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

by Victoria Hamilton

  “I don’t suppose there is one,” Jaymie said slowly.

  “Oh, come on, two girls from the same school wearing the same hand-knit sweater disappear the same day, and then are both found dead? The only coincidence is how both bodies were found within days of each other, but their deaths? That is no coincidence. They have to be connected, or my name isn’t Goodenough.”

  “Two girls, disappeared the same day? From the same school?” Jaymie, the wind knocked out of her, sat back down at the trestle table in the center of the kitchen. “Nan, I haven’t heard anything. You’ll have to fill me in.”

  “I assumed you’d know all about this.”

  “I don’t.”

  Nan then told her all she knew from the newspaper’s research and chat with the police spokeswoman, Bernice Jenkins. The body was most likely that of Rhonda Welch, a senior at Chance Houghton Christian Academy, a boarding school outside of St. Clair, Michigan, a few miles north of Queensville, when she disappeared. She had, however, just days before been a student at Wolverhampton High. The car was registered to her parents, who were out of the country on a church mission, which was why Rhonda was at a boarding school.

  It was widely reported at the time, Nan said, after checking the newspaper archives from November of 1984, that Rhonda was thought to have run away, which was supported by the car disappearing. Her parents came back to the U.S. to try to find her but all efforts failed. She had been unhappy with her family and at the boarding school. Her aunt, Petty Welch, a researcher at a Detroit newspaper who lived near Detroit, said Rhonda had been asking some odd questions in the weeks before her disappearance about infant abduction that led Petty to believe she was questioning her birth. There was, though, nothing odd about her familial past, as the aunt could attest, since she had known her niece since birth.

  “Is there any evidence that Rhonda and Delores knew each other?”

  “I don’t think anyone knows yet. You’ve got friends who went there in about the right age range; Rhonda was a senior, while Delores Paget was a sophomore. I thought you could find out.”

  Jaymie was silent. And they were both wearing red sweaters. Two red sweaters knit by Mrs. Nibley? “I don’t know what to say, Nan. Let me think about it. This is close to home.” As she hung up, Jaymie realized she now had many more questions than answers. It was time to call Becca.

  After the hellos and more info about the wedding, Jaymie told her sister what she had learned. Becca was silent for a long minute. “Holy moly,” she said at long last.

  “So did you know Rhonda Welch?”

  “I knew of her, but we weren’t friends or anything. Val, Dee and I were all sophomores and she was a senior, a couple of years older that we were, which is worlds apart in high school. That was so long ago! Wait a minute; I want to check something.”

  She put down the phone and there was dead air. Jaymie in the meantime made a list of things to do out at the historic home and was checking a website on wedding flowers when Becca came back.

  “Yeah, I remember her now, very well.” The sound of her leafing through book pages echoed in the receiver. “I’ve got my freshman yearbook—that would be the year before she took off . . . or disappeared—and looked her up. The picture helps. I do remember her quite well. She was really pretty. I envied her dark, smooth hair and perfect figure so much. She was in the photography club, it says in the yearbook, and wanted to go to nursing school.”

  They were both silent again. Jaymie was sadly thinking that the poor girl never got to be a nurse . . . never got to be anything but a written-off runaway. “Do you remember her disappearing at the same time as Delores?”

  “Yes, but it was different. She wasn’t going to WH anymore, and she had a car. Everyone said she took off because she hated her new school. It was a Christian boarding school, something to do with her parents being missionaries, if I remember right.”

  “Valetta is worried about Brock,” Jaymie said, even as she tried to imagine a connection between Delores Paget’s and Rhonda Welch’s disappearances. “He’s angry because I supposedly betrayed him by telling the police he was going out with Delores.”

  “But that was because of me!” Becca said. “I’ll set Brock straight when I come down. And Valetta, too.”

  “No, Becca, it’s okay. I’ll handle it. She’s just . . . you know Valetta. She’ll be okay. It’s always Brock. He makes things awkward.”

