Cast Iron Alibi

by Victoria Hamilton

  She sat and stared at it. A death in their group? What was that about? She fished out her phone and called the campground. Cynthia, one of the new co-owners, answered. Jaymie explained about the email and how she was wondering what it meant. They had no death in their group and had not canceled the booking. In fact, it was Poplar Bluffs that had canceled due to their plumbing situation that had shut the campground down.

  There was a long silence on the other end of the phone, then Cynthia, sounding affronted, said, “Honey, I don’t know what kind of garbage someone has been slinging, but we have not been shut down, we did not have a plumbing problem, and I have the email right here from Brandi Xylander telling us that due to a death in your group you were forced to cancel your booking.” She took in a deep breath. “I, myself, refunded the deposit. I don’t usually do that—we say right on the website that the deposit is nonrefundable within thirty days of the booking—but since it was a death I made an exception. Now, what’s going on?”

  “Good question,” Jaymie muttered. “I don’t know, Cynthia, but I hope to find out.” Brandi and Courtney came out the back door of the cottage, dressed in clothes more fit for a nightclub than a shopping expedition. “I have to go. I’m sorry for the mix-up. I’ll talk to you soon, and next time, I’ll take care of the booking myself.” She clicked off the phone and stared at her friend, trying to make sense of it all.

  “We’re off,” Brandi said with a wave from the porch. “I’m not coming down there, not in these heels,” she said.

  Jaymie jumped up and raced up the hill to the driveway, to confront Brandi. “Have you checked your email this morning?” she said, feeling her face flush with annoyance. “Bran, if you didn’t want to go camping, you could have said so, you know. You didn’t have to pull a dirty trick like canceling our booking.”

  Brandi, her long narrow face colored with tanning gel, blush that created exaggerated cheekbones, and eye shadow the color of a Hawaiian sunset, looked at her with a puzzled frown. “I have literally no clue what you’re talking about.”

  “Check your emails.” It was the outside of enough for her to be pretending she didn’t know anything about it. Jaymie remembered in that moment Melody conjecturing this exact thing, that Brandi had canceled the campsite booking to spend time with a guy.

  Brandi took out her phone and read through the email, frowning, her face a mask of puzzlement. “I don’t know what this is about either.”

  “Oh, come on, Brandi! How can you not? You’re the one who made the booking and who then canceled the booking! I asked you about it; you could have told me the truth then. You could have told me about canceling the booking.” She glared at Brandi. “I didn’t know one of us was dead! Which one? Who’s dead, Brandi?”

  Melody, a grumpy look on her face, poked her head out of the trailer and glared up the hill at them. “What’s going on out there? Why all the yelling?”

  “I’ll explain later,” Jaymie yelled. “Go back to your writing!”

  “Okay.” She disappeared.

  “So, who’s dead, Bran?” Jaymie pushed. “Who’d you kill off to the campground owners? I mean, I totally get it now, the whole reason behind this charade. You canceled the booking when you figured out there was a guy here you wanted to meet up with, and you cajoled me into letting everyone come here, to the cottage, so you could be with him.”

  “It’s not that at all, it’s not what it looks like, Jaymie.” Brandi exchanged a guilty look with Courtney, who shrugged.

  “She lied to you,” Courtney said to Brandi, touching her friend’s back and rubbing. “I don’t know why, but she did.”

  Jaymie looked between the two of them. “She? She who? Who lied? What are you two talking about?”

  Brandi sighed and rolled her eyes. “Okay, confession time. You know what I’m like . . . I’m busy. I’m looking after three kids and trying to keep a job and getting divorced: it all takes a hella lot of time. So . . .” She sighed again and shrugged her shoulders. “I delegated.”

  “You delegated,” Jaymie repeated.

  “I did. To Gabriela. She’s good at that kind of thing, scheduling and details; I’m not.”

  “Why didn’t you say so? You volunteered to take care of the booking, Bran. Why do that if it was too much?”

  “I wanted to do something. All of you are so organized and have lists, and . . . I wanted to help somehow.”

