Freezer I'll Shoot (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery)

by Hamilton, Victoria

  “Hmph,” he grunted. “Don’t really believe in coincidences. But Detective Christian seems to believe in ’em. Says you’re an innocent victim in all this.”

  Her cheeks warmed, but she merely said, “Technically, Urban Dobrinskie’s body was not on my property, but on the Redmonds’. It was only chance that I happened to be out there that night and found Urban.”

  “Yeah, we know that. Technically.” He sat and stared at Jaymie for a long few minutes.

  “I have to go,” she said, standing. “Now that I have my camera back, I need to take photos of the subject of my newspaper article.”

  “You’re not writing about the Ice House, right?”

  “No. I decided to go with something else. Vintage picnics, actually.”

  He squinted up at her. “Me and some buddies used to swim out to the island to hang around the rich girls, the ones whose families had cottages out there. We’d mooch a hot dog off someone, and go fishing off the dock. Guess that’s not the kind of vintage picnic you had in mind.”

  “No,” she said, a little peeved. If he was trying to imply that she was a “rich girl” and a snob because her family owned a cottage on Heartbreak Island, then he was barking up the wrong tree. “You’ll have to read the Howler to see my article.”

  “Sure. I’ll tell m’ wife about it. Don’t go finding any more dead bodies, right?”

  She ignored him, merely asking, “I hope I can now have the plumbers finish my septic system?”

  “Yup. Work away. That’s what I asked you back here to tell you. You are free to finish your plumbing adventure. Good luck.”

  She returned home, parked the van and escaped, with Hoppy, back to the island. When she strode up the road toward Rose Tree Cottage, though, she saw that her sloping laneway was covered in muck, and some of the neighbors were standing around, examining it.

  “What now?” she muttered, approaching.

  Ten

  THE “WHAT NOW” turned out to be the wreckage left by an excavator brought in by the police to dig up what had already been done by Robin’s men, in search of any missed clues. They had blithely mowed down several saplings, part of a row of young poplar trees at the top of the Leighton cottage laneway. That row of saplings was the very reason Jaymie had had the plumbers access the joint backyard from the Redmonds’ property in the first place.

  With Hoppy securely locked inside, Jaymie examined the mess and fumed.

  Ruby descended their sloped, terraced backyard, surveying the damage from her side of the devastation. “I’m so sorry, Jaymie!” she called out. “What a mess!”

  “I suppose I should just be thankful that Robin and the guys hadn’t laid all the pipe yet, so really, it’s just a little extra mud moving they’ll have to do. If I can get them away from Will, down at the marina.”

  Ruby circled the muddy expanse and approached. Jaymie was shocked at how wan she looked, a ghostly gray, when usually she was healthy, if a little too tanned from hours on their sailboat, the Heartbreak Kid. “They’ve started work on the dredging, haven’t they?”

  “Yeah, I saw them moving the equipment in,” Jaymie said. “How am I going to get them back for our piddly little job?”

  “Garnet might be able to help,” she said. “I’ll have him call Will. I know they need to get moving with the harbor dredging and slip expansion, but you have to have this finished first. Especially if your future in-laws are going to come out here, eh?”

  “Future in-laws?” Jaymie blurted. “Daniel and I don’t have any plans.”

  Ruby smiled, a slightly sad expression. “Don’t let him get away. I’ve met him, and he seems like the real deal.”

  Jaymie had the sense that there was a sad story behind Ruby’s eyes. She wondered whether there was a lost love in her past. But still, her life was her life, and no one else’s sad story could impact her. “I’m not rushing into anything. Not after Joel. I like Daniel a lot, but he’s not my future husband. Not yet, anyway.”

  “I’ll get Garnet to call the marina,” Ruby said, squeezing her shoulder again. “And have Will send Robin and the guys back to finish up here.”

  “That would be great, Ruby,” Jaymie said, at the same time wondering how the woman just knew that Garnet would have so much pull with Will. “I guess you guys are close?”

  Ruby, who was heading back to her cottage, turned around and cocked her head. “What do you mean?”

