Free Freezer I'll Shoot (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery) by Victoria Hamilton

its axis. Nothing was what it seemed. She needed to think, but to be able to do that, she needed to send the chief and his minion on their way. “Uh . . .”
    Zack took a long slurp of his coffee, and pushed his chair out, going to gaze out the back window again.
    “Never mind; we’ll come back to that,” the chief said, with a glance at his inferior officer. He read his notes, murmuring aloud, and then asked, “What about Mr. Dobrinskie, the victim . . . How long have you known him?”
    “I don’t really know him at all. I know he co-owns the marina, but we don’t have a boat, so I’ve got no cause to deal with him. I see the other partner, Will Lindsay, more often in the day-to-day running of the marina. And Will helps out at the Tea with the Queen event every May.”
    “Would you say you’re good friends with the Redmonds?”
    So he was back to that; same question, different wording. “I wouldn’t say I’m
good
friends with them.” She thought about it. “No, we’re not really close.”
    “But friendly enough for them to leave their door open for you to use their washroom whenever you need to?”
    She was silent while he watched her eyes. What was he implying? She had no clue. Maybe nothing. The silence dragged on, but she had seen this method before; let the silence continue until, being a social animal, as humans are, she would feel compelled to fill it with nervous chatter of the confessional variety. Her will hardened and her chin went up.
    The chief watched her, while Zack rejoined them at the table and sat down. “Okay, let’s go over the last twenty-four hours or so, beginning with night before last.”
    She recounted her last two days—including how she just happened to be seated with Zack at the restaurant—and came down to the night before, and her restlessness. She told them about her dilemma, not really wanting to burst in on the Redmonds while they were sleeping, but keeping an eye out while she paced and tried to write, just in case she saw their light go on. “I thought I saw a
flash
of light at one point, but I don’t know what it was.”
    “What time was that?” Zack asked, exchanging a glance with the chief.
    She squinted and thought. “I’m not sure.”
    “Was it a long time before finding the body?”
    “I don’t know. Let’s see . . . It was around one a.m. when I let Hoppy out to piddle, and he took off, barking at some animal in the woods.”
    “Wait—Hoppy was barking? At something in the woods. Are you
sure
he was barking at an animal? Did you see one?” Zack asked.
    “No. I—I don’t know,” Jaymie said, startled by his sudden intensity. “I
assumed
, because he’s been in trouble with skunks before, but it was something . . . or someone . . . in that little grove of crab apple trees near the ravine between our properties.”
    “Show me!” he said, getting up and heading toward the back door.
    “What, now?”
    Zack met the chief’s gaze, and slewed his look back to Jaymie. “Just point,” he said.
    She got up, went to the back door, and pointed to the little copse of crab apple trees. Zack scribbled in his notebook.
    The chief took over. “So that was around one a.m., and then what happened?”
    Jaymie came back and sat down at the table. “Let’s see . . . I came in, cleaned Hoppy up, and it wasn’t long after that that I saw a flash of light. I was hoping it was at the Redmonds, but it wasn’t.”
    “Are you sure of that?”
    “That it wasn’t in the Redmonds’ cottage? Yes, I’m sure.”
    “Okay, and then?”
    “I wrote for a while before I heard some commotion, and got up.”
    “What did you hear?”
    This wasn’t going to sound good, but she had to say it. She looked down at her folded hands in her lap and mumbled, “I heard a voice; then someone yelled, ‘Get off my property.’”
    “Excuse me?” Zack asked, catching her glance. “I want to make sure I heard you right. Someone said, ‘Get off my