Cast Iron Alibi

by Victoria Hamilton

  “Not good, I’ve heard.”

  “Not good. He was dismissive of her, casually cruel. He often said nasty things about women: their intelligence, that they talk too much, that they aren’t sensible, that they complicate things unnecessarily. She’s too young to be putting up with that nonsense,” Ruby said firmly, her tone angry. “Not that there’s a good age to put up with nonsense, but you know what I mean. She’s got her whole life ahead of her.” She lifted Hoppy up to sit on her lap and she leaned back in the chair, scruffing the little dog’s ears. “I told Garnet, if she leaves him it might be the best thing to happen to her and that poor child she’s carrying.”

  “They’ve arrested Kory; did you know that?”

  “What?” Ruby bolted upright, disturbing Hoppy, who whined and rearranged himself. “No, I didn’t! Garnet is down at the restaurant right now checking in. Maybe he’ll know something. I can’t believe that Kory would kill Mario. He idolized the man!”

  “I know. It’s weird. But I heard that Kory threatened Mario last night at the Ice House. He was angry that Mario was treating Hallie badly.”

  Ruby narrowed her eyes. “You know, from my observation when they’ve all been together at the restaurant, Kory did seem protective toward Hallie. He was the one who made her sit down, got her some water, watched over her.”

  Garnet, tall and lanky, weathered and brown like his wife, strode around the corner of the cottage. “Hey, Jaymie, good to see you, kid!”

  Jaymie jumped up and hugged him. Garnet patted Hoppy’s head, but insisted Jaymie sit back down while he sat on the end of a lounge chair facing them. He said to Ruby, reaching out and taking her hand, “It’s bad, hon. Mario was hit repeatedly with a blunt instrument.”

  Jaymie felt her stomach clench. “They think it may have been my pie iron.”

  “Your pie iron?” Garnet said, his thick salt-and-pepper brows knit together with two pinch marks between them. “How would anyone get your pie iron?”

  “Stolen, the police think. I had three of them hanging on a pine tree to dry. Val and I were staying in the trailer last night, and I heard noises, and footsteps through my property in the middle of the night.”

  “Footsteps?”

  “Yes . . . heavy footsteps, like someone running.”

  Garnet and Ruby exchanged looks. He met Jaymie’s questioning gaze. “You may not know this, but Kory has a history of stealing from the cottagers. Even when he was a kid he would rifle through coolers, steal beer. And then he graduated to petty theft: tools, bikes, anything not nailed down.”

  “No, I didn’t know that. We have had stuff stolen from time to time.”

  “I’d bet that was Kory . . . or one of his buddies, some of whom are now serving time. He was behind a rash of break-ins last fall, after folks closed up their cottages. He got out of jail a few months ago. Spent a bit inside for theft.”

  “I knew some of that, that he had been in jail.” Jaymie processed that. “We’ve often blamed renters for missing stuff, maybe unfairly. I suppose it could have been him.”

  “Or, like I said, one of the guys he knows. He’s not the only one, he just gets caught more than the others. He’s the kind of guy who will steal something and sell it for beer money. He hasn’t got a mean bone in his body, though.” Garnet shook his head. “Or I didn’t think he had.”

  “What are the police going on?” Ruby asked. “Why did they arrest Kory?”

  Garnet was once a police officer, and then worked private security. He knew the police force locally, and had kept in touch with some police officers after his and Ruby’s troubles of a couple of years past. They were friendly with the new police chief, Deborah Connolly, and her partner, and had them both out sailing before. If Chief Connolly was on the scene she likely spoke to him. “There was a big blowup last night between Kory and Mario in the restaurant. Kory threatened Mario, and Mario threatened Kory. Ng was called in; he was going to take them both in because there were fisticuffs, but Hallie begged him to let it go, and he did. They left. Now, this next part is not common knowledge, and I expect you both to keep it quiet.”

  Both women nodded.

  “Hallie told the police that when they got back to the cottage Mario threw Kory out of the house. But he apparently came back, and neighbors heard the yelling, then everything quieted down again for some time. But Kory’s got bruises and cuts on his face and knuckles, and they recovered a weapon on the scene.” He sent an apologetic look to Jaymie. “I suppose it’s your pie iron. The working theory is that he went away again, stole the pie iron and came back, confronted Mario, and killed him.”

