A Fatal Twist of Lemon Page 4

  “I don’t have any training or experience in the restaurant business,” I said flatly.

  “So what? That’s the beauty of entrepreneurialism. All you need is vision and investment capital. You’ve got both. Hire good people to help you with the rest, and you’ll be fine.”

  “A tearoom.”

  “You’ve been chattering about English tearooms ever since you and your folks took that trip. You’ve been throwing tea parties ever since then, too. You love tea and all its trappings. Why not take it a step further?”

  I just shook my head. Nat put her teacup down and took my hand.

  “Listen, honey, you’ve got to get out of this old house. Remember how you complained about the property taxes?”

  I nodded. They’d taken a big bite out of my cash reserves. I still wasn’t working, and I’d have to get a job soon if I wanted to keep my head above water.

  “Let’s go look at some Victorians in town, huh? Maybe you’ll see one you’d like to trade for this white elephant. I’ll call Jody and have her look at what’s on the market. It’ll be fun.”

  “Okay,” I said, wanting to end the argument. “It doesn’t cost anything to look.”

  Nat’s friend Jody, a real estate agent, spent an afternoon showing us Victorian era buildings in Santa Fe. I figured it was just a lark, and made up my mind to enjoy the tour. Several were wonderful old adobe homes with soft lines, crooked doorways and uneven floors and yes, secret gardens. I had a nice time wandering through them, and was grateful to Aunt Nat for getting me out of my cocoon.

  By the time we reached the Dusenberry house, I was tired. Nat and I stood on the front walk while Jody retrieved the key.

  The house was neither large nor ornate, originally built in the mid-nineteenth century as officer’s quarters for Fort Marcy. It was stuccoed in adobe-brown, and in fact was made of adobe, in classic Victorian shotgun style with a blue pitched metal roof. It was Territorial, really: the 19th century New Mexico style that evolved out of trying to make neoclassical structures with southwestern building materials. Early Victorians wanted their columns and Grecian dentations, but out here they had to make them out of wood instead of marble.

  The place was vacant and looked a bit forlorn, the leaves of the wisteria vines that twined up the columns of the porch all fragile and withered in shades of gold, green and frostbitten brown (it was autumn). A sharp wind was kicking up, and when Jody got the door open and let us in I had a grateful sense of stepping into shelter.

  Our footsteps on the hardwood floors echoed in the empty rooms and hallway. The northeast room on the ground floor was the kitchen, and the rest had been used as offices by the law firm that had most recently occupied the house. They had done some remodeling including the addition of pocket doors as dividers in the three ground floor office areas (a nice 19th century touch, probably a concession to historic preservation requirements). They had also added a restroom on the ground floor and a remodeled full bath upstairs.

  “It really isn’t suited to be a home as it is,” Jody said. “You’d want to make some changes.”

  Nat hadn’t told her about the tearoom idea, just that I wanted to look at Victorian properties.

  “Can we look at the upstairs?” I asked.

  As we climbed the old wooden staircase, a curious thing began to happen. I began to see things—a plush, oriental runner covering the worn treads of the stairs, the walls painted in quiet pastel tones with white trim, candlelight and lamplight warming the rooms—all of it creating a mood of peace. I was having ideas, for the first time in months.

  As we reached the top of the stairs we turned to face west down the hall, and I saw that the clouds outside had broken up and late afternoon sunlight was streaming in through the window at the far end. I had an impression of ascending to heaven, and again a sense of peace.

  I walked down the hall and stood looking out at the withered garden and the roof of the porch below. A few tendrils of the wisteria vines struggled for a grip on the ribbed metal.

  “I wonder how old those wisterias are,” I mused.

  “The Preservation Trust might know,” said Nat. “They keep track of the oddest little details. My friend Sylvia, who’s the president of the Trust, told me there’s a wisteria vine in Santa Fe that’s almost ninety years old.”

  “Really? How nice to have flowers every spring for that many years.”

