Gunpowder Green

“Tea?” offered Drayton as he approached Tidwell with a freshly brewed pot of Kandoli Garden Assam.

Tidwell lowered himself into a chair and nodded. “Thank you. Yes.”

Drayton poured a cup of tea, then stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Perhaps I’m being presumptuous, Detective Tidwell, but you look like a man who might possibly be in need of a Devonshire split.”

Tidwell’s beady eyes gleamed with anticipation. “Pray tell, what is a Devonshire split?”

“A traditional little English sweet bun that we serve with strawberry jam. Of course, if we were in England’s lake country, we would also serve it with clotted cream.”

“Pretend that we are,” Tidwell said. “Especially in light of this hideous wet weather.”

Slipping into the chair across from Tidwell, Theodosia studied the man carefully. Tidwell had obviously come here bearing some type of information. Would he be forthright in telling her what was on his mind? Of course not. That wasn’t Tidwell’s style. He preferred to play his own maddening little games.

But today Tidwell surprised Theodosia. For, once his pastry and accompaniments arrived, he became quite talkative.

“We’ve finished most of our ballistics tests,” he told her. “Regretfully, nothing’s jumped out at us.” Tidwell sliced his Devonshire split in half, peered at it expectantly. “At first we thought the bullets in the pistol might have been dumdums.”

“What exactly are dumdums?” asked Theodosia. She’d heard the term before, but had no idea what dumdums really were.

“A nasty little trick that originated in India,” said Tidwell as he lathered clotted cream onto his pastry. “Put succinctly, dumdums are expanding bullets. When they impact something, they expand.”

“And you thought these tricky little bullets might have impacted Oliver Dixon’s head?” she said.

“Well, not exactly,” said Tidwell. “The pistol would have to have been pointed directly at him for that to occur. And from everything we know, from interviews with fairly reliable people, Oliver Dixon was holding the pistol at shoulder level and pointing it up into the air. If it had been loaded with dumdums, they could have exploded and dealt a fatal wound, but something would’ve been needed to make them explode.”

“So your tests revealed nothing,” said Theodosia.

Tidwell took a sip of tea and set his tea cup down with a gentle clink. “Let’s just say our tests were inconclusive.”

“What about Oliver Dixon’s jacket?” asked Theodosia. “I would imagine you ran forensic tests on that?”

Tidwell sighed. “Spatters of blood, type B positive, which is somewhat rare, maybe only ten percent of the population. Definitely belonging to Oliver Dixon, though; we checked it against his medical records. On the sleeves and jacket front, residue from Charleston Harbor showing a high nutrient concentration and a low N-P ratio. And a small amount of imbedded dirt. Probably from the shore.”

Theodosia thought about the blood-spattered, dirt-smeared linen tablecloth that now resided in Professor Morrow’s botany lab. “Probably,” she agreed, trying to keep any sign of nervousness from her voice. If Tidwell knew what she was up to, she’d be in deep trouble, and the tablecloth would undoubtedly be confiscated by the police.

They both fell silent as the front door opened with a whoosh and two couples, obviously tourists, pushed their way in.

“Can we get some coffee and muffins?” asked one of the men. He wore a yellow slicker and spoke with a Midwesterner’s flat accent.

Theodosia was up and out of her chair in a heartbeat. “How about tea and blackberry scones?” she invited. “Or a plate of lemon tarts?”

“Tea,” mused the man. He turned to the rest of his party, who were all nodding agreeably, pulling off wet outerwear and settling into chairs. “Why not,” he said, “as long as it’s hot and strong.”

Tidwell sat at his table, happily sipping tea and eating his pastry while Theodosia and Drayton quickly served the new customers.

Like many tourists who wandered into the Indigo Tea Shop, they seemed eager to embrace what would be a new experience for them.

On the other hand, Theodosia had to remind herself that, after water, tea was the most popular drink in the world, a much-loved, long-established beverage that had been around almost 5,000 years. Sipped, savored, or tossed back hastily, the peoples of the world consumed more than 700 billion cups of tea in a single year.

“Detective Tidwell.” Theodosia put her hands on the back of one of the creaky, wooden chairs and leaned toward him. “Do you remember the fellow who was involved in the terrible scene at Oliver Dixon’s funeral the day before yesterday?”

“You mean Booth Crowley?” he asked.

“No, I mean Billy Manolo,” she said. Do not allow him to fluster you, she cautioned herself. The man is obstinate only because he relishes it as great sport.

“You realize that Billy Manolo works at the yacht club,” she said. “He had access to the pistol.”

“Of course he did,” said Tidwell. “In fact, his fingertips were found on the rosewood box that the pistol was kept in.”

“What do you make of that?” asked Theodosia.

Tidwell shrugged. “A half-dozen other sets of fingerprints were also found on that box.” “Was Ford Cantrell’s among them?” she asked. “Do you really think Ford Cantrell would be foolish

enough to leave his prints on the box if, in fact, he tampered with the pistol?” asked Tidwell. He picked up a silver spoon, scooped up yet another lump of sugar, and plunked it into his teacup.

Theodosia stared at Tidwell. He has a unique talent for deflecting questions, she decided. And answering questions with another question designed to throw you slightly off track.

“I take it you have elevated Billy Manolo to suspect status?” said Tidwell.

“The notion of Billy as suspect is not without basis,” said Theodosia.

Tidwell shook his great head slowly. “Doubtful. Highly doubtful. Billy Manolo seems like a troublemaker, I’ll grant you that. And he has a past history of being involved in petty thievery and nefarious dealings. But is our Billy cool enough, calculating enough, to plan and execute a murder? In front of two hundred people? I hardly see even a flash of that type of required brilliance. I fear Billy Manolo exhibits only limited capacity.”

Theodosia knew what was coming and steeled herself for it. She had sent Tidwell careening down this path, and she regretted it mightily. To make matters worse, her commitment to Lizbeth Cantrell felt pitifully hollow, as though there wasn’t a prayer in the world that her brother’s name could be cleared.

“Ford Cantrell, on the other hand, is a man with a grudge,” continued Tidwell. “A man who manufacturers his own munitions. Yes,” Tidwell reiterated when he saw Theodosia’s eyes go large, “Ford Cantrell makes a hobby of packing gunpowder into his own cartridges. If anyone knew how to rig that old pistol to explode, it would be someone with the critical knowledge that Ford Cantrell possesses. I am confident of a forthcoming arrest.”

Chapter 18

Alone tern rode the crazed thermals, wheeling high above the yacht club where J-24s, Columbias, and San Jose 25s creaked up against silvered wooden pilings and tugged at their moorings as they pitched about in the roiling sea. The only sound, save the howling wind, was a sputtering bilge pump, somewhere out on the end of the long main pier.

Nobody home, thought Theodosia as she cinched her trench coat tighter about her and stepped onto the pier. In some places, the weather-beaten boards had two-inch gaps between them, so she had to really watch her footing. There didn’t appear to be anybody on this long, wet pier today, and the water looked cold and unforgiving. A misstep was unthinkable.

She’d first tried the door to the clubhouse and found that locked. Even pounding on the door and punching the doorbell hadn’t roused anyone. It was conceivable no one was here at all, that Billy Manolo didn’t work on Saturday or hadn’t come in because of bad weather or might be planning to show up later.

Theodosia did hold out a faint hope that someone might be hunkered down on the sailboat at the far end of