No Mallets Intended (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery) - Softcover

Hamilton, Victoria

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0425271390 ISBN 13: 9780425271391

Publisher: Berkley, 2014

Synopsis

TO THE MANOR DEAD
 
The Queensville Heritage Society is restoring the once-grand Dumpe Manor. While Dumpe relatives and society members use the occasion to dust off old grudges, Jaymie Leighton prefers to adorn the kitchen with authentic Depression Era furnishings. A collection of vintage wooden mallets found in the house is a perfect addition to her display, but one also offers a late-night intruder the perfect weapon to knock Jaymie unconscious before escaping.
 
Though the attack has everyone on edge, nothing is missing from the house. Perhaps it was merely a vagrant who thought the place was still abandoned. But when Dumpe Manor’s resident historian is murdered with a mallet from the same collection, it’s time for Jaymie to turn up the heat on the investigation before someone else becomes history.

Includes recipes!

About this title

About the Author

As Victoria Hamilton, Donna Lee Simpson is the national bestselling author of the Vintage Kitchen Mysteries as well as the Merry Muffin Mysteries and is also a collector of vintage cookware and recipes.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

 

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

One

“I LOVE OLD JUNK as much as the next gal—and probably more, if the next gal is your sister, Becca—but I just don’t understand how you could get so excited over a bunch of old wooden hammers,” Valetta Nibley said.

Jaymie Leighton, sitting with Valetta in the middle of the black-and-white-tiled Dumpe Manor kitchen floor, sighed as she turned each one over and checked it against a catalog of antique and vintage kitchen utensils. “They are not hammers, they’re kitchen mallets. These are antique and vintage, and several are in perfect condition. I have never seen such an oddball collection all in one place!” She held up one with a long spindle-like handle that was round in shape but flat on the bottom. “Look at this; it’s beautiful! According to my research so far, with the flat bottom, it probably dates from the end of the 1800s or early 1900s.”

“It’s still just a wooden hammer.”

Jaymie sighed and shook her head. “Et tu, Valetta? Et tu? Besides, they’re not even all mallets. This one is a pestle, and this one a muddle.” She held up one with a rounded bottom, and another that was flat.

“Muddle, mallet, it’s all the same. They are wooden hammer thingies.” Valetta scrambled to her feet, and Hoppy, Jaymie’s three-legged Yorkie-Poo, danced around begging for attention. Valetta picked him up and cuddled him. “Even Hoppy thinks you’re wasting your time. He wants to go for walkies!”

Jaymie looked up at her, serious in her concentration. “You know how important this is to the Queensville Heritage Society, Valetta. They’ve entrusted me to take care of the kitchen display, and I’m going to do it right!”

Her friend looked down with a smile on her face, her glasses glinting in the late day sunlight that streamed in the uncurtained window. She looked around the shabby kitchen: worn countertop, battered cupboards, water-stained walls. “You’d need to be an explosives expert to do this kitchen right, kiddo.”

Jaymie surveyed the space. Valetta had a point. Dumpe Manor had deteriorated over the years from the stylish Queen Anne manse it had begun life as, to a sad, crumbling boardinghouse that was eventually abandoned as too big to be practical. There were problems with it, but still . . . the Queensville Heritage Society had bought it inexpensively, using some of the money from the sale of the Button Gwinnett letter it had been given—the letter was extremely valuable because Gwinnett was a Declaration of Independence signer. But before the purchase the group had had an accredited structural engineer look it over, and he had pronounced both the foundation and the structure itself sound.

“It just needs some love,” Jaymie said softly.

“So do I, but at least I don’t look like a hobo squatter’s dream,” Valetta joked. She put Hoppy down and the little dog climbed into Jaymie’s lap. “I have to go. Brock has an open house tomorrow he has to set up,” she said, referring to her real estate agent brother. “So I’m looking after my niece and nephew.”

“Evil and Wicked?” Jaymie asked with a laugh, using her nicknames for Eva and William.

“They’re not that bad—no worse than you were at that age, and don’t you forget it!”

Valetta, about the same age as Jaymie’s older sister, Becca, was fifteen years Jaymie’s senior and had babysat her as a kid, but over the last few years they had developed a more equal friendship. “You going to be okay here alone?” she asked, looking around the pitiful kitchen and shuddering.

“I’ll be fine. I have my trusty attack dog, Hoppy,” Jaymie joked.

“Right, a friendly three-legged Yorkie-Poo. What’ll he do, lick a robber to death?”

“Hey, he’s saved my life a couple of times,” Jaymie said. She took up another mallet and examined it, as Hoppy sniffed it with interest. It was odd . . . wedge shaped and quite heavy.

“I’ll leave you alone with your hammers,” Valetta said and gave a wave. “You remember to lock up after me.”

