A Deadly Grind

by Victoria Hamilton

  She returned to the kitchen, avoiding looking through to the summer porch, the spot where the poor unknown man had died in the night, and examined the Queen Elizabeth cake, with its coconut and brown sugar drizzle. It didn’t look particularly inspiring, but hopefully it tasted better than it looked. Maybe there was a way to jazz it up, make it more appealing. She cocked her head and stared at it; cream cheese icing, maybe, instead of the coconut and brown sugar? There was no cake in the world that cream cheese icing couldn’t improve. It wouldn’t be authentic to the vintage recipe, but sometimes you just had to go for flavor.

  She’d have to taste it later, after it cooled, to see if it was good enough to consider adding to the treats offered to the Tea with the Queen customers. As she stood brooding at the kitchen counter, Denver rubbed up against her ankle; she dished him out some kibble, then made a cup of Tetley (bought across the river in Canada) for herself and took it into the backyard with a cookbook, followed by Hoppy. Jaymie sat in an Adirondack chair in the shade of the maple and stared up the lawn at her tainted summer porch. Becca had questioned whether they should spend the night, but Jaymie figured, if they didn’t, when would they come back?

  What if the murderer was never discovered?

  She shook off the heebie-jeebies and turned her mind back to the Tea with the Queen event. Tomorrow was the first day, and it just had to go well! The previous year’s affair had been a bit of a disaster. It had been unseasonably hot, no one had wanted to drink tea and the cakes had gone gungy and dry, with colored icing melting off the tea cakes in the heat. One of the older Guild ladies had fainted, and 911 was called. An ambulance and paramedics don’t make for an elegant tea atmosphere, they discovered. The woman recovered swiftly and was horribly embarrassed that she had spoiled the event, though no one among the heritage committee members even whispered such a thing.

  This year would be better if the weather held. A light breeze fluttered through the leaves, and a robin sang his throaty love song, liquid and melodic. The day had already seemed endless; she was exhausted and fretful, but had no inclination to nap yet. Denver stretched out in a patch of slanting sunlight, while Hoppy intently sniffed one particular spot in the hedge of holly bushes.

  “What is there that fascinates you about that spot?” Jaymie said to her dog, as she set aside the cookbook she had on her lap and got up to have a look. Hoppy bounced around her as she leaned over and peered into the holly. Denver also shook himself awake and strolled over to see what she was staring at.

  It was a small, square pavé pin, with a checkerboard pattern of black and clear stones set in gold. She picked it up and turned it over. The pin would have had a “clutch”—the back of a tack pin, in jeweler’s parlance—to hold it in place, and the absence or loss of that was what had caused it to drop in her hedge. Tangled on the teeth holding the stones in place was a white thread.

  Who had lost it? And why in her garden? She had just planted the line of holly bushes in April, and the pin was perched on top of the soil, unaffected by the rain that had puddled the earth into mud just the weekend before. Had it been dropped by the murderer?

  Jaymie shook her head and stuck it in her pocket. That was just ridiculous. How many murderers wandered around wearing diamond pavé pins? She should put up a notice at the store, because the pin looked really quite valuable. If someone claimed it, they would have to explain how it had gotten in her hedge.

  She sat back down in her chair and picked up the cookbook. Was there anything else she could make to add to the treats at the tea? She leafed through, but shook her head. Nothing suited. She was only a beginning baker, and the bar was set high, because the baked goods on offer were extraordinarily good. Violet Nibley, Valetta’s English sister-

  in-law, who lived across the river in Johnsonville, Ontario, was an amazing baker, and churned out dozens and dozens of scones, Eccles cakes, tea cakes, and the more mundane items folks seemed to expect, like muffins, cookies and cupcakes.

  But lots of other ladies would be providing whatever items were their specialties. As a fan of history and a lover of the romance of past ages, Jaymie wanted to try to bring some sense of authenticity with her offerings, and had suggested clotted cream to go with the scones and jam for a proper cream tea, but real clotted cream was not available.

