Freezer I'll Shoot (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery)

by Hamilton, Victoria

  “What’s going on in your mind?” Jaymie had known Valetta a long time, and behind the quirky, gossipy, eccentric spinster façade, the woman was a smart, capable, deep-thinker.

  Valetta sighed and glanced over at Jaymie, but then looked away. “I’m just ashamed of the way my mind is working. I can’t reconcile two thoughts. Ruby doesn’t sleep in her bedroom; someone sleeps in Garnet’s. Where is Ruby sleeping? Either she has a secret lover or . . .”

  Jaymie waited, but her stomach was twisting. Finally, she said, “Or she’s sleeping with Garnet.”

  “That’s impossible, right? I mean, it just isn’t possible.”

  “Unless . . .” Jaymie paused and thought. “Wait just a minute; maybe there’s a third possibility. We’ve always believed one thing, but if that one thing isn’t true, then . . . Valetta, what if Garnet and Ruby are not brother and sister?”

  Valetta’s mouth hung open. “Geez, Jaymie, you’re right! I’ve been looking at it all wrong. We only have their word for it that they are sister and brother. But why—?” She wrinkled her forehead, deep in thought.

  This was something Jaymie had already considered, with the pair. “They’re hiding from something or someone.”

  “Witness protection, maybe?”

  “I never thought of that. I guess it’s possible. But that’s pretty rare, right?”

  “I guess. How do we find out for sure?”

  “I think Zack might already know the truth,” Jaymie mused. She set her clipboard on the table and leaned back, putting her feet up on one of the other chairs. “I felt like he was keeping something vital to himself. Of course, I don’t expect him to tell me everything, but it sure would keep me from jumping to conclusions!”

  “So maybe it doesn’t mean anything, ultimately, in relation to the murder?”

  “I didn’t say that,” Jaymie answered. “Just because Zack has known the truth about their secret all along, and hasn’t arrested them yet, doesn’t mean he’s dismissed either one of them as suspects.”

  “True. But is the suicide note on the level, then, or suspicious?” Valetta fiddled with her bead bracelet and grimaced.

  “If you were going to leave a suicide note for a loved one, wouldn’t you leave it where it was likely to be found, not in a room they wouldn’t go into?”

  Valetta nodded. “And the unused bedroom isn’t likely. That could only be the work of someone who, if we’re right about the Redmonds, doesn’t know their secret. So, who put the suicide note there? And if it wasn’t Ruby’s handwriting, whose was it?”

  “But that’s just the thing,” Jaymie said. “I would swear that was Ruby’s handwriting. It’s pretty distinctive, a kind of loopy script. But . . . hey, is there another way to take that, the note, I mean?” She explained what Lisa had said about the money Ruby had taken out of a bank in Wolverhampton. “I thought it might have been blackmail money, or something, but what if she was planning to take off, like Lisa surmised, and that was cash to go on for a while?”

  “Makes sense. Maybe she was even heading out when you saw her slip away from the restaurant.”

  Jaymie pondered that, as she glanced around for Hoppy. She called to her little dog and he came lurching over from a spot in the taller grass near the Redmonds’ terraced garden. “Maybe she was sneaking out because she didn’t want Garnet to follow her, or worry about her or . . . but that would work if she was the killer, too, right, and was running away? It doesn’t look good, unless she was scared.”

  But why would Ruby then say she thought Garnet might have done it? That part didn’t fit. Unless she was deliberately shifting the blame onto him. If they weren’t brother and sister, then maybe their loyalty had fractured. She thought back to the note contents. Ruby had said something about trying to make it work, and that she had hoped everything would be all right, but that it wasn’t. And she said she was scared and unhappy. Scared of what?

  Jaymie relayed the contents of the note as well as she could recall.

  “She said ‘I love you’ in the note?” Valetta asked. “Wow. So, if they aren’t brother and sister, then they’re . . . lovers.”

  “Lovers.” Jaymie thought of all the romance novels she had read, but she couldn’t think of one where the “lovers with a secret” theme had them playing brother and sister. That was a new one. “So what are they running from? Zack hasn’t arrested them. If he knows the truth and hasn’t arrested them, then their secret is not about something criminal.”

