Quiet Anchorage

Ed Lynskey

BooksForABuck.com

2011

QUIET ANCHORAGE

Copyright © 2011 by Ed Lynskey, all rights reserved.

No portion of this novel may be duplicated, transmitted, or stored in any form without the express written permission of the publisher.

Warning: The unauthorized reproduction or distribution of this copyrighted work is illegal. Criminal copyright infringement, including infringement without monetary gain, is investigated by the FBI and is punishable by up to 5 years in federal prison and a fine of $250,000.

BooksForABuck.com

February 2011

ISBN: 978-1-60215-141-3

Dedication

For Gail R. Ritchie, with love

Chapter 1

Within the same hour as the murder took place, Isabel Trumbo sat in her armchair dozing, an Alaskan outdoor magazine lying open on her lap. Her kid sister, Alma fidgeted in the other armchair, from time to time picking up her newspaper folded over to the day’s crossword puzzle.

She had lettered in the spaces for one word across and two down. Tapping the ink pen on her pursed lips, she stared at the blanks, and her attention wandered. Of late, her life had grown too boring and predictable.

She flipped over the newspaper and browsed another editorial on Sheriff Fox’s incompetence. You could tell the elections were around the corner.

Just then, Isabel roused and wetted a thumb to flip to the next page. Alma squirmed in her armchair.

“Boy, you’re restless,” said Isabel.

Alma glanced at her. “Is it that obvious?”

“Indeed. So put on the TV.”

Alma sighed again.

“If that isn’t enough excitement, go change the light bulb over the mud room.”

“Why don’t I try bungee jumping or something just as crazy? I’d climb up on the stepladder and tumble off.” Her words too sharp, Alma softened her voice. “What’s on TV?”

Isabel’s eyes flicked to the TV Guide on the ottoman. “Don’t the soaps still run on afternoons? When we lived on the boulevard, you watched General Hospital, so tune it in again.”

“No such thing ever happened on the boulevard.” Alma refolded the newspaper. “I’d rather sit and watch concrete dry than watch the soaps.”

“I know what.” Isabel reached under the end table, took out the game board, and rattled the Band-Aid box containing the letter tiles. “It’s been a week-and-a-half since our last Scrabble game.”

“The Z tile is still missing.”

“Well, reading a magazine gives me enough entertainment.”

“Well, my crossword puzzles are growing too sedentary.”

“Ah, so you want a challenge.” Isabel used a sly tone. “The blown out light bulb still waits in the mud room.”

“Ha-ha. What is a Mayan unit of measure?”

“The Mayans used no unit of measure.”

“Then this puzzle clue is wrong. Now, who invented the Internet?” Alma ticked off six spaces. “Al Gore, right?”

“Didn’t Al save the dolphins, and Mr. Clinton invent the Internet?”

“I’d forgotten. The memory, doctors say, is the first thing to go.” Alma felt a leap of fear inside her. Over the past weeks she’d come to dread the onset of Alzheimer’s, and her every absentminded lapse became magnified, and it upset her.

Attuned to her sister’s fear, Isabel spoke in a reassuring way. “Relax, your mind is still the proverbial steel trap.”

“Really? Look at what happened to Ruth Brittle.”

“Seeing how poor Ruth is is why I’d never lie to you.”

“We should visit her again.”

“Very soon, I believe.”

“The newspaper is calling for Sheriff Fox’s head again.”

“He has a tough row until election time.”

Alma’s fling landed the crossword puzzle on the ottoman, and she elevated from her armchair. Its Tartan plaid pattern clashed with Isabel’s lime green velveteen armchair. A decade ago when Isabel’s husband Max had died, they’d moved in together and merged their possessions. Neither sister brought any fussy teapots, canaries, sachets, or doilies, but lots of other stuff had to either stay or go. Looking at the lime green gave Alma the willies. Her suggestion to slipcover it in a more subdued color had garnered Isabel’s frosty stare, and Alma had dropped the matter.

“We’ll con Jake into changing the light bulb,” she said.

“Sure, let him slip off the stepladder and break a leg.”

“More agile, he can climb stepladders easier than we can.”

“Do you think he’ll ever walk Megan down the aisle?”

“Everybody has sat on pins waiting for the big announcement.”

“How much longer before they make up their minds?”

“He’s the one dragging his feet.”

Isabel nodded.

“He has too many distractions in skirts.” Alma sniffled.

“Hopefully he’s stopped his tomcatting.”

“Hopefully. Sounds like your allergies are back. Why don’t you call Vernon Spitzer?”

“I saved out a few pills from last summer.”

Isabel flipped to the next page. “Their shelf life has expired.”

“They’ll tide me over until we can get to the drugstore.”

“Who’s that young lady staying in the walk up apartments over the drugstore?”

“Several young ladies live up there.”

Isabel wagged her head. “I mean the one sashaying around with barely a stitch on, and her boobs spilling out of her top like watermelons.”

“Her name was on the tip of my tongue. Megan said she was Sammi Jo.” Alma gave a dry smile. “So, my memory isn’t slipping.”

Isabel smacked her prim lips. “She’d better put on a bra, or she’ll sag like an old heifer.”

Doing an eye roll, Alma switched topics. “My old folks’ insurance is a rip off, so I’m letting the premium expire.”

“I told you to drop it after my fiasco when Max died.”

A rap came at the front door. The sisters gazed at it, then each other before Alma with a puzzled shrug volunteered to answer it. A petite lady in her mid-twenties fidgeted on the porch behind the screen door. She wore a striking blue sundress, but the dark lines bracketing her shrunken mouth and puffy eyes alarmed Alma.

“Megan, this is a surprise.”

Her eyes widening, Isabel let the forgotten magazine slide between her legs to the floor. “Hello, Megan.”

“Am I interrupting anything?” she asked. “Were you napping or watching your TV shows?”

“Alma suggested we should watch the concrete dry, but I vetoed it,” replied Isabel.

Confusion clouded Megan’s serious face. “Huh?”

“Ignore Aunt Isabel,” said Alma. “Her quirky mood makes her all but impossible today.”

“Come in, Megan, before you faint from sunstroke.” Standing, Isabel’s hand motioned at their grand niece.

Alma nudged out the screen door, and Megan almost tripped coming into the foyer. They hugged, and Alma felt Megan’s frame trembled in her arms. Alma caught Isabel’s troubled eyes behind Megan’s back, but Isabel could only shrug in wonder.

Megan stepping back let her glance switch from Alma to Isabel and return to Alma. No doubt about it, thought Megan. Created as much alike as any sisters ever had been, their resemblance started with their matching red-and-white polka dot blouses. Since she was a young girl, she had matched their eye colors to their different personalities.

Alma flared impetuous blue eyes were always ready to spring into action while Isabel’s hazel eyes viewed a calmer world. Alma was a bit heavier while Isabel a bit taller. The two aunts had been Megan’s closest family since her parents’ tragic death in a house fire when she was just out of high school. She’d always been proud of their grit of surviving the great depression and Second World War.

“What’s wrong?” asked Isabel.

A wheat blonde, Megan twisted her watchband as her delicate-featured face drained of its natural color. She blurted it out. “Jake is dead!”

Alma reacted first. “Jake is dead?”

“Good Lord, when? ...Where?… Why?” asked Isabel.

Megan strangled on any further words. She lunged past the sisters, collapsed on their sofa, and the rising sobs racked her. Alma and Isabel hurried over and sat on each side as Megan cried into a pillow. Alma gave Megan gentle pats on the shoulder while Isabel picked up the box of tissues, and Alma plucked out three, one for them each. As an afterthought, she added a few extras.

“Pull yourself together, Megan, or we can’t understand you,” said Alma.

“You can let it out when you’re ready.” Isabel frowned her stern white eyebrows at Alma. “We’re right here, aren’t we, Alma?”

Feeling guilty over having tried to rush things, she agreed. “Absolutely.”

“All right.” Megan sat up from the sofa, dropped her hands from her distraught face, and gulped in a lungful of air. “All right.” She squared her shoulders and swabbed the tissue at the corners to her tear-streaked eyes. “I’m better now.” Sniffing, she sponged the runs in her mascara and managed a wan smile. “Sorry for this little meltdown on your sofa.”

Isabel did a dismissive hand wave. “It’s just Alma’s sofa, and I’ve never liked it.” Before Alma could object, Isabel asked, “What happened?”

“It all started when I found Jake,” said Megan. “He lay on the shop floor, so I ran to him and tugged on his shoulder. I turned him over, and his shirt was all bloody. I felt his wrist but I got no pulse there. He’d been shot dead. It was awful.”

“Did you see a handgun or brass shell casings?” asked Alma.

The pointed question seemed to ground Megan’s focus and composure. “No, but I called the sheriff on my cell phone and waited just outside the shop. Within minutes, the deputies arrived and tied up the yellow tape. They asked me a slew of questions, but I had few answers for them.” She stopped and sniffed.

“Did they expect you to solve Jake’s murder?” said Alma.

“Go on,” said Isabel, sending Alma a disapproving look.

Megan did. “A short while later, Sheriff Fox came in his squad car. He took me aside and asked me the same questions, but I couldn’t quit thinking of Jake sprawled out dead on the shop floor.”

“Sheriff Fox has such a sympathetic manner,” said Alma, sarcastic.

“I told the sheriff that I only saw Jake,” said Megan. “A deputy dropped me off here. I’m a just bundle of nerves. What will happen now?”

“Things will get interesting,” replied the angry Isabel.

Alma pursed her lips. “Very interesting,” she added.

Chapter 2

Earlier that same afternoon found the future murder victim, Jake Robbins, disappointed. Business at his auto repair shop had been flat all morning. No customers, in fact, had dropped in for any mechanical work.

He fiddled around his office, the old sun porch on the rear of his brown stucco house, dumping the wastebaskets and catching up on his filing piled up on a desk corner.

Three green steel file cabinets, most of their drawers pulled out, stood beside the enormous walnut desk. He stacked the repair manuals (for autos, pickups, and motorcycles) taken from the drawers on the desktop. He had a valid reason to keep the repair manuals locked up in the file cabinets.

The repair manuals—Jake had spent years collecting them to work on used vehicles, the bulk of his fix-it trade—contained vital information he’d no wish to share with any competing local garages. Let them dig up their own manuals, he figured. To some in Quiet Anchorage, his reasoning bordered on paranoia, but he saw it as just sound business sense.

A traveling tool sales rep had told him the same repair manuals were available online and on DVD, but he wasn’t impressed. Other things besides safeguarding his repair manuals troubled him.

After he accounted for all of the repair manuals, he returned them to their respective drawers while grumbling under his breath.

“Megan expects too much from me. Girls dress skimpy in the summer, and flashing that much skin at hot-blooded males can’t be fair. Now you take Sammi Jo over the drugstore.” He whistled between his teeth. “At one look, I know she’s loose as a goose. I’m itching to take another midnight ramble to hook up with my blonde honey in Mechanicsville.”

