Ed Lynskey - Isabel and Alma Trumbo 01 - Quiet Anchorage (6 page)

The phantom maid during the sisters’ absence hadn’t cleared away and washed up the dishes. So Isabel ran the kitchen faucet to fill the white enamel sink with hot water. She added a squirt of the emerald green detergent, and Alma slid a dishtowel from the refrigerator handle. They talked.

“I wonder if Jake made any enemies,” said Alma, drying the rinsed plates. “He’s bound to have miffed a customer or two in his dealings.”

“How do we find his enemies?” asked Isabel.

“We ask around town and, if not lucky, we’ll cast our net wider.”

“Her two old aunts meddling in public will appall Megan.”

Setting the dinner plates on their stack inside the cabinet shelf, Alma scoffed. “Appearances hardly matter now.”

“True enough but where do we start our search?”

“Rosie McLeod and Lotus Wang are our champion town gossips.”

“At least they’re a starting place. Tonight Megan looked so forlorn it broke my heart.”

“Don’t forget she’s tough as nails,” said Alma with false cheer.

“But of course she is.” Isabel popped out the sink plug, and they watched the dishwater circle the drain before a final slurp. “Well, I’m off to curl up with a new mystery. If I’m lucky, and the sandman skips by, I’ll doze off by dawn.”

“I already concede I won’t sleep one wink tonight.”

Isabel undid her collar and sleeves. “If we stand any shot to help Megan, we need the sleep to keep our sharpest wits.”

“Taking a sleep aid leaves me waking up lost in a fogbank.”

“Then let’s try closing our eyes and pretending to sleep.”

Alma left for her bedroom down one wing of their rambler, and Isabel wandered off to her closer bedroom. She tugged out the night table drawer, but then she decided she still wasn’t ready—even ten years later—to put out Max’s framed photo on permanent display. His dusky smile held her eye for an extra second.

They’d had just the one boy, Cecil. She battled a pang of wistful regret at not having had more children, but then she now had Megan. By the next moment she took stock of their assuming the unproven roles as private detectives to do her some good.

After shutting her bedroom door and relaxing on her bed, she let her mind drift back and replay what’d transpired in Interview Room One after a lady deputy had escorted Megan back to her prison cell. When their shuffling footsteps had receded to icy silence in the hallway, Sheriff Fox turned to Dwight and the sisters.

“With your legal counsel present, you’ll want a rundown on Megan’s charge.”

“Please do bring us up to date,” said Dwight.

Sheriff Fox smoothed his wrinkly necktie between his fingers as he used a cop’s matter-of-fact tone. “This afternoon Megan Connors contacted my office and reported Jake Robbins was prone out on his shop floor.”

“It’s odd how she first shoots him and then calls the authorities,” said Alma.

“It’s a known ploy murderers use to misdirect the police,” said Sheriff Fox. “Anyway, Jake had died of one fatal gunshot wound to the chest—”.

“Which region of the chest?” asked Isabel.

“The round struck the most vital region: his heart.” Sheriff Fox signaled with his hands to squelch their next words. “Once I finish, I’ll field your questions.”

“If you’d told us all this earlier, we’d have no questions now,” said Alma.

The scratchy rasp was Dwight catching his breath. “All right, Alma, just shush. Let me do the talking like you pay me for. Excuse the interruption, Sheriff Fox. There’ll be no others, so proceed.”

“There’s not much else left to say. I dispatched two deputies to Jake’s shop and drove over myself a little later. We processed the crime scene where I questioned Megan, and she told me she came to see Jake to do the books. Her knocks on the house door went unheeded, so she proceeded to the shop. There she hollered out his name but raised no response. She claims she entered through the bay doors and spotted him, the victim of foul play—”

“Skip over to the part on your evidence.” An impatient Alma snapped open her purse, plucked out a tissue, and wiped her nose. “That’s what I want to hear.”

Isabel seconded Alma’s request before Dwight could protest. “Yes, show us what evidence you’ve accumulated, Sheriff Fox.”

He went on. “If I can get in a word edgewise, I’ll tell you Jake died of a .44 round. Shortly after I let Megan leave, our follow up canvass of the premises uncovered a.44 handgun the murderer had tossed under the work bench. Playing a hunch, I sent the.44 back to our lab where my technician dusted for prints and raised two matching hers. Yep, that forensic evidence sure put a lock on the guilty culprit.”

“Where did she obtain the weapon?” asked Isabel.

Sheriff Fox shrugged. “Maybe Jake owned it. Maybe she bought it at a gun show. We’re still checking.”

“How do you happen to have her prints on file?” Alma sniffed into her tissue.

“We printed her for her Federal security clearance when she applied to work at the training center,” replied Sheriff Fox.

“This weapon, I assumed, had checkered grips,” said Isabel.

Sheriff Fox rolled his tongue inside his cheek. “It did but so what?”

“Prints aren’t left on rough textured surfaces like checkered grips,” replied Isabel.

“We lifted Megan’s prints off the barrel’s smooth surface.” Sheriff Fox had a triumphant smile. “We also took her print off the trigger. Both prints matched to her, and we couldn’t ask for better ironclad evidence.”

