by Ed Lynskey
“Who’d have any interest to break into the empty Cape Cod?” asked Isabel.
“Vandal, cat burglar, vagrant, junkie, thrillseeker, or arsonist,” replied Alma. “Take your pick from the standard gallery of rogues.”
“None of the above.” Isabel gnawed on her inner cheek as she gathered her thoughts made while deliberating in Siberia concerning Mo’s possible homicidal tendencies. “I’m inclined to think it’s a lot more personal than just a rogue.”
“Is it one of Ray Burl’s old workers from the turf farm?” asked Sammi Jo. “Is it his boss Mr. Barclay?”
Isabel was reluctant to share who they might encounter in the Cape Cod, but she thought it best to practice caution. “Pull around back. No sense in advertising our presence to Sheriff Fox.”
“I’d like to go to sleep tonight in my own bed,” said Alma. “Not wide awake on a hard prison bunk.”
Sammi Jo hiccupped. Isabel’s remedy hadn’t worked all that well. What else could go wrong tonight? thought Sammi Jo.
On their second approach, she braked to slow them before their tires rolled off the state road’s pavement and crunched over the graveled driveway. She continued to crawl around the corner then behind the Cape Cod to shield their parked sedan. After she came to a stop, she extinguished the luminous cones to their headlights.
She hiccupped while staring at the Cape Cod.
“No parked cars are anywhere in sight, so nobody is still hanging around.”
“Our going inside shouldn’t be dangerous,” said Alma. “I hope.”
“No guts, no glory,” said Sammi Jo.
“I couldn’t have put it any better myself,” said Isabel.
Sammi Jo was the first one to pull up on her door latch and enter the night’s sultry murk. Peering skyward, she could take in the tangerine orange quarter-moon blazing through the foliage to the honey locusts standing sentinel over the Cape Cod. Things felt more and more like they were coming to a head.
All around her, the night bugs played their buzzy songs, and she hit on a whiff of the fresh hay cut in the field across the road. She saw Isabel, then Alma, now twin silhouettes, emerge from their sides of the sedan, and they convened where the front headlights had just shone.
Isabel asked Alma to go back and retrieve the flashlight kept in the glove compartment. She also left the sedan doors unlocked in the unlikely event they had to make a hasty exit driving away from the Cape Cod.
Sammi Jo grabbed with a hand to massage away the pinch in her lower back where her lumbar muscles tensed up, causing the wave of fury to course through her frame. This Cape Cod now belonged to her, and she refused to let any trespasser intimidate or frighten her. A calming bravery fortified her skittish nerves, and she also lost her case of the hiccups.
Meantime Alma, back with the flashlight, felt stomach-churning anxiety building inside her. They made their careful but quick and quiet way to the front of the Cape Cod. The pair of luminous windows glared back at them like a jack-o’-lantern’s rectangular eyes.
Isabel took the lead as they filed over the flagstone pavers, up the porch steps, and grouped at the front entrance. She stepped aside, inviting Sammi Jo to be the one who unlocked the door, opened it, and entered the Cape Cod.
She closed the door with quiet care behind Alma, the last one to stand in the foyer beside the table with Sheriff Fox’s now prophetic memorandum calling the Cape Cod his crime scene.
Their collective groans went up over what they confronted, and Alma didn’t need to switch on her flashlight beam. Isabel didn’t need to dig out the 3X magnifying glass from her pocketbook to search for clues.
The living room was cast in bright relief over a human figure lying on the floor just before the entrance to the kitchen. The scene wasn’t pretty. But it was there just the same. Blood pooled on the floor. Sammi Jo broke their silent spell.
“We found our mystery intruder,” she said with her wry wit. “And she’s deader than a dodo bird at the disco.”
Chapter 34
“Who is the poor lady, Isabel?” Alma hadn’t stirred since their entrance into the foyer.
Isabel, hurrying over to the corpse sprawled out on the floor, spoke over her shoulder. “My hunch tells me it’s none other than Mo Garner, Sammi Jo’s mom.”
Alma reacted with horror. “Oh my god.”
“Exactly,” said Isabel.
Sammi Jo, a short pace behind Isabel, gasped, but she didn’t miss a step.
