Murder in a Teacup

Book 2: Tea by the Sea Mysteries

by Vicki Delany

Genres: Amateur Sleuth; Cozy Mystery; Female Sleuths

Synopsis

National bestselling author Vicki Delany's delightful Tea by the Sea mystery series continues, as Cape Cod tearoom proprietress and part-time sleuth Lily Roberts stirs up trouble when she unwittingly serves one of her grandmother's B&B guests a deadly cup of tea . . .



Lily has her work cut out for her when a visit from her grandmother Rose's dear friend, Sandra McHenry, turns into an unexpected—and unpleasant—McHenry family reunion. The squabbling boils over and soon Tea by the Sea's serene afternoon service resembles the proverbial tempest in a teapot. Somehow, Lily and her tearoom survive the storm, and Sandra's bickering brethren finally retreat to Rose's B&B. But later that evening, a member of their party—curmudgeonly Ed French—dies from an apparent poisoning and suddenly Tea by the Sea is both scene and suspect in a murder investigation!



Mercifully, none of the other guests fall ill. So it seems, amid the whining and dining, someone snuck up to one of Lily's cherished teapots and fatally spiked Ed's bespoke brew, but who? Was it Ed's long-estranged sister-in-law? Or perhaps the family's feuds have been steeping for longer than anyone realizes? It's up to Lily, Rose, and their friends to get to the bottom of the poisoned pot and bag the real culprit behind the kettle murder plot.

Release date: July 27, 2021

Publisher: Kensington Cozies

Print pages: 291

Sample

“Do you suppose this is what heaven smells like?”

“I wouldn’t be at all surprised, but I hope once I get there, I don’t have to do all the work. I love baking, but I wouldn’t want to think it’s all I’ll do throughout eternity.”

Simon McCracken sipped his tea. “Maybe you’ll have an enormous staff of assistant bakers and kitchen helpers. I wouldn’t mind being heaven’s chief gardener.”

I smiled at him as I patted a ball of dough with sticky, floury hands. As I did several times a day, I was making currant scones for afternoon tea. “If we can’t be in heaven, then North Augusta, Massachusetts, in late June is a pretty close second.”

Simon drained his cup and put it in the dishwasher. “I’ll second that. Time to get back at it. Thanks for the tea.” I looked up at the hesitation in his voice, then followed the direction of his eyes.

“Yes,” I said, “you may have a strawberry tart.”

“You’re a mind reader, Lily Roberts.” He grabbed one of the delicate pastries and made his escape before I could change my mind. I bake all day, every day, for a living, and I’m not often inclined to offer freebies to all and sundry who wander through my kitchen.

I formed the dough into a thick rectangle, reached for my cutter, and began cutting small circles. “How’s it looking out there?” I asked Cheryl, one of my assistants, when she came in with a load of dirty dishes. Every morsel, I was pleased to see, had been consumed.

“Busy, but under control. Need you ask?”

“Probably not. Open that oven door for me, will you, please.” Cheryl did so, and I placed the laden baking sheet inside and set the rooster timer that I use exclusively for timing scones.

“Rose made a reservation for three people for three forty-five, did you know that?” Cheryl asked.

“Yes, I did. The granddaughter of one of her friends got in late last night. The rest of her family’s arriving today for a family vacation. They’re from Grand Lake, Iowa, where Rose used to live, so I don’t know them.”

Rose Campbell is my maternal grandmother and the owner of Victoria-on-Sea, the big B & B perched at the edge of the bluffs overlooking Cape Cod Bay. My tearoom, Tea by the Sea, is on the B & B property.

“Can’t think of anything I’d rather not do,” Cheryl said as she loaded the dishwasher, “than spend my valuable vacation days with my family.”

“Present company excepted, I hope.” My other assistant, Marybeth, came into the kitchen. “One order of traditional afternoon tea for four, and a children’s tea for two.

“Mom,” she asked Cheryl, “can you check the air pots are full and get down a tin of Darjeeling and one of English breakfast? The children will have iced tea.” She opened the fridge door. My kitchen’s so small, the three of us have developed a fine-tuned dance routine when we’re all in it.

Cheryl prepared the tea balls to receive the tea leaves and laid out two of our beautiful flower-patterned pink-and-green china teapots. “Present company most definitely included. I love you to bits, Marybeth, and you know that, but I spend all day with you.”