Jake dragging his mind out of the gutter realized the challenge was to press on with his afternoon work. Since his dad Hiram had died of a sudden heart attack in June, Jake had let their house go to smash. Walking through the disheveled rooms and hallways dealt him a sinking sensation in the pit of his stomach. The fear of his own mortality had grown too intense, so he seldom ventured into the house area where his dad had lived.

So, the auto repair shop behind the house became Jake’s haven where he slept in a barber chair. Unlike thrashing on his narrow bed and finding little rest, Jake slept like a cat in the barber chair. He didn’t awaken until the dawn light spilled through the east window into his eyes. He believed he could stay all the time inside the shop.

Of course, once he and Megan got married, they’d move away to their own place and having to face that prospect chilled him. He’d never want to leave his auto repair business and work as a half-baked mechanic at some oil and lube shop or repair heavy equipment for a fly-by-night diesel garage.

He’d found living with Hiram tolerable. Like Jake, Hiram kept to himself, and their household resembled two independent bachelors sharing the same roost. They took half-hearted turns at taking care of the cooking and cleaning. The only contentious issue was Jake’s passion for speed. The stoop-shouldered, wiry Hiram deplored Jake’s toiling all week to fix a racecar only to tear out its gears or transmission while competing at Kyle Reynolds’s drag strip on Sundays. Jake had tried to explain the simple concept of fun to his dad. One recent conversation came to mind as he continued to fit the manuals into the file cabinet drawers.

“Your mother and I never took a vacation in our twenty-three years of marriage,” Hiram had told Jake.

“But don’t you see how much fun you missed out on? I’ll book a vacation as soon as my business gets some traction and I take in a little money.”

“There’s nothing wrong with a strong work ethic, son.”

He gave a frown. “Dad, I want to enjoy life before I get too old. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”

“But that’s what I don’t understand. Hard work is a source of personal pride and how a man stays happy.”

“So I’ll slave away for fifty weeks of the year, but the other two weeks I’d like to relax.”

“Uh-huh. Tell me, do your customers also take off those two weeks?”

“I’ll hire a stand-in mechanic and won’t leave them in the lurch.”

“They expect you, not some substitute gearhead, to work on their cars. What if the repairs are shoddy, and your disgruntled customers go to the competition next time?”

“What if you fill in for me?”

“I can fix the cars, but Megan has to do your books. My advice is don’t take any vacation until you’ve earned the trust of enough customers.”

“Don’t worry. I’ve worked too hard to slack off and let my business flop.”

“Quit extending credit to your pals, too. How do you plan to stay afloat if they welsh on their debts? Do you point a gun to their heads and demand they pay you?”

“Nobody is welshing on me.”

“Right, your pals like Clarence Fishback are as honest as Abe.”

“After our fight, we steer wide of each other.”

“Another thing since we’re jawing away. When do you plan on marrying that young lady?”

Jake didn’t reply at once as his angry lips compressed against his teeth. “What’s the big rush?”

Hiram grunted in annoyance. “She’ll soon get tired of your procrastination and find a guy who cares enough to marry her.”

“She isn’t going anywhere. She’s nothing but crazy about me.”

“You’re a crackerjack mechanic, but you don’t know jack diddly on women.”

“Why? Has she told you something that I don’t know?”

“I can tell she’s fed up with you always on the prowl.”

Jake heeled up his calloused palms. “Don’t go there, Dad. That’s all buried in my past.”

“Don’t go trying to dupe me. You’re made of my fiber, and I know how you think. You better make an honest woman of her. Have you told her lately that you love her?”

“Not in so many words, no, but we know how things stand between us. She’s not interested in seeing other men.”

“You’d better wise up because trust is a two-way street.”

Irritated with his dad for always having pushed him into marriage, Jake finished putting away his repair manuals and secured the file cabinet drawers with combination padlocks. He returned the business ledgers to the desk drawers and collapsed into the chair behind the walnut desk before interlacing the fingers to his hands, putting them behind his head, and stretching out his long legs.

He took another moment to reflect and had to admit that Megan offered many favorable points: she was a contoured wheat blonde, generous, though perhaps a bit too serious-minded for his temperament. They’d met through mutual friends in the high school cafeteria, and he’d found his sweetheart. He kept a framed photograph of them posing at their senior prom inside his tool chest. Every so often during the work day, he slipped out their photograph for a glimpse, and it left him with a bemused expression.

Making any commitment left him rattled, and he felt the need for more time and space to mull things over before making up his mind for good. Marriage was taking a serious plunge. Megan at first accepting of his ambivalence had more recently grown more agitated. She stalked around his shop, a frown pinching her face. Worse, his dad’s funeral had preempted their plans to spend a few days together at Colonial Beach. Then he told her that he didn’t want to take off any time away from his business after the funeral.

For that announcement, she’d given him the cold shoulder. Jake without his dad to ground him felt lost at sea. It was easier for him to drift along from day to day than to deal with rendering any big decisions. So he continued sleeping in the barber chair as the summer dragged by, and here it was late August.

The desk telephone rang, interrupting his reverie and, hopeful, he answered, but it wasn’t his day’s first customer.

“I’m giving my last client a hair perm and can’t get away for another hour,” said Megan.

“Meg, I’ve already put away all the business ledgers.”

“I suppose you’ll have to drag them back out if you expect me to do this week’s invoices.”

“All right, I’ll have everything spread out on the desktop for you.”

“Have you rescheduled our Colonial Beach trip?”

“When could I? I’ve been busy with oil changes and a brake job all morning,” he lied.

“You’re waffling again, Jake.”

“I’ll look into it this afternoon. We still have time.”

“Huh? The summer is almost over, and we haven’t done anything fun together.”

“Dad died in June and I haven’t been in a fun-loving mood.”

“I know Hiram died.” She paused. “You must think I’m awful for bringing up Colonial Beach again.”

“I understand your need to relax, and I’m overdue for a little break, too.”

“Can you round up a mechanic to pinch hit on short notice?”

“I know a couple of retired guys, and they always like making a few extra bucks.”

“We still haven’t picked out our wedding rings.”

“So much stuff needs doing. Right after Labor Day, we’ll drive down to Culpeper and shop. How does that sound?”

“I’m ready anytime. Just don’t keep me waiting too long.”

“I hear more to your warning than just shopping for wedding rings.”

“Smart boy,” she said before they hung up.

Jake arose from the desk and trudged out into hot, coppery sun, his eyes cowering. Marriage seemed better suited for years down the pike rather than in a few short weeks. Hearing a car’s drone on the state road, he smiled, grateful for the diversion. At last he welcomed his day’s first customer, but he’d no way of foreseeing within minutes he’d die of one .44 gunshot wound slammed straight to the heart.

Chapter 3

Many small towns sport a colorful story behind their name’s origins, but Quiet Anchorage had no such pedigree. It’d sprung up in the nineteenth century as another depot on the old railroad line wending north-south through the Virginia piedmont. Ironically enough, the landlocked town at the foot of the Blue Ridge Mountains had nothing to do with any maritime aspect.

The older natives attributed the town’s name to its mellow pace. In sharp contrast, the town’s younger residents having to get up before the crack of dawn to make the two-hour commute to their city jobs hadn’t yet found this mellow pace to enjoy. The shallow Coronet River meandered along the town’s southern flank. A tow truck driver had winched up the two rusty anchors from the silty river bottom, and the mayor ordered them posed in front of the VFD’s brick station. Resident historians said Robert E. Lee’s Confederate army had used the anchors to stabilize the pontoon bridges he ordered erected across the river. Schoolchildren taking the walking tour of Quiet Anchorage heard the fire chief’s spiel on the twin anchors’ history.

Cat’s-paw breezes now batted the red and purple blooms on the crepe myrtle and powder puff mimosas. Sheriff Roscoe Fox driving his Crown Vic cruiser, its windows down, took stock of the fire station’s new roof. A benefit supper had raised the funds. This afternoon his wind-burned face was stretched taut. For the first (and he prayed the last) time, he had to tackle a homicide investigation. In a half-daze, he returned from the crime scene he wished he never had to process.

Murder in his small town had been unheard of until this afternoon.

He ran his fingers through his premature balding, iron gray hair. Twenty-odd years ago, he’d served as an MP at Fort Riley, Kansas. His cop duties never exceeded rounding up AWOL soldiers, patrolling the pancake flat streets, and issuing traffic summons.

He’d received some classroom training in homicide investigations, but that summer, like this one, had been a blast furnace and he’d dozed through the course. Though he’d flunked it, his superiors had curved the grades enough to pass him. Even back then, new MPs were in big demand.

When his shoulder mike crackled, he ignored it. The GPS map display on the dashboard computer flickered but no directional aid was necessary, and he looked away from it. He muttered to himself.

“Jake Robbins lies dead so what now, Roscoe? Arrest his fiancée Megan Connors because I’ve got solid enough evidence to charge her.”

His turn signal at Church Street blinked. His deputy had let off Megan at her aunts’ house, and he decided to initiate his search for her from there. He punched the gas pedal. Alma and Isabel Trumbo came across as sweet, old ladies, but he knew they didn’t back down without a badger’s fight. Mashing on the brakes, he slid over the cruiser to park under a leafy canopy.

His visual cop’s sweep took note of the navy blue sedan in the short driveway beside the burnt orange brick rambler. The summer drought had browned the lawn teeming with grasshoppers. He climbed out and unclipping the shoulder mike saw the curtain flicker at the picture window. He’d been discovered.

“Just relax and switch on that good ole boy charm,” he muttered before standing at his cruiser door. “They’ll melt in my hands.”

He’d no sooner reached the slate pavers walkway and hiked up the porch steps as the front door swung wide. The compact human form imprinted behind the screen door spoke.

“Hello, Sheriff Fox. I know this can’t be a social call.”

“Far from it, Alma. I’m afraid there’s been a homicide.”

Unimpressed, she didn’t gasp or turn ashen. “You’ll want to talk to Megan again, as if she hasn’t been through enough already.”

“As I can well imagine,” he said, now inside the cooler, dimmer living room. “Good afternoon, Isabel,” he told the other elderly sister on the sofa next to the sad-faced young lady. Neither of them returned his greeting nod.

“Megan has been run through the wringer, so you better keep this brief as possible,” said Isabel.

His gaze scoped the living room. “Which seat do I use?”

“Isabel’s armchair works fine,” replied Alma. “Do you have any suspects?”

He perched his haunches on the edge of the lime green armchair. He didn’t care for the color. “Alma, this is still the early going, and I don’t know too much yet.”

She sat down to protect Megan. “There’s no need to play coy or evasive. We already know what’s what, don’t we, Isabel?”

“Let Sheriff Fox pose his questions, and he’ll leave that much sooner.” Isabel looked sharp at him for confirmation, but he didn’t react.

