A Deadly Grind (4 page)

Standing between the open back doors of the van, Rebecca crossed her arms over her bosom in her customary stance and glared at the two pieces of the Hoosier. “
Now
what?” she said.

Jaymie stared up at the cabinet. It looked bigger, hulking in the dim interior of her van, than it had on the porch of the old farmhouse. “I can handle it,” she said, trying to muster up the confidence.

“You can
not
! I will not let you be crushed by that . . . that eyesore. Why don’t you go ask Clive if he can help?” sensible Rebecca suggested, naming their neighbor, Clive Jones, who owned the next-door bed-and-breakfast with his wife, Anna.

“He’s not arriving from Toronto until tomorrow,” Jaymie said. “He has to work late, and the last ferry runs from Johnsonville at eight, so he’s going to come first thing in the morning.” Clive worked in Toronto during the week, then made the long trek to Queensville to help his wife on weekends, supporting her dream, the bed-and-breakfast. With that and a toddler, their time was fully taken up.

“Can I help?” came a voice out of the dark.

Both women jumped, but then a fellow emerged from the darkness.

“Pardon me,” he said, “but I overheard your dilemma, and I’m here to offer my services. Brett Delgado . . . I’m staying at the Jones’s bed-and-breakfast. Since Anna’s husband is not available, may I help?”

“I saw you at the auction this evening,” Jaymie said, looking him over. He was the fellow who’d caught her staring and had smiled at her. But he was excessively well dressed to be hauling a dusty old piece of furniture out of the van. He smelled strongly of cigarette smoke, which explained his late night stroll. Anna did not allow smoking in the B&B.

“Yes, we did exchange glances, didn’t we?” he said, smiling at her, the dim lights that lined the back lane glinting in his blue eyes.

“Did you buy anything?”

He shook his head. “I didn’t see anything I really wanted. But I see that you did!” He eyed the hulking cabinet in the dark interior of the van.

“We would be delighted if you would help,” Rebecca said, smiling over at him, her head cocked to one side.

Jaymie rolled her eyes at Becca’s flirtatious glance; Brett caught Jaymie’s expression and winked at her. She hid her grin. Her big sister did not like to be laughed at. “First we have to dispose of these boxes, then we can carry the Hoosier into the kitchen.”

“What did you call that thing . . . a Hoosier? As in, Indiana basketball team, or inspiring sports movie starring Gene Hackman?”

First Jaymie removed the box of teacups and saucers and handed it off to Rebecca, who toted it through the back wrought-iron gate, along the flagstone path and up to the house, where the summer porch and kitchen lights shone a path out the back windows and door. Then she explained what a Hoosier was, and what it was used for, a modern cooking center for the early nineteen-hundreds woman. “This really is a ‘Hoosier’ brand cabinet, but there are other brands, like Knechtel and Sellers. Napanee. A few more.”

“What’s in this box?” he asked, as he pulled out one covered in a tea towel.

“Um . . . I don’t know. Let me see.” Jaymie looked under the tea towel. “Oh, that’s the box of sewing oddments.”

“What the heck did you buy that stuff for?” Rebecca asked, returning to their side and peering into the box. “We already have enough junk like that to sink the
Titanic
!”

Jaymie was about to explain the conversation she’d overheard about the valuable button, but something made her shut her mouth. She shrugged, and said, “I just felt like it. There were some interesting vintage trims.”

Brett and Jaymie conferred over the Hoosier.

“Where do you plan on taking it?” he said. “I don’t think I’d want to carry it up too many stairs.”

“Well, no, it’s going in the kitchen.”

“And that is . . . where?”

“Right in the back of the house.”

He hoisted himself into the back of the van and pushed the bottom portion of the Hoosier as she grabbed the end and pulled; it groaned and screeched along the metal floor the whole way, as befit anything almost a hundred years old. When it was at the edge, he hopped down and helped her lift it out, down to the ground, while Hopalong danced around, wiggling and pleading for Brett’s attention.

“He’s a cute little guy,” Brett said, bending down and scruffing Hoppy’s neck while he caught his breath. In the dim spill of light from the lane lamps, the little dog did the insane eye-rolling/butt-wiggling “I
never
get this kind of attention” thing dogs do, and flopped on the ground, rolling around like a Pentecostal adherent seized by the spirit. “Is he your only dog?”