Marybeth winked at me. “How about the kids?” she asked her mother.

“They can come with me. Not that summer vacation’s anything but a dream for anyone who works in the Cape Cod tourist business.”

“Tell me about it.” Scones in the oven, I started on a batch of green-tea cupcakes. Cheryl poured boiling water from the air pots over the tea balls and set the timer to ensure they steeped properly, while Marybeth prepared glasses of iced tea. When the drinks were ready, she carried a tray out to the dining room as Cheryl began assembling the stands of food. For the adults: freshly baked scones in the center, tea sandwiches on the bottom, pastries on the top. The children’s tray was smaller and the food simpler, but no less elegant or carefully prepared. I believe afternoon tea is an indulgence and it should be treated as such. Fine china, stiffly ironed white tablecloths and napkins, fresh flowers, silver cutlery, perfectly prepared food. And, most important of all, the best possible selection of teas.

A knock sounded on the back door and it swung open. Large, bright green eyes in a pale face dotted with freckles beneath a mass of curly red hair peeked in. “Hey, what’s up?”

“What you see is what you get,” I said. “I’m making green-tea cupcakes.”

“Yum. My favorite.”

“They’re all your favorite, and, no, you can’t have one.”

“Don’t need one.” Bernadette Murphy, known to everyone as Bernie, came into the kitchen. She wore an above-the-knee, close-fitting, sleeveless blush-pink dress with a thin black belt that showed her long legs and well-toned arms to perfection.

“You look nice,” I said. “What’s up?”

“I’m glad you think so. I dressed for the occasion. I’m having tea.”

“Tea? Here?”

“Where else would I go for tea? I’m joining Rose at quarter to four. The granddaughter of some friends of hers is visiting, and she invited me to join them.”

I glanced at the clock on the wall. “You’re early.”

“So I am.” Bernie leaned against the butcher block in the center of the room, where I roll out cookies and pastry and cut scones. “I hope we’re having the Darjeeling-poached-chicken tea sandwiches. They’re my favorite.”

“You’re in luck then,” I said.

“I’ve come early because I’m stuck on my book and I need to talk it over with you.”

Fortunately, I was facing away from Bernie at that moment, so she didn’t see me rolling my eyes. Bernie is always stuck on her book. She’s an extremely talented writer with great promise, and after publishing three short stories in literary magazines to rave reviews and high acclaim, she began work on a novel. That was two years ago, but the book didn’t seem to be going anywhere. So a few weeks ago, she quit her job as a forensic accountant at a Manhattan law firm and rented a cottage on Cape Cod for the peace and quiet and the time she claimed she needed to write.

Peace and quiet she had in abundance, but Bernie is anything but an introvert and she was having trouble settling. We’ve been best friends since we were growing up together in Manhattan, and I’d been thrilled when she announced her plans to spend the summer in North Augusta. I wasn’t so thrilled when she kept popping into the B & B or the tearoom, while I was working, to discuss the ever-changing direction of her book but I loved her to bits and I understood that she needed to talk to someone about her ideas and problems. She’d recently given up on two years’ worth of her multigenerational, New York City–set, historical saga and turned two of her characters—one a privileged daughter of a wealthy and influential family, the other a former kitchen maid from Ireland—into a female detective agency on Cape Cod in the nineteenth century.

“I’m wondering if it would ruin the dynamics if Tessa gets married,” she said. Tessa was the Irishwoman.

“Yes, it would.”

“You seem very sure.”

“I am sure. Haven’t Tessa and Rose just met? They need to establish themselves as friends and partners first.” Bernie had named her aristocratic character after my grandmother.

“I’m thinking long term.”

“Stop thinking long term and get the short term written, Bernie.”

“And in the very short term, like right now, please get away from the fridge,” Marybeth said.

“Sorry.” Bernie took a step to her left the moment Cheryl came through the swinging doors.

“Whoops. Close one,” Cheryl said as she swung her tray out of my friend’s way.

“We’re kinda busy here, Bernie,” I said.

“Not a problem. I can talk while you work. What do you know about forensics in the nineteenth century?”

I poured batter into cupcake liners, slid the tray into the second oven, and set the timer. Next up: shortbread. “Hopefully, I know a heck of a lot less than you do, seeing as you’re the one writing the book.”

“No such thing,” Cheryl said. “They didn’t know about fingerprints and blood spatter and DNA back then.”