  She had made some headway, though; Victoria sponge and a tricky-to-make but lovely-to-look-at Battenberg cake (when cut, the cake displayed a pink and yellow checkerboard effect) were both on the menu. That delicacy, the Battenberg, had reportedly been named for Queen Victoria’s granddaughter’s husband, Prince Louis of Battenberg. Over the winter she had researched the Queen’s family history and knew far more than she would ever need to know.

  Jaymie dreamed that, one day, the annual Queensville Tea with the Queen event would be famous worldwide, as celebrated as high tea at the Empress Hotel in Victoria, British Columbia. But she had to admit that some treats, while not traditional afternoon tea staples, were too good to leave out. Most Americans, especially, had never tasted an honest-to-goodness, runny, delicious Canadian butter tart, and that deficiency would be filled by Tansy’s Tarts, Tansy Woodrow’s bakery on Heartbreak Island. She donated dozens of the gooey, sweet, drippy treats, like a savvy drug dealer giving out freebies to hook customers. Once someone tried a Tansy butter or butter-pecan tart, there was no going back. Tourists would gladly pay the water taxi to ferry them over to the island so they could buy a dozen of the pricey diet-busters.

  At last Jaymie returned inside, blocked the back door as well as she could until Bill fixed it, and made some calls. Then she locked the door to the summer porch and retreated to her bedroom. She stretched out on her comfy bed, Denver curled up at her feet and Hoppy took to his big pillow under her side table. She tried closing her eyes, but they popped open. She was alone in the house, and felt it, every creak and moan making her edgy. This wasn’t going to work.

  Was Becca right? Would they have to abandon their home for a while?

  She got up, made the circuit around the house—which was still vacant of thieves or murderers—then returned to her room. Opening her window wider, she listened for a moment to the sound of a distant lawn mower. This was her house, her home, she thought, sitting on the edge of her bed. It was safe. The murderer, whoever it was, was probably long gone after the violence of the night. There was no way they would hang around Queensville just waiting to be discovered.

  But what if it was a local, someone she knew intimately, someone who smiled at her every day, and said, “Good morning, Jaymie”? It just couldn’t be. Queensville, her beloved little town, didn’t grow murderers.

  She lay back down and finally fell asleep. Weird dreams threaded through her slumber, of different houses, shadowy assailants, broken teacups, barking dogs, a meat grinder and a river of blood. Some time later she drifted up to awareness of the downward progress of shadows on her bedroom wall and the uneasy sense that night was approaching, like fog, on little cat feet. Or maybe that was Denver approaching on little cat feet, prowling along her body and sniffing at her mouth.

  Startled awake, she pushed the cat away. Doors locked? Dog safe? Yes and yes, she thought. But she felt alone. Where was Becca? Alarm coursed through her and she bounced up to sit on the edge of the bed, shaking. “Becca?” she called, still groggy, her voice thick with unshed sleepiness.

  But her sister didn’t answer. When Jaymie swiftly descended to the kitchen, she found a note on the trestle table with some keys weighing it down: Bill has fixed the back door; new keys. Motion detectors have to wait. I’m at DeeDee’s for dinner. Come on over, Dee says! Want to stay there tonight? Becca

  No, she didn’t want to stay anywhere but their home. And she had taken enough time away from real life. This was Anna and Clive’s first season as proprietors of the Shady Rest, and the initial run was this holiday weekend. They were fully booked, all three rooms taken for the Victoria Da
y weekend, and Jaymie was working for Anna, or was supposed to be. After that disastrous morning, who knew?

  Hoppy was overjoyed to get outside, and not so happy to be called in after only his necessary jobs were done. But Jaymie had to get next door if she was going to help Anna prep for the next morning. She locked up and trotted toward her neighbor’s home.

  “I’ve come to help!” she said, when Anna let her in the front door.

  “Have you had dinner yet?” the young woman asked.

