Murder with Lemon Tea Cakes Page 10

  “Let us open the doors for you. That will send the message.”

  “I don’t want to scare customers away.”

  “I think your customers will be glad you have order in here rather than reporters stuffing microphones in their faces like they’re doing out there.”

  When Daisy peered out the window, she saw that the reporters were doing exactly that. Anyone who approached the shop ended up being interviewed.

  “They’re going to drive all my customers away,” she complained.

  “Not if your customers want a scone badly enough or a good cup of tea. Howie?” Jonas called.

  And Howie was there, going to the garden door, his expression somber.

  “We’ll make sure your customers get in before the reporters do, and we’ll only let two reporters in at a time. We almost have to let them in because this is a public place.”

  Daisy nodded. “I just hate the idea of my customers being disturbed. This is supposed to be a serene, calm, pleasant experience.”

  “And it will be. Maybe not for the first hour or so, but it will be after that. These journalists just want a sound bite they can run on the news, then they’ll leave. Harvey’s murder will be old news in a few days, if not before that. It’s sad, but it’s true,” he said when he saw her expression.

  Daisy was about to rush to the counter to get ready when she stopped and turned back to Jonas. “I don’t know how to thank you for this.”

  “Just give me a rain check on a cup of your Daisy’s Blend tea.”

  She suddenly felt choked up by his kindness. So he wouldn’t see, she just waved her hand at him and went to join Iris behind the counter.

  Jonas and Howie were dressed in jeans and flannel shirts like everyday people. Yet something about their bearing was different from your normal man on the street, and everyone seemed to sense that. The two men appeared to wear a mantle of authority on their broad shoulders. It was evident in their straight posture and their no-nonsense bearing.

  In spite of what Daisy had thought about the reporters chasing her customers away, that didn’t happen. It seemed the reporters being there attracted even more customers. Her staff couldn’t seat everyone who appeared for a cup of tea and a cookie or scone. When the usual eat-in area as well as the afternoon tea room were both filled, the customers seemed to understand. They took along takeout, expressing an interest in coming back again when the tea garden was less crowded.

  Fortunately, Daisy had extra scones and cookies stored in the freezer. When she saw how fast her supply was being depleted, she pulled them out. By eleven o’clock, they were almost out of baked goods. Tessa and Iris mixed up more batter, with Eva assisting, while Daisy, Cora Sue, and Karina handled the front. Security became less and less a concern. Even Howie and Jonas helped carry trays to the tables. It was almost funny, really, to see these burly men serving tea.

  By noon, Daisy was ready with the luncheon selections, including beef barley soup, smoked salmon and cream cheese sandwiches, and carrot-grape-walnut salad. Her luncheon selections were similar to what she served with an afternoon tea service. Fortunately, this wasn’t an afternoon tea service day. They never could have kept up. In fact, if business increased, and she was hopeful it might, now that more people had tasted what she had to offer, she’d have to hire more help. She felt guilty that she was profiting from Harvey’s death.

  It was almost two o’clock when the surge in business abated. Daisy had insisted Iris stay in the kitchen or behind the counter so she wouldn’t run into a reporter asking an impertinent question. Most of all, she didn’t have to deal with serving out in the garden area. That would still be traumatic for her.

  With the afternoon business quieting, she thanked Jonas and Howie profusely. She could handle whatever happened next, she hoped.

  After handing both men a bag filled with cookies and scones as well as a container of beef barley soup, she added, “The two of you can have a free cup of tea anytime you’d like. Just come in and ask.” Then she focused on Howie. “You will taste tea one of these days, won’t you? I can brew you up something really strong instead of fruity.”

  Howie smiled. “We’ll see. Come summer I might be able to handle iced tea.”

  She laughed. “It’s a deal.”

  As the men left the front porch, Howie went east, and Jonas went west toward his store. Daisy watched the way he walked and the tilt of his head. As the wind tossed his black hair, he didn’t seem to care. There was nothing pretentious about Jonas, and she liked that.

