Free Tempest in a Teapot (A Teapot Collector Mystery) by Amanda Cooper Page A

some questions. We need to figure out what happened and when. Mrs. Earnshaw, since it’s your place, we’ll take you first.”
    “You want to use my kitchen, Wally?” Nana asked.
    “I was hoping you’d say that, Mrs. Freemont. I already showed the detective in there.” He took Thelma Mae’s arm, helping her out of the tearoom toward the back.
    • • •
    T hey were going to try to pin it all on her, Thelma Mae thought, busily taking in every detail of the spotless kitchen beyond Auntie Rose’s Victorian Tea House as she lagged, making Wally haul her along step by step. Gilda had to go and open her big fat mouth when all Thelma had been doing was pointing out that she
herself
was not the one who cooked the food. Besides, everyone knew the “best before” date on food was just a guideline, not a hard-and-fast rule! She had been doing the same thing for years and never made anyone sick. That she knew of. Yet.
    That woman’s red face and wide-eyed stare were going to haunt her for some time to come. Maybe—just maybe—she’d stop buying past-date chicken and produce. Not that she believed it was her fault, but it could be her bargain with God; he’d get her out of this mess, and she’d stop trying to cut so many corners. She muttered a quick prayer that nothing she had done had caused Vivienne Whittaker’s death.
    She eyed the detective, a woman, older and with craggy features, some wrinkles around the eyes and mouth. Who was she? Did Thelma know her people? Or was she new in town, one of those feminists come to take jobs away from Gracious Grove men? Women should not take jobs from men; it wasn’t right.
    Take Wally Bowman, for example . . . now, how old was Wally? Just a year older than Cissy, so thirty. He had grown up, though. He wasn’t broad shouldered and big bellied like his daddy, Florence’s brother; instead he was slim and tall, kinda gangly. Shouldn’t he be the detective and the woman the officer? Or maybe she should be a meter maid, like they had back in the old days.
    As Wally guided her to a seat opposite the detective at the little table in the corner, where Laverne Hodge and Gilda sometimes sat to have their morning coffee (both employees chattering like magpies, exchanging all kind of secrets, probably), Thelma Mae had a few seconds to think about what she would tell them. Not everything. Oh, no, certainly not everything. Not about the booze Phil had stored in her stockroom, nor about how that boy kept at it, trying to turn dry Gracious Grove into party central, as he called it. Nor her fears about Cissy marrying Francis Whittaker. Everyone kept congratulating her: “Such a successful boy!” “Such a good match!” “Cissy will be well taken care of; those Whittakers sure know how to make money.”
    And
how to lose it, Thelma Mae thought, her foreboding about the marriage clouding everything else. Ever since Cassandra, Cissy’s mother, died fourteen years ago . . . was it fourteen years already? No, not quite. Thirteen and a half or so. Since then Thelma Mae had done nothing but worry about her only granddaughter, and now to have her marry into
that family
!
    “Mrs. Earnshaw!” Wally Bowman said loudly.
    “All right, Wally, you don’t need to shout,” she said, eyeing him with irritation. Why were young people all so loud? She wasn’t hard of hearing, no matter what Gilda hinted.
    “You haven’t answered Detective Morris, so I just thought you didn’t hear the question,” he said.
    “Question? Nobody’s asked me anything yet. How can I answer if you haven’t asked anything?”
    He sighed and compressed his lips, then said, slowly and clearly, “Ma’am, please listen carefully.”
    The woman, supposedly a detective, looked like she was going to smile, but instead said, “Mrs. Earnshaw, can you tell me in your own words what happened?”
    “Well, now, who else’s words would I use? Stupidest thing I ever heard.” She let her gaze drift over the kitchen. My,