by Ed Lynskey
Chapter 13
“Did Ladybug have any enemies?” asked Sammi Jo.
“She wanted to spend her retirement years living here,” replied Phyllis. “I doubt if she would’ve moved back if she had any known enemies.”
Sammi Jo took the last sip of her piping hot apple flavored tea.
“More hot tea?” asked Phyllis.
“Thanks but no,” replied Sammi Jo.
“Then I’ll also pass on seconds,” said Phyllis.
Isabel and Alma had let off Sammi Jo at Phyllis’s townhouse after the lady sleuths cased Ladybug’s townhouse. Sammi Jo and Phyllis sat in her comfortable living room.
Phyllis didn’t go in for the bold upholstery Isabel (lime green velveteen) and Alma (tartan plaid) used on their favorite armchairs but preferred the softer pastel colors of beige and yellow. She was also a big fan of potpourri. Sammi Jo liked the pleasant way it smelled, but concocting it in the small simmer pot of heated water was too much of a hassle for her to bother with the potpourri.
“What impressions did Ladybug’s ex Curt make on you?” asked Sammi Jo.
“Having never met the fellow, I only knew him through her conversation,” replied Phyllis. “Like all married couples, they relished their good times and weathered their bad times. She never said anything really negative or objectionable about him.”
“Was their divorce was a friendly one?”
“Ladybug made it clear how they remained friends afterward, and they frequently talked to each other. She said he could still make her laugh during their phone conversations, and she liked to laugh. They didn’t see each other socially, and she didn’t have out their wedding pictures on display, but I gathered she was still fond of him.”
“Was Curt depressed or upset enough about their divorce to take his own life?”
“Well, I imagine getting through a divorce isn’t easy. Look at how seldom Alma mentions her divorces.”
“I’ve never heard Alma mention either of her exes by name, and I doubt if she felt any need to keep up with them.”
“Was either or both of them unfaithful to her?”
Sammi Jo shrugged. “I don’t like to speculate since she’s our friend. It wouldn’t surprise me a lot if she discovered some hanky-panky was going on behind her back.”
“Some men aren’t even worth a dang.”
“On the other hand, Isabel and Max enjoyed a long and loving marriage.”
Phyllis nodded. “Yes, indeed, they did. I remember after he died she told me she had their wedding rings soldered together and glued them to the corner of their framed wedding picture.”
“She has a sentimental streak she doesn’t often let show,” said Sammi Jo.
“She is a lovely person as is Alma,” said Phyllis. “Both are nosy but in a good way.”
“Is your wireless router I installed working?” asked Sammi Jo. “I want to do some online research.”
“I never use my old laptop computer anymore,” replied Phyllis. “After my online genealogical research discovered a horse thief in our family tree, I lost heart and put aside the project. Who wants to learn about the black sheep in their ancestry?”
“Are you sure you followed the right trunk and roots to our family tree? Garner is a fairly common name.”
“I know who we are, and I just used the online tools. I can’t believe one of our Garner forebears had the gall to steal another man’s horse. If a Garner needed to go somewhere, he either walked or hitchhiked to get there, but he didn’t ride off on another man’s horse.”
“Did men put out their thumbs and hitchhike back in the horse and buggy days?”
“I don’t see why not.”
Sammi Jo used the WiFi for gaining internet access. The old laptop powered up, but it created a worrisome gurgling noise like the bath water circling the drain. She expected to see a column of smoke curling up like from bread slices caught in the hot toaster.
“I forgot to tell you it has been doing that,” said Phyllis.
“The noise doesn’t sound too promising,” said Sammi Jo.
“It’s just being cranky like I get at times,” said Phyllis.
Sammi Jo first decided to google the recent San Francisco obituaries. Her search words of “Curt Miles” failed to key on any useful hits. Undeterred, she dug further back in time by delving into a public obituary database maintained by a large newspaper. Like their surname Garner, Sammi Jo found Miles was also a common one. Nonetheless, her searches didn’t peg any Curt Miles who had headed off to the Golden Gate Bridge one fateful morning and never returned to his hotel room.
