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

by Victoria Hamilton

  Valetta nodded and said Okay, in a small voice.

  Jaymie returned home to a flurry of missed phone calls and emails. Her mother called with wedding questions, her grandmother called to say how much she enjoyed being a virtual part of the shower; it had made her a hip hit among the folks of her retirement home. Dee called and left a cryptic message: It was the wolf call.

  “Dee, what the heck did your message mean?” she asked. She held the receiver in one hand while sitting at the kitchen table, discarding spam emails and putting her laptop through a virus scanner.

  “The Wolf Call,” Dee said. “That was the name of the school paper! How could you not understand what I was saying?”

  Jaymie laughed. “You’ve always talked shorthand, like you just left the person two minutes ago and are answering the questions from then. That was Saturday, and I’ve been under the weather since.”

  “Oh, right! Becca told me. Anyway, Johnny doesn’t remember if we were at that game or not, and he sure as heck doesn’t know if Gus was.”

  She then launched into a dozen questions about Jaymie’s health in dirty detail until Jaymie felt slightly queasy. “Dee, enough about that. Let’s get back to the eighties. Even if Johnny can’t remember that particular football game, do you know anyone who would?”

  There was silence for a moment. “I think I may. Let me get back to you.” She hung up as abruptly as she did everything.

  Jaymie then read an email from Nan, who had a few questions about her column before it went to print. That reminded Jaymie of the information her editor had given her from the newspaper archives, and also that Clifford Paget had been found alive and well. She wondered, what would he have to say? It was quite possible—she hoped probable—that the murders would be solved by a confession from a man who had, after all, run away. She emailed answers to Nan.

  She was finishing up when the phone rang, Dee again. She had a contact; an old friend of Johnny’s was the school photographer for the newspaper, and took pictures of every single sports game, football included. He was also fanatically well organized. This very minute he was searching his archives, which he had digitized in the last ten years, and was going to send her the November first, 1984, football game photos. That would tell her exactly what she needed to know. Jaymie thanked her and hung up, but she could not wait for the photos. She had promised Tami she’d be in to the bakery to pick up the diary and talk about the wedding cake, and she was going to do it.

  She was about to grab her purse when the phone rang yet again.

  “Ledbetter here. Jaymie, got some news. Want to tell you in person.”

  She paused and looked at her watch. “I’m heading into Wolverhampton right now, Chief. Can I meet you somewhere?”

  “Coffee shop. Fifteen minutes.” He sounded tense and hung up immediately.

  She hit the gas on the highway to town and pulled into the parking lot of the coffee shop in seventeen minutes. The police chief was at a booth on the back wall. She entered, sniffing the smell of good coffee with appreciation. She usually drank tea, but coffee shop coffee was usually excellent, so she got a cup from the lunch counter, fixed it up with milk and joined him, sliding into the booth opposite him.

  “What’s up?” she asked after they greeted each other.

  “You okay?” He drained the last of his cup. “You look a little pale.”

  “I’ve been under the weather the last couple of days. I’m fine. Now . . . what’s up?”

  “Told you we got Clifford Paget. He’s given us a whole lot of information, and some of it we’ve confirmed.”

  “Okay.” The chief looked deeply worried, his sagging face jowly, and she would swear he had lost weight in the last few days. “Tell me. Is there something . . . is it bad?”

  “What? Oh, no, Jaymie, sorry if I’m acting vague. Trying to figure things out. First off . . . Delores Paget is not Delores Paget.”

  Jaymie sat back and blinked. “You’ll have to be more clear; do you mean the body is not the girl known as Delores Paget, or—”

  “No, no, I mean just as she apparently suspected, she was not the Pagets’ natural niece. Clifford wasn’t their nephew, either. Clifford Paget was Jimbo Paget’s natural-born son. Those two—father and son—murdered Jimbo’s wife—Clifford’s mother—and took off with Olga, who stole a baby she was babysitting. Clifford said Olga couldn’t have children and wanted one, so she just . . . took Delores.”

