Agony of the Leaves: Tea Shop Mystery #13 Read online

  “Of course,” said Drayton. “To serve anything less to our guests from the Coffee & Tea Expo would be heresy.”

  “And for the food?” said Theodosia, glancing at Haley.

  “Chicken kushiyaki, shrimp tempura, and rice balls wrapped in nori,” said Haley. “I’ll prep everything here, but cook the tempura in the Heritage Society’s kitchen. That stuff’s only good if it’s crisp and hot from the deep fryer!”

  “A lot of work,” said Drayton, impressed.

  Haley gave him a baleful look. “Theo wanted awhiz-bang finale for the Coffee & Tea Expo.”

  “But I don’t want you to burn out,” said Theodosia, concerned now. “You’ve been working double-duty all week.”

  Haley yawned. “I am a little tired.”

  “You just need a strong cup of tea,” said Drayton, heading for the front counter.

  “Oh man,” said Haley, yawning again. “And we’re supposed to do that scavenger hunt tonight.”

  “I think you’d better stay home and get some rest,” said Theodosia.

  “You think?” said Haley.

  “Yes, I do,” said Theodosia. “But I have one favor to ask.”

  “Shoot,” said Haley.

  “Can you keep Earl Grey until later tonight?”

  A grin creased Haley’s face. “Sure. No problem. As long as we’ve got his…”

  “There’s dry kibble and a can of dog food in my office,” said Theodosia.

  “So I don’t have to make him scrambled eggs?”

  “Not unless he rings for room service,” laughed Theodosia.

  “Then who’s going to…” began Haley.

  “Oh, Drayton,” Theodosia called in a singsong voice.

  Drayton whirled about, ablue-and-white Chinese teapot clutched in one hand. “Yes?”

  “I have a favor to ask.”

  “Hmm,” he said, “last time you asked for a favor it was to go hunting for wild herbs. Purslane and winter cress, if I recall.”

  “And you came back with tiny green burrs stuck all over your pants legs,” laughed Haley.

  “This is a lot easier,” said Theodosia. “It has to do with the scavenger hunt.”

  Drayton visibly grimaced. “Don’t you think I’m a little old for scavenger hunts?”

  “You’re not old,” said Theodosia, “and you’re especially not old for what this one entails. All you have to do is ride shotgun with me and snap a few photos.”

  This time Drayton winced. “You want me to take photos?”

  “That’s right.” Theodosia held up her cell phone in a kind ofshow-and-tell gesture. “I drive and you snap the pictures.”

  “I see,” said Drayton, tilting his head to one side. Which meant he really didn’t see at all.

  “We drive around with our list,” Theodosia explained patiently. “And photograph everything that’s on it. Once that’s done, the photos get e-mailed to the City Charities people.”

  Drayton looked baffled. “I’m supposed to take pictures with a cell phone and e-mail them?”

  “Just pretend it’s a Brownie Starflash,” Haley said. She’d been sitting back, enjoying the exchange. “Or, better yet, one of thoseold-fashioned Rolleiflex cameras.”

  “You’re not helping,” Theodosia said to Haley.

  “Just don’t get so hung up on technology,” Haley said to Drayton. “It’s not like you’re being asked to write code or debug a program.”

  Drayton still seemed unnerved.

  “The thing is,” said Theodosia, trying to defuse the situation, “the camera’s built in. It’s what they call a smart phone.”

  “Obviously,” said Drayton, “far smarter than I.”

  19

  Dark clouds galloped across the night sky, harboring a threat of rain, as Theodosia rolled down a narrow back alley that wound behind the Charleston Library Association. They were on their third landmark and, so far, it was slowgoing.

  “It would have been much easier to do this in daylight,” said Drayton.

  “Agreed,” said Theodosia, “but we didn’t exactly have two spare minutes to put together today.” She took her foot off the gas and coasted to a stop. “Will this work? Does it give you a decent enough angle?”

  “I think so,” said Drayton. He held up the cell phone and aimed. “I think I’m getting the hang of this.” Holding his breath, he snapped the photo, then immediately handed the cell phone over to Theodosia. “What do you think?”