  She was thinking again about how easily he’d stepped in to help, how he’d called in reinforcements, when the door dinged and a new customer stepped over the threshold. Daisy had never seen the man before. He was about five foot nine or ten with pocked cheeks as though he’d had acne as a youth and hadn’t had it treated. His gray hair was a bit wispy, and his wire-rimmed glasses were an outdated style. He was wearing a tweed sports jacket with suede patches on the elbows. Since he was overweight by twenty to thirty pounds, it hung open.

  He glanced around the tea garden, then strode to the garden door and looked outside. He didn’t push the door open.

  “Excuse me, sir,” Daisy said. “Can I help you?”

  “It’s hard to imagine a murder happened in a place that’s so serene. In your garden, right?”

  What to do? She could be firm and ask him to leave if he was just another lookie-loo. If he was a journalist, she’d definitely ask him to leave. On the other hand, if he was a curiosity seeker who wanted a cup of tea . . .

  She decided to be tactful and gain a customer instead of losing one.

  “The garden is one of my favorite places. I don’t know how long it will take to get over what happened there,” she confessed.

  Now the man faced her instead of the garden and came toward her. “I can’t believe Harvey’s gone.”

  Apparently, this wasn’t a journalist or even a lookie-loo. He seemed to be genuinely sad that he’d lost someone he’d known. Just how well had he known Harvey Fitz?

  “Would you like to sit down?” Daisy asked.

  The man nodded. Then as if he were emerging from a great fog, he said, “Excuse my bad manners. My name is Guy Tremont.”

  Daisy extended her hand. “Daisy Swanson.”

  “You own the place.”

  “My aunt and I own the place. Is there anything I can get you?”

  He lowered himself heavily into a chair at a table for two and picked up a menu that had been forgotten there. “Do you still have soup? I missed lunch, and a couple of those lemon tea cakes Harvey talked so much about would hit the right spot too.”

  “Tea?” Daisy asked.

  Guy Tremont gave her a weak smile. “I’m a black coffee or Scotch man. Harvey kept telling me I should try tea. I did that day you had confections in his store. It wasn’t bad.”

  Daisy bit back a wry smile. “What kind did you have?”

  “Something with pomegranate, I think.”

  When Daisy looked up at her aunt, Iris raised her hand and said, “I got the order—soup, lemon tea cakes, and pomegranate green tea. It will be there in five.”

  Iris could see that Daisy was maybe cultivating a customer, or maybe digging further into the investigation of Harvey’s murder. Who knew? Not knowing what else to say, she started where the conversation had begun.

  “Did you come to see where Harvey died?”

  “Actually, I did. His funeral is Wednesday, and I just don’t think I can go.”

  “I’ll be there with my aunt. It will be a sad day for her too.”

  Guy looked over at Iris and then lowered his voice. “I’ve never met your aunt, but Harvey told me about her. He even told me that when his divorce was final, he was going to change his life and do it with Iris.”

  “It’s good to know Harvey’s intentions were pure.”

  “Harvey respected your aunt, Daisy. May I call you Daisy?”

  “Sure you can, if I can call you Guy.”

 
“A pretty young woman like you can call me almost anything you want.” Then he flushed a bit. “That wasn’t a come-on.”

  “I didn’t take it as one, Guy. Thank you.” Since they had a bit of time before his order arrived, she asked, “So you and Harvey were good friends?”

  “We were, as good as men friends get, I guess. We didn’t talk much about private matters the first years we knew each other. Harvey just came to see me when he wanted to buy coins. But then, year by year, you see somebody a few times and you start to talk about other things. Suddenly one night a few years ago, Harvey asked if I wanted to come over to Men’s Trends for a drink, and I did. He had a great selection of liquor in the back room of the store. Not many people knew about that.”

  “So you think he drank alone a lot?”

  “I think he drank alone a lot until he decided to file for divorce. Then he developed a penchant for tea. When you and your aunt opened this place, he became even more of a connoisseur.”

