Victoria Hamilton - Vintage Kitchen 04 - No Mallets Intended (8 page)

The auction started. Jaymie was successful in winning the box of utensils she needed to outfit the manor kitchen. Bernie won a midcentury modern teak boomerang coffee table she wanted, and Valetta—regrettably—won a huge box full of tchotchkes… junk of the tasteless variety, especially a set of cat figurines in frilly sherbet-colored tutus. Jaymie saw some “gifts” of china cats in her own future. Valetta, always well-intentioned, felt that everyone ought to appreciate the frilly and silly knickknacks of the middle of the last century, and so she gave them as gifts.

The very last item up for bids was the green and cream Hoosier cabinet. There were a couple of other interested parties, and though the price started low it rapidly escalated, the bidding fierce and competitive. Jaymie had a tense twenty minutes of bidding and ended up paying more than she anticipated, though the price was still within the boundaries she had set with the society leadership committee.

After they had all paid for their items, they toted them to their vehicles. Jaymie had some help to put the Hoosier in her van, but then she wondered where she was going to put it. “I don’t have a clue what to do,” she said to her friends.

“Tell you what,” Bernie said, shoving her hands in her ski jacket pockets and hopping from foot to foot in the frigid air. “The easiest thing is to take all your Dumpe Manor stuff directly there. Heidi and I’ll follow, and you and I can woman-handle the cabinet into the kitchen. Do you have your key with you?”

“I do,” Jaymie said, surprised. “Are you sure about this, Bernie? I can’t ask you to do that.”

Heidi hopped up and down. “I want to show Bernie the house anyway. Let’s
all
do it. It’ll be an adventure!”

Jaymie exchanged a look with Bernie and they both grinned. They knew that by “Let’s all do it” Heidi meant that Jaymie and Bernie would carry the heavy stuff and Heidi would flit through the house excitedly.

“I’d better go along, too, then,” Valetta said. “Just so you don’t all end up on the floor hit by mallets.”

“I think I’ll be safe with a police officer,” Jaymie said.

Jaymie led the way in her rattletrap white van. She pulled into the drive—another car was already pulled in, but Jaymie didn’t recognize it—and stopped by the front steps. Heidi and Bernie got out of her car and made their way through the posttwilight gloom. “Why not pull around to the back?” Bernie asked. “There’s a door there, right? All these old houses have a back door off the kitchen.”

“Sure, but this one is nailed shut and blocked off. Bill is going to unblock it, but he has a million other things to do. Until then, we use the front door to bring stuff in.”

Valetta snickered, approaching them. “You are no doubt rethinking your offer to help Jaymie with the Hoosier, right, Bernie?”

Bernie’s eyes widened. “You mean we have to carry it up the stairs, into the house and all the way through to the back?”

Jaymie sighed. “I’ll completely understand if you renege,” she said.

The officer stiffened her back and said, “No, I offered, and I’ll do it. We’re strong women, right? We can do this!”

Valetta carried the box of kitchen utensils in and propped open the door for them as Heidi raced back and forth like an excited Pomeranian. Luckily the Hoosier cabinet came in three pieces, the upper and lower cabinet and the tabletop. They hoisted the awkward upper cabinet between them and, with much grunting and talking, got it up the four steps and into the house. They needed a break and set it down on the wide-board hardwood floor in the hallway.

Bernie wiped her forehead, which had beaded with sweat despite the chill in the air, and looked around. “You told me a lot about this place,” she said to Heidi. “But you didn’t do justice to how big it is!”

And indeed the front hall was wide and high ceilinged, twelve foot or more, as were all the main-floor rooms. The front hall was almost finished. Bill and the committee had decided on a rich cranberry for the walls, to go with the golden oak flooring. “It gets even better,” Jaymie said, racing to the light switch on the wall and pushing the button to click on the pendant lights.

“Wow! Not my style, but… wow!” Bernie said.

