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

property’?”
    She nodded.
    “Whose voice was it?” the chief asked.
    “I didn’t recognize it.”
    “Are you
sure
about that?” Zack asked.
    “I’m sure,” she said, feeling like she was being ganged up on. She looked back and forth between the two of them, and Hoppy sat at her feet and grumbled.
    “It wasn’t one of the Redmonds?” the chief asked.
    “No,” she said, defiantly. “It was
not
one of them.”
    “How can you be sure?” Zack said.
    “It just didn’t sound like either one of them.”
    Both men were silent and stared at her.
    Ruby’s words rang in her head: “I didn’t mean to do it.” Jaymie
should
tell Zack and the chief, but it felt as if she would be turning her in, sealing poor Ruby’s fate, if she did. It wasn’t right. Ruby could have meant
anything
, anything at all.
    It wasn’t her job to do their work for them anyway. She swallowed hard. “So . . . you obviously think that Garnet or Ruby murdered Urban Dobrinskie. But really . . . over a little tiff and an insult?” Miss Ruby in the ravine with an ice pick . . . It was like a Clue game.
    Both men shuttered like a Venetian blind, their eyes going cold and empty. It was a weird moment, and Jaymie felt a shudder pass over her.
    “We’re exploring all possibilities,” Zack said.
    There was silence.
    “I have to go back to the mainland. Can I go now?” she asked.
    Zack watched her eyes, as the chief said, “We have your address and phone number in Queensville?”
    Sighing, Jaymie said, “Oh, you do indeed!”
    • • •
    AGAINST ALL ODDS, the day was bright and beautiful, an example of Michigan, which in spring could be surly, in autumn, sullen, and in winter, a veritable termagant, at its most pacific. Exhaustion made her quiver, but Jaymie could not stop. She had to go home and make sure everyone knew the truth of what was going on, not some half-baked theories or speculation.
    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