Leave It to Cleaver (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery Book 6)

by Victoria Hamilton

  It was true. Her pleading blue eyes had melted Jaymie’s heart, so she had convinced Becca that this way the sisters wouldn’t argue. But also, she trusted Heidi’s exquisite taste.

  “Honey, you could do anything you set your mind to.”

  She murmured back sweet words and the conversation turned deeply personal. After that, sleeping was easy.

  Sunday she drove to Canada with Hoppy and had a long day with her grandmother talking nothing but wedding plans, recipes and the good old days. She and her little dog both came home exhausted late at night and dropped into bed with a miffed Denver, who chose to ignore her.

  She awoke refreshed the next morning and took Hoppy for a long walk because she was not going to take him over to the island this time. Then, tote bag filled with cleaning supplies, she headed out, walking toward the river. From there she would take the ferry over to Heartbreak Island, the semi-heart-shaped island in the middle of the St. Clair River that was shared property between the United States and Canada. Rose Tree Cottage, the Leighton family rental property, was a sweet blue-and-white haven with so many good family memories attached that Jaymie had suggested it as a great honeymoon destination. Jakob insisted that he wanted Jaymie all to himself at first, so they were going to go camping on Lake Huron in Canada for a few days. Then they’d come back to stay at the cabin as a family with Jocie for a week before the rental season began in earnest.

  It was another sparkling spring day, with throaty birdsong and the rustle of a breeze tossing the treetops. The Queensville–Heartbreak Island–Johnsonville ferry—officially named the St. Clair Queen—was fully capable of taking cars and small trucks across the river to the island and Canada. It had a drive-on portion for vehicles, and a passenger entry for people. Today, though, there were no cars, just a few passengers. She boarded the passenger end, sat on a bench near the prow, and enjoyed the ferry ride over, watching the seagulls circling overhead, then bobbing in contented peace on the boat’s gentle wake.

  She worked in the cottage all day with only a brief break for lunch and to check in with her neighbors behind, the Redmonds, to tell them about her landscape designer’s plan for the back. Sammy Dobrinskie, the son of a man Jaymie had found murdered on the cottage property last summer, was almost done with his first year of landscape design classes. Naturally gifted, he and Jaymie had stayed in contact all winter via email and had continued planning a stone patio, bricked-in fire pit, and gardens to add value to their rental cottage. He would be working on it weekends in May and full-time in June, to be finished before Jaymie and Jakob’s honeymoon and prime rental season, July and August. She took photos of the area to send to Sammy, video-chatted with him for a few minutes, walking around with her tablet to show him what she had in mind, sent him the photos, then closed down to let him get back to his homework.

  She locked the cottage, and, as the sun began sliding downward in the sky, she started back to the marina, inhaling deeply the fishy scent of the river. The Michigan State Troopers were having diving exercises off the dock. They did that fairly frequently because they were often called upon to perform river rescues, so they had an inflatable dinghy and a dive team working together. The ferry was still on the Canadian side. It would be another ten to fifteen minutes before it arrived, but it was a mellow spring day and she was entertained. She sat down on a park bench and made a few notes for the Tea with the Queen event and reflected on how different her life was from the last May tea event, when she had started dating Daniel Collins, the multimillionaire software company owner who was now going to sell the mansion.

  He was a restless spirit, she discovered, and bought houses like some people buy cars, as a collection. He had now lost interest, which was why the house would be going up for sale right after the Tea with the Queen event. She was happy he had found someone else, and happy she had Jakob.

  Her daydreams were interrupted by shouts. One of the divers had surfaced out of the greenish depths and was pointing out to a deeper section of the river toward the shipping lane. She got up to see what was going on and hoped the commotion didn’t mean one of the troopers was in trouble. The St. Clair River was highly variable for diving, some days being excellent and others murky. There were also some treacherous spots where a diver could get tangled in junk. She hoped that hadn’t happened.

