White Colander Crime (27 page)

Jakob took Jaymie on one arm and Valetta on the other, and they walked out of the Belcker Building, through the dark streets to downtown, as Jaymie filled him in on what they had discovered. It was all such a relief, but she was still unnerved, hoping and praying she was right. Valetta joined Brock and her niece and nephew, who were strolling toward the Emporium.

Mrs. Bellwood was tending the cider booth and waved heartily as she saw Jaymie. “You found her!” she said to Jakob. “Where have you been, Jaymie?”

“I was unavoidably detained.”

Mrs. Frump called out, “There's someone else looking for you.”

“Someone looking for
me
?”

“A nice young man said he was meeting you here.”

Jakob looked over at her, his brows raised.

It took her just one second, and she realized who it was. “Good grief, I didn't think he'd still be here or I would have told Chief Ledbetter!” Jaymie said.

“That's him,” Mrs. Frump said, pointing to a retreating figure.

Jaymie grabbed Jakob's arm. “That's him, the guy I told you about, the one who killed Shelby Fretter!”

Jakob bolted after him, grabbed his arm, and said, “Hey, just a moment, buddy.”

Glenn Brennan pulled his sleeve out of Jakob's grasp and started to walk away quickly, but Jakob raced after him and got a handful of wool coat sleeve again, holding him fast in the faint pool of light shed by the lamppost. “Now wait a minute, friend. I think you ought to stick around.”

“Let him go,” Jaymie said, her voice shaking. She didn't want anything more to do with Brennan than to tell the police he was in the village and needed to be apprehended.

Jakob caught her eye and she stared at him. He tightened his grip and said, “It's okay, Jaymie, it's under control.”

Glenn pulled and tugged at his sleeve, eyeing Jakob. “Listen to the lady and let me go! I've got a hot date waiting.”

Heidi and Joel approached, eyeing the tense tableau with uncomprehending gazes. Mrs. Bellwood whispered to Heidi, who pulled out her phone and hurriedly punched in three numbers.

“I don't think you should make your date, Glenn,” Jaymie said, mustering up her courage. “Not after the last couple have ended so badly.”

“I don't know what you mean,” he said, pulling at his sleeve, his dark wool trench becoming flecked with white as the snow thickened.

But Jakob grabbed him more securely by the upper arm, his grasp strong after so many years of manhandling Christmas trees and massive antiques in his store.

“You killed Shelby Fretter,” Jaymie said, her breath coming out in rapid puffs of steam.

“You're out of your mind,” he snarled, tugging harder, trying to jerk his arm away. “Tell your boyfriend here to let go of me, or I'll have him written up on assault charges!” He twisted suddenly, the rapid movement wrenching his arm from Jakob's grasp. Instead of running he turned and launched himself at Jaymie.

The force of his attack made her stumble sideways, but he was no match for Jakob, who roared his anger and grabbed him in a bear hug, jerked him off his feet and wrestled him easily to the ground. Other people had run to see what was going on. Brock, seeing the attack on Jaymie, came running. “Who's in the wrong, Jaymie?” he cried, dancing back and forth from foot to foot.

“The guy in the trench coat is a murderer; Jakob is trying to keep him subdued until the cops come.”

Brock leaped into the fray and sat on Glenn's flailing feet as Jakob pinned the killer's torso. A siren sounded from somewhere, and a police car rocketed up onto the grass near them. Bernie, Jaymie's police friend, bolted from the car, gun drawn, and shouted, “Separate, everyone, and stay where you are with your hands locked behind your head!”

Jakob and Brock obediently knelt, hands clasped behind their heads, but Glenn Brennan leaped to his feet and took off, skidding and tripping down the walkway across the village green.

“He's Shelby's killer, Bernie!” Jaymie shouted, hands on her head, grasping her hair in handfuls. “Don't let him go!”

Bernie shouted to the junior officer with her, “Radio in; the chief is already on his way. Contain the scene!” She sprinted after Glenn and tackled him, taking him down and effectively containing him even as he struggled and shrieked. Backup arrived and Brennan was arrested.

Jakob clapped Brock on the back and the two men shook hands. Jaymie joined them and hugged Jakob tightly. “I was so scared! I'm glad you're safe.”

