Victoria Hamilton - Vintage Kitchen 04 - No Mallets Intended

by Victoria Hamilton

  Isolde gulped down some more milk but said nothing. For someone who’d slept with the man, someone who’d spent so much time with him, she seemed unmoved by his death. Was that shock left over from having witnessed the murder? Or was she naturally cold? If she wasn’t going to respond to the emotional aspect, maybe Jaymie needed to pursue another line of questioning. Not that she was questioning, but… well, yeah. She was questioning Isolde. She had the uneasy feeling the chief wouldn’t approve of her going this far, but she had a stake in this, too, since the culprit was possibly the same person who had attacked her. “I’ve never asked you this, but why were you driving by the house that night when you found me?” Jaymie asked. “I mean, I’m grateful, but…”

  The museum guide sighed and shrugged, chewing another mouthful of food. “That night I knew Theo was visiting his mom out of town, so I went out to the house to see if I could get in and look around without him. I knew he was looking for something, but I didn’t know what. That’s why he stole a key to Dumpe Manor, had it copied and then put it back.”

  Jaymie sat up straight. “How did he do that?” Originally Isolde had said that Theo borrowed a key to get in.

  “Are you kidding?” Isolde swallowed and chuckled, shaking her head. “You people are so trusting! Wolverhampton would never fall for some of the crap that goes on here. Bunch of newbies.” She eyed Jaymie. “Theo had access to people on the historical society, right? He was supposed to talk to them, blah, blah, blah, about the history of the Dumpe family. It was soooo easy for him to distract them while I lifted the key. He got it copied, then returned the key without anyone being the wiser.”

  Jaymie stuffed down her building fury. “Who was the society member?”

  Isolde rolled her eyes. “It was that annoying Mrs. Frump.”

  “So, you helped him steal a key from Mrs. Frump. And you don’t see anything wrong with that?”

  Isolde stiffened and sat up straight. “We just borrowed it. I told you that… that he borrowed a key. I wasn’t lying. We weren’t going to take anything.”

  Jaymie held her tongue, though there were a hundred things she wanted to say, none of them nice. Stealing and copying a key was not borrowing, not by any definition. However, there was a lot more she wanted to know from Isolde. Sweetly, she said, “Would you like your apple crisp heated up? And with whipped cream?”

  Her blue eyes widened. “Would you do that?”

  Jaymie heated the apple crisp in the microwave and blanketed it with real whipped cream that melted and flowed over the steaming dessert.

  Isolde dug in and heaved a spoonful into her mouth, rolling her eyes and chewing. “This is so good!”

  “I never really got Theo,” Jaymie said, determined to get more information out of the woman. “Never understood him. He seemed really… egotistical. I thought you two were fond of each other, but you seemed to have a pretty clear view of him. What happened between him and your ex? I’ve heard stories, but I don’t know what’s true.”

  “It was so embarrassing! This was last month. Theo and I were at a restaurant in Wolverhampton. We’d just started going out after he dumped that sad sack Cynthia. Anyway, Milton charged into the restaurant and made a huge scene and tried to haul me out by the arm. Theo stood up to him and got punched in the ear for his troubles.” She shrugged once again, an elegant hunch of one shoulder. “Milt ended up in jail, and stayed there because the attack meant he broke probation and a restraining order.”

  So that was why the guy was still in jail, Jaymie thought, but… could he have talked someone else in jail into killing Theo? Surely the police would have thought about that, she figured. “Dick Schuster had some wild story about Theo stealing a manuscript from him, but it didn’t make much sense to me.”

  Isolde swallowed and scooped up another spoonful of apple crisp. “That guy is a flake. He hated Theo, but there wasn’t a bit of merit in what he said. Theo never stole anything from Dick Schuster. I saw his notes; he was a pretty good researcher.”

  “But you called him a hack writer to his mother.”

  “I was mad. He didn’t have the degrees to back it up, but he was a decent enough writer. Let’s just say he knew how to write for the general public.”