  Like stealing a chocolate bar from a candy store, it was that easy. How could she justify it to herself? Jaymie’s heart thudded and her stomach churned. “That poor girl! She suspected it, and she was right.” Her mind raced. So Delores was getting close to the truth, with Rhonda’s help. Not only kidnapping, but murder! That alone—that frightening and dangerous knowledge—would have been enough of a reason for the Pagets, including Clifford, to kill both girls. “So what about Delores? What was her real name?”

  “Cindy Lynn Walker, abducted on or around August third, 1968, the same day Clifford and Jimbo Paget killed Jimbo’s wife. Not their real names, but that’s neither here nor there. Father was having an affair with Olga, and they all took off. Clifford says the baby was not Jimbo’s idea and he was plenty mad. Meant they had to run farther. They came all the way from Idaho and responded to an ad in the paper looking for farm help, with a house to live in as partial payment. It was work that paid under the table. That farm was owned by a real old lady, last of her family, who had to move into a nursing home. She was happy to have the help. Several years later when she died she left them the farm. They had their fake paperwork in line by then, and had established themselves with bank accounts and such.”

  Jaymie barely registered what he was saying, her mind still whirling. Poor Delores; just as she was about to get at the truth, she was killed.

  “Jaymie, listen to me. Pay attention. Clifford swears up, down and sideways that he didn’t kill those two girls.”

  Twenty-one

  “WHAT?”

  “You heard me.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  The chief held his mug up, signaling the waitress for a refill. “I don’t know.”

  Jaymie took a long, deep breath. She trusted the chief. Should she tell him about Brock? It was tempting, but she couldn’t. It would feel like betraying Valetta, and without any justification because she had no real reason to think Brock killed Delores. It could wait until after she talked to him. “One thing I’m thinking is, maybe the two murders are by two different killers.”

  “That’s a helluva coincidence.”

  “I know. But it could happen, right?” She paused while the waitress refilled his coffee, then trotted away. “There is every possibility that the two girls intended to meet up to go see Petty but never found each other.”

  “You got any proof?”

  “Not a bit,” she said. “But I may, soon.”

  He watched her for a long moment. “You know or suspect something. You’re not hiding anything from me, are you?”

  She thought for a moment, then shook her head. “No, Chief, I don’t know a thing. The minute I do, I’ll tell you. I promise.”

  “You’d better do that. I’m going way out on a limb here, Jaymie, keeping you in the loop. Way out. Vestry is doing the best she can on this investigation—she thinks Paget is the culprit, and on paper he looks pretty damn good, but she’s keeping her mind open—but if you’ve got anything that would help, you better hand it over.”

  “I know, Chief, I know. I don’t have anything but some teenagers’ diaries that talk about football games and petty rivalries.” She drank the last of her coffee, then stood and hefted her purse on her shoulder. “I have to go. I’ll call you.”

  The bakery was nearby so she walked to it. There was a girl about nineteen serving customers. Jaymie asked for Tami and was told she was out that moment but would be back soon. Jaymie decided to sit and wait.

  She still had to process what the chief had told her. Jaymie should have asked th
e chief about Delores’s natural family but she hadn’t thought to, her mind full of other questions. It was a long time ago but there could still be an elderly mother out there, grieving for her kidnapped child, hoping for a reunion that was never going to happen. It hurt her heart to think about it.

  Tami, dressed in white jeans and a pink blouse, which suited her pale coloring, came through the front door and saw Jaymie. “You made it!” she cried, slinging her purse over her shoulder.

  “Of course. I never miss an appointment.”

  “You can have your break now,” Tami said to the teenager, who smiled and nodded, then disappeared in back. “Did you like the chocolate cake?” she asked, turning to Jaymie.

  “It was okay,” Jaymie said, trying to find that fine line between honesty and cruelty. “To be frank, I’d prefer something a little . . . moister.”

  Tami nodded. “Yeah, I’m sorry. I think the batch of chocolate I was working with was too old.” She ducked through the pass-through section of the counter and tossed her purse underneath. “People say it’s okay to use no matter how old chocolate is, but I think it loses oil content. I’ll make you another taster batch. I want you to be happy.”

