Read A Corpse in a Teacup Online
Authors: Cassie Page
A Corpse in a Teacup (26 page)
Forty-Two: Welcome Home
Gregory hosted the welcome home party. Rowena made salads and fresh lasagna from produce in his garden and artisan cheeses from the Café. Natasha contributed wine from her cellar and Clipper picked up a dangerous chocolate dessert at his favorite steak house. He’d consulted Tuesday about his choice and she’d approved.
They all stood on his
front lawn as Tuesday and Tessa drove up in Holley’s boat of a Mercedes. Holley had told Tessa, still bunking at her hilltop house, where to find the key. They flocked to open the doors and help their favorite patient out, juggling crutches and her purse, and carrying in the enormous floral arrangements Roger had Holley’s favorite florist deliver to the hospital almost daily.
Gregory’s living room was spare, but he had a cozy chair set up with pillows and an ottoman
for Holley’s foot. She insisted she was comfortable. She looked around the room at the others, most of them sitting on the floor due to the lack of furniture. “Isn’t Roger coming?”
Gregory offered, “He said he’d be here. Maybe he’s just late.”
“I hope he’s not going to pull another disappearing act. He had me scared half to death that he was the next victim.”
Holley
could not move her head when she spoke. The massive bandage held her head rigid. The swelling was going down and the long, blond hair on the opposite side of her shaved head was pulled into her signature side ponytail, which hung limp as she had not yet been able to shower or shampoo her hair. Otherwise, everyone agreed, she was radiant.
Gregory invited Tuesday and Clipper to tour his garden while he, Tessa and Rowena set out the lunch. Natasha kept Holley company in the living room. Holley told her that Goren Vitale had called her. Publicity about the case made his fans rabid for his next movie. The project was on and she had the part. They’d start rehearsals as soon as she was well.
Natasha scoffed. “That’s nothing. This case has made my restaurant so popular the vait for a reservation is three months.”
Outside,
Clipper pulled Tuesday close to him and kissed her on her temple while the stood over the patch of lilies of the valley. “Do you know they are poisonous, too?”
“I don’t believe
it,” she said. “They’re too pretty. They are Tessa’s favorite. By the way, have you noticed the way my mother and Gregory look at each other? And what’s up with the happy homemaker act in the kitchen. She never fixed a meal like that for me.”
“Love can work wonders, you know.”
“Yeah, well don’t expect home cooking from me. Just so you know.”
“Why would I when we have our favorite Ozzie’s down the road.”
Tuesday stared at him, disappointed to see that he meant it.
What she didn’t tell Clipper was that Tessa had revealed her secret to sobriety several days before. Apparently, twelve months and three days previously, she was adamant
about the date, a friend’s toddler had been entrusted to her care, an overnight babysitting gig. Friends came over after the child was asleep on her bed and she ended up wandering home at four a.m., climbed into bed and woke up two hours later, still drunk, to the child pulling on her hair and asking for his
bebbers
.
Deeply shaken, she
broke off the friendship with the boy’s mother. Seeing him was too painful a reminder of how close she and he had come to disaster. She sobered up, cut herself off from her drinking friends and resolved, once and for all, to change her life.
Tuesday was shocked at the story,
imaging the child locked in her mother’s house with a fire raging around him, or waking up and wandering outside by himself. She didn’t fully trust Tessa’s redemption, but was going with it.
Holley had wangled a job on the movie for Tessa doing makeup. She tried to get Tuesday a gig doing the costumes now that that post was open. Goren was thinking about it. So was Tuesday.
It would mean working with Rainey, a possible deal breaker. Goren’s new assistant had called her several days ago.
“How could you do this to me,” she blared into the phone. “Do you know what’s happened to me?”
Tuesday answered, “I didn’t get you pregnant, girlfriend. I just told you what was coming.”
Lunch ended and people struggled up off the floor with their paper plates and plastic wine cups. Only Natasha and Holley had chairs. A knock on the door sent Tuesday opening it. “Roger!”
“Is that Mr. Roger?
” Squealed Holley. “Where have you been?”
Holley’s happy smile sent a beam of light across the room. Roger followed it to her side and gave her a loud kiss.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t get here earlier. But I have an announcement to make. I’ve just come from a meeting at LACMA. They accepted two more of my photographs for a special exhibit.”
