“I don’t think that’s at all appropriate,” Haskell said. “Bad precedent. We can’t have anyone thinking they can work for us and get paid for not working!”
Mabel glared up at him. “Haskell Lockland, have a heart! Her daughter was horribly injured. I know for a fact that family is always one step away from poverty, and I can’t imagine, at this time of year or any other, letting her worry for one minute about paying her bills and making a living while her daughter lies in a hospital bed in a coma.”
“I agree,” Jaymie said. “We can afford it, Haskell.”
“But she’s barely started working for us!” he protested.
“I don’t care if she started yesterday or has worked for us for years, it’s all the same,” Cynthia said softly. She glanced at each one of them. “A wonderful part of living in this village for me has been the support in difficult times.”
Recently, Cynthia had some troubles that had resulted in her lapsing back into an addiction that she was now battling with the support of friends, new and old. Jewel took her arm, hugged it to her and nodded.
“I agree,” Jaymie said. “I say we pull from the emergency fund, pitch in ourselves and take it up at the next meeting.”
“Here, here,” Jewel, Cynthia and Mabel all echoed.
Haskell, with bad grace, said, “Fine. But I want it to be known that I disagree. That’s how this country got soft, paying people to not work. Ridiculous. If you gals want to do the work, then go ahead. But the house must not suffer.” He turned and strode off somewhere else where his input would be vitally unimportant.
Jaymie rolled her eyes and the other women sighed, almost in unison. “Let’s get this show on the road gals,” she said, with heavy emphasis.
She checked the kitchen, which still looked pristine, then trotted upstairs to the staff lounge, one of the old bedrooms with an attached bath and decent-sized wardrobe where clothes for the docents were kept. The room was bare bones, no décor at all to speak of, just a battered folding-leg table by one of the big windows, several discarded office chairs, a fridge, kettle, a countertop and some file cabinets. Haskell had demanded a proper office, so there was a small reading room for his use just down the hall. It and the staff rooms would be locked during opening times.
Jaymie grabbed her costume from a hanger in the wardrobe, slipped into the washroom, changed and then folded her clothes neatly, stowing them in the wardrobe on a shelf and pinning her house keys inside her costume. She glanced at herself in the mirror, her hair coiled in an old-fashioned hairdo and makeup limited to some lipstick. It would have to do. Her stomach roiled with excitement as she slipped down the back stairs to her lovely vintage kitchen. She stood in the center of it, turning in a complete circle, trying to see it from a stranger’s perspective. Would anyone get why they were preserving this? Did anyone care?
The walls were a soft green with glossy off-white trim, and the floor black-and-white checkerboard tile. The cupboards were painted cream; the green-and-white Hoosier, untouched by her so it was still in its original state, and the green-and-white stove continued the color scheme. Jaymie tiptoed over to the window, pulled aside the lovely curtains Mabel had sewn, white with a pattern of cherries and ivy, and fastened them with the matching ties, then watched flakes of snow dance through the air.
Someone, a housewife or housekeeper, had done exactly this, she thought, looking anxiously out the window, wondering if her visitors would enjoy the festive goodies she was about to make. She turned away from the window and set up the oven to preheat, shivering at the cold, dressed in her unaccustomed just-below-the-knee-length housedress and hard oxfords.
They were to open at two and unbelievably there were folks lined up to get in. The mayor was in attendance, as well as a couple of councilors. The other ladies and gents who were volunteers were dressed in appropriate garb, as Jaymie was. Jewel wore an Edwardian tea gown, like a lady from Downton Abbey, while Cynthia wore a long-waisted twenties flapper-style dress and a feathered headpiece. Haskell had donned a tailcoat and top hat. All gathered on the porch, across which had been strung a blue ribbon that the frigid wind flipped and fluttered.
The mayor made a speech and Haskell made a much longer one, all while the volunteers stepped from foot to foot, freezing in the cold. All except Mabel, who had on an ancient fur stole over her shoulders, her hands stuffed in a muff.