  She strode to the end of the ferry dock, shading her eyes with one hand from the glimmer of the lowering sun off the water’s surface. The trooper boat was anchored about twenty feet off the marina and there was a lot of activity, with much excited chatter and gestures. Ruby Redmond, thin and athletic, wearing a red velour jogging suit, joined Jaymie. Just the summer before Jaymie had saved her from drowning in almost this same spot.

  “What’s it all about?” she asked, her weathered narrow face alight with curiosity.

  “I don’t know,” Jaymie said. “But they’re waving the ferry away. Darn! I hoped to get home soon.”

  The ferry was turned away and within minutes Robin, the island’s only plumber, arrived driving his heaviest truck with the strongest winch. He was the only one on the island who had heavy equipment suitable for using in the river. Soon, word filtered through the growing crowd. The MSP diver had found a submerged wreck. The heavy hook on Robin’s winch was taken out by a diver, hooked on to the bumper of the wreck, and the plumber was soon dragging the car out of the water, the high whine of the winch cutting through the chilling air.

  Garnet, Ruby’s husband and co-owner of the Ice House restaurant, joined them as the setting sun cast a gold light slanting over the glistening water of the St. Clair. “There are so many rumors going around the restaurant I had to come and see for myself,” he said, putting his arm over his wife’s shoulders. He was a tall man, slim, weathered, and handsome in an aristocratic way. “You’d think no one ever saw a car being dragged out of the river.”

  More people joined them. Finally the vehicle was hauled out of the river and up the paved boat launch slope.

  “Looks like an old Ford Falcon, nineteen seventies, maybe,” Garnet said, squinting through the slanting stream of sunlight.

  “You can tell that?” Jaymie asked, amazed.

  He chuckled, his lean face wreathing in wrinkles. “I was a car-obsessed young man once upon a time. I can tell you the make, model and year by the headlight configuration of any American-made car from the fifties to the eighties.”

  It was layered in slime and muck, and water sluiced out of one broken window as it was dragged up the sloping boat launch area near the dock. One of the dive-suited state police officers approached the car, his swim fins flapping on the cement. He yelled and motioned for the others. The breeze carried one word to the crowd: body.

  The islanders surged toward the boat launch and Jaymie was carried with them. Robin had his hose out and was rinsing the car down. The windows were busted, and as she was carried closer Jaymie could see the figure in the driver’s seat. Was the driver still belted in?

  Horrified, she tried to pull back, but others crowded around her, pushing her forward, and as Robin was shoved, too, his clean water sluiced up into the window and hit the body, spraying mud everywhere. But Jaymie, before she turned away in horror, did see one thing: the figure in the driver’s seat was wearing a red sweater of some sort, and it looked a whole lot like the one Delores Paget was wearing in that trunk in the Paget basement.

  Six

  October 1984

  BECCA ROCKED THE BUGGY back and forth on the wood floor of the Emporium, waiting while Valetta served another customer. Val had a part-time job there, and Becca, now that she, too, had turned sixteen, was hoping she’d be able to help sometimes. There weren’t many other jobs in Queensville except as a maid at the old Queensville Inn, a six-room guesthouse.

  “So I wondered if you know what’s going on,” Becca said as the customer left, continuing a conversation they had been having before Mrs. Stubbs interrupted with an abrupt demand for service. She was the oldest of all of their friends’ moms, more
like Becca’s grandmother’s age, and demanded respect. No one crossed her, especially not her kids, Lyle, the oldest, and Johnny, the youngest (and also Dee’s boyfriend), among them. “Is Brock dating Delores or what?”

  “Why do you care?” Valetta said, pulling a box of candy bars out of the display case to straighten them.

  “Del seems . . . weird lately.”

  “She’s always been weird,” Val said, shoving the box back into the case and grabbing a broom. She circled the register desk and began to sweep the creaky wood floors of the aisle.

  “I mean different weird, you know?” Becca wasn’t about to share what she had told Delores at her birthday party, that maybe going out with Brock was not a good idea. “She won’t even talk to me. And last week I asked her in biology if she wanted to team up for the genetics and heredity project and she said she already had a partner.”

