“When you’re done, come on back out to the fire,” Jaymie said stiffly.
“Yeah, okay.” Tiffany meticulously lined up her hair products on the dresser, then positioned her bag of hair appliances on the floor. She pulled out an extension cord and plugged it into an outlet. She did it all silently.
Nothing else. Not a word of Gee, I hope I’m not inconveniencing you or Thanks for letting me stay, just a grunt. Jaymie stalked back out to the fire and joined Valetta. She didn’t often get angry, but when she did, Jaymie found it hard to shake the mood. This time she felt her anger was justified. However, as she sat by the fire, staring into the dancing flames—Rachel had added a little more wood and it flared up—she reasoned with herself. This was not right, but Valetta had a good point: if she let it spoil her whole vacation that was on her. Surely Tiffany wouldn’t stay long.
She took a deep breath and let it out slowly, then looked up with a smile on her face. “Everyone likes s’mores, right?” Some nodded, but there was a distinct lack of enthusiasm from everyone but Rachel and Melody. “I’ve got a cast iron pan variation I think you’ll all love!” She retrieved the food and cast iron frying pan from the trailer and sat down by the fire, resting the pan on the bricks surrounding the pit. She had prepared the crumble mixture of graham cracker crumbs and butter ahead of time; she pressed it into the bottom of the pre-greased pan, then layered chocolate chips and half marshmallows on top. She covered the pan with nonstick foil, then found a hot spot in the fire and set the pan on it.
Once done, she looked up. “You must be relieved, Gabriela, to know that Logan and Fenix are all right?”
“I am. So relieved,” Gabriela said. Her sister-in-law joined them and dragged a chair close, popping open a bottle of beer and sitting back with a sigh. “Tiff, I’ve been worried sick. All these girls can attest to that. I’ve been worrying nonstop. Where is Logan? And Fenix? Why didn’t he answer my texts? I was frantic!”
“Logan thought he’d surprise you,” Tiffany said, watching her sister-in-law closely. “There was . . . a little problem with the house, and he figured it was a good opportunity to have a break with Fenix, so he brought her to stay at the Queensville Inn.”
Gabriela, her mouth open in surprise, stared at her sister-in-law.
“That way you can visit with them.” She took a long drink of her beer. “He figured you’d be missing Fenix.”
“I . . . I am, of course! And him. Of course. You mean Logan and Fenix are here, in Queensville?”
Tiffany nodded and smiled, a slow, sly smile.
“She’s been talking about nothing but her little girl,” Jaymie said, feeling like Hoppy did when there was a skunk in the brush, her hackles rising, the hairs on the back of her neck feeling prickly. Something about Tiffany’s expression was wrong; it was a smile but there was no happy in it. “And she was deeply worried about Logan.”
“Was she?” Tiffany asked. “Was she really?”
Jaymie stared at Tiffany. Somehow, she didn’t think she was going to like the woman much.
They all ate some of the s’mores crumble, which turned out okay, but it was late and no one was hungry after such a late dinner. She wrapped the remainder in foil, then set the cast iron pan on a table to soak with hot water, too tired to deal with it that night. Cast iron was wonderful, but it did need proper care, and she hoped she wouldn’t regret setting it aside.
They all turned in about midnight with murmured “good nights” echoing softly in the dark.
It was very late . . . or very early. Maybe it was the upsetting day, maybe the unexpected visitor, maybe sleeping in the new trailer, or maybe Hoppy begging to go out. Or maybe it was Valetta’s snoring. Jaymie couldn’t sleep. Fortunately, she had prepared a whole thermos of tea for just such an eventuality. She took the thermos and a couple of Boontonware melamine teacups outside and sat in a lawn chair near the firepit, letting Hoppy roam and piddle and chase critters. “No skunks!” she whispered to the little dog, and he softly yipped.
She sat by the dead fire, smelling the aftereffects of the drowned charcoal, the bitter acrid scent that was soothing to her. It took her back to camping as a kid, and her dad, who was meticulous about attending the fire and dousing it properly at the end of the evening, the plumes of smoke and steam from the water and the hissing sound of the scalding embers familiar. The moon had climbed across the sky and was now descending, peeking between pine trees. She couldn’t see it, but she knew from long experience that the river would be silvery and quiet, gleaming with a moon trail, sliding and slipping between the banks of Heartbreak Island and the Queensville shore.
