Victoria Hamilton - Vintage Kitchen 04 - No Mallets Intended (22 page)

“She cried. Wept. Bawled like a lost child!”

“I’m so sorry for her,” Jaymie said, her heart aching for the woman.

“Me, too,” Valetta said softly.

“What did you do?”

“Mrs. Klausner and I closed the store for a few minutes and made her a cup of tea, then talked to her. Well,
I
talked to her. Mrs. K knitted and looked on. I got her calmed down some.”

“Why did she launch herself at Isolde like that? Last I heard, Cynthia Turbridge was the wicked older woman and Isolde was the approved girlfriend that he was going to introduce to his mama.”

“I don’t know. She didn’t say anything specific.”

“Well, what did you talk about?”

“You, mostly. She’s a real crime fanatic and reads all those weird stories online. From what I can tell she believes every one of them, too, even the loopy ‘royal family killed Princess Diana’ ones. I swear, I didn’t say you were Miss Marple or Jessica Fletcher or anything, but she wants to talk to you. In fact, if you’ve got time now can you go over to the B and B?”

Mystified, Jaymie asked, “Why? What can
I
do?”

“Just go over and talk to her.”

“Okay.” Jaymie said good-bye, changed her clothes, let Hoppy back in and gave him some crunchies, then hopped over to the bed-and-breakfast, tapping on the front door.

Pam Driscoll answered, her eyes wide. “Mrs. Carson said if you came I was to show you up immediately. What’s going on?”

“I don’t really know,” Jaymie said. She ascended the stairs to the square landing that was the common area for the bed-and-breakfast rooms. There was a small courtesy table set up by the stair rail with a coffee urn and plastic-wrapped goodies for folks to enjoy. Mrs. Carson was in the Billie Jo room; the previous owners had named the place the Shady Rest after the old sitcom
Petticoat Junction
, so the rooms were named for the daughters and mom on the show. Jaymie tapped on the door.

Mrs. Carson, looking calmer and more rested, opened the door. “Oh, good, you’ve come. Shall we go?”

“Go where?”

The woman paused. “Oh dear. I thought the pharmacist would have explained. My sister can’t come until tomorrow, and anyway, I think it’s
you
I really need by my side. I want you to go with me to Theo’s room, to look it over and find clues to his death.”

Twenty-two

T
HERE WAS NO
reason to protest, because it was exactly what she wanted to do, so Jaymie went with Mrs. Carson in her car, a luxury Lexus.

Theo’s mother said that her son was renting a studio apartment from Brock Nibley. Brock, being a real estate agent, dabbled as an investor and had a few properties, commercial and residential, in Queensville and Wolverhampton. They drove several blocks past the Queensville Inn through the old residential section of town, where the houses got bigger, and a little shabbier. This was an area where the huge old Queen Anne homes had been broken up into apartments and bachelor suites. It was close enough that Jaymie would have walked, but with the other woman, she wasn’t sure that was practical. Mrs. Carson was just seventyish, Jaymie guessed, and seemed in good health, but one never knew.

They climbed the stairs to the third floor and Mrs. Carson, out of breath, got out a key, fitting it into the lock and opening the door to the apartment. The woman edged in as if it were a crime scene, tears filling her eyes. “I don’t know what to do,” she said.

“Did you have something specific in mind, Mrs. Carson? Or do you want me to just look around?”

“Whatever you think,” she said and sat down on the edge of the made bed.

It was a big room, with a sitting area by the window and a kind of kitchenette along one wall. There was a small sink, a counter, a hot plate, a microwave, bar fridge and coffeemaker. The double bed was centered on a wall, with a plush headboard and painting over it.

His luggage was sitting open on the dresser top. Jaymie glanced over at Theo’s mother, but she looked calm enough. “I’ll start by looking through his stuff. If you’d rather wait out in the car, that would be fine.”

“No, I’ll stay here. You may have questions. I have his mail, so I’ll look through that.”

Jaymie started by looking through the closet, even going through his sport jacket pockets. Nothing. She then went through his suitcase, but there were just the usual clothes and toiletries. He was a neat man, which helped. But it seemed to her that there were things missing. Of course, the police had already been over the room, which could explain that. He had a cell phone charger set up, but his phone would likely be in police hands if it had been found.