  “I appreciate that,” Jaymie said, relieved. She didn’t want to have to find a new baker for her wedding cake, but she also wanted her guests to enjoy it. “I stopped in to pick up the diary.”

  “Oh, right! I have it in back.” Tami retreated. When she returned she handed over a small flowered book with a broken rusty lock.

  As the baker grabbed a stack of flat bakery boxes and started constructing and stacking them on a shelf near the glass case, Jaymie opened the diary and glanced through. Much of it was blurry, the pale ink fuzzed as if it was being read through a steamy window. There were silly sayings, like Kiss My Grits! and Where’s the Beef? and a whole page dedicated to Cyndi Lauper and “Girls Just Want to Have Fun.” There were movie quotes like “Nobody puts baby in the corner.” The passages that she could read, through the smudges, seemed to be the usual teen laments of boredom and boy problems. “What happened to it? It’s all blurry and the pages are kind of warped.”

  “It got wet at some point, I guess. It was in a box that was in the basement. I doubt if it will help. I didn’t write very much, sort of in fits and starts.”

  “I’m trying to get a feel for things,” Jaymie admitted, closing the book and stuffing it in her purse. This was probably a forlorn hope, but Tami was the one who offered it. “Hey, I came across something interesting the other day. Among Delores’s things was a photo from my sister’s sixteenth birthday party and you were in it! I didn’t know you were friends with Becca?”

  A blank look on her face, Tami shrugged. “Isn’t that funny? I don’t remember that at all. Must’ve been a fluke.”

  Or maybe a birthday party was the kind of thing only the celebrant remembered, looking back, Jaymie thought. How many had she been to in childhood that she remembered, other than her own? As the baker continued building bakery boxes and stacking them neatly on the shelf, Jaymie leaned across the pass-through counter. “Tami, do you remember anything about that day, the day Delores disappeared?”

  Tami paused and stared at her. “Good heavens, does anyone? I mean, it was a random day like any other, wasn’t it?” She suddenly looked stricken, one hand over her heart. “I didn’t mean . . . I mean, at the time, not knowing what happened, it seemed like a day like all the others.”

  “I get it,” Jaymie replied, straightening. “But you’d be surprised. I’m piecing it together bit by bit. It has helped when I’ve been able to tell people things, like there was a football game after school that day, stuff like that. And others wrote diaries too, like Valetta. She was an avid diarist, recorded everything going on about herself, her brother, school . . . everything. Right now I have a photographer from the school newspaper, the Wolf Call, sending me some photos from the football game.”

  Her face twisted in a puzzled look, Tami asked, “Why?”

  Jaymie hesitated. She did not want to point a finger at Gus, especially not to his sister, who seemed to care for him a lot. “I’m just . . . like I said, getting a picture of the day. Who was there, who was playing . . . everything helps, right?”

  “I don’t think my diary will,” Tami said. “In fact, you may as well leave it here,” she said, holding out her hand. “It hasn’t got anything in it, I can tell you that. I had a look already.”

  The instinct was to hand it back over, but . . . Jaymie held her purse close to her body. There might be some small detail that even Tami wouldn’t have noticed, something about that day and Gus’s movements. “I’ll keep it, if that’s okay.” An older woman entered the bakery, the bells jingling over the door, and another followed. Jaymie waved and headed for the door, saying, “I’ll leave you to it. Talk to you soon! Let me know when you have more cake for tasting.”

  Jaymie returned to her van and headed out of town. There were wedding details to take care of and she mustn’t forget them in her determination to help solve the teen murders. There were several more things at the store that Heidi wanted to borrow to use for the wedding reception, which was going to take place on the lawn of the historic manor, with a rented marquee tent in case of inclement weather. She had found some vintage champagne glasses, a box of old wood frames, and assorted other items she had tagged for use. Storage space was tight at the store, so she’d use today to retrieve the stuff.