Heidi and Valetta had both seen the fixture alight before and were not so easily impressed.

“Are we going to get moving?” Valetta asked. “Come on, you two. I’ll bring in the tabletop if you pick up the pace.”

Just then they heard loud voices in the hall near the kitchen.

“What was that?” someone said, his stentorian voice echoing through the house. “Thought I heard something.”

Jaymie stopped and listened, putting one finger up to her mouth to hush the others. It was Theo Carson’s voice.

“It’s nothing! Stop changing the subject and answer my question.”

And that was Isolde. Jaymie frowned and tiptoed toward the kitchen. She paused before making her presence known, but almost jumped and shrieked when Bernie came up stealthily behind her.

“What’s up?” she whispered.

“Shh,” Jaymie hushed her.

“What
was
the subject? In fact, what was the question? You know I never actually
listen
to you,” Carson replied, his insulting tone indicating how exasperated he was. There was a bang in the kitchen, something falling over.

“I wanted to know, what are you looking for?”

“Look, Izzie, you can’t think that stupid girl getting attacked here was some coincidence, can you? She thinks it was just a squatter or tramp, but I don’t think so. You aren’t as dumb as she is, are you?”

“You mean Jaymie?”

“Of course I mean Jaymie, unless you know of some
other
stupid girl who got clobbered here recently.”

Jaymie rolled her eyes as Bernie giggled at her side, stifling it with her hand.

“So you think there’s something here someone wants,” Isolde said, her voice stiff with anger.

“I do.”

“Do you know what it is?”

“Maybe, but why would I tell you that?”

“So maybe I can help you find it?” Isolde said. “You must have wanted me to come here for some reason. How can I help if I don’t know what I’m looking for?”

“Just go back to looking pretty while I make with the serious stuff.”

“Come on, Theo… have you come across something in your research?”

“Can you shut up so I can—”

Valetta dropped the Hoosier tabletop that moment in the front hall, and the loud bang echoed throughout the house. The conversation in the kitchen ceased and as Jaymie scrambled with Bernie to pick up the upper section of the Hoosier, preparing to carry it to the kitchen, Theo Carson and Isolde Rasmussen emerged from that room.

“Oh, hi, Isolde, Theo,” Jaymie said, trying to be as natural as possible, not easy to do once you’ve overheard yourself called a stupid girl. “I just got this at auction.”

“What is it?” Isolde asked. “Some kind of bookcase?”

“No, of course not,” Jaymie replied, as she and Bernie hefted it onto their shoulders. “It’s the upper section of a Hoosier cabinet,” she grunted. “What are you two doing here?”

Bernie growled, “Can you wait on the chitchat until we get this monster into the kitchen?”

“Okay, all right,” Jaymie said, out of breath and just starting to realize how heavy the darned thing was getting. She and Bernie finished their job, retrieving the bottom section from the van and putting the whole cabinet together in the kitchen. She set the box of utensils she had won on the countertop surface.

“Now, let’s go and see what those two were up to,” Bernie murmured to Jaymie.

“Exactly.” They rejoined the group in the front hall. “Isolde, Theo, have you met the others? You already know Heidi, I think, and you’ve met Valetta, but this is our friend Bernie.” No need to mention her employment. “So, what’s up? Why are you here? How did you get a key?” Jaymie brightly asked, trying not to glare at Carson.

“I was just exploring the ambience of the old homestead, you know,” Carson said, waving his hand around. “If I’m to write about the place, I need to
feel
it.”

Bernie, standing slightly behind the author, made a gagging motion. Heidi giggled and Valetta sighed. Jaymie had disliked Carson from the beginning—he was a know-it-all that the older ladies found charming, for some reason—but since she liked Dick Schuster even less she hadn’t opposed his hiring. Isolde frowned, but Theo appeared unaware of the women’s exasperation.

