Freezer I'll Shoot (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery) (2 page)

Ruby straightened and said, “You can come and use our facilities anytime, Jaymie, I hope you know that. You’re not staying at the cottage overnight, are you?”

“I am. Mom and Dad are in residence at the Queensville house, and for some reason it just seems . . . crowded.” She shrugged, trying to ease the tension out of her shoulders that had built while talking to her mother.

Ruby chuckled, her weathered face creasing with laughter, and the morning sun glinting in her pale blue eyes. “Well, you’re in for a challenge, then. Remember we had to have our leaching field torn up last year? It was a mess. Luckily, we have the restaurant, and can use those facilities night or day. I’ll leave the back door unlatched. If you get caught short in the night, just come on over and use the head!”

“I appreciate that, Ruby. Come on, Hoppy,” Jaymie said, snapping her fingers at the little dog. He ignored her, staring up at Ruby with adoration in his chocolate eyes. He watched her hands, hoping she would dig in her pocket for another biscuit, then dropped his nose to the ground, snuffling up crumbs. “Hoppy, come!”

“Coming down to the Ice House for dinner tonight?” Ruby said.

“I will. I hear you’ve got yellow perch on the menu, and I love perch. See you later!” Jaymie scooped Hoppy up and walked down the grassy slope to talk to Robin for a minute, before returning to the cottage. He was not so sure they would be done that day, he told her, and she sighed.

By late afternoon Jaymie was more discouraged than she had been that morning. She had a list of ideas for her first column, all of them crappy. They just sounded so darned dull! Maybe she wasn’t cut out for this. Who told her she could be a cookbook author anyway? They weren’t even her recipes. She was no fancy cook; she had just taken old recipes from her grandmother’s cookbooks, rescued from the attic, and worked them over to suit modern cooks and modern ovens. It had kept her sane and upright during the long winter months when she was mourning the death of her relationship with Joel Anderson, who had moved on to blonder pastures with Heidi Lockland.

Jaymie had thought Joel was the love of her life. She would have married him if he’d asked, but of course, he never did. Strangely enough, she and Heidi had managed to construct an odd kind of friendship in the last couple of months. The girl from New York City was actually a sweetie, too good for Joel, Jaymie had decided. If he was such a gutless wonder as to walk out on her two weeks before Christmas without any explanation, then he didn’t deserve the girl. Or
any
girl.

Looking at the torn-up mess that was her back lawn was too depressing, so Jaymie took her lunch to the cottage front porch. She was one road back from the riverfront, which was good when a storm swept along the river. The other cottages and trees along the riverfront sheltered Rose Tree Cottage from the worst of any storm. They were rarely in danger of flooding, another bonus of being on slightly higher ground. There was a long line of pines across the road surrounding the cottage across from theirs, but Jaymie could still see the glimmer of the St. Clair River as it slipped past, and they had access, if she wanted to walk down to it, alongside the neighbor’s cottage.

But right now she needed to concentrate on the task at hand: a subject for her first column for “Vintage Eats.” She lay on her back on the board porch and dropped her head off the edge of the first step, staring up at the blue sky as seen through the leafy green expanse of tree canopy. Hoppy turned in a complete circle and, with a little doggy sigh, settled beside her, nestled up against her thigh.

She closed her eyes. What to write about? Food history? Boring. Old dishes, maybe: Pyrex, Depression glass, etcetera? Not boring to her, but maybe to others.

She daydreamed, and may even have dropped off to sleep for a moment. Hoppy jumped up and wuffled a greeting to someone. When Jaymie opened her eyes, she saw hairy, tanned thighs. Good grief! She bolted up and whirled, finding herself face-to-face with dark-haired, gray-eyed and too-handsome Detective Zack Christian, one of the only two detectives on the Queensville police force. She’d had a few run-ins with him in the last months over a couple of murders that she had solved—from her aspect—or interfered in, from his viewpoint.

“Hi,” she said, smoothing her ruffled hair. He was not in uniform. He was in swim trunks and a golf shirt, with a towel slung over his shoulder, and his dark hair was slicked back, wet from a recent dip. Yum.

“Hi, Jaymie,” he said, reaching down to pet Hoppy, briefly, then straightening. “What are you doing out here on the island?”