  That sounded like the snarky remark of a college-trained writer against an author who knew how to appeal to the masses, Jaymie thought, remembering Nan’s comments about Isolde’s pompous writing style. It sounded like she resented Theo; interesting thought. “How well did Theo know Dr. Prentiss Dumpe?”

  “You mean that guy who says he should own the house? The one who was at the last heritage meeting?”

  “Exactly.”

  She frowned down at her bowl, playing with the apple crisp and whipped cream. “I think he interviewed the guy about the Dumpe family background. It’s in his notes.” She tilted her head to one side and frowned. “Theo was kind of secretive about what he found out.”

  Jaymie didn’t miss the fact that Isolde said Theo was secretive, and yet she had seen his notes. The implication to Jaymie was that he had not shown her the notes, so she must have looked through his stuff. Since her ethical code did not forbid stealing—or rather, borrowing—a key, intellectual theft might not be beyond her, even though she claimed Theo didn’t indulge in it. Was she planning to try out for the now-vacant job of writer of the Dumpe Manor history? And if so, had she hastened Theo’s death? Far-fetched, but an interesting thought. However… it was far more likely that if Isolde had been involved in Theo’s death, it was for the elusive something that everyone was after at Dumpe Manor.

  She eyed the younger woman, who scooped the last of the dessert into her mouth and drank the melted whipped cream. What a great cover story it would be to witness the murder, then be kidnapped and held in a trunk all night! An alibi and cover story all in one, and it could explain a host of forensic details, like blood transfer from Theo if the murderer or murderers had grabbed her. As far as Jaymie knew, Isolde was the only one who could tell them that there were possibly two assailants. She wondered if the police had forensic evidence to back up her statement that there were two attackers, but Jaymie would never be privy to that. Her hesitant friendship with the police chief only went so far. He had seemed interested in her speculations, and now she was speculating that Isolde Rasmussen killed Theo Carson for some reason, either professional ambition or just plain annoyance. What would he say if she told him that?

  But… could this beautiful, ethereal Scandinavian blonde actually commit such a brutal murder? Having seen her in a sleeveless blouse, Jaymie knew that the docent had impressive muscles on a taut frame; the mallet was steel headed, but meant for a woman to wield. It was definitely possible.

  The phone rang, and Jaymie jumped up to answer. It was Valetta. “I can’t talk this minute. May I call you back?” she said, looking over her shoulder at her guest.

  “Hmm… sounds interesting,” Valetta said. “I’m at work. Call me here.”

  “I have to go out to meet the alarm installer and Haskell at the house, first, but I’ll call you when I get home.” Jaymie hung up and turned, but Isolde had stood and was putting her jacket back on.

  “I have to go,” she said.

  “Wait… I was going to ask—”

  “I have to go to work. Thanks for the food. And for keeping that lunatic woman away from me. Talk to you later!” She was out the back door and gone in two seconds, before Jaymie could even respond.

  Jaymie watched her jog down the back path. Hoppy bounced after her, then stood at the back gate and watched her scurry off down the lane, skirting the spot where she had reportedly been dropped off. She seemed to be in one heck of a hurry.

  • • •

  THE DAY HAD turned from brilliant fall warmth to November in its worst mood. That was so common that Michiganders tended to look up at the sun, nod knowingly and dress for a blizzard. The wind had come up, the trees toss
ed uneasily and the sky was the color of a new bruise. She had driven her van out to Dumpe Manor and was glad she had, since the house was without electricity at the moment, a hopefully brief blackout. It wasn’t uncommon for homes outside of the town proper, she had heard, to lose power, especially on windy days. She sat in her van waiting for both the power and the alarm installer.

  She had put a call in to the police chief from her cell while she waited, and it chimed. She looked at the screen. Aha! “Chief Ledbetter! I’m glad you called me back,” Jaymie said.

  “Well, I told you to keep in touch,” he said, a trifle wearily. “Can’t really blame you for taking me at my word, can I?”

