Ed Lynskey - Isabel and Alma Trumbo 01 - Quiet Anchorage

by Ed Lynskey

  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.”

  “More times than not, it seems like the police in our mysteries miss a main clue.”

  “That’s done more to heighten the suspense than a genuine depiction of a homicide investigation.”

  “Still, we should be thorough. Since you’re already messy, stoop down and have a peek under the work bench.”

  Alma’s headshake was emphatic. “I’m not touching this filthy floor. Anyway we’ll need a flashlight to see anything under there.”

  “Did Sheriff Fox photograph or make sketches of in here?”

  “The police also, I’ve read, videotape the crime scene layouts.”

  “Hopefully they videotaped before moving anything. We’ll be sure to tell Sheriff Fox we want copies of everything they’ve got. Are we covering all the bases?”

  “I don’t know, Isabel, but we’ve sure raised plenty of questions.”

  “And like Megan, we have few answers at this point. I’ve seen all I want unless we take a swipe through Jake’s house or hike to the woods and try our luck.”

  “Save that for later.” Alma shifted her purse straps to ride on her other forearm and consulted her wristwatch. “Right now I want Megan to come home with us. Sheriff Fox’s allotted hour is up.”

  “I’m holding him to his word. Be careful and avoid rubbing against any more greasy spots.”

  Chapter 5

  The sisters got the heart-jarring news after they were seated in Sheriff Fox’s office. The drafts to the oscillating fan chased the dust bunnies back and forth across their shoes. Isabel saw the framed diplomas on the wall and bet a crooked sheriff had cheated his way throug
h school. A green metal desk buffered them from him, a fortunate thing since their meeting had lost its civility.

  “What did you just tell us?” Alma’s dark blue eyes slitted, and Isabel couldn’t recall seeing her any angrier.

  “I said I arrested Megan.” Craning his neck, he loosened his necktie, more for the effect than comfort. “I charged her with the homicide of Jake Robbins. We also impounded her car left at Jake’s place.”

  Isabel used a testy voice. “You snookered us. You took advantage of our hospitality and cooperation to lure Megan here and effect your phony arrest.”

  “So, shame on me.” He displayed a condescending smile. “Ladies, it’s my sworn duty to apprehend the suspected felons. Niceties get trampled in the process, and as I also stated, I take no great joy in this arrest.”

  “Spare us your hokey speeches.” Alma squinted harder at him. “Where is Megan now? Locked up inside of your gulag?

  “We’d like to see her,” said Isabel.

  “My deputies are booking her as we speak,” he replied. “Visiting her is against regulations, and your request is denied.”

  Isabel’s facial expression darkening approached Alma’s fury.

  “You lack any physical evidence to charge her,” said Alma. “We just returned from studying where Jake died, and we gained a solid grasp of the facts.”

  Isabel gave the boastful Alma a troubled glance.

  Fox leveled his sternest glare on the sisters, their dignified poise further irking him. “You interfered in a crime scene.”

  “With no police line tape up, we assumed you’d finished working there since you had,” said Alma.

  “You made a misguided assumption. Listen close. This hindrance had better stop. Our senior citizens can’t deputize themselves to go off sleuthing on murders. Not in my jurisdiction, they can’t.”

  “Sheriff Fox, don’t you raise your voice to us,” said Isabel. “We saw you crying in your knickers.”

  “What does that have to do with the price of tea?” he asked.

  “Plenty.” Alma clutched her purse closer. “It reminds you of who we are. Did you figure we’d cower all meek as mice in your office? Ha. Sorry to dismay you, but it only riles our fighting blood.”

  His elbows settled on the green desk blotter, and his knobby fingers spiked into a steeple. They weren’t pushovers. So he softened his inflection, trying to sound as sincere as possible.

  “Alma and Isabel, please understand you can’t go back and erase the past errors. If Megan committed murder, she has to be held accountable for it the same as any Quiet Anchorage citizen would be.”

  “Your operative word is ‘if’ and that’s a mighty big ‘if’,” said Alma.

  He balanced his lantern chin on the apex of his fingertip steeple. “What’s done can’t be undone. What else can I tell you?”

  “Did the bloodstains on the shop floor only belong to Jake?” asked Isabel.

  “I can’t confirm or deny that,” replied Sheriff Fox.

  “Did Jake carry his wallet and keys in his pockets?” asked Isabel.

  “No comment.” Growing ill at ease from their penetrating questions, Sheriff Fox shuffled his shoes under his desk.

  “How many shots were fired?” asked Isabel.

  “We found one shell casing and no holes in the wall so just the one,” replied Sheriff Fox.

  Alma took a turn. “Did Jake have a grease smudge on him?”

  “No, but what’s that got to do with any of this?” said Sheriff Fox.

  “Maybe nothing but the shop grease left its stain on me,” said Alma.

  “Bad things wouldn’t occur if you didn’t engage in your freelance sleuthing,” said Sheriff Fox.

  Chin up, Isabel gained her feet. “We’ve said our all and need a lawyer on our side unless Sheriff Fox cares to share his physical evidence with us.”

  “No can do.” He wagged his head. “At this early juncture in our investigation, everything is proprietary.”

  A shrewd glint informed Isabel’s steady hazel eyes. Feeling more skittish, he flexed his shoulders to unknot the muscular tension as she spoke. “Our journalist friend wants to hear all about your underhandedness perpetrated this afternoon.”

