Her mom sighed, then said, “I felt sorry for her. Her father was really tough on those girls, you know, especially Kathy, as the oldest. And on poor Martha. But Kathy wanted to do something in life. She wanted to make a difference. She was going to be a nurse. If she hadn’t married Craig Cooper, I think she would have done it.”
There was a subtle criticism there concerning Jaymie’s own lack of direction, but this was not the time to address it. “I think she might have been considering doing something about it now,” Jaymie said, reminded of the call from the Payne Institute to the Coopers’ home.
Talking to her mom reminded Jaymie of all the sterling qualities Kathy had possessed, and it made the loss more devastating and the split that had occurred between them more tragic, especially since it had been based on a lie. The Kathy who died was a woman she didn’t even know, but one who would leave a hole in the lives of those who loved her, no matter how tumultuous their relationship appeared to be to Jaymie. As she signed off with her mom, Jaymie was more determined than ever that whoever killed Kathy would not get away with it.
* * *
THE NEXT MORNING—It was Saturday, a busy day at the bed-and-breakfast—Jaymie popped over to the Shady Rest with the egg-based breakfast casserole she had put together the night before for Anna; all it needed was baking in the oven. Anna could then cut it into big squares and serve it with bacon or sausage, fresh fruit, cereal, muffins and lots of coffee and orange juice. Clive was there for the weekend, and he had promised to do scrambled eggs, if anyone preferred them. “It’s almost like a bread pudding,” she told Anna at the front door, handing her the casserole with the baking directions taped on the foil. “Or French toast in a pan. Serve it with that Michigan maple syrup, and let them dig in!”
She then changed into capris and a cotton blouse and walked Hoppy to the Emporium in time to meet Valetta, who was opening the store. Jaymie took Hoppy over to play with Junk Junior at Jewel’s shop, and began her day, filling in for the Klausners, who were enjoying a rare day off together. The first few hours were taken up with the normal procedures: opening mail, restocking shelves, dusting and cleaning in places the Klausners couldn’t—and shouldn’t—get to, which meant crawling under counters and getting up on a six-foot ladder to dust the tops of hundred-year-old shelves. At eleven, since there were no customers in the store, she took a tea break with Valetta on the porch. She told her friend what she had learned at the Cooper home and at Heidi and Joel’s.
“I never said it, Valetta, really!” she said, about Kylie’s assertion that Jaymie had started the quarrel between them in high school with cruel words that would haunt Kathy for years.
“I know that, kiddo,” Valetta said, her eyes glinting behind her thick glasses. “You don’t have a mean bone in your body. You couldn’t say something like that!”
Jaymie got teary-eyed at that and sipped her cooling tea. She wasn’t so sure her good friend’s faith in her niceness as a kid was deserved, given the mean nickname she had made up for Craig Cooper. But she had been horrified when it spread, and had regretted it for the next two years of high school that she shared with the slightly older Craig. The blazing sun’s heat burned the dew off as it climbed and chased away shadows.
Chloe Cooper, her previous day’s torn T-shirt traded in for a retro sundress, strolled past on her way to Jewel’s Junk; she stopped to talk with them for a few minutes. “I heard Jewel Dandridge has some fifties handbags and sunglasses,” she said as she adjusted her cat’s-eye jeweled vintage glasses. “I collect handbags.”
“How is Craig doing, Chloe?” Valetta asked.
“Okay, I guess. He goes out walking a lot, alone. He’s kinda moody. But he’ll be okay. I never thought Kathy was good for him—pardon me for speaking ill of the dead.”
“What do you mean?” Jaymie asked.
“Craig got past all that crap in high school, you know? The bullying, the names. But Kathy! Man, she was a piece of work. She never got over any of it. Sometimes Craig did crap to humor her, but nothing was ever enough for her. She wanted her “enemies” to suffer. She always said living well is the best revenge, but I had a feeling she’d have liked other kinds of revenge better.”
Jaymie remembered that when Johnny Stanko was near them on the boardwalk path, Kathy had kept talking to Craig, probably urging him to confront his former bully, and when her husband kept shaking his head, she jumped up to confront him herself. Maybe Chloe was right about Craig.