More charges would follow, but Chief Ledbetter had enough now to hold Glenn Brennan without applying for a warrant. While the snow thickened, officers interviewed Mrs. Frump, Mrs. Bellwood and Jakob. Chief Ledbetter took a brief statement from Valetta and Jaymie and told them to come in to the police headquarters in the morning.

The crowd that had gathered dispersed, as it was already ten. The Dickens Days evening was finished. Valetta said, “Everyone over to my place for cocoa and snacks!” She gathered up her brother, his kids, Heidi and Joel, and invited Jakob and Jaymie. “I think we have a lot to talk about.”

Jaymie was exhausted. In Valetta's tidy living room, lined with knickknack shelves that held her collection of kitsch, they related what had happened, but she let her friend do most of the talking. She just leaned against Jakob, with his arm around her, holding her up. At long last he stood and pulled her to her feet. “I'm going to walk Jaymie home, Valetta, if you don't mind.”

Joel, sitting on the floor beside Heidi, began to clamber to his feet. “I can give her a ride. My car's just at the curb.”

Jaymie looked up at Jakob. “I'd rather walk home with Jakob,” she said, noticing Heidi yanking Joel's arm and giving him a look.

After hugs all around and wishes for sweet dreams and sound sleep they donned their coats and exited into the cold, crisp night air. It was a sparkling evening with icy crystalline snowflakes fluttering in the air. The slap of frigidity woke Jaymie up. They walked arm in arm back to her home and up to the front door. The cedar garland around the door and the fairy lights in the iron urn topiaries were aglow with silvery light. “Do you want to come in?” she asked, turning toward him.

“I wish I could, but Jocie is at my mother's and tomorrow's a school day. I want to get her home.”

“I understand,” she said, looking up at him in the faint illumination of the twinkle lights. She leaned against his chest and sighed deeply, the most relaxed she had been in over a week, since the awful murder that had started it all. “I'm so relieved Glenn was caught. Thank you,” she said, her voice muffled against his coat front.

He put one finger under her chin and turned her face up to his, then pulled her close and kissed her, softly at first, but with unmistakable passion. She shivered in pleasure;
this
was the missing ingredient, what had been lacking with Daniel. The rub of his whiskers, the cold of his cheeks, the smell of his soap, the soft warmth of his lips; it blended to become Jakob for her. There would be more to come, but for now, it was enough to have this.

“I have to go,” he said, regret in his husky voice.

“Good night, Jakob,” she whispered.

He thumbed her cheek and kissed her lightly again. “Good night, Jaymie.”

Twenty-five

N
AN WAS ECSTATIC
to have her son completely cleared in the murder. Jaymie was happy for her. Though she didn't like Cody, he wasn't a killer.

When she went to the police headquarters the next day with Valetta to give their statements, she was greeted with the news that they had found Natalie Roth. Their investigation of Glenn Brennan had uncovered a storage locker on the outskirts of Wolverhampton that he had rented just after her disappearance, and there was the poor young woman's body stuffed into a large plastic tote.

Unexpectedly and against legal counsel, Glenn would not shut up, spewing forth his story in graphic and minute detail. Chief Ledbetter told Jaymie in confidence that it appeared that Natalie Roth, encouraged by Delaney Meadows, had indeed been working on a romance scam as Ashley Nash, and under another few names. After a carefully worded call in the newspaper for more information they had been contacted by a couple of men who told police that she had been dating them—under different names—and had asked for money. One gave her a thousand dollars so she wouldn't go to his wife, but the other refused and never heard from her again. Neither had realized she was the girl in the copious “Missing” posters around the area because she wore a blond wig, which was found in the tote with her body. According to a confidante, Natalie had wanted the money to fund her burgeoning modeling career and pay for some plastic surgery.

But she had worked the scheme on the wrong guy when she tried Glenn Brennan. After a few dates and some intimacy, she pressured him for money, telling him she'd go to his boss at the drug manufacturer for whom he worked and reveal his violently kinky side. He killed her in a rage and stowed her body in the locker that he rented the next day. Shelby, suspicious of her boss's dating website dealings, had gone through the dating and model files and come to the same conclusion Jaymie had come to about Delaney's con, Natalie's involvement and how she had met her end. Jaymie remembered what Shelby had said that day at the historic house, that she could investigate rings around Jaymie. It appeared she had made the fatal mistake of trying to emulate Jaymie's recent investigative forays and pin Glenn Brennan down herself. That's what she meant when she told her friend Lynnsey that she thought she knew who had done it and was going to the police.

