White Colander Crime

by Victoria Hamilton

  Not so for Lori and her family; Shelby’s murder was an awful event, truly tragic.

  And then she thought of Nan, and how her heart was breaking over her son, in jail awaiting arraignment. If he was guilty, he should be found so. But if he was innocent, he should be free. It wasn’t up to her to make that decision, but for Nan’s sake she wanted to be able to say she tried to figure it out.

  She called Nan at the paper. “I am going to see Cody tomorrow morning,” she said. “I’m not promising anything, but I’ll talk to him.”

  “That’s all I’m asking,” the editor said. “He’s supposed to be arraigned, but it’ll be a video arraignment. You’ll still be able to see him. Now go and write me that Christmas Vintage Eats column.”

  Eleven

  JAYMIE WAS WORKING for the afternoon at the Emporium, so after lunch she dressed up in a festive pair of red slacks, a short-sleeved white fluffy sweater and black ankle boots, her hair done up in a ponytail tied with a jingle-bell scrunchy. Her mother would have said it was too young a look for a thirtysomething woman, and that so much red made her butt look big, but she felt just fine about it. In the grand scheme of things, what were a few pounds between friends? Jakob seemed to like her just as she was.

  She walked over to the store and took over the cash desk from Mrs. Klausner, who bundled up the knitting she was doing, a complicated blanket for one of her great grandchildren, and walked home. Just a hundred yards down the road, beyond Jewel’s Junk and the Cottage Shoppe, was the two-story brick Victorian where the Klausner family had lived since late in the nineteenth century.

  It was a busy afternoon, but around four there was a lull; Valetta, dressed in a candy cane emblazoned sweater vest, locked up the pharmacy and came forward with two mugs of hot tea, her footsteps making the elderly boards of the Emporium floor creak and squawk. She handed one to Jaymie. The mug read, Of course I love retail . . . Can’t you see my smile? with a frowny face beneath.

  “I’ve ordered a mug for Brock to be from his kids,” she said, and took a sip. “It has a photo of one of his real estate signs and says ‘World’s Greatest Real Estate Agent.’”

  Jaymie frowned. “But that’s not funny.”

  “Oh come on, Jaymie. I know how you feel about Brock. You probably think it’s at least sarcastic.”

  Jaymie blushed and rolled her eyes.

  Valetta smiled and patted Jaymie on the shoulder. “Don’t worry about it. I know he’s hard to take at times, but he’s my brother, the only one I’ve got. Anyway, Brock doesn’t have my sparkling sense of humor, so he wouldn’t appreciate a funny mug.” She strolled to the front door, her hands wrapped around the steaming mug. “It’s coming down out there!”

  Jaymie had noticed the snow. It was lovely. She should feel festive and joyful, but there was a gloomy cloud hovering over her, darkening her mood. “Nan wants me to look into Shelby’s death,” she said suddenly.

  Valetta glanced over at her. “Trying to pin it on someone other than her son?”

  “It wasn’t like that. Not exactly,” Jaymie answered, troubled by the implication.

  “No? You mean if you came up with proof her son did it, she’d be all right with it? ‘Good job, Jaymie’?”

  “But I don’t know if he did it. I saw him hit her, yes. And then days later she was beaten to death. But it doesn’t follow that he definitely did it.”

  “Don’t they say that in cases of murder, nine times out of ten it’s the significant other?”

  Jaymie watched her friend’s profile and caught something behind the words. There was a layer of cynicism there she didn’t expect from Valetta. “I don’t think it’s as high as that.”

  Valetta shrugged and sipped her tea.

  “And besides, I heard from Heidi that she was dating some other guy, too. That would make him a significant other, as well. But I’ve been wondering something else; Shelby had on Lori’s coat, you know. Could someone have beaten her thinking it was Lori?”

  “That’s a bit of a stretch. You might hit someone by mistake, but you wouldn’t keep beating them once you saw who they actually were.”

  “I guess. I am going to just poke around. I feel like I owe it to Nan. She’s been so good to me. If he’s guilty, then fine, but if he’s not, that means there’s someone else out there willing to beat someone to death.” She shivered. “What an awful thing to be thinking at this time of year.”

