Cast Iron Alibi

by Victoria Hamilton

  “I know you’re her mom,” Val said. “But I knew you before this morning.”

  “You’re the pharmacist,” the woman said, standing. “I’ve been getting Hallie’s prenatal vitamins and such from you.” She turned to Jaymie. “And I’ve seen you around town many times. You serve at the Tea with the Queen event and work at the historic house.”

  “Yes, I do! Wait . . . we’ve met before, too, haven’t we? You brought a group of kids once, through the historic home.”

  “I did! Ellen Granger,” she said, introducing herself with a trembling smile. That expression cost her and she choked back a sob. “I brought my Girl Scout troop through.” She cleared her throat, shook her head and returned her gaze to her daughter. “Hallie always was the lost one of my daughters.”

  “Mrs. Granger, do you think Kory did it?” Jaymie blurted out.

  “I wouldn’t have thought it before this morning, but . . . he was trouble. Mario tried to help him, tried to guide him, but he was always getting into these fixes and Mario was always trying to get him out.” She saw the look Jaymie and Val exchanged. “Oh, don’t get me wrong, I was no fan of Mario’s. He’s older than me, for pete’s sake. And with my daughter . . .” She shook her head. “But at least he was always polite and kind and he tried so hard. And he was looking forward to being a dad again.”

  Val blurted out, “Again?”

  “Sure. He has a son, thirty-something. Didn’t you know?”

  “No. I don’t think anyone local did.”

  “It was from his time away from here. He left after high school, moved to Ohio, and then came back here a few years ago.”

  Hallie returned to her mother, who put her arm around her shoulders and hugged her close. “He wouldn’t let me look for my purse,” she said, shooting a resentful glance at the police officer. “Everything important is in there, my driver’s license, my insurance card, everything!”

  “How are you, Hallie? I’m the pharmacist, remember me?” Val said. “Are you doing okay? How’s the little one?”

  The girl smiled, weakly, through tears. “She’s okay . . . little Ariele.” She rubbed her stomach.

  “Please don’t worry about your insurance card. If I can help with the hospital, I think I have a copy on record at the pharmacy until you get a replacement. Let me know if you need anything.”

  “Okay. Thanks. I don’t know how I’m going to deal, with Mario gone, and Kory in jail, and . . .” She hid her face in her mom’s shoulder.

  “I didn’t know Kory well,” Val said, “but I have met him. He didn’t seem a violent sort; I know that doesn’t always mean anything. And yet I heard there was quite the blowup at the Ice House last night.”

  “It wasn’t that bad,” Hallie said, sniffing back tears, a defensive edge to her tone. “People are making it sound way worse than it was.”

  “We heard Officer Ng was called in,” Jaymie said. “And that you all were asked to leave.”

  “Kory was . . .” She sighed, a much-put-upon teen. “Mario was being a jerk, and Kory was trying to make me feel better. He put his arms around me and gave me a kiss, and Mario got mad. That’s all. They got into a big fight, and Kory said . . . he said he’d kill Mario if he hurt me.” She shrugged with a helpless expression and sniffed back tears. “He didn’t mean . . . Mario never hurt me, you know . . . he never hit me. He hurt my feelings all the time. He could be a real jerk, you know? And Kory wouldn’t hurt a flea. It’s been blown way out of proportion. Way.”

  “But it continued when you went home? The neighbors heard quarreling.”

  Hallie went rigid and stony. Her mouth clenched and she looked off into the distance. That was all the answer they needed. There was clearly much she wasn’t saying.

  But Jaymie had concerns of her own involving her friends, and she felt the need to seek information, so she pressed on. “I heard that Mario’s cell phone went missing. Maybe it burned up in the fire?”

  Val sent her a surprised look. It was an awkward question, bordering on insensitive.

  But Hallie, appearing unconcerned, said, “He must have left it somewhere. I tried to help him find it. I phoned it from my phone, but nada. It wasn’t in the house anywhere or we would have heard it ring. I don’t know where it is, but either he lost it or it was stolen.”

  “When was that?”

