passion, but sailing wasn’t far behind. She was in heaven when she was out on the water, the wind snapping her riot of auburn hair into long streamers and the salt air making her blue eyes sparkle and lending her fair complexion a soft glow as if lit by a saint’s candle.

  But Drayton looked absolutely horrified as he ans
wered. “Me? On a sailing ship? Absolutely not. Don’t you know by now that I’m a confirmed landlubber?”

  “What if you were magically transported to a clipper ship?” Theodosia favored him with a wry grin. “One of the early ships tasked with transporting bales of wonderful black tea from China to England?”

  “Say, now,” Drayton said, taking a step back from the railing. “That’s not quite playing fair. You’re appealing to my weakness for tea and history.”

  Drayton was sixty-something, the portrait of a proper Southern gentleman with his tweeds, bow ties, grayed hair, and regal bearing. He was also the best tea sommelier Theodosia had ever encountered. Drayton was so well schooled in the art of tea and tea blending that she considered herself fortunate to have wooed him away from his teaching post at Johnson & Wales culinary school to work side-by-side with her at the Indigo Tea Shop. They’d been together for a half dozen years now, always refining their tea menu, upgrading the décor of the charming Church Street tea shop, and catering countless tea parties.

  Tonight was one of those parties. Well, sort of.

  A recent spate of warm spring weather had caused native plum trees to explode in a riot of purple glory all over the Historic District. In a nod to this auspicious occasion, Theodosia had brought along a wicker hamper heaped with plum and black currant scones. Drayton’s contribution was a special plum-flavored Ceylonese black tea that he’d custom blended. These offerings were in addition to the elegant light supper buffet that Timothy had laid out in the downstairs dining room for his two dozen guests.

  “Getting chilly,” Theodosia said, pulling her pink cashmere wrap tight around her shoulders. She was outdoorsy and loved to jog, sail, and hike. Delighted in breezing around the low country with the hardtop off her Jeep, but tonight had turned downright cold.

  “But nobody’s leaving,” Drayton pointed out. They were standing at one end of the widow’s walk, a long, narrow wooden walkway that ran the length of the home’s roofline. All along the walkway, people were spread out, conversing quietly in small groups, eagerly watching the ships as they bobbed and wheeled in the harbor. It was difficult to see who these other guests were up here, since the night sky was so black and moonless and Theodosia and Drayton had arrived a little late to the party. Too late to be properly introduced. In any case, all the folks up top had to concentrate on watching their step, since the decorative wrought-iron railing that bordered the widow’s walk was barely three feet high.

  “Perhaps we should go in,” Drayton suggested. “Warm up and enjoy some light supper along with Timothy’s hospitality.” He glanced at his watch, an antique Piaget, and frowned. “It’s gotten so dark I can’t quite make out the time.”

  Theodosia glanced sideways at St. Sebastian’s, the nearest neighborhood church in a city so filled with churches it had been dubbed the Holy City. A lighted clock in a red brick steeple shone the current time. “It’s just nine o’clock,” she said.

  “Still, tomorrow is a workday,” Drayton said. “You know how I like to get a jump on Mondays.”

  “I hear you,” Theodosia said. “Plus, we’ve got . . .”

  BOOM!

  A thunderous roar pierced the night, frightening onlookers and rattling windows in homes up and down the block.

  Theodosia clapped a hand to her chest. “What was that?”

  “Cannon volleys,” Drayton said. “From two of the ships in the harbor, I’d guess.”

  Theodosia peered through the still mostly bare treetops. “Let’s hope they don’t do it—”

  BA-BOOM!

  “—again,” she finished.

  But this time the cannons’ roar was followed by a high-pitched scream.

  “Help!” came a woman’s cry from the far end of the widow’s walk. “He’s been shot!”

  “What?” Drayton said, startled.

  A second scream rose up, a terrified yelp that quickly morphed into an anguished and frantic shriek, like steel wheels grinding against hot metal rails.

  Then came a terrifically loud thumping, like the sound a flat tire makes when it whap whap whaps against pavement. Except this was no flat tire. This was . . .

  “Someone’s fallen!” a man’s voice bellowed. This was followed by a dozen voices rising in a collective, jangled outcry.

  Theodosia spun quickly and peered down over the edge of the roof. Off to her right, twirling head over teakettle, a man was hurtling down the sloped slate roof of Timothy’s house as if he were zipping down a child’s slide.

  “Help!” the falling man cried as he flailed and fought for handholds. His pleading, anguished note pierced the darkness. Pierced Theodosia’s heart as well.

  “Dear Lord!” Theodosia cried. She hoped the poor man would find something, anything, to break his fall.

  “This is dreadful,” Drayton said with a sharp intake of breath.

