Bowled Over (19 page)

“I suppose that’s true. Why did Joel say he didn’t know Craig and Kathy well when you went to their place for dinner?”

Heidi shrugged. “I don’t know. That surprised me, too.”

“And you didn’t ask him about it?”

She looked startled. “Why would I do that?”

And that explained a lot about why Joel had thrown Jaymie over for the sweet and trusting Heidi. They chatted for a while longer, and Heidi showed her the bridal magazine and what dress she was considering, then Jaymie finished her coffee and left.

She had a lot to do at home, so she returned, worked on research for her second cookbook for a while, then sat back at her desk. It was hard to work on
More Recipes from the Vintage Kitchen
when she didn’t know the fate of book one. She had researched the publishing process, trying to find out what to expect. But though she could find lots on the Internet about how to sell a novel, there was little information on how to approach a publisher with a cookbook: what they wanted to see, how long to wait, or even if she should be approaching more than one publisher at a time. She was
so afraid of stepping on her own toes that she was nervous to the point of inertia.

She gave up in disgust. Her mind kept returning to the awful murder of her childhood friend. She grabbed a clipboard and some lined paper and descended to the kitchen, then made a pot of tea and took a cup and the cordless phone outside to sit in the shade of the trumpet vines that climbed all over the garage.

Who had killed Kathy Cooper? Jaymie wanted to know for several reasons, not the least of which was that she herself was a suspect. Take the emotion out of it and think logically, she admonished herself. First, who might have
wanted
to do it? She made a list: Craig Cooper, Kylie Hofstadter, Matt Laskan, Johnny Stanko. Anyone else? She tapped her pencil against the board, then jotted down another name: Andy Walker. In the Emporium, Kathy had told Connor his grandpa didn’t want him, which was clearly not true. And at the picnic, Kathy had loudly said that Andy Walker had been trying to alienate Connor from her for months. The whole family was in turmoil, and the center of the hurricane was Kathy. Jaymie didn’t know Andy Walker, but people had committed murder for less important reasons than keeping a beloved grandson in their lives.

Should she add Ella Douglas? After the confrontation in the Emporium, perhaps. But it just didn’t feel like a big enough deal, from Ella/Eleanor’s viewpoint, to make her kill Kathy. And a woman in a wheelchair? Ella looked as weak as a kitten. Could she even lift the heavy glass bowl, much less wield it as a weapon? However…maybe Ella’s husband was pissed off enough at Kathy’s behavior to take matters into his own hands. Jaymie needed to examine every possibility, and Bob was certainly a possibility. She added his name to the list.

From here, then, she needed to figure out how much she knew about where each one of them was at the time of the crime. The phone rang; it was Jaymie’s mom.

“Honey, what’s this I hear about Kathy Hofstadter being murdered?”

“Cooper is her married name, Mom. Kathy Cooper. Have you been talking to Becca?”

“No, Mimi Watson called to ask when we were coming up, and she told me about it. I had to hear it from a neighbor, not from my own daughter, who found that poor child! Your dad is frantic with worry.”

That was most likely an exaggeration. Her mom projected all her worried feelings onto her husband, and if one listened to her, one would think he was a nervous wreck, when he was likely out golfing.

“It’s awful, just awful!” she continued. “I knew you and she weren’t close after high school, but…anyway, is it true that you found her?”

The local gossip machine even worked between Queensville and Boca Raton! Jaymie told her mother what was going on, but omitted any mention that she was a suspect.

“That’s so sad! I’ll have to send flowers. How is Martha doing?”

“Martha?”

“Kathy and Kylie’s mother! Jaymie, you
know
who I mean.”

“Sorry, Mom. I always called her Mrs. Hofstadter. I don’t know how she is. I went there briefly, to drop off a casserole, but Kylie was there, and she was none too pleased to see me.”

“Poor girl. Poor
Martha
! Will you tell her for me that when we come up, I’ll visit her? I always liked Kathy, you know, and Martha, too.”

Jaymie was silent for a long moment. “Why?
Why
did
you like Kathy, Mom? I’m not trying to be smart, I really want to know.”

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.

*   *   *

T
HE 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.”