  Her mother eyed Jaymie narrowly, but Hallie blinked. “I . . . gawd, I don’t know. Wait!” She stopped, slack-mouthed, then said, “That was one of the things that started the fight back up when we got home. He had been looking for his phone all day and couldn’t find it, and blamed me. He said I was snooping again—”

  “Again?” Jaymie interjected. “Did you often look at his phone?”

  Stony-faced, she said, “Yeah, I did. He was cheating on me, the louse.” Her mother gasped, and Hallie looked up at her mom. “I know, I never told you. But he had girlfriends all the time. He couldn’t keep it in his pants.”

  Jaymie was silent; the infidelity, which she clearly knew about, gave Hallie a reason to kill him, for sure, along with the insurance and the possibility that Mario was going to dump her any day and leave her with a baby and no money.

  “But I said, frick no, I wasn’t looking at his phone, duh, and that he was so clueless that he prob’ly left it at the Ice House Wednesday night. He should have checked with them while we were there. He said, why didn’t I say something earlier, because since he was kicked out he wouldn’t be able to go back until morning. And I said it wasn’t my job to remind him to look for his frickin’ phone. He didn’t remember when he had it last, but he’d been moaning about it all day so . . .” She shrugged. “Yeah.”

  “Was he careless about it?”

  “No, not actually. I mean, he was secretive. That’s why I got suspicious and scoffed the phone once and looked at it when he was in the shower. He was cheating with all kinds of women.” She glanced at her mother. “That’s why Kory was mad at him, because he was cheating.”

  “Do you remember the girls’ names?” Val said. “The ones on his phone?”

  She shrugged. “They weren’t real names, you know? It was, like, HotRedhead22, and he was, like, BigStud30. Or she was SexxxyMom,” she said, spelling it out, “and he was HawtMarineBoy.”

  “So what happened next?” Jaymie asked. Now that Hallie had opened up, she wanted to find out as much as she could, hoping to get enough information she could be sure her friend, or her friend’s husband, was not involved. “I mean, you guys were fighting, and the police came to the house, right?”

  Hallie shot the police officer a dirty look. “Cops are always coming out for something. We’ve got cranky neighbors.”

  “Hallie!” her mom said. “Those people were kind to you this morning. And Officer Ng saved your life!”

  “I know, I know!” Hallie said, sniffing. “It’s been terrible. Mario threw Kory out, but Kory didn’t have anywhere to go.”

  “What did he do?” Jaymie asked.

  She stared at the burnt-out cottage. “It wasn’t much—the house—but it was nice having a place on the river,” she said wistfully. “When Mario was in a good mood, when we first moved in, he made this spot on the deck over the river, with a hammock for me to nap in when I was tired. Kory went there last night, to the hammock on the porch.” She turned away from the scene. “He curled up there.” Hallie looked teary. “I took him out a beer and he said he was sorry, that he never meant to cause trouble. I told him it was no big, Mario and I were . . . were going to fight anyway. We were always fighting.”

  Kory was close enough to kill Mario and start the fire, then. “When did you first notice the fire?”

  Hallie looked pensive. “I don’t know what time it was. I heard some noises. I got up to go pee, and I heard Mario talking. He was being real loud.”

  “He was talking to somebody?” Val asked. “Like maybe Kory?”

  Hallie’s mother was paying attention too, totally focused on her daughter.

  “I think he
was arguing with someone. He shouted, ‘What are you doing here?’ . . . something like that. And he was mad, I could tell. He said, ‘Get out or I’ll call the cops,’ and then I heard a struggle.”

  “Was it with Kory, do you think?” Val repeated.

  “No! It can’t be. I mean . . .” She shook her head. “It wasn’t Kory he was talking to,” she said, but didn’t offer any proof or reason.

  And yet it would be exactly what Mario would say if he discovered Kory sleeping on the hammock after being thrown out. Jaymie wondered what Kory’s version of events was. How would she be able to find out? “And then?”

  Her gaze slid away. She shook her head. “I don’t remember what happened next.”

  She was lying, Jaymie thought. There was something she didn’t want to say.

  “You don’t remember?” her mom said. “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t remember, Mom!” she said, aggrieved. She pushed her two fingers to her temples and moaned. “I feel crappy. That smoke . . . I’m nauseous.”

