White Colander Crime

by Victoria Hamilton

  “Dang.” She called her grandmother and fretted about the recipe.

  “Jaymie, you have to follow the recipe exactly!” Grandma Leighton said, her tone warm with suppressed laughter. “I remember that cake, made it for the Christmas of . . . let me see . . . 1963? It was soon after Alan and Joy married. It was pretty darned good, if I’m remembering the right stuff, but when you first mix it up, it seems like it’s going to be dry and crumbly. You have to trust the recipe and do exactly what it says. Just do it over again!”

  “I don’t have time!” Jaymie wailed.

  “Yes you do. Just give it a try.”

  “Thanks for talking me off the ledge, Grandma,” she said. “I’m looking forward to seeing you. Mrs. Stubbs is so excited that you’ll be staying at the inn! She gets kind of lonely, and having you there to talk to will be nice.”

  “I don’t know why we never thought of this before,” she said. “I know what you’re all worried about; that the stairs at the house will be too much for me and the bedrooms and only bathroom are upstairs. I know my limitations; I wouldn’t be able to climb them. But the inn will be perfect. Maybe we can do that in the summer next year.”

  More relaxed and able to see the funny side of her fruitcake fail, she cut some sticky pieces and photographed them anyway. She might feature them on her blog under “what not to do.”

  Valetta tapped on the back door as Jaymie was about to fold the failed fruitcake back into its foil tomb. Hoppy yipped once, while Denver slunk under the table. She opened the door and let her friend in. Valetta unwound her scarf and pulled off her boots, setting them on the mat by the back door as she stared at Jaymie’s concoction.

  “Don’t ask,” Jaymie said with a laugh, entombing the fruitcake and returning it to the depths of the fridge to languish and perhaps die.

  “I won’t. A rare moment for you, a failure?”

  Jaymie explained and got her friend a cup of tea. “While I make dinner we’re going to make up a list of suspects and figure this out.”

  “So you really don’t think Cody Wainwright did it?”

  Jaymie frowned and got out a frying pan, set it on the burner and turned it on with a poof of flame. She drizzled some olive oil in the pan. “I guess it’s still possible, but I don’t think so.” She explained the timeline and why it didn’t work. “That’s why they released him. There’s nothing to make the charges stick. The assistant police chief jumped the gun while Chief Ledbetter was out of town.” She opened the fridge and peered into it. “Is corned beef hash okay?”

  “Crack a couple of eggs on top and you’ve got me. Why are you unsure, then?”

  “He’s lied so many times. And he hit her. He says he lashed out when she called his mom names, but why should I believe him? And that’s no excuse anyway, even if she called his mother names until the end of time.”

  “Hey, I’m certainly not going to defend him. But is lashing out at someone in anger once the same as methodically beating someone to death?”

  “You may have a point.” She got boiled potatoes, corned beef, onions and mushrooms out of the fridge and set them on the counter. “I know one thing I have to do before we even make a list.” She turned the stove off and got the phone.

  “Who are you calling?”

  “Book club president.” She got the president of her historical romance book club on the line. “This may seem strange,” she said to her, “but I have a question to ask . . . actually, a two-part question. First, is the Lily who is in our book club Lily Meadows? I’ve never heard her full name. And second, was she at the meeting last Friday night?”

  She listened intently, then asked a couple more questions. When she hung up, she turned the stove back on and diced the onions, tossing them in the sizzling pan. She turned back to slice mushrooms and cube potatoes. “So, Lily Meadows does not make it onto the list of suspects because she was indeed at the book club meeting, after which she stayed and chatted for another hour, long past the time of the beating. On to other suspects, including her husband, who you saw scurrying down the street at the right time!”

  Jaymie went over all that she had learned, filling her friend in on everything so far. Valetta pulled her clipboard over to her, writing down the names as they discussed them in order.

  Glenn Brennan. He was a jerk, yes, and had been nasty online concerning Shelby. He had also lied to Jaymie about where he was that evening. “He doesn’t seem too bright. He told me he left his job the previous week, then said he was out of town on a work trip. By then he was too drunk to question further.” He was certainly a contender, and she needed to find a way to talk to him again, though she wasn’t sure how.