  The door to the north side of the upper floor stood ajar, and I went in and stood in the middle of the room by the big, brick shaft of the double chimney that served the fireplaces downstairs. I felt safe there. Maybe not joyous yet, but also not sad. It felt cozy, which was a much better sensation than the vast emptiness of my parents’ lonely old house. I looked out into the hall, where Jody and Nat were standing together, giving me space.

  “What’s the asking price?” I said.

  That was the turning point. I didn’t know if I could afford the house, didn’t know if I wanted it just for myself or to share (it was smaller than my parents’ place, but still too big just for me), or for this tearoom that Nat had suggested. Jody got me the specs and the owner’s asking price. It was steep, which was probably why the house hadn’t been snapped up. That and the funky oldness of it, and the historical designation that restricted remodeling.

  I visited the house again, alone except for Jody who agreed to wait on the porch while I spent some time inside. I walked through all the rooms, trying to imagine leasing them out, but kept finding myself picturing tea parties instead. I thought back to my family’s trip to England and the way I had fallen in love with English tea customs. Those memories made me smile.

  After walking through the whole house again, I joined Jody outside on the porch. Fallen wisteria leaves blew around our feet and danced in little eddies in the corners. Snowflakes were just beginning to swirl down from a blue-gray sky.

  “I’d like to make an offer on it,” I said to Jody. “Can you list my parents’ house?”

  From then on I was caught up in a whirlwind of activity. I learned more than I ever wanted to know about real estate and mortgages and business loans. Nat introduced me to Sylvia Carruthers, who cheerfully bullied me into applying for a grant and agreeing to the Preservation Trust’s terms for maintaining the historic character of the building. I acquired the Dusenberry house several months before Stagecoach Road sold (that was a nervous time), and was able to move in at my leisure.

  I chose the south side of the upper floor, where the full bath was tucked behind what must have been two executive offices, for my suite. I brought only the items I most loved from home, along with those bits of my parents’ furniture that would be appropriate to the tearoom. The rest I sold, donated, or put into storage. It was painful in some ways, but also very liberating.

  At Nat’s suggestion I took a class in tea blending and a seminar on small business start-ups. I needed to learn much, much more, but Nat said there would be time for that, and she was right. Putting the tearoom together was rather like assembling a jigsaw puzzle, only the pieces were not all provided. I had to go and find them. It took more than a year, during which time I attended a seminar at the Specialty Tea Institute in Seattle and began, slowly, to feel like I might really be able to pull this thing off.

  It was expensive. I had to bring the kitchen up to commercial standards, without harming its historic character, and convert the neighboring room to a butler’s pantry. I painted the walls myself but had to buy furniture for the tea parlors, along with rugs and gauze curtains and drapes for colder days. Computer system and telephones and cash register for the gift shop. And the china!

  By that time Gina was home, and she and I had a grand time expanding my collection of beautiful teacups and saucers, teapots and milk and sugar sets, little silver teaspoons and tongs for sugar and lemon slices. We found a lot of things on Internet auctions, including some great bargains, but it all added up to a rather large chunk of change. And that was before hiring any staff or purchasing inventory and suppli
es. Suffice to say, I was motivated to make the tearoom a success.

  And now, after all that effort, the Wisteria Tearoom was in jeopardy. I glanced at the disarray in the dining parlor.

  My tearoom. My dream.

  I could have wept with frustration, but I didn’t want to slide back into the despair I’d felt after Dad died. I straightened my shoulders, carried my tray to the pantry, and began loading the dishes into the commercial dishwashing station. That little gem had been expensive, too.

  As I rinsed plates and cups with the high-power spray, I wondered if the sound could have drowned out any noises from the dining parlor. It pretty well drowned out the music, though there were no speakers in the kitchen.

  I paused, frowning at the Paragon cup in my hand, misty green with a medallion of poppies in the bottom. It had been Sylvia’s cup. Probably the last thing she’d drunk from.

  If only I hadn’t arranged that tea party. Poor Sylvia might still be alive if I hadn’t wanted to thank her.

  “Stop it, Ellen,” I said aloud. “You’ll make yourself crazy.”