There were also empty cases for a few things, like a laptop and a digital camera. Those would also be in police hands. However… as she dug into a file folder, she found a slim tablet. She wasn’t the most techie person in the world, but the last few months of blogging, taking photos and using her cell phone had made her more adept. It helped that this was the same brand of tablet Daniel had bought her, so she was already used to it. She glanced over at the man’s mother, but she was sitting looking down at the floor.

Jaymie turned on the tablet and began scrolling around. It was very much like rooting through someone’s luggage, only digitally.

“Have you found something?” Mrs. Carson said, eagerly.

“Uh, no,” Jaymie replied. The woman deflated and slumped, desultorily sorting through some mail with a listless attitude. Jaymie felt a little like a trained dog that was not performing as expected.

She set the tablet down and kept looking. People often hid the most interesting stuff in unusual places, but the room had been swept by the police, so there didn’t seem to be anything to find. She sat down by Theo’s mother and said as much. “The police are very thorough. I’m not surprised everything is clean.”

Jaymie picked up the tablet again. Theo apparently was addicted to online games, mostly poker, and liked to watch movies, particularly heist movies. He also had been using the tablet to access his email, since there were apps for that, and they didn’t appear to be password protected, leaping up when she hit “Check Email.” There were messages from Isolde. Interesting. She checked out the conversation, scanning through them.

They mostly consisted of Isolde complaining that Theo didn’t trust her and him reassuring her without giving her any of the pieces of information that she wanted, which was interesting, but didn’t get her any further in her quest to discover who would want Theo dead. Isolde did not benefit by his death, so it was of little use that she was trying to guilt him into giving her information.

She frowned as she accidentally hit an “About” section. The tablet registration came up. She stared in surprise. The tablet was registered to Brock Nibley! What would Theo Carson be doing with a tablet registered to Brock, his landlord and Valetta’s real estate agent brother?

“What is this?” Mrs. Carson said. She had an open brown padded envelope in one hand, and in the other… a cell phone. “Why would someone send Theo a cell phone?”

Jaymie looked over the package and then the cell phone. It was dead, the battery long gone, but it was a beautiful little phone, white, with a pretty skin. And on the skin were initials…
I.R.
Isolde Rasmussen. This was Isolde’s missing cell phone.

“I think that’s his girlfriend’s phone, the one that disappeared the night Theo was… the night he died.”

“What should I do with it?” the woman said, staring at the phone like it was a snake that might bite her.

“There’s only one thing
to
do: you have to turn it in to the police.”

She nodded.

“Mrs. Carson, can I ask you something? This morning you said to Isolde that you knew she killed your son. What made you think that?”

“I got to thinking over all we had talked of lately. I was against him staying here to do this work. Isn’t that what this age is supposed to be all about? Doing all your research online? But he felt he needed to stay in Queensville. He told me about that older woman, how he was dating her, but that she was whiny and needy and he was going to dump her.”

“Yes,” Jaymie said, keeping her anger stuffed down. Cynthia hadn’t deserved the treatment she had received.

“She wasn’t any use to him. He thought she was in with all the society members, but she had only joined a few months ago. Then he told me about this girl, this Isolde. She was smart, he said, and ambitious. But she wasn’t as smart as him. He said he knew something that was going on, but she didn’t and he wasn’t about to tell her. I just thought…” She looked off toward the window. “I just thought maybe she got tired of waiting for him to tell her what she wanted to know and so she killed him.”

Interesting that she had come to that conclusion, since it was close to what Jaymie had been discussing with the chief. “I don’t know how much of the truth she’s telling me, but Isolde thought he was looking for something in the house. Do you know what that was? Was it a manuscript or a piece of jewelry?”

She shook her head, frowning. “I don’t know. We never spoke of specifics. He just said he knew what was going on.”

Jaymie watched her for a moment. “I think I’ve found out all I can here. The police have been through carefully; if there were any clues they would have found and removed them. Why don’t you go back to the bed-and-breakfast for a rest? Take the phone back with you and call the police; tell them how you found it and give them everything, even the envelope.”

“I will. It will give me a chance to talk to the police chief again. Maybe he’ll know more.”

