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

it sure was clean. Almost
too
clean! Like a hospital. That was Laverne Hodge’s doing. She was a hard worker, that one, not like Gilda. Maybe Thelma could steal Laverne away from Rose. She grinned. Wouldn’t that just be the cat’s pajamas, to be able to steal Laverne Hodge away from Rose Freemont!
    What would it take, she wondered?
    “Ma’am?”
    “Oh, right. Give me a moment.” Now, what did she want to tell them?
    “Ma’am, all I want is your account of what happened at the engagement tea for Miss Peterson!” the detective said loudly. She wasn’t hiding any smile now; she looked as grim as a Bible-thumper in a casino.
    “Well, now, you don’t have to raise your voice,” she said. Why were folks so impatient? Nobody had time anymore for—
    “Ma’am!”
    “Okay, keep your knickers on. Let’s see . . . that snoot, Vivienne, suggested I have that darn tea party, but then she got all in a tizzy about something, all worked up about money and worrying about her precious Francis, and . . . well, anyway, Cissy is my only granddaughter and if I can’t have a tea for her then who can? But that Vivienne had the nerve to say—”
    “Mrs. Earnshaw, just today, okay?” Wally passed one hand over his eyes, like he had a headache or something. “Detective Morris wants to know exactly what happened starting from the preparations today for the tea to the moment when Mrs. Whittaker became ill.”
    “Why didn’t you say so? If folks would just say plain what they want, I wouldn’t have to go through so much trouble all the time.”
    He drummed his fingers on the table, but then the detective woman cast him an irritated look, and he stopped.
    “Mrs. Earnshaw,” the detective said, her tone gentle now. “I can only imagine how upsetting this had been for you. I’m sure it will really help things along if we solve this quickly.”
    Now that made sense! Thelma told her most of what happened as Wally scratched down notes. But only most; a little trimming here and there was necessary, right? She wasn’t about to tell them anything that made her or her establishment look bad. That would get all over town in a hurry, then no one would come! And she loved her business. It was going to be so much better, too, once she had a chance to use the million ideas she had gotten just from coming over to Auntie Rose’s. Belle Époque was going to beat it hands down this summer.
    She added a few choice words about Rose Freemont and Auntie Rose’s Victorian Tea House, and how jealous Rose had always had been. She may have embellished just a little bit, and she may even have told a fib or two. But it sure did feel good to complain, for once, to people who were listening instead of to those with their ears closed, like Gilda and Cissy.
    Once she was done, the detective seemed satisfied enough, though Wally kept giving her that fishy-eyed stare she remembered so well from his father, and, come to think of it, Florence Whittaker! Two of a kind, those siblings were, Wally’s papa and Florence Bowman, as she was then, Florence Whittaker now. Not like Cissy and Phil; now those two were as different as chalk and cheese.
    “Okay, ma’am, you can go back to the tearoom,” Detective Morris said.
    “Back to Belle Époque? Good. See what kind of mess your people made, and let me tell you—”
    “No, ma’am, not there yet,” Wally said. “Just back out to Mrs. Freemont’s tearoom. And send Cissy in, if you would.”
    She harrumphed. “Well, you could have said that. Auntie Rose’s is not the
only
tearoom in town, you know, though some people act like it is.” As she limped back out to the tearoom—her hip was giving her trouble today, probably all the work she had done to get ready for the ruined engagement party—she eyed the folks out there as she passed each table, moving toward one near the door.
    It was clear as a bell to her that Wally and the rest of the police believed Vivienne Whittaker was done in. It was no