Freezer I'll Shoot (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery)

by Hamilton, Victoria

  On her way out, Jaymie headed over to Tansy’s Tarts. She tied Hoppy outside the shop and entered, the little bell over the door jingling, bringing Sherm out of the back room. He looked troubled, but swiftly erased the expression of worry on his face as he saw Jaymie.

  “Jaymie, howarye?” Sherm said it automatically, but without the heartiness he usually had in his voice.

  “I’m okay. I’m going back to the mainland, and I was wondering if Tansy made the tarts yet?”

  “Lemme check,” he said. He ducked into the back room and came back carrying the trademark turquoise Tansy’s Tarts box. “Here ya go,” he said, sliding them across the glass counter. “Say, Jaymie, did I hear right? Was Urb Dobrinskie killed?”

  She nodded, and sketched for him the bare details.

  “Poor Sammy and Evelyn!” he said. “I don’t know what they’re gonna do. Urb had his faults, but he was a good provider.”

  “That’s the wife and son, right? I heard that he bullied his son,” she said, getting a ten out of her wallet and glancing outside to make sure Hoppy was okay. “Did he bully his wife, too?”

  He shrugged and looked away. “He had a temper; I’m not saying he didn’t.”

  An awful idea occurred to her. “Are you saying he . . . Did he hit her?” In her idyllic vision of her town, including Heartbreak Island, such things did not happen, but the realist in her knew that there was a dark underbelly to even the prettiest scene. There were bound to be families in her beloved town struggling with violence and pain.

  “I don’t know anything!” he said, his hands up in a shocked expression of horror.

  She watched Sherm for a moment. “Do you know Garnet and Ruby very well?”

  “Sure. Tansy and I are on a darts league at the Legion with the Redmonds. Garnet is a crackerjack shot. Ruby’s pretty damn good, too. They weren’t at darts last night, though; don’t know why.”

  “I know them as neighbors, but not really as friends. Isn’t it a little unusual for a brother and sister to be so close?”

  He shook his head, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “Garnet was married, but his wife died about ten years ago, from what I understand. Tragic situation . . . She died down in Jamaica; fell off of their sailboat. He’s never remarried.”

  “Wow. I never knew that! What about Ruby?”

  “She’s never been married, I guess. Leastways, I never heard her talk about a husband. I kinda thought she was . . . you know.” He waggled his eyebrows and winked.

  “Gay?”

  He nodded and his cheeks colored up red. “I never cared, you know, ’cause they’re good folks.”

  That was Sherm Woodrow’s charm; he was a gossip, but not judgmental. He liked everyone, and talked about them, but there was never a mean spirit in his chatter. “Just because she never married doesn’t mean she’s gay,” Jaymie said, repeating what she had said to Zack when he made the same judgment.

  “I guess. I say, if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it’s a duck. I like Ruby—she’s a real sweetheart—but I never seen any woman handle a sailboat like her.”

  Tansy came out, and her eyes lit up. “Jaymie! You okay? I heard about the trouble over at your cottage.”

  Just then the door chimes sounded and a woman entered the shop. Sherm’s eyes widened. “Evelyn!” he said, and rushed out from behind the counter. “Oh, honey, are you okay? Well, of course you’re not, but . . . let me get you a chair.”

  Evelyn . . . Urban Dobrinskie’s wife? Jaymie was stunned. What was she doing in the bakery? She must have been told about her husband’s murder just hours before.

  Tansy joined her husband, who was helping the new widow sit down on the retro vinyl café chair Sherm had hauled over from a little café table near the window. Jaymie watched. Evelyn was a small woman, with a round face and fluffy dark hair streaked with gray; she was dressed in a skirt and sleeveless blouse, exposing white, thin arms, one with a purple bruise. Was that bruise a result of Urb’s temper flaring? Jaymie’s mind kicked into questioning mode, something that had not happened up until now. She had been in shock, she supposed, but now she was truly curious. Who killed Urban, and why behind her house? It seemed an odd place for him to be.

  “I . . . I’m so sorry, Mrs. Dobrinskie, about your husband,” Jaymie said.