Sammi Jo figured if the authorities hadn’t recovered Curt’s dead body from the bay that they still classified him as a missing person. The eyewitness Hallsworth wasn’t enough corroboration to declare Curt “legally” dead. She prowled around some more in cyberspace, searching for any news item about Curt Miles, Missing Person. Her attempts yielded no results.
She read on one website devoted to the Golden Gate Bridge suicides how the Marin County officials reviewed the security camera footage for any frames capturing the bridge jumpers in action before splash down. The California Highway Patrol initiated the follow up investigation while the Coast Guard in their vessels patrolled the choppy bay waters to recover the floating corpse. The high and low tides often dragged the dead body out to the open sea where it disappeared forever.
The laptop’s gurgling noise had grown shriller, and the live screen all of the sudden shrank into a blue dot before the laptop blipped off for good. It wouldn’t reboot for Sammi Jo after her several attempts.
“It looks like it is a goner,” said Sammi Jo.
“It was limping along on its last legs anyway,” said Phyllis.
“Is it worth it to us to get it repaired in Warrenton?”
“The gurgly noise sounded like its death rattle, so I wouldn’t pay to have it fixed. What good stuff did you dig out?”
Sammi Jo sat back and relayed what little information she’d found on the Golden Gate Bridge suicides but nothing on Curt Miles.
“I tried to persuade Ladybug to fly out and retrace Curt’s path,” said Phyllis. “I thought she’d feel better if she did something, but she was a homebody and put me off.”
“If she cared enough about him, she would have caught the next plane to the West Coast,” said Sammi Jo.
“Or she figured making the trip was a fool’s errand. What could she turn up new on Curt the authorities hadn’t already gotten?”
“Was she depressed over the news of Curt’s suicide? Did she act as if she’d snap out of it?”
“When we talked at Eddy’s Deli, I asked her the same thing, and she swore she would feel better once the shock of it wore off.”
“Did you believe her?”
“I had no reason to think she wouldn’t do what she told me. Getting the bad news about Curt’s suicide just bummed her out like it would anybody.”
Sammi Jo closed the lid to the broken laptop. “Ladybug’s name has always intrigued me because Mom taught me ‘The Ladybug Song.’ I have one memory of us sitting together under the shady honey locusts at the Cape Cod where she sang its lyrics. It was during the summer after I finished the third grade. Her singing voice was clear as a struck church bell.”
“Mo was a talented performer. She wore her little black dress and used to stand up and sing at the mike accompanied by the local string bands.”
Sammi Jo looked at her aunt. “Did you listen to her sing at the barn parties, Aunt Phyllis?”
“I was also young and liked to chase my share of the bright lights and snappy music. Or that was my cover story when I was actually there to keep a watchful eye on Mo while your dad Ray Burl stayed at home and raised you.”
“Your eye must’ve blinked the morning she skipped town.”
“That was the one barn party I missed while I was laid up in bed after my emergency appendectomy. After Mo took off for who knows where, I felt bad about falling down on my promise, but Ray Burl told me not t
o worry and forget about it. He said Mo had a flighty nature, and nobody could have done anything to stop her. I’ve racked my brain trying to fathom what she was thinking in her pretty but empty head when she left Quiet Anchorage on the Greyhound.”
“She’d had a bellyful of living in the boondocks with a bunch of hicks,” said Sammi Jo. “Those were her words and not mine.”
“Her living hand-to-mouth like she did after leaving couldn’t have been much better.”
“I agree with you, but we laid Mo to rest some time ago in the town cemetery,” said Sammi Jo. “So let’s keep her there, shall we?”
“My only hope is she sings her songs in a better, happier place,” said Phyllis not expressing her belief the late dancehall nightingale Mo Garner would never find much joy no matter where she finally came to roost.
Chapter 14
Welcoming Petey Samson home again delighted the sisters. He’d suffered no ill effects from undergoing his minor surgery (for a fluid-filled ear), and unless Alma’s memory was going fuzzy, she thought he acted more rambunctious than he did before going to Dr. Ruffian’s office.