  “That’s weird? Maybe she didn’t want to be saddled with your questionable science abilities,” Valetta quipped, pushing up her glasses and tugging down the red sweater she wore.

  “That’s a new sweater,” Becca said, distracted. The baby started to fuss, so she went back to rocking the buggy as Val went back to sweeping. She didn’t want to go home too quickly. Her mom was napping, so Becca hoped baby Jaymie stayed content and not needing a bottle or a change for at least another half hour. “Where did you get it?” She picked up the baby and bounced her. “Shhhh . . . Jaymie, it’s okay.” But the infant squalled and wriggled on her shoulder.

  “Mom knit it!” Valetta whirled, her broom like a dance partner. The sweater was bright red, dolman sleeved, and well knit.

  Becca reached out and touched the wool; it had an odd synthetic feel to it. “What kind of material is that?”

  “My mom went over to Canada with Mrs. Stubbs last month and bought the knit shop in Johnsonville out of Phentex. It’s a Canadian yarn, I guess, and it’s supposed to last forever. I like the color. She’ll knit one for you if you like. She sure has enough of that wool!”

  “No, it’s okay,” Becca said. The last thing she wanted was to dress like twinsies with her friends. Jaymie gave a burp and stopped crying, so Becca laid her back down in the buggy. She straightened and eyed her friend. She was about to tread on dangerous ground. “Is Brock serious about Delores? ’Cause I don’t think he should be messing around with her unless he really likes her. She’s . . . fragile.”

  Valetta snorted and started sweeping vigorously. “You mean fragile as in peculiar?”

  “No, I mean fragile as in she’s had a crappy life so far, her parents died when she was a baby and she’s being raised by an aunt and uncle who don’t seem to give a darn about her, and she has a creepy cousin around all the time.” The baby started fussing again, so Becca picked her up and bounced her yet again, trying to keep the anxiety out of her voice for Jaymie’s sake. “That’s what I mean by fragile.”

  Chastened, Valetta stopped sweeping, leaned on the broom and said, “I’ll talk to Brock and see what’s going on. But, Becca, it’s none of our business, right?”

  “I guess. I’d better get Jaymie home. She’s still fussy. By the time I get there Mom ought to be up from her nap.”

  “I hope your mom is feeling better soon.”

  “Me too,” Becca said fervently, putting the baby back in the buggy and covering her up. “Grandma Leighton is coming to stay for a while. She and Mom don’t always get along, but at least she’ll be here to help with Jaymie.”

  “I wish my mom had a baby,” Valetta said.

  “No. You don’t. You can babysit Jaymie next time she has colic. That’ll cure you.”

  • • •

  April—The Present

  IT WAS LATE by the time Jaymie got home. Tired and heart-sickened by what she’d seen, she was surprised that her dog wasn’t right at the door when she opened it. “Hoppy? Where are you, sweetie?” She searched the main floor, front parlor, hallway, living room, den, all the way back to the kitchen. He never went upstairs without her because he couldn’t manage the stairs alone going up, though he could going down. “Hoppy!” she shouted, more worried.

  Denver looked up from his basket by the stove with one eye open, watching her. He yawned hugely, then pointedly got out of his basket, stretched and ambled to his dish, stopping and staring up at her.

  “Not ’til you tell me where Hoppy is,” she said to his pointed, if nonverbal, request for dinner.

  He yawned.

  “Hoppy?”

  She heard a whimper and her heart clutched. She searched again and found him quivering between the Hoosier cabinet and cupboard in the kitchen. “What’s wrong, baby?”

  His little butt started wiggling but he still wouldn’t come out. She moved closer and her sock-covered foot was swiftly soaked. A yellowish puddle on the kitchen floor showed why he was hiding.

  “Aw, sweetie, I don’t care about that!” she said, plunking down on the floor away from the puddle as Hoppy wriggled out of his hiding spot and climbed into her lap. She hugged him close as he whimpered. “I would have called Valetta to let you out, but she was working and I didn’t have my cell phone with me. It’s okay, sweetie, it’s just piddle.”

