Ed Lynskey - Isabel and Alma Trumbo 01 - Quiet Anchorage (7 page)

Alma looked at him. “Why do you ask?”

He shrugged. “No reason. Dwight seems competent and meticulous enough to do a good job for her.”

Alma and she had left the drugstore and returned home.

Now sighing to try and rest, Isabel mashed the pillow flat on her bed. She snuggled to get more comfortable in the pillow and pulled up the sheets, but sleep didn’t overtake her. Desperate to relax, she thought of drinking a glass of warm milk, but the traditional folk remedy had never left her drowsy. Instead, her thoughts turned to Megan’s first harrowing night spent in prison, but that was a useless worry so she dismissed it.

Isabel put on the light, sat up, and conjured up their graveyard caper. In her cozy bedroom she could smile over it, but their midnight stakeout spent in the dank, murky graveyard in April hadn’t been so funny. The obelisk gravestones in the Trumbo family plot had toppled to the soggy ground. Alma and she lobbied the part-time groundskeeper into righting the gravestones. Several days later they drove past the cemetery and saw the gravestones had tipped over again.

“Sheriff Fox can’t blame it on the wind again,” said Alma.

Isabel nodded. “Even a hurricane gale force can’t blow over a tombstone.”

“Truants bored by their free time did it.” Alma scowled at Isabel. “We should take this vandalism personally.”

“I do but Sheriff Fox hasn’t done anything about it.”

“Evidently graveyard vigils aren’t his main concern.”

“It’s Friday. The vandals will probably return to get more kicks tonight, and we can be there ready to catch them.”

Alma shivered. “We’ll catch the death of cold.”

“The nights have been unseasonably warm.” Isabel measured up her younger sister. “I think something else is behind your reluctance.”

Alma scoffed. “What?”

“I count three rabbits’ feet dangling on your key ring.”

Alma smacked her lips, a sign of irritation. “So, I like to collect rabbits’ feet, but I’ll have you know I don’t have a superstitious bone in my body.”

“Then I dare you to play the graveyard sentry with me.”

“Fine only because I want you to see I’m not superstitious.”

* * * *

Later that evening, they hunched down behind a hedge of quince shrubs in the town cemetery. The night felt warm in the low seventies, and they removed their corduroy jackets. The aroma of fecund dug earth and hyacinths was the evidence of a recent funeral. Alma shifted her large, black purse to her other forearm. Isabel had left her purse at home, but she wore her floppy straw hat.

“The moon is luminous tonight,” she said.

“Have you heard any strange noises?” asked Alma.

“The only noise I’ve heard is our talking. Moving closer to the gate will give us a better vantage point.”

“We might give ourselves away.” Alma gave a backward glance. “Coming in from the cemetery’s rear is the smart approach.”

“No, our merry pranksters will arrive by the road.”

Alma sneezed into a tissue. “These maples are pollen factories.”

“I told you to refill your prescription.”

“I can’t see spending money on what I don’t need. My allergies haven’t reached the crisis point.”

“Yet.” Isabel sniffed. “Did you bring any extra tissues?”

Alma plucked one for each of them from her purse.

“How do you lug around a purse big as a wrecking ball?”

“It’s not that heavy. Having Megan or Jake here would be nice.”

“She had to prepare his taxes tonight.”

“Oh, he’d be lost in blue limbo without her.”

“She’s a big asset to him even if he stays largely blind to it.”

“Promise me you won’t tell her we ever did this. If it leaks out, we’ll be certified as the new town idiots.”

“My lips are a sealed vault.”

Isabel shifted her stance behind the quince. She pushed aside a branch and surveyed the moonlit graveyard studded with the tombstones of various shapes and sizes. “Did you think to recharge your cell phone?”

“That’s been taken care of, yes.”

“Can you pick up any clear signal in this dead zone?”

“I’ve already checked, and the answer is yes.”

“Careful now. I can hear a car slowing on the road.”

The thud to the car doors shutting reached their ears. A boyish whoop sailed up, and a flashlight beam bobbed in the distance.

“Oh-oh, they’re back,” said Isabel.

“I’d better contact Sheriff Fox.”