  “Oh, no,” Ruby said, hugging Hoppy close. She buried her face in his neck fur and jingled his tags. “That’s so sad.”

  Jaymie sighed. It was a good theory. Probably true. There was plenty of bad blood, it sounded, between Mario and Kory. “I should get back to my guests,” Jaymie said, standing and tugging down her shorts hem.

  “Ah, yes, your group of friends!” Ruby said, looking up at Jaymie. “It must be nice to see them all again. How is it going?”

  Jaymie summoned a smile and said, “It’s okay. It’s only been a few days and it always takes some time to get used to each other again, you know?” She turned to Garnet. “Say, I have a weird question for you . . . do you know, are the police looking at Mario’s cell phone?”

  Garnet frowned. “Why do you ask?”

  “I heard him bragging about meeting women, you know . . . hooking up with them. I was wondering if there could be a jealous husband in the mix or anything? Or . . . I mean, Hallie had to have been hurt by his behavior.”

  “That girl didn’t kill him,” Ruby said, quick to anger. Garnet watched her carefully, his gaze steady and alert.

  “No, no, Ruby, I’m not suggesting that. Maybe there were other guys involved. Maybe Kory didn’t do it. Have they been looking at Mario’s cell phone? Do you know?”

  “Actually, they can’t find it,” Garnet said slowly, watching Jaymie’s eyes. “Hallie told the police he lost it late Wednesday or early Thursday, she’s not sure which. It was another irritant. I guess it’s a pricey phone, the latest version, and of course he does all his business on it and it has all his contacts.”

  All his contacts; if it was missing, and if Brandi had been texting him, the police wouldn’t know about it. They would get his phone records, but that took time. She took a deep breath and shook her head. What was she thinking? Brandi was not involved in his death. Even if she was seeing him, she had no motive for wishing him dead. Though . . . Terry, who had been following her yesterday, most certainly did have a motive, if he knew who she had been with. She felt the pit in her stomach deepen. “I’d better get going,” Jaymie said with an apologetic smile, avoiding Garnet’s watchful eyes. He was far too perspicacious. “Come on, Hoppy, let’s let these folks get settled back in their home. I hope you had a good vacation.”

  “We did,” Ruby said, taking her husband’s hand. “It was good to get away from it all and sail!”

  Garnet squeezed and smiled down at her. “I came back to get a lightbulb. One of the security lights on the Ice House patio burned out last night, and they’ve run through their supply.” He was assiduous about keeping the big surrounding patio of the restaurant brightly lit. It discouraged vandalism and thefts, which had plagued them before the light system had been installed.

  “Okay, both of you desert me, and your little dog too,” Ruby said with a laugh.

  “Thank you for the fudge,” Jaymie said. “I’ll share it with my friends!”

  • • •

  Lunch was whatever anyone wanted; Jaymie made cold cuts, bread and sandwich fixings available, with little chunks of Mackinac Island fudge and Tansy tarts for dessert. Courtney prepared sandwiches for her and Brandi, and they ate in silence inside, in the bedroom, both on their phones. Jaymie, who checked in on them, glanced around the room, noting how Tiffany had taken over a substantial area on the dresser, her hair appliances and various liquids
overwhelming the space. She wondered if Gabriela was enjoying her visit with her husband and little girl. Then she wondered if Gabriela would even return. Maybe the lure of family would be too great and she’d stay with her husband at the comfortable Queensville Inn.

  She turned and watched her friend for a moment. “Brandi, did Tiffany ever say what the issue was with the house that made Logan and Fenix come here rather than stay at home?”

  “I don’t think so,” Brandi said, looking up from her phone. “Why?”

  “No reason. Just wondering.”

  “Knowing Tiffany it’s a huge exaggeration. That woman is hateful.”

  “I thought she and Gabriela got along. You said Tiffany was her favorite person.”

  “I was being sarcastic, darling Jaymie; you never did get my humor.”

  “Oh.” She retreated, leaving Brandi and her friend in peace.

