Free A Deadly Grind by Victoria Hamilton Page B

aghast at the mess, which looked even worse in the light of day. For one thing, the summer porch door was still hanging from its hinges, though someone had put a piece of wood over it and nailed it on. For another, dark smudges covered so many surfaces: fingerprint powder, dusted over everything!
    But worse than that was the stuff spilled everywhere: cookbooks, teacups, shattered china. The grinder, thank heavens, had been seized for examination; she didn’t know if she could ever even look at it again if it turned out it was the murder weapon. Worst of all, though, was the rucked-up, bloody rag mat and the pool of dark, congealing blood. A spray of blood spattered the door to the summer porch. Jaymie turned away from the sight.
    DeeDee had already plunked down her bucket and had the water on in the kitchen sink. She fished around in the cupboard under the sink and got a roll of paper towels out. She returned to Jaymie’s side armed for a cleansing battle. “Honey, in case you don’t remember, when I married Johnny Stubbs, the best man in the world, I was a surgical nurse, and for a time before that a nurse in emerge over at Wolverhampton General. I can see you’re a little green around the gills at the blood, but to me it’s just so much red paint.”
    She shook out a red garbage bag. “Blood and other body fluids need to be handled correctly. I’ll mop up the blood, you just concentrate on the china and books.” She pulled on the rubber gloves, squirted some detergent into the pail, poured in some bleach and filled it with steaming water.
    “I remember your nursing days,” Jaymie said, heartened by DeeDee’s no-nonsense company. “But I would never have assumed it meant you could face this.”
    “No sweat.”
    DeeDee and Becca had known each other for years, since high school at Wolverhampton High, but it was only in recent years that DeeDee had become Jaymie’s friend, too. In the past their fifteen-year age difference had meant they had little in common, but lately, their mutual love of “old stuff” had helped cement the bond of familiarity into friendship.
    “Not much difference between a crime scene and a fight between siblings,” Dee said, with a chuckle. “When I quit working and started popping out babies, I thought my days of scrubbing blood were over, but having five kids just means the blood oozes out of someone you love.” She knocked the nailed board off the back door with one well-placed kick, and got down to business. First, she held up the bloody tea towel. “Do you want to rescue this, honey? Wash it?”
    Jaymie shuddered. “No. Trash it.”
    Dee then pulled up the bloodstained mat, tossed it into the garbage bag she had brought with her and vigorously scoured the blood spatter from the door. Then she got down on her hands and knees to clean, her wide bottom moving in rhythm as she scrubbed, first the door and legs of the Hoosier, and parts of the wall, then moved down to the floor. It looked like the shiny gray paint that coated the board floor had resisted any of the blood soaking in. That was a relief.
    Jaymie stood and stared for a moment, then got her broom and started rescuing those cups and saucers that were intact, sweeping up the rest of the chips and chunks. They were silent for a long while, scrubbing and sweeping, but finally Jaymie needed to move her mind away from grimness and blood. She was tired to the bone, but wouldn’t give in to her weariness. “DeeDee, why didn’t anyone on the committee tell me Heidi was going to be playing a part in the Tea with the Queen?”
    “Yikes!” DeeDee sat back on her haunches and cast a rueful look up at Jaymie. “We didn’t know how, hon. Heidi comes along—she’s not such a bad kid, really—and she offers to donate a big whack of money if we let her play a part. Greed overcame good sense; I wasn’t at the meeting, nor were you, apparently. I think you were up in Canada visiting your Grandma Leighton. Later I raised hell. I