  Theodosia looked at his shot of the dark stone building. It was moody and ominous, but it was for sure recognizable. “Perfect,” she declared. “What’s next?”

  Drayton studied the pages that lay in his lap. “So far we’ve photographed the French Huguenot Church, the Aiken-Rhett House, and the Library Association. We should also hit the Altman Art Gallery and the yacht club while we’re in the vicinity.”

  Theodosia eased her way out of the alley, mindful of the hedges on either side and the Spanish moss that hung down and swished against the top of her Jeep. “Okay. So I’ll swing over to Murray and we’ll hit the yacht club. Is there something specific there we need to shoot?”

  Drayton consulted his list again. “Catamaran.”

  “Catamaran,” said Theodosia. “That should be easy enough.”

  “For me, yes. Because you’re going to be the one who ventures out on those narrow docks.”

  “No problem,” said Theodosia. She’d been skipping across docks and lugging heavy sails onto boats since she was a kid.

  “I have to say,” said Drayton, “this photography scavenger hunt is a fairly ingenious concept.”

  “Isn’t it?” said Theodosia.

  “It certainly beats scrounging around for strange and useless items,” said Drayton. “Trying to find a truck tire or stealing someone’s poor garden gnome.”

  Theodosia chuckled. “And then hauling it all back with us. I agree, a virtual hunt is a whole lot easier.”

  “But I’m still unclear as to how this all tallies up,” said Drayton. “I mean, how do we go about beating the other teams? How do we actually win?” He’d never admit it, but Drayton had a competitive streak a mile wide.

  “Today is round one,” Theodosia explained. “So once we find and photograph all the items on our list, we submit everything to the judges. If it all checks out tomorrow and we get the thumbs-up, we advance into round two, the finals.”

  “Then what happens?” asked Drayton.

  “More of the same on Saturday,” said Theodosia, as she braked and swung into a tight turn down a cobblestone lane. “Except we get abrand-new list of stuff to find and photograph.”

  “And the items gets trickier?”

  “I would assume so,” said Theodosia.

  “Actually,” said Drayton, his forehead crinkling as he studied the list, “it’s going to get tricky tonight. Once we capture images of everything that’s near and around the historic district, we have a fair piece of driving to do.”

  “Angel Oak out on Johns Island?”

  “That’s on the list and some place called the Hot Fish Clam Shack north of here on Highway 17.”

  “Good grief,” said Theodosia, as she pulled into the yacht club parking lot, her tires crunching across gravel. “We’re going to be doing some serious backtracking. This could take all night.”

  “Exactly my point.”

  “Okay,” she said, taking the cell phone from Drayton. “You sit tight. I’ll be back in two shakes.” Theodosia hopped out of the Jeep and hustled across the lot, where a lone pickup truck was parked. She walked down a sloping, narrow path defined by white chains on either side, past the yellow wooden clubhouse festooned with flags and white trim, and, finally, out onto the dock of the Charleston Yacht Club.

  Head down, Theodosia hunched forward as she stepped along the wooden planks. They beat a hollow cadence beneath her feet and she could hear the lap of waves underneath. It was also decidedly cooler and windier out here. The warmth of the spring day had pretty much evaporated
and the cool mist of the Atlantic had stolen in. There was a reason halyards clanked loudly against aluminum masts and boats rocked to and fro, tugging antagonistically at their moorings. Probably, Theodosia decided, the wind was blowing in at a good ten knots.

  It took one wrong turn and a little backtracking before Theodosia found a catamaran moored off one of the multiple arms of the dock. But it was a nice Hobie Cat, a Wild Cat to be precise, that would work just fine for the scavenger hunt.

  She snapped a picture, checked it, then took two more for safety’s sake. She didn’t want to risk being knocked out of the competition on account of one fuzzy photo.

  As the dock rocked and dipped gently with the waves, Theodosia stared out across open water. She saw the twinkle of lights at Patriot’s Point, usually a warm and welcoming sign. Only tonight, for some reason, the lights looked lonely and forlorn. Probably because they appeared so far away?

  Or had she just fallen prey to her emotions?

  Was she feelingguilt-ridden and anxious because nothing had been resolved in Parker’s murder?