It was a mystery how she knew where the key to Bill's storeroom was until Cody admitted that in a brief phone conversation with Shelby he may have told her where to find it. She was probably seeking somewhere warm and private to confront Delaney about his scam and get more information from him on what she suspected about Glenn Brennan's part in Natalie's disappearance and presumed death.

But it was too late. Her increasingly pointed questions had tipped Glenn off, and he followed her to the storeroom. Shelby was confrontational; in Glenn's confession he admitted that she told him she had proof he killed Natalie. He beat her, leaving her for dead, but he left a little shred of evidence behind; the bit of fabric caught on the bench was likely from the lining of one of Glenn's overcoats. It would take time for the lab to confirm it, and that the splatter on the coat was Shelby's blood, but it was apparently the right color according to Jaymie's inside source, also known as the chief himself, and there was a tear, with material missing. Valetta's information that she had seen Delaney hustling away from the area that evening made the chief wonder if he had found her and was frightened he'd be blamed. Unless Delaney gave them that information they might never know, but he'd come very close himself to being arrested on suspicion of killing Shelby.

Chief Ledbetter hoped he'd be able to charge Brennan with premeditated murder, and that was where the text to Cody came into play. Glenn had admitted that Shelby got tipsy one evening and told him all about her plot to avenge her family's honor by screwing the son of the
Wolverhampton Weekly Howler
editor to the wall with a smear campaign. It hadn't taken much to figure out who her target was, since Shelby had openly dated Cody, and rumors were rampant about the Fretter family's run-ins with the newspaper. As Jaymie had suspected, the text to lure Cody to town, supposedly to see Shelby at the band shell, had come from a burner phone that Glenn set up to emulate one from Shelby, with a photo of her as the ID. Glenn was just smart enough to pull off the deception that had worked on Cody so well, texting him moments after he had beaten Shelby so severely she appeared dead. Ultimately the timing had not worked as Glenn had hoped, but it wasn't for lack of effort on the killer's part.

It was over, and the right guy had been apprehended. In the week before Christmas, Clutch buried his daughter. In her memory he and his buddies were arranging a fund-raiser for the New Year, the proceeds of which were going to a domestic abuse group in Wolverhampton. Lori, Travis and the rest of her family buried Shelby. One of the random facts that came to light during the investigation was that Travis's lies about his timeline that night were simply because he was meeting with his pot dealer.

Delaney Meadows was apprehended and charged with fraud and tax evasion, but there would likely be more charges before it was all over. Lily told Mrs. Stubbs that her husband was cooperating in the Natalie Roth and Shelby Fretter murder cases, establishing how the two women ended up the victims of such heinous crimes. In return he was hoping for a more lenient sentence. She was standing by him, hoping he had learned his lesson.

Jaymie sped through the next days, busy with Dickens Days, the heritage house, work and a holiday party at Heidi and Joel's with Bernie and a few others. Jakob attended and got along easily with her friends, but then, he was the kind of guy who never seemed at a loss among company. He could talk to anyone about anything. Joel, at first oddly protective toward Jaymie, ultimately backed off.

She saw Jakob a few more times with and without Jocie. The kiss wasn't repeated, but still . . . it kept her warm and tingling whenever she thought of it. She talked to him every night, the intimate sound of his voice in her ear a promise of things to come. It was time to meet his family. Her hesitation came from her fear that his mom especially wouldn't like her. In a late-night conversation she confessed all to Jakob, who chuckled warmly.

“
Liebling
, my mother is already half in love with you because of how Jocie speaks!”

Jaymie was silent for a long moment, stunned by any number of things: his pet name for her, that Jocie spoke of her to her oma, that Jakob's mother was predisposed to like her.

“Jaymie?”

“What does
liebling
mean?”

“Uh, it's German for
sweetheart
. If you don't mind.”

“I don't mind,” she said softly.

“Does that mean you're ready to meet my family?”

“I am,” she murmured.

“Good. Your family is coming down when?”

“Day after tomorrow,” she said. “The twenty-third. We're planning dinner together, and then Christmas Eve day we're driving to Canada.”

“Can you bring them to my place for a dinner on the twenty-third?”

