Leave It to Cleaver (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery Book 6)

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Leave It to Cleaver (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery Book 6) Page 20

by Victoria Hamilton


  “I’ve been thinking about that . . . it could have meant she literally couldn’t get through to him—meaning connect on the phone—or . . . she couldn’t get through to him, meaning he wasn’t listening to her, or wasn’t getting what she was trying to say.”

  “True.”

  “But I will say, she sounded so cold. At the time I didn’t think she was talking to Gus. Wouldn’t she have been nicer to her boyfriend?”

  Not if she intended to break up with him, or if she thought they needed to slow down their relationship. Jaymie chewed on her lip, thinking. Given how Gus apparently felt about her, breaking up with him may have led to a violent argument. Maybe he killed her for it. But how did that fit with Delores being murdered in her own kitchen? Was this two separate crimes after all? Gus killed Rhonda and Clifford killed Delores? It would be a gargantuan coincidence, but it was possible. “I don’t know, Sybil. Is that all you heard?”

  “Unfortunately, yes. When she got off the phone she was in a hurry to go. She had a car—her parents’ old Ford Falcon—and she was leaving.”

  “Did she say she’d be back?”

  “The police asked me that at the time. She never did say she’d be back. I’d have remembered that.” Sybil was quiet for a moment. “I’ve been beating myself up pretty badly over this. If only I hadn’t said all I said maybe they would have looked for her more diligently.”

  “Sybil, I know how you’re feeling but you didn’t do or say anything wrong. It’s likely that even if they were looking for her as a victim of some crime they wouldn’t have found her car.” Although, if there had been more of a fuss made about the Ford Falcon, the pilot of the Heartbreak Island ferry that night may have remembered the car and come forward. But what point would be served now to make Sybil feel worse than she already did?

  • • •

  BECCA AND KEVIN had been at the antique store getting Georgina, his sister, settled into her apartment. They came in moments after Jaymie hung up the phone, as she let Hoppy out for his last piddle and summoned Denver from under the holly bushes.

  Kevin looked gray and weary, showing every year of his age, a decade or so more than Becca. He hugged Jaymie and said good night; he was dog tired and going to bed. Jaymie got the feeling from what he didn’t say that Georgina was extremely particular and not completely pleased by her new digs.

  But Becca lingered to share a pot of tea. Jaymie recounted what she hadn’t told her sister yet, about her odd morning call from Brock and how he didn’t turn up. Hesitantly, she shared her theory about him not wanting to come see her while the police chief was there.

  Becca fluffed her curly hair and adjusted her glasses, as she did when thinking deep thoughts. Jaymie expected her to dismiss her younger sister’s concerns as absurd, but she shook her head. “I don’t know. We’ll see Valetta tomorrow at the shower. Maybe she’ll say something about Brock.”

  Jaymie didn’t answer; she already knew Valetta was worried about Brock lying about that day. They both retreated to their bedrooms, Jaymie with her animals. She called Jakob and they shared their day with each other.

  “Something is up with Gus,” Jakob said with a sigh. He was doing dishes; she could hear him clanking around. She could picture him, tea towel over his shoulder, phone wedged against it and head tipped, while he washed and set the dishes in the drainboard. She’d be happy when she would be clanking right alongside of him.

  “What’s up with him?”

  “He went off on a customer today. He’s been cranky as all get-out and today he stormed out after a customer who mouthed off at him and practically got in a fistfight in the parking lot.”

  “That doesn’t sound like Gus,” Jaymie said. He was always even-tempered. Her stomach churned and she wondered if the past was catching up with him. “Is something bothering him?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Jaymie didn’t answer and changed the subject. It concerned her. There was a very real possibility that what was on his mind was what he had done to Rhonda over thirty years ago. But Jakob didn’t need that worry on his hands, especially when there was no proof yet to back it up.

  He promised that his sister-in-law was going to bring his mother and Jocie to the shower—the little girl was extremely excited to be attending a grown-up girl tea party—and they went through their nighttime ritual of whispers and kisses. She finally hung up, turned off the light and curled up with her dog and cat to try to sleep, but slumber was elusive.