“I was going to ask the same of you. This is my family’s cottage,” she said, gesturing behind her. “We’re having some work done out back, so I’m staying here.”

“Oh. I rent a cottage on the island.” He watched her eyes, his expression inscrutable, as always.

“You live here year-round?”

“Yup, so far. Love the water.” There was a brief silence, and he smiled. “I guess I’d better go. See you.”

He strolled off, barefoot, down the sandy road. She watched him go. She’d never seen him so relaxed, and he was even more handsome that way than in his suit, investigating a crime. She took a deep breath and blew out the air. There was just something about him that attracted her, and she hadn’t defeated it yet, though she was determined to. Her agitation in his presence was purely a physical response, just hormones jumping around at the sight of a guy so good-looking he could model for
GQ
.

Daniel Collins was the real deal, a great guy who genuinely liked her, and she had promised to give their relationship a fair shake. Six months, she had said to Daniel. She wanted six months to completely get past Joel’s dumping her—she was pretty much over all but the last bit of anger now—and see how they felt about each other before taking their relationship to the next level.

And that included getting along with his mother, who didn’t seem to like her too much, and making peace between their two moms, somehow. Zack Christian didn’t figure into the equation at all. As Bernice “Bernie” Jenkins, one of the constables on the local force said, he was only in Queensville until something bigger came along. Then he’d be gone, leaving behind legions of sighing females. Daniel was as solid and trustworthy as the pine trees overhead; Zack was a leaf fluttering on a wayward wind.

He was wrong for her in every way, even if he
had
been interested in her, which he was not. He viewed her as the cute, provincial miss, a little sister, almost, like the older guy’s ward in one of the historical romance novels she loved to read. Zack Christian had pinched her cheek once, for heaven’s sake! There was no romantic sensibility in a man pinching your cheek.

“Come on, Hoppy,” she said, scrambling to her feet. “I need to check in on the guys out back.”

Two

J
AYMIE WAS HELD
up by a consultation with the plumber, who had to tell her at length about the problems they had run into that made laying the new leaching bed tricky. She phoned her dad, who was footing the bill, and put him on with Rob, of Robin Hood plumbing, and they sorted it all out. Then she had to walk Hoppy, feed him, lock up and walk the four blocks or so to the Redmonds’ restaurant. The delay meant that she didn’t get to the Ice House until well after six, prime time for the boating and cottage crowd. Mid-August in a touristy town meant that the restaurant was fairly full.

The Ice House was right on the river and had a long outdoor patio that lined the whole front, overlooking the river and facing Queensville, with benches for those who just wanted to sit and sip a glass of wine while they watched boats slip past. There was a larger patio at the back, where umbrella-covered tables were popular for the après boating crowd. It was just too hot to sit outside to drink or eat, though; she preferred the air-conditioned, dim interior.

As she opened the big oak door, the flood of noise disoriented her for a moment, until she sorted out the thump of music from an old-fashioned jukebox in the front corner, the sports bar section of the Ice House, and the chatter of tanned, relaxed vacationers who had spent an exhilarating day on the water, sailing, water-skiing and wakeboarding. There were a few folks she recognized, neighbors from the island crowd, but for the most part it was tourists who lined the bar and crowded around tables. She stood near the door, looking for a spot to sit, but didn’t see anything. Ruby, talking to the Ice House manager, Marg, near the bar, caught her eye and waved her in.

“Hey, kiddo,” she yelled, over the sound, “you’re a little late to get a table!”

“I know,” Jaymie said, leaning forward to talk into Ruby’s ear. “You’ve got a crowd!”

“Come with me,” Ruby said, grabbing her wrist and leading her through the bar section, back to the dining room proper, which was a little quieter, conversations calmer, the clink of silverware on china the only other sound. The jukebox noise was muted by a partial wall separating the two sections. There were quite a few couples and some families having dinner. “I’ve got one table that just has one guy at it. Do you mind sharing?”

“No, of course not,” Jaymie said. She had begun to regret that she hadn’t just stayed home and eaten another sandwich, and the regret became more pronounced when she saw who she would have to share a table with.

Zack Christian sat alone, a copy of the week’s
Howler
in his hand.