  “No, but I’ll come back after you guys are done, if you’re eating.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Anna said, grabbing Jaymie’s arm and hauling her down the hall toward the back sliding doors off the kitchen. “Clive’s got some jerk chicken on the grill, and we’re celebrating the first full day of the season with some wine. Come on, eat with us. He made lots, and bought potato salad, too,” Anna added, to forestall any objection. “Tabby’s in bed, the guests are all out for dinner or whatever, and it’s just us.”

  “I came to work, you know,” Jaymie said, following Anna down the long shadowy central hall of the Shady Rest, through the bright, modern kitchen and out to the elevated deck in back.

  “And you will, don’t worry!”

  “Jaymie!” Clive said, from his position near the grill. He waved his spatula in greeting, looking relaxed and handsome in dark shorts and a golf shirt that had his company’s logo stitched on the pocket. He wore an apron over it all that said, “Grill or be Grilled.” Chicken sizzled and spat, and he turned one leg quarter over, then pointed his tongs at the table under the awning. “Sit. Drink. You look like you need a glass of wine as much as I did.”

  “I lay down for a couple of hours’ sleep this afternoon and woke up shaking,” Jaymie admitted, as Anna pushed her to sit and filled an acrylic wine goblet with a fruity merlot.

  “After what you went through? Poor pet,” Anna said with a quick look over at Clive. “I’m freaked about a murderer in the neighborhood. Who could have done such a thing?”

  “I’ve been thinking of nothing but that,” Jaymie said. “And who was the poor guy who died?” She shivered, and resolved to call the police the next morning to see what they had found out.

  The sun was descending as Clive and Anna served up dinner. They chatted, but came to no conclusions. Dinner had been cleared and they were just enjoying another glass of wine when the tone triggered by the front door sent Anna through the house. She came back a moment later with someone Jaymie recognized.

  “Jaymie!” Brett Delgado said. “What a pleasure to see you again.” He took her outthrust hand and held it between both of his own. “How are you? I heard about the awful events of last night.”

  “I’m better than I was.” Jaymie gave him a small smile.

  “Sit and have a glass of wine with us,” Anna said, filling another acrylic wineglass and pulling out a chair.

  Brett sat, and said, with a worried frown, “Anna, I forgot to take my cell phone with me when I went out; I should check it, I suppose, but I was wondering, has Ted phoned here at all?”

  “Ted? Why would he phone here?” Anna asked.

  The man shrugged in discomfort. “We had a quarrel this morning, and he took off.”

  “Took off? What do you mean?”

  “Got in the rental car and took off. He’s done it before. He’s such a moody little brat sometimes,” Brett said, gloomily swirling the wine in his glass.

  “Where did he go?” Jaymie asked.

  Brett shrugged.

  “When was this? I wonder if he saw or heard anything that happened next door?”

  “Oh, I don’t think so. I think it was well before the trouble at your place,” Brett said. “How are you dealing with that? Was it a burglary? Was anything taken?”

  “No, nothing was taken. It seemed like a burglary interrupted by a murder.”

  He shuddered. “A murder, right next door! I heard the commotion, and then the cops showed up.”

  “Was Ted already gone?” she asked.

  “Yes. Didn’t I say that?”

  The inevitable possibility occurred to her. “What does Ted look like?”

  “The police asked me the same thing,” Brett said. “Don’t worry; your dead body is not my Ted.”

  She relaxed, relieved.

  He took a sniff of the fruity wine, then wrinkled his nose and put the glass down. “I’d better go up and check the voice mail on my cell phone,” he said, rising.

  “What did you fight about?” Jaymie asked. She rarely pried, but it seemed odd that the guy had taken off so abruptly.

  He shrugged, tapping his fingers on the tabletop. “Just . . . nothing, really. We fought for hours, though, actually, from the time I got in until . . . I don’t know what time. I was afraid we’d kept others awake,” he said, glancing over at Anna, who shook her head. “Anyway, he was angry over two things, that I stayed out so long when I said I’d be back in ten minutes, and that . . . that I still smoke. I told him I’d quit, but I still sneak out for a ciggie once in a while.”