  I finished stacking the dishes in the washer and carried the tray back to the dining parlor to fetch the rest. As I moved around the room collecting the last of the china and straightening the furniture, I pondered why would someone want to kill Sylvia Carruthers.

  She had been a generous soul, if a bit gruff. Her passion was history in all its forms, or so she had said. She certainly approached her work with the Preservation Trust with a passion. I remembered being carried along with it, rather overwhelmed by it, in fact. She didn’t let anything stand in the way of what she thought was right for a property that deserved preservation.

  Were there other matters on which she had the same determination? The usual reasons for murder were money, jealousy, lust. I couldn’t picture anyone lusting after Sylvia, but she had an attractive daughter. What if she was as protective of Donna as she was of her beloved historic properties?

  No, I’m not allowed to meddle in Mother’s good works.

  Donna Carruthers had said that in response to some polite question I’d asked at the tea. She was a foot taller than her mother, and I couldn’t remember having seen her smile. She had worn a tailored suit of beige linen to the tea, the antithesis of her mother’s Santa Fe Lady style.

  Donna and her mother hadn’t conversed together at the thank-you tea, now that I thought of it, though that could have been because they’d been seated at opposite ends of the table. Could Donna have killed her mother in order to escape her?

  Horrible, horrible thought. I rejected it, though a doubt whispered to me that it was possible. I didn’t know Donna. She might have hated her mother.

  Even if she didn’t, she might stand to inherit from Sylvia. Money was a common motive for murder.

  I didn’t like thinking this way. My instinct was to feel terribly sorry for Donna. I knew how painful it was to lose a parent, especially the second parent. Even if they hadn’t always seen eye to eye, there must still have been a deep connection between her and Sylvia.

  I returned to the dining parlor to collect the linens. As I did so I heard a small rattling sound on the floor. I set my tray down, bent to peer at the hardwood, and found a tiny, lemon-colored heishi bead up against the molding.

  Sylvia’s necklace. The police must have collected the beads, and missed this one. I picked it up, rolling it between my thumb and fingertip. It was no more than three millimeters long. Who would have thought such a tiny thing could be deadly? Not by itself, but along with hundreds, thousands of others….

  A necklace wasn’t the best choice of murder weapon. Nor was a busy tearoom the best choice of location. I looked up sharply, my gaze falling on a reproduction of Monet’s “Wisteria” that I had hung above the sideboard.

  The murder must have been an act of impulse. I wondered if Detective Aragón had thought of that.

  4

  I awoke with a start after a restless night. The light coming through the tiny gap in the curtains of my bedroom was faint, a pre-dawn blue-gray. I sat up, listening, and heard the sound of the back door downstairs being pushed shut. Its opening had awakened me.

  I pictured a faceless murderer creeping up the stairs to throttle me in my bed. A moment later the faint sound of salsa music dispelled that phantom. Julio was downstairs, gearing up to make his kitchen magic.

  “Oh, good. He came back.” As long as Julio stayed I had a shot at pulling the tearoom through this mess.

  Profoundly relieved, I got up, showered, and dressed, choosing a gray silk dress with long, full sleeves caught into wide cuffs at the wrist. As I descended the stairs the smell of sautéing onions wafted up to me, making my stomach growl in anticipation.

  “Good morning, Julio,” I said, entering the kitchen.

  “Morning, boss.”

  His pants today were burgundy with white pinstripes, with matching baker’s cap and a plain white t-shirt that would later be hidden by his chef’s jacket. It was the most subdued outfit I’d seen him wear yet. He scooped up a double handful of chopped mushrooms and dumped them into the skillet with the onions, raising a soft hiss.

  “Figured you could use a good breakfast today.”

  “That’s very thoughtful, thank you. Can I help with anything?”

  “Nah. You cleaned up last night, no?”

  “I needed to wind down.”

  He added chopped green chiles and chopped ham to the skillet, gave it a stir, then poured beaten eggs from a bowl into the pan for a frittata. My mouth started watering.

  “Went through a lot of coffee,” he said. “Have to order more soon.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “It can wait a couple days.”

