The Lavender Teacup Read online

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  Chapter 31

  Chapter 32

  * * * * *

  For Steve and Lynda.

  As always, a big thank-you to Cousin Kiki.

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names, places and events are products of the author’s imagination. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  The Lavender Teacup

  Copyright © 2018 by Moebooks

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced or used in any way without the express written permission of the author.

  Cover photograph by Mary Bowers

  Cover art by Custom Covers, www.coverkicks.com

  * * * * *

  Chapter 1

  “If you insist,” the man said nervously. “I was hoping you could make your assessment by simply viewing it through the glass door. Really, I don’t like this at all, but if you insist. Stand back, if you please. I’ll unlock the cabinet.”

  He did so, using a tiny key that hung around his neck on a chain. The glass doors of the large, fragile-looking cabinet were set in cream-painted woodwork, and the tiny lock was a simple one, where a little slide-bolt lifted as you turned the key. The woodwork framing the glass panels was curved and scrolled, and highlighted with thin lines of gilding, partially worn away. Glass panels curved to form the corners, seeming to bulge around the woodwork and giving the cabinet as a whole the look of a caged bubble.

  The little man who unlocked it was just about the same height as the cabinet itself, a few inches over five feet, and about one-tenth its width. As the years had taken him into the last decade of his life, they had remolded his youthful slenderness into a leathery wiriness and knotted his sensitive hands with bulging veins and joints.

  Inside the old china cabinet were five or six glass shelves, and the display area was backed by a mirror, giving front-and-back views of the delicacies inside. Leaving the key in the lock, the little man took hold of the brass knobs of the doors and slowly pulled, spreading his arms apart as he opened the doors. Then he stepped back.

  Suddenly, as the other man moved a hand forward, the little man cried, “NO! I do apologize for startling you, doctor, but I must caution you NOT to touch it.”

  Edson Darby-Deaver, PhD., skeptical paranormal investigator, on location in Key West to shoot another electrifying episode of the reality show, Haunt or Hoax? shuddered back at the vehemence of the warning. By no means a large man, Ed was still four or five inches taller than the man beside him. Though he was younger by nearly two decades, age would wreak the same effects on him eventually, since he was built just the same: slim and small-boned.

  He angled his head downward to give the antique shop proprietor a sidelong look, then eased his face forward again, gazing into the display case. They were the only two living souls in the shop, which wasn’t due to open for nearly half an hour yet. Ed forced himself to calm down and observe; there was no hurry.

  “It looks normal,” he said analytically. “Of course, I have no psychic abilities.”

  Oswald Grist gave him a scandalized look. “Isn’t that a problem, in your line of work? I would think that might even bar you from the profession.”

  “No, no,” said Ed, angling his head incrementally to the right as he continued to stare into the cabinet. “It’s an asset. I never get carried away. I never see things that aren’t there, as so many of my colleagues are prone to do. Sadly prone.” What he was really thinking was “scandalously prone,” but Ed never gossiped about his colleagues with paranormal outsiders. They were all too apt to believe the worst about Ed’s milieu as it was.

  “But,” Oswald said, with a nervous glance at Ed’s profile, “are you sure you’re seeing all the things that are there?”

  Ed withdrew his gaze from the object under study and spared a glance for Oswald. “Interesting question. I have often wondered, often hoped. But no, I’m sure I don’t. And so, I rely on experts. May I take photographs?”

  Oswald inhaled sharply. He considered. “No one ever has. Maryellen – she’s a friend of mine – is putting a lot of pressure on me to allow her to do a painting of it, of all things, and I’m doing my best to talk her out of it. If we weren’t such good friends, I’d never even consider it, but the idea has gripped her – I’ve never seen anything like it, and I’ve known Maryellen since we were children – it’s absolutely gripped her, and she’s determined. Maryellen,” he added with gentle regret, “has a much stronger will than my own.”

  “You use the word ‘gripped,’” Ed said pensively. “You come perilously close to the word ‘possessed.’ Hmm. Yes. I’d like to meet this Maryellen.”

  Eager at the suggestion, Oswald said, “Yes! I think that would be an excellent idea. As one experienced in the dangers of these arcane matters, perhaps you could talk some sense into her. She wants the thing in her house! On loan, of course. I no longer permit it to be sold.”

  Ed lifted his camera suggestively.

  “Oh, well, I suppose you can risk a photograph,” Oswald said. He retrieved a large red bandana from one of his pockets and wiped a dusty streak across his forehead before putting it away again. Then he sneezed. The whole pantomime was done while he directed his worried gaze into the cabinet and continued to talk out of the side of his mouth at Ed. He watched the objects in the case warily, as if they might leap out at him. “After all, you are a professional. But don’t tell Maryellen. She’s planning on using her painting for the cover of her next book, A Cup of Death. Are you going to write a book on it?” he asked as the thought struck him.

  “I have to make an assessment first, and have it evaluated by a psychic.” Ed snapped a picture, then moved slightly and took another, then another.

  “Well, if you do, don’t put a photograph of it on the cover!” Oswald said. “Maryellen would be furious with me.”

