Cast Iron Alibi

by Victoria Hamilton

  Gabriela rushed her and tackled her, flailing with the piece of wood she had retrieved, sending Jaymie flying as Hoppy yipped, then howled as loud as any Yorkie-Poo could, an a-roo-roo-roo yodel. Jaymie hit her shoulder on the rock firepit and howled in pain. Her hand flung out, and the glowing coals burned her flesh. She screamed and struggled, the wind knocked out of her as she rolled around on the grass and dirt with Gabriela, who was swearing and flailing and shouting.

  “Jaymie!” Val shrieked. “Help! Someone, help!”

  The next moments were a confusion of grunts and shouts and screams as Melody yelled, “Gabriela, stop!” The writer had raced down the slope, grabbing Gabriela by the shoulders, and pulled her off Jaymie as she rolled away, her shoulder throbbing in pain.

  Lights flicked on in neighboring cottages. Garnet Redmond’s voice floated down the hill, “Is everything okay there?”

  “No!” Jaymie shouted, clambering to her feet.

  “Garnet, get Ng on the phone!” Valetta shouted as she sat down on Gabriela’s feet. “And call nine one one. Murder!”

  Hoppy yelped and barked, racing at the three women on the ground, then returning to Jaymie, who held her burned hand, crying in pain.

  Gabriela wailed, kicked Val away, and struggled to get out from under Melody, who surprisingly enough managed to thrust her arm through her friend’s arms and hold them behind her back as she thrashed about. “I thought you were my friends,” she grunted, her voice breathless.

  “Shut up, Gabby, dearest,” Melody said, lying across her, weighing her down. “Your reign of brainless terror is over.”

  Rachel stumbled from the house onto the back deck, rubbing her eyes and blinking, with a puzzled frown. Light from the kitchen flooded the slope, reaching down to the firepit. “What’s going on?”

  “It’s a long story,” Jaymie said wearily, struggling to her feet, then bending over at the waist, resting her hands on her knees and trying to catch her breath as the pain began to numb. “A long and sad story.”

  Twenty-one

  She told that long sad story in detail to Detective Vestry, corroborated by Mel and Val, both of whose word the detective seemed more inclined to take than Jaymie’s, despite their recent rapprochement. Or maybe that was Jaymie’s insecurity speaking; she was a mess of nerves, the attack by her (former) friend leaving her shaken and frightened.

  It was early. Garnet and Ruby had come down to help Jaymie and her friends in the wake of the violent encounter, then invited them up to their cottage to let the police do a thorough search of her cottage and property. Hoppy was curled up on Ruby’s bed sleeping, and Val and Rachel were sharing the Redmonds’ pullout couch, napping. But Jaymie, weary to the bone, had not been able to sleep, her nerves frayed, her insides still quivering like a vintage-recipe Jell-O mould. Melody, sitting with her, fueled by a bottomless pot of coffee, tried to calm her with the weirdly practical gambit of filling her in on a few things she had puzzled out in her private conversations with their friends.

  “One thing I figured out that you probably don’t know was what was wrong between Brandi and Gabriela,” Mel said.

  “What do you mean, what was wrong?” Jaymie said. She sat in an Adirondack chair by the Redmonds’ firepit, far enough away from the cottage so the others could catch a little more sleep. She had eschewed going to the hospital and had taken some pain pills, but her shoulder still throbbed, as did her burnt hand, neatly bandaged by paramedics. “They were always fighting, since the first day we met. It never took much to get them fighting.”

  “But it was always over something stupid, and then they’d make up. This was deeper. And longer lasting. And it felt like it was Brandi that was holding a grudge. Gabriela could hold a grudge, but Brandi? Nuh-uh. I wondered, what had Terry done that broke up him and Brandi?”

  “Again, it never took much,” Jaymie said. “Brandi was always breaking up with guys.”

  “But this went deeper. Remember she said he cheated on her? She loved Terry. When he cheated on her with Gabriela it broke her heart.”

  “Cheated on Brandi with . . . oh. Okay, I get it now,” Jaymie said, thinking of comments Brandi had made that now made sense. She had made pointed comments about Gabriela’s pretended chaste behavior outside of marriage. “I’m surprised beyond a few pointed hints she didn’t think we’d overhear that Brandi didn’t tell us. You remember what we overheard on the cruise, the argument between Brandi and Gabriela?”