  Melody insisted on making Jaymie her specialty, a peanut butter and lettuce sandwich. It was actually not bad, Jaymie thought, as they sat in the comfy Adirondack chairs in the shaded grove. The salty goodness of the peanut butter contrasted nicely with the creamy crunch of Boston lettuce. But then, peanut butter went with almost everything. Melody certainly thought so, as she extolled the virtues of PB and bacon, PB and banana, PB and honey, PB and raisins, and went on to name the ones she had tried that didn’t work for her: PB with sriracha, brown sugar, ham, and myriad others. She had even tried the Kinsey Millhone sandwich made famous in the Sue Grafton Alphabet series, PB and pickles, which Melody said was not nearly as bad as it sounded.

  Jaymie laughed. “I’m sorry, but that sounds foul. I mean . . . PB and pickles?” She sipped her iced tea, finished her last bite of sandwich, and glanced over at her friend. “I have to ask, Mel, why do you want to talk to Detective Vestry? Is it because she was fangirling all over you?”

  Mel looked shocked for a moment, eyes wide, bottle of water to her lips. Then she set the drink down. “Maybe if you’d read the Megan Hunter books you’d get it. Jade Torrence is a rule breaker, a kick-butt, take-no-prisoners loner who does not suffer fools gladly.”

  “And . . . ?”

  Melody shrugged and set her plate on the grass beside her chair. Hoppy dashed over and licked the crumbs. “In the Jade Torrence book I’m writing right now—struggling through right now—I’m introducing an archnemesis, a frosty witchy police detective who is so officious and rule following that Jade wants to beat her with a rubber mallet.”

  “No, Mel!” Jaymie gasped. The description was spot-on. “You don’t mean . . . but . . . how can you tell what Detective Vestry is like?”

  “You think I don’t listen to you when we talk? You’ve had run-ins with her before. And you keep trying to get her on your side, keep trying to bond with her. You’re such a people pleaser you can’t bear that she doesn’t like you. But she never will; you’re a nice girl, and though she is a rule-following fembot she sees herself in Jade Torrence, kick-butt break-all-the-rules hotshot detective. You, a wife, mother, food-blog-writing vintage-kitchen-collecting nice girl, are beneath her.”

  Jaymie felt a little hurt. “But I’m more than that.”

  “Of course you are,” Melody said with an impatient twitch of her head. “You’re smarter than she is, and that drives her crazy. The worst thing you could do, if you want to befriend Detective Vestry, is solve murders. Do you wish you hadn’t solved the murders so you and she could be best buddies?”

  “Of course not,” Jaymie said sharply. “That’s dumb.”

  “Then be glad she doesn’t like you. Wear it as a badge of honor. As for my interest in her, I want to see what makes her tick. I want to dismantle her brain and turn it over in my hands and see where the on-off switch is. I want her to think I’m her new best girlfriend.”

  Jaymie sat and stared at Mel. “You’re evil, you know that? But Mel, she obviously reads your Jade books religiously. She’s going to hate it when you turn her into the enemy. And she’ll take it out on me.”

  “Are you kidding? No one ever recognizes themselves in a character . . . or they think they do, but it’s always the hero. Vestry sees herself in Jade, though Jade is probably the polar opposite of everything Vestry stands for.” She winked at Jaymie. “I’ll be able to tell you with more certainty once I’ve given her the Mel Heath treatment.”

  Jaymie still worried that Detective Vestry would recognize an unflattering description of herself. “Just go easy, okay? And make your character as physically unlike the detective as possible. Please!”

  “Worrywart,” Mel said affectionately.

  “What is a worrywart, anyway? I hear that word often, but I’ve never known what it is.”

  “Someone who worries excessively. It comes from a comic strip from the fifties, but the meaning has been inverted.” Melody stretched out on a lounge chair. “I’m going to have a nap.”

  • • •

  Valetta returned from Queensville with supplies and information. They sat together in the shade by the Shasta trailer, drinking iced tea, Hoppy curled up at Valetta’s feet. “Brock came out to the island with me,” she murmured. “He’s showing a house, and he wanted to look at Mario’s cottage. He is sure that Hallie killed Mario and then tried to cover it up by setting the place on fire.”

  “Why?”

  “There’s that life insurance policy that Hallie asked him to buy when she first found out she was pregnant.”