  “Is she doing a treatise on the possessed objects of Key West, or just this single artifact?” Ed asked without looking at Oswald. He took another picture from another angle, then let go of the camera and lifted an electronic meter and moved it toward the object. “Non-fiction?”

  “Murder mystery,” Oswald said. “Cozy. You know, the nice kind. Tea and crumpets and mayhem, but nothing, er, disturbing, and always a charming little romance. Young lovers at the crossroads, the odds stacked against them, everybody except for the Other Woman rooting for them, and you can always strike them off the suspect list immediately because neither one of them will be the killer; they have to get together for the happy ending. It’s the one flaw in her plotting, but Maryellen can’t help herself. She must have her young lovers. You’ve heard of her, though you may not realize it. Her real name is Maryellen Grundy, but she uses the nom de plume Mimi Fontaine. Her books still sell briskly, even though the elitist thugs who review books these days always call them dated. Her fans are absolutely devoted to her, though, probably because he
r books are dated. Nobody seems to write nice books anymore,” he added wistfully. He turned to Ed. “Have you read her latest? The Flame Eternal. A triumph. Nothing less.”

  “Sorry,” Ed said, putting the EMF meter back into his satchel. “I have little time to read for pleasure. I’m fully engaged in research. Of course, in my field, you could still call my source material fiction,” he said, with a discreet smile. When Oswald didn’t get it, he added, “Just a little an inside joke.”

  Oswald looked frumpy. “I hardly consider this a time for levity.”

  “When your career demands immersion in the mysteries of life, death, and the life beyond death, a little humor is necessary, I think. One tries not to get carried away, of course. One deals with so many witnesses whose nerves are already shattered; hysteria is sometimes only a thoughtless remark away. As an investigator, I strive for psychological balance in dealing with my subjects, both living and dead.”

  Then, taking a closer look at Oswald, Ed discreetly retrieved the EMF meter and made a low pass in the air between himself and the antique shop owner. The digital readout didn’t change. Reassured, Ed put the meter away again and said, “I hardly think any harm can come to me if I simply touch it.” When he received no answer, he turned to Oswald with interrogative eyebrows and repeated himself, this time a bit louder.

  Oswald started back to life. “Absolutely not!” he said, shocked. “Are you finished? Can I lock it up now?”

  Reluctantly, Ed nodded, and Oswald sprang to the task, as if having the cabinet doors open was letting toxic gas escape.

  That done, both men stood back and regarded the contents of the cabinet. They were among the tinier objects in the shop, which otherwise was crammed with oversized furniture and looming sculpture.

  Across the glass shelves were eggshell china and porcelain objects, painted, gilded, glazed and lustered, all artfully lit by recessed lighting. Carnival glass didn’t command the prices it once had, but the few pieces on the lower shelf were unusual enough to need locking up; people were so driven to touch. It gave antique dealers nightmares. On the top shelf were a few vintage pieces of Royal Haeger. It was no longer being made, which drove up prices, and the value of the figurines from the 1920s and ‘30s had always been high. On the shelves in between was elegant tableware – Coalport, Royal Copenhagen, Wedgwood, Belleek, Derby. Teapots, biscuit jars, sauce tureens, cow creamers, crescent plates, jelly molds. But just at eye level, set along the shelves like fragile nosegays, were lovely little teacups in their matching saucers. Rimmed with gold or platinum, hand-painted or transfer-decorated, thin as paper, as appealing as dainty girls.

  On a little glass block in the center of that shelf rested the object that so terrified the shop owner. Bathed in the subtle lighting that made it the focal point in the case was a painted and gilded china cup and saucer. The outsides and inner rims of the cup and saucer were oyster-white, with round inserts of floral transfers. Ed, after analyzing the color behind the flowers, wrote the word “lavender” in his notebook. It sounded better than just plain purple, and it wasn’t just plain purple, or even pinky-purple. It was prettier than that. The cup was wider than it was high, and it had a little pedestal. The handle was cocked sharply out to the side and striped with gold. And inside the saucer and the cup itself, bunches of lilacs bloomed among dark green leaves against backgrounds of lavender. Not pinky-purple.

  Ed stepped back and took one last photograph of the central three shelves, showing the object in context, as it were, among its lesser companions.

  “It’s a pretty little thing,” Ed commented.

  Oswald shuddered and said nothing.

  “Is it valuable? Intrinsically, I mean, as a collectible item, aside from its . . . other properties.”

  In the grip of a nervous habit, Oswald took the red bandana out again and began to polish a ceramic pitcher sitting on a table next to him. He spoke distractedly. “Not really. Forty or fifty dollars. I’d begin at sixty-five, of course, but I’d take forty, if I liked the customer. And if it were for sale. Which it isn’t. Damn.” He stood rigidly staring at the pitcher he was polishing. “How do I keep getting grease on my dustrag?”

  “Perhaps when you wipe your forehead with it?”

  “I never wipe my forehead with it,” he said testily. He used a different corner of the bandana to rub away the dull streak, then set the pitcher down. After that, with a kind of inevitability, he turned his head and looked back at the lavender teacup. After a moment he jerked his eyes away and looked down at the floor.