“Yeah, he’s it. Don’t mind him,” Jaymie said. “He’s
sooo
neglected.”

“I can tell,” Brett said, straightening. “So, ready to go with this thing? It’s heavier than it looks. You don’t have an alarm system on that back door, do you?”

“Nope. No alarm, and we’ve already got it open, anyway.”

She and Brett carried it along the path, stopping once to put it down and huff and puff a little. Something was sliding around inside one of the drawers, something heavy that made a heck of a lot of noise. They awkwardly manhandled the lower cabinet up the three steps to the summer porch, an airy room the width of the house that was used for sleeping during hot summers gone by, before air conditioning. It was lined with enormous screened windows that were still covered in storms—storm windows—this early in the spring, and the solid wood door was still in place. Taking down the storms and removing the solid door was a task Bill Waterman, their handyman, would undertake before Memorial Day. They set the Hoosier down.

“Do you really want to take it into the kitchen right now?” he asked, panting. “It’s dusty. Why don’t you store it out here until you get a chance to clean it up?”

Jaymie nodded. “Good idea. Let’s just line it up along the wall between the door and the kitchen window so we can still get to the couch and chairs beyond.”

They returned to the van and retrieved the top section, carried the much lighter part in one trip, and set it gently on its metal brackets over the porcelain work top. “I won’t bother screwing it down, because I’ll just need to unscrew it again when I take it apart to clean it.”

“This is such a lovely house,” Brett said, looking around the screened summer porch while he dusted his hands off. He swung the door back and forth on its hinges idly, and said, “Ted and I admired it when we checked in to the Shady Rest. Do you own it?”

Rebecca joined them from the kitchen, and said, “We both do. Our parents deeded it to us equally when they moved down to Florida.”

“Oh, do you live here, too? Just the two of you?”

“Not exactly; Jaymie’s the only one who lives here full-time. I come down some weekends from London . . . that’s London, Ontario, not England.”

“Becca, can you grab one of those boxes I toted into the kitchen?” Jaymie said of the boxes of cookbooks, vintage cookware and sewing oddments. “I’ll get the others. I don’t want to trip over them in the morning, so I think I’ll leave them on the Hoosier until I get a chance to look at what I bought.”

“Can you come in for a cup of coffee? Or tea? Or maybe a glass of wine?” Becca said, eyeing their new acquaintance.

“I’d better be getting back to the room. You two must be tired. Early to bed, I’ll bet!”

“Not that early,” Becca said, with a laugh. “We don’t mind the company.”

“I’d better get back,” he repeated. “I didn’t expect to be gone more than ten minutes.”

“I’m so sorry to have kept you!” Jaymie said, at the same time as Becca said, “Oh, come on, a few more minutes and a glass of wine won’t kill you.”

“Becca!” Jaymie said.

“Jaymie,” Becca replied, giving her a wide-eyed look that meant “Don’t interfere.”

Brett glanced back and forth between them, and said, “No, I really do have to go. Ted gets wound up if he starts worrying.”

“Your friend will be fine for another couple minutes,” Becca said.

Jaymie bit her tongue and clamped her mouth shut, as she set the box of teacups on the porcelain work top of the Hoosier, pushing it back, tempted almost beyond standing to tell Becca to leave the poor guy alone. Just because he was good-looking, nice, well dressed, well spoken . . . didn’t mean he should be mooned over by every single woman he came across. Besides, she knew something Becca didn’t.

When he firmly but politely said no and bowed out of the invitation, then left, Jaymie got the dog and cat inside and locked up the screen door and the inside panel door, turning the lights out on the summer porch. She looked out the window for a moment, as Brett walked down the lawn to the back gate and pulled it closed behind him, then paused and looked back. He was dimly lit by the faint alley light. She waved, and he waved, then turned away. She returned to the kitchen and put on the kettle for tea. “Becca, you didn’t have to plague the poor guy to stay.”

“I didn’t plague him; I just repeated an invitation.” She washed her hands at the old porcelain sink and dried them on the tea towel that hung beneath it.

“Three times! Couldn’t you tell he was just being polite?”

“He’s a really good-looking guy. And nice. And not wearing a wedding ring. No harm in trying,” Rebecca said with a smile, waggling her eyebrows.