  She said as much to Valetta, adding, “How can I find out where he was that evening?” The onions were translucent, so Jaymie dumped the sliced mushrooms into the sizzling pan, sautéed them, then added the diced potatoes and turned up the heat to get a nice brown crust on the bottom. She shredded some corned beef and added it to the frying pan.

  Valetta thought for a moment, then said, “Didn’t you say he belonged to that dating site that Delaney Meadows started? Would they have a chat forum or something for the members to connect? Maybe there’s some info there.”

  “That is why I call you all the time; you have the best ideas! I’ll do that later. I intended to look into that site anyway, but I’ll be sure to check it out with him in mind. I’m still trying to find out if there’s any connection between Shelby’s death and Natalie’s disappearance.”

  “Do you think the two are connected?”

  “Part of me thinks they have to be, and another that there is no real reason to think they are. They knew each other, Travis Fretter was dating Natalie, and Clutch asked Shelby to look into her disappearance; that she was murdered just a short while later seems like it has to be connected.”

  “I think I heard a ‘but’ in there somewhere.”

  “But . . . I believe in the randomness of coincidence. Shelby certainly had other things going on in her life, including her toxic relationship with Cody. I wonder, too, was she looking into her boss’s business, the one that had Natalie Roth about to fly off on some modeling job? And speaking of that . . . Delaney Meadows, his wife is out of the picture, but he sure isn’t. Remember, I saw him arguing with Shelby that day after she was in the store. It did not look like a friendly relationship, and he was certainly evasive at his office.”

  “And we know that his wife was at the book club and he was in Queensville.”

  “That notation on his calendar about Dickens Days and SF . . . Did she meet Delaney and it led to something nasty? I’m still trying to figure out if they were having a relationship, or if it was purely business. Why were they at the Queensville Inn the night before she was murdered?”

  “And in a room, no less, not even just at the restaurant. It’s odd.”

  “It is. I don’t get it.” Jaymie continued to fry the onions, mushrooms, corned beef and potatoes until they were crispy and brown, then seasoned with a sea salt and freshly ground pepper medley. She made four wells in the hash with the back of a wooden spoon and broke eggs into the wells, putting a lid on the frying pan. Valetta had already gotten Corelle plates down from the cupboard and grabbed cutlery as Jaymie got out the milk carton.

  “I think I need to talk to Delaney Meadows again; this time I’ll be a little blunter, and more honest.”

  “You be careful,” Valetta said, pouring milk into two vintage glass tumblers as Jaymie took up their dinner.

  “I will. I think I’ll track down Austin Calhoun again, too. The more I think of it, the more evasive he seems. I’m not sure he was telling me the truth about anything, particularly about why he was fired from Delaney’s agency. In fact I know he wasn’t telling the truth about that, but I’m not sure why he lied, except he’s afraid, maybe?”

  “Like Shelby’s murder scared him?”

 
“Could be.”

  “What do you think about Travis Fretter?” Valetta asked, then took a long gulp of milk. She dabbed at her mouth with a paper napkin. “He is one person you know was there that evening, when she was killed.”

  “And he lied about the sequence of events, making it seem like he was with his mother the whole time, when he wasn’t.” She thought a moment. His name kept coming up. “He was the one who introduced Shelby to Cody, too, and he had also dated Natalie Roth. A lot of connections there.” She told Valetta what she had thought about Shelby and Travis’s argument, so swiftly followed by her death.

  After dinner they washed and dried the dishes. As she hung up the damp dishcloths over the stove handle, Jaymie said, “On another subject, I think I need to follow my grandmother’s advice about something,” she said. “It’s going to haunt me if I don’t do that no-bake fruitcake right, but I need a bunch of stuff: vanilla wafers, gingersnaps, marshmallows. Do you feel like making a run to the grocery store in Wolverhampton with me?”

  “I’m up for it if you are. Let’s go. I’m ready.”