  Jaymie said, “Any nonsmoker would smell it on you the minute you stepped back into the room, you know. I smelled it on your clothes last night.”

  “I just can’t kick it. Anyway, you know how quarrels go. We started with that, but then everything else blew up, and we fought about it all. He’s been so tense lately about the wedding. It’s no big deal. I told him we could put it off if it was stressing him, but then he accused me of wanting to break up.” Brett took in a long, shaky breath and looked away, squinting. “Maybe he’s called my cell phone.”

  “What did you do after he left?” Jaymie asked.

  He stared at her, his expression one of puzzlement. “I went to sleep. Why?”

  “Just wondering.”

  He gave her an odd look, then said, “I’ll retire for the night.”

  There was silence for a long moment after he left.

  “Did you hear them fight?” Clive asked Anna.

  “I heard something. Loud voices. But I wasn’t sure who it was. Your friends, the Carters, got in about ten and went straight up, and you got here at what . . . two or three?”

  He nodded. “I didn’t want to wait,” he said to Jaymie, “so I came directly from work; took the Blue Water instead of parking the car in Johnsonville and waiting for the morning ferry.” The Blue Water was the bridge between Sarnia, Ontario, and Port Huron, Michigan. “I heard voices when I came in, but I lost track of that when I came to bed,” he added, covering his wife’s hand.

  “I heard someone fighting,” Anna said, “but I didn’t know if the quarrel I heard was Jack and Elaine Carter or Brett and Ted. The Carters both told the police that they didn’t hear anything, so I guess I should have figured it wasn’t them.”

  “If it was over and Ted was gone before the murder, they didn’t really fight ‘all night long,’” Jaymie pointed out.

  Clive shrugged. “Just an expression, I suppose.”

  “And you really couldn’t tell who was fighting?” she asked Anna, who shook her head and shrugged.

  “Sound is weird in this old house,” Clive said. “It’s hard to tell. And we were . . . a little distracted. We’ll have to remember the sound issue if we fight. Or do anything else.”

  Anna blushed bright pink and touched her husband’s hand.

  “I’m just glad you heard the commotion at our place and came over,” Jaymie said. She felt like a creaky third wheel and got up. “I’m going into the kitchen, Anna. I’ll cut up the fruit for tomorrow morning’s breakfast buffet and make the muffin batter. And I promise, I will be around tomorrow to help.”

  “But you have the tea to worry about tomorrow!” Anna said.

  “Doesn’t matter. A promise is a promise, and I’ll have loads of time. The tea isn’t until two in the
afternoon. I hope you’re going to bring Tabby?”

  “I am. She’s looking forward to it; I bought her a new dress and promised her we’re going to play tea party with lots of people. We’ve been practicing.”

  Seven

  JAYMIE RETIRED EARLY and avoided thinking about the dead man on her summer porch by reading herself to sleep with an old Mary Balogh, but the historical romance spell only lasted awhile. She awoke when she heard Becca come in a half hour later, and went out in the hall to talk to her. Becca had waited awhile at Dee’s to see if Jaymie was coming over, but then returned home, worried about her little sister.

  “I just can’t abandon our home,” Jaymie said edgily, hugging herself and shivering in the dim hall light.

  Becca went to her and hugged her close. “I’m in the room right next to you. If you have trouble sleeping, come on in. We can huddle together like we did when you were little and had nightmares, remember?”

  Jaymie, in her sister’s embrace, inhaled the familiar scent of Becca, who only ever used baby powder. When she was three or four, Jaymie had gone through a bout of sleeplessness, and sometimes crawled into bed with Becca, who was in her late teens and seemed almost like a second mother. “You told me weird stories, I remember, with fairy princesses named Rebecca and Jaymie who ruled the world and ate homemade fudge every day!”

  “I wanted you to be happy. That was while Mom and Dad were going through a rough patch, and I knew you heard them fighting. But if I could get you giggling, I felt so great, like I’d accomplished something.”