“A stellar idea,” Isabel had said.

Now turning in her bed, she subdued her reveries with a deep yawn. She flipped off her bed table light, and her heart slowed its beats. Her heavy lids drifted shut, and a few breaths later a dreamless sleep claimed her.

Early Tuesday morning, a thunderclap rattled the windowpanes in their frames. Her heart beating like the wings of wild geese, Alma jolted awake. She knew without peeping out the slats to the Venetian blinds the source to the infernal racket. The longhaired, surly boy from next door had cranked up the V-8 engine to his monster truck, leaving for his day job.

Alma made a mental note to ask Sheriff Fox about what mufflers were legal to install on trucks. She remembered with a start she’d more pressing business to take care of today. Imagine Megan enduring a night alone behind bars for a crime she didn’t commit. Charged with murder, the most heinous offense, doubled the horror. Alma heard a ringtone, and her hand slipping under the pillows retrieved her cell phone. She flipped it open, her first words saying, “Hallo, Isabel.”

“Did Young Thor’s hammer jar you awake, too? Doesn’t it make you want to stamp next door and throttle him?” asked Isabel in her cotton-mouthed irritation.

Alma replied with her own question, “Did you sleep well before the thunder struck?”

“Fair to middling. How about you?”

“A bit better, thanks. Do we first discuss the topic of motives for murder with Dwight?”

“I already did no more than five minutes ago. He listened as any tactful lawyer does and thanked me for my valuable inputs. No doubt his legal bill will reflect our chat time.”

Alma stretched her arms and legs in bed. “He isn’t a morning person, so we better go see him later today. What else is on our post-breakfast agenda?”

“We’ll want to meet with Rosie McLeod and Lotus Wang.”

“See you in a bit then.”

Thumbing off their connection, Alma marveled at the convenience to chat on a cell phone. Hadn’t telephone science, or whatever it was called, advanced by leaps and bounds since the telephone party lines relied on back in the Middle Ages? She abhorred their indolence to lounge in bed and speak rather than walking down the hallway to hold a normal face-to-face conversation. She let out a sigh, thinking, well, that was progress for you.

Their hasty breakfast was hot grits, a wedge of honeydew melon, and skim milk. Alma sipped her cranberry juice, but Isabel abstained before they piled into the sedan gleaming navy blue under its coat of morning dew.

“I hope the prison serves hearty meals,” said Isabel.

Nodding, Alma twirled the key in the ignition. “That topped my list of Megan worries, too.” The engine, recently tuned up by Jake Robbins, hummed in its smooth idle.

“We should pick up a few items,” said Isabel. “But first, where do we catch up with Rosie and Lotus this morning?”

“You must know they practically live at Clean Vito’s.”

“Different strokes. I hate musty laundromats and almost never go inside one.”

“The commercial detergent odors irritate my sinuses.”

Within minutes, they found Clean Vito’s Laundromat, a colorful, boxy structure shingled in plum red with double-hung windows painted lemon yellow. A shopping cart blocked the last vacant parking space. After an annoyed Isabel climbed out to move the shopping cart to the cart stall in the grocery store’s lot, Alma nosed the sedan into the free space. Before joining Isabel, she re-centered the Bible—it’d extricated her from more than one traffic ticket—on the dashboard.

“We stick out with no baskets of laundry,” said Isabel.

Alma dropped the key ring into her purse. “Don’t act sneaky about the reason we came here. Megan is behind bars falsely accused, and we intend to clear her name. If folks like to lend us a hand, we’re grateful and if not, who has the time for them anyway?”

They navigated their path over the chunky stones mingled with the gravel without wrenching an ankle. Alma spotted a praying mantis perched on the step—a sign that autumn lurked around the corner, and Megan couldn’t be left in her chilly prison cell. A columnar ashtray stand propped open the laundromat door. Their smelling the clean laundry detergent coincided with hearing the whir to the dryers and the slosh to the washers.

First in, Alma scanned the knots of chattering ladies to key on Rosie and Lotus, the only other ladies not armed with a clothesbasket, making their rounds. Alma and Isabel threaded down the first aisle between the different ladies’ sympathetic smiles and gentle nods offering their support for Megan. Isabel pressing the ladies’ forearms thanked them. Tall and lanky, Rosie by looking over Lotus’s head first spotted Alma.

