Victoria Hamilton - Vintage Kitchen 04 - No Mallets Intended

by Victoria Hamilton

  She suddenly reversed her opinion; maybe it was worth saying after all. “I just have this feeling that Isolde wasn’t being completely honest, but I’m not sure what about,” she said. “She was hiding something, I’d bet on it.”

  Bernie nodded, looking thoughtful. “Okay, I’ll mention that to Chief Ledbetter, if you don’t mind. There will still be a police presence, so take it easy, and don’t go looking for any more dead bodies.”

  “I don’t go looking for them,” she retorted. “They just show up in my life. Bernie, can you tell me what it was you found earlier in this alley? I’ll understand if you can’t.”

  Her friend gazed up at her, one hand on the car steering wheel, then said, “Look, don’t say I told you, but we found a paper bag and some rope that seems to match what Isolde said about having a bag over her head and her wrists being tied when she was dumped here.”

  “So that much appears to be true.”

  She called Hoppy back from Trip Findley’s, took him inside and gave him some treats. She was just getting organized to go when the phone rang.

  It was Heidi. “Do you have a moment?” She sounded downhearted.

  “I’m heading out to the manor. Do you want to come? I might need a hand moving…” Jaymie paused. Heidi was one of those girls who never got her hands dirty and looked like a stiff wind would blow her away. However, Jaymie, surprised at times by Heidi’s spunkiness, had committed to not underestimating her friend. Taking a deep breath, she said, “I may need a hand pushing the Hoosier cabinet into place, if Bill is done with the walls. Are you up for it?”

  “I can try,” Heidi said, sounding a little more cheery. After a moment, she went on, “I have something to ask you, friend to friend.”

  “Okay. I’ll come past your house and we can walk the rest of the way together.”

  “You’re walking?”

  “Yes, I’m walking,” Jaymie said firmly. “Winter is coming; I need to lose the last five pounds on my hips before starting to add on my Christmas weight. I am not giving up chocolate caramels and turkey stuffing with gravy for anyone!”

  “You’re not fat, Jaymsie, you’re just pleasingly plump!”

  Jaymie rolled her eyes and said she’d see her in fifteen minutes.

  The day had become raw with a biting north wind and gray storm clouds scudding across the sky, so Jaymie bundled up in a parka and gloves, then slipped Hoppy’s specially knit sweater on and domed it under his belly. He was eager, his whole body wiggling with anticipation, and bolted out the back door. She locked up securely and walked briskly to Heidi’s split-level ranch house, trying to reinforce Hoppy’s good leash-walking habits as she went. The clouds were disappearing, but it was getting colder instead of warmer.

  For once Heidi was ready, and they set off at a good clip in the hard, brilliant November sunshine, though Heidi soon lagged behind. Jaymie moderated her pace to fall back in with her friend. “So what’s on your mind?” she asked, as Hoppy stopped to sniff at a clump of dried weeds along the roadside. Heidi didn’t answer for a long moment. When Jaymie looked over she saw tears in the younger woman’s eyes. She stopped dead. “Heidi, what’s wrong? Are you okay?”

  Heidi turned to her. “I’m all right. But Joel is gone again. We had a huge fight before he left. I think he’s having an affair.”

  “An affair. Really?” Since he had cheated on Jaymie with Heidi, why would the girl be amazed if it happened again? But still, Joel had proposed to Heidi and had seemed eager to seal their relationship with matrimony. And why would he cheat this time? What more could he want beyond a beautiful young heiress with a big heart, who thought he was the best thing that had ever happened to her? “Why do you think that?”

  “I found a text message on his cell phone from a woman named Cathy, and it said she’d see him when he got back. I don’t know any Cathy. He’s never mentioned any Cathy. And where is ‘back’ . . . here or somewhere else?”

  “It could be a work contact.”

  “Uh-uh. I asked him about it, and he said, no, she wasn’t a work colleague, she was a friend.” Heidi was normally bubbly like champagne, but at that moment her tone was like champagne that had been left uncorked too long, flat and lacking life.