“So… you’re just soaking in the ambience,” Jaymie said, wishing she could just tell them she had overheard their conversation in the kitchen. “Would that be
pre
soaking, then, or have you actually started the writing?” The society hadn’t seen a single word yet of the promised booklet, nor did they even have a delivery date.

“I think I’m done soaking,” he said, eyeing her with a frown like one would aim at a puppy that had bared its teeth. “Good evening, ladies. Isolde, come on.”

Isolde dutifully followed him out, a cold wind sweeping into the hallway along with some dried leaves as they left. The door slammed after them.

“So what was
that
all about?” Bernie asked Jaymie.

“I wish I knew,” Jaymie said, but she was thinking of Mrs. Frump and Mrs. Bellwood and their musings about the Sultan’s Eye. Was that what Carson was after? And was that indeed why she had been attacked?

Seven

“N
AN, WE CAN’T
call the piece that!” Jaymie protested to her editor on the phone while filling up Hoppy’s bowl of crunchies. The little dog enthusiastically dug into his breakfast.

“Why not? Don’t the people of Queensville have a sense of humor?” Nan Goodenough replied.

Jaymie strolled out to the summer porch, looked out the back door and waved at Trip, who was doing his calisthenics before his five-mile walk. The view of her backyard and beyond was so different once the leaves had fallen; instead of a sea of green above the fences and surrounding the structures, there were charcoal traceries, tree limbs outlined against the dove gray of the scudding clouds. “It’s not exactly that.” How could she explain? And why had she agreed to write a piece on the Queensville Heritage Society’s meeting anyway?

Nan was the food and lifestyle editor of the
Wolverhampton Howler
, but she also wore many other hats at the paper. She had offered Jaymie the opportunity to write about the heritage society meeting in Queensville, and Jaymie had jumped at the chance because she was awed by the editor’s faith in her. All she had written so far was her food column!

But still… she just could not go along with the column title the editor wanted. How could she look society members in the eye after writing a column called “Pickings from the Dumpe”?

“The society is just touchy about certain things, and the Dumpe name is one of them. I ought to know, because I’ve made one too many jokes.” Like walking into the house and quoting Bette Davis’s famous “What a dump!” line, and talking about being down in the Dumpe. That was
really
why she couldn’t call the article that; the other society members would suspect it was her idea all along. Though she might giggle about the Dumpe Manor name over wine with Heidi, she would never expose her friends and fellow Queensvillians to ridicule from the wider world, especially Wolverhampton, whose citizens tended to look down their collective nose at the populace of its smaller neighbor.

“It’s a golden opportunity, for crying out loud.” Nan paused and heaved a deep sigh. “Okay, we’ll just go with the mundane for now. What is your food column this week?” she asked, referencing Vintage Eats, Jaymie’s attempt to make a minor name for herself in the food world to advance her ambition of publishing a modernized vintage recipe collection.

Jaymie talked about her plans for a moment.

Nan replied, “Great. Get that piece to me before I have to fend off that Isolde creature again.”

Isolde was too unusual a name for there to be two in such a small community. “Do you mean Isolde Rasmussen?”

“Yeah, do you know her? She’s been calling me a couple times a week with article suggestions, trying to get a column, offering to write to spec, sending me unwanted pieces of junk.”

“I guess she’s ambitious,” Jaymie replied, remembering what Cynthia had said at the meeting about Isolde being a barracuda trying to ride Theo’s coattails.

“I don’t mind ambitious,” Nan said. “But when you combine that with the tenacity of a leech and a snail’s lack of insight you get a zoological nightmare.”

“Lack of insight?”

“Her writing! Don’t get me wrong, she can string together words into a coherent recognizable pattern that is logical and understandable.” She made a rude noise like a raspberry through the phone. “But great balls of fire, it’s
so
damned self-conscious. Pretentious. She
must
have been an English major.”

“
I
was an English major in college,” Jaymie pointed out.