  Pressing her on the point was going to aggravate her more. “And then the house was on fire?” Jaymie said.

  She nodded, tears in her eyes. “I lost everything, everything! I lost all the stuff I’d saved for the baby, and . . . I even lost the sonogram!” She wept.

  “Honey, we can get a copy of that,” her mom said.

  Val and Jaymie exchanged looks. As badly as they felt for Hallie, this might be the one chance to get her version of events. Jaymie asked, “Did you ever meet Mario’s son?”

  “Sure,” she took a deep gulping breath and calmed. “In fact, I seen him the other day.”

  “He’s here? On the island?” Jaymie blurted.

  “Yeah. Or he was, anyway. He came to visit, I guess, random-like.” Her face blanched. “He’s going to be upset when he finds out! Crap.” She sighed.

  “I thought maybe he and Mario didn’t have a relationship.”

  “They don’t . . . didn’t. But he was hoping to get to know his dad, he said. That’s why he wanted to know what he was working on, and where we lived, and what we did.”

  Jaymie and Val exchanged looks. Nothing needed to be said; a stranger out to kill Mario would be doing that research too.

  “Why didn’t he walk up to him and talk to him? Or did he?”

  “Not that I know of,” Hallie said.

  Jaymie frowned. The girl didn’t know then if his son had found his dad. Maybe the son was unwelcome. Maybe that’s who Mario was shouting at and saying What are you doing here and Get out or I’ll call the cops.

  “What does he look like?” Val asked.

  “Nothing like Mario, I can tell you that. He came into the tart shop, scoping me out, prob’ly, an’ asking those questions. He’s tall with wispy hair . . . almost bald.” She snickered, but her laughter died. “Not much like Mario. Mario was real proud of his hair.”

  “What is his name . . . Mario’s son?” Jaymie asked.

  “Terry.”

  Twelve

  “T-terry? Are you . . . are you sure?”

  Hallie stared at Jaymie. “Yeah, he told me. Why?”

  “No reason,” Jaymie said, her voice faint.

  “Can we go home? I want to lie down,” Hallie said to her mother.

  Hallie’s mom led her away, her arm over her daughter’s shoulder. Jaymie watched them disappear around a bend in the road, happy that at least the girl had family, then turned to Val with consternation. “What are the chances that Mario’s son, Terry, is Brandi’s husband, Terry. The description is right.”

  Val shivered. “How awful if Brandi’s husband found out that his wife was inadvertently sleeping with his father. It’s pseudo-Oedipal in some weird way I can’t wrap my mind around. And that kind of weirdness could easily lead to murder.”

  “But Terry is a common name, right? How many Terrys do you know?”

  “I know three or four, at least, probably more,” Val said. “It’s like the name Chris, so common. But if the two Terrys are one and the same it would give Brandi’s husband a powerful double motive for killing Mario.”

  “Hallie knew about Mario sleeping around. That gives her a motive too, beyond what we already knew. Kory’s definitely got a motive, and he was right there. People keep saying he’s nonviolent but . . . what do we know about him?” She glanced down the road and saw Sammy walking toward them, hand in hand with a girl about his age. “Sammy!” she called out.

  He came closer, but his gaze was on the burned-out cottage. “Wow. I saw it this morning when it was on fire.” He stared at the blackened timber, long charred boards pointing skyward. “Somehow this is worse.”

  The girl was glancing at Val and Jaymie and trying to get Sammy’s attention.

  “Sammy, maybe you could introduce us?” Jaymie said.

  His cheeks pinked. “Yeah, sure. This is Ashlee; Ashlee, this is Jaymie and Miss Nibley, the Queensville pharmacist.”

  “Val,” Valetta said, putting her hand out to the girl. “I’m just Val when I’m not at the pharmacy counter.”

  Ashlee shyly shook hands with them both. They made brief small talk, discovering that the girl was in college too, and had been home all summer, babysitting and sometimes working with Sammy on landscaping jobs, which he took on in addition to his barback job at the Ice House.

  “Were you working at the Ice House last night, Sammy?”

