Victoria Hamilton - Vintage Kitchen 04 - No Mallets Intended by Victoria Hamilton Read Free Book Online

meeting if Theo Carson was attending. However, by the time Jewel returned, Jaymie had been busy, and with so many other things to ask and tell her, she completely forgot.
    •   •   •
    J AYMIE HEADED TO the heritage group meeting that evening, joining Valetta and DeeDee there. Dee had brought her elderly mother-in-law, Mrs. Stubbs, who was a fount of information where Queensville history was concerned. It took a couple of strong men to get the woman and her traveling wheelchair up the stairs, a vivid reminder to all that they needed to consider building a permanent ramp into the historic home if it was to conform to the Americans with Disabilities Act guidelines on wheelchair accessibility to public buildings. They would eventually need to consider an elevator to the upper floors, too.
    Heidi Lockland was also in attendance. Haskell Lockland, a distant cousin of hers, was the heritage society’s president and she was cautiously exploring her local family ties. The feuding Queen Victorias, Mrs. Trelawney Bellwood and Mrs. Imogene Frump, were also there, seated at opposite ends of a row of chairs. Though Mrs. Bellwood was the Queen at the annual Tea with the Queen event every Victoria Day weekend, Mrs. Frump occasionally performed the same duty in Johnsonville, the town across the river on the Canadian side. The lady desperately wanted a chance to play Victoria at the Tea with the Queen event in Queensville just once before she passed, though, and so fitfully wished Mrs. Bellwood ill every May. The two had not spoken directly to each other in years, but it was rumored that there was an ancient photo of the two as pigtailed girls with their arms over each other’s shoulders.
    The parlor, Jewel Dandridge’s project, had become one with the dining room by opening the huge pocket doors between them all the way, and the larger area was filled to capacity, with folding chairs and antiques mixed to make enough seating space for all. Jaymie sat with Valetta and Dee a few rows from the front, which was in the dining room. An antique buffet held pamphlets and pitchers of water for the speakers.
    As Jaymie had warned Cynthia, Theo Carson, the author the society had hired to write the Dumpe family history for the booklet they were going to have printed for the opening, was indeed there in a place of prominence among those seated facing the crowd at the head of the room. He was a tall, distinguished-looking fellow with a thatch of brown hair and a neat mustache. He tended toward professorial tweeds and sports jackets with leather-patched elbows and usually had his phone in his hand.
    He was actually a historical writer of some note, and it had been whispered that his book
From War to War
had been optioned to a documentary film company for PBS. While he wrote the historical pamphlet for the committee he was also doing research on his next book,
Nazi in the USA
, Jaymie had learned from Valetta. His girlfriend, Isolde Rasmussen, was in the front row opposite him. She swiveled in her chair and saw Jaymie; she waved and touched her head. Jaymie nodded and smiled to indicate she was just fine.
    Dick Schuster, a pudgy, balding little man in a threadbare cardigan and polyester dress pants, glared at them both, then glowered across the room at Jaymie. Schuster was an antagonistic local, someone who had fought hard against Carson being hired in the first place. He was a writer, he claimed, and could have done the pamphlet at a fraction of the price. In fact, he was researching a book on the Dumpe family anyway—again, he
claimed
, though no one had heard what he was doing toward it, nor had he interviewed anyone yet—and his book would “blow Carson’s little puff piece out of the water.” He implied some deep and awful secrets he would expose. He didn’t seem to understand why that would not endear him to those who wanted the Dumpe Manor project to be fascinating and enlightening but not scandalous.
    When he applied to write the