“Yeah, but you don’t use words like
profligate
,
obduracy
,
inchoate
and my
favorite
,
peripatetic
, to describe—get this—the staccato drumming of a battle reenactment. All in one piece! Ye gods, as if I’d hire someone like that! I’d spend all day with a thesaurus trying to rewrite her work.”

“Guess that’s why you like me,” Jaymie said, trying to keep from giggling. “No big words, no thesaurus needed.”

“None that don’t belong,” Nan corrected. “Seriously, Jaymie, you’re a fine writer, much better than you think. Now get to writing and send me that piece!”

Nan hung up, and Jaymie sat down at the kitchen table, stunned by her editor’s unexpected praise. Nan Goodenough was brusque and sometimes abrupt. She never said two words when one would do. So what she had just said was high praise indeed.

Jaymie muttered a silent prayer of thanks for people who believed in her, then picked up her cell phone. It was new, but not so elaborate that she couldn’t figure it out. She had input all the home phone numbers of the heritage society members, plus the cell numbers of those who had one, including Jewel, Heidi, Cynthia, Dee, Valetta and even Isolde, who had showed up the day after the meeting when Jaymie and Bill were finalizing the colors for the kitchen and insisted on getting Jaymie’s cell number.

As she toyed with the phone, clicking around and figuring it out, she thought about the night before. What had Theo Carson been looking for at Dumpe Manor? Whatever it was, it didn’t seem to be something he wanted to share with his girlfriend. Though, come to think of it, did Isolde know more than she was letting on, even to Theo? Was that why she kept showing up at the house at odd moments and snooping around? That was something to ponder.

Denver got up out of the basket by the stove, which he hogged unless he was feeling generous enough—or wanted the warmth—to allow Hoppy a little space. He stretched and sauntered to the back door, which meant he expected his staff to open the door for him. She jumped up, let him out, and Hoppy in, and sat back down at the table as the Yorkie-Poo wobbled over to his bowl and settled down to eat more.

Why search the kitchen, though, she wondered, going back to Theo and Isolde the previous night. The Sultan’s Eye was one possibility, but it sure wouldn’t be hidden behind a wall in the kitchen or in the cupboard or anything ludicrous like that. However… Theo was a writer. Maybe this wasn’t about the Sultan’s Eye at all. Jaymie had heard a rumor of a Dumpe manuscript—kind of a bio—of the family and all of their intimate details. Maybe Carson had heard about it, too.

How would that be valuable, though? The Dumpes were just a Michigan family with deep roots in the area and no particular tie to anything famous or popular or important. Unless he thought it would reveal those Nazi sympathies he had conjectured about at the meeting. Given his next book’s subject matter, the manuscript might be valuable to him. She shrugged and got to texting, intending to tell Daniel briefly about her evening at the auction and send her love.

Her love. Which she wasn’t sure she felt. She typed a chipper but brief note and hit send. She then hopped next door and quickly checked in with Pam, who was looking after the bed-and-breakfast for Anna and Clive Jones. Anna’s cousin had turned out to be competent in a lot of ways and was certainly more of a cleaning nut than Anna had been, and definitely a better cook. Her son, Noah, was still a sullen and unpleasant blot on the landscape, but he was no different from a lot of teenage boys, she supposed.

Everything was fine there, so Jaymie returned home, headed directly upstairs to her office and got down to actual work, which meant first finishing the report on the heritage society meeting and sending it off via email to Nan. She had been agonizing over it for too long, and had no idea if it was all right, but it had to be done that moment because the paper was going to print the next day and they had a set amount of column inches saved for the piece. She then worked on her vintage recipes for an hour and updated her blog, which now had a couple hundred followers.

Finally, she had done as much as she was going to do, so she pulled on a heavy wool sweater, got a mug of tea and headed out to the summer porch to sit on the divan and look out over the still-green grass and row of brilliant holly bushes she had planted in the spring. So far she liked the look of the beautiful deep green bordering her lawn and thought it would be even better closer to Christmas, when she could cut branches for decorating. On the other hand, everything else looked gray and dispirited. The trumpet vine had dropped all its leaves and sagged over the old garage, which needed a fresh paint job.

