Plum Tea Crazy Page 2

  “Anything?” she asked.

  Timothy drew his hand back as he shook his head in sorrow. “I’m afraid he’s gone.”

  One look told her it was all over for Lanier. The lights had winked out, there was nobody home. Permanently.

  “He’s gone?” Drayton called out, as he, too, pushed his way through the crowd.

  “Just bled out too fast, I guess,” Timothy said. “Look there.” He pointed to a dark splotch on the grass, directly below the body.

  Theodosia leaned forward to look. “If that’s blood, I don’t think it came from this man’s neck.”

  “What?” Timothy said a little too loudly.

  “Maybe he really was shot,” Theodosia said. She didn’t think the cannons had been firing live ammunition; then again, you never know. She reached down and touched an index finger to the wetness that had dripped onto the grass below him. “This is blood, all right,” she said. It was hot and sticky. Fresh. “But I don’t think it came from . . .” She was suddenly, dangerously curious. “Here . . . can someone help lift him up a notch? I think he must have sustained a far more mortal wound somewhere else.”

  “Should you be moving him?” a man asked.

  “I’m not leaving Carson like this,” Timothy said. “Like a turkey on a spit.”

  Timothy, Drayton, and two other pairs of hands reached out and gently lifted Carson Lanier up about four inches. Theodosia leaned sideways and peered at the man’s chest.

  “Holy crap,” was all she said.

  Timothy blanched white. “Is there a more serious wound?” Then his voice faltered and he began shaking, suddenly looking as if he was about to collapse. “Oh my goodness,” he groaned. “This . . . this is all my fault.” He touched a trembling hand to his narrow chest. “If I hadn’t invited guests over . . . let them go up top.” He gasped. “That cannon fire. Who knew it was live?”

  “No, no,” Theodosia said hastily, her voice rising in alarm. “There’s something else going on with him. Try to raise him up again, will you? This time, see if you can turn him ever so slightly so we can get a better look.” She glanced into the crowd. “Does anyone have a flashlight I could use? Or a cell phone with a flash?”

  “Here,” a woman said, punching on her flash and handing over her phone to Theodosia.

  The men struggled and strained with Lanier’s body again, lifting it higher and turning it at an awkward angle so Theodosia could run the wavering light up and down the front of him. When she got to the area just above Lanier’s belt buckle, she literally gasped out loud.

  “Please hurry,” Drayton barked. “We can’t hold him forever.”

  “You can let him down,” Theodosia said.

  “What’s wrong?” Timothy asked. His voice was high and thready, as if he was having difficulty breathing. “What did you see?”

  Theodosia pushed a hank of curly hair away from her face. “There’s something stuck in him.”

  “What do you mean stuck in him?” Timothy asked.

  “I don’t know for sure.” Now it was Theodosia’s turn to sound agitated. “But I think . . . I think he’s been shot with some kind of arrow.”

  The four men who’d held up the dead man jumped back collectively.

  “Impossible,” Drayton said. “What you saw must be a part of the fence. A piece that broke off.”

  “What are you trying to tell us?” Timothy asked in an old man’s squawky voice.

  “It looked more like a metal arrow,” Theodosia said. “Smaller and shorter than a regular hunting arrow. Like what you might call . . . a quarrel?” Her mind was spinning like a runaway centrifuge. “I think Lanier’s been shot, all right, but not by any cannon fire.”

  Timothy’s eyes went wild. “Someone shot Carson Lanier with an arrow? Up there on the widow’s walk?” His mouth gaped open. Then, in an almost whisper, “Who would do that?”

  “How about his wife?” someone muttered from far back in the crowd.

  Timothy focused intently on Theodosia. “He didn’t just lose his balance? Someone shot him?”

  “I think maybe . . .” Theodosia hesitated. The reality of the situation was almost too much for her to accept. And yet . . . here it was. A dead man stretched out in front of her. Blinking and swallowing hard, she tipped her head back to stare up at the widow’s walk. A turret stood out against the purple night sky; an ornate balustrade loomed in profile. She wasn’t exactly sure what she was looking for. All she could see was the slightly sinister silhouette of Timothy’s Italianate mansion.