  She looked up, a question in her vivid cornflower blue eyes, the only real color on her face other than the dark smudges under her eyes. “I’m sorry. Do I know you?”

  “No,” Jaymie admitted.

  “This is Jaymie Leighton. Poor Urb was found behind her cottage; you know, Rose Tree Cottage, on the River Road? The pretty little blue clapboard one?” Sherm helpfully supplied.

  The new widow’s eyes teared up. “What was he doing there?” she whispered, and one fat tear trembled and overflowed down her pale cheek.

  “I don’t know,” Jaymie said, crouching by the woman. “Do you have any idea?”

  She shook her head and looked to Tansy. “He didn’t come home last night, but I thought he just had a meeting, or . . . or was at the Boat House. I . . . I just came in to . . . Tansy, what am I going to do? Urb’s family is going to come down from Canada . . . his mother . . . I don’t know if I can . . .” She trailed off, shaking her head.

  The baker seemed to know exactly what she was saying. “Look, hon, don’t you worry about it. I’ll call the business association . . . Urb was active in it, and the Polish-Canadian club over in Johnsonville, right?”

  “Urb was Canadian?” Jaymie interjected.

  “He was born in Poland, and came over to Canada,” Evelyn Dobrinskie said, the tears in her eyes gleaming in the sun streaming in the window. “Then he came here, to the island, and that’s when we met, and got married. He was so handsome. My parents didn’t like him, but I knew he was the one for me.”

  Evelyn colored, faintly, and Jaymie could see that when young, she had probably been one of those pretty women, frail and a little needy, who appeal to the big, burly guys.

  “We’ll make sure you don’t need to worry about food, and if you have an overflow, I know a couple of empty cottages where we can put folks up. Don’t you worry about a thing,” Tansy said, patting the other woman’s shoulder. “Come on back and we’ll talk about it over tea.”

  The baker pulled the other woman to her feet and led her back behind the counter toward the kitchen.

  “I have to go,” Jaymie said to Sherm, glancing down at her watch. “The ferry leaves in five minutes or so. I’ll be back, maybe even tomorrow.”

  She walked down to the dock in a thoughtful frame of mind. Seeing the widow gave her a different view of the awful event, and she wondered whether this case was going to be an easy one, or difficult. For all she knew the police could have someone in their sights already, but if they did, it was likely Garnet or Ruby Redmond.

  As the ferry pulled away from the marina, Jaymie looked back at her pretty island. She could almost see Rose Tree Cottage through the trees that lined the riverbank. She was torn, in her feelings; on one hand, she wanted to go back to the bosom of her home in Queensville, but on the other, she knew what awaited her there. Her mother was on a tear, and nagged constantly about what she called “the state of the kitchen.” But she had to face her. She loved her mother, truly, but sometimes they didn’t see eye to eye.

  So she’d stop at the Emporium first, since she had business to take care of there. She put Hoppy in the puppy pen beside the store, where he could consort with Roary, an asthmatic pug that belonged to Mrs. Trelawney Bellwood. Mrs. B. played Queen Victoria in the annual Tea with the Queen event in Queensville, and carried her regal bearing with her throughout the rest of the year, mostly to drive her nemesis, Imogene Frump, wild with envy. As far as Jaymie could tell, the two women had been competing ever since they were both pigtailed girls in school, back in the 1930s. Hoppy and Roary bounded about in the puppy
pen for a moment, before Roary was stopped by a fit of sneezes and coughs.

  Jaymie entered the Emporium, the chimes above the door dancing and jingling merrily. “Hi, Mr. Klausner,” she said to the ninety-year-old owner, who sat behind the cash desk reading his paper. He looked up, one eye huge behind the magnifying glass he used to read, and nodded. Jaymie circled the desk and picked up the reservation, rental and return book for her thriving vintage basket rental business.

  Valetta, the combination pharmacist catalog order clerk for all of Queensville, closed her window at the back of the store with a bang, and locked the door, hustling to the front. “Jaymie! You have to tell me . . . have they made an arrest, yet?”

  “No. Why?”

  She looked around, and moved closer. “I hear that Ruby Redmond is going to be arrested!” she whispered, her hiss urgent. “I can’t believe it! Ruby?”

