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

Urban. Garnet came up to Jaymie and hovered over her shoulder as she trained the flashlight on the remains of what was once the marina co-owner.
    “Damn!” Garnet yelled, backing away, stumbling a bit. “It
is
Urban.”
    “What’s going on?” Ruby hollered.
    “Call 911, and don’t come down here, Ruby,” Garnet said. “It’s Urban. He’s . . . damn! Just call 911!”
    Garnet stayed with Jaymie while Ruby made the call, but unlike the last couple of times she had found a body, now there were no sirens, no onslaught of cops swarming the place. They were on an island, after all, and one with very few motor vehicles and no physical police presence. Neighbors began to gather, and some even trudged through the dirt of the bared leaching bed toward Jaymie and Garnet before being warned to stay away.
    Fifteen minutes later the bobbing stream of light from another flashlight played across the slope and the ridges of dirt. “What’s going on here?” a voice called out.
    Zack Christian! Well, of course the police would call their very own eyes on the island, Detective Christian. It was comforting, in a way, that he was the one arriving to take charge.
    He approached, cautiously, and said, “I understand you’ve found a body, Jaymie. Again.”
    She slumped in weariness on a mound of dirt and covered her face with her dirty hands.
    “This is no time to be caustic,” Garnet said, his voice hard with anger. “This young lady is ready to collapse. She wouldn’t leave poor Urban alone, though, and I wouldn’t leave
her
!”
    “I know, I know.” The detective cautiously stepped closer to them and bent over the body, shining his flashlight over Urban. “Have either of you touched him?”
    “No,” they both said in chorus.
    “Well, yes,” Jaymie said. “I had to be sure, that he was . . .
you
know. And he was . . . is. He’s dead!”
    “But this is exactly how you found him?” The detective reached out and touched the man’s gray skin, his quick eyes scanning Urban’s face. “You two need to go to your homes and wait, while the Queensville team gets here.”
    “They’re coming to the island?” Jaymie asked.
    He nodded.
    “Police boat,” Garnet murmured and Zack again nodded.
    Of course! Every riverside municipal police force had a boat or two. Just as she thought of that, the thrum of a heavy outboard motor sounded, echoing in the quiet night as it approached the Heartbreak Island marina.
    “Jaymie, will you go back to your cottage, please? And no phoning
anyone
, either of you!” Zack said.
    Jaymie picked her way back across the dirt toward her cottage, slipped off her flip-flops and went in, putting on the kettle for a cup of tea as Hoppy danced around her. She gave him some kibble and tried to settle down, blearily reading through what she had written. It was just a jumble of letters in front of her eyes, and she gave up. She got up to look out the back window every few seconds, it seemed, as the cops stood talking at the perimeter of her property, then made their cautious way toward the body of Urban Dobrinskie.
    There were no doubt other things going on, other cops doing things: notifying Mrs. Dobrinskie, who Jaymie vaguely knew as a mousy little woman, apple-shaped, with soft brown hair going to gray. There was a son, too, she remembered hearing; Zack had said he had to stop Urban from berating his son. She could also see a uniformed officer questioning the neighbors who stood in housecoats and pajamas on the perimeter of Jaymie’s backyard. Flashlights arced beams around her yard and into the wooded copses on either side of the ravine.
    As much as she tried, Jaymie could not stop wondering, though: Who had killed the man, and right beneath her cottage? The blood had saturated the chest of his short-sleeved sports shirt, so there was some kind of chest wound, but she hadn’t seen a knife or any other weapon. She glanced out at the commotion on her back lawn again; a floodlight had been