  Meaning he had doubts about the tearoom’s survival. I wanted to say something rousing and hopeful, but I had my doubts, too. We both kept them to ourselves.

  Julio poured coffee into his mug, then lifted the pot, inquiring if I wanted some. I shook my head.

  “Tea for me. I’ll go make it.”

  “This’ll be ready in a few minutes,” he said, checking on the skillet.

  “I’ll be back.”

  By the time I returned with my pot of Irish Breakfast, Julio had set places for us both on the kitchen’s work table and dished up the frittata with warm flour tortillas on the side. I took a bite and sighed with pleasure at the buttery onions and mushrooms, salty ham, and the sharp bite of green chile.

  “Mmm, fantastic! Thank you, Julio.”

  “De nada. Get any sleep last night?”

  “Some. The police cleared out around eleven.”

  Julio tore off a piece of his tortilla. “Tony Aragón hasn’t changed much.”

  I looked up at him in surprise. “You know him?”

  “My sister dated him in school.”

  “Maria?” She was a friend of mine—we’d been in the same class—but I didn’t remember Detective Aragón from high school.

  He took a sip of coffee. “No, Anna, my oldest sister. He was a senior when she was a junior. I was just a punk sixth-grader. They went steady for a couple of months, but he was too hot-headed. Got jealous if she even looked at another guy.”

  “That’s believable.”

  “Got real bent out of shape when she gave him back his pin. I remember him standing out in the driveway yelling that she was a stuck-up faithless bitch. My dad finally had to chase him off.”

  “Wow.”

  “So be careful, okay? You don’t want to piss him off.”

  Julio’s dark eyes looked worried. I did my best to smile back.

  “Right. Thanks.”

  No problem, I thought. I probably couldn’t piss him off any more than I already had.

  I ate some more frittata, concentrating on savoring it. I prided myself on being a good cook, but Julio was a magician.

  A punk teenager, he’d surprised everyone who knew him by applying to a top culinary school in New York after barely graduating high school. Four years later he returned to San
ta Fe, degree in hand, just in time to make the cake for his sister Maria’s wedding.

  I was in the middle of remodeling the tearoom at the time. When I bumped into Julio at the reception, congratulated him on the cake, and expressed a wish I could serve a miniature version in my tearoom, he perked up with interest.

  Brand-new culinary graduates were a dime a dozen in Santa Fe; the best they could hope for was usually a sous-chef’s position. We chatted over cake and champagne, and quickly came to a mutually-satisfactory arrangement: he would come cook some samples for me, and if I liked them, he’d be the chef at my new tearoom. It was a risk for both of us, but also a great opportunity.

  Two days later he appeared at my tearoom with an armload of groceries, wearing a white chef’s coat and flaming red pants printed with multicolored tropical flowers, and a chef’s hat made from the same fabric.

  “Nice outfit,” I’d said, somewhat stunned.

  “It’s got hibiscus,” he’d said proudly, pointing at a bright pink blossom on one knee. “Ties into the tea theme.”

  He then proceeded to take over my kitchen for three hours, producing four kinds of savories, a tea bread, and three sweets, all amazing. He had to have spent the two intervening days studying tea food, because everything he created that day was absolutely appropriate, not to mention delicious. I’d hired him on the spot.

  I took another bite of my frittata and looked up at him. “Thanks for not quitting, Julio.”

  “Over this?” He scoffed. “I’ve seen worse.”

  No doubt he had. His family’s neighborhood was borderline, on the edge of rougher parts of town. They were good, decent people, and had struggled to stay that way.

  We finished our breakfast and I cleared away the dishes and built a fire in the kitchen fireplace by the work table, just for comfort, while Julio got started making scones. By then the sun was up, a pale, feeble glow through an overcast of cloud.

  The phone started ringing at seven o’clock. I let the machine answer, then went up to my office to check the message. The call was from a television reporter requesting an interview. I left it, not wanting to deal with it yet, though sooner or later I’d have to. Before I could stand up the phone rang again.