  “You must be close to Will Lindsay, if you figure Garnet can sway him.” Jaymie remembered what Valetta had said; she felt like there was something about Ruby, or Garnet, or both of them, something they weren’t revealing.

  The other woman looked uneasy. “No, not particularly close. But we do keep our boat in the marina, and Will is the one we deal with most.”

  “Understandable, with the way Urban behaved toward you, that you’d want to deal with Will more than that jerk. Was he always that hostile toward you and Garnet?”

  She shrugged. “Urban was like that with everyone. We didn’t avoid him, but we didn’t seek him out. I had a feeling he was going to be moving on, anyway. The owner of the Boat House said Urban was in there talking to someone about buying the marina on the Canadian side of the island. That guy was always full of plans, though, and most of them didn’t go anywhere. I’ve got to go if I’m going to catch Garnet and get him to talk to Will and Robin.”

  Ruby was as good as her word, and the plumbers were back that afternoon. They worked fiercely, with Robin shouting orders. One of the workers was a slim boy who looked to be working even harder than the older men. Jaymie was a little uncomfortable, knowing they were only working so hard to get done with her less profitable work and on to the big job, the marina. But darn it, she needed to have the leaching bed and septic system up and running. In another ten days or so they’d have more renters in the cottage; that was far more important a reason to hurry than her mother’s wish to have the family dinner at the cottage.

  Robin came up to talk to her late in the day, to tell her they were working overtime, and would be done that evening.

  “Thank you so much, Rob. I really appreciate it.”

  “Hey, if we can get this off our schedule, I can get all of these guys working on the harbor and marina project.”

  “That young fellow, the teenager, looks like he’s working harder than everyone else!”

  “Yeah, he’s a good kid. You know who that is?”

  She shook her head. “But he looks familiar. He’s one of your crew, right?”

  “Yeah, but that’s Urban Dobrinskie’s son, Sammy.”

  “Really?” She was shocked. “How long has he been working for you?”

  “All summer. He’s going to college in September.”

  “He wasn’t . . . Was he working here the day his dad . . . I mean, before his dad . . . ?” She let the question hang.

  “Yup.”

  “Does he know his dad was killed here?”

  Robin grimaced. “I think he knows, vaguely, but he probably doesn’t know exactly where. And I’m not going to tell him.”

  Jaymie appreciated Robin’s tact. “It must be hard on him right now, though, with his dad just murdered.”

  Robin glanced over at her, with a wry grin on his lips. “Urban was an asshole, and no one suffered more at his hands than Sammy. I had it out with the jerk once, told him to leave the kid alone. Urb didn’t listen, of course. The kid is probably secretly doing the dance of joy.”

  Jaymie was shocked to her core. Her father was so important to her, she couldn’t imagine being happy he was gone. Just the news that he’d had a cancer scare that he hadn’t told her about was frightening. But for all anyone knew, Sammy was deeply saddened. Abused kids still loved their parents, some of them right up to the day they snapped and committed patricide. She was shocked by her train of thought, but she couldn’t help it. Until the murd
er was solved, everyone was a potential suspect.

  “Should he even be working today?”

  “I told him to go home, but he didn’t want to.”

  The boy was skinny, but wiry. After a summer of working for Robin, his bony arms were clothed in impressive biceps for one so slim. She remembered what Zack had said about having to tell Urban to back off from browbeating his son, and now Robin had added his independent testimony to the fact that Sammy and his dad had a troubled relationship. Had Sammy had enough that fateful night, and done his dad in? The police would certainly be looking into that.

  The day wore on, the sun beginning to descend in the sky; the workers took a dinner break. Garnet had sent food over for all of them from the restaurant, one of his many kind and generous gestures. Jaymie sat out on the grassy border of the muddy area with them, and listened to Robin describe what was left to be done. It was taking longer because of the damage done by the police team. Sammy Dobrinskie sat near Robin, wolfing down his burger and onion rings, and draining a large bottle of water.

  “I was thinking of doing some landscaping, since we have the opportunity now,” Jaymie said to Robin.