  “He hasn’t arrested them yet,” Valetta said. “What you said a minute ago still holds, that just because they haven’t been arrested yet, doesn’t mean they won’t be.”

  Jaymie drew in a breath. “Look!”

  From their spot in the shade, they saw uniformed police surrounding the Redmond cottage, and Zack Christian executing his warrant. Garnet was long gone, of course, back to Wolverhampton. Zack banged on the door and shouted that he had a search warrant, and was going to enter. Two uniformed officers, one of them Bernie Jenkins, accompanied him. One busted the lock on the door, and they went in, and that was all Jaymie and Valetta could see from their vantage point for the next while.

  She and Valetta went back to work, but Jaymie was antsy the whole time, watching out the back window, trying to figure out what was going on. This was all on her; Zack had gotten the search warrant because of her call about the “confession” in the suicide note, the note that she was now not even sure was a suicide note. Had she done the right thing? She may well have interfered in a very private matter between Garnet and Ruby, but how was she to have known that?

  Finally, the cops left, and Jaymie had to stop obsessing about it all. It was done; she could not now go back and undo it. She and Valetta had one last cup of tea, then, after cleaning themselves up, headed for dinner at the Ice House. Jaymie felt like she practically lived there now, but she had her reasons this time. Valetta and Marg had gone to Wolverhampton High at the same time, and were old friends.

  The restaurant was not as busy as normal, the result of it being midweek, and a rib festival starting in Wolverhampton. Jaymie knew all about that because basket rentals were down this week, too, but would hopefully pick up after the festival. It was her first summer, and she frankly didn’t know what to expect with her fledgling business.

  Lisa was not working, and in fact they had only one waitress on, it looked like, but when Marg saw Valetta with Jaymie, she hustled over to them and led them to a table near the window, overlooking the patio, beyond which was the river.

  “Sit; have a glass of wine with us, Marg,” Valetta said, patting the chair next to her.

  The woman agreed, and sat down, bringing with her a bottle and three glasses.

  “Have you heard anything from Garnet?” Valetta asked her friend, studiously avoiding Jaymie’s gaze. They had agreed ahead of time to act as if they didn’t know anything about the search warrant. “We’re worried about Ruby.”

  “Everyone says she’s going to be okay,” the woman said, her gruff voice softening. “My niece works at the hospital, though, and she called me to say they’ve put a police guard on Ruby’s door.”

  To protect her or keep her there, Jaymie wondered?

  “What do you think happened?” Valetta asked.

  Marg, tight-lipped, shook her head and took a sip of the wine. “Not my business to speculate.”

  Valetta exchanged a look with Jaymie, and Jaymie took the hint. “I’ll be back in a few minutes,” she said. “I need to go to the washroom.”

  She went outside and sat on a bench for a few minutes. A rowdy bunch of men and women walked up to the restaurant and started to file in. It would be busy in a few minutes, once they had ordered. She saw Sherm and Tansy Woodrow in the group, and waved at them. Tansy came over and sat down next to her.

  “I heard what happened to Ruby last night, and you found her! You must have been so scared.
Thank God you were in the right place at the right time, or she would have managed to kill herself!”

  “Is that what people are saying about Ruby?” Jaymie asked.

  “Why? Isn’t that what happened?” Tansy, asked, her eyebrows arched.

  “I don’t think anyone knows yet.”

  Another young woman stood nearby, texting someone on her phone. “You coming, Tanse? We gotta eat and get going, if we’re going to get to darts on time.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Tansy said, waving the other woman away.

  Sherm came up to the other girl and said, “Come on, let’s go in. Tansy will follow. What are you doing, anyway?” he asked, leading her away.

  “I still can’t get ahold of Barb,” the young woman said. “I don’t know why she’s not here. She never misses darts night!” She went along with Sherm, as he held the door open for her.

  Tansy bent closer to Jaymie. “I heard that Ruby filled her pockets with rocks and waded out into the river. Did you hear that?”