Instead, he ran his thumb pad along the damp sweatband inside the Smokey the Bear hat he’d removed from his mussed hair.

“I’ll say up front your sleuthing capers make for interesting newspaper copy,” he said. “Your solving the case of the toppled gravestones amused townspeople, but this is a far different animal. I’m in the manhunt for a murderer with ice water in his veins.”

“Just make your point,” said Isabel.

Alma shifted to face Isabel. “He’s telling us to butt out of his police investigation for Jake’s murder.”

He allowed a grimacing smile. “I’d never use that blunt language but, yeah, that’s the gist. Your tampering will only impede our progress.”

“Your warning is duly noted, and we’ll talk to you soon,” said Isabel.

“Hold on. I’m not finished.”

“Go on then. We’re listening,” said Alma.

He eyed Megan before glimpsing a sly look pass between the sisters. At his sharper glance, however, they just sat in deadpan innocence waiting for him to continue. He knew they were up to something. He cleared his throat and rubbed the back of a wrist over his nose.

“Megan, did you talk to Jake this morning?” he asked.

“We did for a few minutes on the phone, and I went over to do the books,” she replied.

“Does she need her attorney?” asked Isabel.

“Of course not. Where did you get such an outlandish idea?” He used his hat as a fan and wished the older townspeople relented and ran their air conditioning. “This is a routine interview where I let the factual details come to light and assist in building our case.”

“Didn’t you question Megan earlier at Jake’s place?” asked Alma.

Sheriff Fox quit fanning. “Right but a few minor points remain fuzzy.”

Isabel took Megan’s hand to sandwich between hers. “Go ahead and we’ll coach you through the rough parts.”

“Have Jake and you been a happy couple?” asked Sheriff Fox.

“How is that germane?” asked Alma.

“Alma, let’s let Sheriff Fox ask his questions and be off,” said Isabel.

He stuck on his hat and knuckled up its brim to reveal his tired expression. “Megan, I’m afraid you’ll have to accompany me.”

“Accompany you where?” she asked.

“We’ll head to the station house, and my clerk will type up your statement. You can sign it, and we can finish everything within the hour. I’ll ask a deputy to bring you home, or else back here if you wish it.”

“With Megan so torn up, right now isn’t a good time,” said Isabel.

“It’s more sensible to do it while her memory is still fresh.” He pasted on an ingratiating smile. “The up-side is we’ll have closed this loop for good.”

“I can appreciate Sheriff Fox’s urgency.” Megan stood up from the sofa. “I’m as anxious as anybody to know who murdered Jake.”

Alma’s fierce blue eyes pinned on Sheriff Fox. “We’ll give you one hour and any minute longer, we’re coming to get Megan.”

“Don’t sign anything and don’t admit to anything, Megan,” said Isabel.

“Our lawyer will have the final say,” said Alma.

Megan’s shaky hand grazed Alma’s forearm. “Hiring an expensive lawyer is hardly necessary.”

“I suppose you’re right,” said Alma.

Her silence stony, Isabel nodded once at them.

“Megan will see you in a jiff,” said Sheriff Fox.

Alma didn’t miss noticing him touch the pair of handcuffs clipped to his duty belt.

With her chin up, Megan preceded him out the door. The sisters standing behind the screen watched the grasshoppers scatter from their departure.

Using care not to bump her head, Sheriff Fox helped Megan into the cruiser’s rear seat. The engine rumbled, and the roof bar light strobed out its red-blue glints. As the cruiser nosed into the street, the siren’s blat pierced the humid afternoon’s quiet as he gunned it down Church Street.

Isabel gave Alma an apprehensive look. “Why is he in such a big hurry?”

“Because he takes himself too seriously,” replied Alma.

Isabel continued staring at Church Street. “Can you believe this has gone on?”

“Bad dream.” A resolute line set at Alma’s jaw and chin. “I’m burning up with curiosity to see where Jake Robbins died.”

After retrieving her magazine from the floor, Isabel started to fan herself. “I’m not sure that’s a wise idea if the deputies are still working there.”

“By now they’ve left, and we can’t sit around and twiddle our thumbs.”

Again Isabel’s magazine dropped to the floor. “Why did we let Megan go by herself with him?”

“Did we have a choice? He represents the law, after all.”

“Will he arrest her?”

“Most signs point to yes,” replied Alma. “I’d say he put her in his gunsights the instant he waltzed through our doorway.”

“Then we better go see the crime scene for ourselves.”

The large, black purse dangled by its straps from Alma’s forearm. While Isabel retrieved hers from her bedroom, Alma shooed out the mud dauber that Sheriff Fox had let in. She only wished the pushy sheriff was as easy to swat out of their orbits.

Chapter 4

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.”

“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 through 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 Anchorage, 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.”

“But you see that’s my problem.” Alma selected her next words with care. “Left as the mere spectators will drive us crazy.”

“You’ve lost me.”

“This is how I see our situation. Say we do drive up to the city and hire a big defense attorney that we talk to and like.”

“That’s the usual course of action.”

“Then the big defense attorney becomes the shot caller, and we’ve no option but to nod our heads since we’re paying through the nose for his or her advice. Can you bear the thought of us limited to that subservient role?”

“Ah, now I see.” Isabel smiled. “You think we can handle Dwight. Sure, but how much of a difference will our help make if you can stuff all we know about criminal law into a thimble?”

“Dwight can keep the jurisprudence part humming along,” replied Alma. “We’ll correct him if he drifts off course, but it’s up to us to ferret out the right clues or leads and build the solid foundation to Megan’s defense. With his murderer in prison, Sheriff Fox feels no impetus to search any further.”

Instant emotion thickened Isabel’s voice. “He’s off his rocker because she’s no murderer.”

“So we’re forced to prove her innocence. Simple as that.”

Isabel pitched her napkin on the tablecloth. “We haven’t heard if Megan has her own ideas on how to run things.”

“She’s in no shape to reason clearly. Her fiancé died, and she’s been charged for it. That double whammy would make anybody’s head spin. We have the responsibility to do her thinking for her.”

“First off tomorrow morning, we’ll phone Dwight’s office.”

“Why do we sit and worry all night?” Alma fished the sedan’s key ring from her pants pocket to brandish with a jingle. “There’s no time like the present.”

“You’d every intention to see Dwight tonight before we sat down to dinner, didn’t you?”

Alma nodded. “Guilty as charged.”

“Shall we phone ahead?”

“Why give him the opportunity to say he’s too busy to see us?”

The sisters grabbed their purses and whisked out into the evening’s dewy cool. The katydids chittering high in the treetops serenaded them. The air brakes squealing on the eighteen-wheelers slowing through the town’s main intersection left Isabel wincing. She fended off a shiver of fear and returned inside to switch on their porch security lamp. Quiet Anchorage was no hotbed of crime, but a murderer was on the loose, and you couldn’t be too cautious.

“Suppose Dwight isn’t home?” asked Isabel in the sedan.

“He’s a homebody and will be in. He can make a call, and we’ll get to see Megan tonight.” Alma sneezed into a tissue.

“We’ll also drop by the pharmacy and hope Vernon has refilled your allergy pills. Or we’ll trek to the Warrenton drugstore to purchase them.”

“If there’s enough time, we’ll make the Warrenton trip, but seeing Megan tonight deserves our top priority.”

“I couldn’t agree more with you.”

Chapter 8

After the third, harder knock, Dwight Holden swung in his front door and confronted Isabel removing her floppy straw hat. Instant dismay pinched his face.

“Good evening, Dwight. Might we discuss a legal matter?” she asked.

The short, slight lawyer still in his poplin business suit and a turquoise bola tie put up his slender hands as if to rebuff her.

“Sorry, Isabel, but I’ve never defended a capital case, and I can’t assist you.”

Alma sniffed from her allergies. “It’s time to break that streak.” She dabbed a tissue at her runny nose and watery eyes.

“We’ll take up our business in private, not out here on the stoop,” said Isabel.

“It’s only plain civility to invite you in, so please do. But I can’t promise you any legal counsel.” As his hands fluttered, the sisters watched him and exchanged their uncertain glances about him.

“We’ll help you change your mind.” Alma huffed ahead into the foyer, brushing by him.

Isabel letting the screen door close with her elbow ushered him along with her other hand. “Shall we go join her? There’s no stopping her.”

He mumbled something, and they followed the angular hallway ending at a den cluttered to suit a young bachelor. Isabel balanced on the edge of the nearest ladder-back chair. Alma wary of the torn, smudged armchair remained standing while he sank into the mushy recliner, his audible sigh a ponderous one.

“Before you go any further, let me reiterate I’ve had minimal trial lawyer experience, and I can’t even advise you on the general points.”

“Duly noted,” said Isabel.

Alma did a hand chop motion. “It’s time to quit cutting bait and fish, Dwight. First, Isabel and I will cover your legal fees, and Megan is to be kept in the dark even if she asks you about it.”

Touching his fingertips together on both hands, he created a birdcage. “With my canon of ethics to uphold, I work in the best interests of my client. If she asks me, I’ll have to tell her who’s footing the bill. This is all, of course, hypothetical since I haven’t accepted her case.”

“Our fat checkbook tells us you’ll stay mum,” said Alma.

He stared at her for an extra beat. “Your fat checkbook, eh? Well, right you are then. I accept her case, and mum is definitely the word.”

“We’ll also lend you a hand,” said Alma.

He made a disapproving noise. “Can you be more specific? After all, I am the one here with the law degree.”

“We’ll take an active role in running the day-to-day affairs,” replied Alma, still vague.

“This sounds too complicated.” His hands flitted like a wounded butterfly. “Who do you propose murdered Jake Robbins?”

“Everybody in Quiet Anchorage becomes our suspect,” replied Alma. “But we can state with confidence that Megan isn’t the culprit who belongs in prison.”

“Shall we kibbutz tomorrow, say, at nine o’clock in my office?”

Again, Alma sniffed. “Since we’re a team, our first objective is to pay Megan a visit tonight.”

His white knuckles gripped to the recliner’s armrests. “Only Sheriff Fox authorizes after-hour visits and without a doubt he’ll flat-out refuse, so why should we pester him tonight?”

Helpless to head it off, Isabel watched Alma lash out. “Here’s an idea. Why don’t you call him at home right now and request his precious authorization?”

Isabel had a calmer tone. “Stress how vital it is you meet your new client Megan Connors tonight. If Sheriff Fox balks, then use a lawyerly excuse to persuade him.”

Dwight realized when he was outmaneuvered and lifted his telephone from the roll-top desk. “This is so inflammatory.” He pecked in the right numbers from a business card also on the roll-top desk. “I’m all out of lawyerly excuses. Do you have any quick tips?”

Isabel dealt Alma a hopeful nod and missing only a beat, she posed a solution. “Tell Sheriff Fox you caught wind of a rumor we’ve been dishing the dirt to the reporters, and he shouldn’t attract any more bad press.”