“Hey, Zack, do you mind sharing your table?” Ruby said, clapping him on the shoulder.

He looked up, saw Jaymie and smiled. Standing, he gestured to the other side of the table and said, “Be my guest. Didn’t expect to see you again so soon, Jaymie!”

“You two know each other?” Garnet Redmond, who had materialized at his sister’s elbow, asked.

“We do know each other,” he said. “Quite well.”

Jaymie felt herself flush pink, and bit her lip. It sounded more personal than it was, and she didn’t know how to explain to Garnet and Ruby, who knew she was going out with Daniel Collins. Ruby glanced over at her with one eyebrow raised. Jaymie smiled and shrugged as she took that chair across from the detective and accepted the menu from Ruby.

“Lisa will take your order,” Garnet said, indicating a waitress who sailed past with a giant tray holding five plates on it, which she expertly unloaded at the next table.

The brother and sister left, and Jaymie said, “Thanks for sharing your table.”

“I expected I’d have to share, given how busy this place is. It’s nice that it’s with someone I know.”

They chatted as they waited for their orders. Both of them were having the yellow perch dinner.

“So your family owns a cottage here. Why a cottage so close to home?”

“My great-grandfather Leighton built it way back as a retirement residence for him and my great-grandma. He gave the house in town to my grandpa and grandma, and moved to the island to spend the rest of his days fishing.”

“And did he?”

“He sure did. Becca remembers him, but they were both gone by the time I was born.” There was a fifteen-year gap between her and her older sister, who was forty-seven.

“So does it sit empty now?”

“No, we rent it out most of the summer, but we reserve a couple of weeks every year for Mom and Dad to stay in it. We had a cancellation this season—one of our regular guests had a family funeral—but it’s a good thing because we need to replace the septic tank, and, I just found out, we have to have a new leaching bed laid.”

He looked mystified, so she explained what that was. Because they were on a small island, every residence and business had to have a septic tank to handle waste, and the leaching bed was a necessity to process all that waste. “It’s all natural,” she finished.

“Wow, the things you take for granted,” he said, shaking his head.

“I didn’t know much about it myself until today. Now I know far too much!”

There was a moment of awkward silence, broken at last when their meals came. She wished it were Daniel across the table from her. They had established a relationship that was built on friendship first. Being with Daniel was easy; there was a comfortable silence, at times, an acknowledgment that they didn’t need to fill every moment with chatter. But really, was it the detective who was making it awkward, or her?

As the waitress unloaded her tray and provided tartar sauce and condiments, Jaymie thought about that, and decided her own discomfort was driving her to fill every second with talk. So she’d stop. It was a little better after that. The perch was five small fillets pan-sautéed in butter, with a heap of home-cut fries and homemade coleslaw. It was delicious, and she ate enthusiastically, as did the detective. Zack; she had to start thinking of him by name, instead of as “the detective.” Zack plowed through his meal faster than she did. He drank a microbrewery beer, while she had the Ice House’s homemade iced tea.

She was still working on the problem of a topic for the first column of “Vintage Eats.” She intended to blend articles on vintage cookware with vintage recipes. But inspiration was hard to come by when she was so afraid of making a misstep with her very first article.

Zack had excused himself momentarily, and Jaymie finished her dinner, sat back and looked around. Along the wall behind the bar and dining lounge servery, vintage tools were hung. She got up to take a closer look. They looked lethal, many of them: poles with wicked hooks on the end, giant picks and saws, and many examples of what looked like a kind of claw. She remembered hearing that the Redmonds had preserved some of the history that went with the old building. They’d make great photos.

She took her digital camera from her purse and moved to the wall to take photos. Garnet came out from behind the bar and settled his lean form on a bar stool, arms crossed over his chest, chatting with her as she framed pictures carefully, playing with the options on her camera to get the best photo in the low light.

“You and Ruby renovated this place yourselves, didn’t you?” Jaymie said over her shoulder. “When you moved here?”

“We did. It was a kind of warehouse for years, as I’m sure you know. Some folks from the marina were using it as a storage facility for machinery.”

“Machinery?”

“Yeah, you know, for lifting boats out of the river, that kind of thing.”