  “He’s the king of awkward. Always was. I even had to invite him to my sixteenth birthday party so Valetta wouldn’t be put in an uncomfortable position. Why he wanted to hang out with a bunch of sixteen-year-olds I don’t know, but Brock was . . . you know.” She paused. “In fact . . . I just remembered! Jeez, that’s when it started, him going out with Delores.”

  “Your sixteenth birthday party?”

  “I believe so. Val might remember.”

  “Dee certainly will. She remembers everything.”

  “Hah! You didn’t know Dee then. She was hot and heavy with Johnny at that point and would disappear with him any time they got to go somewhere. She was off smooching with him somewhere, probably, and won’t remember a thing.”

  “But there should be pictures from that party, right? Dad always took pictures of birthdays.”

  “He always took pictures of your birthdays.” Becca paused, then continued. “That year was weird. It was an awful party. We had to be quiet because Mom was lying down and you were finally sleeping after being colicky for a week or two straight. Fun party for a bunch of sixteen-year-olds; pizza and silence.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Don’t be silly, you were a baby. And I loved you, even when I was irritated with you.”

  As they hung up, Jaymie thought how odd it was that she was getting this entirely different view of her sister and their friends, who were separated from her by fifteen years. That didn’t seem so much now that she was in her thirties, but it sure had seemed a lot growing up. At times Becca had seemed like a second mother to her, especially when she was four or so and her parents were going through a rough patch. Becca had made life bearable.

  “Come on, Hoppy,” she said. “Let’s go for a walk. I’m going to be gone all afternoon and you need exercise.”

  She leashed her Yorkie-Poo and headed out on their usual walk toward the river. Queensville, Michigan, and its sister town, Johnsonville, Ontario, faced each other across the St. Clair River. While Queensville was named for Queen Victoria, Johnsonville was named for the unpopular President Andrew Johnson, who gained office after Lincoln’s tragic assassination, but was then the first president to be impeached. He was saved from losing his presidency by one senate vote.

  Everything was green and fresh and the scent on the breeze hinted at lilacs blooming somewhere close, brought on early by a warmer than usual April. Hoppy tugged and pulled, and she tried to work on his training, which he valiantly resisted. They got to the long walkway that bounded the river and overlooked Heartbreak Island, which got its name from its heart shape being divided by a waterway, and also from what was probably an apocryphal story about an American and Canadian couple parted by tragedy.

  Today a blue sky arched over the river and puffy clouds were reflected in the surface of the water that slipped calmly along between the two friendly countries. The ferry pulled up to the dock. Jaymie was surprised to see Chief Ledbetter heave himself off the boat and onto the dock, then make his way huffing and puffing up to the walkway where she stood.

  “Jaymie! Just the gal I wanted to see. Walk with me. Bernie is pulling the car around by the public washroom.”

  Hoppy was barking at some ducks that were waddling along the grassy area, but she gave his leash a tug and he happily tripped along with them toward Boardwalk Park, the greenspace by the river. “I hear you’ve identified the body in the river as Rhonda Welch?”

  He slewed a glance her way. “Yup. Newspapers have their teeth in it. That Nan woman . . . she’s a tough nut. Got someone to give the name, but there’s no co
nfirmation yet, just likelihood, since the car is right and the remains were found with a school uniform on under the red sweater.”

  Red sweater . . . a shiver raced down her back, but she made no comment. “The Chance Houghton Christian Academy, right. Becca knew her by sight, I guess, from her attending Wolverhampton High.”

  “We’ll be talking . . .” Huff, puff. “. . . to everyone who knew them. We’ve had out the school yearbooks. We’ll be talking with DeeDee and Johnny Stubbs, Gustav and Tami Majewski.”

  “Gustav? You mean Gus?”

  “Real name, Gustav. Valetta and Brock Nibley, your sister . . .” Huff, puff. “A few others. Something odd about this whole thing, and I want to get to the bottom of it.” He paused to catch his breath and slid a glance over at her. “Maybe you could keep your ear to the wall. What do you think?”

  “I don’t think I understand, chief.”

  “Keep abreast, keep up . . . keep your nose to the ground and tell me what you hear.”

