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Theodosia gave him a quick glance. “Don’t you have to be somewhere?” she asked. Her words were polite but firm.
“What are you talking about?” Glass smirked.
“Shouldn’t you be sneaking through the bushes at the Country Club of Charleston or intruding on a meeting of the Junior League? Trying to get a compromising shot for your little rag of a paper?” Maybe she could shame him into leaving?
“I could, but it wouldn’t be half as exciting as yesterday. That was a real pip of a tea party, huh?” He came closer, banged the flat of his hand down on the counter, and said, “How often do you get a front-row seat at a genuine murder!”
Drayton set an indigo blue paper cup on the counter and said, “Let me pour you a cup of Darjeeling to go.”
“To go?” His face darkened. “You’re asking moi to leave?”
“If you would,” Drayton said.
But Glass was never one to take a hint, not even a heavy-handed one. Instead, he stuck around like flypaper, noisily slurping his tea, making the occasional rude comment.
Theodosia racked her brain as to how to get rid of him. Maybe she could pretend to close early? No, that wasn’t going to work, there were too many customers. Then she was struck by a peculiar notion. Maybe Glass, with his intrusive picture taking, had been a kind of witness.
“You took a lot of pictures yesterday, right?” Theodosia asked Glass. “At our Honeybee Tea?”
“Sure did,” Glass said. “Got some real doozies.”
“Show me, will you?”
Glass held up his camera for her to look and clicked through at least three dozen pictures. Over his shoulder, Theodosia squinted at them as best she could.
“Seen enough?” Glass asked.
“Those are pretty interesting,” Theodosia said. “Is there a chance we could download them to my computer?”
“If you’ve got a USB cable, it shouldn’t be a problem.”
So they went into Theodosia’s office, fussed around, and did exactly that.
Seeing the photos on her large computer screen made all the difference in the world for Theodosia. “These are good,” she said as she studied them.
“Of course they’re good,” Glass said. “I shot them.”
“What I meant was... they give an excellent documentation of the event. Who was there, the interaction between Claxton and the beekeeper. I’m impressed you managed to keep shooting even when that toxic smoke started drifting across the tables.”
“I kept clicking away until I couldn’t see anymore. Man, it was hairy, like being back in a war zone.”
“When were you ever in a war zone?” Theodosia asked.
“When I was younger,” Glass mumbled. “Did some shooting for the Associated Press.”
“Sure.” Theodosia didn’t want to argue with Glass. She wanted to keep the photos he’d taken so she could go through them again with a careful, more discriminating eye. Who knows? She might learn something. “Listen, can I keep these photos for now?”
“I suppose. It’s not like you’re going to try and sell them or anything.” He gave her a cautious look. “Are you?”
“No.”
“Okay then. But I don’t know what you think you’ll find. I scanned through all of them and didn’t see any big revelation. It’s not like I caught the killer’s bare face before he climbed into his beekeeper suit.”
“I wish you had.”
Glass looked mournful. “Hey, I wish I had. Then my shots would be on the front page of the Post and Courier. Maybe even on Fox News and CNN.”
Theodosia studied the last few pictures, then tapped a finger lightly against the computer screen. “Did you give these photos to the Charleston police? To the investigators who are working the case?”