  They watched helplessly as the man flopped and tumbled, then landed in a deep V that formed one of the eaves in the expansive roof. His arms flew out, beating wildly, as his fingers scrabbled desperately to find something to grasp. But he was moving too fast to completely arrest his fall and immediately catapulted down another few feet, heading for a decorative balcony. The man floundered again, making a grab for a balustrade to halt his terrible descent. His fingers grazed it by a mere inch. Then his body torqued grotesquely as he banged his forehead against the top of a stone window pediment and a thin mist sprayed out in slow motion. Blood.

  Theodosia was in shock. It was as if the poor man had been caught in a hellish pinball machine, helplessly spinning and bouncing his way downward.

  Theodosia felt Drayton’s hand grab her shoulder in a death grip as they watched the man take a final, sharp tumble and then disappear into darkness.

  “Was he really shot?” Drayton asked, his voice hoarse and shaking. “By the cannon? Or did he fall?”

  But Theodosia had already bolted past Drayton and was dashing for the doorway.

  “Does anybody have a phone?” she cried out. “Someone call an ambulance right now! Please!”

  And then Theodosia was running, practically stumbling, down a flight of steps, the thick Oriental carpet whisper soft under her fast-moving feet. She hit the second floor landing, spun past a man and woman who stared at her with quizzical expressions, and then rushed down a wider stairway to hit the first floor landing. From there she was pounding down a long hallway past a parade of Timothy Neville’s Huguenot ancestors, all memorialized in gleaming oil portraits and staring down at her with faintly disapproving looks.

  Out the front door she ran, across the broad piazza, down the front steps, and around the side of the house into Timothy’s garden. It was an elaborate Asian garden replete with reflecting pool, thickets of bamboo, statuary, and pattering fountains.

  Maybe the poor man hadn’t been fatally wounded at all, Theodosia reasoned. Maybe he’d simply lost his footing, tumbled down, and somehow landed in Timothy’s reflecting pool. That was her one hopeful thought. That he was spitting water right now, shaking his head, moaning over a broken arm or smashed collarbone. He’d need an ambulance, of course. And a wild-lights-and-siren trip to the emergency room. But perhaps there was still hope. There was always hope . . . wasn’t there?

  But when Theodosia reached the backyard, she slid to a stop and gasped in shock. The poor man had landed directly on top of the antique wrought-iron fence that encircled Timothy’s property. Reeling from such a frightful sight, Theodosia put a hand to her mouth and stifled a groan. Like a carefully collected insect held in place by a pin, the man was grotesquely impaled upon the sharply pointed fleur-de-lis spikes that topped the old fence.

  Tiptoeing closer, drawn almost hypnotically to this gruesome tableau, Theodosia stared at the hapless man. His eyes were open wide in surprise and his white shirt was splattered with blood. Worst of all, one of the razor-sharp points of the fence had been driv
en clean through his neck.

  2

  “An accident,” a gruff voice behind Theodosia said.

  “You think live ammunition from a cannon could reach this far?” another voice asked.

  “No, no, he clearly fell,” another man cried.

  Theodosia drew a deep breath and spun around. A dozen people were bunched up right behind her, staring at the body in collective wide-eyed shock. She supposed these people must have followed her out of the house, maybe even stampeding along behind her. She hadn’t heard them, so intent had she been, so hopeful that the poor man might have landed on something soft and bouncy. But here they were, the proverbial gang of gawkers drawn to the scene of this terrible accident.

  “Is he breathing?” a woman asked. She sounded slightly more curious than stunned.

  The question startled Theodosia. Was it possible to fall three stories, sustain a piercing neck injury, and still be alive? She didn’t think so. Still . . . somebody should check the poor man’s pulse and respiration.

  “Let me through, let me through!” Timothy Neville’s querulous voice rose up through the crowd. Then the onlookers slowly parted as their host elbowed his way through, looking both miserable and terrified.

  Theodosia turned toward Timothy and said, “I don’t think there’s any hope.”

  Timothy Neville was the octogenarian director of the Heritage Society, a multimillionaire, and old guard Charlestonite. He lived the life of a plutocrat and was known to be dictatorial and terse. Under his crusty outer shell, however, Timothy possessed a kind heart. Right now, he looked devastated by the words Theodosia had just uttered. But he was bound and determined to see for himself.

  With trepidation, Timothy approached the body that lay tangled upon his fence. “Carson,” he said, his voice an anguished note.

  “That’s Carson Lanier, the banker,” somebody in the crowd said in a hushed whisper.

  Timothy reached a tentative hand out and lightly touched the fallen man on the side of his neck. At his pulse point.

  Theodosia was aware of Timothy’s distress and somber expression, caught as he was in the yellow light that spilled from a nearby parlor window. She thought Timothy looked old—older and sadder than she’d ever seen him.