  “As in investigate?”

  His large paunch heaving with his gasping breaths, he leaned forward, resting his hands on his knees while Hoppy jumped around his feet. “Gotta catch my breath. Most exercise I’ve done in a year, climbing up from the ferry dock.” He straightened, his watery gaze fixed on her. “Don’t say I said it, but yes.” He scratched his chin, took in a deep breath and let it out in a whoosh. “Want you to sniff around informally. You know a lot of these people.”

  “But I was a baby when it happened.”

  “Sure, but still . . . you know them all and this town. This happened so long ago, but people’s memories are likely to be jogged when they talk about it, share reminiscences, you know? That’s not going to happen when I question them formally.”

  She glanced down the grassy hill from where they were, near the public washroom, the site of one of her infamous dead body discoveries, which had become far too commonplace for her. Bernie was there by a police car waiting for the chief. She waved and smiled.

  “I’ll help any way I can,” Jaymie said, picking up Hoppy for the descent down the grassy hill. “I suppose I’m in it whether I like it or not.”

  Seven

  Late October 1984

  “BROCK NIBLEY, you have got to stop that girl from calling here all hours of the day and night. I can’t get a single thing done with the phone ringing so much. I had to take it off the hook to get a rest and missed a call from Mrs. Stubbs about the church Thanksgiving service! She’s my best customer and a beacon in this community and I don’t need her angry at me.”

  Valetta listened in on her mother berating her older brother. Brock had arrived home from his part-time job with Mr. Waterman, who had his own renovation company in town.

  “That woman is always angry,” Brock griped, jerking open the fridge door, the bottles jingling. “She was born mean.”

  “I will not have you speak disrespectfully of a good woman, a pillar of our community and someone who puts food on your table!” Their mother cleaned houses for the wealthier members of their community. Mrs. Stubbs, like the local doctor and the pastor of the church, was her employer.

  Valetta sat in her room at her vanity table, one she’d rescued from the curb on garbage day and refurbished with some cool neon paint and decals, and stared into the glass. Blinking back at her was a girl with heavy glasses that were out of style and that her mother couldn’t afford to replace, unruly hair that she should probably cut short, and a resentful expression. Why did she have to be saddled with a brother like Brock, who made everything she did more difficult? It wasn’t fair. Her other brother wasn’t like that, but he was long gone from the house.

  She could still hear Brock and her mom bickering.

  “It’s not my fault if Delores can’t take a hint, Mom. I didn’t ask her to phone. I told her not to but she’s crazy,” Brock whined. He was almost two years older than Valetta, his eighteenth birthday coming soon, and still as much of a pain in the neck as he was when he was ten and she was eight.

  “You led her on,” their mother said, her voice waning and strengthening as she moved from living room to kitchen and back. The scent of onions frying wafted through the house, and fingers of the smell drifted through Valetta’s bedroom door, which was open two inches. “You made her think you liked her.”

  “Did not.”

  There was a thump; that meant he had clumped into the living room and thrown himself onto the sofa, shoes still on, big feet up, making the furniture bump against the wall, where there was a scar from him doing that all the time. Big galoot.

  “All I did was take her for a ride a couple of times,” Brock continued.

  And kiss her and make out with her, Valetta thought, remembering seeing them at a WH football game, and how uneasy she’d felt when the two disappeared for a while. You couldn’t do that to a plain girl who had never gotten any attention. It got her hopes up. It made her feel . . . special. Valetta stared at her face in the mirror. Maybe she wasn’t so bad after all, she thought. Yeah, her clothes and glasses were out of style and her hair was home-perm awful, but at least her skin was good. However . . . she wasn’t any beauty, that was for sure, not like Rhonda Welch. She pushed her glasses up on her nose.

  Brock was her brother, but there were times when she wished that wasn’t so. She’d never admit it to anyone—not even Becca, her best friend in the world, who had done the right thing and befriended Delores—but Valetta felt sorry for Delores Paget. She knew what it felt like to be second best. Becca was Valetta’s best friend, but Dee was Becca’s best friend.

