Death in a Budapest Butterfly

Book 1: A HUNGARIAN TEA HOUSE MYSTERY

by Julia Buckley

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

Hana Keller and her family run Maggie's Tea House, an establishment heavily influenced by the family's Hungarian heritage and specializing in a European-style traditional tea service. But one of the shop's largest draws is Hana's eccentric grandmother, Juliana, renowned for her ability to read the future in the leaves at the bottom of customers' cups. Lately, however, her readings have become alarmingly ominous and seemingly related to old Hungarian legends....

When a guest is poisoned at a tea event, Juliana’s dire predictions appear to have come true. Things are brought to a boil when Hana’s beloved Anna Weatherley butterfly teacup, which carried the poisoned tea, becomes the center of the murder investigation. The cup is claimed as evidence by a handsome police detective, and the pretty tea house is suddenly endangered. Hana and her family must catch the killer to save their business and bring the beautiful Budapest Butterfly back home where it belongs.

Release date: July 30, 2019

Publisher: Berkley

Print pages: 304

Sample

***This excerpt is from an advance uncorrected copy proof***

Copyright © 2019 Julia Buckley

 

Chapter One

The Butterfly

I sat polishing teacups with my mother and her cat. The latter wasn’t so much helping to polish as he was regarding me from his chair with a stern expression that he wore only when I had disappointed him. I tried reason.

“Major, I will feed you right after we finish. Isn’t this a pretty teacup?” I held up a beautiful specimen of pale green with pink-painted flowers. Major scowled and twitched a whisker at me—a sure sign that he was irritated.

“It’s past his lunchtime,” my mother said mildly. “You know how he likes to keep to a schedule. Hana, hand me that dish.” I did so, still contemplating the cat.

Major licked one of his elegant gray paws. “Yes, I know.” I paused my polishing to scratch his head. “He runs this place, and you are just under the illusion that you do.”

With a sigh I got up, stretched, and said, “I’ll feed him, then, so I can finish up without his judgmental eyes on me.” I went to the counter and got a whiff of my grandmother’s cooking; I closed my eyes to fully appreciate the aroma.

There is nothing like the smell of a Hungarian kitchen. The pure sensual experience is one that a visitor cannot forget, any more than she can duplicate it. If these aromas were to be compared to music, then the song would begin with bass notes of sautéed onions and paprika. (There is always paprika on the shelf of a Hungarian cook, and not the kind that you can buy cheaply at your grocery store.) Above these bass notes is the melody—perhaps the deep, satisfying aroma of chicken soup filled with kis négyzet tészta, square noodles made of only flour, eggs, and salt—or the mouthwatering fragrance of pork, beef, and Hungarian sausage stuffed into boiled cabbage, called töltött káposzta—or perhaps even the soul-filling incense of gulyásleves, known here as goulash. Above all of the wonderful scents that work on the soul like melodies floats a sweet descant known as Hungarian dessert. There is the deep-fried wonder of fánk, a bismarck-like doughnut stuffed with delicious jam; or the thin Hungarian pancakes known as palacsinta, filled with jelly and covered with sugar; or the deep, dark, and delicious plums baked into cakes called szilvás lepény. To those who have never experienced this synesthesia of sights and smells that somehow become a symphony, it is hard to understand why these food memories would follow you wherever you go. I closed my eyes for one second, appreciating the aromas that permeated the house, partly because of my mother’s cooking, but mostly because of my grandmother, who cooked whenever she came to her daughter’s house to “make sure you got all you need.”

I prepared Major’s food and set it down for him. He strolled over, still glaring slightly, and began to pick delicately at the meat in the bowl. I laughed and looked back at my mother. “If we’re set up by three, that should be plenty of time, right?”

“Yes. I told Mrs. Kalas not to arrive before three forty-five.” My mother looked serene, as always, in the domain of her kitchen, the largest and nicest room in her little house. We had set up at the long center island my father had built for this purpose, and the September sun shone on the array of teacups on the shining white surface. Soon we would transport the tea set to Maggie’s Tea House, a business my mother and grandmother had established and which I co-ran.

