Freezer I'll Shoot (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery) (6 page)

“Young Zachary, here, says he was there, too! You two shared a table, so I understand,” the chief said, his broad face wreathed in a smile. “So you really find that stuff interesting? My wife and I had our thirtieth anniversary party there in the spring. They’ve got quite the display of tools and implements!”

Zack, despite saying he didn’t want coffee, busied himself with fixing a cup.

“Actually, Garnet and Ruby were explaining it all to me, the ice cutting and harvesting, and ice chests, and all that.”

“Really? I can’t say I know a lot about it. Especially the tools and all that. Before my time, though you wouldn’t know it to look at me!” he said, and let out a bellowing laugh.

Jaymie eyed him, entranced by his larger-than-life character. “They’ve got those old ice chests at the back; they use them for storage. Ruby was telling me all about it.”

“Hey, d’you know, my wife and I love the old movies. Just watching one the other night,
Some Like It Hot . . .
Marilyn Monroe and Tony Curtis, you know? There’s a scene in that where Marilyn Monroe’s character is breaking ice chips off a block for drinks. What is that thing they use for that, chipping ice off a block?”

“An ice pick!” Jaymie said, delighted by the reference. “Garnet took one down off the wall to show me! Very cool.”

“It’s like a long steel thing, right, kind of like a stiletto?”

“Yeah.”

“Bet he was happy to put that back up on the wall; not the kind of thing you’d want to leave lying around in a bar.”

“I guess . . .” She frowned and took a sip of coffee. “I don’t remember him putting it up on the wall, now that I think of it.”

“Really? That’s odd. What did he do with it?”

“I don’t know.” She shrugged. It didn’t matter.

“Well, he was probably distracted from putting it back in place when that Dobrinskie fellow stormed in and started insulting his sister, right?”

“Not exactly,” she said, wrinkling her nose. She glanced over at Zack; he was stirring his cup and staring out the back window. Something was not right. “What’s going on here?” she asked, meeting the chief’s gaze.

“We’re investigating the death of Urban Dobrinskie, who was found by you in your backyard at”—he consulted the small notebook that had, until that moment, been concealed in his ham-sized fist—“approximately two twenty a.m.”

“Yes. I don’t think I follow.”

“It’s important to establish who would have had a run-in with Mr. Dobrinskie in the hours preceding his death. Both the Redmonds fall into that category.”

It still didn’t make any sense, and Zack was still not meeting her eyes. “Not exactly . . . not in the hours before his . . . his death. That was night before last, that they had that confrontation. And then it was just an argument over sails,” she said. “No one murders anyone over a sail!”

“But Mr. Dobrinskie then insulted Miss Redmond rather gravely, and Mr. Redmond punched him in the face.”

She was silent, but shook her head.

“No, he didn’t punch Dobrinskie? Is that what you’re saying?”

“Yes, he did punch the guy, but . . . that doesn’t mean anything.”

“I understand that while in the restaurant you took photos of the wall of tools and of the ice pick that Mr. Redmond took down. I am officially requesting your camera for forensic purposes. If you tell me where it is, Detective Christian will retrieve it.”

“I don’t understand,” she said, a cold chill shaking her.

“I’d like to compare your photo against the old green handled ice pick that was found on the scene. Under the body of Urban Dobrinskie.”

Six

S
HE HAD SEEN
and handled the murder weapon? The green-handled ice pick had killed Urban Dobrinskie? It wasn’t possible. But if they said they found one under the body, it
had
to be the same one; there just couldn’t be two. Not that they were rare, really, but it would have to be an awful coincidence, if it was
another
green handled vintage ice pick. Numb with horror, Jaymie told Zack where to find the digital camera and he impounded it, giving her a receipt.

“How well do you know the Redmonds, Miss Leighton?” the chief asked, all pretense of friendly conversation now over.

“Uh, I’ve known them seven years or so, since they bought the cottage behind ours.”

He sat back in his chair, and it creaked a warning. “I asked how
well
you know them, not how
long
you’ve known them.”

She frowned and tried to push away the awful feeling that her world had just tipped on its axis. Nothing was what it seemed. She needed to think, but to be able to do that, she needed to send the chief and his minion on their way. “Uh . . .”

Zack took a long slurp of his coffee, and pushed his chair out, going to gaze out the back window again.

“Never mind; we’ll come back to that,” the chief said, with a glance at his inferior officer. He read his notes, murmuring aloud, and then asked, “What about Mr. Dobrinskie, the victim . . . How long have you known him?”

“I don’t really know him at all. I know he co-owns the marina, but we don’t have a boat, so I’ve got no cause to deal with him. I see the other partner, Will Lindsay, more often in the day-to-day running of the marina. And Will helps out at the Tea with the Queen event every May.”