“I hope you don’t mind us bending your ears,” she said.

“But we brought a few questions to ask you,” said Isabel.

Wary, the stout Lotus tilted her eyebrows. “What sort of questions?”

“Did Jake Robbins make any known enemies or disgruntled customers?” asked Isabel.

“How the devil might we know something like that?” asked Rosie, more suspicious.

Alma moved to reorient their conversation. “I know Jake’s daddy Hiram Robbins had an Irishman’s temper and every once in a green cheese moon, it got the best of him because he always loved ripping into a good brawl.”

Never to be outdone telling a story on the locals, Lotus jumped in. “But that’s not true of Jake. Quiet and serious, he took more after his mother and kept his nose pressed to the grindstone.”

Rosie scratched her collarbone. “He didn’t deserve what happened to him.”

“I sleep fine knowing Sheriff Fox has it well in hand,” said Lotus.

“Are you saying Megan is guilty?” asked Alma, her words tart.

“Not at all, just I’m not clever enough to peg any suspect,” replied Lotus.

“Maybe you can help us,” said Isabel. “Who was in Jake’s circle of friends?”

“As far as I know, he never had a close friend,” replied Lotus.

Rosie offered her take. “He was just the silent, strong type. I never saw him shed a tear at his daddy’s funeral, not like me who cried out my eyes.”

Lotus went on her own fishing expedition. “What did Sheriff Fox find on Megan? A ton of circumstantial evidence? Did Jake and she quarrel over him stealing milk through the fence again? Does she carry a handgun in her purse?”

“Lotus, I’m sorry to say, but your questions are also my questions,” replied Isabel.

“What I’ve wondered is who stands to get Jake’s property?” said Rosie.

Alma cocking her head glanced at Isabel. “Did he have any next-of-kin or make out a will?”

“I don’t know.” As a pretense, Isabel checked the wall clock. “We better go finish our errands, Alma.”

Alma picked up her sister’s cue. “We are running late. Thanks, Rosie and Lotus.”

“You know where to find us,” said Rosie.

“Keep us abreast of any updates,” added Lotus.

“You bet,” lied Alma.

Isabel spoke, her murmur guarded, once they were out of earshot in the lot outside of Clean Vito’s. “Jake had no next-of-kin, but he did leave a will.”

“If he’d no immediate family, who ends up with his earthly possessions? Was it a kissing cousin or a local charity?”

“Megan told me she inherits the whole ball of wax.”

“Why did you wait until now to tell me this?”

“Because Rosie’s nosiness is what jogged my memory.”

Turning thoughtful, Alma undid the sedan doors. “Why did he draw up his will?”

Isabel shrugged into her seat. “I can only guess that facing the prospect of marriage spurs a young man to mature in ways like creating his will.”

“His will supplies a motive for murder. Sheriff Fox can allege Megan conspired to get her hands on his property by murdering him.”

“Why would she kill Jake for that depressing stucco house? Sheriff Fox is more likely to cite Jake’s wandering eye as a reason to commit his murder. They broke off their engagement more than once over it. Sheriff Fox will claim they didn’t patch up things, and his latest indiscretion was the last straw for her.”

“He’ll have to prove it by naming who Jake’s latest floozy was.” Alma turned the key and started up the sedan. “He’ll have his work cut out because Jake did no such thing.”

“Did he create a will to demonstrate to Megan that he was making a serious commitment?”

“Only God knows what he really was thinking.”

Isabel let her gaze drift out the dirty windshield at the cloud of steam roiling from Clean Vito’s exhaust stack before they departed on Main Street.

“I caught Max flirting with this young thing early in our marriage,” she said. “The young thing flitted behind the counter at the hardware store, and afterward I sat Max down for a little heart-to-heart. It made an indelible impression on him since he never cheated on me.”

“Or at least no times that you knew about.”

Allowing for that possibility, Isabel nodded. “Were there any breakdowns in trust with your two husbands?”

Alma blew through the red traffic light at the end of Main Street. “No comment,” was her pithy response.