  • • •

  November 1, 1984

  IT WAS LATE AND QUIET and Valetta was ensconced in her bedroom, sitting on her bed propped up with cushions. It smelled far too strongly of Love’s Baby Soft perfume. She couldn’t figure out why, since she was real careful about using too much of the stuff her older brother had sent to her from Canada for her sixteenth birthday. He worked in a mine, some place in Ontario called Sudbury. She had her diary—a birthday gift from Becca Leighton, her best friend in the world—open on her lap and was writing about her day.

  Dear Diary,

  Today was super weird. I don’t know what’s up with Brock, but he left school after lunch period. I was out on the track for PE and I saw him. I yelled, but I guess he didn’t hear me.

  I wish I could have stayed late. There was a football game and I could have caught a ride home with Dee after it. But Mom was working at Mrs. Stubbs’s today and it was my day to cook dinner. So I came home, and Brock wasn’t even here. That meant I had to do my chores and his chores. It’s not fair. He always ducks out on chores and I get stuck doing them. He’s such a jerk.

  I know my friends think he is too, so I always have to stick up for him.

  But he is a jerk.

  He even has the car without permission tonight and Mom didn’t say a word! It sucks.

  Anyway, I made dinner, tuna casserole. Mom came home real tired, so I made her a cup of tea and told her to it on the sofa, that I’d bring her dinner on a tray so she could watch the news. We ate and watched together. Yesterday Indira Gandhi, the Prime Minister of India, was assassinated. It’s horrible. She was killed by her own bodyguards!!!! I don’t understand what’s going on over there, but it’s scary.

  Next week is the presidential election. The Democrats have a woman, Geraldine Ferraro, on the ticket . . . finally!!! When I asked in history class why there has never been a woman or a black person as president or vice president of the country, I got basically zero answers. Something is wrong. You mean there’s never been a woman or black person good enough to be president?? That’s just stupid. Maybe this time will be different. And maybe someday we’ll have a black or Asian or Indian or a woman as president, even. I hope so. Would that be cool? I was hoping last year when the Reverend Jesse Jackson decided to run we’d maybe have a black man as president but it didn’t work out.

  I hope it happens someday. Michael Jackson in ’88! I’ll be able to vote by then.

  The Cosby Show was on tonight, but Mom wanted to watch Magnum PI, so we watched that instead. It’s okay . . . Dukes of Hazzard is on tomorrow night and I get to see John Schneider!!! Yum.

  Anyway . . . Mom didn’t say anything, but I know she’s worried about Brock. Why can’t he see how much he upsets her when he acts like a giant jerk? She shouldn’t work so hard, but I know Mom never misses the day working for Mrs. Stubbs because she pays well . . .

  Valetta paused and looked around her room. Her curtains were pretty, dotted Swiss, and her bedspread was nice, a rose pink chenille; both originally came from Mrs. Stubbs’s home. Mom’s favorite clothes came from her too, and so did some of their best furniture.

  . . . she pays well and she’s always giving Mom stuff: clothes, curtains, towels, furniture. She buys such good stuff, she always says, that she gets tired of them before they’re worn out and wants to change them, so someone may as well have the use of them. Mom says that Mrs. Stubbs only says that because she’s afraid Mom will be too proud to take hand-me-downs, but little does she know, Mom’s got no pride,
or at least not that kind. Mom always laughs when she says it, but I don’t think it’s funny.

  Someday I’ll make enough that Mom won’t have to take hand-me-downs anymore. I’ll get a job that pays well and look after her. If Brock’s not going to try at school then the least he could do is get a job and help out around here. I work. Why shouldn’t he? I know he does some stuff for Mr. Waterman, but not much and not often. Mom always makes excuses for him, like, a boy needs a father, and if Dad hadn’t died . . . blah, blah, blah. He gets away with murder, while I do everything.

  Valetta heard a noise in the kitchen and tiptoed out to see what was going on. Brock was home and he smelled of booze and other odors. She wrinkled her nose. “You’ve been smoking and drinking,” she accused, keeping her voice low and glancing toward her mother’s closed bedroom door.

