Read Freezer I'll Shoot (A Vintage Kitchen Mystery) for Free Online

perfection? On the other side of the issue were those who felt that security was more important than openness and convenience. Alien smuggling, drug smuggling, security; those were all good reasons to monitor who traveled back and forth. It didn’t take long to cross, since most islanders now had a Nexus pass, which was for low risk/high usage trusted border crossers.
    The old days of neighbors crossing back and forth with abandon was over, and most now obeyed the law. If they wanted to visit their backyard Canadian neighbor who was officially across the border, they had to go to one of the crossings, walk through, then go to their neighbor’s home. That was what folks did officially, anyway, in the light of day. But after dark . . . it was well-known that drunks wove back and forth to the Ice House, then to the Boat House, and back, hopefully ending up on their own side of the border at closing time. Cottagers on both sides of the border were having to fence their yards to keep people from sneaking through.
    The island was actually bisected by a channel that had been cut early on to divert springwater and excess river flow. In places, that channel was an actual stream; in others, it was covered by dirt over a culvert. There was talk of sensors being put in the length of the border, along that channel, to ensure that no one crossed illegally, but it was hung up in debate on both sides because of property rights issues.
    Tansy Woodrow’s shop, Tansy’s Tarts, was a bakeshop on the American side of the island. Tansy made the most exquisite tarts and pies for miles. Her specialty was butter tarts, the recipe a well-guarded secret that had been handed down from her Canadian grandmother. When you bit into a Tansy Woodrow butter tart the filling gushed like liquid heaven, sweet and buttery, golden perfection. There weren’t any like them in the whole rest of the United States and she was not sharing the recipe.
    The shop took up much of the main floor of a white two-story frame structure with a big pink-and-white-striped awning over the front window and door with Tansy’s shop name in script; beyond the shop was the bakery at the back. Tansy and her hubby, Sherm, lived in the upstairs apartment and had a deck out back from which they could see much of the island. Jaymie suddenly realized it was probably not the best plan to go to the bakery just before closing, when their stock would be depleted, but she tied Hoppy up to the doggie post outside the door, near the big bucket of water kept out there for the pooches, and slipped in as a couple of skinny girls in cut-offs darted out, mouths full, crumbs falling and the gooshy inside of a butter tart dripping down.
    Sherm Woodrow, Tansy’s husband, was staring out the window after the two girls, and turned to smile at Jaymie. “Hey, Jaymie, what can I do ya for?” he said.
    She looked at the nearly empty glass case—the shop was lined with antique bakery cases, white porcelain and chrome, with huge glass expanses and wire shelves—and said, “I think I’m too late. I was going to buy a dozen pecan butter tarts to take back to the mainland tomorrow.”
    “None but a couple left,” he said, as Tansy, her face red, came out through the swinging doors of the back bakery.
    “Hey, Tans, how are you?”
    “Good. You?”
    “I’m good.”
    Sherm repeated what Jaymie had said, and Tansy blew her bangs off her forehead with her lower lip thrust out. “No can do,” she said, “but I’m baking some more first thing tomorrow morning before it gets too warm, and I’ll save you a dozen, nice and fresh!”
    “How about half pecan and half regular butter tarts? I’m taking some over to Daniel’s. His mother and father are in town and I don’t know their stand on nuts versus raisins, so I’ll buy both.”
    “Ah, you mean the future in-laws?” Sherm teased, winking at her. “Can’t wait to ‘butter’ them up with Tansy’s tarts?” he said.
    Both women groaned.
    Just