The pastiness blanched Alma’s face as she felt the blood rush from her head. Sheriff Fox’s glance in Isabel’s direction, however, disturbed him. A shrewd glint made her eyes dance. His discomfort puzzled him until he realized how the two sisters had always looked the same—silver and formidable—since he was a kid. Even in adulthood on some basic level, he still regarded them as his elders, but he today was the sheriff of Quiet Anchorage, and the one voted and paid to be in charge here.

“This .38 handgun you pulled out from under the work bench sounds too pat to me,” said Isabel.

Sheriff Fox shook his head. “I said the murder weapon is a .44, not a .38, and why is it too pat for you?” His voice grew defensive. “Are you implying my deputies planted the evidence?”

Dwight, his hand raised to play the mediator, looked flustered, and Alma reclaimed some of her fiery temperament.

“What Isabel means is some creep had to frame Megan for Jake’s murder. Besides she would be incredibly stupid to shoot poor Jake dead and then phone you to say she’d tripped over his corpse.”

“As I said, this behavior pattern occurs more often than you might think,” said Sheriff Fox. “The corpse is discovered—dang it, Alma, don’t interrupt me again—and reported by the actual murderer. It’s like how the arsonist first torches the abandoned warehouse and then reports the blaze to the fire station. As for your frame up theory, you’re grasping at straws, and no jury is going to bite on it. Trust me.”

“Megan would also be a buffoon to leave the murder weapon under the work bench,” said Alma.

“Maybe panic-stricken, she didn’t possess the presence of mind to think of a better hiding place.” Sheriff Fox narrowed his curious eyes on them. “How is it you two sisters know so much on homicides?”

“We’ve been reading murder mysteries before you were born,” replied Alma.

“Impressive but there’s one critical difference. This is the real world and not something lifted off the printed page,” said Sheriff Fox.

Isabel asked a few real world questions. “Have you Mirandized our niece? Did you record an entry log at the crime scene? Did you photograph and videotape the crime scene? Did you test for gunpowder residue on her? Dwight, are you paying attention to all of this? And last, have you constructed a timeline of events?”

“Naturally I know to do all of those things,” replied Sheriff Fox.

A frosty silence settled in the small interview room until Dwight scraped back in his chair. “Well. That does it for us. Thanks for your valuable time, Sheriff Fox.”

He gave them a frank nod. “I’ve detailed what’s what, and now the gears of justice will grind forward.”

“We aim to throw a monkey wrench into those gears of justice,” said Alma.

Sheriff Fox wasn’t left in a convivial mood. “This is my last warning. You should watch your step. Dwight, you better keep a tight rein on your client’s family, and I’m drop-dead serious, too.”

“Bad pun,” Alma had said.

Now smiling at Sheriff Fox’s unintentional pun, Isabel propped up on her pillows, and she felt the glow spread liquid warmth through her. She recognized it as confidence. Despite the ominous turn of affairs, her optimistic nature foresaw a positive outcome where Megan soon returned home. Just as fast a fresh insight struck Isabel.

“Motive,” she said. “Sheriff Fox harped on the means and opportunity, but he didn’t say boo on why he contends Megan shot and murdered Jake.”

Isabel patted the folds to the sheet as her pulse drummed in its new excitement. She found the cell phone snagged in the pillowcase. Her signal beamed from her bedroom through the house to the other wing.

“Hallo,” said Alma, a fellow insomniac.

“It’s just me. Say, did you notice how Sheriff Fox disregarded something significant earlier?”

Alma stifled a yawn. “No, but it’s put you in a tizzy so just tell me.”

“Did he hint at
why
he believes Megan killed Jake?”

“He never came within a country mile of touching on a motive.”

“I’m sure he’s diligent at building a motive to stand up his case, and we should concentrate our efforts there, too. By the way, did you soak the grease stain in your new blouse?”

“No, I put it in the rag bag since it brings bad luck, and we’ve already had our fill.”

“I see. Well, good night then.”

Isabel hung up and stretching her legs under the bed sheets, she recalled leaving Sheriff Fox at the prison and driving to the drugstore on Main Street. It’d been rather late, almost nine o’clock, but the glints of light peeped through the plate-glass front. They trooped inside and hailed Vernon Spitzer straightening the comic books and graphic novels racked in the wire display carousel.

“Ladies, it’s one minute until I close,” he said, striding over to the cash register to wait on them.

“We came in the nick of time,” said Alma. “How are you doing on my prescription refill?”

“Oh. Sorry. I forgot it.” Vernon wrinkling his forehead propped his elbows on a Bible. “My grasshopper mind seems to jump in so many directions, but I’ll refill it by tomorrow. Promise.”

Isabel’s frank gaze sized up the slim, suave, and athletic Vernon. His pencil-thin mustache reminded her of the actor Gig Young, and she found Vernon amiable enough.

“What keeps a young man like yourself so busy?” she asked.

“Running a small business is mayhem,” replied Vernon. “I don’t know if you’ve had any experience in retail.”

Isabel nodded. “A fair bit. I worked for forty-eight years at the home office of a major grocery chain. They’re still going strong, so I suppose we did something right.”

“Is that a fact?” His eyebrows tilted, and his mustache twitched at her. “I would’ve never guessed you for a business lady.”

“It now seems like a long time ago.”

“Did you retain Dwight to defend Megan?” asked Vernon.