Dead Man's Tea

Dead Man's Tea
A Southern Noir Short Story
By D.C. O'Rourke

The chill came crawling through the ceiling vent like a whisper with teeth—thin, sharp, and cold enough to make bones twitch. It carried something with it, something bitter and sour, like wet copper on a split lip.

Death was in the air.

Raymond Wincott smelled it before he saw a damn thing. He lowered the book in his lap—The Brother Gardeners—and stared at nothing for a while. Rebecca had given it to him five years back, wrapped in brown paper and tied with twine like a gift worth opening. That was before everything cracked. Before blood watered the roots of his quiet life.
They’d gone to Colonial Williamsburg that spring—smiling, still pretending. He’d been the keynote speaker at the Garden Symposium, lecturing on landscape architecture and historic rose beds. She’d wandered down Duke of Gloucester Street and bought him the book from some boutique shop that sold seeds in glass jars.

Now here he was, sitting on a cot with steel bars for a window and concrete for company. The book was still here. Rebecca wasn’t. Three quick knocks broke the silence. A fist on steel.

He looked up.

Officer Jenkins stood outside the cell, keys in hand, that bored look etched deep into his face. “You got a visitor.”
“Didn’t know I still had friends,” Wincott muttered, closing the book.

Jenkins opened the cell. The door groaned like it didn’t want to.

In walked a priest—shoulders hunched, lips tight, clutching a black leather case like a lifeline. Not just any priest. Father Thomas Driscoll. The same man who’d baptized Wincott’s daughter. The same man who once told him redemption was a road worth walking, even if it cut your feet to ribbons.

“Father,” Wincott said, brushing his curls out of his face. “Ain’t seen you since Easter. Come on in.”

Driscoll nodded and stepped inside, placing the case down gently on the metal table in the corner. “My son,” he said softly. “How are you holding up?”

Wincott shrugged. “As good as a man waiting on a needle can be. Thanks for coming.”

“Shall we begin?”

Wincott turned, looking at the gray wall for a long beat. “Do me a favor? Let’s talk first. Real talk. Guards won’t say much to me. Just want a few words with someone who ain’t on payroll.”

Driscoll hesitated. Then nodded. “Would you like to give confession?”
“Yeah,” Wincott said, settling onto the edge of the cot. “I would.”

He crossed himself slowly, more out of habit than hope.

“Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Been a long damn time.”

“What sins burden you, my son?”

Wincott leaned forward, elbows on knees.
“I’ve got less than an hour to live, and all I got left is regret. Not just for what I did... but for how I did it. You remember the night I came to the church? Blood all over me. Clothes soaked through. Eyes wild?”

Driscoll nodded. “I remember.”

“You didn’t ask questions. Just pulled me into the booth and listened. I told you everything. From the moment I walked into my house after that Virginia Tech seminar, to the minute I buried the bodies in my garden.”

Driscoll’s face tensed. Wincott kept going.

“Four-hour drive back home, and I find Rebecca with another man. In our bed. In our house.” He shook his head. “I didn’t think. I just moved. Snapped his neck like a dry branch. She screamed like the world was ending. Maybe it was.”

“You regret it?” Driscoll asked.

Wincott looked at him, eyes hollow. “I regret not doing it cleaner. I regret getting caught.”

Driscoll blinked, thrown off. “I’m... not sure I understand.”

“I’m a landscape architect, Father. My hands weren’t made for killing. But I did it anyway. Messy. Loud. Now here I sit.”

Driscoll shifted, uneasy now. “Perhaps we should begin the rites.”

Wincott raised a hand. “Not yet. You want some tea? Made it earlier.”

A pause. The priest’s eyes flicked to the thermos on the table. “Sure,” he said. “Tea sounds nice.”
Wincott poured two cups. The steam curled like a ghost slipping free. He handed one over and watched Driscoll take a cautious sip.

“Still hot,” the priest said.

“Good,” Wincott replied, settling back down. “Now, you remember what I told you in that confessional?”

“Yes,” Driscoll said. “Every word.”

“You remember how I said you were the only one I ever told?”

Driscoll nodded again, but slower this time.

“And yet the prosecution had it all,” Wincott said. “Word for word. Details no one could’ve known. Unless someone... talked.”

He reached beneath the bed, pulled out a fat envelope, and tossed it on the table. Driscoll opened it. Court transcripts. Affidavits. Notes. His own name on half of them.

“I had no choice,” Driscoll said, voice cracking. “They challenged the seal in court. I... I had to tell the truth.”
Wincott stared. His jaw clenched, voice low. “No, Father. You didn’t have to. You chose to. You sold me out, plain and simple.”

“I did it to save your soul.”

“You did it to save your neck,” Wincott said, standing now. “And now you’re here, thinking you can wash it all away with a blessing and a drop of oil.”

Driscoll looked down at the cup in his hands. “What’s in this?”

Wincott gave a small smile. “Oleander. Grows wild in the yard behind the mess hall. Pretty plant, but a hell of a toxin." His smile became slow and mean. “Brewed it just for you.”

He paused, watching the priest’s throat tighten around the rising heat.

“How do you like it? I like to call it Dead Man's Tea,” he said. “Goes down smooth, but it don’t sit right.”

The priest dropped the cup. It shattered across the floor. He staggered, fell to his knees. His breathing turned shallow. One hand pressed to his chest, the other reaching out for something—help, mercy, anything.

“Please...” he gasped. “Help... me...”

Wincott crouched down, steady and calm. “You want the rites now?”

He opened the case. Took out the oil. Dabbed it on the priest’s forehead.

“Through this holy anointing,” he whispered, “may the Lord who frees you from sin, save you.”

Driscoll coughed, fighting to breathe. “Burn in hell,” he managed.

Wincott leaned in, his voice barely audible. “I’ll save you a seat.”

Then he moved—one hand over Driscoll’s mouth, the other pinching his nose closed. The priest’s arms flailed weakly. His eyes filled with terror. And then... nothing. Stillness. Wincott stayed there for a moment. Just breathing. Watching.
Then he stood, walked to the cell door, and gripped the bars.

“Jenkins! Martin! There’s a dead man still breathing in here!”

He closed his eyes. Whistled a few slow bars of Ring of Fire, letting the last note drift into the reek of death and tea leaves. Raymond Wincott was ready. His sins paid forward. The Devil could wait a few more minutes.