Isabel in her unbridled joy didn’t seem to notice his surplus of energy and devilment. In her eyes, he could do no wrong. Just yesterday, she’d suggested they might consider getting rid of the TV set and buy Petey Samson his own armchair so they could all sit together like a family. They could put his armchair in the freed up space the TV set had occupied.
Alma vetoed Isabel’s proposal. Alma had been watching the soaps after Isabel left for her afternoon nap, and Alma was a big fan of their tearjerker plots. She kept a box of extra absorbent tissues within hand’s reach. Isabel murmured their eventful lives already amounted to a soap opera that she would call “Quiet Anchorage.” Who needed to watch the ones on TV? She also suspected Alma was dozing off while she sat watching the soap operas.
***
“Petey Samson must have bloodhound or Saint Bernard in his mutt ancestry,” said Isabel.
They worked in the shady yard raking up the leaves next to the flowerbed filled with hostas, petunias, and marigolds. The days were still long enough here in mid-October for the trees to retain most of their foliage. Nevertheless the sisters wanted to stay ahead or at least keep up with the leaf raking. In the autumns past, the falling leaves overtook their energies, covering the lawn and piling up to their knees. Alma urged Isabel to make the frantic phone call to Camilo and his ace employees to bring in their leaf blowers and lawn vacuum to dispose of the leaves in a jiff. The sisters might have to use him again.
Swiping her bamboo broom rake over the lawn, Alma swept up the leaves to add to her growing pile. If Petey Samson has any bloodhound or Saint Bernard in his mutt ancestry, I’ll be a monkey’s aunt, she thought. She was getting pooped out, her leaden arms feeling as if they’d drop off her like Mr. Potato Head’s arms. Her look overhead saw the thousands of leaves still attached to the tree branches and yet to fall earthward. She sighed at seeing a couple of the leaves swirling downward past her nose.
“If there is any bloodhound or St. Bernard in Petey Samson, it came many generations ago,” she said.
“Not so many generations ago,” said Isabel. “Don’t forget how much he strains on the leash while you or I are walking him.”
“He just wants to chase after the blue jays or the toy poodle Mimi living on the next street corner.”
“You just don’t understand Petey Samson like I do, Alma. He is following the scents that his olfactory receptors have picked up.”
Alma leaned on the broom rake while Isabel went on working at a steady clip. Nothing tired her out while she raved about Petey Samson’s virtues. It was too much to take. Why didn’t she dress him up in a little fringed cape—only silk or velvet would do—with the fluorescent orange letter T for Top Dog emblazoned on the cape? Alma didn’t make a joke about it, or Isabel would be getting in touch with Mr. Rhee, the men’s tailor they’d trounced while playing Scrabble. Alma vowed to never walk on Main Street accompanied by Petey Sampson with his “T” cape aflutter in the breeze, and the townies gawking and pointing at them.
“Here is a question for you,” said Alma. “What is our vigilant bloodhound doing right at the moment?”
Frowning a bit, Isabel pursed her lips. “He’s romping up and down the hallway barking,” she replied.
“He’s always doing that,” said Alma. “Does his undisciplined behavior sound like a sharp-nosed bloodhound that can zero in on and follow a scent trail?”
“He lacks the proper incentive to put his nose to effective use.”
“I beg your pardon.”
“Give Petey Samson the chance and he’ll focus, concentrating his mind to accomplish whatever mission we ask him to undertake.” Isabel pointed at Alma’s broom rake. “Are you substituting your rake for a leaning post? You’ve been standing there frozen like an ice sculpture for several minutes.”
“My arms were tired.” She cranked up again, taking swats at the leaves scattered over the lawn. “If Petey Samson is the hotshot bloodhound, why don’t we take him to go snoop around where Sheriff Fox pulled Ladybug from the river?”
With a smile, Isabel ceased raking leaves and removed her work gloves. “How is it we are able to read each other’s mind at times like now?”
“I can only think it must stem from our shared DNA.”
“It’s more sophisticated than our common gene pool,” said Isabel. “I have a sneaky notion we’re also smarter than your average senior sleuth.”
Alma also smiled. “Let’s postpone doing our yard work, snap a leash on Petey Samson, and make a beeline for the swimming hole.” She tossed away her broom rake with disdain, and Isabel was only happy to follow suit.