She thought about it. Her mother and father, Becca, Kevin, Grandma Leighton, all of them, meeting at the same time his mother, father, brothers, sisters-in-law and nieces and nephews. And Jocie and him, most important of all. “Are you sure
you're
ready for that?”

“I've been ready for weeks,” he said.

She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, petting Hoppy's head gently. “Okay. Let's do it.”

After that, her life was on fast-forward. She had three million things to do, including going out to Heartbreak Island to make sure the cottage was secure before the river froze up completely, doing laundry, shopping, cleaning and cooking. She remade the no-bake fruitcake with the ingredients she bought and put it in the fridge, hoping it turned out better than the trial one, since she had sent the recipe with her notes in to Nan. It would be in her December twenty-fourth column, a little late to make, but done, at any rate.

She talked to Becca, her mother and her grandmother on the phone half a dozen times, and Valetta was invited to join the family get-together at Jakob's cabin home. On the morning of the twenty-third Becca and Kevin brought Grandma Leighton to Queensville, taking her directly to the Queensville Inn. There she settled in, and looked forward to lunch with her old friends Mrs. Stubbs, Mrs. Frump and Mrs. Bellwood, then a nap before dinner at Jakob's. Becca and Kevin were staying at the inn as well. Alan and Joy, Jaymie and Becca's parents, arrived about noon at the Queensville house in a drift of luggage, hailstorm of kisses, blizzard of gifts and a flurry of complaints from Joy about the long drive from Florida and her father's insistence on keeping to a modest fifty miles per hour.

Jaymie, through it all, felt like she was going to jump out of her skin. What had she gotten herself into? What if it all went terribly wrong? And what if Jakob realized he'd made a mistake and decided he could never love her? That was her real fear beneath her worries, she acknowledged. This relationship had become frighteningly important to her.

Her father cast her questioning looks, but all she could do was smile so she wouldn't cry. He hugged her. “Nervous about tonight, pet?”

She nodded into his chest.

He smoothed her hair and kissed her forehead. “We'll all be with you.”

That was what she was worrying about.

But finally the time came and they drove through the dark of early twilight, Jaymie sitting in the backseat of her father's car and directing him, with Becca, Kevin and Grandma following in Kevin's luxurious sedan, his GPS guiding them. Valetta was going to be a half hour late, she said, as she had a pharmaceutical emergency, someone who had come down with the flu and needed meds delivered.

It was during the car ride that Jaymie caught on to how nervous her mother was, too. She had a gift for Jocie, even though Jaymie had assured her it was not necessary. She had three books, one a children's cookbook, a second adventure story and also
The Velveteen Rabbit
. When Jaymie protested that the book might be a little young for Jocie, who was a very intelligent little girl, her mother just primmed her lips and shook her head. “Maybe someday she'll have a little brother or sister to read the book to,” she said softly. Jaymie had no answer for that.

Joy clutched the prettily wrapped parcel on her lap all during the ride. When Jaymie ducked her head over the backrest to talk to her mom, she saw that the package was somewhat the worse for wear, clutched too tight against her mother's narrow bosom. Jaymie put her hand on her mom's shoulder. “Jakob is a lovely, amazing man. His parents have to be as wonderful as you two to have raised such a great guy.” She squeezed.

Joy Leighton put her hand over her daughter's and caressed it. “I just hope they like me.” Her voice caught.

Jaymie's heart squeezed in sympathy. Her mother was as nervous as she was. “Mom, they're going to love you, just like I do.”

They pulled up to the log cabin. The curtains were drawn back and electric candles winked and glowed in the windows, a welcoming light. There was hustle and bustle, of course, as Becca and Kevin helped Grandma out of the car and up the three steps to the cabin, with Jaymie's father anxiously watching every move. As they got to the door, it was thrown open and Jakob stood, the brilliant light framing him and throwing his features into darkness, chatter and music pouring out from beyond. And under his arm stood Jocie, her sturdy little body pressed against her daddy's legs, his red plaid Christmas sweater clutched in her fists as she avidly examined the newcomers.

Grandma Leighton regarded her gravely. “Hello, child. What's your name?”

She ducked out from under her father's arm. “My name is Jocelyn Eleanor Müller, ma'am. What's yours?”

Grandma Leighton bent over slightly and met Jocie eye to eye. “I'd like you to call me Gramee. Would that be okay?”