  He disliked the scrappy Quiet Anchorage newspaper that ran editorials decrying his inept management and urging his impeachment from office. His fingertip steeple collapsed, and he picked his chin up off the green blotter. “What journalist friend is that?”

  “Elections roll up in November.” Alma cocked her head at him. “Sheriff Fox, correct me if I’m wrong, but aren’t you on this year’s ballot?”

  His weight shifted in the chair bottom. An extra cough cleared his throat, and his reply came out a little hoarse and dry. “What if I am?”

  “Dereliction of duty is in order,” replied Alma. “We claim you arrested the first suspect you could lay your hands on and in the interim, Jake’s actual murderer skied off. Reading such a newspaper story won’t thrill our law-and-order constituency.”

  Taking a more passive approach, his reaction was a bland shrug. “So then go prove me wrong because nothing in the world could make me happier.”

  “Sheriff Fox, let the record show you just authorized us to do whatever it takes to prove Megan’s innocence,” said Isabel.

  He felt his lower jaw unhinge again. “Now wait a minute, that’s not what I meant by—”

  “It’s too late to waffle,” said Alma. “You fold on your word, and we’ll call our journalist friend, and that story will run next week sure as the sun will come up tomorrow.”

  “Hey, that’s blackmail,” he said.

  The last out the office door, Alma paused and looked back at him. “Have a nice day, Sheriff Fox.”

  Chapter 6

  For the first minute after Alma and Isabel had trooped out, Sheriff Fox stared at the wall calendar a month behind the times until a sly tap-tap-tap came at his office door.

  “Yeah, come in.”

  An overweight, younger man in a deputy’s uniform, its fabric shiny from being ironed too many times, sidled through the door. Rust orange freckles speckling his beagle face matched his hair. Uninvited, he flopped down in a chair as Sheriff Fox at a short glance appraised him. Sheriff Fox could feel the fiery ambition burning in the deputy to pin on the sheriff’s badge as soon as in a few months in November.

  Eyes closed, he asked in an aggrieved monotone, “Deputy Sheriff Clarence Fishback, what brings you in here?”

  “Congratulations are on tap, sir. You closed out our most sensational case of the decade in a single day. Wow. It was a nifty piece of police work.”

  “Clarence, you sound like a bumblebee farting in a hollow log.” Sheriff Fox’s eyes darted to the office door. “Didn’t you just pass the two ladies out there?”

  “Yes sir, the sisters asked after my mom. Town treasures, aren’t they?”

  “They’ve hoodwinked you but good.”

  “Lighten up, sir.” Hands folded on his belly, Clarence chuckled as if they’d just shared a dumb blond joke. “Aren’t you acting a little paranoid? Two old maids stop by and leave you with a bad case of the jitters.”

  “Those two old maids, as you dub them,”—this time Sheriff Fox poked a blunt finger at his office door—“are tough as worn combat boots. Their niece is in prison, and they’ve gone on the warpath. Do I have a few hiccups? You bet, I do. They can go blab again to the newspaper and generate a boatload of negative publicity to do irreparable damage to our public image. We deal with enough black eyes as it is. Suppose the mayor comes in and cleans house? That should also trouble you since I assume you like your job.”

  More in sync with his boss’s concerns, Clarence gnawed on his cheek lining. “I realize they’re no dummies. It’s amazing how they solved the graveyard vandalism that stymied us for weeks.”

  “Gee, Clarence, thanks for dredging that up.”

  “What’s their best weapon to throw at us?”

  “They know every soul in Quiet Anc
horage, and they’re sharp as a cactus. Any more questions?”

  Clarence shook his head. “All of the sudden the Jake Robbins homicide isn’t a ground ball anymore.”

  Sheriff Fox looked satisfied. “You’ve finally got that through your thick skull. Keep close tabs on those sisters, and you’ve done a nifty piece of police work.” He neatened his necktie’s knot and gave the tip a subtle tug as its final adjustment. “Something else needs saying.”

  “What’s that, sir?” asked Clarence, on the edge of his seat.

  “I don’t want to catch you politicking inside my station house.” Sheriff Fox stared down the deputy. “Because the first speech I hear you making, you’re sacked on the spot. Are we clear?”

  “Crystal clear, sir. Rest assured when I put on this uniform, I’m a deputy first,” said Clarence. But the whole time he couldn’t take his eyes off the gold badge pinned to his boss’s shirt pocket.

  “Clarence, you’re nothing but a brown-noser and backstabber,” said Sheriff Fox. “Now, scram before I bust you back to swabbing out the prison cells.”

  Chapter 7

  Alma’s food portions looked picked at on her plate. Isabel took a sip of water from the glass, and her fork sat in its original place setting. Neither sister had said three words at the dinner table, but their silence wasn’t aloofness. Each had retreated in her own thoughts. After retrieving the paper napkin from her lap, Alma balled up the napkin to flip on the tablecloth.

  Isabel glanced over with apprehension furrowing her forehead.

  “Let’s set first things first. Any ideas for Megan’s lawyer?” she asked.

  “Who else but Dwight Holden?” Alma’s pinkie brushed the cornbread crumbs under her plate. “He’s our most experienced lawyer.”

  “Even so, I’d say murder falls outside of his realm of expertise.”

  “Very true but for us that can be an asset. Sure, we can shell out serious money and hire Megan a big defense lawyer, but then where does that leave us?”

  Confusion replaced the apprehension on Isabel’s face. “We’ll visit her every day at trial and bring her home after the jury sets her free.”