It would have to wait until next spring. An old house required a lot of upkeep, but she knew how fortunate she was that when her parents decided to move to Florida permanently they had deeded the Leighton family house to Jaymie and her sister. Jaymie loved the house deeply and would never consider leaving to live elsewhere. Which was a problem, given the situation with Daniel. He just didn’t
get
her commitment to her home and Queensville, and how bone deep it was.

Jaymie hopped back into the house, grabbed the cordless phone and returned to the summer porch, letting Hoppy out to investigate the yard and torment Denver. The tabby, now heavier than in summer and with thicker fur, huddled in the holly bushes glaring out at the world. But when Hoppy bounced over to him, he gave the little Yorkie-Poo a head butt, his most friendly greeting. Jaymie dialed, and after greetings and the usual chitchat she asked how Becca was feeling about her upcoming wedding now.

“I honestly don’t know why I freaked out, Jaymie,” her sister said. “Kevin is… he’s just the
best
. It feels so right, and I suppose that’s what scared me.” She paused, but then delicately asked, “What about you and Daniel?”

Sighing, Jaymie said, “I’m starting to think I need to tell him I’m not ready for whatever it is we have. I mean, I
like
him—I like him a lot—but I don’t miss him when he’s not here. In fact, I feel free, like I’ve gotten a reprieve.”

There was silence on the other end of the line, but finally Becca said, “You know what, maybe you’re right about telling him you’re not ready. Mom’s going to be so disappointed, though. She already has a mother of the bride dress bought, and it’s not for
my
wedding!”

Jaymie groaned and slumped down in her chair. “Enough, already! What did I call you for, guilt trip number three?”

“Okay, never mind. Tell me about what else is going on.”

Jaymie filled her in on everything at the manor, then talked about the odd conversation she had overheard between the writer and Isolde. “What do you think they could be looking for?”

“You’ve got me. You’re the one in tune with goings-on in Queensville.”

“I guess. Sometimes I think there’s a whole lot I don’t know,” Jaymie replied, thinking about Cynthia Turbridge’s apparently torrid affair with Theo Carson and her own complete obliviousness to it. “I’d better get going.”

“Hey, sis, don’t worry about Daniel. You’ll make the right decision for yourself. I have faith in you.”

That was the sweetest thing her sister had ever said to her, and Jaymie teared up a little before saying good-bye and hanging up. It seemed to be her day for receiving compliments, and it buoyed her mood.

The day was long and busy but ended her favorite way, in her own kitchen with the mellow pendant light over the sink sending long shadows across the floor. She had a sandwich for an early dinner, then stayed at the kitchen table with a pile of old cookbooks at her elbow, as well as a bunch of kitchen utensils, among them some old wood mallets and pestles she had brought home from the Dumpe, about half of the ones there. Why on earth there were so many—probably seven or eight in total—she did not know. They sure made dandy weapons, she thought, hefting one club-shaped piece in her hand.

It gave her an idea for another Vintage Eats column, and she began to scribble notes. There was such a variety of sizes and shapes! One was cone shaped, and Jaymie knew that would likely fit into a colander, where the cook would turn it to mash cooked apples, berries or even potatoes; really this would be classed as a pestle. But the others were definitely mallets, with a hammer look, and yet not as heavy as a mallet intended for outdoor work.

Working with these items—she was writing a description of each and photographing them for an eventual Queensville Historic Manor catalog and inventory—forced the memory of being hit with one to resurface. Who had been in the house and didn’t want to be seen? Was it really just a squatter, or was someone there for nefarious reasons? Once upon a time she would have been certain it was happenstance, but lately things had been happening to and around her, and now she had become more suspicious.