“Mrs. Kalas is kind of a lot to handle,” I said. “Although she’s not much different from Grandma in that respect.”

My grandmother, who had superhuman hearing, floated in on the scent of Odyssey, her favorite Avon perfume. “Vat did you say about Mrs. Kalas?” She picked up a teacup and began to polish it with the edge of her sleeve.

My mother sent me a subtle but urgent glance. I said, “Oh, just that she’s getting there about fifteen minutes early and we want to be sure everything is all set. This isn’t just a regular event, right? It’s high tea for her Magyar Women group. So we want things to be just perfect.”

She looked mildly suspicious, but then she nodded, tucking a bit of gray hair behind her ear; the errant strand had escaped from the bun at the nape of her neck. She wore our tea house uniform with a black sweater and some sparkling earrings. Although she’d been in America for almost forty years, my grandmother still clung to some traditions from her youth, and one was her preference for vintage jewelry, including the cruel clip-on earrings that invariably left her in pain after a “fancy” tea event.

“Ya. I will go early, make sure the floors vas done properly.”

“Were done, Mama,” my mother corrected. She, too, was an immigrant, but had been only twelve when they left Hungary, and she had mastered American grammar and intonation with a child’s resiliency. She didn’t always like her mother’s lingering accent or her refusal to adhere, sometimes, to American usage. My mother was convinced that Grandma knew exactly how to say things, but merely refused.

My grandmother shrugged. “Ya, yes. I don’t trust that cleaning crew.” She turned to me. “Sit up straight, Haniska.”

I had thought I was sitting up straight; my parents had always been sticklers about posture. Sometimes Grandma just said things on autopilot because she felt it was her job as matriarch. These comments included her feelings about my posture, my hair, my makeup, or what she considered swearing (these were especially reserved for my brother, Domo).

My mother said, “Are you reading tea leaves today, Mama? The ladies always like that. Why don’t you set up your table, and we’ll do it after Mrs. Kalas’s raffle.”

Grandma shrugged. She loved the whole theatrical event that reading tea leaves had become for her, but she always wanted to be coaxed into it. “I suppose,” she said. “If they vant. Mama would do it better.”

At the mention of her, we turned toward the picture of my great-grandmother on the sideboard. She looked, in the photograph, just as I remembered her from childhood—sweet, smiling, wearing her favorite green sweater and sitting in a lawn chair under the large elm in our backyard. My favorite memory of her, distant and lovely with the fog of time, involved me at five or six, standing next to her knee beneath that same tree while she showed me a monarch that had landed on her veined hand.

I leaned forward. “The ladies love it when you do it. Even the American guests like it when you read the tea leaves. Everyone likes to think they can get a glimpse into the future. And it’s free, which they like even better,” I said.

She moved closer to me to examine my hair, as she had done throughout my life. I knew that she was secretly fascinated by my hair, but she pretended to be critical of it. When I was a child I had overheard her telling my mother what a remarkable shade of reddish-brown it was, how thick and glossy. “Like the color of autumn,” she had enthused. “Prettier even than mine used to be.” I had been surprised and pleased at the time, having never thought much about my hair at the age of eight or nine. As I grew up, though, I remembered her words and developed a special pride in my auburn tresses.

“Do I see split ends?” my grandmother asked, pretending to study the lock in her hand.

My mother sniffed. “No, you do not. Why do you obsess over that child’s hair?”

I laughed. “This child needs to get to work. And I’ll remind you both that I’m turning twenty-seven next month so you can probably lay off thinking that I am perpetually twelve.”

Both women looked somewhat disappointed. I said, “Hey, Grandma! If you’re setting up the specialty teacups on your table, I’ll give you a special centerpiece: my Budapest Butterfly!”

“Ooohh,” my grandmother said, clapping her hands. “Can I see it?”

“Yes. I just brought it to Mom’s this morning.” I moved to the counter, where a teacup sat in a box, tucked into tissue paper. This had been a recent find, and a spectacular one. Since I had grown up in and around Maggie’s Tea House, I had of course developed an interest in all things tea, especially teacups, which to me were like jewels, tiny treasures, and individual pieces of art. I had done a great deal of research on teacups, and some of my favorites were from Hungary (I suppose because of my family origins). The great Herend Porcelain company was located in Hungary, the makers of exquisite pieces of china that dated back centuries; I also loved the work of Zsolnay porcelain and Hollóháza porcelain, and I scoured china shops, antiques markets, and eBay for affordable pieces by these makers that I could add to my currently small collection.