“I can’t extort him like that,” said Dwight. “Suppose I ask this as a favor to a fellow officer of the court?”

“Spoken like a true lawyer,” said Alma.

Dwight muttering under his breath held the receiver to his ear. While making his prison visit request, he overheard Sheriff Fox’s television hubbub playing in the background. His response left Dwight frowning.

“But Sheriff Fox it’s imperative I consult with Megan tonight. She has the legal right to a speedy counsel, and a lawyer wasn’t present earlier... look, I recall you owe me for my free legal advice on your messy divorce... okay, that’s more like it, and I’ll meet you at the prison in fifteen minutes.”

After they hung up, Alma said, “Good show, Dwight. We can go right on in our car.”

“Hold on there. My deal with Sheriff Fox included just me, not you.”

Alma shepherded Dwight from the den and to the foyer. “We’ll repay Sheriff Fox his kindness of pulling a fast one on us.”

“Dwight, hadn’t you better lock your townhouse?” said Isabel. They’d stepped out into the buggy porch light.

“Why bother? It didn’t keep out two pushy seniors tonight.”

He sat behind Isabel in their sedan’s rear seat. Alma mashed the gas, and they whisked through Quiet Anchorage’s streets serene and dark as the abandoned drive-in movie lot. The sheriff’s long, narrow office also housed the prison. Alma flicked on her directional blinker and nosed in next to the sheriff’s cruiser bristling its whip aerials and American flags. Sheriff Fox, arms folded high on his chest, waited by the door under a buzzing streetlight. His shoe tip tapped on the concrete, a nervous tic, as they approached him.

“Counselor, who are your pair of shadows?” he asked.

“Dwight’s shadows are his client’s family members,” replied Alma. “Sheriff Fox, we came here to see our niece.”

He hooked his thumbs in his duty belt and thrust his chin at them. “Alma, I don’t know anyone more stubborn than you are unless it’s Isabel. So you went out and snagged a lawyer, and now he’s come under false pretenses to do your bidding. Well, well. This one time I’ll relent, but only as the old favor that I owe Dwight. I dang well won’t be wangled by the likes of you or the newspaper.”

“Take us to Megan,” said Alma. “She’s hurting, no thanks to you.”

Sheriff Fox’s cadence turned brusque. “We’ve handled her with kid gloves and done everything by the book.”

“Sheriff Fox, Ms. Trumbo is understandably distressed over recent events and isn’t impugning your law enforcement professionalism,” said Dwight, sounding contrite. “Please accept our apologies.”

The apology placated Sheriff Fox to a degree. “All right, let’s finish this, so we can all go home for some shuteye tonight.”

“Ask Megan how much sleep she’ll get tonight,” said Alma.

Dwight looking over shook his head at her to hush.

Fat chance, Alma stared back.

The four paraded into the station house’s vestibule before Alma and Isabel stopped in the low-lit hallway. They looked at Sheriff Fox, and he understood them, but he didn’t like it.

“No, ladies, my office is off-limits, so you’ll see Megan in Interview Room One.”

“Just bring her to us,” said Isabel. “Meantime I hope Interview Room One is a non-smoking space.”

“Yes, I do enforce the indoors smoking ban,” said Sheriff Fox.

“Imagine that,” said Alma.

He extracted a key and undid the door for Dwight to go in and put on the overhead lights. Alma found the space cramped and the air stale but managed to bite her tongue. The four oak chairs at the cafeteria table made for hard seats. Alma sneezed at the cigarette butts cluttering a glass ashtray left on the table. Dwight began to rock back and forth in his chair.

“Dwight, take a chill pill, as Megan would say,” said Isabel. “Our goal is to be strong when she sees us.”

Alma emptied the glass ashtray into the wastebasket, and Isabel nodded her thanks.

“I’ve got a confession. Prisons are why I opted out of criminal law,” said Dwight. “They’re sleazy and disagreeable to me.”

Rolling her eyes, Alma plunked her bulky purse on the tabletop. “Roust out our little girl.”

“Show some restraint, Alma, and give Sheriff Fox a chance,” said Isabel.

“That sounds more civil,” said Sheriff Fox. “Wait here and I’ll be right back.”

His toe taps clacking on the buffed concrete floor faded. The shoe clacks returned a few minutes later, and the door swished air. Their eyes lifted to see Megan scuffle into the strong light, and sisters gasped together. Her face in a few brief hours had assumed a cadaverous mask, and her eyes had sunken into patchy cavities over a droopy chin.

“Look how they’ve dressed you,” said Alma.

“Orange garb is standard issue in both the male and female lockups,” said Sheriff Fox.

“It’s perfectly hideous—” Isabel bit off her outburst, but the numb Megan hadn’t registered it.

“Have a seat, dear.” Alma patted on the empty chair beside her. “Dwight, coming in I saw a soda machine. Be a sweetheart and go fetch Megan a cold ginger ale or root beer.”

Dwight made to stand, but Sheriff Fox shook his head. “No visitor exits with an inmate present in the interview room.”

“We understand the regulation,” said the obedient Dwight, sitting back down.

“Can we get you anything?” Alma asked but her hard eyes skewering Sheriff Fox.

“Can you get me out of here?” The lifelessness in Megan’s tone ripped jagged holes through the sisters.

“That’s in the works,” said Alma. The skeptical Sheriff Fox grunted. “Doesn’t client-attorney confidentiality entail a little privacy in here?” she asked.

“I’m uncertain if it applies or not,” replied Dwight.

“Even if it does, this is after-hours, and I’m required to remain with the inmate,” said Sheriff Fox.

“I didn’t shoot Jake,” blurted out Megan. “We were in love and engaged to get married. Why would I murder him?” New tears in the old tracks trickled down her cheeks. “You believe me, right?”

“Of course you didn’t.” Alma’s blue eyes sent twin lasers across the interview room at Sheriff Fox who still ignored her.

“Dwight is now your legal representation,” said Isabel.

“Can Mr. Holden get me out of here?” asked Megan.

“Yes, in due course,” said Dwight. “You’ll soon face arraignment. I’ll know more in the morning after the court opens, and I’ve had an opportunity to brush up on my criminal law.”

“When the judge sets bail, we’ll stand ready to post it,” said Alma. “You should know we’ve also brought in a private detective agency.”

“You did?” Megan’s first smile, a meager one, stole across her lower face. “I didn’t know any private detectives work in Quiet Anchorage.”

Sheriff Fox looked flustered. “What’s this all about?”

“Alma and I are the detectives,” replied Isabel. “We’ll assemble the facts and reconstruct what really occurred at Jake’s shop this afternoon.”

“We brought our lawyer to ask our questions,” said Isabel.

“First the prisoner returns to her lock up,” said Sheriff Fox.

“The prisoner’s name is Ms. Connors to you,” said Alma.

Chapter 9

The phantom maid during the sisters’ absence hadn’t cleared away and washed up the dishes. So Isabel ran the kitchen faucet to fill the white enamel sink with hot water. She added a squirt of the emerald green detergent, and Alma slid a dishtowel from the refrigerator handle. They talked.

“I wonder if Jake made any enemies,” said Alma, drying the rinsed plates. “He’s bound to have miffed a customer or two in his dealings.”

“How do we find his enemies?” asked Isabel.

“We ask around town and, if not lucky, we’ll cast our net wider.”

“Her two old aunts meddling in public will appall Megan.”

Setting the dinner plates on their stack inside the cabinet shelf, Alma scoffed. “Appearances hardly matter now.”

“True enough but where do we start our search?”

“Rosie McLeod and Lotus Wang are our champion town gossips.”

“At least they’re a starting place. Tonight Megan looked so forlorn it broke my heart.”

“Don’t forget she’s tough as nails,” said Alma with false cheer.

“But of course she is.” Isabel popped out the sink plug, and they watched the dishwater circle the drain before a final slurp. “Well, I’m off to curl up with a new mystery. If I’m lucky, and the sandman skips by, I’ll doze off by dawn.”

“I already concede I won’t sleep one wink tonight.”

Isabel undid her collar and sleeves. “If we stand any shot to help Megan, we need the sleep to keep our sharpest wits.”

“Taking a sleep aid leaves me waking up lost in a fogbank.”

“Then let’s try closing our eyes and pretending to sleep.”

Alma left for her bedroom down one wing of their rambler, and Isabel wandered off to her closer bedroom. She tugged out the night table drawer, but then she decided she still wasn’t ready—even ten years later—to put out Max’s framed photo on permanent display. His dusky smile held her eye for an extra second.

They’d had just the one boy, Cecil. She battled a pang of wistful regret at not having had more children, but then she now had Megan. By the next moment she took stock of their assuming the unproven roles as private detectives to do her some good.

After shutting her bedroom door and relaxing on her bed, she let her mind drift back and replay what’d transpired in Interview Room One after a lady deputy had escorted Megan back to her prison cell. When their shuffling footsteps had receded to icy silence in the hallway, Sheriff Fox turned to Dwight and the sisters.

“With your legal counsel present, you’ll want a rundown on Megan’s charge.”

“Please do bring us up to date,” said Dwight.

Sheriff Fox smoothed his wrinkly necktie between his fingers as he used a cop’s matter-of-fact tone. “This afternoon Megan Connors contacted my office and reported Jake Robbins was prone out on his shop floor.”

“It’s odd how she first shoots him and then calls the authorities,” said Alma.

“It’s a known ploy murderers use to misdirect the police,” said Sheriff Fox. “Anyway, Jake had died of one fatal gunshot wound to the chest—”.

“Which region of the chest?” asked Isabel.

“The round struck the most vital region: his heart.” Sheriff Fox signaled with his hands to squelch their next words. “Once I finish, I’ll field your questions.”

“If you’d told us all this earlier, we’d have no questions now,” said Alma.

The scratchy rasp was Dwight catching his breath. “All right, Alma, just shush. Let me do the talking like you pay me for. Excuse the interruption, Sheriff Fox. There’ll be no others, so proceed.”

“There’s not much else left to say. I dispatched two deputies to Jake’s shop and drove over myself a little later. We processed the crime scene where I questioned Megan, and she told me she came to see Jake to do the books. Her knocks on the house door went unheeded, so she proceeded to the shop. There she hollered out his name but raised no response. She claims she entered through the bay doors and spotted him, the victim of foul play—”

“Skip over to the part on your evidence.” An impatient Alma snapped open her purse, plucked out a tissue, and wiped her nose. “That’s what I want to hear.”

Isabel seconded Alma’s request before Dwight could protest. “Yes, show us what evidence you’ve accumulated, Sheriff Fox.”

He went on. “If I can get in a word edgewise, I’ll tell you Jake died of a .44 round. Shortly after I let Megan leave, our follow up canvass of the premises uncovered a.44 handgun the murderer had tossed under the work bench. Playing a hunch, I sent the.44 back to our lab where my technician dusted for prints and raised two matching hers. Yep, that forensic evidence sure put a lock on the guilty culprit.”