  Anxious? Yes. Guilt-ridden? Perhaps.

  Theodosia hurried back to her car, jumped in, and cranked up the heater. “Getting cool out there,” she told Drayton.

  He gazed at her, trying to pick up on her mood. Finally, he said, “Are you feeling all right?”

  “Yes, of course.” Theodosia put her Jeep into reverse and backed out of her parking space. “What’s next?”

  Drayton smoothed his list. “I think we should snap a picture of the Altman Gallery, then hit Angel Oak, then head north and try to find that oyster shack,” he told her.

  Some forty minutes later, they were zipping their way north on Highway 17.

  “Starting to rain,” Drayton observed, as light drops spattered down on the windshield, suddenly giving everything a muddled, soft-focus look.

  “Just our luck,” said Theodosia, turning on the wipers.

  “You’ve been awfully quiet ever since we stopped at the marina,” Drayton observed. “Did something get you thinking about Parker?”

  “About him and about how I seem to keep spinning my wheels,” said Theodosia.

  “You’re doing nothing of the sort,” said Drayton.

  “I appreciate the fact that you’re always one of my staunchest allies,” said Theodosia. “But every time I think I’m making an inroad or picking up a valuable piece of information, it pretty muchdead-ends.”

  “You’re doing your best. That’s what counts.”

  “Still,” said Theodosia, “there doesn’t seem to be any payoff.”

  “You’re are sults-oriented person.”

  She gripped the steering wheel tighter. “Well…isn’t everyone?”

  Drayton’s mouth ticked up at the corners in a rueful smile. “My dear Theodosia…no. No they are not.”

  The windshield wipers beat a syncopated rhythm as they continued up Highway 17. Rain sluiced down in earnest, forcing Theodosia to ease back to a more socially acceptablefifty-five miles per hour.

  “Hard to see,” said Drayton, as dark trees whipped by, lending a film noir feeling to the mostly wooded landscape. They’d been driving for a good twenty minutes, and familiar landmarks were few and far between.

  “I think we have to make a turn up ahead,” saidTheodosia. “Or maybe we missed it. I think the clam shack’s supposed to be down a side road.”

  “Don’t you have one of thosehandy-dandy automatic navigation things?”

  “My navigation guide islow-tech. It’s folded up and stuck in the glove box.”

  “Ah,” said Drayton.

  “I’ve got a navigation thing on my phone,” said Theodosia, “but I’m not confident about getting directions, taking pictures, and making calls all at the same time.”

  “Sounds like three-dimensional chess,” said Drayton.

  “Really.”

  Drayton suddenly jerked upright in his seat. “There. Up ahead. You see that green signpost?”

  Theodosia braked sharply, then cranked the steering wheel hard to the right.

  “Easy, easy,” breathed Drayton, as they spun through the turn.

  “But is this the right road?” she asked.

  “Hope so,” said Drayton. “Since we’ve already committed.”

  “I didn’t really get a good look at the sign,” said Theodosia, as she eased down theone-lane blacktopped road. Along with the rain, fog was starting to creep in.

  “Pretty out here,” said Drayton.

  “How can you tell?” asked Theodosia. Just then a huge bolt of lightning ripped across the sky, illuminating the road ahead as well as the surrounding countryside of pines and tamarack. “Oh, yeah,” Theodosia chuckled. “Now I see. But the question remains, is this the way to the Hot Fish Clam Shack?”

  Turned out, it wasn’t.

  Because after they’d driven another mile or so, the road ended in a dirt parking lot at a place called Moore’s Landing.

  “Now that’s what I call a very large pier,” said Drayton. A large wooden wharf stretched from the sandy shore out into the surging Atlantic. A stiltlike arrangement of graying timbers.

  “I think there’s a public ferry boat that pulls in here on weekends.”

  Drayton glanced out the window. “Certainly no public around right now.”

  “No ferry boat, either,” said Theodosia.

  “Wrong turn,” said Drayton.

  “Mmm. Looks like it.” Theodosia peered through the windshield, where the wipers continued to slosh. “There’s a sign over there. What’s it say? Can you read it?”