Mrs. Carson was exhausted and trembling with sadness. Jaymie took the tablet away with her, not sure how to tell Theo’s mother that it was possibly stolen. She wanted to check with Valetta first anyway, though, before calling the police about it. For all she knew, Brock had lent the tablet to Theo. She made sure the room was locked back up and they left.

Jaymie drove Mrs. Carson’s car and delivered the disconsolate woman back into Pam Driscoll’s nurturing care. Pam even told Mrs. Carson that when the time came, she’d be happy to help pack up her son’s belongings. Jaymie returned home and let Hoppy out into the chilly November air. Haskell had left a message on her phone that the system was in place and armed, so the house should now be safe from intruders, as he put it.

Jaymie sat on the summer porch and read through the information about the alarm system as the sun sank in the west, a ball of red, leaving a glow over everything. She needed to know exactly what to do to set the system, since she fully intended to be there a lot in the next two weeks, alone or with others. Once she read the information through, she felt she understood. She
hoped
she understood.

Restless and consumed by what she had been thinking and talking about every day for the last while, she grabbed the cordless and made a phone call. Isolde was at work—that was where she had been hurrying when she left Jaymie’s home earlier—but between tours of Wolverhampton Historical Museum, when Jaymie called.

“Can we talk?” Jaymie asked.

“About what?” the woman said, her tone odd.

“About the information you wanted from Theo, the information he wouldn’t give you.”

There was silence on the other end, but finally Isolde said, her voice trembling with conviction, “Have you been snooping through my emails? How did you do that? I had
nothing
to do with Theo’s death, you know. I swear it. But I think I know who did.”

Jaymie felt fear knot in her stomach. “Who?”

“As if I’d tell
you
! You’ll hog all the glory. I’m going to get something out of this if it kills me.”

The knot wrenched. “You need to go to the police, Isolde. Don’t mess around with this. If you have information—”

“No way. They’re not going to get the identity of the killer until I find a way to get Theo’s notebooks.”

“His
notebooks
? Why?” Jaymie scanned her brain, trying to imagine any place in his room that she had missed, any place that could conceal notebooks.

“He knew something about stuff going down at Dumpe Manor.”

Jaymie thought for a long minute. “You mean the will? Or having to do with the family?” She thought, but didn’t say,
the cache of stolen goods?
“What
exactly
are you talking about?”

“The will? What will? What are
you
talking about?” Isolde said.

Jaymie shook her head and stared at her phone. “Isolde, can we meet and talk? Come over here. We need to clear the air.”

Silence.

“I’ll feed you!” she offered.

There was still silence on the other end. But finally Isolde said, “No. I am
not
sharing this information, especially with you. Look, I’m working, I gotta go.”

“Isolde, wait!” But it was too late. The line was dead. Jaymie sat down at the kitchen table and considered what the woman had said. Theo had known about what was going down at Dumpe Manor. What did that even mean?

The stolen goods in the attic and root cellar—didn’t that have to be what he was talking about? That part of the mystery didn’t seem to jibe with what she knew of Theo, but what if it was about that all along? What if that was how he got Brock’s tablet… it was stolen property! And what if whoever was using the place as a handy drop-off for stolen goods decided Theo Carson was getting too darn snoopy for his own good?

She grabbed the phone and called Valetta.

“What’s up, kiddo? I gotta hurry… I’m just locking up now and I have to go to Brock’s to babysit tonight.”

“I won’t keep you. Maybe if you see Brock tonight you can ask him about a tablet.”

“A tablet? What, drugs?”

“No! You know… a tablet computer. Did he have one? Does he still have it?”

“I don’t need to ask him… he’s been complaining about it. It was stolen from his car a couple of weeks ago.”

•   •   •

W
HAT TO DO?
How to figure this out? There were too many questions and so few answers. Jaymie paced to her kitchen window and looked out at the descending sun. There was nothing left out in the root cellar now, she knew. Everything had been confiscated by the police, and Iago was being watched carefully. She was certain he was the thief who was storing the stolen goods in the Dumpe Manor attic and the root cellar, but that didn’t mean he was Theo’s killer.

It was still light enough that she could take another look around. There were things clattering around in her brain and maybe a drive would blow out the cobwebs and help her think. She was beginning to have a sense that Isolde was more involved than she let on. The police chief’s questions about where she actually was and what she had truly seen the night of the murder left Jaymie unnerved.