  “As long as you don’t run over the septic area with excavators once we’re done, you’ll be okay,” Robin said. “The weight of the machine can crush pipes, even the new ones. Once the turf has packed in around them it’ll be okay, but at first the area will be a little fragile.”

  “I have no clue what to do, but something like Garnet and Ruby’s maybe.” She gestured to their terraced lawn and seating area, gilded by the sun, which now hung low in the sky, casting a golden glow over everything.

  “What do you think, Sammy?” Robin said, nudging the younger guy. “You’re the landscape guy.”

  “You’re into landscaping?” Jaymie asked.

  The boy flushed scarlet, tossed his flop of sandy hair off his forehead, and ducked his head. “I did our backyard. D-Dad said it looked like shit.”

  “Your dad was wrong,” Robin said. “I’ve seen it, and you did a great job.” He turned to Jaymie. “His mom is into Asian influences, so he designed her a rock garden. Real Zen looking. It even has one of those areas where you rake patterns into the sand, you know?”

  “Our property is k-kind of on a ravine, too,” Sammy said, sitting up straight, his thin face lighting up with enthusiasm. “The whole island is really a moraine left when the ice age receded, so there are these long grooves, and gravel deposits. I built a rock slope, with pockets of soil for plants, and we brought in all these mosses and alpines. I made her a waterfall to trickle through it, and found a kind of Chinese pagoda for the top.”

  “It sounds awesome,” Jaymie said.

  “Are you and your mom still thinking of leaving Heartbreak Island?” Robin asked, searching the boy’s face.

  He sighed and looked down at his muddy boots, scraping one against the other. The setting sun lit up streaks of bleached-out blond in his hair. “I don’t know. If Mr. Redmond buys our share of the marina, like he wants, then Mom says she’ll move to Oakland so she can be near me while I go to school. I’m registered at Oakland Community College for the Landscape Tech course this fall. But if things don’t work out, I might not go for another year. I just can’t leave her alone right now.”

  Jaymie was silent, but her mind was whirling. Garnet wanted to buy Dobrinskie’s part of the marina?

  Robin asked the question Jaymie was thinking. “Since when did Garnet Redmond want to buy out the marina?”

  The boy said, “I don’t know, but I heard him talking to Mr. Lindsay, and he said he was preparing an offer for Mom’s lawyer.”

  “That’s happening awful fast, isn’t it?” Robin said.

  Jaymie’s thoughts exactly.

  “Well, I don’t want to run it, and Mom can’t. It would kill her.”

  “I’d wait, if I was your mom,” Robin advised. “Garnet may push for it to be resolved quickly—he’s a good businessman, and sees an opportunity, I guess—but Will could get some help, and your mom could hold on to her share. Just my two cents.” He stood, and put two fingers to his mouth, whistling. “C’mon, guys. We gotta get this done tonight so we can get back to the marina in the morning.”

  Some of the fellows groaned, as they stood, stretching out aching muscles, but they got back to work and two hours later, it was done. Jaymie had been working on her article on vintage picnics—and in fact she was pretty much done—but when she saw them packing up, she went outside and caught up with Sammy Dobrinskie.

  “Hey, Sam,” she said. “I’d be really interested in any ideas you might have for my backyard, now that the plumbing is done. Can we talk about it some time?”

  “Yeah, sure,” he said, a smile wreathing his face. “I’ve been thinking about it all day. I’ll make a couple of sketches tonight, if you like.”

  That was more than she had hoped for. “Great. If you’re going to be working at the marina tomorrow, can I come by there and bring you lunch, and you can show me your ideas?”

  “S-sounds good.”

  “I’ll pay you for your input,” she said, suddenly. If this was going to be his profession, she ought not to expect his help for free.

  He flushed and ducked his head. “Naw, that’s okay.”

  Robin, coming up behind them, overheard and clapped him on the shoulder. “Never turn down money, son. You can use the sketches for course work at Oakland. Even better, I’ll give you a little time free, if you want to work on it with Jaymie.”