“See you tomorrow morning,” Jaymie said. She’d be working at the Queensville Emporium for the owners, the elderly Klausners, on their day off. Valetta was a pharmacist and had her own counter at the back of the store, where she dispensed medication and gossip in equal doses.

Once Valetta was gone, Jaymie got down to more serious work. Dumpe Manor was going to need a lot of TLC, Valetta was right on that score. Several of the society’s members had been put in charge of individual rooms, so that they could have something to show the public in a month or so when they did a soft opening during Queensville’s renowned Dickens Days festivities. From the first of December to the first of January the Michigan town held sales at all the little antique and junk stores on Main Street, as well as, if the weather wasn’t too cold, a Christmas-themed music program in the band shell in Boardwalk Park, strolling carolers, and an evening of Christmas carols at the Queensville Methodist Church, everyone invited, member or not.

Most of the heritage society members had Victorian-style outfits in which they would stroll the town, and the more musical among them would sing carols and collect money for the society. Those who couldn’t sing—like Jaymie—sold baked goods: mince tarts, Eccles buns and Twelfth Night cakes.

It was early November, so they had lots of time before the house needed to be ready. Since they were only doing select rooms for the soft opening, the hustle to prepare would be minimized, but Jaymie, in charge of the kitchen, knew that hers was going to be a star despite the skepticism of other society members. Who didn’t think of the kitchen when they were close to Christmas? The heady aroma of cinnamon, ginger and cloves wafting from the oven, the warmth of the hearth, all the delicious foods that only home cooking could produce: the kitchen and everything it represented was a vital part of the season. At the next heritage society meeting she had to be prepared with a list of what was usable in the kitchen, and what needed to be replaced, and have a decision on the color scheme. The house was going to showcase different eras in Queensville history, but despite pressure from some of the society members, Jaymie had argued that the kitchen was not practical to show Victorian life, as attractive as that would be. They already had cupboards, as well as plumbing and gas, that were installed in the 1930s. It would be simplest to do a Depression-era kitchen, and she hoped that meant a gas stove so she could actually cook with it, rather than trying to figure out how to bake in a wood-burning oven.

Besides, doing a Depression-era kitchen allowed Jaymie to look for another Hoosier cabinet to buy, as well as Depression glass, commercial tins and other twenties and thirties kitchenalia. It was unbearably exciting, but a lot of work, and she had yet to decide on a color scheme. After examining the box of mallets, pestles and muddles that Bill Waterman, their handyman, had brought down from the attic, and writing down a careful description of each, she became aware of how quiet it was.

Dumpe Manor was not in Queensville proper, though it was within the official town line. It was about a twenty-minute walk from Jaymie’s home, set in a secluded wooded spot that you could just see from the last house within the town. A line of pines ran from the road alongside the house; across the road was a marshy wooded lot, and beyond that, more woods. Woods everywhere!

The property included a garage, shed and various scattered outbuildings, most of which would have to be torn down before they tumbled down. The heritage committee had debated long and hard about buying Dumpe Manor because of the size of the property, but the price was right and the extra land meant there was room to add an interpretation center if the historic home became popular. The land was also valuable because, given the barrier of the St. Clair River on the east border, the town was inevitably expanding west anyway. There was enough property attached to Dumpe Manor that some acreage could be sold to developers, netting a tidy profit down the road some years. It was a good investment.

The house was a farmhouse from about 1880, but elaborate and quite large in the true Queen Anne style, with gorgeous wood paneling in some rooms, deep baseboards and brass fittings. In another year or so the upstairs would be finished, rewired with modern necessities like phone and updated electrical, and the heritage society would have offices in two of the spare rooms. Haskell Lockland, the heritage society president, planned to make meeting rooms that they could rent out to nonprofits and small businesses.

But that bustling hum of activity was in the future; right now, at this time of night—about eight thirty—it was dark, quiet and lonely. Jaymie hadn’t noticed how much so until that moment. She stood and looked around. The house was settling, creaking and moaning about her. She was used to that. Her own house in Queensville was the same. But the wind had picked up, and it rattled the windows like uneasy spirits trying to get out. Or in.

And now she was being fanciful. “It’s kind of spooky out here. I think we’d better get home,” Jaymie said to Hoppy, and he wuffled his agreement. She had walked all the way, so she would need to get a move on before it got too cold and too windy.

She knelt on the floor and started packing up the collection of mallets, pestles, muddles, spoons and other wooden tools that she was sorting and cataloging. When she heard the front door creak, her heart thudded and her mouth went dry. Hoppy sat up and growled. To call out or not? Jaymie just didn’t know. Had Valetta locked the front door when she left? Well, she wouldn’t have, would she? Because she didn’t have a key and, in fact, had told Jaymie to lock up after her.