  “But then you didn’t. Okay, okay,” Jaymie said, tamping down her anger. She took in a deep breath. And frowned down at her phone. “I don’t get it. So Gabriela used your email address to make the booking. Why?”

  Bran shrugged. “So it would look like I did it all,” she admitted. “That was her idea, not mine, by the way. She’s been trying to suck up to me for a while now.”

  “Why? What happened between you?”

  Brandi shook her head and didn’t answer. “She created a new email address with one of those free servers in my name, and kept track of it all. I don’t have a password for that address; my actual email must have made it onto their list when I checked out the booking a few months ago. I wanted to know the exact day.”

  “Of course. But Bran, why would Gabriela then cancel the booking, making up a lie that one of us had died, while making it seem like the booking had been canceled because of plumbing issues at the campground?”

  “I can guess at that,” Rachel said, from the lane. “Hey, guys . . . I’m just back for a few minutes. I got the email too and wanted to find out what was going on. I have to get back to Tansy’s Tarts, but . . . Jaymie, this involves what I was going to tell you earlier. I suppose I’ll tell you all now.” She joined Jaymie. “You know how Gabriela’s phone ringtone is that yell from that old movie?”

  They all nodded; John McClane’s profane “Yippee-Ki-Yay” yelp from Die Hard was familiar to all and they had heard Gabriela’s phone go off more than once.

  “I heard that in the middle of the second night, Gabriela’s phone ringing. I tried to get back to sleep. But then I heard the front door close, and looked out the window. I saw Gabriela creeping down the road in the direction of the Ice House.”

  Jaymie vividly remembered sitting at the fire with Melody and hearing what sounded like her front door. She had rushed out to the front but had been too late to see Gabriela sneaking away. “Where was she going?”

  “My guess? To meet someone. I mean, why else would she sneak out?”

  Brandi, guilty of the same thing, flushed but stayed silent.

  “I don’t get it. Who would she meet?” Jaymie asked. She met each of their eyes, but all looked blank. “I’m going into Queensville today. I’ll find her and ask.” Among other things, she thought, but did not say, remembering her interrupted conversation from the night before on the cruise boat.

  Rachel returned to the tart shop. Brandi and Courtney decided to still take their day trip. Jaymie, relieved at least that Brandi’s Terry was not the Terry who was Mario’s supposed son, hugged them both goodbye before they headed to the ferry—she had warmed up to Courtney, who truly seemed to be a better bestie than Brandi deserved—and planned her own day. She interrupted Melody briefly to tell her to help herself to whatever was in the fridge, and make coffee or tea as she wished.

  Mel had already forgotten that Jaymie was going to tell her what they had all been talking about, and Jaymie decided that later was soon enough. Mel was writing; she hadn’t done that for a while, she said, so this was progress. Also, Detective Vestry had texted the author; they were meeting for lunch at the Ice house. She set a reminder on her phone to loudly ping so she wouldn’t miss it.

  Jaymie headed, with Hoppy, to the ferry and across to Queensville. Though she had planned to go out to their home in the country to check on it, she decided to wait until her friends were all available, because she wanted to show them the log cabin that her husband had built. Today she would be taking care of business: checking in with Val, buying staples for the Queensville house and stocking the fridge for Becca and
Kevin’s arrival in a couple of days, and maybe checking in with Mrs. Stubbs.

  And confronting Gabriela about her lies. Yes, that would be on her to-do list for the day. Who had she been sneaking off to see? And what had happened at her family home that had caused Logan and Tiffany to come so unexpectedly to Queensville?

  • • •

  Val wasn’t home. Standing outside her house, Jaymie called her and found out that though the pharmacy was closed on Sundays she was there, doing inventory with her fill-in pharmacist, though he was out at the moment, running errands. It was a busman’s holiday, Val said with a laugh.

  “If that were the case you’d be working at someone else’s pharmacy,” Jaymie replied. “How about we meet at the oak tree outside the Emporium for a cup of tea? I’ve got something to tell you. I’ll wait for you there.”

  Val agreed and said she had a thermos of tea with her.

