Ed Lynskey - Isabel and Alma Trumbo 01 - Quiet Anchorage (3 page)

Alma drove them in their sedan to the Robbins’ brown stucco house, recasting the recent events with Jake. At his request, Isabel and she had served as the honorary pallbearers at Hiram Robbins’s funeral in June. Alma smiled at picturing how that unusual scene had raised a few proper eyebrows. Later, Megan had prodded Jake to visit the town clinic located on the highway.

High blood pressure alerted him that he’d inherited his dad’s coronary disease. The doctor ordered medication, diet, and exercise, all of which he chose to ignore. So she bought him a rowing machine and did his grocery shopping. Alma thought Megan fussed too much over him who in turn didn’t appreciate her attention or care enough about her.

Alma knew he’d had a roving eye for the ladies, and the young couple had wrangled over it. His sleeping around had spawned vicious rumors throughout their on-again, off-again relationship. She let out a long breath and stole a glance at Isabel. Her window was also down, and she stared straight ahead at the blacktop where the bubbles popped up on its sun-baked tar surface. Both, wearing their out-of-vogue but functional sunglasses, surveyed the aquamarine landscape.

Isabel felt the intensity of her sister’s gaze. “Do you wonder what I wonder?”

“Did Megan actually shoot Jake?” said Alma.

“Bingo. Did he go tomcatting again, and she find out? Did she lose it and do something regrettable and rash?” Isabel shivered at weighing the dark possibility.

 
“Jake swore he’d stop, and I’ll accept him at his word until we find good reason to doubt it. Alma sized up Isabel’s floppy straw hat and unable to resist the spontaneous bedevilment asked, “Why don’t you break down and buy a new hat?”

“Why throw away my hard earned money on a new hat when this one shades my eyes just fine?”

“Because you resemble the Oz scarecrow.”

“Well, I’m not making a fashion statement, and your teasing won’t sway me. The straw hat stays, so there.”

“Seriously, something else bothers me.”

“Besides my scarecrow hat, what is it?”

Alma bit her lip before replying. “We know very little on how a murder investigation works. Now Megan faces arrest for homicide, and the stakes couldn’t get any higher. Can we do her any good?”

“You’d better think we can. We’ll rely on our book learning. I’ve read Agatha Christie, and you’ve read Dorothy L. Sayers. Enough said.” Isabel flicked her wrist as if to sweep away any lingering qualms.

“We did as young ladies, sure. But the times have changed.”

“Those grand dames knew their stuff, and it all still applies today. Murder is murder. We derive our savvy from all of those mysteries we’ve read.”

Swerving to straddle a pothole, Alma recalled how they’d solved a couple of small mysteries, but nothing approaching the same stratosphere as murder. Her memory centered on the spring when teenagers had vandalized Quiet Anchorage’s cemetery, and they never caught on as to who had reported them to Sheriff Fox. More recently, the sisters had proven a gray-haired lady at their church hadn’t lined her pockets by fleecing the missionary fund. Stricken by the early ravages of Alzheimer’s had left Ruth Brittle forgetful.

A local reporter with a nose for a headline had called them. Alma and Isabel alternated at retelling both capers before a photographer arrived to snap their pictures at various poses. They held oversized magnifying glasses enlarging their eyes for the photo appearing with the article. Overnight they became local celebrities and when one kid in the florist’s asked for their autographs, Alma admitted how she felt like a famous rap star.

Watching the road, Isabel interrupted Alma’s thoughts. “Murder is for the sheriff, not us, to take up.”

“Why are you having these second thoughts?” asked Alma. “This is our niece, and we can ill-afford to leave anything to chance. What if Sheriff Fox never solves Jake’s murder? What if the critical clue is in plain sight, but he can’t see it? What if Sheriff Fox twists all the evidence to incriminate Megan? Even worse to think, what if she is sentenced to serve time? There are too many unnerving what ifs for us to dither on the sidelines and leave it up to Sheriff Fox.”

Isabel shook her head. “You exaggerate by saying she’ll wind up in prison. He’s an honorable man, and he’ll flush out the truth.”

“I’m not as naïve as you because he’s a small-town, badge-happy law officer. Voters in an election year will clamor to see justice served. Time will go by, and he’ll grab the quickest out he can lay his hands on. I’m fearful that she’s too handy.”

“By interfering, I hope we don’t trip up.”

“What if we do? What jury or judge will toss a pair of old busybodies into prison?”

“That makes sense. By the way, you just overshot our turn.”

Alma pumped the brake pedal and jounced into the wide mouth to a driveway. After slapping the sedan into reverse, she backed out to the state road and retraced their route to make the right turn.

“Megan will resent us for tampering,” said Isabel.

“How will she know?” asked Alma. “She’s off with Sheriff Fox, so we can snoop away at Jake’s. Once we get the ball rolling, we’ll let her in on it.”

“The next driveway is Jakes’s. Please don’t miss it, too.”

Alma braked to slow the sedan. The Robbins’ brown stucco house engulfed by the late afternoon shadows had a forlorn, haunted cast. The pea gravel driveway looped around a giant purple beech tree, and a pair of sawhorses holding a section of plywood sat under its shade. Alma saw a pair of upended buckets on the porch for makeshift chairs. Duct tape mended the cracks in several lower storm windows, and the stacks of new asphalt shingles waited on the roof for installation.