“Where did she obtain the weapon?” asked Isabel.

Sheriff Fox shrugged. “Maybe Jake owned it. Maybe she bought it at a gun show. We’re still checking.”

“How do you happen to have her prints on file?” Alma sniffed into her tissue.

“We printed her for her Federal security clearance when she applied to work at the training center,” replied Sheriff Fox.

“This weapon, I assumed, had checkered grips,” said Isabel.

Sheriff Fox rolled his tongue inside his cheek. “It did but so what?”

“Prints aren’t left on rough textured surfaces like checkered grips,” replied Isabel.

“We lifted Megan’s prints off the barrel’s smooth surface.” Sheriff Fox had a triumphant smile. “We also took her print off the trigger. Both prints matched to her, and we couldn’t ask for better ironclad evidence.”

The pastiness blanched Alma’s face as she felt the blood rush from her head. Sheriff Fox’s glance in Isabel’s direction, however, disturbed him. A shrewd glint made her eyes dance. His discomfort puzzled him until he realized how the two sisters had always looked the same—silver and formidable—since he was a kid. Even in adulthood on some basic level, he still regarded them as his elders, but he today was the sheriff of Quiet Anchorage, and the one voted and paid to be in charge here.

“This .38 handgun you pulled out from under the work bench sounds too pat to me,” said Isabel.

Sheriff Fox shook his head. “I said the murder weapon is a .44, not a .38, and why is it too pat for you?” His voice grew defensive. “Are you implying my deputies planted the evidence?”

Dwight, his hand raised to play the mediator, looked flustered, and Alma reclaimed some of her fiery temperament.

“What Isabel means is some creep had to frame Megan for Jake’s murder. Besides she would be incredibly stupid to shoot poor Jake dead and then phone you to say she’d tripped over his corpse.”

“As I said, this behavior pattern occurs more often than you might think,” said Sheriff Fox. “The corpse is discovered—dang it, Alma, don’t interrupt me again—and reported by the actual murderer. It’s like how the arsonist first torches the abandoned warehouse and then reports the blaze to the fire station. As for your frame up theory, you’re grasping at straws, and no jury is going to bite on it. Trust me.”

“Megan would also be a buffoon to leave the murder weapon under the work bench,” said Alma.

“Maybe panic-stricken, she didn’t possess the presence of mind to think of a better hiding place.” Sheriff Fox narrowed his curious eyes on them. “How is it you two sisters know so much on homicides?”

“We’ve been reading murder mysteries before you were born,” replied Alma.

“Impressive but there’s one critical difference. This is the real world and not something lifted off the printed page,” said Sheriff Fox.

Isabel asked a few real world questions. “Have you Mirandized our niece? Did you record an entry log at the crime scene? Did you photograph and videotape the crime scene? Did you test for gunpowder residue on her? Dwight, are you paying attention to all of this? And last, have you constructed a timeline of events?”

“Naturally I know to do all of those things,” replied Sheriff Fox.

A frosty silence settled in the small interview room until Dwight scraped back in his chair. “Well. That does it for us. Thanks for your valuable time, Sheriff Fox.”

He gave them a frank nod. “I’ve detailed what’s what, and now the gears of justice will grind forward.”

“We aim to throw a monkey wrench into those gears of justice,” said Alma.

Sheriff Fox wasn’t left in a convivial mood. “This is my last warning. You should watch your step. Dwight, you better keep a tight rein on your client’s family, and I’m drop-dead serious, too.”

“Bad pun,” Alma had said.

Now smiling at Sheriff Fox’s unintentional pun, Isabel propped up on her pillows, and she felt the glow spread liquid warmth through her. She recognized it as confidence. Despite the ominous turn of affairs, her optimistic nature foresaw a positive outcome where Megan soon returned home. Just as fast a fresh insight struck Isabel.

“Motive,” she said. “Sheriff Fox harped on the means and opportunity, but he didn’t say boo on why he contends Megan shot and murdered Jake.”

Isabel patted the folds to the sheet as her pulse drummed in its new excitement. She found the cell phone snagged in the pillowcase. Her signal beamed from her bedroom through the house to the other wing.

“Hallo,” said Alma, a fellow insomniac.

“It’s just me. Say, did you notice how Sheriff Fox disregarded something significant earlier?”

Alma stifled a yawn. “No, but it’s put you in a tizzy so just tell me.”

“Did he hint at why he believes Megan killed Jake?”

“He never came within a country mile of touching on a motive.”

“I’m sure he’s diligent at building a motive to stand up his case, and we should concentrate our efforts there, too. By the way, did you soak the grease stain in your new blouse?”

“No, I put it in the rag bag since it brings bad luck, and we’ve already had our fill.”

“I see. Well, good night then.”

Isabel hung up and stretching her legs under the bed sheets, she recalled leaving Sheriff Fox at the prison and driving to the drugstore on Main Street. It’d been rather late, almost nine o’clock, but the glints of light peeped through the plate-glass front. They trooped inside and hailed Vernon Spitzer straightening the comic books and graphic novels racked in the wire display carousel.

“Ladies, it’s one minute until I close,” he said, striding over to the cash register to wait on them.

“We came in the nick of time,” said Alma. “How are you doing on my prescription refill?”

“Oh. Sorry. I forgot it.” Vernon wrinkling his forehead propped his elbows on a Bible. “My grasshopper mind seems to jump in so many directions, but I’ll refill it by tomorrow. Promise.”

Isabel’s frank gaze sized up the slim, suave, and athletic Vernon. His pencil-thin mustache reminded her of the actor Gig Young, and she found Vernon amiable enough.

“What keeps a young man like yourself so busy?” she asked.

“Running a small business is mayhem,” replied Vernon. “I don’t know if you’ve had any experience in retail.”

Isabel nodded. “A fair bit. I worked for forty-eight years at the home office of a major grocery chain. They’re still going strong, so I suppose we did something right.”

“Is that a fact?” His eyebrows tilted, and his mustache twitched at her. “I would’ve never guessed you for a business lady.”

“It now seems like a long time ago.”

“Did you retain Dwight to defend Megan?” asked Vernon.

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.

Chapter 10

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.

Chapter 11

“Whew, today is shaping up to be a scorcher.” Alma rolled up her car window.

After following suit, Isabel switched on the air conditioner. A chilled draft of air hosed into her face, and she closed the offending vent. Alma, enjoying the chilly air, adjusted the vents to aim and stream it at her.

“We neglected to do our shopping,” said Isabel.

“Jake’s murder distracted us, so I think we’re forgiven,” said Alma.

She looped them around in the commuters’ parking area on the highway and returned down Main Street. Neither sister missed the sight of Quiet Anchorage’s oldest social institution—a trio of hatless gentlemen basking in the sun lolled on the wood bench guarding Lago Azul Florist. They waved, and Alma returned the gesture. She knew Isabel didn’t approve of their loafing ways, but she thought it expedient not to tease her.

“Put us by the market. Avoid those trifling bums,” said Isabel.

“Isabel, they’re not bums or trifling. Why are you so down on them?” Alma shifted the sedan into Park. “They camp there in front of the florist minding their own business. One of them does an odd job or two once in a while.”

“Shouldn’t you be saying ‘once in a great while’?” Isabel stepped out of the sedan to lead them walking toward the market. “Don’t try to snow me. I’ve known Ossie Conger, Willie Moccasin, and Blue Trent all their lives, the bulk of which I might add they’ve squandered away gathering splinters on that same bench. Careful, don’t gaze in their direction, or we’ll waste the rest of the day gossiping with them.”

“Pot calling the kettle black,” said Alma.

The ladies made the corner and despite Isabel’s cautionary hiss, Alma acknowledged Ossie Conger’s second wave.

“Their gabbiness might be our best way to learn things on Jake,” she said.

Isabel shrugged into a resigned sigh. “Your mind is made up, so what can I say? But you’ll do the talking since I’ve come down with a sudden attack of laryngitis.”

The heat waves shimmied off Main Street, and they skirted the bubbly tar patch. The trio—all wearing streaky Bermuda shorts, baggy tie-dye t-shirts, and zoris—chorused a gravelly, “Good morning, ladies”. Authentic dog tags worn with MacArthur at Inchon dangled on thick gold-braided chains from their gaunt necks.

Ossie Conger removed the match fragment from his teeth and fingered its rough end. “Crying shame about Megan. For what it’s worth, we ran a straw poll, and our jury voted it unanimous: not guilty.”

“We don’t allow for one second that she killed Jake,” said Willie.

“Your show of support is appreciated,” said Alma.

Ossie nodded. “Now, if you asked us who did kill Jake...”

“Yes, Ossie?” asked Alma, eager. “Go on, please.”

“...we’d have to admit it baffles us. Jake was a good kid never causing any trouble. He fixed cars and that’s all. Sheriff Fox doesn’t know from a hole in the head.”

Willie cleared the phlegm from his throat. He spat down at the wood shavings scattered off his carving on a quail decoy from a block of yellow pine.

Repulsed, Isabel made her own throat noise, and Alma’s fingers squeezed Isabel’s wrist, counseling a little more patience.

“I’ll give you my pet theory if you care to hear it,” said Willie.

“Well, there’s no time for your harebrained ideas,” said Ossie.

“No time in the universe,” said Blue Trent, nodding.

“On the contrary, all we’ve got is time.” Hope enlivened Alma’s speech. “What’s your pet theory, Willie?”

“Oh, boy.” Ossie flicked away his broken match fragment to land in the wood shavings. “You’ve gone and done it now.”

Blue Trent also spat.

The hairy back to Willie’s wrist swiped across his mouth. He rested the quail decoy on the bench, chunked the tip to his knife blade into its wood, and scraped his palms together.

“The Robbins’ property lies in what some of us refer to as a ‘hot sector’. Over the years it has dazzled us.”

“Can you be more specific?” asked Alma.

“Man, I wish you’d never gone to Roswell,” said Ossie.

“Those Star Trek books have unhinged your mind,” said Blue Trent.

Willie ignored his two friends. “In the still of the night, bizarre objects do acrobatics over those piney woods. I’ve watched them. Ossie, you can quit grinning. Intergalactic aliens—yes, you heard me right, I said aliens—have grown more brazen. Their starships now swoop down in broad daylight.”

Blue Trent made a disgusted scoff, and Willie glowering at him finished his story.

“Aliens docked their starship near the Robbins’ house, a few hopped off, and they did in Jake. Aliens from a warrior galaxy, I’ve read, are just out-and-out ornery.”

A rising laugh sputtered from Isabel’s lips. Turning, she suppressed her giggles behind a hand clapped over her mouth as Alma’s face lost its bright-eyed optimism.

“Thanks for your interesting story,” she managed to say.

Blue Trent leaned in from the sunny end of the bench. “Willie, you’ve sat here and whittled away all of your brains.”