  Jaymie flushed, glad that he couldn’t see the chagrin on her face through the phone. She had been phoning quite a bit, but usually she didn’t talk to him, she just left him messages about her observations. He’d started it, with his impromptu visit and urge to share what she was thinking. She had told him, finally, about the will found in the kitchen cupboard, and about the Snoop Sisters’ search for the Sultan’s Eye, not that either of those things had anything to do with the murder. She had shared most random information she came across and even many of her nighttime musings.

  “Has anything panned out?” she asked, before divulging the reason for her call. She stared up at the big historic house as the wind whipped the pine trees that lined the far side and rain pelted down obscuring the view. Her van was cozy enough, and Hoppy was curled up comfortably on the passenger seat. Haskell Lockland was supposed to be meeting her, and the security specialist was to come at three, so she hoped the electricity would come back on before then, or he would have a wasted trip. She checked her watch. She had a few minutes still, since she always arrived early for every appointment.

  “Panned out? Well, now, we’ve used your tips and discovered a few things, but nothing particularly earthshaking.”

  “Like what?” Jaymie asked, prying further.

  He sighed, a long huff of sound. “Guess it can’t hurt you knowing. Alibis. That particular night was a busy one for all our folks, it seems.”

  Jaymie held her breath, afraid to ask in case Cynthia Turbridge was one of the ones he had investigated. She had not told him about the Cottage Shoppe owner’s alcoholic binge, blackout and blood. It was inconceivable to her that Cynthia would kill anyone, much less someone she had seemed to genuinely love.

  “Couple of ’em outright lied. Why do people lie to us, even when they’re not guilty?”

  “Who do you mean?”

  “His ex, the shop girl, Cynthia Turbridge. At first she told us she was home that night, but we knew for sure she wasn’t, since her snoopy neighbor, Mrs. Frump, saw her get in her car and leave. Wasn’t back when Mrs. Frump went to bed.”

  Jaymie crossed her fingers and said, “But Mrs. Frump is an early-to-bed kind of woman.”

  “True enough. The car was back in her driveway by eight a.m., but that don’t mean a thing. Why’d the woman lie?” He paused, and his voice changed subtly. “She sure was mad at Carson.”

  “I just can’t see Cynthia Turbridge whacking Carson over the head,” she said, carefully sticking to the truth. There was something in his tone, but she couldn’t quite pinpoint what it was.

  “Not so sure about that. And she had access to the weapon, let’s not forget that little detail. But there are others.”

  “Like?”

  “Take Prentiss and his charming son, Iago.”

  She chuckled, and Hoppy looked up at her with a question in his sharp little eyes. “Charming… good description. What about them?”

  The chief was silent for a long minute, the only sound his huffing breathing. “Okay, you did not hear this from me. Prentiss Dumpe said he was counseling a client.”

  “But his license has been suspended, and… counseling someone at night? Since when?”

  “My understanding is that he does not need his license to work as a therapist. Psychiatrist, yes, but therapist, no. Any gol-darn idiot can hang out a shingle and call himself—or herself—a therapist.”

  “I have heard that before,” Jaymie admitted. “But I think it would go against him in a board review of his license, wouldn’t it?”

  “Don’t know. Maybe he figures he’ll be losing his license to practice anyway. And for what it’s worth, the lady, interestingly enough, backed up his alibi.”

  She paused a moment and wished she could see the chief’s face. There was still something there, some hint of something that she ought to pick up on. “I don’t suppose you’d tell me who his lady client was?”

  “Can’t do that, but it is interesting.”

  “Okay, so what about Prentiss’s son.”

  “Ah, yes. Well, he’s got an alibi, of sorts, from a couple o’ low-life hood rats, two other pants-dragging miscreants I have seen more than once in the lockup. They were all having some kind of kegger in his old man’s backyard, and then played video games all night in the basement. So he says. The friends back him up, but these same guys would swear they were in Neverland if someone told them to.”

  “And Dick Schuster?”