  “I heard that Harvey had an extensive coin collection.”

  Just then Tessa appeared from the kitchen with a tray. It held a vintage two-cup teapot, a cup and saucer, a bowl of soup, and three lemon tea cakes. She arranged it all on the table in front of Guy, adding silverware wrapped in a napkin as well as a small plate of lemon slices and a miniature creamer.

  Guy waved at the place setting. “Is this how you serve everyone . . . with this fancy china?” He pointed to the plate with the lemon slices. “My mother had a dish like that—that light pink, clear glass. Depression glass I think it was called.”

  “That’s what it is,” Daisy said. “I love the color pink. Since so many of our teapots have pink flowers, those dishes go with all of them.”

  Tessa asked him, “The tea is ready to pour. Would you like me to do it?”

  “Go right ahead,” he said with a smile, seemingly liking the idea of being served this way. Daisy wondered if he had many niceties in his life, or someone to serve him once in a while simply because they cared about him.

  After Tessa departed, Daisy let Guy concentrate on his soup.

  “This is good,” he determined. “No wonder Harvey came in here so often.”

  “Tell me more about Harvey and his coins.”

  Tremont didn’t hesitate. “The coin collection was a family tradition. That’s why it was so important to him. Harvey’s grandfather handed down a collection to his dad, and his dad left it to Harvey. Harvey added to it, and I think he would have done anything to protect it. That’s why he gave his mansion to his wife, so he didn’t have to sell the collection or split it.”

  A mansion versus a coin collection. Wow. They were talking about money Daisy could only imagine.

  “So how much would this coin collection be worth?” she asked. “If you can say.”

  “I’m discreet. But I don’t have confidentiality agreements with my clients and . . . Harvey’s dead. The amount of the collection will come out soon anyway, I suppose. I appraised it for him just a few months ago. It’s worth nearly six hundred thousand dollars.”

  When Daisy glanced over at the counter, her gaze met her aunt’s. Iris’s eyes had gone wide, and she looked a little pale. Had Aunt Iris just realized who she would be marrying if she had married Harvey Fitz? And how rich she would have become as his wife?

  Chapter Nine

  Daisy had served the last customer for the day. She’d been more than ready to turn around the CLOSED sign on the door when she spotted Jonas coming up the sidewalk.

  “Dead on your feet?” he asked as he reached the door. Then he amended, “Sorry. Poor choice of words. Rough day?”

  “It was an interesting day in many ways. Do you want a cup of tea?”

  “Are you sure you wouldn’t rather close the door, clean up, and put your feet up?”

  “Maybe. But a cup of tea will fortify me for the evening. Come on.”

  “Are you alone?” he asked, surprised.

  “Everyone else was beat too. Cora Sue, Eva, and Karina stayed beyond their shift to help. I sent Iris home a few minutes ago, and Tessa went upstairs. I’ve already swept the floors. I just have to grab my keys and lock up. I’m picking up Jazzi at Mom’s. How about an orthodox tea from Nepal? I also baked blond brownies for something new. Do you want to taste test them?”

  “Tea from Nepal sounds sophisticated, and I’ll taste test any time. When did you have time to try a new recipe?”

  “The flow of customers slowed down around two. We kept baking because we didn’t know if we’d run out. The cookies and brownies freeze well, so we can pull them out whenever we need extra. I’ll put a kettle on.”

  “Is there anything I can do to help?”

  She could see Jonas didn’t like to be idle, and she understood that. “Sure. You can fill the tea infuser while I cut the brownies.”

  “You’ll let me into your kitchen?”

  “I’ll let anyone into my kitchen who wants to help.”

  He laughed. “I’d say that’s a good philosophy. Jazzi didn’t come at all today?”

  “I dropped her off at Mom’s this morning so she could attend church with them.”

  “How’s she reacting to everything that happened?”

