“I like it,” she said, and it was true. Despite its flaws it was quaint and charming; they never had a week during the late spring, summer and early autumn when it wasn’t rented out. “I always come here in summer for a few days, but I really like it best in the fall, when the leaves are all beautiful colors. And Hoppy loves it; he has more freedom here.” Her smile died. “Usually, anyway. When I don’t have plumbers and dead bodies.”
“Look, speaking of that . . .” He took her elbow and guided her to a chair.
It reminded her of Garnet’s steely hand on her elbow, and she wondered about that. His grip had been positively ironfisted, the clutch of a worried man. If his sister’s words truly had nothing to do with the murder, why was he so worried about Jaymie overhearing and misunderstanding? And why hadn’t he just explained what she meant?
“You need to give a statement, of course, but I don’t think it’s appropriate that I take it,” Zack said.
“Why not?” she asked, looking up at him. He turned away and stared out the back window at the scene below.
He shrugged and eased some tension out of his shoulders by flexing them. “Because when you give it, I’ll be in it. We walked back here last night and I asked you to go to dinner with me. That makes me a part of your last twenty-four hours.” He turned back and regarded her solemnly. “I’ve been through this before,” he said, his tone hard, “and I won’t let it happen again. Ever. I won’t let my objectivity be put in question.”
She was taken aback by his harshness, but nodded. So, what Bernie had told her was very likely true; he was gun-shy after being fired for involvement with a witness. “It doesn’t really matter who I give my statement to.”
He watched her eyes, and she could see he was torn. “Okay, then,” he said. “I have to tell my chief everything, but maybe I’ll leave it up to him to decide who questions you.”
So now it was not a definite “no” that he would take her statement. In a way she hoped it was someone else, because she hated having to lie, and not telling him what she had overheard Ruby say felt like a lie by omission. It would be far easier if it were a stranger she was talking to.
Confused by his wavering, she said, “I don’t care, Zack. I just want to do it and get it over with. I’m hoping to go back over to the mainland.” She was weary to the bone. Hoppy pawed at her lap and she picked him up, cradling him in her arms. “Look, I have to call my plumbers and tell them not to come today to finish the leaching bed. At least, I’m assuming we won’t be able to finish the work right now?”
He nodded. “I think the body will probably, given the circumstances, be here for a few hours more. Tell them tomorrow, and I think you’ll be safe.” He headed for the door, slipping his muddy shoes back on. “Just sit tight, and I’ll find out about the statement.”
She set Hoppy down and made a pot of coffee, needing the jolt of caffeine.
The phone rang and it was Valetta, town gossip and Jaymie’s best friend. “Jaymie, I heard you killed someone in your backyard, a burglar or something. What’s going on?”
The Queensville telegraph was working as wonkily as usual; some of the facts, plus speculation, plus gossip, plus a wild bit of imagination, all heaped together, whipped into a frenzy, and baked until piping, crazy hot. She explained, in unadorned terms, that she had found the body of Urban Dobrinskie in her backyard. “And now, if you don’t mind, I’d better call my mom before she gets the same whacky message and believes it!”
Valetta’s laugh cackled across the river. “Okay, but are you coming in today? We have some basket returns,” she said, mentioning the vintage picnic basket rental business Jaymie operated with the Emporium, where Valetta worked as a pharmacist.
“I hope so. I have to wait here until I give my statement to the police.”
“That’s becoming a bad habit,” she said.
“I know.” Jaymie spotted Zack and a tired-looking older man coming to her back porch. “I’ve got to go. Looks like the cops are coming.”
Zack deferred to the older man, who rapped peremptorily on her back door and stepped in without waiting for her okay. Of course Hoppy promptly went nuts, and tackled his pant leg. Jaymie grabbed her little dog by the collar, and smiled up at the two, noting that Zack was compressing his lips in an attempt not to smile.
“I’m so sorry. He thinks he’s a Doberman. He wouldn’t have done that if I had asked you in,” she said, pointedly, “but right now he thinks you’re an intruder.”
“Jaymie Leighton, this is Chief Horace Ledbetter,” Zack said. “Chief of the Queensville Police Department.”
“Hi, Chief Ledbetter,” Jaymie said, letting go of Hoppy, who, now that he knew these were not intruders but invited guests, sniffed politely around their feet and waggled his body.
The man observed her for a long moment, then said, “You’re the little lady who keeps finding bodies. Our best bet for peace in Queensville is exiling you, it seems.”
She stood still for a moment, hand stuck out to shake, and mouth open. Then the big man’s face wrinkled in what could be mistaken for a smile, and she relaxed. He was joking. “Wrong place, wrong time.” She dropped her hand to her side.
He bent down, grunting and puffing over his belly while he scratched Hoppy’s neck and got a hand licking for his efforts. Straightening with an effort, his shrewd eyes took in her cottage and he nodded. “This is the kinda place I’d like to retire to.”
“I like it. It’s been in our family for a long time.” She glanced between the two men, still wondering what was going on. Were they there officially, or what?
“Why don’t we have a seat, Miss Leighton?” he said.
“Would you like a coffee?” she asked, taking them both in.
“No,” Zack said, and at the same instant Chief Ledbetter said, “Yes.”
“Okay, have a seat at the kitchen table. Just swipe that stuff away,” she said, about the papers and clipboard.
The chief glanced at the heading on the paper, which read “Column Ideas for Howler.” “Ah, you’re a writer?”
“Not really,” she said, getting some mugs down from the cupboard. “Or . . . well, I’m trying to write a first column. I’m . . . I want to be a food writer, I guess you’d call it. I’m going to have a column in the Howler called ‘Vintage Eats.’ If I can ever write it. That’s a big ‘if.’” She sighed and got the cream out of the fridge, adding it to the tray that she then brought over to the table.
“‘Vintage Eats’? What would that encompass?”
Warming up, now that she was on familiar ground, she poured both men coffee and talked a little about her idea for a column on vintage recipes and kitchen utensils.
“My wife would read that,” the chief said. “She loves cooking. She’s almost as good a cook as my mom was,” he said and patted his belly. “As you can tell. You and your family had this cottage long?”
“Always,” she said, sitting down opposite him. “My great-grandfather built it, back when this was all just woods.”
“When I was a kid, the Ice House here on the island was a spooky abandoned building. We used to row over here at night and hide out in it smoking cigars we’d stolen from my dad,” he said, his bulbous nose becoming red as he chuckled.
“I was just there the other night, at the restaurant! I was thinking of doing my first article on the Ice House, and ice harvesting, with a recipe for old-fashioned ice cream!”
“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 c
utting 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
SHE 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 sa
y 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.
Freezer I'll Shoot (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery) Page 6