  “Schuster. He on your radar? S’pose so. Anyway, he was home alone. He says.” He paused, and she could hear him breathing; heck, she could almost hear him thinking. “Interesting fella. Real interesting. Got some problems.”

  Jaymie frowned. “Chief, I don’t want to peg him as the killer just because he’s got some psychological challenges.”

  He grunted. “Nice way to put it. I’ll have to remember that… ‘psychological challenges’ instead of he’s nutty as a Snickers bar.”

  Jaymie stayed silent; it seemed the best option, since she didn’t want to get on the chief’s bad side… yet. But it seemed cruel to paint those with mental health issues as “nutty.” When the silence extended too long, she said, “So, how closely have you looked into Isolde Rasmussen’s story? About being in the trunk of her own car?”

  “Interesting thing about that. Forensics swept it, but there was no hair in there. Now, you’d expect some random hairs even if she wasn’t in the trunk, since it was her car, but nope. Not a thing.”

  “Is that conclusive? I mean, do you think that means she wasn’t in it?”

  “Not saying that. Anything’s possible. But I do not believe her story, not one little bit. I’d wager she was not in that trunk.”

  “Where did you find her car?”

  “Parked in her own driveway in Wolverhampton.”

  Twenty-one

  THAT CHANGED EVERYTHING. “It’s still possible that she told the truth and someone else took the car, dropped her in my back alley, then drove her car to Wolverhampton and parked it in her driveway.”

  The chief was silent for a long minute, then said, “You’ve talked to her. Maybe you have some insight on something I was thinking. I was wondering if the whole story was a fabrication.”

  “The whole story?”

  “Maybe she wasn’t even there when he was killed and she was home, or at Theo’s place. Maybe she’s giving us some cock-and-bull story to cover up what really happened.”

  “Like what?”

  He was silent.

  “You’re asking, could she have been in on it with the killer?”

  “Didn’t say that, but go on.”

  “Why would she spin a tale of being there?” Jaymie thought about it for a long minute as she watched the pine trees lean and bend with the wind and the rain patter on the windshield. “That would only make sense if she knew who the killer was, and the description she was going to give would point away from that person.” She shook her head. “If that was the case, I would think she’d give a very specific identification, something linked to one person, even a car, or something like that.”

  “Kind of what my line of reasoning was,” the chief said.

  “I guess it’s possible, but that’
s an awful big risk to take.”

  “She strikes me as a risk taker, though, and her story just doesn’t add up.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” Jaymie said. “I talked to her an hour or so ago, and I just can’t get over the idea that she’s not too broken up over Theo’s death, for someone who was sleeping with him. And she’s hiding something; I’m sure of it. She’s the only eyewitness, and I wondered if she did it and made up the whole stuffed-in-the-trunk story to explain any forensic evidence… you know, like blood on her clothes, hair, that kind of thing. Everyone knows about that stuff nowadays.”

  “That’s kinda what I was thinking; it would take cold calculation, but, like you said, she seems a pretty cool customer. We’ll have her come in again and answer more questions.”

  “The other possibility is, she’s not in on it but knows who did it and is protecting them for some reason.”

  He grunted, and she could hear the scratch of a pencil on paper as he made notes. “I had considered that.”

  She opened her mouth to tell the chief about Cynthia and the blood—it seemed wrong to keep it from him, now that they had established some rapport—but she just couldn’t do it. It would feel like a betrayal of a very fragile woman.

  “You got something to add?” he asked.

  “No,” she said, crossing her fingers. “That’s it, for now. If I think of anything else, I’ll call.”

  “I’m sure you will.”

  Haskell had texted her that he would be a little late and to let the alarm guy in the house, so when he pulled up in the lane, she got out of the van, wrapping her coat around herself as the wind tried to tear it away. At least it had stopped raining.

  “Name’s Connor,” the guy said, sticking out his hand. He was an older man, fit, tall, bearded. He had a clipboard, but must have left his tools in his truck, emblazoned with the Wolverhampton Security logo.