Alma, a little annoyed, began muttering to herself. “Of course it’s Mo Garner, Alma. Who else would dislike Ray Burl the most? It’s been obvious from the git-go. Why, if it had been a snake, it would’ve bit you on the nose.”
Isabel knelt down with Sammi Jo beside the corpse. It didn’t smell coppery as the mystery novels often describe the conditions at a murder scene. But the horror of murder they got right. Mo had been a winsome lady who’d given up the ghost while dressed in a denim shirt with the pink roses embroidered across the shoulders and denim shorts. Her closed eyes suggested her death had been mercifully instant. Isabel didn’t miss seeing the irony of Mo’s dying in the place where she’d vowed never to return to.
Her tussled hair was the same brunette shade as her daughter’s except for the gray hairs that streaked it. Isabel didn’t miss observing how the hard-traveled miles since Mo’s self-imposed exile showed in her craggy face. Mo appeared to be in about the same age range as her late ex, Ray Burl. Now in death, they were reunited, and Isabel hoped to God their second pairing was more harmonious than when they’d lived under this same roof. At the moment, Isabel felt more concerned over Sammi Jo’s welfare after confronting this latest traumatic event.
“Are you bearing up?” asked Isabel in a caring murmur.
“I don’t feel like turning cartwheels, but I’m hanging as tough as can be expected,” replied Sammi Jo. “I can also confirm she’s my mother. I haven’t seen Mo since I was six in grade school, but I’ll never forget how her face looks.”
“Age changes ladies’ faces to grow jowly and leathery,” said Isabel. “Are you certain beyond any doubt she’s your mom? Is there a chance she isn’t?”
Sammi Jo’s voice fell flatter. “She has the same face as the portrait in her high school yearbook we looked up at the public library.”
“I’d have to go along with you there,” said Isabel.
Alma crossed the living room, approaching them. “Shot?”
“Once,” replied Isabel. “Chest.”
“We’ve got the picture,” said Alma, stopping beside her older sister and young friend. “Are you okay, Sammi Jo?”
“She’s still treading water,” replied Isabel.
Alma fell back into her private eye mode. “Spread out. Keep your eyes sharp. Look for anything unusual that’s been left behind.”
Isabel grasped Sammi Jo by the forearm and guided her to stand up on her rickety legs. “Shall we get on with it?” asked Isabel. “Do you need another moment?”
Sammi Jo raised her limp shoulders. “Don’t stop on my account. What we seen done in here can’t be undone.”
“The main question facing us is who was it that killed Mo,” said Alma and as an afterthought she tacked on, “And Ray Burl, as well.”
“Hey, Isabel and Alma.” Their saucer-eyed looks intersected on Sammi Jo. “I’m headed back out to the car,” she said. “And have one of my big cries. Don’t offer to go with me. It’s something I have to do right now, but it’s better if I’m alone when I do it. Thanks for your understanding.”
“We keep the tissues in the glove compartment,” said Isabel.
Alma was more demonstrative. “Come and give me a big hug, Sammi Jo.” Alma spread out her arms as an invitation to embrace.
Sammi Jo felt torn. She had a lot of dark stuff to process, and she preferred the solitude, at least here in the very early going.
“Sammi Jo, the car is all yours,” said Isabel. “Its doors are unlocked. We’ll give you a few minutes and be right along, too.
For obvious reasons, sticking around here will get us into a pack of trouble if we’re caught.”
Alma lowered her arms as Sammi Jo turned for the foyer and hurried through the front door. Its latch snapping closed cued Alma to share a stern expression with Isabel.
“We better get to the bottom of this murder not tomorrow but tonight,” said Alma.
“Murders,” corrected Isabel. “There are two of them now.”
“Right you are. Has the killer flown the coop?”
“Not quite yet is my guess. The killer has a compelling reason to be in Quiet Anchorage than to just take off willy-nilly tonight.”
“Where is Mo’s pocketbook?” Alma’s eyes swept the floor’s perimeter. No errant pocketbook had been spilled during the shooting. She considered it an unusual detail. “Mo’s killer had to have made it a point to take Mo’s pocketbook unless she doesn’t carry one like Sammi Jo does.”