“Would you say you’re good friends with the Redmonds?”

So he was back to that; same question, different wording. “I wouldn’t say I’m
good
friends with them.” She thought about it. “No, we’re not really close.”

“But friendly enough for them to leave their door open for you to use their washroom whenever you need to?”

She was silent while he watched her eyes. What was he implying? She had no clue. Maybe nothing. The silence dragged on, but she had seen this method before; let the silence continue until, being a social animal, as humans are, she would feel compelled to fill it with nervous chatter of the confessional variety. Her will hardened and her chin went up.

The chief watched her, while Zack rejoined them at the table and sat down. “Okay, let’s go over the last twenty-four hours or so, beginning with night before last.”

She recounted her last two days—including how she just happened to be seated with Zack at the restaurant—and came down to the night before, and her restlessness. She told them about her dilemma, not really wanting to burst in on the Redmonds while they were sleeping, but keeping an eye out while she paced and tried to write, just in case she saw their light go on. “I thought I saw a
flash
of light at one point, but I don’t know what it was.”

“What time was that?” Zack asked, exchanging a glance with the chief.

She squinted and thought. “I’m not sure.”

“Was it a long time before finding the body?”

“I don’t know. Let’s see . . . It was around one a.m. when I let Hoppy out to piddle, and he took off, barking at some animal in the woods.”

“Wait—Hoppy was barking? At something in the woods. Are you
sure
he was barking at an animal? Did you see one?” Zack asked.

“No. I—I don’t know,” Jaymie said, startled by his sudden intensity. “I
assumed
, because he’s been in trouble with skunks before, but it was something . . . or someone . . . in that little grove of crab apple trees near the ravine between our properties.”

“Show me!” he said, getting up and heading toward the back door.

“What, now?”

Zack met the chief’s gaze, and slewed his look back to Jaymie. “Just point,” he said.

She got up, went to the back door, and pointed to the little copse of crab apple trees. Zack scribbled in his notebook.

The chief took over. “So that was around one a.m., and then what happened?”

Jaymie came back and sat down at the table. “Let’s see . . . I came in, cleaned Hoppy up, and it wasn’t long after that that I saw a flash of light. I was hoping it was at the Redmonds, but it wasn’t.”

“Are you sure of that?”

“That it wasn’t in the Redmonds’ cottage? Yes, I’m sure.”

“Okay, and then?”

“I wrote for a while before I heard some commotion, and got up.”

“What did you hear?”

This wasn’t going to sound good, but she had to say it. She looked down at her folded hands in her lap and mumbled, “I heard a voice; then someone yelled, ‘Get off my property.’”

“Excuse me?” Zack asked, catching her glance. “I want to make sure I heard you right. Someone said, ‘Get off my property’?”

She nodded.

“Whose voice was it?” the chief asked.

“I didn’t recognize it.”

“Are you
sure
about that?” Zack asked.

“I’m sure,” she said, feeling like she was being ganged up on. She looked back and forth between the two of them, and Hoppy sat at her feet and grumbled.

“It wasn’t one of the Redmonds?” the chief asked.

“No,” she said, defiantly. “It was
not
one of them.”

“How can you be sure?” Zack said.

“It just didn’t sound like either one of them.”

Both men were silent and stared at her.

Ruby’s words rang in her head: “I didn’t mean to do it.” Jaymie
should
tell Zack and the chief, but it felt as if she would be turning her in, sealing poor Ruby’s fate, if she did. It wasn’t right. Ruby could have meant
anything
, anything at all.

It wasn’t her job to do their work for them anyway. She swallowed hard. “So . . . you obviously think that Garnet or Ruby murdered Urban Dobrinskie. But really . . . over a little tiff and an insult?” Miss Ruby in the ravine with an ice pick . . . It was like a Clue game.

Both men shuttered like a Venetian blind, their eyes going cold and empty. It was a weird moment, and Jaymie felt a shudder pass over her.

“We’re exploring all possibilities,” Zack said.

There was silence.

“I have to go back to the mainland. Can I go now?” she asked.

Zack watched her eyes, as the chief said, “We have your address and phone number in Queensville?”

Sighing, Jaymie said, “Oh, you do indeed!”

• • •

AGAINST ALL ODDS,
the day was bright and beautiful, an example of Michigan, which in spring could be surly, in autumn, sullen, and in winter, a veritable termagant, at its most pacific. Exhaustion made her quiver, but Jaymie could not stop. She had to go home and make sure everyone knew the truth of what was going on, not some half-baked theories or speculation.

On her way out, Jaymie headed over to Tansy’s Tarts. She tied Hoppy outside the shop and entered, the little bell over the door jingling, bringing Sherm out of the back room. He looked troubled, but swiftly erased the expression of worry on his face as he saw Jaymie.