“It’s easy to see that only men live in here,” said Isabel.

“Isn’t it a mess?” said Alma, noticing the several tire impressions left by the sheriff and deputy cruisers on the lawn.

Isabel nodded at the rectangular cinderblock structure painted brown to match the house. “Jake’s auto repair shop is straight back.”

“No yellow tape has to mean Sheriff Fox released the crime scene, and we’re free to snoop.”

“Trespassing on private property is illegal.” Isabel tugged up on the sedan door latch.

Alma sent her gaze beyond Isabel’s window. “Maybe Jake’s shooter didn’t use the state road. The surrounding woods offer good cover.”

“If I’d my druthers, I’d steal through the trees in broad daylight. The drought also leaves no mud to record the fresh shoeprints.”

Alma and Isabel shut the sedan doors in tandem, skirted the brown stucco house, and headed to the shop’s wood doors. Once in the shade, they gave their sunglasses a rest. Alma gave one door a heave to slide it along the well-greased top runner, and they moseyed through the gap. The sudden engine drone from an approaching vehicle out on the state road snapped up their heads, their eyes flaring in alarm.

“They’ll see our car here,” said Alma.

“We’ll claim Jake was almost family, and we came to offer our help,” said Isabel.

The onrushing vehicle didn’t slow its gait, and a whitish blur passing by vanished beyond the edge to the woods.

Isabel chuckled a little. “My straw hat concealing my face is my brilliant disguise.”

“Except everybody knows you wear that silly straw hat,” said Alma.

Shrugging, Isabel put on the wall switch just inside the shop doors. Fluorescent overheads flickered on as the gritty dust caused her to sneeze. She scraped a fingertip over a box top to show the same layer of grime coating all the surfaces. The jungle of debris—greasy car parts, dented oilcans, and loopy cables—created an obstacle course. They scooted aside the portable ramp Jake used to wiggle under the autos to do his undercarriage repairs. A barber chair fronted a fly-spattered window. A barn cat squalled out a startled cry, sprang off the chair seat, and scampered through a hole in the cinderblock wall.

“Megan would never put up with this junk,” said Alma.

“If a bullet didn’t get Jake, tetanus sure had its opportunity,” said Isabel. “Where did he fall dead? No chalk outlines are sketched on the shop floor.”

“They only do that theatrical stuff on TV.”

Her head cast downward, Isabel wended her way without injury to the work bench. The jaws to a vise bolted to the bench gripped a six-inch length of rebar steel. A hacksaw resting in the steel filings suggested Jake’s task during his final moments alive.

“I can see a few bloodstains on the floor,” said Isabel.

Alma’s pinched face grew darker. “I can only imagine Megan’s horror to come in here, peer down, and see her fiancé on the floor dead from a bullet.”

“Not a postcard moment,” said Isabel. “We’ll ask Sheriff Fox if the bloodstains were only Jake’s. Seeing this all clutter, it’s impossible to tell if any struggle or fight took place.”

“Won’t his autopsy show the cuts and bruises made on him?”

“Yes, and that’s why we’ll want a copy of his autopsy report.”

“Was he fixing any customer’s car today?”

“The work invoices should document who he serviced. Make a note to check them.”

“No car was in the bay when Megan found him dead.”

“Maybe the shooter hid until the customer left before making his move.”

“Or else Jake’s customer was also his assassin and left in the car.”

“There’s a creepy idea. With this grungy shop stuck in the back, he should’ve kept a watchdog or installed a burglar alarm.”

Alma made a face. “Since when has anyone in Quiet Anchorage used a burglar alarm?”

“Since this tragedy, I’d say. Did he still have his wallet and keys on him? Again, let’s make a note to ask Sheriff Fox and Megan.”

“Aw jeez, I just scraped my new blouse in grease.”

“If it’s any consolation, the shooter also probably left smudged.”

Alma wiped a tissue at the grease stain but it only smeared. “I can make two observations. One, boxed in here our shooter had a limited firing range and two, any passersby on the state road could hear the gun report.”

“Ask Sheriff Fox if he found any ear witnesses.” Isabel shut one eye and visualized a plausible scenario. “The shooter first entered the shop the same way we just did. He saw Jake, and they bickered to bring tempers to a rolling boil. Our shooter took out the handgun and fired it at Jake.”

“On the other hand, the shooter may’ve lurked in ambush, say, behind the barber chair. Jake came inside the shop, and the shooter confronted him. I better write this all down before I forget it. Do you carry an ink pen and memo pad?”

“Not to worry, Alma. I can remember it.”

“What sort of an argument enrages a person enough to kill another?”

“Murder is usually a crime of passion or a premeditated plot. I’m at a loss to say which of those applies to Jake’s case.”

Alma made another swipe of the tissue at the grease stain. “He worked like a fiend with Megan’s help to build up his business and in less than a blink of an eye, it’s wiped out.”

“Stop fussing over the grease stain, or you’ll make it permanent.” Isabel paused. “While he was working like a fiend, did he aggravate someone enough to want to kill him?”

“Megan should know if he had bad blood with any customer unless he hid the grudge—something I can see the secretive Jake doing.”

Isabel’s glance scoped the length of the shop floor. “Do you spot any spent brass cartridges or handguns lying around?”

“Sheriff Fox and his deputies have removed any clues.”