  “I was there, remember? There were no rocks in her pockets. I don’t think.” Jaymie thought back to the heavy something that fell out of Ruby’s pocket. It was a rock, wasn’t it? Had Ruby pulled a Virginia Woolf? Was it a suicide attempt, after all? Something struck her just then . . . If she had been leaving town, would she not have taken the ten thousand dollars with her? Or was that what was in the bag she was carrying? Where did the bag go? She was going to need to tell Zack about the money, and refer him to Lisa. So many questions, so few answers!

  Sherm ducked back out. “Tansy, come on! We need to order now!”

  She got up and hustled back to the door, but paused, before she followed her husband. “I hope you’re right, Jaymie. I’d hate to think of Ruby trying to do away with herself. She’s so . . . so strong.”

  Jaymie glanced in and saw that Valetta was now sitting alone, so she entered and joined her friend.

  “It was getting busy, so I ordered us both the special of the day,” Valetta said, a twinkle in her eyes.

  “You got some info out of Marg, didn’t you? I was hoping you would,” Jaymie said, sitting down and gulping back her wine. “What did she say?”

  “Well, I told her we knew they weren’t brother and sister.”

  “That was taking a chance. What if she didn’t know?”

  “I know,” Valetta admitted. “It was a risk, but I had a feeling. She knew, all right, and has all along, I think. When they set up this business, they needed a shield of some sort, is my guess. They found Marg simpatico, and she became a kind of business manager through whom they could do a lot of the financial stuff.”

  “Did she tell you that?”

  “Not exactly. But she was kinda upset when I guessed it. I promised her we wouldn’t be spreading it around. She knows me well enough to trust me with that, but she was a little worried about you!”

  “So . . . did you ask her why Ruby and Garnet are here using assumed names, and who they really are?”

  “I did.”

  “And? Come on, Valetta, don’t hold out on me!”

  The older woman, her eyes gleaming, leaned over the table and whispered, “Ruby is actually a mob daughter from Montreal, Canada; she turned her whole family in, and she’s been in hiding ever since.”

  Twenty-one

  “THE MOB?” JAYMIE hissed.

  “The mob!” Valetta’s eyes were wide and shone with excitement behind her lenses as she sat back in her chair.

  Jaymie sat back, too. “So . . . her name is not really Ruby.”

  “I don’t imagine so,” Valetta murmured.

  “That opens up a whole ’nother can of worms! If she’s been running from the mob, then was Urban’s murder a warning? Or did he get too nosy? Or did he know something?”

  Valetta looked skeptical. “I don’t think we know enough yet to figure this out. Besides,” she added, “the cops probably know all about Ruby and Garnet.”

  “And the murder could have nothing to do with their secret.”

  “Or everything.”

  The restaurant got noisy, with the darts competitors eating and laughing and even, at one point, singing. Certainly too noisy to discuss someone’s mob connections. Jaymie and Valetta finished dinner in silence, then walked back to the cottage.

  “You realize we’re only going by what Marg said. Do you really think Ruby’s part of a mob family, or was that a cover for something else?” Jaymie asked, as they strolled along the gravel road in the darkness.

  “In other words, were Garnet and Ruby lying to Marg? I just don’t know,” Valetta said. “I mean, if I needed someone to cover for me—you know, to help me hide—that’s the story I’d tell them.”

  “Exactly! Who’s going to try to check up on that? How would you, even if you wanted to? Normal people don’t have mob connections. And it’s a great motive for keeping quiet. No one wants to bring the mob down on them.”

  “That’s what I was thinking.”

  “So, we’re right back where we started,” Jaymie mused. One thing was certain: she was going to confront the Redmonds about their story, and see what they had to say for themselves. She’d have to find a way to do it without getting Marg in trouble for spilling the beans, if it was at all possible.

  Jaymie and Valetta returned to the cottage, and while her friend got her bag—she was returning to Queensville, since the next day was a workday—Jaymie snapped on Hoppy’s leash, figuring she may as well take him along for his evening stroll.