It had been a long, dreadful day, but it had been rescued by her Queensville friends, Heidi, Bernie and especially Valetta. Rachel had been a bright spot too, their friendship reviving with a bright spark over a shared love of cooking, and even Melody had been a soothing influence in her own inimitable way. She knew Melody was suffering through a bad patch in life, married to a husband she no longer loved but not sure what to do about it. Andrew was difficult, demanding, suspicious and slightly creepy (to Jaymie), and it was making Melody’s work nearly impossible. How could she summon delicious dukes and attractive earls when all she wanted was to ditch the man she had married?
Was she right, though? Had she seen Andrew in Grand Bend? It didn’t seem likely, but . . . Jaymie didn’t know Andrew well. Maybe he was following Melody. After Brandi’s encounter with Terry in Grand Bend and Gabriela’s husband Logan showing up with baby and sister-in-law in tow, anything was possible. She remembered Melody’s alarm when she realized that Brandi had accepted Andrew’s friend request online, and how copiously Brandi posted to social media. It had made them easy to follow.
The back door of the cottage opened. Melody wandered out, yawning and sighing. She softly closed the door behind her, then quietly padded down the steps, her flip-flops slapping out her timing, and joined Jaymie to sit by the firepit. She gladly took some of Jaymie’s thermos tea and stared, brooding, into the dead fire.
They sat in silence for a few minutes, but Melody finally murmured, “What do you make of that whole scene? Tiffany showing up, and all?”
“I don’t know. It felt . . . weird, like there were things going unsaid between them. Did you get that?”
“Big-time. I think we need to take Gabriela aside and find out what’s going on.” Melody shook her head and knit her brows, looking slightly like an angry poodle, her curly mop in her eyes. She swept her hair back. “It feels like whatever it is involves them all: Gabriela, Tiffany, Brandi, and Courtney. They all live in the same town and Brandi and Gabriela have been sniping at each other since they got here.”
“I thought it was just that Brandi brought Courtney with her, but maybe you’re right.”
Hoppy yipped softly. He had finally learned that all-out barking was not tolerated at night. But there was a rustling in the bushes, and some distance away someone was yelling.
“What is that?” Mel asked, frowning nearsightedly into the bushes. She always forgot to wear her glasses—they were prescription, but not an absolute necessity since she didn’t drive—so her vision at a distance was poor.
“Probably a drunk leaving the Ice House.”
“Isn’t it a little late for that?”
Jaymie checked her light-up watch, a gift from Jakob for her birthday. “I guess you’re right. I didn’t realize it, but it’s almost three thirty.” She paused, but then said, “Mel, where do you think Brandi was last night when she went out? She must have been out pretty late. Where would she go? I know we said maybe a walk, but we both know that girl does not walk unless she has to.” She didn’t tell her friend what Courtney had said about Brandi going to a bar on the mainland; it was clearly a lie and pointless to share.
“You know how she’s on her phone all day every day?”
“Yeah. So is Gabriela.”
“I’d bet Brandi met a guy online and took off to hook up with someone local.”
“Yo
u think so? I know those dating sites and apps are popular, but it seems . . . I mean, those are strangers from the internet! They could be anybody, hiding behind a fake photo and ID.” She shivered. “It gives me the creeps. Not to judge . . . I mean, I got lucky. Not everyone does.” She cast a quick glance at Melody, hoping she hadn’t given offense, but Melody was frowning still, lost in thought.
The sound of a door closing startled them both.
“That sounded close!” Jaymie said. In fact, it had sounded like her cottage door, but the front door, not the back. Was Brandi sneaking out again? She stood up, grabbed her flashlight from the table and swiftly, silently, raced up the hill and to the front of the cottage. She shone the powerful narrow beam of light down the road and thought she saw a flash of red, but there was nothing else. She came back. “I guess I was mistaken. We’d better both try to go back to sleep,” she said. “Or we won’t be fit for anything tomorrow. Though I thought maybe we’d spend the day here, today, reading and talking, after our long Grand Bend day today . . . yesterday, I mean.”