  He glared at her, bleary-eyed and blinking. “What’s it to you?”

  “Shut up!” she hissed. “Don’t talk so loud. Mom’s tired and she’s in bed. No thanks to you, I had to do your chores and my own, and then get Mom to bed with a cup of tea. She’s worried sick about you. What’s wrong? Why did you leave school today? And why did you have the car? You’re not supposed to take it without permission, you know.”

  “None of your business. I’m going to bed.”

  Valetta watched him grab the last Coke out of the fridge and head downstairs to his room in the basement. She raced to the railing and bent over it. “Next time it’s your turn to do everything while I stay at school and watch the game!” she hissed down the stairs after him.

  . . . so Brock just came in and didn’t even care that I had to do his chores as well as mine. What a jerk! He makes me so mad. I feel like I say that a lot, but you, Dear Diary, are the only one I can say it to. I told him next time there was a football game at school he was coming home early and doing the chores and I was going to stay to watch. Right, like that’ll ever happen.

  Anyway, good night, Dear Diary. Tomorrow is another day, but at least it’s Friday!

  Valetta shut the diary, set it on her side table and turned out the light. Someday her brother was going to get himself in a whole lot of trouble, something he couldn’t get out of, and when that happened, she would gloat!

  Nineteen

  IT WAS FINALLY HERE, the day of Becca and Jaymie’s joint wedding shower. They had been told to not worry about it, that their friends would take care of everything from the organization to the guest list, so Jaymie did her best to obey. Becca, who of the two of them was the control freak, kept busy with working on the antique shop with Kevin. Jaymie couldn’t settle to anything, so she spent the morning reading Valetta’s diary, finally coming to the Thursday of the murders.

  There was some interesting information. Brock, Valetta complained, had skipped school for the whole afternoon and wasn’t home when she returned on the schoolbus. She went into detail about how she had to do Brock’s chores, what she made for dinner, and then television. She complained that Brock had the car without permission . . . interesting.

  After that she made some tea for her mom, who seemed down and was worrying about Brock, and helped her get to bed. Her mom wasn’t well, but still . . . she worked hard for what money she could get. She never complained about Mrs. Stubbs because although the woman was demanding, she also paid well and always gave Valetta’s mom lots of used goods, which were all excellent quality because the woman only ever bought the best.

  Jaymie’s eyes were filled with tears by the time she was done reading that section. It confirmed to her that her two best friends, Valetta and Mrs. Stubbs, were both the most worthy of women, loving and giving. She saw through Mrs. Stubbs’s attempt to give Mrs. Nibley stuff for her home and yet not make her feel bad about taking it. It seemed from the diary entry that Mrs. Nibley saw through it too, but didn’t mind.

  Maybe the tears were the result of weariness. She had tossed and turned all night worrying about today. Being the center of attention was never easy. As long as she had something to do, like when she was working in the historic home kitchen, it was fine, but at the shower she would be expected to smile and receive all the outpouring of affection. She’d get fidgety and try to help and her friends would make her stop. It would not be easy.

  But there was more to her melancholy; she was getting a peek at years gone by, and it left her feeling like she had missed what the others had experienced together. She had had friends growing up but not many, not like Becca had. Valetta, Dee and Becca had been a tight group, though they had their individual trials. Dee had been going steady with Johnny even then, and spent all her free time with him. Valetta clearly had her worries, with no father—he had died several years before—and Brock such a pain and her mother working and worrying herself to a nub. Valetta worked too, Jaymie knew, at the Emporium, and put herself through school to become a pharmacist with work and scholarships. And Becca . . . poor kid was saddled with a baby sister who was foisted on her more often than she should have been on a sixteen-year-old.

  It was odd seeing it through Valetta’s eyes.

  Her mind returned to the day of the crimes. Brock skipped school that afternoon but had not come home with the car until late, Valetta said, and then wouldn’t tell her where he’d been, though he told the police he had briefly seen Delores in Queensville, when she told him she was leaving town. He’d also told the chief that he had hitchhiked back to school, but Valetta’s diary proved that was untrue.