  At least she had been brave enough to challenge him openly; that was a smart choice. Gently, Jaymie said, “Then maybe she is just a friend.”

  “I’m not an idiot,” she said in a low voice, starting to stroll again, hands shoved in her ski jacket pockets. “He’s been moody, distracted, unhappy; he’s definitely having an affair.”

  Funny, but he had displayed none of those signs when he was cheating on her, Jaymie reflected. In fact, he had seemed completely normal until the day he walked out of her house and into Heidi’s. “I wouldn’t jump the gun just yet. Maybe it’s something else.”

  “No, it’s me. I’m not smart enough. He had it all with you, Jaymsie, but he left you. You’re so smart and nice. I’m… I’m a work in progress, he says.”

  Anger burned in the pit of Jaymie’s stomach. He was doing to her what he had done to Jaymie, making her feel bad about herself, and it wasn’t fair. Jaymie stopped and turned her friend around, staring directly into her wide blue eyes. “Heidi, don’t you listen to him. You are not a work in progress, you are perfect the way you are, so don’t let him give you that crap.”

  “You’re right!” Heidi said, straightening. When they moved on she was walking a little taller. “I’m not going to take that crap. I’m going to hire a private detective to follow him!”

  Aghast, Jaymie said, “Don’t do that!”

  “Why not?” she asked, an edge entering her tone. “I’m not an idiot, Jaymie. I’ve got money. Lots of guys are only looking for that. How do I know Joel isn’t one of them?”

  A sudden resolution made Jaymie stay Heidi’s progress with one hand on her sleeve. “Just wait. When he’s back from his trip, tell me. I’ll talk to him. I know him pretty well; I’ll try to find out what’s wrong.”

  Heidi threw herself into Jaymie’s arms. “You’re so much better a friend than I deserve! You really are. I’m sorry I took him away from you.”

  “I’m not,” Jaymie said, patting her back as Hoppy bounced around them barking. She had sworn not to get involved, but now she was, because Heidi was her friend. “I’m not sorry, not now. Men aren’t like wallets; you can’t steal one.”

  They walked on and arrived at the manor in another few minutes. Cars lined the road in front of the house, and a couple of patrol cars were in the lane. Jaymie took a deep breath as they approached the house, nervous about the memory that plagued her of Theo’s dead stare.

  Hoppy laboriously made his way up the front steps of Dumpe Manor, or rather, Queensville Historic Manor, ahead of them, with Jaymie and Heidi following. The front door was unlocked and the place was alive with activity, despite the depressing police tape that she had seen fluttering disconsolately from the back stoop. Jaymie had been trying not to focus on Theo Carson’s demise right on the steps to her kitchen, but it was hard not to think of it now. The house was open, but would her kitchen be off-limits, since the murder weapon was a meat mallet from the house collection? She strolled through the house, listening to echoing voices and the banging of a hammer. She was relieved to find that her kitchen was open.

  “Wow, it turned out just perfect,” she said, as she stepped in from the hallway and looked over Bill’s finished paint job.

  The kitchen, still smelling of latex paint, was a soft green with glossy off-white trim. The cupboards were painted the same color as the trim. Eventually Jaymie hoped to have some custom tile work done to suit the age of the Depression-era kitchen, but right now this would have to do. Heidi followed and looked around.

  “Is this really the right color?” she asked, wrinkling her nose.

  Jaymie sighed. No one except Bill saw what she saw, the potential in this room.
“Come on and help me move the Hoosier.”

  With Jaymie doing most of the work, they pushed the antique cabinet in place along one wall, as she described the curtains that Mabel Bloombury was sewing for the big window that was currently just covered in a sheet. They were going to be ruffled café curtains in butter yellow to emphasize the light that streamed into the window in the morning.

  “Now what?” Heidi asked.

  Jaymie was beginning to regret bringing her along. “Now I attach the top cabinet to the bottom with the screws in this little baggie,” she said, taking out the plastic bag she had taped to the interior wall of the Hoosier when she had taken it apart at the auction barn to move to the house. She had duplicates of most tools, with one case being in her van and another, smaller case full of tools in the lower kitchen cupboard at the historic home, hidden because people kept stealing her screwdrivers and she was tired of replacing them. She got down on her knees, opened the cupboard door and fished around.