  “Who told you that?” Jaymie exclaimed.

  Brock, Valetta’s brother, wandered up from the back. That explained that. Brock Nibley, unlike Sherm Woodrow, was a gossip of the vicious and unreliable type.

  “Ruby did not kill Urban Dobrinskie,” Jaymie stated firmly. Wouldn’t she look like a fool if it turned out that she did? But she didn’t care about that right now. It was most important to stop Brock in his tracks. “And as far as I know, no arrest is imminent; isn’t that how the paper puts it?”

  He shrugged. “It’s what I heard. She was his mistress, and found out he was poking some other woman, so she did him in.”

  Seven

  JAYMIE WAS STUNNED. “Urban and Ruby? Wow, Brock, how wrong can you be? Where on earth did you hear that?”

  He shrugged, but his expression was smug, as if he knew what no one else would admit to knowing. It was infuriating!

  “For your information,” Jaymie said, “Ruby Redmond would not have done anything with Urb Dobrinskie. In fact, she couldn’t stand Urban. You know, he was really rude to her the other night at the Ice House. He had the nerve to call her a ‘she-male’!” Oops! She clapped her hand over her mouth.

  Brock smirked, and Jaymie felt her stomach churn. The last thing he needed was more fuel for his gossip line.

  Jaymie whirled toward her friend and moaned, “I didn’t mean to let that slip.”

  Valetta glanced swiftly from her friend to her brother, and said, shaking her finger in his face, “Brock, if I hear anyone else say that, I’ll know it came directly from you. Please be a better person than that!”

  He sniffed and shrugged, rolling his eyes. “Whatever. Urb had a girlfriend; that’s all I know. Thought it might be Ruby. Lovers’ quarrel, and all that.”

  “I don’t know who did it,” Jaymie said, a headache forming like a tight band across her forehead. “All I know is, I found his body in the gully between our two properties.”

  “You poor kid,” Valetta said, squeezing Jaymie’s shoulder. “Another body!”

  “Our very own grim reaper,” Brock said, heading for the door. “I gotta go. Gotta show a house to a couple.”

  “Someone new in town?” Valetta asked.

  “Yeah,” he said, over his shoulder. “Daniel Collins’ parents are thinking of buying a place here.” He left, the chimes over the door ringing a death knell on Jaymie’s future peace in her hometown.

  Jaymie’s heart dropped. Daniel’s parents, moving to Queensville?

  “Did you know that?” Valetta said.

  “I did not,” she said, grimly.

  “Your mom and his mom don’t get along, do they?”

  She sighed. “Like two territorial Chihuahuas, not that I’m calling either one of them a bitch. I don’t know why they don’t get along. They’re so similar, in a lot of ways.”

  “That’s why,” Valetta said, with a laugh. “Two strong-minded women will never be able to get along if their son and daughter are dating.” She grabbed Jaymie’s elbow, and led her behind the counter, “Anyway, settle down. It’ll all work out. Better look at the book for the basket rentals.”

  They did some business, and Jaymie went to the back room to wash a few sets of the melamine dishes for the baskets, then restocked the basket rental shelf. Finally, she couldn’t put it off any longer, and retrieved Hoppy. She headed home, dragging her feet as much as she had as a kid coming home from school, swinging the box of Tansy Tarts and letting Hoppy sniff everything.

  She went down the back alley behind her beloved home, unlatching the gate. The back door was open, and there were mats and rugs lined up over the fence. Mom was cleaning, surprise, surprise. Oddly enough, while home in Florida, her mother employed a local woman to clean for them, but as soon as she got to Queensville it was as if a cleaning demon possessed her, and she fell to scrubbing and dusting.

  Jaymie let Hoppy off his leash so he could stay in the yard. As she strolled up the flagstone walk she heard a low growl, and glanced over at the holly bushes. Denver was hiding in the shadows, and he was glaring at her. In his mind, no doubt, she had abandoned him to the not-so-tender mercies of Jaymie’s mother, who did not like cats at all. Joy Leighton tolerated Hoppy, but Denver was sneaky and gave her the evil eye, she said.