  This was all going too fast. Jaymie had just planned to sod the area and think about landscaping, at some future point in time.

  “Naw. I’ll do some sketches, but she doesn’t have to pay me.”

  “Let’s talk about it tomorrow,” Jaymie said. “Show me your ideas, and we’ll take it from there.”

  They left it at that, but as darkness enfolded the cottage and Hoppy sniffed around the perimeter of the newly smoothed dirt along the slope of the yard, Jaymie sat on the back step and called her dad. He was all for giving the kid a shot at designing them a landscape scheme, and told her he trusted her judgment. He was adamant about one thing, and that was paying Sammy Dobrinskie for his work. No one should work for nothing, he said. She didn’t tell him she was probably doing just that for the Wolverhampton Howler.

  The next morning dawned gloomy, with an enervating tension in the air that was usually the precursor to a massive thunderstorm. It was such a relief that she could now use the cottage bathroom, that she cleaned it in celebration. The backyard still looked awful to her, a long muddy expanse that needed a lot of work. She was curious to see what Sammy Dobrinskie would come up with, and she was even more curious about Garnet Redmond’s push to buy part ownership of the marina.

  Did that give him a motive for murder? Or was it the insult to his sister, on top of his dislike of the man and the fellow’s threats, that made murder seem like a viable option for the calm, cerebral Garnet Redmond? She pondered that, but just couldn’t picture Garnet killing a man in cold blood. Maybe when he jumped in and offered to buy the Dobrinskie share of the marina, he was just taking advantage of the opportunity presented by the man’s death. Perhaps he even thought he was helping out the widow and her son.

  Jaymie made some salad, sandwiches and a batch of real lemonade, and piled it all in a basket, then, just after noon, leashed Hoppy, grabbed the basket and took a walk along the sandy beach that lined the river side of the island. Hoppy barked and dashed at the herring gulls that swooped overhead and bobbed upon the river. She approached the marina, where Robin’s men were already working, crunching across the gravel that covered the slope up to the dock area. From what she understood, the whole affair of dredging the harbor and marina was complicated by the fact that on a small island, getting big equipment over was difficult, and sometimes impossible. They had to innovate, using the equipment on hand and a lot of backbr
eaking manual labor.

  It was a busy place, and she saw that Garnet was there, standing with Will Lindsay and Robin, pointing and gesturing, as men do when they are intent on the important task at hand, whether it be building a barbecue or a skyscraper. Hoppy, with his long leash, bounced over to them and begged for attention at their feet, his one front paw stroking the air like a friendly wave hello. Garnet reached down to scratch the Yorkie-Poo behind the ear. Jaymie approached.

  Robin grinned as she walked up to them. “Hey, Jaymie. Sammy is excited about your landscaping project. He won’t tell you that himself, but take it from me, he is. It’s nice that he has something to look forward to right now, with all this crap about his dad happening.”

  “My dad okayed paying him for any design work he does, and you mentioned he could use the project for his course work. Is that true?”

  “Sure is. I went to see his mom last night, and she has pretty much decided to go with him to Bloomfield Hills, where the Oakland Community College campus is. She wants to get the hell out of here.”

  “Bad associations?”

  He shrugged. “I just don’t know. She’s so upset and frazzled. I don’t know what to make of it.”

  Will and Garnet had been talking as Robin spoke to her, but they called him back to their conference. “I’ll tell Sammy to take his lunch break and show you his sketches,” Robin called back to her, as he walked away with the other two men.

  Jaymie chose a picnic table, as a rumble of thunder rolled across the sky. The air had that languid kind of humidity that often accompanies a low cloud cover, and she was glad she had dressed in shorts and a sleeveless tee. She put down a bowl of water for Hoppy, and spread a cloth on the rickety picnic table, unloading the plastic containers of food. Sammy Dobrinskie, his face and hair damp from washing up, approached the table shyly, looking off into the distance as he walked toward her with his clipboard under his arm.

  “Hey, Sam,” Jaymie called out. “I’m looking forward to seeing your sketches.”