“I’m wanting Tessa and Rose to be cutting edge,” Bernie said.

The rooster crowed, and I checked the scones, decided they were perfect, took them out of the oven, and placed them on the cooling rack.

All the while Bernie and I were talking, I continued measuring and adding ingredients, stirring batter, and forming dough, while Marybeth and Cheryl came in and out of the kitchen, placing orders, bringing in dirty dishes, washing dirty dishes, taking out clean table settings, fresh pots of tea, and trays of food.

“Rose is here,” Marybeth announced. “She and her guest have taken a table in the garden.”

“Use my personal dishes for them, please.” For my sixteenth birthday, my grandparents had given me a set of Royal Doulton Winthrop china. For her sixteenth birthday, two days before mine, Bernie’s grandmother had given her a gold-and-diamond necklace. I liked my gift better. The dishes are stunningly beautiful—white, with a deep red border with delicate gold leaves running through it, and gold trim on the base of the cup and decorating the handle.

I kept the china in the tearoom, but only brought it out for special occasions and special guests.

Cheryl went into the pantry to get the teapot and three place settings.

“If you want to have a successful tea with Rose,” I said to Bernie, “try not to ask if she has personal knowledge of forensic methods, or anything else, from the nineteenth century.”

Bernie sucked in a breath. Her eyes grew wide.

I recognized that expression and it always gave me a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach. “What?”

“England during the war. The Blitz, bomb shelters, hearty Londoners, overly stewed pots of tea. I’m thinking the book—”

“No,” I said firmly. “You are not, once again, changing the entire focus of your novel. Do you want to get the thing finished or not?”

“Yes, but—”

“No buts. Go and have tea. As you’re a paying customer, or at least the guest of one, I won’t even ask you to take the dishes of jam, butter, and clotted cream out with you.”

About forty-five minutes later, things were beginning to slow down in the kitchen as the end of the day approached. I continued baking, glad of the chance to get some additional things made and into the fridge for tomorrow. Tea by the Sea had opened in the spring, and so far, we’d been successful beyond my cautious dreams.

Marybeth carried another load of dirty dishes into the kitchen. “Rose is asking if you have a chance for a break. She’d like you to join them and meet her guest.”

I pressed my knuckles into the small of my back and leaned against them. I groaned with pleasure. “Sounds like a good idea. Did they eat everything they were served?”

“Not a crumb left for the resident mice.”

“Of which we have none, so please don’t repeat that. Nothing left is always good to hear, but not in this case, as I’m starving and would like to grab the leftovers. Can you bring me a cup of Creamy Earl Grey and a couple of sandwiches, please. Whatever we can spare.”

I washed my hands at the sink and then went into the pantry. I took off my apron and my hairnet and peered at myself in the tiny mirror. With my fingers, I did the best I could to comb out my straight blond hair and retied it in a high ponytail. Rose’s guests this week were longtime family friends of hers, but I didn’t know them. My grandmother had lived in Iowa her entire married life, and that was where my mother, Tina, had been born and raised. Mom moved to New York City before the ink on her high school diploma was dry. She’d had a moderately successful Broadway career as a singer and actor. She’d also had a short marriage to a rock drummer named Jeff Roberts, and they produced me. I’d lived in Manhattan my entire life, close to both of my parents, until I came to Cape Cod over the past winter to help Rose run her B & B and open my tearoom. Mom never took me back home to Iowa, but my grandparents visited us regularly, and we often vacationed with them on Cape Cod. Rose, English to her fingertips, missed the sea.

I walked out of the kitchen and through the main dining room. China and cutlery clinked and people laughed and chatted in low voices. “This has been absolutely perfect,” a woman said to her companion as I passed, and I hoped she was talking about her tea.

I need, I thought, to get out of the kitchen more. I work so hard baking pastries and scones and preparing sandwiches, I sometimes forget that the end product isn’t just food but happy customers. I walked through the small vestibule, where customers check in as they arrive, and went outside to the tearoom’s garden.