  He nodded. “It was hopping. We had a different band there last night, 2B-Tru, and they brought in a whole lot of their friends from Wolverhampton. But most of them cleared out before eleven to catch the last ferry. After that it was locals.”

  “What time was the trouble between Mario and Kory?”

  Sammy watched Jaymie’s eyes and nodded once, acknowledging that he knew why she was asking; her help in solving his father’s murder was something he was never likely to forget. “That was about one or so. I know he was arrested, but I don’t think Kory would have killed Mario. For one, he was dead drunk. And for another, if the cops think Kory killed Mario, then they must think that he set the fire to cover it up, right? But he would never have risked Hallie’s life like that. He loves that girl. He’d never do a thing to put her in danger.”

  Jaymie was struck by Sammy’s firsthand observation. It was a point that had not occurred to her, but it was logical.

  “Kory is the one who took her for all her doctor’s appointments.” Ashlee, who had been watching Sammy, now turned her gaze to Jaymie. “I’m friends with Hallie’s half sister, and she says that Kory acted more like the expectant dad than old Mario ever did.”

  Val was nodding at what both the young people said. “We were talking to Hallie, and I think you’re probably right. Do you think Kory was in love with Hallie, or was it the love of a friend?”

  He turned pink and ducked his head. He was used to Valetta as a figure of authority, and to be questioned by her on such a subject appeared to make him shy. But he looked back up and met her gaze. “Oh, he’s in love with her, all right,” he said, taking Ashlee’s hand. “And I may be wrong, but I think she loves him too.”

  As they walked away, Jaymie asked Val, “But is Kory the father, or was Mario? And would the jealousy and anger possibly lead to murder?”

  “I don’t know. But the police should know about all of this.”

  “I’ll make sure they do.” Jaymie paused and let Hoppy sniff a tree trunk. “I can’t stop thinking about what Hallie said. She said she heard voices, and Mario said ‘get out’ or something. But was Mario saying it to Kory or someone else?”

  “And what is Hallie being evasive about?”

  • • •

  Dinner was barbecued burgers, raw veggies and pasta salad. They sat around the campfire after. As the golden sun set on another island day, Brandi was quiet and withdrawn, Melody read her book, but Rachel made up for the others, chattering nonstop about her new plans.

  “I’m going to text my boss tomorrow and give my two weeks notice. I have more vacation time coming, so t
hat can be in lieu of notice, actually.”

  “Are you sure about this, Rach?” Jaymie said, picking Hoppy up and cuddling him close. “You’re throwing away your career!”

  Rachel’s cheeks got pink and her expression serious. Melody looked up. Brandi’s eyes widened.

  “Jaymie Leighton, who is the most responsible person you know from the old gang?” Rachel said. “Who always paid her bills on time? Who had a credit card, and worked to pay her tuition, and never stayed out late and partied?”

  Jaymie bit her lip and could not hide a smile. “You, Rach. It was always you. I’m sorry for questioning your judgment. I should know better.”

  “I spent my twenties being responsible and doing what others said I should do. I think now, in my mid-thirties, it’s time I did what I truly want for a change.”

  “You know, you’re right. No more questions, and I’ll be thrilled to death to have you close by.” She jumped up—upsetting Hoppy, who toddled off to curl up by Valetta’s feet—gave her friend a hug, then sat back down. “Now, I’m going to make proper s’mores; I’ve got the graham crackers, the marshmallows and the Hershey bar. Anyone can join me if they want.” She made several of the treat and passed them around to anyone who wanted one, then got a couple of damp cloths so her friends could wipe the sticky mess off their hands and faces.

  It had gotten quiet again. The next night they were going on a dinner cruise, but for tonight, it was just chill by the fire. Jaymie couldn’t stop thinking about the notion that Brandi’s husband was Mario’s son.

  “Hey, Brandi, you okay?” she asked. Her friend was gloomily texting and checking her phone, instead of engaging in conversation. Courtney was silent too, but she appeared worried for her bestie.

  “Yeah.”

  Jaymie and Val exchanged looks, which Melody caught. She squinted at them, and became even more attentive than usual.