Mayor Fletcher finally held up the brass scissors and said to the waiting crowd, “I now declare Queensville Historic Manor officially open!” He clipped the ribbon and there was polite applause from the crowd, which was anxiously waiting, kids chattering and folks craning their necks, trying to see inside the front door. They flooded into the warmth of the manor home.
Jewel was her charming self, the redhead’s gregarious nature making her the perfect hostess, while Mabel, deeply knowledgeable about every aspect of fine dining in the nineteenth and early twentieth century, acted as the original homeowner, Mrs. Latimer Dumpe. Imogene Frump, as one of the few living relatives, was gowned in her rarely worn Queen Victoria getup, as was Mrs. Bellwood. Both ladies, still trying to one-up each other even though they had mended their broken friendship from years gone by, had arrived after the opening ceremonies.
Jaymie ruled the kitchen. She set her colander centerpiece on the kitchen table and rolled out sugar cookies on the Hoosier tabletop. Using vintage cookie cutters in star and angel shapes, she cut the cookies, sprinkled them with sugar and baked them in her new old oven. The first batch was burned, but after that she got into a rhythm and began turning them out in a nice pale golden color.
She kept expecting Valetta or Jakob and Jocie to visit, but they didn’t. Maybe it was for the best, she decided, as she cleaned up mess after mess, because she didn’t have a single moment to talk. Families, hungry for pre-Christmas kid-friendly things to do, streamed through nonstop. She handed out the sugar cookies she was baking and helped kids decorate them with colored icing and sprinkles, trying to keep the dusting of crumbs to a minimum.
After a few hours she was wretchedly tired and overdone with people, but then Haskell blustered, “Jaymie, there’s a photographer here from the Wolverhampton Weekly Howler. Pose with your stove.” He introduced her to a young fellow in a parka, galoshes and glasses, holding a fancy camera by the lens. The guy smirked at her outfit and rolled his eyes at the kids jostling his arm.
Her careful coiffure now askew and dark dress dusted with flour, Jaymie took a deep breath, smiled and greeted the photographer. So Nan had come through after all, she thought, and her smile faltered as she thought of poor Shelby, lying comatose in a hospital bed with her anxious mother hovering over her. Nan would have someone covering the incident in Queensville. She eyed the photographer. He might even have been dispatched to take photos of the crime scene, but she couldn’t ask him what he knew or what he’d seen, not with tourists present, anyway.
He took shots of her bending over helping a winsome child decorate a cookie; Jaymie fervently hoped he didn’t angle it so her butt looked huge. As the last person drifted out of the kitchen, the photographer asked her to stand by the Hoosier, which was decked again with the white colander holding her own holly. She smiled and held up her floury rolling pin.
“Great,” he said, with no enthusiasm. “We’re done.” He glanced around. Haskell had gotten antsy with the presence of children and had retreated, and the last of the families seemed to have drifted off, so it was just her and the photographer. “You’re Jaymie Leighton, right? That girl who keeps finding bodies and who works for the paper?”
“Sure,” she said, frowning at him in irritation.
“Nan is really mad at you. She told me to tell you she’s been trying to call you all afternoon.”
“Mad at me?” she said, alarmed. “Why?”
His expression was sly, and confirmed her immediate dislike of him. “I heard her with the boss. She was screaming that after all
she’s done for you why would you backstab her that way and tell the cops you saw her son at the scene of the crime? She says Cody told her that he was working last evening at the Christmas tree farm and wasn’t anywhere near Queensville.”
Jaymie’s breath caught. “But I didn’t say that, not exactly. I didn’t say I saw him at the scene of the crime.”
He shrugged. “All I know is Cody Wainwright has been arrested for assault. I took a photo of him when they had him do a perp walk after picking him up at the Christmas tree place. Nan is out of her mind, mad as blazes, mostly at you.”
• • •
AFTER SWIFTLY CLEANING up the kitchen and helping with the rest of the house, Jaymie caught a ride back to town with Mabel Bloombury, who cast troubled looks at her all the way. Mabel and the others knew what was wrong—that her editor’s son had been arrested for the assault on Shelby Fretter—but as they all cleaned the house they respected her need to process it in silence.