“So all of these tools were used back in the day?” Zack asked.

Jaymie jumped; he had approached without her noticing.

“Yup, from when this was a true ice storage facility. That there,” he said, pointing to one of the tools that looked like a giant outside caliper, “was for lifting the blocks of ice out of the river.”

Jaymie edged closer and stared. It was huge, but there were many of the same thing, right down to much smaller ones that she could imagine handling.

“And that,” he continued, pointing to a large saw with a handle like a bicycle handle, “was for cutting the ice from the river. The big thing is an ice ax. With the ax and the tongs, a guy could manhandle a pretty big block of ice.”

“What are those things?” she asked, pointing at a lethal-looking tool, a thin piece of steel with a green-painted wood handle.

“You don’t know?” Garnet said, with a smile. “That’s an ice pick.” He pulled it down off its peg and handed it to her.

She turned it over in her hands; it was longish and came to a sharp point. “So this was for breaking up chunks of ice?” She laid it down on the wood bar top and took a close-up photo for research purposes.

“Yeah, for the housewife. If hubby wanted ice in his scotch, she’d go into the ice chest and chip some chunks off the big block.”

“I’m not sure I get the whole system,” Jaymie said, handing the ice pick back to Garnet. “How did they get ice chunks out of the river?”

“Ice cutting? It’s pretty simple, really.” He tossed the pick up in the air and caught it by the handle, making Jaymie wince, and Zack chuckle. “Of course, we’re going back before refrigeration,” he said, as Ruby approached. “Back in the day, ice was a necessity to keep your butter cool in your icebox and to make ice cream. Companies like Queensville Ice, which owned the Heartbreak Island Ice House until the midforties, would cut blocks of ice from the river in winter and store it in the storage locker, this icehouse. The delivery guy would take the chunks in the back of his cart and deliver them all over town. “

“But how did it stay frozen for so long?” Jaymie asked, getting her notebook out of her purse and scribbling some notes. She perched on a bar stool. An idea began to form in her brain, as she remembered a recipe for old-fashioned ice cream making from the early 1900s. She could blend local vintage resources, tools and methods with vintage recipes, starting with an article on ice cream making.

“Good question,” Garnet said. “From what I’ve read, they discovered that the thick walls of the basement of the icehouse, as well as lots of straw for insulation and ventilation to vent the warm air, would keep the ice good right up until winter, when they could start the process all over again.”

“Wow,” Jaymie said. “I never thought of all that.” She surveyed the wall of tools: ice picks, saws, grapple hooks, tongs. She would need more info, and some photos of ice cream makers, maybe. Ruby hovered nearby, and Jaymie ran the idea past her, as Zack returned to their table and ordered another beer, picking up the
Howler
and folding it back to the Sudoku puzzle.

“What a great thought!” Ruby said. “Did you know that what we use as storage lockers at the back of the dining room are antique ice chests? You could use pictures of them to illustrate, maybe!” She grabbed Jaymie’s wrist and tugged her back to a dim corner of the restaurant. They looked over the ice chests, beautiful lead-lined wood chests, with a place for the ice and a drip pipe to drain the water as it melted off the ice. The ice chests were full of plastic cups, take-out containers, paper towels and stacks of order pads. Ruby closed them back up, and Jaymie positioned herself to get the best photos.

Ruby ducked out of the way, and Jaymie said, “Hey, don’t go! Let me get a photo of you by the ice chests!”

“No, no, I don’t want to be in any pictures. I . . . I
hate
having my photo taken!” Her weather-beaten face stained a ruddy hue.

“Okay. I know the feeling. I cringe when I see pictures of myself.” She lined up the shot, and the flash lit up the chrome handles on the doors. She looked down at the little glowing screen of her camera; good enough, since she didn’t expect to use the ice chest photos for anything. She and Ruby threaded back between the tables, now emptier of patrons than they had been an hour before. Jaymie was going to go back to her table, but a shout near the front drew her attention.

A short, thickset man in his fifties was shouldering past one of the waitstaff. “Redmond!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

Garnet, at the bar putting away clean glasses, turned and muttered a curse word under his breath. Ruby glanced around and saw the man.

“Darn it, what does
he
want?” she said.