  And then, as if slowly connecting the dots, Theodosia turned her gaze to the oversized building that was directly next door. The Stagwood Inn, one of several B and Bs that had proliferated in the Historic District over the past few years.

  Way up on the third floor, a filmy curtain wavered in an open window. A shadow flitted almost imperceptibly from left to right across it and then disappeared.

  “There,” Theodosia yelped. “Someone’s up there.”

  “Up in the attic?” Drayton asked.

  “This was no accident!” Theodosia cried. And with her words still hanging in the air, she spun and took off running again.

  3

  This time Drayton was right behind her, his feet slapping the pavement, his breath coming in short gasps.

  “Someone shot Lanier,” Theodosia cried over her shoulder as they dashed up the front walk leading to the Stagwood Inn. “Maybe from a third floor window. The curtain was fluttering in the wind and I think someone was up there.”

  “That doesn’t mean it was the shooter,” Drayton said as they pounded up the stairs and across the wide front porch, its fanciful posts curling with ivy. “It could have been anyone peering down. A guest, perhaps.”

  “Got to check it out,” Theodosia panted. She pushed open the front door with so much force that it banged hard against the wall, rattling the pictures and making such a terrible racket that it startled the young woman who was standing behind the reception desk.

  “Um . . . checking in?” the woman asked with a nervous smile. She was young, early twenties, with long brown hair and trendy wood-frame glasses.

  “Not quite,” Theodosia said in a sharp voice. She glanced around the Stagwood Inn’s lobby, trying to see past the leather sofas, antler lamps, and potted banana plants, until she finally spotted a staircase that led upstairs. “C’mon, Drayton, it’s this way!”

  Theodosia and Drayton pounded across the lobby and up the wooden staircase like a stampede of wild buffalo, clattering loudly, not worrying whom they might disturb. When they reached the second floor landing, they slid to a stop. The staircase continued on up to the third floor, as did a back staircase that stood at the far end of a long carpeted hallway.

  “Which one?” Drayton asked.

  Theodosia hesitated. She could hear footsteps moving overhead, so she had to make a quick decision. “Back stairway,” she said.

  Theodosia and Drayton raced down a hallway, all brass sconces and dark floral wallpaper, past a number of suites with designated names on the doors. The Honeymoon Suite, the Velvet Victorian Suite, the Hideaway Suite. When they reached the end of the hallway, they hurried up the narrow back stairway, hooked a right at a tiny landing, and continued on up. They hesitated when they reached the third floor. The lighting was extremely dim up here, the ceiling low and slightly claustrophobic. There appeared to be only two suites occupying this floor. Each suite had a door that was painted dark green and rounded at the top, looking as if it might lead to a hobbit hole.

  Theodosia tried to concentrate and get her bearings. If Timothy’s home was on her left, then the shadow in the window had to be . . .

  “You can’t just barge into these rooms,” Drayton cautioned.

  His words slowed Theodosia for all of two seconds. Then she grasped the doorknob on her left and pushed her way into the room marked TREE
TOP SUITE.

  The room was black as pitch.

  Theodosia moved slowly, taking two, then three steps, allowing her eyes to become accustomed to the gloom.

  If there’s someone hiding in here . . . well, that could be very bad, she thought to herself. I’ve got no weapon and there’s only Drayton as my backup.

  Still, Theodosia continued to tiptoe forward. In the low light she could see a sleigh bed on her right, a dresser and small club chair just to her left.

  “Theodosia,” came Drayton’s voice from behind her. He sounded frightened. “Do you see anything?”

  “There’s a balcony just ahead,” she whispered. What she’d initially thought was a window with a filmy curtain appeared to be a sliding glass door. So anyone could have been standing out there. “I want to—”

  “Don’t!” Drayton hissed. “Somebody could still be out there. If they’re armed and they came bursting in at us, what am I supposed to do? Assault them with my pocket watch?”