Willie palmed his quail decoy and carving knife. “Laugh if you like but I was a skeptic, too, until I read Colonel Corso’s book on how he collected the alien artifacts at Roswell. In fact, did you know scientists invented the computer chips from the aliens’ silicon wafers they recovered at the Roswell crash site?”

“That’s enough hooey out of you, Willie,” said Ossie.

Willie gave the sisters a wink.

“Well, thank you gentlemen, and we’ll be off to do our errands,” said Isabel.

Alma fussed as they went by the melted tar patch to the grocery store. “Quit acting so glib, Isabel. Next time you can suggest a better idea.”

“Laughing at spontaneous humor isn’t acting glib. I’d no idea Willie was so funny and strange. Imagine, UFOs and aliens here in our neck of the woods. Those old coots crack me up. We must talk to them more often.”

“Willie was just pulling our leg. He’s crazy like a fox, you know.” Alma stared off until a new insight clarified itself. “When we ducked into Jake’s shop, did you see an office or desk?”

“No, just the barber chair the mangy barn cat snoozes on,” replied Isabel as they entered the grocery store’s air-conditioned chill. “Why your question?”

Before Alma could respond, a man’s greeting boomed out. “Alma! Isabel! Haul it on back here.”

Jumpy’s nod beckoned them as he wiped his hands on a blood-streaked apron. A burly man, he wore a gold earring and chin whiskers.

Alma and Isabel neared the meat counter’s humming refrigeration where the sausage links and chicken gizzards were set out for display behind the frosty glass panels. Alma turned up her runny nose at the suety aroma. With a poorer sense of smell, Isabel leaned into the meat counter.

Jumpy continued speaking. “It’s a shock on Megan. Has she grabbed a lawyer? Is it Dwight? If it was me, I’d go out of town because he’s too light hitting. No, I’d hire a barracuda lawyer with razor teeth to rip apart red meat and shake out the gouts of blood. That’s the surest way to get her free.”

“Call off your barracuda lawyer, Jumpy. Megan is in good hands,” said Isabel. “Did Jake do any recent work on your truck?”

Jumpy’s chest puffed out. “He knocked out a brake job for me, and why not? His prices aren’t outrageous, and he always stands—or rather stood—behind his repairs.”

“Did you see any strangers at his shop?” asked Isabel.

“No ma’am, it was just us. He told me of his plans to grow his business. He hoped to restore old car models and start a vintage car museum.”

“Megan probably had other ideas,” said Alma.

Jumpy made an annoyed face.

“Did he use an office?” asked Isabel.

“An office?” Jumpy paused, thinking. “Sure, his big walnut desk sits inside the rear sun porch. I recall seeing the file cabinets there, too. Yep, he was big on organization, and you’d never see any mess.”

“Megan is like that,” said Alma. “He must’ve picked up his neatness from her.”

Jumpy sucked between his teeth. “Yeah well, Jake was a regular wizard with a torque wrench. How swift is she at carburetor repairs?”

“She’s smart enough to do anything she sits her mind to,” said Alma, sounding bellicose. “When we saw Jake’s place, it was a big mess—”

Isabel horned in to defuse the brewing argument. “Jumpy, do you offer fish specials today?”

“No ma’am, but come back on Thursday. My fish guy busted a truck axle outside of Tappahannock. He needs a Jake-type to repair it for him.” Jumpy glanced at Alma.

“Since when have you liked fish?” Alma asked Isabel.

“Since Jumpy sells it fresh on Thursday when we’ll want to return,” replied Isabel, giving Alma a meaningful glance.

“Then I’ll see you on Thursday, Jumpy,” said Alma, catching on to cool it.

Jumpy lifted the butcher knife, and it landed with a chilling thud on the wood chopping block. Whack-whack-whack. Alma and Isabel picked up their gait to make a speedy trip through the aisles of the store. They gathered a few items in a shopping basket and paid at the checkout lane up front.

After a quick jaunt home to unload their purchases, Alma drove them down Main Street out to the highway where she made a right turn. At the corner, they passed the only clinic in Quiet Anchorage, a single-story brick building built several years earlier. A lone sign-carrying pro-lifer picketed, walking back and forth in front of the door. Both sisters received their medical care, including for Alma’s allergy, at the clinic as did most of the town residents. In fact, Alma couldn’t imagine what they’d do if the clinic were ever forced to close, and they had to drive all of seven miles to Warrenton to consult a doctor.

“Does the clinic also host the morgue?” asked Alma.

“No, Jake will be autopsied by the medical examiner in Warrenton,” replied Isabel.

“I don’t mind Quiet Anchorage not having its own morgue.”

“Yes, a morgue adds little to a town’s quaint charm. Shall we go see Dwight, not that he has anything to do with a morgue?” said Isabel.

Chapter 12

“Don’t you grasp how your nuisance snooping jeopardizes our prospects for winning Megan an acquittal?” The exasperated Dwight Holden’s cufflinks clicked on his desktop as he leaned forward to drive his point home.

“Talked to Sheriff Fox lately, have you?” said Alma.

“As a matter of fact, Alma, I did. He’s livid. He ordered me to keep my client’s aunts on a short leash, and I gave him my pledge that I would my best.”

Isabel pursed her lips. “We don’t like hearing you talked to him. Remember who’s paying your fee, and it isn’t him.”

“He contacted me, and I couldn’t very well hang up on him,” said Dwight. “Now I must recommend that you quit doing stuff without first consulting me.”

“Your two cents are noted,” said Alma.

“But now you’ll do as you please against my counsel.”

“We’re not baking pralines while Sheriff Fox fabricates his bogus case to bury Megan.”

“What have you been up to so far today?”

“We drove over to Jake’s place.”

“You went over there?” Dwight stood up and opened the window behind his desk. “You can’t just do that or Sheriff Fox will charge you with obstructing justice.”

“That’s silly.”

“By coming here, you must have something in mind for me to do.”

“I’m glad you asked. First, a list of the townspeople who own .38 handguns would be nice,” replied Isabel.

“No, Isabel, a .44 handgun was used to kill Jake,” said Alma.

“I doubt if such a list can be obtained from any database, so what else?” asked Dwight.

“Goose Sheriff Fox to give you a carbon of Megan’s police report,” replied Isabel.

Dwight nodded. “You know, the prosecution has a formidable case to hurl at us. Have you considered a plan of action if her outcome is guilty?”

Alma’s hot, blue eyes seared him. “Your client is innocent until a jury convicts her and don’t you forget it.”

“It was just a thought,” he said.

Isabel weighed in. “If Megan is found guilty, then the appeals process cranks up, only we can’t afford to reach that stage. Alma and I don’t enjoy the luxury of years, so we’ll go for broke now, and that means our taking calculated risks.”

He gulped a little. “Just don’t calculate your risks too large and upset Sheriff Fox.”

“Dwight, quit acting like his flunky. Isabel is right. You work for us,” said Alma.

They left Dwight’s office, and Isabel’s cell phone chirped. Alma alternated her eyes from driving over the blacktop to her pensive sister who carried on a terse conversation and signed off.

“Who was your caller?” asked Alma.

“Our favorite girl reporter,” replied Isabel. “Her editor caught wind of Jake’s murder and Megan’s arrest. Bad news travels fast, I suppose. Anyway, she asked if we’re on Megan’s case.”

“What did you say?”

“You just heard me say we’re checking into a few leads. She said she’d love to do a follow up story, how it’d make for an ‘awesome feature’. We don’t have the time for such nonsense, and I told her to buzz off, but I couched it in nicer language.”

Alma didn’t agree. “Readers love to root for underdogs like us. Suppose we talked to our reporter, and her story ran? Imagine how advantageous it’d be if most of Quiet Anchorage rallied behind us.”

“I’m never keen to work in the limelight.”

“How can we shun free publicity if it can help out Megan?”

“We do need all the support we can drum up.” Isabel pointed out the windshield. “Don’t miss our turn again.”

Alma hit the brakes, and the sedan vaulted off the state road, hitting the loose gravel to slew into Jake’s driveway. Isabel’s hands flew up to brace herself against the dashboard as the rear tires fishtailed around. Alma’s white-knuckled grip held the steering wheel as they swept broadside. Her deft maneuver stabilized the sedan’s tires, and somehow they didn’t spin out. The sedan’s locked tires skating to a halt scraped up the furls of dust.

“Are you a daredevil now?” asked Isabel, shaken.

“Sorry, I got distracted there, but we’re here in one piece,” said Alma.

Isabel nodded at the house. “Do you carry a set of lock picks?”

“Of course not, but maybe Jake left his door open.”

But they found Jake’s door was locked.

Remembering what Megan had once told her, Alma kicked over a fake rock and found the spare key inside its hollow compartment. She used the key, and they entered the sun porch Jake had converted into his office. The stifling space looked disheveled with manila folders spilled over the carpet. They saw the large walnut desk and the three green metal file cabinets Jumpy had pointed out. The length of angle iron that was fitted into the brackets welded to each cabinet and held with a combination padlock secured the drawers shut.

“Might the desk be unlocked?” said Alma.

It was. She drew out each desk drawer, and Isabel sorted through its contents, but nothing constructive turned up. They found outdated racecar magazines soiled by greasy prints.

Isabel removed her floppy straw hat and used it as a fan. Alma leaned over to peek behind the file cabinets and plucked out a yardstick advertising the “State Bank of Quiet Anchorage”. Giving a small shrug, she returned the yardstick.

“Jumpy commented on the neatness, but we see this mess. A curious sort might ask why,” said Isabel.

“Maybe the murderer ransacked the office,” said Alma.

“What was he after?” Isabel rested a hand on a file cabinet. “Why didn’t he rustle up the shop tools and break open the padlocks? Did Megan coming along scare him off?”

“She told us she didn’t see or hear anybody.” Alma picked up the white pages directory under the telephone. “For now, we’ll call back our favorite reporter.”

“We look so grubby.” Isabel brushed a smudge of dust off her blouse sleeve. “Use my cell phone, not the desk phone.”

Nodding, Alma adjusted her cuff. “We’ve got no official PI agency name to give the press.”

“We’ll be Isabel and Alma, Incorporated, or shorten it to I & A, Inc.”

“That sounds too cute. The Trumbo Sisters Investigation Firm is more elegant.”

“Except elegance isn’t really us.”

“How about if we go with the Trumbo Sisters Detective Agency?”

Smiling, Isabel nodded. “Yeah, now that has the best ring to it.”

Chapter 13

With the reporter running late, Alma and Isabel rested in their armchairs at home. Isabel called Dwight inquiring on the list of gun owners. He moaned, saying such a list was difficult if not impossible to dig out, so she told him to keep on digging. She also said he still hadn’t obtained Megan’s police report and to find out when the M.E. had scheduled Jake’s autopsy. They hung up. When her cell phone rang, Isabel expected it was the late reporter asking for better directions.