Six months ago, the building that’s now Tea by the Sea was nothing but an old stone cottage collapsing into the sandy soil, and what vegetation surrounded it had been a handful of tough, hardy plants struggling to survive. We’d smoothed the ground and laid flagstone blocks to create the patio and dug most of the weeds out of the cracks in the low stone wall. We scattered terra-cotta pots and iron urns overflowing with red and white geraniums, purple lobelia, white bacopa, and trailing sweet potato vines around the space, and placed smaller pots on the half-height stone wall enclosing the garden. The flagstone floor was now dotted with tables and chairs, some of them under pink and blue umbrellas. As a finishing touch, I’d hung a multitude of cracked and mismatched teacups from the branches of the old oak that occupied pride of place in the center of the garden. The wind was light today, but when it blows off the bay, the cups make a delightful tinkling sound.

My grandmother and her two guests were seated at a table for four tucked into the far corner next to the wall. Bernie saw me approaching and gave me a wave. Before taking my seat, I gave my grandmother a kiss on her papery cheek.

“Good afternoon, love,” she said. “I’m chuffed you could find the time to join us.” Rose has lived in America for fifty years, but memories of Yorkshire are still strong in her voice.

“It’s my pleasure.” I turned to the woman seated across from Rose. “Hi. I’m Lily.”

She got to her feet. “Heather French. Pleased to meet you at last. Rose can’t stop talking about you.” She stretched out her hand, and I leaned across the table to shake it. Heather was about Bernie’s and my age, early thirties, but unlike us, the word that instantly came to mind was money. Her blond hair was slightly darker than mine and expertly streaked and highlighted; her nails were long and red, her hands sleek, her makeup subdued but perfect. She wore a white silk top cropped a couple of inches above a taut belly button pierced by a single jewel, a gold lamé jacket in a vaguely military style, and short (very short) white shorts. Her bare tanned legs ended in high-heeled gold sandals.

“Please have a seat,” she said, as though she were the hostess and this wasn’t my place.

I sat.

I glanced across the table at Bernie. She avoided my eyes.

Cheryl placed a cup of tea, already prepared the way I like it with a splash of milk and a few grains of sugar, and a plate of sandwiches in front of me. “Can I get you anything else, Rose?”

“More tea, Heather? Bernadette?”

They both said, “No, thank you.”

Heather lifted her arms and held them out to her sides. “You own this marvelous place, Lily. Aren’t you the lucky one? It’s absolutely adorable. Almost as adorable as Rose’s house.”

“Luck,” Bernie said, “has nothing to do with it. Lily works incredibly hard.” Something, I thought, was wrong with my friend’s voice. It had an edge to it I’d last heard when she first met Rose’s next-door neighbor, Matt Goodwill, and had taken an instant dislike to him.

“To live so close to the sea.” Heather’s voice was high-pitched, and she spoke almost in a singsong. “I can barely see the river from my penthouse in Manhattan. If I stand on the veranda with a pair of good binoculars on a clear day, I can get a glimpse.” Her laugh was as light and carefree as the tinkle of the teacups hanging from the old oak tree.

“That is so unfortunate,” Bernie said with a sad shake of her head. “I chose my house specifically for the view of the ocean from my office. It’s important, I felt, to have the water close to me, as the sea plays such an important role in my book.” I threw Bernie a look. She never engaged in games of one-upmanship. She might be able to see the bay from her house on an exceptionally clear day with a good pair of binoculars, but she’d been able to afford the place only because it was in such bad repair. The homeowners hadn’t been able to find anyone who wanted it for a vacation rental. The last time it rained, she’d called Rose and asked if the B & B had any spare buckets lying around that she could borrow.

Heather giggled. “A top-ranked chef and a soon-to-be bestselling author. You’re lucky to be surrounded by such talented women, Rose.”

“I think so,” Rose said.

My days begin before six when I start breakfast in the B & B and end long after the tearoom closes when I finish prep for the next day. Meaning twelve to fourteen hours on my feet, seven days a week. It felt so good just to be sitting down. I took the first welcome sip of the Creamy Earl Grey, rich and heady with vanilla and bergamot and just a touch of dulce de leche for that hint of sweetness I need at the end of a long day. “Rose tells me your family’s joining you tomorrow.”

Heather threw up her hands. The diamonds in the ring on her left hand flashed in the sun. “It’s going to be so great! I can’t wait. My gran’s coming, as well as my mom and dad. You’re so lucky to be able to live close to your grandmother, Lily. I adore my gran to bits, but I don’t see her nearly as much as I’d like. Iowa is so far away.”

“I’ve heard of these things called airplanes,” Bernie said.