  Theodosia reached a hand out and grasped a glass cat statue off the dresser. It wasn’t exactly a MAC-10, but it might do in a pinch.

  “I’m just going to take a tiny peek,” she said. Her breathing was hyped from all her running, and her heart fluttered inside her chest like a wounded bird. But she was determined to see if someone was hiding on that balcony. After all, she was pretty sure it looked directly out at Timothy’s house. If a shooter, or whom she thought of as the archer, had been standing there . . .

  WHAM!

  Theodosia’s shoulders jerked up to her ears and she whirled around suddenly. “What was that?”

  “Somebody just slammed the door on us!” Drayton cried.

  Together, Theodosia and Drayton raced to the door, stumbling over each other in the dark, arms in a tangle as their hands struggled to pull open the door.

  When the door flew open they popped out into the hallway.

  “Nobody here,” Drayton said. He looked relieved.

  Loud footfalls sounded on the front stairs. Somebody was pounding down the steps as if their very life depended on it!

  “But there was!” Theodosia cried. “C’mon, this way.” She took off like a shot, still grasping the cat statue as she raced down the stairs. But every time she whipped around a tight corner, the person she was chasing was just that much ahead of her. It felt like she could catch his shadow but not his actual person!

  Gotta go faster, she told herself.

  Theodosia hit the second floor landing, glanced quickly down the long hallway, and saw someone slide around a corner and disappear.

  “Stop!” Theodosia yelled out. But of course they didn’t.

  She raced the length of the hallway, spun left, and found herself rushing down a set of linoleum-covered stairs.

  Frantic footfalls just ahead of her clattered like a horse’s hooves against cobblestones.

  This must lead down to the kitchen or one of the breakfast parlors, Theodosia decided. So maybe there’s a chance I can corner them!

  Head down, jaw tensed, placing every foot just so, Theodosia spun around a final turn. But the narrow pie-shaped stairs created a crooked angle here, causing her right foot to catch on the sharp edge of a step. She stumbled, dipped down onto one knee, and grasped wildly for the wooden banister. Her hand found purchase just in time to save herself from a nasty, bone-rattling fall.

  Drawing a shaky breath, Theodosia pulled herself to her feet, only to have a large, dark shadow loom up in front of her.

  “No!” she cried. She raised the cat statue high above her head, prepared to defend herself. The dark figure wavered slightly, but didn’t budge an inch.

  “Don’t,” the figure growled. He was backlit, whoever he was, which meant Theodosia was unable to make out his face. But she wasn’t about to take any chances.

  Theodosia’s arm fairly twitched, ready to smash the glass cat against the man’s head if it came to that, if he made a threatening move. But this man, whoever he was, had the reflexes of a ninja warrior! Before she could do anything, his hand shot out to grab her arm, pinching it hard. Wincing from the pain, Theodosia watched helplessly as the cat statue slipped from her grasp, tumbled to the floor, and exploded like a live grenade.

  “Aggh!” she cried out, half in anger, half in fear.

  The figure wavered again. “Theodosia?”

  What? Theodosia gasped. There was something deeply familiar about that low, rumbling voice. And then her instincts kicked in big-time and she said, “Tidwell? Detective Tidwell, is that you?” And then his face finally swam into focus for her.

  It was him, of course. Looking disgruntled, angry, and slightly confused.

  “What are you doing here?” Theodosia blurted out.

  Tidwell stared at her with beady, bright eyes. “The question is, what are you doing here?” Burt Tidwell was a burly bear of a man, the head of Charleston Police Department’s Robbery-Homicide Division. Brilliant, shrewd, and driven, he was not one to suffer fools lightly.

  “I was chasing . . . someone,” Theodosia said.

  Tidwell moved back a step and looked around. “I see no one.”

  “There was someone here. Running down these steps. I think that . . .”

  “Yes, I’ve just come from there,” Tidwell said. He cocked his strange bullet-shaped head at her. “It seems you moved the body. Instigated it, in fact.”

  “We had to see if the man was still alive,” Theodosia said. “Still breathing.” That wasn’t exactly true and, from the look on Tidwell’s face, he knew it wasn’t exactly true.

