Free Murder After a Fashion by Grace Carroll

It turns out I was almost right. But it wasn’t gardenia, it was rose hips. Nick smiled proudly, and even the tea lady was impressed I’d come so close. She brought out two more for us to taste. A high-quality white tea and a long-leafed green tea on the sweet side. I loved them both.
    “Your friend has good taste,” the hostess told Nick.
    I reveled in the compliment. After the day I’d been through, I didn’t mind hearing even more good words than those I’d heard at the hospital tonight.
    “High-quality tea at a high price,” she told us. “But worth every penny. These are teas you will not find anywhere outside China except for here.”
    “Delicious,” I said. “I have to have some to take home.” I bought a couple of tins, which I’d save for special occasions or maybe gifts, although I thought I deserved those teas more than anyone I knew who might be just as happy with something off the shelf.
    “Would you like to have your tea leaves read?” the hostess asked us.
    “You mean to predict the future?” I asked. I didn’t believe in that voodoo. It was the kind of thing Meera would do. I said, “No thanks.” But out of nowhere a woman wearing a long gown and a veil appeared at our table.
    “I am your seer,” she said.
    Uh-oh, a seer might tell me things I didn’t want to know. But I was strong. I was good at acting. I would listen attentively but not take anything she said seriously. I had enough to worry about.

I thought I said, “We don’t want a seer,” but I’m not sure because she pulled up a chair to our table and began peering into our teacups. She paid no attention to Nick but told me to swirl my tea around in the cup. Then she said I should concentrate on my future destiny. As if I didn’t do that all day long.
    “The cup is divided into three parts,” she said. “The rim represents the present, the sides are the near future and the bottom the distant future.”
    I looked into my cup pretending to be interested, pretending that I believed whatever she said and wishing we’d left after we finished our tea. Nick was gazing into the leaves in his cup, and I wanted to say, “Tell his future if you want, but leave me out of this.”
    As if the woman sensed my lack of belief, she said, “Don’t worry, inthis cup I see that good fortune outweighs the bad.”
    “That’s a relief,” I said. “I could use some good fortune.”
    “You will find love and happiness,” she assured me, tilting the cup back and forth. “I see a marriage here. Possibly your own.” She looked up at me to see how I took this news. I tried to assume a positive expression. But really. First a vampire and now a fortune-teller. Did I have “gullible” written on my forehead?
    “But first,” she continued, “you must spend time alone.”
    “Alone?” I asked. She didn’t mean that small prison cell from my dream, did she?
    “Not for long. You will have company in a few months or perhaps years, I am not sure.”
    “Thank you,” I said. I’d heard enough. I’d have more nightmares tonight for sure. “And now I really must go. Thank you, Nick. It’s getting late.” I was not in the mood to be told I was going to prison for killing Guido or for anything for that matter. I loved the tea, but the last part of the tasting left a bitter taste in my mouth.
    If Nick was surprised by my cool behavior toward the tea-leaf reader, he didn’t let on. We left and he walked me to my bus stop because he said his car was in the garage. Saying nothing about the seer, he asked if all the caffeine from the tea would keep me up at night. I didn’t tell him that I had plenty to keep me up at night, like worrying who killed my cooking teacher. But I did take the opportunity while we waited for my bus to casually ask how his aunt was.
    “But you have recently seen her more often than myself,” he said in his charming Romanian accent.
    “Yes, I saw her last evening. She appeared unexpectedlyto surprise me at the bar