  Drayton rolled down his window and leaned out. “I think,” he said, above the roar of wind and waves, “it’s something about the Cape Romain Wildlife Refuge.”

  “Okay, then,” said Theodosia. “We really did hook a wrong turn.”

  Drayton rolled up the window, then pulled out his hanky and mopped the dampness from his face. “We probably just turned too soon.”

  “Pretty place, though,” said Theodosia. “When it’s not raining cats and dogs.”

  “With all the building that’s going on,” said Drayton, “all the encroachment of civilization, it’s nice to think there’s a wildlife refuge so close.”

  “You think these waterways are protected, too?” Theodosia wondered.

  “I hope so,” said Drayton. “We can’t just keep fishing everything to extinction. There have to be some regulations.”

  “Remember the whole Chilean sea bass craze?” asked Theodosia.

  “It became so popular in restaurants,” said Drayton, “that now there are hardly any authentic Chilean sea bass left.”

  “Just like the sardines in Monterey Bay,” said Theodosia. “Back in the late forties.”

  “Steinbeck’s Cannery Row certainly touched on that,” said Drayton. “The fisheries all believed there was an endless supply. And then one day they were gone. Just totally depleted.”

  “I guess nothing’s endless,” said Theodosia.

  “Except this scavenger hunt,” said Drayton.

  That caused Theodosia a little chuckle. “So we try again.” She revved her engine, reversed her tracks, and headed back the way they’d come.

  “I hope Tuesday’s Child knows how hard we’re working for them,” said Drayton.

  “Majel, their director, seems like a very dedicated woman,” said Theodosia. “Who I’m positive will be most appreciative.”

  When they hit Highway 17 again, Theodosia turned right and headed north. “Can’t be too far,” she said.

  “Hopefully,” said Drayton, although he didn’t sound hopeful at all.

  They crept along at a decorousforty-five miles an hour now, eyes straining for some sign of the elusive clam shack.

  “Whoa, whoa!” Drayton called out suddenly. “I think we just passed it!”

  Theodosia took her foot off the gas and coasted to the side of the road. “I didn’t see a thing.”

  “That’s because the place is locked up tight. The s
igns aren’t even lit.”

  “Holy moly,” Theodosia breathed, as she shifted into reverse and backed down the dark highway.

  “Easy,” said Drayton. “Keep it straight, keep it straight.”

  “Hard to see where the driveway turns in,” Theodosia complained.

  “Ten, maybe fifteen more feet. Okay, turn!” said Drayton.

  Theodosia did and ended up in the parking lot of the Hot Fish Clam Shack. It was a dilapidated little place that had probably once been painted white, but the encroachment of wind, water, and sea air had sandpapered it to aweather-beaten gray. Still, it looked like a welcoming little café with its funky wooden cutout of a smilingbig-eyed fish leaping into a fry pan with the words HOT FISH CLAM SHACKlettered in red and yellow. And there were big, black cauldrons planted with daisies on either side of the battered front door.

  “Too bad it’s closed,” said Drayton, gazing at the shuttered windows. “We could have had ourselves a tasty little snack.”

  “You’d eat here?” asked Theodosia.

  “Of course.”

  “I doubt they have white linen tablecloths.”

  “I realize that.”

  “Red plastic baskets instead of plates.”

  “You seem to think I’m some kind of food snob,” said Drayton, “when I’m not.”

  “But would you drink a longneck beer?”

  Drayton smiled. “No, but I’d take a sweet tea.” He held up the camera. “You or me? The rain seems to be letting up, but…”

  Theodosia grabbed the camera. “Me. I’m feeling decidedly guilty. I think I’ve put you through enough tonight.”

  “You have,” Drayton said, with a mousy grin.

  Theodosia tugged her sweater around her and hopped from the car. Hopefully, she could get a good shot and they could head back to Charleston. Try to button down the last couple of scavenger hunt landmarks.

  She crunched across the parking lot, a few raindrops still splotching down. She knew if her hair got too damp, it would lift and billow like a spinnaker catching the wind. And then if it dried too fast, the dreaded frizzies might follow. Most women would kill to have Theodosia’s abundance of luxurious hair, but she found it a constant challenge. Especially in hot, humid Charleston.