  Jaymie eyed her; for someone who had suggested a movie night she seemed awfully eager to go shopping. They took Jaymie’s van, since Valetta had walked over, and Valetta griped all the way about how cold the van was, and how torturous the passenger seat. They parked, did their shopping in a nearly empty store and exited to the van. Jaymie started it up, let it run for a moment and backed out of the parking space.

  Valetta said, “Do you mind making a side trip?”

  Aha, and now the real reason Valetta hadn’t minded venturing out into the cold night. “Not at all. Where to?”

  Valetta glanced over at her, her face shadowy in the dim parking lot light. “Believe it or not, Eva is in that pageant at the same school as Jocie.” She looked at her watch, pressing the button to make the dial light up. “I know her number is third, in just about fifteen minutes.”

  “If I show up there it’ll look like I’m stalking Jakob!” Jaymie objected. “Especially after saying no to his invitation!”

  “He won’t even know. I just want to stand at the back and watch Eva so I can tell her I was there. I didn’t think it was important to her that her old aunt was there, but when she found out this afternoon that I wasn’t coming she sounded really bummed. I feel awful, and I’d like to be there. I was going to ask if you minded just peeking in on it. C’mon . . . what can it hurt?”

  Reluctantly, Jaymie gave in and headed out of town to the side road the school was on. They parked in the lot and entered, moving down long hallways adorned with cutout snowflakes and snowmen, as well as bulletin boards detailing upcoming events in the New Year. The school was the one Jaymie had gone to, but Valetta and the others—Becca and Dee—had gone to an older school that had been sold and was now an office and light industrial space.

  They made their way to the auditorium and snuck in the back. It was a big room that doubled as the gymnasium, with a small stage at one end. Tonight the lighting was low, and the floor, marked with borders and foul lines for basketball and other games, was full of rows of folding chairs, mostly taken. Someone was plunking away on the piano, playing some ubiquitous winter song, as a school ensemble sawed away on screechy violins and twittered on off-key recorders.

  Valetta grabbed Jaymie’s arm and hauled her to sit down in seats near the back. Eva’s solo was next, and Jaymie was surprised by how sweet she sounded, singing a song about a snowman who fell in love with a snowlady, and how they got married and were together until they melted in spring. The message was that though nothing lasts forever, it was important to enjoy the good things life has to offer while they last, a surprisingly deep message for one so young.

  “Sounds original. I wonder who wrote it?” Jaymie whispered, as the audience applauded.

  Valetta grabbed the program that was lying on a chair in front of her and adjusted her glasses. “Eva said they had a volunteer who was helping with the pageant and she was writing all the songs. Let me see.” She ran her finger down the page and stopped. She looked up at Jaymie. “Talk about your coincidences? Guess who the volunteer is who wrote the song?”

  “I can’t guess.”

  “Lily Meadows!”

  “Austin said something about her volunteering at a lot of things!” The next act was announced, and it was the Fun Time Tumblers. That was Jocie’s team! Jaymie watched the little girls and boys, aged five to eight, tumbling and dancing, moving confidently about the stage. She easily picked out Jocie because of her short but sturdy stature. The little girl was so very confident, doing her tricks and then standing front and center for applause.

  It was spellbinding. When Jaymie was a kid she was awkward and afraid to take up space in the world. That lasted through the teenage years and well into her twenties. It was lovely to see children of all different body types and abilities who were so sure of themselves, with radiant smiles and laughter.

  Jaymie leaped to her feet and clapped, cheering enthusiastically, completely forgetting herself in the moment. And then she saw Jakob; he was standing, too, and turned to see who the other cheering nut was. When he saw her, he smiled, his grin huge and warm, like a warm hug from a distance. He bent over, spoke to someone beside him, then sidled out of his row and made his way down the aisle and toward her.

  “Hey,” he said, hugging her. “You came after all!”

  She could feel the heat in her cheeks, and saw, with a side glance, how Valetta was watching with a grin on her face. Jaymie introduced them, Jakob taking Valetta’s hands in his for his special kind of warm handshake. “We had to run to the grocery store in Wolverhampton,” Jaymie explained. “Valetta wanted to stop in to see her niece, Eva, who sang just before Jocie’s tumbling troupe came on.”