She told Mabel she’d see her the next day, the second of the grand-opening weekend, then stood and waved good-bye at her front door. She turned, fumbling in her purse for the key, and at that moment her lights, on a timer, came on to help her see. She entered and locked the door behind her as Hoppy wuffled and wriggled at her feet. She let out a desperate-to-piddle puppy and a nonchalant Denver as the snow thickened. Normally, on an evening like this, she would be looking forward to curling up by the fire in the parlor with a book and cup of tea. Like many readers she had a few books going at the same time, so besides the romances on her bedside nightstand, there was a biography of C. S. Lewis waiting on a table by the settee. But after such a harrowing twenty-four hours she couldn’t even think straight, much less look forward to anything. On the phone was an angry sputtering message from Nan, and another from Detective Vestry to call the police station, but she ignored them both and called Jakob first.
Once they had greeted each other, she asked, “Did they really come out to the Christmas tree farm to arrest Cody?”
“They did,” he said. “The police officer was nice enough. I told him I didn’t want my little girl to see one of my employees arrested, and he let me get Jocie away with no fuss. I told them that he was working all last evening, but that was before Gus told me what really happened.”
“What was that?”
“Cody received a text message. He was supposed to work until ten, to help with some of the cleanup, but he told Gus he had a family emergency and took off early.”
“But there was no family emergency,” Jaymie said. “Not that I know of. I saw him in the village in the crowd, but he was just watching and listening to the brass band. Nan is blaming me for telling the police that I saw him, but what else could I do?”
“You did the right thing. He shouldn’t have lied to the police.”
“He lied?”
Jakob sighed deeply. “When he was first confronted he told them he’d been working all evening on the tree lot and hadn’t left until ten. I confirmed it, but Gus spoke up and told the truth. He feels bad about it now, but he was right not to let the kid get away with that. I won’t be his cover-up. Even if he didn’t hit that poor girl he didn’t do himself any favors by lying. I haven’t forgotten what you told me about Cody, Jaymie. I’m praying he didn’t do this.”
“Me, too.” She wondered if he had told the police he was at the tree lot until after ten because he knew what time she was found. Or did he know what happened to her because he did it himself? She had walked up to the walkway and watched the lights on Heartbreak Island after seeing him at the band shell; he had time to get back to the village and attack Shelby, and she had already figured that he could have known about the spare key to the workshop from working with Bill earlier that day.
“How was your day at the historic house? I’m sorry we didn’t get there, but I left Jocie with my mother. Today was crazy, and with Cody being arrested I just couldn’t leave Gus to take care of everything, and the junk store, too. This is one of our busiest days of the year.”
“I understand, Jakob. Please don’t apologize. I’m okay. I tried to put it out of my mind, and the day went well. Will you hire someone else to work at the tree farm?”
“It’s kind of late to find anyone now. My oldest brother, Dieter, will pitch in. He’s done it before and he’s free tomorrow.”
“I suppose I’d better go,” Jaymie said, reluctant to hang up, knowing this was probably the sweetest moment of the day for her. It was only going to get worse once she returned Nan’s and Detective Vestry’s calls.
“You know what?” he asked softly.
“What?”
There was a pause, and then he said, “I miss you. I wish I could see you tonight.”
She was amazed by a welling of emotion, a tear rising into her eye and trickling down her cheek. The wonder of his admission, when she had been feeling exactly the same way but afraid to say it, made her silent for a moment.
“Did that sound wrong?”
“No,” she said, her voice catching. “Far from it, Jakob. I miss you, too. I wish I was there with you right now.” His cabin was just twenty minutes from town. But no, she had promised herself not to rush things, even when this felt so right. “But I can’t be.”
“Call me later if you need to talk.”
“I will.” The one and only thing she missed about going out with Daniel was having someone to talk to late at night. “If I can’t sleep, would it be okay to call fairly late, like eleven or so?”
“I’d like that.”