  Valetta said she had wanted to stay at school that afternoon and watch the football game. Football game . . . Jaymie reread that passage. Did that mean Gus would have been in school and busy that afternoon? No opportunity to see and kill Rhonda? Or had he skipped the game and gone somewhere with his girlfriend? Jaymie jotted a note.

  Maybe there was a reason Gus was so cranky: a guilty conscience.

  Or maybe Brock had not come home until late for a nefarious reason, and that’s why he was acting so weird.

  She sighed and put her head in her hands. This time the crime was so long ago there didn’t seem to be a whole lot of ways to figure it out. She closed up her notes and Valetta’s diary. She had other things to do, and the first was bathe the dog. “Come on, Hoppy; if you’re coming to this wedding shower—and you are coming to this wedding shower—you are going to look and smell pretty.”

  • • •

  JAYMIE WAS TOO NERVOUS to eat all day, but there would be food aplenty at any shower that involved the Leighton sisters. Though she was supposed to keep her nose out of the plans, Jaymie knew that many of the ladies were bringing food, but that Heidi was having Tami Majewski deliver trays from the bakery, too, as well as food Tami made in her own kitchen. She catered on the side, a lucrative business for someone as talented as she was.

  Becca drove, of course, and Jaymie fidgeted as Hoppy quivered with excitement in the backseat on a carefully folded doggie blanket. Two hours. She only had to last two hours, and it would all be done. Then there would be the wedding to worry about. But first . . . the wedding shower.

  Becca wore a pale blue skirt suit, her dark (dyed to conceal the threads of gray) hair beautifully curled and fluffed, with discreet diamond studs in her lobes. Jaymie had always teased her about having old-lady style sensibility but that wasn’t true, especially not in her business or dressy clothes. Becca was always well turned out. “So, how painful is this for you?” she asked, glancing over at Jaymie.

  “Painful?” Jaymie sighed and fiddled with her clutch purse, opening and snapping closed the clasp. She had struggled with what to wear. She liked dresses but she was on the full-figured side and sometimes felt like she’d look foolish in a dress, as if she was trying too hard. But this time she had taken Heidi’s advice and bought a pretty cerise dress with a handkerchief hem from a store online. She loved it, fortunately, and how it went nicely with her long hair up in a pony with a vintage clip. “I wouldn’t say it’s painful, but I’m glad it’s both of us in this.” She glanced over at her sister. “I’m happy I’m not goi
ng to be the whole center of attention.”

  “Honestly, you’d think you were going to your execution. This will be fun, you’ll see.”

  Jaymie wasn’t going to be a downer on a special day and nodded. “I’ll have fun,” she said, injecting all the vivacity she could into her tone. She paused, then said, “You know, it’s been weird, reading Valetta’s diary, seeing you and all of your friends’ daily lives from when you were a teenager. I never think about that with Valetta because she’s just my friend. But she was your friend first.”

  “She always wished she’d had a sister.” Becca glanced over at Jaymie. “With having their older brother and Brock, she always felt like she missed out on the sisterhood thing. You were her little sister from the day you were born. She was the only one of my friends I’d trust you with.”

  Jaymie nodded. Many of her first memories as a child were of Valetta looking after her, taking her for walks, doing special things for her. “I just realized . . . you know, you can probably blame Valetta for my mania for collecting vintage. She was the first person to take me to a thrift store. She bought me a kitten figurine that I still have.”

  “Curses on you, Valetta,” Becca said, shaking her fist and laughing.

  They pulled up in front of the Queensville Historic Manor, a huge two-and-a-half-story Queen Anne with clapboard siding and gingerbread trim. The parking area was crowded with cars. Jaymie shuddered. These were all friends; she had to keep reminding herself of that. There was a hand-drawn sign with balloons and streamers that said Leighton-Burke Wedding Shower, and there was another sign with balloons attached where they, as the guests of honor, were supposed to park. Jaymie got out, patted down her dress, brushed off some cat and dog hairs, then picked up Hoppy and trotted to catch up with Becca, who was eagerly climbing the steps up to the porch and already had her hand on the doorknob.

 

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