  “She was never like that,” Melody said. “Remember? She’d do crazy crap, but she never snitched on anything crazy anyone else did.”

  Looking back, Jaymie could see the wounded expression on Brandi’s face, the knowledge that one of her best friends would cheat with Terry writ there, if you knew what to look for. Which she hadn’t, at the time. “You’re right. I figured out a lot, but I missed a lot, too, it seems. I don’t suppose Brandi knew about Gabriela’s affair with Mario.”

  “But I have a feeling that Gabriela did know Brandi was flirting with Mario online in that gaming app. You know how tech-savvy she was, though she could barely change a lightbulb. I’d bet she purposely targeted Mario once she found out Brandi was having an online fling with him.”

  Jaymie nodded. “That makes sense. She always wanted whatever Brandi had.”

  “Ever since Brandi stole a boyfriend of Gabriela’s in college,” Mel said.

  Jaymie sighed. “That’s where it started, I guess, the incessant competition between them.” She squinted into the rising sun peeking through the trees along the cottage lane. “You know, even after what Gabriela said, I still can’t figure out why Logan took Terry’s boat out the night Mario died. I mean . . . that was one thing that kept tripping me up.”

  “Lord, Jaymie, you need to follow social media better,” Rachel said, joining them, yawning and still sleepy. “Logan goes fishing all the time.”

  “Huh . . . Gabriela said they all went fishing together, but I thought it was just . . . I don’t know. Logan seems like such a button-down kind of guy, not outdoorsy in the slightest.”

  “Not everyone who is outdoorsy wears flannel and looks like a lumberjack,” Mel said. “He’s the kind of guy who buys the best creel—only wicker will do—a Tilley Endurable hat, and one of those fisherman flotation life vests that holds all his lures and bobs.”

  Jaymie eyed her. “You know about fishing gear?”

  “I did have a childhood,” Mel said dryly. “I may not see my family much, but I still have a grandpa who lives to fish.”

  “Those two are pretty good friends, Terry and Logan,” Rachel said, throwing herself down in an Adirondack chair and grabbing Mel’s coffee cup, draining it, then making a face. “Yuck, no sugar. It was exactly what it seemed; Logan wanted to do some night fishing.”

  “Despite Terry sleeping with Gabriela?” Jaymie said doubtfully.

  “I don’t imagine Brandi shared that with anyone, much less Logan,” Mel said.

  “And knowing that, Gabriela took advantage, hoping to throw the blame on her husband for Mario’s death. If I had shared my thoughts with you guys, you could have told me and I may have figured that all out earlier,” Jaymie reflected.

  “You know, Detective Vestry was real close to figuring it out, now that I look back on our conversation,” Melody said, picking at a ragged nail. She had a bruise on her hand from Gabriela’s fighting her, but otherwise was unscathed. “She was pretty sure it wasn’t Kory. In fact, Kory was only in jail because Ng arrested him at the scene on probable cause. They quietly released him to his mom yesterday . . . I guess day before yesterday now. She didn’t buy it from the beginning, and I think she knew it was one of us, though she’s smart enough not to broadcast that. She didn’t know which one. She would have got there eventually. She was even going to check out your cell phone records to see if you were cheating on Jakob with Mario!”

  Jaymie gasped. “No, you have to be . . .” She sighed in exasperation when she saw Melody snickering and then breaking out into a full-t
hroated laugh, joined by Rachel. “You’re kidding. Dang it, Mel, you have to stop reeling me in like that.” Her friend was trying to make her laugh after an awful morning, and Jaymie appreciated it, but the overwhelming sting and pain of betrayal lingered. Gabriela had killed someone. And she had used a vacation at Jaymie’s home to further her plan.

  Rachel showered at the Redmonds’ and happily headed off to her new job, figuring that since she couldn’t get into the cottage at the moment she could likely use a uniform that Tansy had on hand for her staff. It was going to be nice having her around. Jaymie decided to consult with her family to see if they’d agree to let Rachel live in the cottage for the off-season, if she wanted to stay there, until she figured out what she was doing. They usually closed it up in September, but there was no real reason to.