They hung up. Jaymie stared at the phone in her hand, then scanned through her saved contacts and hit Nan’s home number, kind of hoping she didn’t get her editor. She was out of luck.
“Hello? Jaymie, is that you? I’ve been trying to get you all day.”
“I’m sorry, Nan, but today was the first official day of the historic manor being open and I was there most of the day.”
“I know, but this is a mess. Why did you tell the cops you saw my son at the scene of the crime?”
“I didn’t say that. I did say that I saw Cody at the band shell watching the brass band just before I finished up for the night.”
“Why did you tell them that?”
“Because it was the truth, Nan,” she said, unable to hide the exasperation in her voice. Why did her editor think she would say it? She moved to the stove and put on the kettle for tea. “Cody was there, I saw him. He didn’t tell the police the truth, probably because he was scared they’d think he hurt Shelby.”
She was silent.
“You know I wouldn’t make something like that up. I just talked to Jakob Müller. Cody lied to the police, saying he was working all evening at the tree farm when in truth he asked to leave early because of a family emergency.”
Nan sighed. “Damn. I hoped he was telling me the truth and that everyone else got it wrong. What am I going to do with him?”
Jaymie was silent, not knowing what to say.
“But I do not believe he beat that girl. I just don’t!”
Jaymie made a sympathetic noise, but she couldn’t offer reassurance. She’d seen him hit Shelby; was it so far-fetched that he’d beat her?
“I should have known you wouldn’t lie, Jaymie. But Cody is my son.” She was silent for a long minute except for a sigh. “I’ve hired a lawyer, so I hope he’ll be able to post bail after the weekend. It kills me to think of him in jail for days, but there’s nothing else I can do.”
“I’m so sorry, Nan.”
“Not your problem, kiddo. Get to work on your column. The news biz goes on.”
Once Nan hung up, Jaymie made herself a cup of tea and some dinner, just a homemade frozen dinner of turkey, mashed potatoes and corn that she had saved from Thanksgiving, heated in the oven. Denver was curled up in his basket by the stove and Hoppy was sitting up on a kitchen chair, where she had placed him
on a cushion, watching Jaymie eat.
The phone, which was lying on the table by her plate, rang, and she glanced at the call display. It was Valetta!
“Val, how are you!”
“I’m okay. Jaymie, I just heard some bad news.”
“Bad news? Is Brock okay? The kids?”
“It’s nothing to do with any of them. Dee just called. Shelby Fretter has died.”
Nine
“OH NO! IT can’t be true.” Her imagination raced. Shelby Fretter would miss so much; no marriage, no career, no love, no children, no . . . anything. “That’s terrible!” Tears welled and she sniffed. “I thought she would recover. What happened?”
“Dee had some technical explanation,” Valetta said, her voice quavering. “It’s something she called TBI, traumatic brain injury. They did their best, but . . .”
They were both silent. Jaymie sighed, finally, pushing away her unfinished dinner, the part she had consumed sitting like a leaden lump in her stomach. “It never occurred to me that she would die; it just didn’t seem possible. I don’t know what else to say. She’s so young!”
“I guess Lori is a basket case. Dee wasn’t supposed to tell me, and I’m not supposed to say anything to anyone, but I knew you’d want to know.”
They talked for just a moment longer, then signed off, but Jaymie didn’t put down the phone. Anger fueled her. Whoever did this had to pay, and any help she could give she would offer. She called Detective Vestry, but was told that the detective wanted her to come to the police station the next morning as early as possible.
What followed was a sleepless, weepy night. Even her comfort reads couldn’t save her, and she threw one across the room and wept into her pillow. Her relationship with Jakob was far too new to subject him to such an emotional overload. Her instinct was that if she did call him he would be gentle and supportive with her sorrow, but her connection to him was like a new and tender plant; calling and sobbing in his ear would be like stomping on that plant, subjecting it to too much stress while it was so young. It might recover, or it might not. So she toughed it out, her tears finally ended, and with her eyes swollen almost shut, she finally got some sleep.
White Colander Crime Page 9