  Once Jaymie got to the Emporium, the outside deck of it filled with late-season sales on pool toys and sunscreen, she put Hoppy in the little doggie playpen that was outside of the store. It had been expanded to be big enough to hold several small dogs or one St. Bernard. The replacement pharmacist, Charlie Wojohowitz, had left his little Cairn terrier Maxie in the pen, and Hoppy and he yipped at each other for a moment, then became fast friends, playing a complicated game of got your tail.

  It was nice to be alone, and in her village and waving at passers-by, her friends and neighbors. Had she outgrown the girls-only camping trips she so fondly remembered from college days and up until five years ago or so? Maybe not; maybe she needed to find a way to be with the friends from the old days that she enjoyed, like Rachel and Melody. And maybe add in her new friends like Heidi and Bernie and her oldest friend, Valetta. That was a thought for another year. She had to survive this vacation first.

  As Val came out with a thermos and a couple of mugs, Jaymie retrieved a plastic container with a couple of crumbling Tansy tarts from her bag. They drank their tea and ate their tarts in silence, then wiped up the crumbs, tossing them and chunks of leftover crust to the sparrows that hopped around in the grass looking for bugs.

  Val stared across the picnic table at Jaymie and pushed her glasses up on her nose. “Okay, spill.”

  Jaymie first told Val the news that she had confirmed that Mario’s supposed son Terry was not Brandi’s Terry.

  “That’s good news.”

  “It is. I also met up with Ashlee and Sammy. Ashlee has been babysitting Fenix off and on. Logan was gone until the middle of the night Thursday night; that’s the night he and Tiffany arrived.”

  “What time did they get here, to Queensville?”

  “I don’t know. That’s one thing I need to find out. But why would he come here, and then go out again, and until the middle of the night? It’s suspicious to say the least.”

  “He could have come out to the island with Tiffany.”

  “Maybe. But why?”

  “Get out your notebook, kiddo. I think if you want to untangle this mess, there’s a lot you’ll need to find out.”

  “I know. Some of it feels like it might be connected to the murder of Mario, and a lot of it doesn’t, but it’s getting muddled in my mind. And this morning I found something else out, maybe something that would tell me why Logan might come out to Heartbreak Island in the middle of the night,” Jaymie said, and told Val about what she’d thought were Brandi’s lies and evasion about the campsite booking. “Why did Gabriela do what she did? I mean, the likely reason is that she was meeting someone, but she seemed happy with Logan; surely she wouldn’t cheat on him?”

  Val stared off down the road and waved at Mrs. Bellwood, who was walking her pug, Roary. “There is some reason she had to be here, on Heartbreak Island or Queensville. And you still haven’t found out what happened at home that prompted her husband and sister-in-law to follow her. What’s that all about?”

  “I know. Trust me, it’s on my list of things to discover. I don’t get it.” Jaymie sighed and fished in her bag for the notebook and pen she was never without. “Let’s figure this out.”

  “First, who killed Mario Horvat?”

  “Okay, let’s start with who I think didn’t kill him. I don’t think Kory killed him.”

  “Why? There’s plenty of evidence.”

  “Circumstantial; they had a fight and he didn’t like how Mario treated Hallie. But Val . . . isn’t it odd that he’d race down the island to steal my cast iron pie iron to bonk Mario over the head? A, he was drunk, and B, that is so specific . . . I mean, the pie iron was hanging on a tree on my property. How would he know it was there and why would he steal it to use it as a weapon?”

  Val frowned. “You said yourself that you don’t know when it was stolen. He was a thief. Maybe he stole it the day before and had it at the cottage and reached for the first weapon around when he was fighting with Mario and killed him.”

  “Okay, you have a possible point, but that’s a lot of ifs. I think it’s thin. He stole one pie iron from a nail where three were hung?” She shook her head. “I don’t think Hallie killed Mario either. She’s a small girl, and heavily pregnant, and she looked devastated about his death.”

  “But . . . that insurance payout, and he was going to leave her for his hot redhead. Maybe she’s the mastermind and got Kory to do it for her. Some guys will do anything for a woman they love.”