  Ruby and Garnet made them breakfast and took Hoppy for a walk. The police should soon be done with the cottage, Jaymie hoped. She heard a commotion down in the grove and went to the top of the hill. It was midday; Brandi and Courtney had returned. “Bran, up here,” she yelled. “Come up here. We have to talk.”

  “What the heck is going on? What are the police cars doing at your place?” Brandi said, traipsing through the grove and looking back over her shoulder as she scaled the hill, Courtney following closely.

  When she got to the top, Jaymie hugged her, and then explained what had happened. Brandi fainted. A handsome paramedic was, fortunately, close by and revived her. They had a date set for Wingding Wednesday at the Ice House.

  Twenty-two

  They all—except for Rachel, who stayed with Tansy and Sherm, though she visited with them at the cabin—retreated to Jaymie’s home in the country to stay for a few days while the police finished up their investigation at the cottage. Kory had indeed been released from jail, of course, and all charges dropped. He had been able to give the police some missing details of that night, information that Detective Vestry had initially held back, of course, but now relayed to Mel when they had lunch again, with the proviso that she keep it to herself.

  Of course Mel divulged everything to Jaymie. “She was showing off, trying to impress me. She should know better than to trust a writer,” Melody said, justifying herself. “We’re blabbermouths by nature. In fact, everyone should be told at birth: never tell a novelist anything you’d mind seeing in print.”

  Kory had been sleeping in a hammock down by the cottage’s dock, in the deep shadows by a hedge. He was drunk, but he had a foggy memory of a conversation he overheard between Mario and someone else, a conversation that included words like husband, child and something about telling the truth. That, Jaymie realized, was of course Gabriela telling Mario about Logan being at the inn, and objecting when he said he was going to storm up there and tell her husband what was going on. Then there was a yell, and a scream, and a confused jumble . . . Kory roused himself enough finally to stumble down to the water as the cottage behind him blazed, and found Mario; he had tried to pull his friend away from the scene. But there was no hard evidence against him, only circumstantial.

  But Gabriela’s fingerprints were on the pie iron, and Mario’s blood was imbedded in the gallery of her diamond wedding ring, so she was having a difficult time denying what she had done. There was no other way the blood could have got there but that she had been the one doing the killing and the blood splashed onto her hands. That was one way they knew Kory hadn’t done it.

  It all correlated with what Jaymie had been able to tell the detective, everything Gabriela had confessed to her, even the obvious lies. Despite what she told Jaymie, that she had gone to talk to him and cancel their rendezvous, Gabriela had gone to meet Mario with the pie iron and a clear intention of killing him. Once she discovered Logan was alive and plan A had not worked, she coolly moved on to plan B. She had already set up a late date with Mario for that night before she stole his phone, so he knew to expect her, which was in part why he caused such a scene at the Ice House. He wanted to leave and get back home, though he had not gotten Hallie to go to her mother’s. He had tried, but she was tired and stubborn and had gone to bed. He hadn’t counted on losing his phone and making Hallie look everywhere for it, and he had not expected Kory to be sleeping in the hammock nearby when he met his “date” down by the water.

  Had he recognized his hot redheaded lover that first night at the Ice House? Jaymie didn’t know, and now no one would, with Mario gone. It was possible that he had recognized Gabriela, and that was who he was moving toward when Courtney headed him off.

  It was odd to realize, for Jaymie, that Gabriela knew Mario’s cottage better than anyone. She had been there before, so she knew exactly how to approach it from the water side without being seen. One other random detail Jaymie learned: Hallie’s baby was, indeed, Kory’s. He was planning to stick around, even if Hallie didn’t want him as a boyfriend anymore. She needed time to figure it all out, her mother said, when Jaymie ran into her in Tansy’s Tarts as the mom picked up some back pay Hallie was owed.

  It was devastating and confusing to think of the friend she had known for a decade and a half as a murderer, but she had her friends to talk it over with. They cried and drank wine and cried some more. They ate chocolate, and had another bonfire, this time in the yard of the home Jakob had built with his bare hands. They video-chatted with Jocie and Jakob, whose trip was also winding down. The father and daughter would be leaving Poland in two days, scheduled to arrive home shortly after the group left.