  “It’s a beautiful season, but it’s hard on people, too,” Valetta said. “So many expectations, so much pressure. Families have more stress this time of year than any other.”

  Family. Jaymie thought of the argument she witnessed between Travis and Shelby. It had looked fairly bitter, and supposedly was over someone she was dating, but surely a brother wouldn’t kill his own sister, would he? It had happened, though, in their own village many years before. “I remember Becca telling me about some guy who killed his sister, back when you were all teenagers.”

  “You mean Tracy Pratt?” Valetta gulped down the rest of her tea and shook her head. “Becca always thought it was her brother, Linc, who killed her, but I never thought so. Linc and I were friends; he didn’t do it. And there was never a body, so we don’t even know if she was killed. I always thought she just ran away.”

  Jaymie turned away from that old village tale. “Anyway, the point is, I told you I saw Shelby and her brother arguing. He could just as easily be the murderer.”

  “It sounds like grasping at straws to me.”

  “Come on, Valetta; play along. Travis Fretter’s story feels just too conveniently damning, that he just happened to see Cody and Shelby arguing. If he was so concerned, wouldn’t he have interfered? Maybe he is lying and not Cody. The timing just can’t be right.” She explained what she meant, about the tight timing of Cody being at the band shell, nowhere near town, and yet Travis having claimed he saw him arguing with Shelby. “Who else could have done it? Who had motive, means and opportunity?”

  “You really want to do this?” Valetta said, eyeing her. “Okay, what about her boss, Delaney?”

  “We did see them talking that morning, and it looked like a contentious chat. He’s a possibility, I guess, though he doesn’t seem likely. But there’s more that I haven’t talked to you about. I told you there was another guy. Well, this is how I know: Heidi told me that Shelby was dating some pharma rep colleague of Joel’s. Heidi didn’t like him. She thought he was a jerk.”

  “If she was dating a couple of guys at once, maybe jealousy was a motive?” Valetta was starting to get into the discussion now. “This other guy could have been jealous, saw her and Cody together and flipped out?”

  “Maybe. I’ll have to get Heidi to tell me where he lives and who he works for. I guess I can actually approach people with my press credentials, you know, interview them about their relationship with Shelby.”

  “Be careful about that, Jaymie. You could get people upset at you.” The doorbell jangled and one of their wheelchair-bound customers came in. Valetta was alert immediately, and since it was a pharmacy sale, she headed back to her counter with a wave to Jaymie.

  There were a few more customers, and then it was closing time. Jaymie did the float for the next day, closed and locked the till and deposited the envelope of cash through the slot in the safe in the back. She went to the front then pulled her coat on and waited for Valetta. They exited together and Valetta turned back to lock up securely.

  “So I guess I’ll be going out to the jail to interview Cody tomorrow morning,” Jaymie said. “I’m a little nervous.”

  “You’ll be fine. Just stay out of the way of the cops!”

  After dinner, Jaymie worked on her Vintage Eats column, then retreated to the kitchen to make the no-bake fruitcake. It called for marshmallows softened with apple juice and evaporated milk. She had done that in the largest of her Pyrex Primary Colors mixing bowls, the huge yel
low one, before making herself dinner, because it had to sit for three hours. She noted that the marshmallows had not completely dissolved, but maybe that was how it was supposed to be. She stirred it again and set to work on the cookies.

  Crushing so many vanilla wafers and gingersnaps was exhausting, bashing and rolling them with a heavy wooden rolling pin, a few at a time in a plastic bag. And of course she had done things in the wrong bowls. The largest of her Primary Colors bowls held the wet mixture, so once she had the cookies all crushed and added the candied fruit, cherries and nuts, she dumped them in the green bowl, the second largest, and added the wet to it, as she was supposed to. It was almost overflowing, so she dumped it all back in the yellow bowl.

  As she worked, she tried to come up with a list of questions for Cody in the morning, jotting them down as she thought of them.

