Ming Tea Murder by Laura Childs Read Free Book Online

fired.”

5

    Theodosia was dumbfounded. “What?” she yelped. Then she caught herself before she hit the red lever and her temper shot all the way up to DEFCON 4. She must not have heard Max correctly. Surely he hadn’t just uttered the word
fired?
No, he couldn’t have. That would never happen.
    â€œWhat?” Theodosia said again, straining to hear what surely must be the correct words.
    â€œI’ve been fired,” Max repeated. He sat staring at her, his lips slightly parted, his brows pinched together. He looked disbelieving and totally in shock. “They told me not to come back to work today.”
    â€œWho told you that?” With a thud in her heart, Theodosia knew Max was absolutely serious. And that someone—his boss?—had just made a very grave mistake.
    â€œElliot Kern, the director. I just spoke to him. Or rather, he just called me on my cell phone.”
    â€œWha . . . ?” Now Theodosia was the one who was in shock. “Wait a minute.” She held up a hand. “What exactly did Kern say to you?”
    â€œHe said I was on a permanent leave of absence until the Edgar Webster murder had been resolved.”
    â€œThat was his explanation? That’s ridiculous. There must be something else going on. There has to be an actual
reason
.”
She was starting to get really angry. “There has to be just cause!”
    â€œKern said that the board of directors had an emergency meeting this morning and decided to suspend me.”
    â€œThey were meeting while you were hard at work?”
    â€œApparently.”
    â€œBut why suspend
you?
” Theodosia knew she was sputtering but couldn’t help herself. “Do you think it was because of the photo booth? Because it was your idea? Surely they can’t hold that against you? It was just a stupid prop—a goofball amusement for wealthy donors. You didn’t know someone was going to get
murdered
inside of it!”
    Max was still dumbfounded. “Kern mentioned something about publicity, too. Or maybe it was press releases. I know that’s what Webster was all fired up about last night.”
    â€œOver press releases?”
    Max shook his head. “I don’t know. I’m having a lot of trouble processing this whole thing.”
    â€œSo am I,” said Theodosia. None of this made a lick of sense to her. She knew, with all her heart, that Max would never willfully do anything to harm the reputation of the museum. And, as far as job performance went, he was an absolute whiz at publicity. He’d planted articles in
Charleston Weekly
and
Art Now.
Why, a couple of his press releases—ones about the contemporary southern art show and the Picasso ceramics show—had even been picked up by the Art & Design section of the
New
York Times
!
    â€œEven though Kern told me not to come back,” said Max, “I’m going to go back there anyway. See if I can sit down with him. Try to get some more . . . information.”
    â€œGood for you,” said Theodosia. She stood up from her desk so fast, her chair almost flipped over backward. “You run over there and try to straighten out this whole ridiculous thing. Really, this firing can’t even be legal.” She came around her desk, put a hand on Max’s shoulder, and rubbed it gently. “Nothing makes sense here. Maybe . . . it’s some kind of Halloween prank?”
    â€œWell, if it is,” said Max, “it’s not very funny.”
    â€¢ • •
    â€œOh my,” said Drayton. “I don’t mean to pry, Theo, but you look like you just received a nasty piece of news.” He was setting out two dozen tiny blue-green ceramic Chinese cups without handles for a tea tasting that a table of customers had requested.
    â€œI . . . we . . . did just get some terrible news,” said Theodosia. And then, because there was no easy