Heather slapped my friend’s hand. “You are so funny. Isn’t she a hoot, Rose?”

“Not exactly the word I’d use,” my grandmother said.

“My brother and his wife are coming on our little vacation, too, and the less said about her, the better. I’m not so excited about seeing them, but we’ll manage. And the kids, of course. Tyler and Amanda, my nephew and niece. It’s been ages, and I’m really looking forward to spending some time with them. I want to take them to the beach, and we’re going on a whale-watching tour. I’ve chartered us a boat for later in the week. It’s going to be so much fun.” Heather beamed.

I felt myself smiling. I liked her. Her excitement was genuine and her enthusiasm infectious. Bernie clearly didn’t agree. Her face was pinched with disapproval and her eyes narrow. Not exactly the picture of a hoot.

Cheryl appeared at my side. “I’m sorry to interrupt, Lily, but Nancy’s on the phone. There’s some problem with the strawberries.”

“Oh, goodness,” Heather laughed. “That sounds dreadfully serious. ‘Some problem with the strawberries.’ How dramatic!”

I didn’t laugh. In my restaurant, strawberry problems are not a laughing matter. “Not again. I’ll be right there.” I got to my feet. “Sorry, gotta run. Nice meeting you, Heather.”

She jumped up. “And it was so nice meeting you, Lily. I’ll bring my family around for tea and you’ll have to join us. I won’t take no for an answer.” She stamped her foot and crinkled her nose.

“I’d like that,” I said.

“If you’ll excuse me,” Bernie said. “I have to be going, too. Thanks for the tea, Rose.”

“So nice to meet you,” Heather trilled. “Let me know when you’re launching your book and I’ll come!”

Bernie followed me into the kitchen. I picked up the phone. Cheryl’s cousin Nancy owns a berry farm, and in my opinion, she runs her farm very badly. She’d failed to deliver my order once before, and today I simply told her that if the baskets of freshly picked strawberries weren’t here tomorrow morning, I’d find a new supplier. It’s important to me to use local ingredients from local farmers, whenever possible. But I have to have strawberries at this time of year.

“Isn’t she a horror!” Bernie said, once I was off the phone, the Great Strawberry Crisis averted. For now.

“Nancy? I wouldn’t go quite that far, although she needs to be a lot more reliable if she wants to stay in business.”

“Not her. Heather.”

“Heather? I thought she was sweet.”

“Ha! All she talked about was herself and how much money she has.”

“She actually said that?”

“Well, no. Not in so many words. But the penthouse apartment in Manhattan, the private boat she’s chartered. And that gold jacket. Talk about tasteless. What do you think? Two thousand bucks?”

“I have no idea. Rose seemed to like her.” No one could express disapproval better than my grandmother. I went into the pantry for my apron and hairnet and called over my shoulder, “You don’t have to like her, Bernie. Besides, you’re the world’s worst judge of character.”

“I’m nothing of the sort.”

“Sure you are. Look at how much you distrusted Matt Goodwill when you met him. You practically accused him of murder. Come to think of it, you did accuse him of murder.”

“That was different.”

“It’s always different,” I said.

Cheryl ran into the kitchen. “A van’s just driven up. Eight people wanting the full tea. No reservation.”

I let out a long breath. It was almost closing time, but eight people were eight customers. “Do we have room?”

“I can seat them in the garden. People are starting to leave.”

I did a quick mental inventory of the fridge and the pantry. “Then I can feed them. I’ll have to use some of what I made for tomorrow.” I reached for the fridge door. “Uh, Bernie, can you get out of the way, please.”

“And that ring. Did you see that ring? Silly question, you could see that ring in outer space.”

“Good-bye, Bernie,” I said, giving her an affectionate push in the direction of the back door.

I didn’t see Rose or her guests that evening. I worked in the tearoom for a few hours after closing, poaching chicken and boiling eggs for tomorrow’s sandwiches, making scones, cupcakes, tarts, and macarons to replenish the ones I’d served to our last-minute arrivals. Despite the long hours, I always enjoy time alone in the kitchen after everyone has left. I can move at my own pace, nibble on raw cookie dough, or snatch a scone off a tray straight out of the oven, make the things I enjoy making, even though I’ve made them hundreds, maybe thousands, of times before. I play music from my iPad through Bose speakers and dance or sing as I work. As I inh. . .