“Jaymie, howarye?” Sherm said it automatically, but without the heartiness he usually had in his voice.

“I’m okay. I’m going back to the mainland, and I was wondering if Tansy made the tarts yet?”

“Lemme check,” he said. He ducked into the back room and came back carrying the trademark turquoise Tansy’s Tarts box. “Here ya go,” he said, sliding them across the glass counter. “Say, Jaymie, did I hear right? Was Urb Dobrinskie killed?”

She nodded, and sketched for him the bare details.

“Poor Sammy and Evelyn!” he said. “I don’t know what they’re gonna do. Urb had his faults, but he was a good provider.”

“That’s the wife and son, right? I heard that he bullied his son,” she said, getting a ten out of her wallet and glancing outside to make sure Hoppy was okay. “Did he bully his wife, too?”

He shrugged and looked away. “He had a temper; I’m not saying he didn’t.”

An awful idea occurred to her. “Are you saying he . . . Did he hit her?” In her idyllic vision of her town, including Heartbreak Island, such things did not happen, but the realist in her knew that there was a dark underbelly to even the prettiest scene. There were bound to be families in her beloved town struggling with violence and pain.

“I don’t know anything!” he said, his hands up in a shocked expression of horror.

She watched Sherm for a moment. “Do you know Garnet and Ruby very well?”

“Sure. Tansy and I are on a darts league at the Legion with the Redmonds. Garnet is a crackerjack shot. Ruby’s pretty damn good, too. They weren’t at darts last night, though; don’t know why.”

“I know them as neighbors, but not really as friends. Isn’t it a little unusual for a brother and sister to be so close?”

He shook his head, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “Garnet was married, but his wife died about ten years ago, from what I understand. Tragic situation . . . She died down in Jamaica; fell off of their sailboat. He’s never remarried.”

“Wow. I never knew that! What about Ruby?”

“She’s never been married, I guess. Leastways, I never heard her talk about a husband. I kinda thought she was . . . you know.” He waggled his eyebrows and winked.

“Gay?”

He nodded and his cheeks colored up red. “I never cared, you know, ’cause they’re good folks.”

That was Sherm Woodrow’s charm; he was a gossip, but not judgmental. He liked everyone, and talked about them, but there was never a mean spirit in his chatter. “Just because she never married doesn’t mean she’s gay,” Jaymie said, repeating what she had said to Zack when he made the same judgment.

“I guess. I say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. I like Ruby—she’s a real sweetheart—but I never seen any woman handle a sailboat like her.”

Tansy came out, and her eyes lit up. “Jaymie! You okay? I heard about the trouble over at your cottage.”

Just then the door chimes sounded and a woman entered the shop. Sherm’s eyes widened. “Evelyn!” he said, and rushed out from behind the counter. “Oh, honey, are you okay? Well, of course you’re not, but . . . let me get you a chair.”

Evelyn . . . Urban Dobrinskie’s wife? Jaymie was stunned. What was she doing in the bakery? She must have been told about her husband’s murder just hours before.

Tansy joined her husband, who was helping the new widow sit down on the retro vinyl café chair Sherm had hauled over from a little café table near the window. Jaymie watched. Evelyn was a small woman, with a round face and fluffy dark hair streaked with gray; she was dressed in a skirt and sleeveless blouse, exposing white, thin arms, one with a purple bruise. Was that bruise a result of Urb’s temper flaring? Jaymie’s mind kicked into questioning mode, something that had not happened up until now. She had been in shock, she supposed, but now she was truly curious. Who killed Urban, and why behind her house? It seemed an odd place for him to be.

“I . . . I’m so sorry, Mrs. Dobrinskie, about your husband,” Jaymie said.

She looked up, a question in her vivid cornflower blue eyes, the only real color on her face other than the dark smudges under her eyes. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

“No,” Jaymie admitted.

“This is Jaymie Leighton. Poor Urb was found behind her cottage; you know, Rose Tree Cottage, on the River Road? The pretty little blue clapboard one?” Sherm helpfully supplied.

The new widow’s eyes teared up. “What was he doing there?” she whispered, and one fat tear trembled and overflowed down her pale cheek.

“I don’t know,” Jaymie said, crouching by the woman. “Do you have any idea?”

She shook her head and looked to Tansy. “He didn’t come home last night, but I thought he just had a meeting, or . . . or was at the Boat House. I . . . I just came in to . . . Tansy, what am I going to do? Urb’s family is going to come down from Canada . . . his mother . . . I don’t know if I can . . .” She trailed off, shaking her head.

The baker seemed to know exactly what she was saying. “Look, hon, don’t you worry about it. I’ll call the business association . . . Urb was active in it, and the Polish-Canadian club over in Johnsonville, right?”