  Ed considered him a moment, then said, “If it affects you so strongly, I’m surprised you keep it in the shop.”

  A troubled look passed over Oswald’s face. “I don’t really want to,” he said, almost to himself. “But I must. You see,” he said, turning mechanically towards Ed, “it keeps coming back to me. It wants to be here. Perhaps if I keep it here . . . .”

  Ed waited.

  Finally, Oswald said, “Maybe if I keep it here, it will stop. It doesn’t seem to want to harm me; in fact, no harm comes to anybody when it’s just sitting on a shelf here in the shop.”

  “Interesting,” Ed murmured, adjusting a pair of wire-rimmed glasses that had been sitting perfectly level and setting them askew. “A willful teacup. And when it is not here –”

  “It kills.”

  Ed blinked, gave the man a quick, penetrating look, then looked back to the teacup and saucer, safely locked away in the cabinet and glowing in the recessed lighting. He opened his mouth, stopped himself, then closed his mouth again without saying anything.

  After another few minutes Ed took his leave with formal thanks, a handshake, and the feeling that the air in the shop had suddenly gone stale.

  * * * * *

  “Oh, for the love of Mike, a teacup?” Teddy Force said when Ed had reported the findings of his visit to Key Estate Treasures. “Didn’t he have any axes? The Borden House had an axe.”

  “Um, I think that was a replica,” Ed said. “This is an estate-sale shop, Teddy – kind of an antique shop. It has one-of-a-kind things from estate liquidations, along with collectibles and knick-knacks. You know, like that.” He gestured at a little mahogany pedestal table that was sitting in front of a window. A doily was still laying on it, but Teddy had taken the double-bubble Early American lamp and set it on the floor back against the wall, out of the way. The table was tipsy, and with Teddy’s bulldog Porter in the room, it was bound to get knocked over sooner or later. Ed set his instrument satchel on top of the doily, but when the table rocked, he picked it up again and put it on the floor beside the lamp.

  The Sailor’s Rest Bed and Breakfast, (which was nowhere near the harbor), had been decorated with lots of pretty stuff that looked sort of antiquey, and in some instances, may have been genuine. None of it was really valuable, though, and the out-of-the-way location of the old house meant Teddy’s production company could get the whole place to themselves at a decent price, even during February.

  More important than any of that, though, was the fact that The Sailor’s Rest was pet-friendly, because Porter was the third on-camera member of the Haunt or Hoax? investigative team. They kept the cast small and tight, just the three of them, and if Teddy didn’t happen to be under the delusion that Porter was psychic, it would have been a cast of two: himself and Ed. Ying and yang. Believer and skeptic. That would have worked, probably, but when you combined Teddy’s sex appeal, Ed’s skepticism and added Porter’s unpredictable antics, magic happened.

  Other paranormal investigators clamored for spots on the show, once it became a hit, but so far only two mediums had made guest appearances: Purity LeStrange, pride of Spuds, Florida and freelance psychic medium, and Taylor Verone, who ran an animal shelter in Tropical Breeze, Florida, and didn’t want anything to do with the paranormal or the reality show. Neither psychic was scheduled for this shoot.

  Porter the Ghost-Sniffing Dog (as Teddy insisted he be called on the show, over everyone else’s protests), was
currently snoring sloppily on the bed. The Sailor’s Rest housecat, a large black cat named Bella, had levitated to the mantel of the fireplace and was calmly observing the new guests without trying to engage them in any way. She paid no more attention to Porter than she did the humans. The B&B’s owner had raved about the animal’s friendliness and impeccable manners, but so far, Bella had been stand-offish.

  “That axe was a replica,” Lily Parsons, the show’s production assistant, said.

  “It was an axe,” Teddy told her, summing up what was important about the thing.

  Teddy was about to go all prima donna, and after the long, long drive down Route 1, allllll the way through the Keys, Lily was just too tired to deal with it. She flopped onto the bed next to Porter and closed her eyes while Teddy’s voice went an octave higher and acquired an English accent. “Oh, no, not that teacup, Victoria, my love. That’s the teacup of death! Here, use this one, it’s Spode, don’t you know. One lump or two?”

  The cat on the mantel regarded him coldly, then gazed off through the window.

  “Knock it off, Teddy,” Lily mumbled with her eyes closed.

  He turned his attention to Ed. “What are you doing now?” he asked, sprawling his long, muscular body across a fragile-looking wing-back chair and hanging one leg over the arm.

  “I’ve decided to call in an expert,” Ed said, sliding his finger up the screen of his cellphone repeatedly.

  “If you just touch the letter in the column at the right of the screen, you don’t have to scroll through all your contacts. After all, it’s a long way down to the P’s.”

  “P?’”

  “You’re calling Purity, right?”

  “No,” Ed said, still sliding his finger upward. “I’m looking for the T’s. Taylor Verone.”

  “Her? She’s not a professional,” Teddy said.

  “And she’s not bug-eyed crazy about you, like Purity,” Lily commented from the bed.

  Teddy smirked. “Jealous?”

  Lily expelled an exasperated breath and rolled over with her back to him, draping her arm over Porter. The dog snuggled up.