“Would only another lady think to do something like that?” asked Isabel.
“Quite possibly,” replied Alma.
Isabel pointed out an observation in the foyer. “I can see Roscoe never picked up his memorandum he left out for us.”
“It just goes to show how gullible he is. As if it and shaking his finger at us would ever stop us.”
“Two murders now raise the ante from bad to worse. Is it the right time for us to hand this case off to him?”
“Bite your tongue.” Alma snapped her eyes on Isabel. “We’ll keep going on this tonight if just for Sammi Jo’s sake. End of any further discussion.”
Isabel smiled with renewed confidence. “I’m just making sure you’re still all in with me on this matter.”
“You already know I am.” Alma cracked a sardonic smile. “Look on the bright side. We’ll be imprisoned in adjoining cells at the women’s detention center. We can swap reading material Louise and Megan bring us on visiting days. The downside is the macaroni-and-cheese dinners served every night, and the prison warden probably won’t allow them to bring Petey Sampson to lick our faces.”
“Ouch!”
“You know it, sister.”
“What laws on the books have we technically broken? We’ll claim our cell phones couldn’t scratch up a signal here to report Mo’s death to the police.”
“It sounds just credible enough to be accepted as the truth. Ray Burl doesn’t use a land line phone.”
“Here’s what jumps out at me.” Isabel lowered her eyes to appraise the late Mo expired on the floor. “What is the big allure that brought Mo inside here?”
Alma gave it a few beats of reflection. “Since we theorize Ray Burl was a bad guy, I’ll assume that he was a thief. Whatever of value he ripped off, Mo somehow learned of it. She decided she was entitled to partake of his ill-gotten gains.”
“Then did Mo shoot and kill Ray Burl?”
“I’d be tempted to throw my support behind such a possibility, but one thing gums it up.”
Isabel read Alma’s next thought. “The cashmere dress suit with the hole in it he wore to the morgue.”
“Bingo and I’m so fed up with the suit,” said Alma. “I wish a thousand moths had eaten it up with ragged holes before Ray Burl went to wear it. He’d’ve thrown it out and maybe still be with us tonight.”
“Skipping the moths and getting back to the late Mo,” said Isabel. “Play another round of the what-ifs with me. What if Mo knew Ray Burl had robbed a bank or armored truck? What if she suspected he’d hidden the loot somewhere? What if she thought he’d recorded its location and kept the map or directions in here? That was her incentive to kill Ray Burl and break into the Cape Cod.”
“All that dovetails neatly, but who interrupted her search and shot her to death?”
“You just beat me to asking the same thing.”
“No more hunches are forming in you?”
“I’ve hit rock bottom on them, I’m afraid.”
“Let’s shake a leg. We’ve given Sammi Jo enough time to recover from her meltdown.”
“Will she be okay, Alma? Or will our steel magnolia break down and turn hysterical on us?”
“God only knows. Either way, it’s moot since she’s getting our full support. Should we cover up Mo with a clean sheet?”
“It’s too late for doing that. Sammi Jo has already seen Mo in this horrid shape,” replied Isabel before her cell phone’s ring tone demanded her attention.
Her caller was the trooper Phyllis reporting in for the evening.
“I’ve been calling around for the latest, and I finally got something for you,” she told Isabel. “Fats Browning and I got to jawing over our cell phones. Anyways, he swells up like an old banty rooster does and tells me that he’s seen Mo Garner right here in Quiet Anchorage. He was making a truck delivery to one of the subdivisions.”
Isabel lifted her eyes to see the late Mo’s remains on display before them on the floor. “Fats has it right, Phyllis. Mo was murdered earlier this evening. We just found her dead body in Ray Burl’s Cape Cod with nobody else here. We’ve no idea who the killer is.”
Phyllis groaned from the shock of hearing about her ex-sister-in-law’s violent death. “I might also be able to help you out on that part.”
“Please do and hurry.”
“Fats said the word he got is Mo has been living in the same house with a roommate.”
Isabel lifted both eyebrows while looking at Alma. “Interesting. Has the roommate got a name?”
“Fats makes for a crummy detective, Isabel. He doesn’t know anything more than what I just told you.”