The Butterfly, though, was my jewel of jewels, and a recent acquisition. I frequented a little antiques shop called Timeless Treasures, and the proprietor, Falken Trisch, knew of my predilection for European china. He had come across a single piece with the maker’s mark of Anna Weatherley, a porcelain artist in Budapest. The cup, normally listed at about five hundred dollars, had a tiny chip in the plate, barely visible, but still an imperfection, making it hard for Falken to sell it for what it was worth. He had called me in to look at it, and we both marveled at its beauty before he gave me the good news: he would sell it to me for seventy-five dollars.

This was an outrageously low price for a piece of art like this, and I had pounced on his offer and borne home my treasure in a collector’s euphoria.

Now I took it out and showed it to my grandmother, who looked no less enamored than I felt. Perhaps I had inherited my love of beautiful things from her.

She scrutinized the piece like a scientist with a specimen. The handle of the cup was the butterfly itself, with wings of vibrant blue, purple, and yellow. The white china was edged in gold, and the front was dominated by a large painted orange flower—the butterfly’s destination—with bright green leaves flourishing on a trailing vine. Another butterfly, Persian blue and lavender, graced the plate itself, along with two more leaves trailing along a green swirling vine tucked up against the gold trim. Beauty, color, and fragility combined to make a lovely objet d’art.

“Oooh,” my grandmother said, lightly touching the butterfly handle.

“Isn’t it amazing? We can put it at the center of your tea table, and I’ll get down the bag of nylon butterflies and greenery.”

This was our strength and our special talent. We three generations of women, who between us had run a tea house for a total of almost three decades, were masters of stored decorations. Every event had a different theme, although our specialty was the European high tea. Occasionally we purchased specialized decorations according to season or customer request, but we saved everything. We were frugal and smart and we took our decorations seriously; we had a library of them sealed in ziplock bags. The butterflies were particularly lovely—they looked close to real, with vibrant, multihued, iridescent wings and legs that could be bent for attaching to vines or trees or stalks of plants.

“Ya. That will be nice,” Grandma said, running her finger around the gold rim of the cup. Good porcelain seemed to have the effect of a magic talisman on our family; she literally brightened after contact with the lovely object.

“I’ll transport it with the other teacups, and I’ll set up the decorations for your table. You have your sign?”

“In the car,” she said. “I will go now. Magdi, make sure to mingle, talk to all the Hungarian ladies.”

My mother half rolled her eyes as she began packing cups into their travel container. “I always do, Mama.”

Grandma marched past me on a fragrant cloud, her earrings flashing with multicolored stones. “I meet you there,” she said.

When we arrived at the tea house, beautifully landscaped and maintained once a week by someone my grandmother called “a man Grandpa knows,” and whom she paid with mysterious white envelopes handed to him in the shadow of the building, I lifted one of my boxes and carried it toward the entrance, where a brick walkway led to two grand wooden entrance doors. Halfway across the bricks I stopped—or, more precisely, my body stopped—and I couldn’t bring myself to go closer.

My mother trundled up behind me. “Come on, Hana, we’re running late.” She paused, studied my face, and seemed to grow pale in the shady entrance. It was actually a bit warm on that September day, but it felt cold on our threshold. My mother frowned, hesitated, then pushed past me and unlocked the door. My grandmother walked up with her leaf-reading sign; she also took a moment to study my face. She didn’t pale, but she did look interested. “Something is wrong?” she asked.

“No, I—it’s weird. I feel like I don’t want to go in. Am I having an anxiety attack?”

She touched my arm and stared at her own hand for a moment, as though it were an interesting bird that had landed on my sleeve. Then she looked up at me. “No. But we should be watchful. Come, we go in together.”

I had no free hand, so she touched the middle of my back, and I felt almost immediately better. “Thanks, Grandma. I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”

She nodded at me with a wise expression. Wise, and somehow commiserating.