  But all Tidwell said was, “Come.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Detective Tidwell, Theodosia, and Drayton walked back toward Timothy Neville’s home.

  “How did you know we were at the Stagwood Inn?” Theodosia asked Tidwell.

  Tidwell gave a perfunctory smile. “When I arrived, Timothy informed me that you so helpfully ran over to investigate.” The words helpfully and investigate rolled off his tongue as if he were talking about camel dung.

  “That’s because we saw something,” Theodosia protested. “Up in the third floor window. Just like I told you.” She’d already explained her efforts to him and was frustrated that he wasn’t taking her seriously. Now, as they approached Timothy’s backyard, she could see two police cruisers and an ambulance parked in the alley. The crowd was still there, too, but they’d been pushed back and some black-and-yellow crime scene tape had been strung in an effort to keep the gawkers in check.

  Tidwell gazed at the body, still hung up on the fence, and murmured a single word. “Strange.”

  “He fell,” someone in the crowd said.

  Tidwell descended on the man like an avenging angel. “Did you see him fall?” he asked.

  Cowed, the man shook his head. “No,” he said in a small voice.

  “Then perhaps Mr. Lanier was pushed.” Tidwell’s words hung in the air like a cartoon word bubble. “Or, better yet, perhaps you should stay out of it.”

  The crowd around them fell silent. Now the ball was clearly in Theodosia’s court. “He wasn’t pushed, he was shot,” she said.

  Tidwell’s furry eyebrows arched up. “Excuse me?”

  “With an arrow,” Theodosia said. “Well . . . you can clearly see that he bled profusely and that the puddle is not from the finial that ripped through his neck.”

  “Do we know who this poor soul is?” Tidwell asked. “Does he have a name? Do we have identification on him?”

  “He’s one of my guests,” Timothy said, stepping forward. “Carson Lanier. He is . . . he was . . . a friend.” Timothy looked suddenly faint at having to speak of Lanier in the past tense.

  “Here, now,” Drayton said, ever mindful that Timothy was fairly advanced in age. “Perhaps you should go inside and sit down.”

  Timothy waved a ha
nd. “I’m fine right here,” he shot back in a cranky tone. “Well, not fine. But . . . you know.”

  Five minutes later, the crime scene team arrived in a shiny black van. They jumped out and set to work. Technicians set up light stanchions, took photos, then bagged Lanier’s head and hands. Theodosia was thankful she no longer had to stare at the man’s shocked expression.

  When they’d taken enough evidence, they lifted him down off the fence.

  “There’s some kind of arrow in him,” one of the techs mumbled.

  “I’ve never seen an arrow like that,” a second one responded.

  Tidwell stepped closer and watched as they slid Lanier’s body into a black plastic bag that lay atop a metal gurney.

  “My guess was a quarrel,” Theodosia said, trying to edge closer.

  “Possibly,” Tidwell said, squinting. “From a pistol crossbow.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “A smaller-type crossbow that looks as if it’s mounted on a pistol grip,” Tidwell said.

  “Who makes that kind of weapon?”

  “More important is who shot it,” Tidwell said, glancing up, for the first time, at the third floor window of the Stagwood Inn. “And where it was shot from.”

  Theodosia’s eyes searched the crowd of lookie-loos who continued to press forward. It was an interesting study in human nature. People are terrified of death, yet they’re fascinated by it, too. “What are you going to do now?” Theodosia asked Tidwell.

  “Get the names and addresses of everyone involved here,” Tidwell said. “From up on Mr. Neville’s roof as well as in the neighborhood.”

  “And then what?” Theodosia asked.

  There was a distinct zipping sound as one of the techs closed the body bag.

  Tidwell’s upper lip curled. “Then I shall find the killer.”

  4

  Kettles steamed, candles flickered, and the aroma of sweet Moroccan mint tea and malty Assam tea permeated the Indigo Tea Shop. It was Monday morning and Drayton and Theodosia were standing at the front counter brewing tea as they whispered and strategized on how best to tell Haley about the terrible accident last night.