  “I don’t care what happened or how,” Valetta’s mother said, moving back into the kitchen and clattering some dishes. In their small three-bedroom bungalow you could hear everything going on in every room, no matter where you were. There was not a single bit of privacy. “I never would have knit that sweater for her if I thought you were going to drop her like a hot potato and pick up with that other girl. Fastest I’ve ever knit two sweaters, I can tell you that.”

  “Nobody asked you to, you know.”

  Valetta’s eyes widened; she wanted to swat Brock. That was so disrespectful of their mother! But as always, her mother just went on, paying no attention to his behavior. He got away with murder and she got away with nothing.

  “I don’t care,” their mother said sharply. “I did it because I’m trying to be nice to your girlfriends. Now, you either go back to dating poor Delores or find a way to make her leave us alone. I can’t take the constant phone calls anymore; my nerves can’t handle it. I’ll call her parents if you don’t do something.”

  But Delores didn’t have parents, Valetta thought. According to Becca, who had hung out with her all summer, all she had were an aunt and uncle, and a weird cousin. A pang of pity moved Valetta; at least she had a mother who loved her and a brother who was a pain in the neck, but who she loved.

  The very next day at school she’d talk to Delores herself, tell the girl that Brock wasn’t worth the trouble. She knew better than anyone, though she’d never be so disloyal as to say it; Brock was a slug when it came to girls. She’d heard him talking big with his friends, Johnny Stubbs and some others, and he’d said all he wanted from Delores was a good feel. After all, you couldn’t see her face in the dark, Brock had said, and they’d all laughed. Every single one of them, even Dee’s boyfriend, Johnny Stubbs.

  She slammed her bedroom door closed and threw herself down on her bed. Boys were jerks. Who needed ’em? Not her.

  • • •

  Late April—The Present

  JAYMIE, IN FRONT OF THE OLD GAS STOVE in the kitchen of the historic home, was blissfully happy and forgetful for two whole hours, testing recipes and rearranging displays. Finally done, she tidied, washed dishes and made everything perfect—and secure, which meant locking the knife drawer—for the week’s opening hours, which would start on Thursday afternoon with a school tour.

  She hung up her apron, then grabbed her sweater off the hook, gave a last glanc
e around the room, and moved out to the dining room, where Mabel Bloomsbury had dressed the dining table with a spring theme, a crisp pale yellow damask tablecloth and chintz china place settings sourced from Becca, of course. She heard voices echo through the house and headed to the parlor, a large room that could be thrown into another large room by opening the pocket doors between.

  There she found a cadre of the town’s elder ladies: Imogene Frump; Mrs. Trelawney Bellwood, aka Queen Victoria; and visiting in her mobility wheelchair, Mrs. Martha Stubbs, the grande dame of Queensville. She was the oldest lady in the village and was still able to remember the old days, right back to the thirties. Thanks to the new wheelchair lift that had been installed a month ago, the main floor of the house was now completely wheelchair-accessible.

  Mrs. Stubbs was a special friend to Jaymie. “Finally someone sensible,” she said, holding out her hand and gesturing to Jaymie to join them. “These two dimwits want to tear out the built-in bookshelf in the library in search of some artifact they believe is hidden there. They’re looking for my support at the next Queensville Heritage Society meeting to do it. I told them I’d rather simmer in a cannibal’s stew pot.”

  Jaymie stifled a groan and eyed the two other stubborn women—the Snoop Sisters, she called them, like on the old TV show with Helen Hayes and Mildred Natwick. Once friends, then mortal enemies for a few decades, and now fast friends again, the two women had become a troublesome duo. They insisted that somewhere concealed in the walls or floors of the Queensville Historic Manor was the Sultan’s Eye, a historic and valuable brooch with a painted eye, in a style from the early eighteen hundreds. Noted in diaries from the last century of the Dumpes, who had once owned the house, it had apparently disappeared, never to be seen again.

  “We are not dimwits!” Mrs. Bellwood stated, crossing her arms under her shelf-like bosom and harrumphing. “And I resent you calling us that. Am I correct, Imogene?”