“I felt sorry for Kathy,” Valetta said. “Not being able to have a child…I think that affected her.”
“Yeah, life sucks and then you die,” Chloe said with brutal frankness. “But in the meantime you don’t need to take the crappy stuff in life so to heart that you make everyone around you miserable.” She walked on to Jewel’s shop.
Valetta and Jaymie were silent for a long minute.
“I think she’s got a point,” Jaymie said. “Look how many people Kathy was quarreling with: Kylie, Andy Walker, Johnny, me. And even Matt Laskan; you saw them arguing, didn’t you?”
She nodded. “Hey, I did find something out,” Valetta said. “Brock told me that Craig and Kathy were looking at commercial listings in Toledo. They asked if he could hook them up with a reliable real estate agent there.” Valetta’s brother, Brock, was a real estate agent specializing in farm properties, but he also sold homes and some commercial properties. In small-town Michigan, no agent could afford to specialize too much.
“So they really were going to move to Toledo and start a branch office of Laskan Cooper.”
“Ah, but listen to this: that was five or six months ago, just after Christmas. A few weeks ago, Craig called him and told him to forget about it. I guess Brock kept sending commercial listings from Toledo to his e-mail. Craig said he and Kathy had decided to stay in Queensville for the time being.”
“Not according to Kathy,” Jaymie said. She had been adamant that they were moving, and taking Connor with them. Why had Craig canceled the hunt, when Kathy was still dead set on moving? Had he known she wasn’t going to be around to keep the pressure on?
Something had changed by later that day, something dramatic, because according to Kylie, Kathy had told her that she knew she wasn’t going to be able to take custody of Connor after all, so she was glad Kylie was getting her act together. What did Kathy learn or figure out that changed everything?
It was all so confusing.
Jaymie and Valetta went back to work. There were lots of tourists in town but only a few ventured into the Emporium, and then mostly because of the historic façade. Not many tourists wanted to buy Rice Krispies or a gallon of milk. Most of the serious shoppers were townies, and many of them said the same thing over and over. Jaymie got just a little tired of hearing, So, another murder; remind me not to hang around you too much, Jaymie. There was the usual litany of questions from the curious: What did she know? Who did she think did it? Was she upset, or happy that Kathy was dead? That last one horrified her, and she almost bit one person’s head off when they said much the same thing.
“What do you think?” she barked. “Kathy and I were friends growing up, no matter what happened after.”
Bob Douglas, who was in the store picking up something for his wife, came up to the counter after the chagrined customer slunk away. “Hey, Jaymie, take it easy, now,” he said, putting one cool, bony hand on her wrist. “Folks are just curious, you know, and most people don’t even think about what they’re saying.”
She eyed him appreciatively and nodded, taking a deep breath. “You’re right. Thank you. I shouldn’t have snapped, but I’m so sad about it all myself, and to hear people imply that I’d be happy…it just horrifies me.”
“I know. Anyone looking at you would know you are an honest-to-goodness nice person. Of course you’re sad! But I’ve been through misfortune, and I know people can be so thoughtless sometimes.”
She had heard that his first wife died tragically: a car accident, or something, folks said.
“You’re right, of course. How is Ella doing?”
He looked worried. “Not so good. This is new medication,” he said, holding up the paper pharmacy bag he had just gotten from Valetta. “I sure hope it helps. I’m trying to get in contact with the Mayo Clinic. They’re number one in the world at treating problems with the endocrine system.”
Valetta approached. “Bob, there’s an endocrinologist in Port Huron. Do you want his phone number? It couldn’t hurt to have him run some tests. Will your insurance cover it?”
“If we have a referral,” he said, with a grimace. “But if we can’t get that, I’ll make an appointment anyway. If the guy is good, it’ll be worth paying for it out of our savings. I don’t think I can stand to see my girl suffer any more pain!” His voice broke and he cleared his throat.
Valetta bustled off to get him the phone number, and Jaymie watched him swallow his emotions. “I know you heard about Kathy Cooper’s run-in with your wife here earlier this week. How did you feel about it?”