  And why she was explaining to a dog she’d never know, but the tone of her voice settled him down and he snuggled and wuffled his contentment. A short while later her socks were drying, the floor was clean, the animals were happy, a sandwich was made, tea was steaming, and Jaymie sat down in the front parlor with her laptop and phone to check her messages and phone calls. Heidi, Heidi and Heidi, at first. Two phone messages and an email. Phone call from Jakob. Email from Becca. Phone message from Nan Goodenough, her editor at the Wolverhampton Howler asking when her next column would be on her desk.

  “Good question,” Jaymie muttered.

  She emailed Heidi, answering the questions from the phone calls and email: turquoise blue; antique rose; roses; pearls; and vintage broaches. The questions had been rapid-fire: Becca’s color, Jaymie’s color, the preferred flower the two brides had in common, and the jewelry items preferred by Becca and Jaymie. Becca was easy; Jaymie answered by email that no, she didn’t have her wedding dress yet and no, she didn’t want Becca’s help in finding one.

  Ever.

  Becca was a wonderful, loving sister, but when she found dresses for Jaymie they tended to be things she would wear, not taking into account that her sister was fifteen years younger and had a completely different style. So no, Jaymie did not want to go wedding dress shopping with Becca again.

  After she hit Send she thought maybe she should have called her sister instead of emailing. That snatch of red she had seen on the body in the submerged car, so like the red of Delores Paget’s red sweater, haunted her. And yet, it was mere coincidence. There were many red garments in the world and who knew when that car had gone into the St. Clair River?

  There was surely no connection. Why in the world should there be?

  Nan she’d call in the morning, she decided. It was far too late for a return phone call, and an email would not allow the back-and-forth she needed to decide on the next “Vintage Eats” column and discuss what she’d do about it while she was on her honeymoon. The food column had started last year as a way to help her gain experience and some measure of recognition while she wrote a vintage recipe cookbook she hoped to publish someday.

  The more she pressed forward with the cookbook, though, the more she realized how unready she was. She had been so naïve when she first wrote the cookbook—it was a grand way to get over the broken heart she was left with after Joel deserted her for Heidi—but she now knew it would take a couple of more years, at least, before the cookbook was truly ready, and before she was ready.

  Jakob was the only call left. She finished her supper and tea, turned off all the lights, and climbed upstairs, carrying Hoppy as Denver followed. A chat with Jakob was to be relished and savored, not rushed.

  • • •

  OVER BREAKFAST THE NEXT MORNING Jaymie checked her compl
icated calendar, with its numerous notations about hours at the Emporium, Jewel Dandridge’s vintage shop, Cynthia’s shabby chic cottage shop, picnic basket rentals, the “Vintage Eats” column her volunteer work for the Tea with the Queen event coming up, and her time working in the kitchen at the Queensville Historic Manor. Today she would be out at the historic home for a few hours, and then hopefully she could spend some time writing her food column.

  Which reminded her . . . she needed to call Nan. She took a deep breath and picked up the phone. Talking to her retirement-aged whirlwind of a redheaded editor, Nan Goodenough, who with her husband had purchased the Wolverhampton Howler some years ago, was always exhausting. The woman had been head of a big-city magazine for years and had lost none of her vigor.

  Today was no different. After rapidly going through the direction of her column for the next few months and promising two columns to fill in while she was on her honeymoon, Jaymie was ready to sign off and go have a cup of tea to settle her nerves. She stood and headed to the phone receiver to cradle the phone, but her editor was not done talking.

  “So, some excitement out at your island yesterday, right?” Nan said. She insisted on calling Heartbreak Island Jaymie’s island, though all the Leighton’s had was one cottage.

  “I was actually there to clean the cottage and saw them pull the car out of the water,” she said. It would be the lead in the next newspaper, she assumed, just as Jaymie and Becca’s finding of the body in the trunk had been the last headline two days ago.

  “So what do you think the connection was?”

  Jaymie, puzzled, didn’t answer for a long minute.

  “Jaymie? You still there? What’s the connection between the two girls?”