“I’m up for that,” Mel said, draining the last of her tea and setting the cup aside as she stood and stretched. “I have a book on Victorian death rituals I’m dying to read.”
Jaymie almost broke out laughing, but then realized Mel wasn’t joking . . . or she was and had meant the punning joke. Her deadpan delivery made it hard to tell. “See you in the morning,” Jaymie whispered. “Come on, Hoppy. Back to bed.”
But it was a while before she could sleep. The trailer was not as soundproof as the cottage, even less so with the windows open. She did finally fall into an uneasy sleep, but there were more shouts, and once, someone walked or ran close to the trailer. Footsteps woke her up, and Hoppy stood to attention, his whole body quivering, his ears alert. Valetta murmured What was that? once, but Jaymie said she didn’t know, and wasn’t about to go exploring, since she didn’t want to meet a skunk.
Finally she slept again, but she was awoken before dawn by the sound of the island emergency alert and sirens. She shot out of bed and flung herself from the trailer, followed by Hoppy and a sleepy Valetta, muttering and rubbing her eyes.
“That’s the island fire warning siren!” Jaymie yelped. She slipped flip-flops on, grabbed a wrap for her top half and a scrunchie for her hair, and headed out to the road, and down it, toward the far end of the island near the Ice House, where she could see a plume of smoke rise over the trees.
“Let it not be the Ice House,” she muttered. “Please, let it not be the Ice House!” Her friends the Redmonds were still not home, though they would be the next day or so, but the loss of the Ice House would mean devastation to the local economy. And don’t let anyone be hurt, she added to herself.
The Ice House restaurant was silent and closed up tight in the pearly predawn light, but a few houses away there was noise and fire and people gathering. She scuffed toward it, wiping sleep grit out of her eyes. A heavy boat motor echoed, and the shouts of men coming closer, on the shoreline on the other side of an A-line cottage that was aflame, cut through the crackling fire. The slanted roof caved in, and a plume of sparks and flames shot into the sky along with black smoke that was in sharp relief as search beams flicked on from the river side.
Did someone live in the tiny cottage? Did they get out? Jaymie sobbed in fear as others clustered in groups, chattering and backing away as more of the cottage disintegrated, with a crash of boards and tinkle of breaking glass.
Valetta joined Jaymie and hugged her close. “Oh, my heavens, this is the cottage that Brock sold a couple of months ago!”
“To who?”
“You know, that handyman Mario. He’s living in it with his girlfriend.”
“Oh no! So there are people living there. How can we help?” Jaymie cried, breaking away from her friend and jumping from foot to foot. “What about Hallie and Mario? And their friend, Kory! Brock said he lives there too!”
“Hon, the firefighters are there, on the other side,” Val said, grabbing Jaymie’s arm.
“I know. I can hear the boat motor!”
“Look, there’s Constable Ng!” Val said, pointing at the young man.
There was always one local police department constable who lived on the island, and it was now Constable Ng. Still dressed in gray boxer shorts and a dark maroon T-shirt—his PJs, no doubt—he grabbed a blanket from someone who had the foresight to wet it down until it was dripping. He pulled it over his head and dashed down the lawn on the side of the building away from the worst of the fire.
“Oh no! I hope he doesn’t get hurt!”
A frantic woman in a long sleeveless T-shirt-style nightgown ran, barefooted, to a huddled group of cottagers. She screamed questions at them, then, shrieking and wild with fear, had to be physically restrained from dashing after Ng.
“Who is that?” Jaymie said.
“I don’t know.”
She was crying, her hysterical screams heard over the crackle of the fire and the voices around them. The boat on the other side of the home was the local fire department, as they had conjectured, swiftly on the scene. Heartbreak Island had a fire plan. When the emergency siren sounded it triggered a rapid response; the ferry operator, who lived right near the dock, would be up in a flash and have the ferry ready to go. The volunteer fire department had portable pumps stored in a building on the island. Those would be retrieved by the trained volunteers, some brought over to the island on the ferry, who would set up the pumps to draw water from the river to pour on the fire.