  Nothing. It should have been right there! “Darn it, who took it now?” But she felt deeper, and her hand brushed against something. “Maybe that’s it,” she grunted under her breath. But it was paper, not vinyl. Funny that she had never come across that before. She grabbed the item and gave a tug; it was stuck to something, but it came free and she sat down on the floor, looking at the manila envelope.

  Heidi sat down cross-legged on the floor opposite her and said, “What is it?”

  She looked at the stained envelope, fastened shut with a string around a button. Scrawled on it in looping cursive was one word: Will. What on earth… ? Jaymie, her fingers trembling, undid the string tie and unwound it from the button. Inside was a single piece of paper, old looking but not ancient. She pulled it out. It was handwritten, and scrawled at the top was Will again, then under that the name Jane Thorpe Dumpe. It was dated July 5, 1993.

  Jaymie read out loud, “‘July fifth, 1993. I, Jane Dumpe, being of sound mind, entirely revoke all previous wills. I now, as of the signed date, leave Dumpe Manor and everything it holds to my beloved grandson, Prentiss Dumpe, on the condition that he not give a single, solitary penny to Hazel Grinely Frump, who I have reason to believe is stealing me blind, and who has been keeping me from seeing my lawyer. I include all lands, house, antiques, jewelry, money and anything else that I die possessed of, all to my dear Prentiss. Mrs. Jane Thorpe Dumpe.’”

  She sat staring at it for a long moment while Heidi asked what it was, and what that meant.

  Finally, Jaymie said, “What this means is, maybe Prentiss was right. Maybe he does have a right to Dumpe Manor after all!”

  Ten

  JAYMIE WAS PARALYZED into inaction by the shock. Prentiss Dumpe had all along said that there was no way his grandmother would be so disloyal as to leave the house to someone other than the direct family, not when he and his son were still around to keep the family name on the property. Mrs. Dumpe had died in 1995. Jaymie had heard the story of the house many times: Mrs. Dumpe’s will, drawn up in 1990, left the house to Mrs. Hazel Grinley Frump, her sister-in-law. Hazel, who was childless, died ten years later, leaving the house to a nephew who subsequently moved away and eventually sold the home to the heritage society for a song. But this will could change everything, and it upheld Prentiss’s contention that there was undue influence in the original will.

  Her stomach flip-flopped. What would happen to all their hard work now? They’d be back at square one, and the money they had already paid and invested would be tied up in litigation for years. They’d likely never see it again.

  “This is awful,” she said, her voice trembling. “This ruins everything!”

  Heidi leaned forward and put her hand on Jaymie’s knee. “Don’t get upset, Jaymie. Let someone else see this and figure it out!” She took out her phone and called a number.

  “Who are you calling?” Jaymie asked, hoping to heavens it wasn’t the police or someone equally troublesome.

  “Haskell Lockland. Who else?”

  That actually made sense. He was the president of the historical society, and it would be up to him what they did. Heidi got him on the phone and then handed it over to Jaymie.

  “Jaymie, what seems to be the problem?” the president said, his tone sonorous.

  Haskell Lockland was a lawyer, semiretired, and his manner was courtroom ready at all times. He looked like he practiced in the mirror, his expressions were so precisely designed to comfort, challenge or reassure, whatever the occasion demanded. Even on the phone his voice was impressive, a rich baritone perfect for the courtroom or boardroom. She explained what she had found, and there was silence on the other end of the line. Finally, he muttered, “Oh, dear. Stay right there, and don’t breathe a word about this to anyone. I want to see that document!”

  She clicked the phone off and handed it back to Heidi. “He’s on his way out here.”

  Bill Waterman trudged into the kitchen. “Thought I heard you here, Jaymie. Say, Imogene claimed that Mrs. Bellwood told her that Valetta said you two found Theo Carson dead here last night. What happened—he have a heart attack? What was he doing here? Why are the cops here?”