“I was mad! How dare she?” His pale face colored with a crimson flush starting in his neck and creeping upward, a vein throbbing above his right eye. “Ella has taken so much crap from doctors who don’t believe she’s really sick and her own family, who say she’s delusional, and then that angry young woman had the gall to tell her she was bullying that poor little boy? Ella has paid and paid for her past behavior. I know she was a bully in high school. She told me all about it.”
“Really? I would have thought she would have wanted to forget those days.” Ella had been the new girl and, as such, ostracized in the tight small-town community of Wolverhampton High. It had made her prickly and difficult, if Jaymie remembered right.
“We talk about everything! She changed once she left this town. I have only ever known her as the sweet and wonderful woman she is now, the one who helped me heal from losing my dear first wife. The little boy, Connor, is the one I felt sorry for in the middle of that sad spectacle here in the store, made the center of Kathy Cooper’s paranoid fantasies.” He stopped and shook his head. “I’m really sorry that she was murdered; that shouldn’t happen to anyone. But you have to wonder: How many people did she make angry? How many other folks did she attack like that?”
“Good point, Bob,” Valetta said, handing him a slip of paper with the doctor’s name and number.
Once he left, Jaymie thought over what he’d said while she reorganized her melamine picnic display. She took out the book that had the advance bookings for the picnic baskets and noted that Craig had picked one up for the July Fourth picnic, the Lover’s Lane basket, but hadn’t returned it yet. That was to be expected; how could he think about something like that while grieving for his wife? It worked to her advantage, since it would give her a good excuse to follow up with him. She could say she was dropping by to pick it up from him to save him the trouble. And just maybe she could get the answers to some of her questions.
Craig Cooper seemed to have known weeks ago that he had no intention of moving to Toledo, and yet Kathy had still thought they were, going by her conversation with Matt Laskan. She was counting on it. But then later that day she told Kylie she knew she wouldn’t be getting custody of Connor. Were the two statements somehow tied together? Or had something else been going on?
They got busy, and the afternoon flew by. It was getting late, the brilliant, super-heated sun blazing down on Queensville from a slanted angle and overlaying everything with a rich golden glow. Jaymie began to haul the stuff on the porch back into the store in preparation for closing. First the big box of beach balls and the other box of Water Weenies. Then the assorted cartons of flags and kites, badminton sets, gardening paraphernalia. She was hauling the last box inside when she heard a siren not far away.
“What’s that?” Valetta called from the back, where she was shutting down her pharmacy and catalog counters.
“I don’t know.” Jaymie stepped back out onto the porch and listened. More sirens. “Something big,” she said to Valetta, who had come to the door.
“You follow the sound while I lock up,” Valetta said, giving Jaymie a shove.
Jaymie dashed back in, grabbed her purse from the hook behind the counter and headed to the door. “Tell Jewel I’ll be back for Hoppy in a few minutes,” she called out over her shoulder, already skipping down the steps. It sounded like the sirens were heading down to the river. “I hope it’s not a drowning!” Jaymie muttered as she trotted toward the wailing sirens. But the riverside was calm. The siren sound was from past the riverside, beyond the docks. She picked up her pace and headed toward Johnny Stanko’s neighborhood.
A crowd was gathering, even as the police were trying to push them back. They had Stanko’s house surrounded, and a sergeant used a bullhorn, saying, “Come on out, Stanko. We know you’re in there, and we know you have a gun. Come on out, and no one will get hurt!”
The tension ratcheted up as neighbors gathered in worried knots, whispering to each other. A cop began to push them back, and one couple hustled their young child away. Jaymie tried to find out from a cluster of neighbors what was going on, but no one seemed to know anything. They had all just heard sirens and gathered to watch.
One shot rang out, and police descended on the house, breaking a window and tossing a tear gas container in. They waited just seconds before three of them fastened gas masks over their faces and broke down the front door with a battering ram.
Valetta, gasping for air, hobbled up to Jaymie and stood on one foot, pulling her shoe off and emptying a pebble out of it before putting it back on. “What’s going on?” she cried, hopping around.