  A woman a couple of rows ahead turned and shushed them. Jakob took her arm. “Can we talk for a minute? Maybe out in the hall?”

  “I’m going to find Brock,” Valetta whispered. “I just want to say hi, and tell him how great Eva did.” Valetta made her way down the aisle, scanning the audience for her brother.

  “I don’t want to take you away from your family,” Jaymie said.

  “It’s okay. My mom is backstage already. She volunteers with the troupe to make costumes. It started because they couldn’t find ones to fit Jocie properly, and my mother is a great sewer, so she now makes all of their costumes. It gives her an excuse to buy pretty fabric, she says.” He took her arm and they retreated into the hallway. Once there, he took her in his arms and hugged her again. “It’s so good to see you,” he murmured into her ear. “And to hug you.”

  “Mmm, I agree.”

  They stood like that for a few long minutes, then he released her. “Do you want to meet my folks tonight?”

  She felt her heart thud again. “I’m not prepared, Jakob. I’m kind of a mess; we just had dinner and then scooted out.”

  He looked disappointed, but nodded. “But soon, okay?”

  “Soon,” she agreed. “I just want to make a good impression.”

  “You couldn’t help but make a good impression.”

  She smiled up into his warm brown eyes. “Jocie was so good! She has so much confidence and joy; you’re doing wonderfully with her.”

  He nodded in satisfaction. “She needs to know she can do anything she wants: math, art, singing, dancing, writing.”

  “How do you negotiate it all? I mean, society telling you your little girl needs to be smart and pretty and successful. What if she just wants to be a princess?”

  “Then she can be a princess.”

  Jaymie nodded. “That’s good, that freedom. She can be a princess or an astronaut or—”

  “No, not or . . . she can be a princess and an astronaut, a fashion model and a baseball player.” He paused and smiled down at her. “I hope that one day, if I ever have a boy, I will teach him that he, too, can be a cowboy and a f
ashion model, a truck driver and a florist. I don’t want my little girl limited by any imaginary lines in the sand. I don’t think I’m saying that correctly, but . . .” He shrugged.

  “You’re saying it perfectly, Jakob,” she said, touching his arm and looking up into his eyes.

  Just then, a door down the hall swung open, hitting the wall behind it with an echoing thud. Lily Meadows stormed out, then stopped and furiously tapped a message into her phone.

  Jaymie started away from Jakob. “That’s Lily Meadows,” she said under her breath, and explained that she was looking into Delaney Meadows’ possible involvement in Shelby’s death. “I just don’t know what to think, whether he’s involved or not. I wish I had a way to get into his office alone.”

  He chuckled and hugged her close. “You are a never ending source of wonderment,” he said, then let go of her. “I’d better go back to my brothers,” Jakob said, stroking her arm. “Can I see you one evening?”

  “Let’s talk tomorrow. I’d love to see you, but I’m doing the Dickens Days walk for the next few nights.”

  “I can meet you there!” he said, with a quick smile. “Gotta go. You be careful.”

  As he ducked back into the auditorium, and the sound of a guitar and warbling voices echoed out into the hall through the open door, Jaymie watched Lily. The slight woman gave up texting and hit a series of numbers. She paced, her arms folded over her bosom, the phone held up to her right ear.

  Her neck and cheeks were red, and she seemed on the verge of tears. Jaymie started down the hall toward her as she talked to someone, then hit the hang-up button and threw the phone down the hall. It smacked against the wall and some plastic chipped off the case. It all skittered down the hallway with an echoing clatter.

  “Lily!” Jaymie said, approaching her. Lily was indeed a tiny woman, as Mrs. Stubbs had said, tonight wearing a long skirt and blouse with a cardigan and floral infinity scarf. In book club she rarely spoke up, preferring to let the bigger personalities take over meetings and discussions. But when she did speak it was to make deeply felt observations. Books mattered to her; that was something she and Jaymie had in common. “Are you all right? Can I help?”