Jaymie laughed, pouring boiling water over a Tetley tea bag in her Brown Betty teapot, then carrying it to the long trestle-style table. “No, except you were barking up the wrong tree. Anna told me that Brett Delgado and Ted Abernathy are up here from New York to get married. They’re going over by ferry to Johnsonville next weekend to see a justice of the peace about the ceremony. Canada doesn’t require residency to marry there,” she added, helpfully, “even for a gay couple.”

“Are you sure that he’s the guy? I do not think that man is gay.”

“I know it’s him. Can’t you just admit for once that you are occasionally wrong?” That was her sister’s one problem: she always thought she was right.

“I didn’t get that vibe at all, and I usually pick up on it. Not to stereotype or anything, but in my business, I meet my share of gay men.” Becca shrugged. “Oh well. I can admit I’m wrong, despite what you think, little sister,” she said, leaning across the table and tapping Jaymie on the shoulder.

“I didn’t mean that crack to sound harsh. Sorry.”

“It’s okay. That’s a long way, though, just to get married. Couldn’t they have married in New York, or just go to Connecticut? It’s been legal there for a while, I think.”

Jaymie shrugged. “I don’t know . . . marriage and honeymoon all at once? Maybe they’re doing an antiques tour. He was at the auction.”

Rebecca yawned. “I am
so
tired. I was up at dawn doing stuff, then drove here and went to the auction. I’m going to look over my Crown Derby and go to bed.”

“I’m not far behind you.”

Once Becca was gone, Jaymie went back out to the summer porch and stood looking at her new acquisition. Despite her confidence to Becca, it was going to be a tight squeeze putting it in the kitchen. She’d manage, though. She pulled open the drawers one by one, wondering what had made such a racket as they moved it. Something was in the bottom drawer, and she reached in, lifting it out. Heavy little devil, whatever it was. Aha! She knew exactly what she held the moment she looked at it, and it gave her hope that the piece would have other original pieces with it.

The complicated piece of machinery was a grinder, used to grind meat and vegetables and made with a screw clamp on the bottom. In the dim spill of light from the kitchen, she knelt by the Hoosier and affixed the grinder to the porcelain work top, screwing the clamp on at the side where there were notches in the wood slides under the work top. The grinder was made of steel and had a hopper at the top, a handle to turn to make the auger move and various round disc plates that would attach to the auger output with a wing nut; the auger chopped and pushed food through the discs, which determined the size of the chunks of meat or veggies that came out.

She sat down on the summer porch floor and sighed, gazing at the grinder attached to the Hoosier. The piece was even more perfect now; nothing could spoil this love affair with her new Hoosier.

She returned to the kitchen and closed the door to the summer porch. The house gradually fell silent as Hoppy curled up in his basket near the stove, and Denver slunk away to whatever hidey-hole he brooded in. Jaymie drank her tea, then cleaned up the table and counter from their hasty lunch/supper earlier, before the auction, washing the dishes in the long, deep porcelain sink, and putting them on the drain board to air dry. The kitchen, newly renovated in 1927, was her favorite room in the house. She sat down at the long, well-worn trestle table that centered the room and took a moment to let the busyness of the day drain away, to be replaced by the peace that the kitchen brought her.

It was the center of her home enterprise, for one thing, this kitchen. Here she tested vintage recipes, pored over old cookbooks, experimented and perfected. She was no gourmet chef, but someday, maybe, she’d have her own cookbook to add to her shelf. She gazed affectionately around at the room in the butter-yellow light from the single fixture over the sink. She loved the house so much that coming back to it after university had been an experience she had never forgotten; she felt like it had welcomed her with loving arms, folding her to its bosom and whispering that she was home again, at last. She had never left again for any length of time.

It was old, a big, two-story yellow-brick built in the 1860s to replace a log home. A long central hall was flanked first, at the front of the house, by the living room and parlor—the parlor smaller by quite a few feet because the staircase to the second floor took up some of the left side of the house—then, beyond that, by the library and a guest bedroom, and beyond that were the expansive kitchen and summer porch that were both the width of the house. The kitchen was the home’s heart, and her haven, lined with that ultramodern invention—in 1927—built-in cupboards; it still had ample room for a pie safe, a big gas stove and modern side-by-side fridge/freezer, as well as a worktable and long, beat-up trestle-style table with benches along both sides and armchairs on both ends. The items lined up on the top of the cupboards reflected Jaymie’s love of all things antique or vintage—
junk
, as her mother and Becca called it—with old biscuit, honey, cocoa and mustard tins competing for limited space.