  Becca, who had been delayed in London by a medical appointment, finally did arrive in Queensville in time to see Jaymie’s friends, who she knew slightly. On their last evening together she insisted on treating them all to dinner at the Queensville Inn. Mrs. Stubbs presided. They would, she said, all come to a tea party in her room the next time any of them came back to Queensville or Heartbreak Island.

  But the last day they were all back out on the island again. Jaymie and Mel wandered along the road for one last walk. There was a truck parked a couple of doors down the road from the Ice House restaurant. Workers were tearing down the burned-out remnants of the A-line cottage.

  “Chief Ledbetter!” Jaymie said. The retired police chief was standing on the road by the burned-out hulk looking at some plans with a young woman in a hard hat.

  “Jaymie! Good to see you. Ms. Heath, good to see you again.”

  “What are you doing here?”

  “It’s all in the works and nothing is final yet, but I got that brother of Valetta’s to make some inquiries. I guess Mario had a will and left the whole shebang to little Hallie. Least he could do, all the trouble he caused her. Anyhoo, if it all goes according to plan—depends on insurance companies and lawyers and such—it looks like me and the missus are buying this plot of land. That young lady there,” he said, pointing to the hard-hatted woman, “is a contractor, giving me a quote. If it all works out I’m gonna order an A-line cottage same size as that one, and they’re going to build it right there, on the footprint of the burned-down place. Brand spanking new.”

  “You’ll be our neighbor,” Jaymie said with a sigh of satisfaction. “Good thing to know. Is your wife happy?”

  “She’s already planning the décor. It’s cheap enough we can go hog wild. I can keep my eye on things around here,” he said with a wink.

  Jaymie smiled. “Chief, one thing I am still puzzled about: Hallie told me that Mario had a grown-up son who was on the island making inquiries about Mario. I don’t get it. Who is he, and why haven’t I heard anything in the press or anywhere else about him?”

  “Because he doesn’t exist. That feller was a private investigator. Mario was suspected of insurance fraud on a property he owned before this one, back in Ohio. Feller was trying to gather intel.”

  “I’m surprised Hallie didn’t tell Mario about it.”

  “She did, I imagine, but he knew there was no ‘Terry,’ so he shrugged it off. Or she didn’t remember to tell him. M’wife always claimed women get pregnancy brain and don’t remember
much. That poor little gal did have a few others things on her mind.”

  “True. Why the name Terry?”

  “Maybe it was his real name. How many Terrys do you know?”

  “Too many,” Jaymie said.

  • • •

  They were all gathered in the parking lot above the river, where their packed cars were waiting. The friends had finally been able to clear every last thing of theirs out of the cottage and had spent a few hours cleaning up. Rachel was taking a few days off to take Melody home to sort out her own life.

  Jaymie took Mel aside. They stood by the parking barrier away from the others. “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?” she asked the writer. “I’m worried. Andrew was acting weird.”

  “I’ll be all right,” Melody said, hugging Jaymie. She actually clung to her for a few minutes, then took a deep breath and pulled away. “I’ll call you.”

  “Promise? Promise me you’ll stay in touch?”

  “I’ll stay in touch,” Melody said, cupping Jaymie’s cheek. “I love you, kid. I hope you know that.”

  “I do.” They hugged again, then returned to the others.

  Tiffany and Logan had, of course, headed home already, taking Fenix with them, refusing Gabriela’s jailhouse request to see her daughter. Jaymie was deeply saddened by the little girl’s plight, with her mom in such deep trouble, but if Gabriela had cared so much about her daughter’s well-being she wouldn’t have tried to kill Logan. Jaymie didn’t know what Logan was truly like, but he appeared to love his little girl. Jaymie had apologized in her mind for suspecting the two, but given how poisonous a person Tiffany was, it had seemed logical.

  Brandi, of them all, was probably the most deeply hurt. Despite their problems, she and Gabriela had spent a lot of time together in recent years. The betrayal stung. Fortunately, Courtney was always there to be the supportive second fiddle to Brandi’s flamboyant first chair. Brandi told the others she would be checking in on Fenix. She still, despite their problems, had a good parental relationship with Terry, and Terry was good friends with Logan. There were inevitably many points of connection.