  1. What time did he come to the village that evening?

  2. Did he or did he not see Shelby that evening?

  3. Why did he lie about being in town?

  She had no idea if he would or could answer. Would their visit be taped? Listened to? Was it even advisable, from a legal standpoint, for him to answer questions? It all seemed so weird and foreign, but didn’t every new experience?

  4. Did he know or suspect she was dating anyone else?

  This was an important question; did he know about Glenn or not? And were there others?

  5. What was his relationship with Shelby’s family like?

  6. Who did he think could have done it?

  Other than that, she’d just have to wing it.

  She eyed her fruitcake mixture. It seemed so dry and crumbly! She mixed and mixed and mixed, but it didn’t seem possible that it would come out okay. Had she done something wrong? She checked the recipe again, but no, she’d done everything correctly. Hesitantly, she added another third of a cup of apple juice and another quarter cup of evaporated milk, noting the changes on her printout of the recipe. The mixture melded and held together, and she packed it into the foil-lined loaf pan and tucked it away in the fridge. In a few days she’d get it out, slice it, photograph it and see how it tasted.

  She retreated to her office and typed out her recipe notes, including the changes she had made, and saved them on her computer while she did a load of laundry. She then had a hot bubble bath, deliberately changing her thoughts from murder and investigation to how lovely Jakob’s hands had felt warming hers, and how she hoped her growing attraction to him was not unfounded. She was cautious but hopeful, an interesting state to be in.

  The phone rang as she was helping Hoppy up onto the bed; he preferred a lift to the steps, though he would use them if he had to. It was Jakob. She sat down on the edge of her patchwork-quilt-covered bed. “Hey. How are you?”

  “I was just going to ask you the same thing,” he said. “How was the rest of your day?”

  “Good. I’m going to visit the jail in the morning to talk to Cody.”

  “I’ll be interested to hear what he says. I’m still troubled by him lying about being here. How did he expect to get away with that?”

  “I think for some people lying becomes a reflex action. Joel was like that.” She had told him about Joel Anderson, as well as Daniel and Zack, just as he had told her about his late wife and a previous serious girlfriend, his first love. “Then instead of fessing up, they tell more lies to try to cover the other lies.”

  “I’ll never understand that. Telling the truth is so much simpler. On to better topics . . . Jocie asked me about you today.”

  “She did?”

  “She asked when you’re coming to dinner again. I said I hoped it would be soon.”

  “I hope so, too.” Jaymie crawled under the covers as Denver strolled into the room and leaped up onto the bed in one graceful movement. Hoppy and Denver jockeyed for space close to Jaymie as she lay on her side with the phone pressed to her ear, a pool of golden light from her bedside lamp dimly illuminating her cozy room with the reading nook in the corner, a tall shelf of paperbacks and an overstuffed chair. “This week is crazy, but closer to Christmas it may actually slow down some. Maybe you can come here next time.”

  “Jocie would love that. She’s a very curious girl. She asked me if you lived all alone, and were you lonely.” He chuckled.

  She felt a warm tingle that he was talking about her with his little girl. “I am sometimes, but talking to you at night makes it better,” she said softly.

  They chatted about inconsequentials for a while, then said a prolonged good night. She slept better than she had in days and awoke refreshed and ready, if not eager, to tackle her jailhouse visit.

  The Queensville Township police department and jail was housed in a modern glass-and-steel building on the highway outside of town. It was bland and official looking, every detail of it. The jail itself was a long low cement-block-and-steel building that jutted off to one side, and was surrounded by high fencing with razor wire looped on top. Because of recent events Jaymie was all too familiar with the police station itself, but the jail was a new experience. Once inside, she was confronted by many layers of officialdom and security. The procedure to get in was intimidating, but the women and men in charge were nonchalant yet professional.

  A young woman in uniform manned the first point of contact from an enclosed desk equipped with a speakerlike metal portal in the middle and a single open slot to hand documents and other items through. She was short and young, but strongly built, with a pug nose and freckled cheeks, her streaked hair in a scraped-back bun, wearing no jewelry, just a tan uniform. She glanced at Jaymie’s ID, then got the form she needed and made some crosses at various blanks. “Sign where indicated, please. Who will you be visiting today?”