  “Okay, so both have to stay on the list, but I still think there is no scenario where she did it by herself.”

  Val nodded. “I think you’re probably right about that. Now . . . what about the husbands?”

  “Husbands?”

  Val sighed and frowned. “Logan. Terry. Andrew. How weird is it that three of your friends have husbands who have shown up here or close by?”

  “I get that it’s strange, but what are you saying?”

  “I don’t know. It’s . . . odd. I don’t suppose I should include Melody’s hubby, but Terry and Logan must know each other, right, living in the same town and being married to two women who are longtime friends? Is their arrival a coincidence or something more sinister?”

  “True. It’s weird. I don’t know enough about them, how close the two couples are, how Logan and Terry feel about each other.” Jaymie considered it, tapping her pen on the wood picnic table top. “Although . . .” She thought about what Rachel had said about Gabriela sneaking out of the cottage the second night, and her own thinking that her friend was cheating on her husband with some guy. Given what she knew about Mario, could he have been hooking up with her, too? “Oh . . . oh!”

  “What?”

  “I just remembered something.” She told Val everything she had been considering, and then said, “Brandi was talking about this game she plays, called something like . . . what was it? LiveLoveLife, or something like that. You have online affairs, etcetera. What if that’s how she met Mario? He was always on his phone, Fran and Dan said. Brandi said they all played the game; maybe both met him that way? I wonder if there’s a way for someone to find out who you’ve been online with. Could someone snitch your phone and check it out?”

  Her eyes, behind her thick glasses lenses, widened. “I know who I can ask, my nephew! Will is a computer whiz; he went to a tech camp this summer. Brock sent him because he was getting into trouble hacking into other people’s devices.”

  “So Brock thought he’d send him somewhere to learn how to do it better?”

  “No, dope. This camp emphasizes the ethics of computer science, AI, and social media.”

  “And now you’re going to ask him if he knows how to hack into someone’s phone?”

  Val laughed. “You’ve got a point. However, I think I can talk to him about it in the right way, emphasizing that if someone did it, they were invading the other person’s privacy.”

  “Brandi said that Terry put a tracker on her phone without her knowing about it, and she wasn’t sure she had gotten rid of it. What if there is some other kind of program that can tell him who she contac
ted in this game? Brandi said she uses all kinds of methods to find dates: dating apps, cheating sites, and this gaming app. Apparently it’s a thing.”

  Val nodded. “I’ve read about it,” she said, pushing her glasses up on the bridge of her nose. “I read an article about the new problem of people meeting other partners within games and leaving their spouses for them.”

  “Okay, so . . . it is possible that Mario met both Brandi and Gabriela on this game both women play.”

  Val checked her watch. “I have to get back inside. But maybe I can do some research and come up with some answers.”

  “I don’t have much of a list yet of potential murderers.”

  “Let’s work on eliminating your friends and their spouses from the pool of suspects. That’ll be a good start.”

  Seventeen

  She hoped it would be that easy. Jaymie and Hoppy headed off toward the Queensville Inn. She’d be back to the Emporium for eggs, bread and milk for the Queensville house, and maybe she’d have information by then for Val.

  It was a bright and sparkling day. The humidity had burned off and there was a fresh breeze sweeping through, tossing the trees in the village green. She waved at Jewel and Cynthia, who were outside their shops planning something, maybe working on their ideas for fall displays. Whatever it was took a lot of hand waving and vivid discussion. Hoppy barked at Jewel’s little dog, his best canine friend, Junk Jr., but Jaymie didn’t stop to let them play. “Another day, Hoppy; we’ll have time next week.” They walked on.

  The Queensville Inn looked tranquil in the morning sun. Her first stop was to Mrs. Stubbs’s room, where she explained what she was doing there and let Hoppy stay with her friend. As she left the room, though, her cell phone pinged. It was Val.

  “Guess what?” Val said.

  “What?”

  “Your friend Brandi’s husband is still here.”

  “Here? Like . . . he didn’t go back to Ohio? How do you know?” Jaymie asked, standing in the hall in a pool of light cast by a wall sconce.