Page 1 of Murder in the Tea Leaves

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“Quiet on the set! Quiet on the set!”

As if someone had suddenly spun a dial and cut the volume, there was complete and utter silence in the darkened living room of the dilapidated Brittlebank Manor.

“Roll film, and…action!” shouted Josh Morro, the film’s director.

Theodosia Browning watched, fascinated, as actors recited lines, cameras dollied in for close-ups, and producers, assistant directors, storyboard artists, set dressers, grips, writers, gaffers, production assistants, makeup artists, and costumers all stood by, ready to jump at the director’s every command.

It was the first day of filming for Dark Fortunes, a Peregrine Pictures feature film. And the first time tea shop owner Theodosia had ever seen a full-fledged movie in the making. Of course, she wasn’t actually in the movie. But this week was still extra special for Theodosia and Drayton Conneley, her dapper, sixty-something tea sommelier. They’d been tapped to handle the craft services table, an all-day munch fest for the cast and crew. It was proving to be a fun break from their normal roles as hosts at the Indigo Tea Shop on Charleston’s famed Church Street, where they spent their days juggling morning cream tea, lunch, tea parties, afternoon tea, special events, and catering.

Catering. Yes, that’s exactly why Theodosia and Drayton had loaded their craft services table with a bounty of tea sandwiches, lemon scones, brownie bites, banana muffins, cranberry tea bread, and handmade chocolate fudge. And of course tea, which was Drayton’s specialty.

“This is exciting, yes?” Theodosia whispered to Drayton. The director had called a sudden halt to filming and now the crew milled about the darkened set like shadows flitting through a graveyard.

“Exciting but strange,” Drayton said, touching a hand to his bow tie. “I had no idea so much work went into filming a single scene.” He peered through the darkness to where the director was whispering to a cameraman. “And that director seems to be in a constant uproar.”

Josh Morro, the director, was most certainly agitated. “Gimme some light, will you?” he barked. And lights immediately came up, revealing the shabby interior of a small, old-fashioned sitting room. “And we need something more dynamic here. A line or action that propels us into the heart of the storyline.” Morro turned to Craig Cole, the scriptwriter, and raised his eyebrows in a questioning look.

“It’s already in the script, babe,” Cole shouted back at him. Cole was Hollywood hyper, rail thin with a pinched face and shock of bright red Woody Woodpecker hair.

“No, it’s not. The script is dreck,” Morro cried as he leaped from his chair, knocking it over backward in the process. He was tall and angular, dressed in jeans and a faded Def Leppard T-shirt. Good-looking, handsome even, Morro had intense jade green eyes and wore a now-popular-again gunslinger mustache.

Cole’s face contorted in anger. “Watch it, pal. I wrote that script.” His lips barely touched his teeth as he spat out his words.

Morro shook his head tiredly. “Fess up, man. You plagiarized a Japanese film that won a Nippon Akademii-shou back in ninety-five.”

Cole’s face turned bright red to match his hair. “That might have been the seminal inspiration,” he shot back, “but every line of dialogue is completely mine!”

The director stared thoughtfully at the small round table where a woman wearing a purple-and-gold tunic with matching turban sat across from Andrea Blair, the film’s leading actress.

“She should read the tea leaves,” Morro said slowly. “That’s what we need. The fortune teller has to read the tea leaves before she delivers her line.”

“Brilliant,” Lewin Usher trilled. He was one of the film’s investors and an executive producer, a hefty but slick-looking hedge fund manager in a three-piece Zegna suit with a Rolex the size of an alarm clock. He seemed positively giddy to be on set today.

Josh Morro pointed a finger at the fortune teller. “Fortune teller lady. What I want you to do is pour out the tea, then peer into Andrea’s cup and actually read the tea leaves. Tell her, um, that her life is in terrible danger.”

“That’s not in the script,” Cole called out.

“Well, it should be,” Morro said. He stared earnestly at the fortune teller. “You got that?”

“No problem,” said the fortune teller.

“Lights down, everyone quiet…and roll film,” Morro instructed. He stood there, tense, arms crossed, watching his actors.

The fortune teller lifted the teapot and tilted it at a forty-five-degree angle. At which point the lid promptly fell off and clattered noisily to the floor while the tea bag tumbled out and landed in the teacup with a wet plop.

“No, no!” Morro shouted. “That’s not going to work, you’re doing it all wrong. Everybody, take five while we figure this out.” He sighed deeply and gazed in the direction of Theodosia’s craft services table as if there were an answer to be found there.

Turns out there was.

“Loose-leaf tea,” Theodosia said. “You need to brew loose tea leaves in order to achieve the effect you want.”

“Huh?” The director peered at Theodosia as if really seeing her for the first time. “You know something about tea?”

“She should,” Drayton said, suddenly speaking up. “She owns a tea shop.”

“Come over here, will you?” Morro said, waggling his fingers.

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