Inside I gradually forgot the strange feeling I had experienced in the doorway because we had a great deal to do; I lost myself in work.

I made Grandma’s tea table a visual treat, one that would arrest the attention of anyone walking by. The Budapest Butterfly, my Anna Weatherley treasure, sat on an elevated, velvet-covered platform. Cascading down the white velvet were some artificial-yet-lifelike vines, to which I attached some of the winged art. The butterflies’ tiny pipe cleaner legs could easily bend around any intended location. Over the rest of the table I scattered the remaining butterflies, some of them attached to the rims of the alabaster teacups that Grandma used to read leaves.

She had set up her little sign, which said, “Juliana Horvath reads your fate in tea leaves.”

A jar of loose Earl Grey leaves sat near the sign along with a tiny scoop. Generally people scooped leaves into their palm, cast the leaves into a chosen cup, and filled the cup with boiling water from a nearby carafe. Grandma presided over a line of people, instructing everyone to drink their tea down to the leaves, then, when they reached her, to pour out any liquid that remained at the bottom, turning the cup a few times to eliminate excess tea, dry the sides of the cup, and allow the leaves to take their fateful shape.

Grandma followed some of the basics of reading tea leaves, but she generally incorporated her own mythology. While the traditional tea-reading symbols included things like an acorn, an owl, a palm tree, birds, and hearts, Grandma gave her readings a Hungarian flair by adding shepherds, wolves, hawks, spirits, and even fairies, a staple of Hungarian folklore. These fairies, depending upon the shape of their wings, could bode either good or ill.

My mother approached the table and said, “Lovely, Hana. But I need your artistry on the actual dining tables, and then we have to check out the tea and coffee. And make sure Francois is all set.”

“Right,” I said. I did tend to linger over the aesthetic things; my mother was the necessary taskmaster who kept me moving.

We moved around the little hall that my parents had bought decades earlier with a special-rate business loan for young entrepreneurs. My mother was the entrepreneur, with a business degree and a sharp mind. My father was a history teacher, but he spent a lot of his time helping at the tea house, even if it just meant that he could grade papers and “catch glimpses of my girlfriend.”

Today’s tablecloths were crisply ironed and standard white; each table had been accented with individual pale blue place mats on which we had set teacups in their saucers and dessert plates for the tea sandwiches and petit fours prepared by Francois, the French culinary student who worked for us part-time. Francois had been a real find, because our former pastry chef had retired to have a baby, and we had suddenly found ourselves juggling too many jobs.

Francois liked to have the kitchen to himself, which was fine with us once we saw what he could do with confections. He was young, handsome, talented, and blessed with a French accent—and he made cakes. He was like something a woman would invent for herself if given magical powers. He was moody, too, but so far that had only added to his glamour for the (mostly) women who showed up for events at the tea house.

My mother consulted her watch, her bearing straight and alert. She looked like an attractive general. “They’ll be wandering in soon; let’s just make sure the—oh.”

A determined-looking Mrs. Kalas, wearing a flowered dress and flat nurses’ shoes, was marching through the door. She paused briefly to speak to my grandmother, which involved a spate of Hungarian that I could not understand—I, the first woman in my family to not know the language that was Mom’s and Grandma’s native tongue. I did understand the words “Mariska” and “Law & Order.” Both of the ladies enjoyed watching the entire television franchise, specifically the show with Mariska Hargitay in the starring role, because Mariska was partly Hungarian. Now, after comparing notes on whatever episode they had seen, the women scanned the room to see if it was up to Mrs. Kalas’s standards. Some more ladies entered, clutching their purses and looking like people from another era.

“This will be interesting,” my mother said with a smile. Her strawberry blonde hair was swooped up in an elegant twist today. She wore the same outfit that Grandma and I wore: white blouse, black skirt, and apron embroidered with Hungarian colors—red, green, and white.

“You look nice, Mom.”

“Thanks, sweetie.” She gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “So do you. I like that eyeliner you put on. It makes those big brown eyes look even prettier, and so dramatic! My sweet baby girl.” She swept away and started whisking the newcomers to tables.