  “Cody Wainwright,” she said, as she filled in the blanks and gave the form back to the officer. “His mother, Nan Goodenough, had me put on his visitors’ list.”

  The girl’s eyes widened. The murder case was notorious, and Cody’s name would be well known, especially among jail staff. She nodded, though, then glanced down at the form, which provided Jaymie’s name, phone number, address and some other information. “No cell phones in the visitation area,” she said.

  Jaymie slid her cell phone under the glass as a male guard came out and searched through her purse with gloved hands and passed a metal detecting wand over her. She was then guided through two sets of locked doors, between which was a metal-detection portal. At the end of it all, a portly male guard glanced at a list, then ushered her to number seven of a bank of video terminals in a clinically cold room that smelled of bleach and pine. In front of the bank of video terminals was a long bench and row of bolted-down chairs. Each video terminal was in a kind of booth, sectioned off from one another with laminate-covered fiber-wood barriers. Many others were there, women with children on their laps, elderly parents, or maybe even grandparents, and the odd sketchy-looking male, glancing from side to side. The tired-looking woman to her left had a baby in her arms and was weeping, pressing a tissue to her mouth as she spoke to her loved one.

  Jaymie took a seat and waited. The screen blinked to life and a printed warning appeared, then Cody’s face replaced it. She wasn’t sure what to do, but noted that he had a phone receiver in his hand. She picked up hers.

  “Mom got a message to me that you’re going to help get me out,” he said.

  “That’s not exactly true.”

  He frowned and shook his head in disgust. “Then what are you here for? I only get one of these visits a week, you know.”

  “I had some questions. I’m, uh, investigating the story, you see, for . . . for the paper.” Oh, this wasn’t going well. She wasn’t sure how much she could say. She glanced around. Were they on tape? Being listened to? Who knew?

  He looked disgusted and leaned back in his chair, crossing his arms and propping the phone receiver between his shoulder and ear. “I didn’t do it. That�
�s my only comment.”

  “Cody, why did you lie about being at the Christmas tree farm when you were in town that evening?”

  Bluntness appeared to work where friendliness hadn’t. He sat up and leaned forward, arms on the shelf in front of him and receiver to his ear. His pale face flushed red, from his cheeks to his ears. “I’d heard what happened and knew what the cops would do, pin it on me.”

  “Why would they do that?”

  “That’s what’s easiest, right? Because some prissypants told them about me hitting her. My beautiful Shelby; I can’t believe she’s gone!” His youthful face twisted and tears welled up in his eyes. “I would never have hurt her.”

  “But you did hit her.”

  “It was like an impulse, you know?” he said earnestly, as if that explained it all. “She said something awful about my mom. Called her a name. I lashed out, you know? Wouldn’t you?”

  “No! Cody, I’m the one who saw you hit Shelby. It wasn’t a tap. You hauled off and hit her with your fist.” She wasn’t sure why she told him, but she was disgusted by his attempt to minimize hitting his girlfriend. Why was she doing this? Why not let the police work it out? She had gotten lucky a few times, but it never escaped her mind that in most cases she stumbled across the clue that broke the case, antagonized the felon until they struck out at her and in most cases the police were just one step away from the answer themselves.

  His look was stony. His eyes narrowed, but then he shook his head. “Okay, so what was I supposed to do? What would you do if someone said your mother was a disgusting smelly old bitch?”

  Jayme gasped. “She said that? Shelby Fretter said that.”

  “It came out of nowhere. We were just walking and talking about something else, and she looked around and stopped. I remember, it was right by a wrought-iron fence near that green area in the middle of Queensville. She began to say crap about my family. At first I ignored it. She said she’d heard my sister was a tramp, and that my stepdad was a lush. It felt . . .” He squeezed up his face and grimaced and eased his shoulders, like they were tension filled. “It felt like she was pushing me, trying to get me mad. Then she made that crack about my mom and I lost it. That’s when I whacked her.”