  She stood and dusted off her butt. “It wasn’t a heart attack. Say, Bill, do you have your tools here? My screwdrivers have disappeared again.” She didn’t want to talk about the murder and she did not want to say anything about the will she had just found. She gave Heidi a look, and the girl nodded.

  Bill, a lanky gray-haired fellow in overalls, was easily distracted by work to be done. He retrieved his tools and offered to help, so the Hoosier cabinet was securely together in no time at all. He then told Jaymie about something he’d seen for sale at a junk store nearby. “It’s kind of a neat place, Jaymie, run by a young fella little older than you. I found an old gas stove there, cream and green, exactly right for the era of the kitchen. Do you want it?”

  “We really need a stove, but we need one that could work if we’re going to make this kitchen function properly. Does it work? Are there photos?”

  “Not sure. I’ve done some work for the fellow who runs the place. I’ll ask him; he’s honest and fair. I’ll call him and see if he can send me pictures.”

  “If it will work and is in decent shape, Bill, I’d love to have it. Thanks for looking out for me.”

  “You know what I think… the kitchen needs to be done before anything else. What’s a home at Christmas without cookies and a turkey in the oven?” He smiled and winked at her.

  Someone shouted his name and he bustled off, ready to work, as always. Heidi went upstairs to have a look at the girl’s room that he was painting. Jaymie looked the will over again and wondered how long it had been in the cupboard. She had cleaned out underneath, but had she really dug deep in toward the back, as she had this time? Her first thought had been that it was a fake, but the handwriting looked like an old lady’s, and it seemed faded. She put it away and pulled the sheet off the window so she could see out. That was a mistake because the window overlooked the back stoop, where the yellow crime scene tape still cordoned the area off.

  She turned away and got down to work, pulling off the tape Bill had used in painting around the cabinets. A few minutes later Haskell Lockland strode into the kitchen. He put out his hand and Jaymie handed him the envelope.

  “I’m not looking forward to this,” he said, pulling the sheet of paper out and strolling to the window for better light. He sat on the windowsill and read it.

  “What should we do if it’s legit?” she asked, folding her arms over her chest. “Fight it or shell out more money or… what? I don’t even know what our options would be.”

  “Limited, very limited.” His expression was impassive, but the faint wrinkling of his brow held all the emotion he never expressed in tone or language. “We might be best off to sever all ties and look elsewhere, because I can’t see paying Prentiss off. He’s likely to want half a million, or s
ome such ridiculous amount, and we’d still have to try to get back what we already paid the other fellow, Hazel’s inheritor. However… we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let me have another look.” He read it over.

  “Does it stand if it’s handwritten like that?”

  “It’s called a holographic will. Perfectly legal.”

  “Wait, it’s not witnessed! That makes it invalid, right?” Jaymie said, cheering up.

  Her hopes were dashed as Haskell replied, “No. Unfortunately, though the law prefers that even a holographic will have two witness signatures, if it is clear that the document expresses the wishes of the testator, and is apparently created while he or she is of sound mind, and further, it is clearly revoking a past will, then it is valid and can be enforced in a court of law.”

  “This will does all of that.” Jaymie felt defeated. She looked around her kitchen, the color just right, the Hoosier in place. “Can’t say Prentiss didn’t warn us.” She frowned. “How was he so sure? If this will was hidden in the kitchen cupboard, how did he know there was one?” It was weird, she thought, that Prentiss Dumpe was the one who benefited by this turn of events, but it was Theo Carson who had been searching the place for something important. Not this will, though; this couldn’t be what Theo was looking for.

  “I don’t imagine he knew there was a will; he just hoped to sue on the grounds that the testator, his grandmother, was the victim of undue influence.”

  “He did say something like that at the meeting, didn’t he? Why did he wait so long, though? He has never yet sued, even when the society bought the house. I don’t understand.”

  “He has recently tried to get a court injunction,” Haskell reminded her. “I would guess that before now he had a reputation to protect and didn’t want to appear avaricious by suing for the Dumpe property.”