Crap. Jaymie had been so involved in her work that she hadn’t thought of it. Maybe Valetta hadn’t made sure the door clicked closed and the wind had swept it open. Of course . . . that must be the explanation for the noise. Hadn’t she just been noticing the wind picking up? She took a deep breath and stood, feeling silly. There had been a little trouble with people sneaking into the house to bunk down when it was known to be empty, but that hadn’t happened since the society had bought it and nailed an OPENING SOON—QUEENSVILLE HISTORIC MANOR sign to the porch railing. She would get her stuff together, go out the front door—the back door was not yet usable, since it was nailed shut and blocked on the outside by junk—and lock up after herself.

She put the wooden tools back in the box and shoved it off to the side, near the cupboards, then grabbed her purse and Hoppy’s leash and said, “Okay, Hoppy, let’s see what’s going on in this place!”

That was when she heard the creak of footsteps. A chill raced down Jaymie’s back and, hands shaking, she bent over and clipped Hoppy’s leash on his collar. She was getting the heck out of Dodge, and no two ways about it.

More creaking! She stopped what she was doing and froze, afraid even to breathe. Mrs. Imogene Frump, who was a distant relative of the Dumpe family, claimed that when staying in the house as a child she had seen a ghost. It was a woman in white, she said, who floated into the bedroom in which she slept and hovered over her. No one ever said the ghost made the floors creak, though.

More recently the house was said to be haunted by the ghost of Mrs. Jane Dumpe, the last of that name to own it. She was said to disapprove of all that had happened to her beloved house in the last twenty years, since her death, but surely she wouldn’t haunt someone who was trying to help restore the place! Besides, Jaymie did not believe in ghosts.

But she did believe in thieves, and she didn’t want to be in the house with one. She crept out of the kitchen, through the parlor and to the hallway, toward the front entrance, stopping and listening for footsteps so she wouldn’t run into someone. Hoppy was shaking with excitement or sensing her tension, she didn’t know which. She could feel his trembling all the way up the leash. Just as she got to the front hall, where the door stood closed, he began barking.

“Hoppy!” Jaymie yelped, tugging him toward the front door.

A rush of footsteps behind her made her jump and whirl. She got the impression of a dark-cloaked figure, then a blast of pain radiated from her forehead and everything went black.

Two

SHE WAS COLD, shivering and hurt. Something wet was being slapped against her cheek, and something smelled bad. Real bad. And what was with the headache? She never got a headache, except when her mother was in the house. “Mom . . . you home?” she moaned.

The wet slapping continued . . . what the heck was that, a dirty dishcloth? It smelled . . . it smelled exactly like the liver treats Hoppy adored. “Hoppy, stop it!” she whimpered, pushing him away. Her eyes flew open, and she groaned again. Not only was there no mother in sight, there was no home. It was cold. She was at Dumpe Manor. She sat up and looked around and spotted one of the heavy mallets from the kitchen, the wedge-shaped one she had just examined.

It was so dark . . . what had happened? She felt fuzzy and confused and put her hand to her head as a wave of dizziness swept over her. “Oooh!” she groaned, lying back down, cheek to the cold wood floor. As she tried to sort out what was going on, a frigid blast of air swept over her. The front door was now open. She raised herself on her elbows and tried to scuttle out of sight as someone charged in the door and turned on a light. The blaze of the overhead pendant glared in Jaymie’s eyes, and she cried out in fear.

“Jaymie, what happened?”

Jaymie slumped back down in relief. It was Isolde Rasmussen, girlfriend of Theo Carson, a historian the society had hired to document Dumpe Manor’s history. Isolde was also a docent at the Wolverhampton Historical Museum.

The tall blonde knelt by Jaymie, staring at her with a worried look. “What happened?” she repeated.

Jaymie didn’t really know. “I’m . . . I’m okay, I think.”

“Oh, honey, no, you’re not,” Isolde said. “You have a bruise and a cut on your forehead and there’s some blood. Did you fall? Did you hit your head?”

“I must have.” Jaymie shivered. “I’m cold.” Hoppy put one paw on her knee and gazed up at her, growling uncertainly.

“Let’s get you home,” Isolde said, taking her elbow to help her up.

Jaymie swayed on her feet and Hoppy ran around her in circles, then to the door and back. It made her dizzy. “Hoppy, stop! I can’t concentrate, I don’t know . . . oooh . . . I’m not feeling well.”

“I’m taking you to the hospital,” Isolde said suddenly, pushing Jaymie back down on the floor. “You stay right there. First I’m calling the hospital to tell them we’re coming”—she pulled a white cell phone out of her jacket pocket—“then I’ll pull my car up to the door.”

The next twenty-four hours passed in a flurry of busyness that left Jaymie exhausted. Hospital, Isolde, nurses, doc...

Edition details

• Publisher: Berkley
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0425271390
• ISBN 13: 9780425271391
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 304