Instead an authoritative baritone spoke in her ear. “This is Mr. Oglethorpe from the Richmond office. Am I speaking to Ms. Trumbo?”

“Yes, Mr. Oglethorpe, I’m Mrs. Isabel Trumbo. How may I help you?”

“Confidential sources inform me that you operate a PI firm. Please confirm or deny that information.”

Isabel, her eyebrows veed, gave Alma an askance look. “Where did you hear such a thing?”

“I happen to have your local newspaper up on my computer screen. The article’s topic is a detective firm you run with your sister, Ms. Alma Trumbo.”

“I see.”

“The article goes on to say you solved a case of vandalism in your town cemetery, and a second mystery concerning some errant church money.”

Peering over her bifocals, Alma hissed at Isabel. “It’s not the IRS again, is it?”

Also whispering, Isabel cupped a hand over the cell phone. “A Mr. Oglethorpe from the Richmond office is asking me about our detective agency.”

“Mrs. Trumbo, tell me, do you hold a private detective license?” His emphasis fell on the last word: license.

“We’re unaware of any such license,” replied Isabel in an innocent tone belying the alarm making her heart gallop. “But then we don’t charge a fee for our work.”

“You don’t charge any fees.” He took a quick breath. “While the article doesn’t say that you’re professionals, the impression conveyed that you take money is unmistakable.”

Isabel welcomed the warm relief coursing through her. “Sorry to disappoint you Mr. Oglethorpe, but we haven’t collected one thin dime.”

His cadence grew snippy, his frustration apparent. “Does your business plan project to make future earnings, say, in three to five years?”

“At seventy-six, my taking any long-range view is impractical.”

“Oh. Imagine that. Like always, I only get half of the information I need.”

“I can empathize with your frustration.”

“But I intend to keep close tabs on you.”

“We’re always home if you wish to call again. Good-bye.”

She punched off and tapped the cell phone against her chin. “Our state requires a PI license and since ours came ordered off a box top, Mr. Oglethorpe questions why.”

“So send away for an application,” said Alma.

“As it turns out if we accept no money, a license is unnecessary.”

Alma doffed her shoes, one with a weighted toe. A hunting accident with a twelve-gauge shotgun had taken off half of one foot, and her balance sometimes grew wobbly and unstable. She sniffed and scratched the foot stub. “If Megan wasn’t in her can of worms, I’d drop doing this goofiness. Mature ladies our age shouldn’t be matching wits with the criminal underclass. I enjoy the adrenaline rush fine, but enough is enough, you know?”

Irritation crimped the longer lines in Isabel’s frown. “We can’t quit until Megan walks free out of Sheriff Fox’s prison.”

“Sure, but this PI stuff can get dangerous.”

“Then we’ll just have to be extra careful as PIs.”

A crisp knock at the door brought up Alma to let a young lady into their living room. Cathy Johnson had been poured from the same mold as Megan, starting with her petite frame. The striking difference was her jet dark hair instead of Megan’s blonde. Cathy slipped a tape recorder out of her straw handbag, but at catching Isabel’s perturbed glance, she returned the tape recorder.

“I’ll just jot down a few notes. Recording devices are obtrusive, and we need to talk freely. So, how many cases have you solved since my first article appeared?”

“Just the two covered in your article,” replied Isabel.

“You’ve cracked only those two cases?” With distress in her voice, Cathy’s smile wilted fast.

Alma carried the day. “Right now we’re in the middle of a homicide investigation.”

“Hey, that’s right. So fill me in,” said Cathy.

Alma used Cathy’s request as a lead in to do some lobbying. “Sheriff Fox arrested our niece, Megan Connors, for the murder of Jake Robbins. The charge is an unadulterated sham, and you can tack that quote in bold letters right above your byline.”

“Alma, Cathy knows how to do her job,” said Isabel.

“You make a thought-provoking lead,” said Cathy, scribbling away. “Are you busy clearing Megan’s name?”

“You hit the nail square on the head,” replied Alma. “We’re working day and night to exonerate her, and nothing less than restoring her good reputation is acceptable. Wait until you hear how Sheriff Fox tricked her to make his arrest.”

“Entrapment always angers readers.” Pleased, Cathy gave them a conspiratorial smile. “You know, this will rock my editor’s world.”

Alma offered a word of caution. “You’ll make few friends in the sheriff’s department if you hang your hat with ours.”

“My editor says controversy sells newspapers,” said Cathy.

She soon had gathered enough material to write her article and left with her effusive thanks. Alma and Isabel at the screen door waved as Cathy turned at Church Street, accelerating away to scoop her next headline.

“I hope you don’t as feel as guilty as I do,” said Alma, sitting back down. “I feel as if we just bamboozled Cathy.”

“She feels the fire in her belly to succeed as a journalist, and we merely added to the fuel. What vexes me is what will happen when her newspaper story hits the street. Sheriff Fox will fling a hissy fit with a tail tied on it. He doesn’t come off as looking too sheriff-like.”

“We didn’t tell Cathy anything untrue, and he can’t sue us for libel. Or is it slander? Regardless, Dwight will defend our rights.”

Isabel nodded. “I get the growing sense that Sheriff Fox realizes Megan’s arrest was a knee-jerk decision and regrets making it.”

“My take on him is a little more cynical. Cathy asked us if we expect to solve Jake’s murder before his funeral, but who is making his funeral arrangements?”

“I’d say we’re up for doing it. With Megan in prison, who else is there?”

Isabel telephoned the funeral home on the outskirts of Quiet Anchorage. The unctuous director said he’d take care of everything for “an affordable fee”. She approved of the amount and gave him her credit card number, and she called Dwight. He said the prison visiting hours ran from one to three in the afternoon, and they hung up. Alma suggested they bring Megan a few creature comforts from her apartment.

They traipsed out to the sedan, squirmed into their seats to buckle up, and rode all of a half-block down the street. The gravel lot they entered surrounded Megan’s apartment building, a tan brick edifice with small windows. Struggling to duck under her lap-and-shoulder harness, Isabel swore that next time she’d just walk the short distance.

When an older lady in a blue aloha dress materialized from a side door, Isabel arched her eyebrow looking at Alma, and they suppressed their smiles. Phyllis Garner, Quiet Anchorage’s closest thing to a town eccentric, relished the attention it earned her.

A waving hand shot up, and Phyllis hollered over to them, “How are you ladies doing?”

“Hallo, Phyllis,” said Alma.

“Sheriff Fox ain’t worth a pig’s curly tail, is he?” said Phyllis, approaching them. “Early this morning a posse of his deputies stormed into Megan’s apartment. They never spotted me watching them because I’m too cunning for them.”

Alma turned to Isabel. “Does Dwight know the rambunctious deputies served this search warrant? We haven’t heard anything.”

“We’ll know after seeing him in a few minutes,” replied Isabel.

“While we slept, Sheriff Fox ordered his deputies into Megan’s place.” Alma scowled her displeasure. “Isabel, he keeps beating us.”

“The deputies left empty-handed since the only damning evidence is what Sheriff Fox pulls out of the air,” said Isabel.

Phyllis led them into the apartment building’s musty hallway and removing their sunglasses made it easier to see. Alma turned the doorknob, eased in Apartment 13-B’s door, and their eyes grew big as Mason jar lids. Megan’s papers and folders lay strewn over the fern green carpet. Phyllis righted the spilled chairs while Isabel went around and switched off the overhead lights and table lamps.

“Executing a search warrant now seems to make it permissible to destroy personal property.” Alma’s hip gave the apartment door an angry bump to shut. “The expensive swag lamp we gave Megan for Christmas is broken beyond repair.”

“The deputies took what they sought, left, and didn’t bother to lock up,” said Isabel.

“We’ll clean and straighten up for Megan,” said Alma.

“No, leave it for now,” said Isabel. “Dwight can meet us at Sheriff Fox’s office, and we’ll ask about this.”

An intrigued Phyllis offered her watchdog skills. “Meantime I’ll stay and keep out an eagle eye.”

“I’ll give you my cell phone number to call me the minute you spot more trouble,” said Isabel.

“Go take care of your business,” said Phyllis. “I’m all over this.”

Chapter 14

“Sheriff Fox!”

Recognizing the querulous shout, Sheriff Fox groaned. Alma and Isabel had stormed inside the station house, but he had little chance to gird himself. A split second before Alma bulled through his office doorway, he sat up, looking alert and authoritative, at his desk.

“Ladies, may I help you?” he asked.

“We’ve got issues.”

Isabel cringed at Alma who’d come fit to fight the devil. After taking the furthest chair, she gave Alma a nod to sit by her, but Alma remained standing.

“Sheriff Fox, you’ve gone too far,” said Isabel.

“Your deputies trashed Megan’s apartment,” said Alma.

“Sorry, but I direct a squad of deputies, not custodians,” said Sheriff Fox.

Alma gestured at Isabel. “Better try raising Dwight again and tell him we’re at Sheriff Fox’s office.”

“Ladies, please.” He shrugged at them. “There, there. Is all this fuss and bother with the lawyer necessary?”

“Don’t be disingenuous with us,” said Isabel.

“You made our niece a convict, so what do you figure?” said Alma.

“She’ll get her day in court,” said Sheriff Fox.

“Have her day in court?” Alma jerked at the straps to her purse.

“Naturally that’s where all this is headed,” said Sheriff Fox.

Alma seethed. “Not if we have anything to say on it...”

Isabel talked over her younger sister. “What did you find at Megan’s apartment?”

“I can’t divulge that sensitive information,” replied Sheriff Fox.

“Then what did you expect to find?” asked Isabel.

“I can’t reveal what items for seizure the search warrant listed,” lied Sheriff Fox. Nagged by a thought, he switched gears. “The scuttlebutt says a newspaper reporter visited you. Is there any truth to that rumor?”

“Scuttlebutt, hooey,” said Alma. “How do you know that unless your deputies are spying on us? Anyhow, we can’t divulge that sensitive information either. Next week you can buy a newspaper and read all about it.”

Sheriff Fox leveled his eyes on them. “Touché, ladies. Okay, I’ll tell you nothing of evidentiary value surfaced in Megan’s apartment. We’re running the forensics on her car.”

“What for? Of course Jake’s DNA will be inside of her car,” said Alma.

“I’m just telling you,” said Sheriff Fox.

“Then I’ll tell you that we told the reporter how our overzealous sheriff entrapped Megan,” said Alma.

“You’ve distorted the truth,” said Sheriff Fox.

“We didn’t tell the reporter anything not true about her arrest,” said Alma.

“Now who’ll set her apartment in order?” asked Isabel.

“Beats me. The taxpayers expect my people to run patrols, not to push vacuum cleaners,” replied Sheriff Fox.

“Who owned the .44 handgun recovered at Jake’s shop?” asked Alma. “Is it stolen or registered? Did you run the serial number in your police computers?”