“I don’t know, but it doesn’t look good,” Jaymie replied. She wasn’t going to tell Valetta about the gunshot.
Twelve
VALETTA CLUTCHED JAYMIE’S arm, trembling with worry. Moments later an officer wearing a tear gas mask led a handcuffed Johnny Stanko out of the house. He was doubled over and retching, barefoot and wearing only jean cutoffs, his dirty blond hair falling over his eyes.
“Johnny!” Valetta cried.
He stumbled, and the officer righted him. Valetta started toward him, but a police officer stepped in front of her and grabbed her arm, not hard, but enough to stop her. “I’m sorry, ma’am, but I can’t let you do that.”
She wrenched her arm from his grip, stiffened her spine and said, “I’m only going to talk to him.” She shouldered her way past a couple of people standing around gawking. Jaymie followed in her wake. “Johnny,” Valetta called out. His head snapped up. “Johnny, don’t say anything to the police, okay? I’ll get you a lawyer. Don’t say anything. You don’t have to talk to them!”
He nodded, and was led away. She watched them go, eyeing the police with a stern gaze.
Jaymie, who had followed her, said, “Valetta, if you think he’s innocent, why don’t you want him talking to the police?” That was quite a change from the day before when she wanted him to go to the police and tell them his side of the story.
Her expression set in stubborn rebellion, she said, “Because I don’t want them bullying him into confessing. He’s such an easy target. This is different than if he’d gone in voluntarily. Idiot!” She stamped her foot. “Why didn’t he listen to me?”
They started together back to the Emporium to make sure Valetta hadn’t missed locking up anything in her haste to find out what the sirens were about, and so that Jaymie could get Hoppy. “Do you think they’ll do that, try to pin it on him? They only want to find out who did it.”
“But if they figure that’s Johnny, their lives suddenly got easier.”
“We don’t even know that’s why they picked him up.”
“Even you know better than that, Jaymie. What I want to know is, who tipped them off that he was in his house?”
Valetta was so worried that Jaymie just didn’t want to let her handle it all alone. She put her arm over her friend’s shoulders as Hoppy bounced around them, yapping. “Come on over to my place. You can call the la
wyer from there, and we’ll talk about it. I have so many jumbled ideas, and I need someone to bounce them off.”
Valetta agreed. They returned to the Leighton house, and Jaymie made dinner while her friend tracked down a lawyer who agreed to go to the police station and intervene for Johnny Stanko. Valetta guaranteed the lawyer’s fees. Jaymie didn’t say anything, but knowing how much lawyers cost, she thought that Valetta must really believe in Stanko’s innocence if she was willing to do that for him. A public defender would have been the sensible alternative, but Valetta claimed that she knew the public defender in Wolverhampton, and she wouldn’t let him defend a gerbil accused of attacking a giraffe.
After dinner and after Valetta was allowed to briefly speak with Johnny on the phone, they sat in the backyard with tea and the animals. Surly Denver sat on Valetta’s lap and endured being stroked and petted for an hour as they talked about the murder and its aftermath. “What I can’t figure out is, who turned him in? Johnny said he hadn’t been out of the house at all, and I sure didn’t tell anyone he was there.” She glanced over at Jaymie.
“Neither did I, Valetta. Really.”
Her friend nodded. “I know you wouldn’t have, but—”
“But you wondered. It’s okay. If you believe Johnny is innocent, let’s think of who else could have done it. I’ve been trying to create a timeline for everybody who was there, but it’s difficult.” Jaymie ran back inside, got some paper and a clipboard and plopped back down in the old wood Adirondack chair. “These are the folks I’ve thought of who might have had reason to kill Kathy Cooper, but there are a lot of things I don’t know yet.” As she wrote each name, she said it out loud: “Kylie, Andy Walker, Craig, Matt Laskan, Ella and Bob Douglas.”
“Ella and Bob?” Valetta said, adjusting her glasses and leaning toward Jaymie to gaze at the list. “Why them?”
“Well, Kathy had that run-in with Ella at the Emporium, and Bob said he was really angry about it.”
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