I smirked. My mother was under the abiding impression that if I dolled myself up like a movie star I would meet the man of my dreams. The ride toward dreamland had been particularly bumpy so far, with two ultimately unpleasant relationships as all I had to show for the last four years. At this point I was more interested in devoting myself to my career at Maggie’s Tea House and my side job of collecting. Someday I thought I might even open my own shop, similar to Falken’s, where I could buy and sell beautiful things.

Mrs. Kalas was suddenly next to me, clutching my arm. “Hallo, Haniska! You look so pretty today, so pretty!”

“Thank you, Mrs. Kalas.”

“Which is my table? I like to sit with the other officers.” Mrs. Kalas was the president of the Magyar Women group at their church. Riverwood had an unusually large population of Hungarians.

“Right over here. We made tiny place cards, see? So you are here, and Mrs. Pinkoczi is here. And Mrs. Guliban is on your other side. Wait until you see the tea cakes Francois has made today. Delicious!”

“Did your Grandma make kiflis?” she asked. Sometimes my grandmother supplemented Francois’s work with some Hungarian staples, but this week we had all been busy and she hadn’t made her delicious sweet dough crescents filled with jam.

“No, not this time, but you won’t be disappointed.”

Mrs. Kalas still had her fingers around my forearm, and they tightened when a woman I didn’t recognize walked in. The newcomer wore a tweed coat and carried a large red purse with some sort of fancy red stone decoration on the front. She had dyed blonde hair and wore bright red lipstick—that was my first impression. She also looked young until she got close enough that I could see she was the same age as most of the other women in the room—somewhere between sixty and seventy.

“Who is that?” I asked.

Mrs. Kalas pursed her lips. “She doesn’t come to these events much. Her name is Ava Novák.”

“She’s pretty,” I said, mostly for something to say, but it was as though I’d pressed some terrible button.

“Hush!” said Mrs. Kalas, her face flushing with strong emotion. “She is not.”

This struck me as funny. I laughed and said, “What do you—?”

She squeezed my arm with a hand that felt like an eagle’s talons. “Don’t pay any attention to Ava. Pretend she is not there.”

I opened my mouth in shock and indignation, but before I could summon words, Mrs. Kalas had let go of me and walked swiftly away.

In retrospect, I realize it was at that very point that I started to feel the misery, not in the form of sadness or depression, but more in a sense of something in my gut, a sensation I’d never experienced. I barely noticed it at the time, that gut feeling. Now I know it was like a symptom, alerting me to a terrible disease, but the disease was not inside me.

It was in the room.

 

Chapter Two

The Magyar Ladies

Still reeling from Mrs. Kalas’s rudeness, I took a deep breath. “All in a day’s work,” I murmured. I was tempted to go to the back room where I could text Domo or my friend Katie and tell them how weird Mrs. Kalas was, but I caught my mother’s eye and saw that she wanted everyone seated; I helped her to usher the ladies present to their chairs, and we went to the kitchen to get our wheeled carts containing the hot tea. There were eight round tables today, although we could accommodate larger groups. Mrs. Kalas had told us there would be approximately seventy women in attendance, and it looked as though there were almost that many already present.

I took my cart to the first table and began to pour tea; there were sugar and creamer packets at each table, along with traditional porcelain sugar and cream containers that could be passed around. As I poured, the women thanked me politely, some of them predictably commenting on my appearance or asking if I had a boyfriend. Mrs. Toth, a regular attendee, told me that I had “grown into my looks.”

“This is the year you will find a man,” she told me.

My mother, pouring tea nearby, overheard this and shook her head at me, as if to say, These old ladies—what will they say next?

It was true that much of what they said was incredibly inappropriate or even insulting, but they always said it with fondness or what they considered helpfulness, and it was hard to look at their faces and read negative intention there. Except for that strange reaction by Mrs. Kalas . . . “Well, thanks, Mrs. Toth. I don’t really need a man, but if I run across a really great one I’ll give him a try.”