  “You don’t have your purse. Aren’t you coming back to Queensville?” Valetta asked, as they exited the cottage back into the warm, humid evening air.

  “Are you kidding? I’m staying away as much as possible. Mom and I get along better when we don’t share a roof.”

  At the dock Jaymie reached out and hugged Valetta, then released her. “I couldn’t have gotten so far today without you; you work harder than anyone else I know. And you make a valuable investigating partner.”

  Valetta’s laughter rang out through the night. “Just call me Watson!” She boarded the Ferry Queene, and as the boat chugged away, she waved and Jaymie waved back, then turned away.

  The river was sluggish and silent, slipping past in silky darkness. It was restful living on the island (or would have been without a puzzling murder mystery), Jaymie thought, but she still would be happy when she could go back to her house in Queensville without having to listen to her mother complain about her hoarding habits. Reeling Hoppy in, Jaymie was ready to head home, weary after a long day of cleaning. She would enjoy the sparkling clean cottage for at least one more night, and then her parents could take it over.

  She looked up the slight rise to the marina office, where Will was likely just finishing up, before heading home to his wife, who would be waiting for him. It was a week and a half since the murder, and judging by the crowd at the Ice House, another of the biweekly darts nights was on. By now, the league would be over at the legion hall, just as they had been on the night of the murder, and then they would head to the Ice House for after-tournament drinks. Jaymie had been at the bar once, on one of their league nights; the dart players descended on the place about eleven in the evening, raucous and loud, and started drinking, not finishing until closing. Ice House closing was usually about ten or eleven, but if they had a crowd, the bar manager would keep the place open until state-mandated closing at two in the morning.

  Darts. Sherman and Tansy played. So did Garnet and Ruby. And Will’s wife, Barb. She was not with them tonight, the unnamed woman had said to Sherm Woodrow, even though she never missed a night. Odd. She would have been there, though, the night of the murder. If the players went to the Ice House after, for drinks—and as far as Jaymie knew they always did—then . . . She stopped in her tracks. Will Lindsay had said that his wife was home that evening. If Barb had gone to darts, didn’t that completely blow the al
ibi Will had been so vocal about? Why would he mislead her about something like that?

  The door of the office opened. Will exited, then closed the door behind him. “Jaymie!” he said. “How is it going?”

  Hoppy raced over to him and begged for attention. He picked the little dog up. He had her dog, and she had the leash; it was like she was tethered to him. “I’m fine, Will. How is the work on the marina and slips coming along?”

  Her mind was working furiously; could what she feared be true? But . . . why? It didn’t make any sense. His situation hadn’t changed a whole lot since Urban had died, after all, so what had he gained? He hadn’t taken over the other part of the marina; nor had he gotten the Dobrinskies to sell it, to him or anyone else.

  But . . . they had begun what had been delayed, the dredging of the marina and docks. No one would kill someone over a delay in dredging. Would they? If she had learned anything in the last couple of months, it was that one could not fathom what was important to others. People had depths and needs and wants that others would never suspect.

  “It’s good. We’ll finally be able to encourage boat traffic and build a larger marina on this side, instead of all the business going to the Canadian side.”

  “The Canadian side . . .” Jaymie squinted into the failing light. “Wasn’t Urban trying to buy a marina there?” she said, remembering something Ruby had said to her.

  He looked startled, and tightened his hold on Hoppy. The little dog yelped.

  “Will, you squeezed Hoppy too hard. He doesn’t like that. Can I have my dog, please?” she asked, tension threading through her voice.

  “What did you mean by that?” he said, stopping dead, but not giving up his hold on Hoppy.

  “What did I mean by what?”

  He was turning an unbecoming shade of red. What had she said? Unless . . . Was it Urban’s rumored purchase of the Canadian marina that would threaten his marina? Was Urban blocking the improvements to their marina to increase the attractiveness of the one he was buying on the Canadian side? If so, maybe the only way to stop him, from Will’s aspect, was . . . death. Stuttering, Jaymie said, “Uh, well, I don’t know; it’s just a rumor I heard. I didn’t really pay any attention to it.”