Because the pumps were stored close by, in an outbuilding by the restaurant—storage space donated by the Redmonds—the island fire crew had them working in seconds and swiftly poured water on the fire, the heavy throb of industrial generators fueling the pumps. Shouts of the firefighters, and the hissing squirt and gush of water, announced they had started. There was a crackle and a plume of gray smoke and ash.
“Look!” Jaymie cried, as did others. Ng led a coughing, weeping Hallie, filthy and smoke-smudged, followed by a choking, breathless Kory, who staggered behind. The woman in the nightgown broke away from the group and raced to Hallie’s side. Maybe it was the pregnant young woman’s mother.
Others surged forward and helped Hallie to a bench nearby, making her sit, getting her water, wiping her face with a cloth. Clusters of islanders circled her and her mom, helping in any way they could as the cottage crumbled, the fire sizzling and hissing to an end. Searchlights flashed and moved as the firefighters looked for remaining fire or embers to extinguish.
Where was Mario? Jaymie covered her mouth against the cry of fear that erupted from her unbidden, and clung to Valetta, who was shivering, too, in the misty predawn. Was Mario still inside? How awful if he was!
Hallie screamed his name. Ng looked ready to dash back in but the fire chief, who had arrived, held him back. Hallie wept on her mother’s shoulder, holding her bulging belly, as Kory stood, helpless, swaying unsteadily, staring at the wreckage of the little A-line cottage. You could see through it now, to the pearly light of dawn.
Melody, rubbing her eyes, joined Jaymie and Val, and soon Rachel and Brandi did, too. There was a shout, and a commotion. “Found someone!” a man yelled. There was a stir among the gathered neighbors. Hallie cried out, loudly, shouting “Mario!” and doubling over as Kory staggered back and forth, clutching his wild hair and pulling at it, tears streaming down his cheeks, making mucky trails in the soot on his face.
Brandi, tears in her eyes, said, “Oh that poor, poor girl!”
The fire chief, an older man, looking weary, bustled out from around the other side of the now smoldering cottage and took Constable Ng aside. Ng stumbled back but swiftly got himself under control. He took someone’s proffered cell phone and made a call, moving away and gesticulating as he spoke.
Moments later the wail of police sirens on the shore caught their attention. Minutes after that the ferry chugged away, then ten minutes later chugged back, as the whole American side of the island
gathered in little groups. Police officers arrived, along with a grim-faced chief of police, Deborah Connolly, and her homicide detective, Angela Vestry.
Mario’s body must have been found in the fire. There was no rescue, no heroic carrying of his living, breathing body out to his grieving pregnant girlfriend. Jaymie’s heart clutched; Mario was Hallie’s baby daddy and presumably she loved him. They had a home together and were expecting a baby, and no matter what their relationship status, no matter how bad his behavior had been, this outcome was tragic. Ng moved among the onlookers, asking questions, taking notes. The bartender from the Ice House was among those he spoke with, as were some regular barflies and a few tourists Jaymie didn’t recognize.
A murmur swept through the crowd. Jaymie saw Sammy Dobrinskie and motioned for him to join them. He knew Valetta of course, and ducked his head in greeting, his tousled blond hair wildly mussed.
“What’s happening?” Jaymie asked him. “It looks like Constable Ng is asking a bunch of questions.”
Sammy shifted uneasily from foot to foot. “Yeah, he talked to me. I was working at the Ice House last night. I’ve been picking up shifts as barback and dishwasher for the summer, to help Mom out,” he said of his widowed mother. “They were all there last night—Kory, Hallie, Mario—and there was this huge fight.”
“What time was this?”
“Near the end of the night . . . about two-ish?”
“What was the fight about?”
He shifted uneasily and glanced over at Jaymie. Locally she had a reputation for solving murders, and she had, in fact, solved his dad’s murder a couple of years before. He trusted and liked her, but he was not a gossip. However . . . he glanced both ways and leaned close. “Mario and Hallie got into it, and Kory stepped in the middle. Mario told Kory to butt out, and Kory said he wouldn’t stand by and see Hallie abused.”
“Abused?” Valetta interjected.
Cast Iron Alibi Page 9