“Thank you so much, Phyllis. You’ve been an invaluable help. Feel better. Good night, dear.”
Isabel closed her cell phone. “Mo lived with a roommate.”
“Ah, the plot thickens even more,” said Alma, her eyebrows also raised. “Too bad we don’t know who the mystery roommate is, or where he or she might be found right now.”
Isabel smiled as if she had thought of a place.
“Do you have in mind where we should go next?” asked Alma.
“Back to the first scene of the crime,” replied Isabel. “It’s on to the turf farm for us.”
Chapter 35
Alma said she’d gladly assume their driving duties, leaving Sammi Jo free of the hassle.
Sammi Jo sensed how Isabel and Alma were growing anxious over her precarious mental state. She had also weathered a few qualms over whether she could power through rest of the night without giving out. She had the blubbering, sobbing cry under her belt. Shedding tears while sitting inside the sedan parked on the Cape Cod’s driveway had been a liberating release. She’d retaken control of her emotions and put back on her game face.
The trio of lady shamuses, a force to be reckoned with, rolled back into somnolent Quiet Anchorage. Their sedan’s tires clattered across the twin railroad tracks, and they proceeded down the main drag left dim as at a parlor séance. A pair of bats chased after mosquitoes under the street lights. Isabel espied a cat black as Mr. Poe’s top hat scampering across their front and down the alleyway beside the Lago Azul Florist Shop. She kept her lips zipped. Superstitions held no sway, not tonight. Besides, the black cat also had a white tipped tail and socks that negated the curse of bad luck it was supposed to bring.
Alma might not agree with Isabel.
“Do you mind stopping at my apartment for a quick minute?” Sammi Jo asked Alma. “I’ve got to pee something awful, and I’d like to change my blouse if I can find a clean one to wear. This one is smeared with my runny mascara. I appreciated your tissues, but they weren’t big enough for all my sobs.”
“Use either rubbing alcohol or ammonia to blot out the mascara stains,” said Isabel.
“But you can do it later. Right now, give Reynolds Kyle a poke,” said Alma, nuzzling their front tire against the drugstore’s curbstone. He was the only able-bodied man she could think of to back them up.
Sammi Jo nodded. “I also thought of doing that. He can meet us over at the turf farm’s
office.”
“Be sure to tell him our suspect is armed and dangerous,” said Isabel.
Sammi Jo chuckled but not with humor. “He’s got the right things at his man-cave to come prepared for dealing with armed and dangerous.”
After she scooted out of the seat and shut the sedan door, Alma turned back to address Isabel sitting in the rear seat. Only her vague facial details were visible in the grainy light.
“I heard that sigh emptying from you,” said Alma. “Do you want to tell me what’s going on back there?”
“In perfect candor, I’m getting tired of doing this,” said Isabel. “You must be getting near the breaking point, too. What is it that bedevils us like so, Alma? Are we off our rockers? That’s what triggered my heavy sigh. Take a long, hard look at this situation. Two murders are too much. At our ripe, old ages, we belong planted in our armchairs, laughing at The Dukes of Hazzard playing on DVD while gorging on Godiva Chocolate Truffles.”
Alma determined Isabel was overstressed, but this was not the right time to be losing any will. “We’re still young at heart, and we’re still younger than dirt, and your mind is still a steel trap.”
“We’re barely younger than dirt, and steel rusts, mind you.”
“Fine then, call it luck, serendipity, or whatever you like, but we haven’t done half-bad tonight, if I don’t say so myself.”
Isabel didn’t have the heart to bring up the cameo appearance of the black cat only minutes ago and rattle Alma’s confidence.
“What about Sheriff Fox?” asked Isabel.
A shrug was Alma’s response. “He’s probably fast asleep. We’ll deliver the bad news to him when we get around to doing it.”
“He won’t be thrilled about our delay in reporting Mo’s homicide to his office.”
“Isabel, nothing we’ve ever done since moving back to Quiet Anchorage has thrilled Roscoe Fox. We’re always in his doghouse for one reason or another.”
Isabel nodded.
Alma went on. “We’ll stick close together, so we can help guide and steer each other around all the quicksand pits.”