This made all the ladies laugh as they stirred their tea with dainty spoons. Francois peered out of the kitchen and pointed at his watch. Francois needed everything to go according to schedule or he got upset; he ran his kitchen with compulsive precision. I waved and nodded, and he pushed out a large cart covered in sandwich trays. The sandwiches, as always, demonstrated the talent of our chef. Cut into various pleasing shapes and adorned with colorful sprigs of parsley or shaved red and orange peppers or paprika blends, the tiny meals looked like little works of art. Between the three of us—Francois, my mother, and I—we delivered the trays to every table. Francois disappeared into the kitchen to arrange his pastries on dessert trays.

“Who is that young man?” asked Mrs. Guliban. “He’s awfully handsome, Haniska!”

“That’s Francois,” I said, moving the sandwich tray closer to an elderly woman with rather short arms. “He is a genius in the kitchen. He also has a lovely girlfriend named Claire.”

The ladies tutted about this. “You would make a wonderful couple, honey,” Mrs. Sarka said. She called everyone “honey.” She sat up straight in her chair, trying to extend her four-foot-something frame. My mother once joked that she could fit Mrs. Sarka into one of our teacups. “Your babies would be beautiful.”

I put my hands on my hips. “What do you ladies talk about besides men? Shouldn’t you have a woman-focused agenda today?”

They looked at me for a moment, then burst into laughter and some scattered Hungarian. Shaking my head, I headed back to the kitchen. I heard Mrs. Kalas stand and start her program. She clinked a glass and said, “Welcome to all the Magyar Women from St. Stephen’s parish.”

A smattering of applause. I caught the eye of the woman named Ava and smiled at her. She smiled back. I gave a little wave and escaped into the kitchen, where Francois tried not to scowl at me.

“Sorry—I know it’s your space—but they’re driving me crazy. If one more person asks me why I don’t have a boyfriend I’m going to start whipping little sandwiches at them.”

This earned a small smile from Francois. “Even the old women are obsessed with romance. It is the same in my country.”

I leaned against the counter, keeping out of his way, and said, “What brought you to America, anyway?”

He shrugged. “At first, it was on a visit, with a host family. I stayed in Chicago, very lovely. I walked in Millennium Park and saw The Bean and Navy Pier—all the sights, you know.”

He was repairing the frosting on a tiny petit fours, a white-iced cake with a large pink rose on top. “But then I start to examine the Chicago culinary schools. They were good, some of them, and in France there is more competition for these things.”

“I can imagine.”

“So I get a visa, and I start going to school. My dream would be to live here six months, live in France six months. But I could only do that once I had my own restaurant and have a trusted staff. This is the big dream, yes?”

“It sounds wonderful,” I said. And if anyone could do it, Francois could. “What would you call your restaurant?”

He looked thoughtful as he placed the tiny cake on a large tray with many other tiny cakes. “I would call it after my name.”

“Francois’s Patisserie?”

“Yes. Something like that.” He smiled at me—two in one day!—and gave me a thumbs-up.

The noise in the hall was escalating, so I waved to him and went back out; Mrs. Kalas had done some sort of icebreaker activity, and the women were all standing again, milling around with their teacups and chatting loudly.

My mother moved swiftly through the groups, waiting for a chance to make them sit back down. She was starting to look nervous, so I waded in, telling the ladies that there would be pastries soon and then a chance to have their tea leaves read.

As I passed Grandma’s table, I gasped, my heart thudding in my chest. The butterfly teacup was gone!

I scanned the room. I didn’t think that anyone would have stolen the cup; could Grandma have taken it somewhere to show someone? That seemed the most likely answer. My mother, like a teacher with wayward preschoolers, was trying to shoo women back to their chairs with promises of sweets to come.

I did a quick visual survey, scanning for deep blue tones instead of the pink and green of the tea service we were using today. Finally, at table eight, I spotted it. The new woman, with the red lipstick and the red purse—what was her name?—Ava. A woman in a blue dress, not someone I knew, had leaned down to chat with her, and she laughed at something the woman said. The woman patted her shoulder and moved away, leaving Ava alone at her back table, like the person at the wedding who doesn’t want to dance. In fact, many of the women had drifted out of their seats again and were talking in clusters on our tiny dance floor, or what my mother called “th