The sleuths were back in action, and life didn’t get any peachier for them. If worse came to worst, they’d call on Camilo to put them on his schedule to come and make short work of the leaf removal chore.
***
After Phyllis produced Ladybug’s polyester headscarf that she’d forgotten and left at Phyllis’s townhouse, Isabel and Alma were set. Phyllis was eager to participate in their latest investigation, so the three ladies left with the well-rested Petey Samson in tow. He’d acted a little petulant and mopey when Isabel had poked her forefinger at him to wake up from his nap taken on her bed after his tearing around the house so much.
He placed his front paw over his eyes, wishing her to go away and leave him be, but she wasn’t having any of that from the slacker. They had important work to do, and she’d volunteered him whether he liked it or not. When he realized they were leaving in the sedan, he perked right up and wagged his tail.
He got a charge out of riding in the sedan’s rear seat with the window open, and his head stuck outside it. His beagle ears fluttered like a pair of little, furry mud flaps as he barked at the townies. Ossie on the wooden bench snickered behind his hand put over his mouth when he saw Isabel and Alma cruising by with their mutt.
“Have you ever tried to put Petey Samson on the scent?” asked Phyllis, a tad of doubt creeping into her voice.
They stood clustered around the sitting, panting, and scratching Petey Samson. The sunshine beamed down with enough warmth to make a cardigan jacket or a buttoned up sweater an adequate wrap. They’d parked the sedan on the hard packed sand at the swimming hole to avoid getting the tires stuck in the looser sand.
“Bear in mind this is Petey Samson’s debut undertaking,” replied Alma. “We are as up in the air as you must be over whether he’ll be a success.”
“Speak for yourself, Alma,” said Isabel. “I have unshakeable faith in his keen sense of smell.”
“Enough with the dramatic buildup,” said Alma. “Isabel, tell him the curtain has gone up, and it’s show time.”
“Yes, release the hounds!” said Phyllis. “Or I should say the hound.”
“Petey Samson,” said Isabel, snapping her fingers at him. “Go search, you hound dog. Find it.”
After loping around them with
his snuffling nose pressed close to the ground, he slowed his pace until he keyed on a likely spot. He halted, tilted his eyes at the ladies, and then scratched with his front claws to scallop out a shallow hole.
“Glory be, our pooch has gone barking mad,” said Alma. “He thinks he’s a cat using the litter box.”
“Let him get another noseful of Ladybug’s headscarf,” said Isabel. “That’s how I’ve watched the K-9 cops do it on TV, and they always find their target.”
“Isabel, the police dogs have been trained on how to conduct searches,” said Alma. “Petey Samson is a raw, unschooled rookie.”
“Oh, give me the blasted headscarf,” said Isabel, taking it from Alma. “Our dog’s I.Q. is off the charts, so he doesn’t need any of that silly dog training stuff.”
She grabbed and tugged on the leash attached to Petey Samson’s collar to divert him from digging in the hole. He lifted his sand-crusted snoot, cocked his head sideways, and gave her a questioning look with his caramel brown eyes before he sneezed off the worst of the sand grains.
“Gesundheit, Petey Samson,” said Phyllis.
“He’s just a mess,” said Alma.
Isabel leaned over and proffered Ladybug’s bunched up headscarf at him. When Petey Samson ignored the headscarf, Isabel shook it. She reached out, trying to hold it a few inches away from his nose. He wagged his tail harder, thinking she had invented a new game to play with him.
“Wouldn’t you know we picked a dud for a hound dog,” said Alma. “We’d do better by asking Loretta Sutphin to bring over her hazel wood divining rod to find any clues.”
“Petey Samson seems to have lost interest,” said Phyllis.
“He’s just a little rusty and needs more time get warmed up,” said Isabel.
Again, Petey Samson sneezed before he backpedaled away from Isabel. Eyeing the hole he’d excavated, he decided resuming that was more interesting than trying to decipher what his mistress wanted from him. He flung back the new sand he scooped from the deepening hole and enlarged the pile he’d created.