  Daisy thought about Jazzi’s confusion over the idea of murder so close to home and her concern over her great-aunt’s sadness. Daisy considered again how she’d promised to help her daughter find her birth parents. They’d need help if they were serious about finding them. Was Jonas the person to ask for help?

  She put that thought aside for the moment. “Harvey’s murder shocked her. Thank goodness, she wasn’t here when it happened. She understands how sad Iris is, but she didn’t know Harvey.”

  She told Jonas which cupboard held the tea tins for the Nepal tea. He took it down, found a spoon in a drawer, and asked, “How many teaspoons?”

  “Do you think you’ll have one cup or two?”

  “Maybe two, if there’s time.”

  “I’ll use the four-cup teapot. For that tea, measure eight teaspoons. It will have to steep for five minutes.”

  For the next few minutes, Daisy readied a plate with brownies, while Jonas filled the tea infuser. Her teakettle had signaled that the water was ready, and she poured it over the tea. Then she put the lid on the infuser and the James Sandler teapot with pink rosebuds decorating the cream porcelain.

  She carried the teapot to one of the tables near the counter, and Jonas brought the brownies. They sat across from each other, and Daisy suddenly felt . . . unnerved, maybe because she hadn’t been alone with Jonas often. In the silence of the tea garden, she was so aware of him—of the way his black hair dipped over his brow line. There were lines around his eyes from squinting into the sun, laughing, or frowning. She didn’t know him well enough to know which. Again, she noticed the scar on his left cheekbone that was about an inch long and looked as if it might have been left after stitches. But his face was so interesting that it didn’t stand out . . . not for her at least. She suddenly realized his green eyes were studying her just as hard as she was studying him.

  He cleared his throat, crossed his arms on the table, and asked, “So you think you might have done triple your business today?”

  “Easily. I’m sure that won’t keep up.”

  Jonas shrugged. “Hard to know. The tea garden could make some tourist list, and if it mentions the murder, you could get curiosity seekers.”

  “I want to think that business is business, but I do hate getting it this way.”

  “Customers won’t return unless they like your tea and baked goods. If they come back, you know you’re doing something right.”

  “I did have a new customer today whom I talked to for a little while. He was a friend of Harvey’s.”

  Jonas’s brows arched, and he looked interested. “Did you talk to him long?”

  “Long enough to learn interesting facts.” As soon as she said it, she was afraid she’d hear some kind of warning from Jonas. Stay away from the investigation
. But he didn’t say that.

  Instead he asked, “How did he know Harvey?”

  “His name is Guy Tremont. He has a shop—Loose Change. He buys and sells coins. He filled me in on Harvey’s history. Apparently, Harvey’s grandfather built a collection and handed it down to his son, and then it went to Harvey. It was a family tradition and much cherished, from the way Mr. Tremont spoke of it. It seems that Harvey valued that coin collection more than his mansion, because in the divorce settlement, Monica would get the mansion and he would get the collection. Guy Tremont said it was worth six hundred thousand dollars.”

  Jonas whistled. “That’s some collection.”

  “If they’ve been collecting for decades, imagine what’s in it,” Daisy mused. “I suspect there would be coins with historic value, coins with mint condition value, proof coins. And possibly gold coins. I wonder where the coin collection is now?”

  “My best guess is that it’s with Harvey’s lawyer or in a safe deposit box. I can’t imagine Harvey would leave something like that lying around, unless of course he had a safe in his condo.”

  “I’ll have to ask Aunt Iris. Maybe she knows.”

  “Your aunt was too busy this morning for me to observe her demeanor for very long, but how’s she doing in quieter moments?”

  Jonas sounded as if he might know what it was like to grieve in quieter moments. Daisy knew what it was like. Those were the tough times—when no one was around, when lethargy set in, when thinking time was the darkest.

  “Since she’s staying with my mom and dad, she has someone to talk to whenever she needs to. Though my mother isn’t sympathetic about Aunt Iris’s relationship with Harvey since he wasn’t divorced. The funeral is going to be really hard for Iris.”

  “I heard it’s on Wednesday.”