  Jakob had told Jaymie the history of his and Gus’s store. When they first got the idea for The Junk Stops Here, they ran it out of a storefront in Wolverhampton. But they outgrew that so fast that he and Gus rented an empty factory that had gone bankrupt during the recession. It was a huge empty space because the company had been forced to sell off all of the equipment to try to pay back their debts.

  Though they had initially intended to stock only reconstruction items like doors and doorknobs, windows, shutters, and vintage gingerbread from old houses torn down, as well as other vintage construction goods, they had swiftly realized that there was a lot of fast money in smaller items. They now sold everything from jewelry and china at the front in cases, to a vast array of furniture, books, clothes, luggage, as well as plumbing supplies, antique wrought-iron fencing . . . in short, anything and everything the lover of vintage and antiques could ever want. The stock changed every single day, as both men attended auctions and estate sales, as well as buying online.

  Gus Majewski sat behind the glass counter at the front, hunched over and studying a business ledger with a worried frown. He wore smudged dollar store magnifying glasses that he threw down on the counter as she entered.

  “Hey, Gus. How is everything?” She remembered what Jakob had said about Gus seeming on edge and examined him for signs of stress.

  “Jaymie, how are you?” He came around the counter and gave her a big bear hug.

  He certainly seemed fine today. “I’m good,” she said with a gasp as he released her. He was very strong, and didn’t always realize how tight his hugs were. “Is Jakob here?”

  “No, he’s picking some stuff up from an estate sale in Mount Clemens. Didn’t he tell you?”

  “Maybe he forgot.”

  “He’ll be back in an hour or so, if you need him.”

  “No, it’s okay. I’m here to pick up some stuff that we’re using for the wedding. Did he tell you about it?”

  “He sure did, and so did that bossy little wedding planner of yours. Come back and I’ll help you load it into your van. You have someone to help on the other end?”

  “Hopefully. If not, it’ll ride around in my van until I do.” She followed him back to a storage room, where there was a dolly cart loaded with stuff tagged “wedding” in Heidi’s big looping handwriting.

  He slipped the brake off the dolly cart. “Is this it?”

  “I guess so.” She followed him back through the cavernous warehouse. “Hey, I was just talking to your sister.”

  “Tami? Why?” he asked sharply, loo
king back over his shoulder.

  Taken aback at his tone, she said, “Just . . . I had to pick something up. She . . . uh . . . she was giving me her diary from 1984. I’m trying to get a feel for that year at Wolverhampton High; you know, because of Delores Paget and Rhonda.”

  “What does she know? She was hardly ever at school. She was in the same grade as me because she was left back. Did you know that? Spent all her time smoking with the stoners. She didn’t even make it to the end of the school year.”

  Jaymie was silent; his criticism of his sister made her uncomfortable, but she was not going to go on the attack.

  “Seriously! She’s never been the brightest bulb in the package.” He wheeled the dolly cart out the big double doors, open to the spring sunshine, and toward her vehicle.

  Jaymie unlocked and opened the back doors of the van. Gus loaded the boxes containing stemware, vases and frames, a small mid-century modern side table, a piecrust table and two bags of vintage crepe bells into the back of her van.

  He dusted his hands and straightened from the task. “Tami’s been a screwup her whole life.”

  “She’s trying to help me out,” Jaymie replied, feeling inclined to defend the woman.

  He turned, his face twisted in an unhappy expression. “I wouldn’t be so sure of that.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She’s unhappy and confused. She always has been. I don’t know what’s wrong with her, but . . .” He shrugged. “Jaymie, if you want my advice, you’ll drop all this investigation crap. He won’t say it to your face, but Jakob doesn’t like it.”

  Jaymie’s heart thudded, but then she stiffened her spine and stared at him. Why was he trying to intimidate her to stop? “Gus, if Jakob had a problem with it he’d tell me. We’re honest about things.”

  “I wouldn’t bet on that. He doesn’t want to piss you off.” Looking broody, Gus jammed his hands in his pockets. “Look, if I tell you something, you have got to keep it a secret.”