Amid the applause from the joyful guests, Tuesday felt a pall. She had to get to the bottom of this. “Roger, that’s wonderful. But you know, I happened to be in LACMA yesterday,” she lied. “I looked for your photographs but couldn’t find them.”
He had hunkered down next to Holley and was holding her hand. “Oh, you wouldn’t have. Not if you were looking for work by Roger Brand. I use my mother’s maiden name for my photographs. I’m afraid my father was a bit of a scoundrel and I decided I didn’t want my art confused with him, should I ever have any success. Kevin, my actual middle name, Jennings. That’s my public name. Kevin Jennings.”
Tuesday was cleaning up
in the kitchen while Tessa made a mess dumping paper plates into the sink instead of the trash and tossing Gregory’s silverware into the recycling. “I never did excel at the domestic arts,” she explained unnecessarily as Tuesday fished forks and knives out of the recycling bin.
“Tessa,” have you told Greg about your, um, history?”
“I will dear, when and if the time comes. Of course I will.” She turned to her daughter and shook her finger in her face. “But if you think you will talk me out of a friendship with this nice man, I will tell you this, my girl. You can take away my tequila, you can take away my cigarettes and you can take away my happy pills. But if you think I’m giving up good looking men, you have another think coming.”
Greg walked into the kitchen at that moment. He gave Tessa a broad smile. “Did I hear someone mention my name?”
Tessa became flirty, batting her eyes outrageously.
“Well we were talking about a good looking man. Do you know anyone who fits the description?”
Tuesday excused herself and went into the living room
. Clipper was saying goodbye to everyone. She said, “I’ll walk you out to your car.”
He took her hand and kissed it. “Will you write to me?”
“If you mean e-mail, of course.”
That’s all I
can
mean. My location is confidential.”
“How long will you be gone?”
“Can’t say. The only thing I’m allowed to reveal is that there are many, many bodies. So don’t keep the light on.”
“Well, I’m going to be pretty busy myself. Natasha has booked me for evenings now and is maki
ng a special promotion. Can you believe she is giving me a reference? Suddenly she’s all over tea leaf readings. Calls me every other day to do a new reading for her. I say, Natasha, let the meaning of the last reading sink in, but she has a million questions for me. I’ll hardly know you’re gone.”
“Well I hope that’s not true. When do you visit Olivia again? Before the holidays?”
“Yeah. I have my ticket, round trip. I won’t stay long.”
“Don’t forget about me.”
“Don’t you forget about me.”
“No chance of that. Maybe if you had blue hair instead of pink I’d get you confused with all the other blue heads in my life.”
“It may be green by the time you get back.”
“I’ll roll with it. Just remember. We have a lot to talk about. A whole lot.”
Then he gave her a proper kiss.
As he drove off, a text from Olivia came in.
Call me. Something terrible has happened.
The End
October, 2013
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Cassie Page is a prolific writer of tasteful and humorous mysteries set in Northern California and other exotic locations
. She resides in a small town in California where she raises rare orchids and perfectly behaved children. Her soufflés rise effortlessly, her skirts are always the correct length and she only tweets with the best people. She fraternizes with gruesome murderers and backstabbing lowlifes and reads quantum mechanics for relaxation. Her editor says she has a breathtaking mastery of the semicolon—the colon not so much. If you pass her on the street, she begs that you do not ask for an autograph. Please respect her privacy; the paparazzi have worn her to a frazzle.
She is occasionally seen in her disguise as a writer of fiction, children’s fiction and cookbooks
traveling under the name of Helen Cassidy Page. She claims to teach writing, cooking and maintain a coaching practice using sand tray techniques and can be found online at The Sandtray Coach. To which Cassie Page says, really, darling.
While Ms. Page has worked tirelessly to execute the perfect murder mystery, mistakes happen
. Should you find one or wish to communicate on a higher plane, she would be thrilled to hear from you. You can reach her at:
If you enjoyed A Corpse In A Teacup: A Tuesday’s Tea Leaves Mystery, look for Tuesday’s debut appearance in
the Darling Valley Mystery series featuring designer/clothes horse/sleuth extraordinaire Olivia M. Granville; the winsome if bizarrely dressed Tuesday, the tiresomely righteous Mrs. Harmon and the deliciously distant Detective Richards.
Armoires and Arsenic: A Darling Valley Mystery
Future titles include:
Groundbreaking Bodies
Death is in the Details
A Second Coat of Murder
Tea For Two Murders
Designed for Death
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