  “I knew about that already. Courtney said that Tansy is the one who suggested it to her.” Jaymie digested that for a minute. “And that would be normal, though, right? To protect the child?”

  “How many teenagers do you know who would follow an adult’s suggestion, though?”

  “I guess. But . . . that can’t have been too long ago that they took out the policy. Isn’t there a time before it kicks in?”

  “Coverage generally begins immediately. However, there would be exceptions, like, if a premium hasn’t been paid, or if the papers haven’t been signed. One might think he was covered and wasn’t.”

  Anyway, if Hallie did kill Mario—Jaymie thought it was unlikely—it wasn’t necessarily for the insurance. She shrugged. “I can’t imagine that girl stealing my pie iron and smashing her boyfriend with it. Mario is a . . . was a big guy.”

  “She could have done it while he was passed out,” Val said. “He was drunk according to Sammy, right?”

  “They were all drunk, Sammy said.”

  “Not Hallie. She’s not been drinking because of the baby, right? And remember, Mario was talking about dropping her. What if she found out? Maybe Hallie figured if he did drop her, he’d cancel the life insurance policy, or make someone else the beneficiary.”

  “Do you think that’s what happened?”

  Val thought about it for a moment, pushing her glasses up on her nose and peering up at the cottage. “Not really. I mean, they’ve arrested Kory. In most cases the person arrested is who is eventually convicted.”

  “But not always.”

  “Not always,” Val agreed.

  Jaymie told Val what the Redmonds had told her about Kory’s past. “He and Mario fought; Mario ended up dead. It’s the most likely solution.”

  “Especially since Brock says that he heard that Hallie and Kory were fooling around. Maybe the baby isn’t Mario’s. Maybe he found out.”

  “Wow. How reliable is that gossip?”

  “I don’t know,” Val admitted. “Let’s call it a conjecture and leave it at that.”

  “In that case, let’s go further: what if Hallie and Kory were in on it together? I could buy Kory whacking him with a pie iron over Hallie doing it, but she could be behind it.”

  “It doesn’t have the feel of anything planned though, does it?”

  “No. Doesn’t mean it wasn’t, though.”

  They heard raised voices from inside. It was Brandi and Courtney arguing. After a minute of shrieking, Brandi stomped out, down the back porch step and toward them, flinging herself in a chair and sobbi
ng, clutching her phone in both hands. Jaymie exchanged a look with Valetta.

  “Bran, what’s wrong?” she said. Courtney stomped out and down the lane toward the road.

  “It’s . . . I can’t say!”

  Jaymie took a deep breath, glanced over at Val, then back to her friend. “Did you . . . did you, by chance, find out some news about the guy who died in the fire?”

  Brandi gasped and stared at Jaymie. “You knew? How? I didn’t know it was him until now, when I saw his picture in a news article online; we never . . . I mean, we didn’t share our real names. It was . . . we . . . how did you know I was with someone?” Tears welled in her eyes. “We read the news stories, and found out . . . I didn’t know . . . I mean . . .” She shook her head, tears still streaming down her cheeks unabated. “It’s awful. Then C-Courtney said with the way he treated women, maybe he was better off dead.”

  So Brandi did not know that her lover and Mario were one and the same. There was no way Brandi could have killed Mario if she didn’t know who he was. “I knew you were with someone that first night. You told Courtney to say you had gone to the mainland to go to a bar to review it, but then you said you came back on the ferry about two. The ferry stops at eleven.”

  Brandi looked a little scared. “Have you . . . have you told anyone?” She flicked a glance at Val, then back to Jaymie.

  “No. But you have to tell the police that you were with Mario Wednesday night, Brandi. You have to! I’ve heard they don’t have his phone yet, but when they do, they’ll figure out you were one of his contacts, right?”

  “It was a fling. It didn’t mean anything. He wasn’t anything he said he was.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She rolled her eyes, back to Brandi mode, which all the friends knew meant she was disappointed in a guy. “He acted like he was this hot marine dude, you know, all jacked up and tattooed . . . everything I like in a guy. He shared a photo of a bicep with a Marines tattoo. And then we meet and he’s this fifty-year-old handyman with a pot belly and gray stubble. Never a Marine in his life. So not hot.”