  Poor fellow. It must be hard to live in a household where you weren’t appreciated. Jaymie crouched down by the bushes, and Denver slunk out, hunkering down in her shadow and letting her pet him. “I know, old boy,” she murmured. “Mom is a little high-maintenance, isn’t she?”

  He grumbled and slunk back into the shadows, but this time he curled up for a snooze, appeased by her sympathy. Time to face the music. As Jaymie approached the house, she could hear shouting. Her folks were bickering again.

  “Joy, where’s the instant coffee? I can’t find a thing in this jumble. I don’t know why the hell you feel the need to pull everything out of the cupboards like that. Can’t we come here and just relax?”

  “I’m cleaning!” she said. “Jaymie said it was clean already, but it sure doesn’t look like it to me.”

  “You should give that kid a break,” her dad said. “It’s her house now, isn’t it?”

  “It’s Becca’s, too, and all this junk irritates her.”

  “Let the girls sort it out on their own!”

  “I’m home,” Jaymie called out, coming up the steps to the summer porch.

  “Honey, are you okay?” Alan Leighton came out to greet her, and took her into a bear hug.

  Jaymie had been out at the cottage for only a couple of days, but with all that had happened, one of her dad’s tight hugs felt good. “I’m okay, Dad,” she said, her voice muffled against his shoulder. The sun beamed through the open door of the summer porch, warming her back as her dad rubbed her shoulder blades.

  Jaymie’s mom came out to the summer porch, watching them. There was a tentative expression on her heart-shaped face, as there often was when she watched her husband with his daughters. Joy Leighton at sixty-eight seemed to defy her age. She was slight, the kind of woman who will always be described as “tiny,” with fluffy auburn hair that curled in light bangs over her smooth forehead. She suited to a tee the bluff squareness of Alan Leighton. But the two, as firmly united as they usually appeared, had once come close to divorcing; Jaymie remembered a bleak period of her childhood that was a time of bitter and loud quarrels. Becca, her elder sister by fifteen years, had become almost a second mother to Jaymie, telling her stories and singing songs that masked some of the acrimony from below.

  “Jaymie, darling, are you okay?” Joy asked, her blue eyes full of worry.

  Her mom did love her; that Jaymie knew, even if they didn’t understand each other or always get along. Both of the Leighton girls had taken after their father in physical looks, both solid, where Joy was slight, but Becca at least seemed to have inherited their mother’s clean gene, while Jaymie reveled in disarray. “I’m fine, Mom,” Jaymie said, pulling her mother into a three-way hug with her dad.

 
They all released, and Jaymie entered the kitchen to find it pretty much as she expected. Everything was pulled down from the tops of the cupboards, and the whole place smelled of pine cleaner. She stifled her reaction, which was to gripe at her mother about the disruption. Instead, she carefully said, “When you’re done, I’ll put it all back, Mom. I don’t want you having to climb the ladder or step stool.”

  “I thought we’d go through it first, dear,” her mother said, moving over to the long trestle table where the array of vintage tins, bowls and utensils was lined up in military fashion. “Now, look at this baking powder tin,” she said, picking up the tall round container. “It’s all rusty! You don’t want something that rusty in the house, do you?”

  The rusty piece was a vintage Calumet baking powder tin that Jaymie had paid ten dollars for at a vintage store, one of her more pricey acquisitions, besides the old Emporium scales. The tin was tall and red, and offered a striking contrast to the other more muted silver and steel items. “Mom, I could double my money on that now, if I sold it online.”

  Her mother’s eyes lit up. “Great! I’ll get our camera and we can post it right away.”

  “Mom, no!” Jaymie, exasperated, looked over at her father, but he wasn’t going to be any help at all, since he was shaking with silent laughter. “I’m not selling it,” she said, taking it from the woman’s hands and putting it back down on the table. She cast about for another topic, as she coaxed her mother past the kitchen toward the parlor. “If you really want to clean, why don’t you take down the books in the library? That room hasn’t been dusted in a dog’s age. Hoppy starts sneezing every time he goes in there.”

  “Okay,” she said, doubtfully. “But we need to talk about Mrs. Collins and the family supper, and soon!”