“We’re processing that lead along with the others. In due course, we’ll comply with the law and turn over our evidence to your lawyer,” replied Sheriff Fox.

“Alma, the sheriff is swamped with work, and so are we.” Isabel elevated from her chair.

He raised his shoulders with a wondering expression. “You’re swamped with doing what work?”

“We’re working around the clock focused like a laser on Megan’s case,” replied Alma.

He put on an unpleasant face. “That’s just great.”

“Release Megan and we can pool our resources to find Jake’s real murderer,” said Isabel.

“Thanks, but I’ve already incarcerated the guilty party,” he said.

“You’re committing a colossal blunder,” said Isabel.

He switched to a different tactic to mollify them. “Put yourself in my shoes. A man gets murdered. His fiancée and he had a rocky past. It’s also common knowledge he liked to slip over to the cheating side of town. She hears of his latest escapade, and it’s the final straw. She goes planetary, finds the handgun, and shoots him dead. So, I’m forced to arrest her for his murder. It’s black-and-white case and a good, clean bust.”

Isabel repeated herself. “You’re making a mistake, Sheriff Fox. Alma, shall we go?”

* * * *

Following their war of words with Sheriff Fox, Alma and Isabel made a beeline for home. Wanting reinforcements, Isabel placed a telephone call to Louise, the youngest of the six Trumbo sisters who resided in a different Virginia area code.

She reacted to the news. “What’s going on in Quiet Anchorage?”

“Get a grip and think back with me. Did Megan tell you if Jake quarreled with anybody at his shop?”

“I can’t recall any such mention. Why?”

“We think somebody killed him and then framed her for it.”

“Then let Sheriff Fox do as he’s paid to investigate and catch this somebody.”

“But he has no reason to investigate any further with Megan in prison.”

“Ah, I follow your logic. Well, he did love the ladies, and she agonized over it, but I thought they’d reconciled. He vowed to behave, and relations were better between them.”

“We know of his infidelities.”

“Did a spurned ex-lover kill him? For revenge, the ex-lover set up his murder to put the blame on Megan. That way the ex-lover exacted her revenge twice over while also got off scot-free.”

“That’s an intricate plot for somebody to contrive. Any other ideas?”

“Jake’s dad, Hiram, had a wicked temper so was Jake also hotheaded? Did he start an argument with the wrong person?”

“No, Jake, reserved and aloof, took after his mother.”

“Then I wish I could drive down and help you, but my arthritis is a bear. Lately, Megan and I didn’t chat so regularly.”

“Why did you cut back on your telephone calls?”

“The rates ballooned, and neither of us had won the state lottery.”

“What’s your take on Sheriff Fox?”

“You better watch your back at all times. I’d trust a used car salesman before him. Who’s Megan’s attorney?”

“Dwight Holden.”

“He’s book smart but not real street smart. Why did you pick him?”

“Because he’s local and available.”

“You’re taking a gamble by using him,” said Louise, somber. “If the jury votes thumbs down, Megan will live in a bad place long after we’re dead and gone.”

“We know what’s at stake, Louise. Just leave on your thinking cap since we can’t seem to buy a clue.”

“Are you still doing this private eye stuff?”

“Of course. We just saw the newspaper reporter again, and the next article coming out should get us some good PR for Megan.”

“Then add my name to your masthead. Arthritis or not, I’ll be your agent-at-large, if there’s such a position.”

“If not, you’re our agent-at-large now,” said Isabel, and they disconnected on that bright note.

Alma glanced up from counting the letter spaces in her crossword puzzle. “Louise is now affiliated with us. I hope I’m there to see Sheriff Fox go ballistic when he hears about it.”

“You’re on the right track,” said Isabel. “We’ll try and keep him off-balance. If we can’t suss out the right answer and enough proof to make it stick, our efforts to free Megan are wasted. Who’s on our suspects list?”

“Number One?” asked Alma, her pencil ready to scribble on a tablet of paper.

“Louise proposed a jealous ex-girlfriend.”

Alma scrawled “jealous ex-girlfriend”. When no more possible suspects came to mind, she was pessimistic. “We have a tough nut to crack.”

Isabel’s frustration turned sardonic. “Did Willie’s miniature, pop-eyed aliens teleport down to earth and zap Jake with a ray gun?”

Striking the tablet with the pencil eraser, Alma gazed out the picture window. The sunny street appeared tranquil, and her catching the electric orange flash to a Baltimore oriole flitting into a blue spruce sparked a thought.

“Willie might be unwittingly on to something. Assume instead of aliens that a random traveler or an anonymous stranger came into Jake’s shop. Remember it’s not so far off the highway. For some reason, they squabbled, tempers flared, and this traveler turned the .44 handgun and fired at Jake. Then the traveler chucked it under the work bench and lit out on the highway with impunity.”

“How did he stamp Megan’s prints on the handgun?”

“Oh. Right. Well, I didn’t say my theory was airtight.”

“My stomach is growling.” Isabel’s glance took in the clean kitchen. “Should we go grab a bite of late lunch? I’m in no mood to warm up soup or wash any dishes afterward.”

“Sure, Eddy’s Deli is open. How is Louise?”

“It’s the same old story of beating down her arthritis.”

“You know it’s funny that Sheriff Fox hasn’t mentioned Jake’s will to us.”

“Well, I’m not doing his job for him by bringing it up.”

* * * *

A bit later, their sedan clattered over the iron-truss bridge spanning the Coronet River. Isabel tipped her glance below to glimpse a pair of tanned, sinewy canoeists gliding through the river’s main channel. Next, hauling by the Co-op, Alma breathed in the fermented odor of the shelled corn stored in the grain silos. A little further, the rusty anchors stood sentry at the brick fire station. A summer day’s languor overtook them by the time Alma steered a right off Franklin to Main Street. That’s where they spotted her walking.

The barefoot girl wore cut-off blue jeans below a blaze orange halter, and she sipped from a soda bottle. She sauntered immune to the lava-hot sidewalk in front of Lago Azul Florist, its wood bench unoccupied. The three gentlemen had retreated into the florist’s lobby during the day’s hottest part. Isabel said she hoped the August heat didn’t roast the poor girl alive, and Alma remarked on how much of her bare skin lay exposed to the August sun.

Isabel continued to look. “Who is that girl, Alma?”

“That’s Sammi Jo. She rents an apartment from Vernon above the drugstore.”

“Ah, that’s our scandalous Sammi Jo.”

On the next block, no SUVs or “farm use” pickups lodged in the patrons’ reserved spaces at Eddy’s Deli, and they parked. Isabel flipped down the sun visor to use the clip-on mirror. She cocked the floppy straw hat to tilt just so on her head. Her primping drove Alma to distraction. Why fuss over vain appearances at this late stage? She stayed silent as they braved the August heat, and Isabel clucked her tongue.

Catching the signal, Alma followed Isabel’s gaze.

The self-assured Sammi Jo was crossing the intersection without regard to any oncoming traffic. She chucked the empty soda bottle into the culvert and fished out a crumpled pack of cigarettes from a hip pocket. She strolled up to Isabel, the cigarette drooping from her insouciant smile.

“Got a match or lighter?” Sammi Jo used an upcountry drawl.

“I most certainly do not.” Isabel squared up to her full height. “Smoking poisons your lungs.”

The taller Sammi Jo had a saucy comeback. “You gotta die of something.”

“You’re Phyllis Garner’s niece, Sammi Jo,” said Alma.

“Right you are, and aren’t you Alma and Isabel, Megan Connor’s aunts?”

Alma nodded. “Pay Isabel no heed. The truth is she bucked the habit herself when the Surgeon General’s warnings first appeared on the cigarette cartons.”

“I’m okay with it, and I understand why you’re uptight.” As if a concession, Sammi Jo flicked the unlit cigarette to strike the culvert. “Our sheriff—and I use that term very loosely—did Megan dirty, and everybody I’ve talked to is peeved over it.”

Isabel, starting to like the personable girl also sympathetic to Megan’s plight, followed Alma’s friendly lead. “We stopped for a bite of lunch. Why not join us, Sammi Jo?”

Nodding, she smiled at Isabel. Sandy hair and a honey tan made her a pretty

young lady if a little rough-cut at the edges. “My idea just might give you a leg up to spring Megan.”

“Talking goes with eating,” said Alma.

Eddy’s Deli felt like an empty cavern, and they ordered egg salad and tomatoes on rye bread served with iced tea. Huddled in a window booth, they centered their conversation on Megan.

“Let us in on your idea.” Raised eyebrows shortened Alma’s forehead.

Sammi Jo sprinkled salt and pepper on her egg salad sandwich, and the diminutive bite didn’t fill her mouth. “You know Deputy Clarence Fishback?” she asked between careful chews.

“Not personally, no,” replied Alma. “We recognize him to nod hello to on the street. He’s sort of cock of the walk, isn’t he?”

“Ain’t he?” said Sammi Jo. “Clarence and I were once an item. We danced between the sheets, and afterward the macho guys always like to brag. Well, Clarence let slip this juicy tidbit, and then he tried to take it back.”

Alma leaned in closer, and Isabel set down her glass of iced tea.

“Don’t keep us waiting in suspense,” said Alma.

“Clarence is out to snake Sheriff Fox’s job,” said Sammi Jo.

Isabel’s sliced tomatoes tasted too green. “How do you see Clarence’s political ambitions helping to get Megan off?”

Sammi Jo squinted her gray eyes at each sister. “The way I see it is Sheriff Fox and Clarence will compete to see who can make the bigger splash with the voters. The timing of Jake’s murder plays right into their hands, and they’ll exploit it to show who’s tougher on crime.”

“We’ve been afraid of that happening.” Isabel sampled her iced tea. “We’re caught in the middle of a political dogfight.”

“I bet you didn’t know Jake and Clarence were once drag strip fanatics and once buddies,” said Sammi Jo.

“We’d no inkling,” said Isabel.

“I noticed you said ‘once were’ talking about Jake and Clarence,” said Alma. “Did bad blood come between them?”

“Boy did it ever. Their fight came over buying car parts.” Sammi Jo wet her lips with the iced tea. “One claimed the other gypped him. I don’t remember the play-by-play, but Clarence acted like the baby, so he must’ve felt Jake cheated him.”

“Do you think Clarence killed Jake over money?” asked Isabel, incredulous.

“S-h-h-h!” Alma put a finger to her lips. “Keep your voice down, Isabel.”

Isabel’s glance encompassed the vacant tables and booths. “Why? Nobody else is in here.”

“All walls have ears, don’t they? You were saying, Sammi Jo…”

Sammi Jo dipped a bare shoulder in a resigned shrug. “Just how some men foam at the mouth over cars. If it was a tossup between NASCAR to watch on the idiot box or me standing there stark naked, no contest. NASCAR won every time. Pathetic, isn’t it?”

“I’ll say it is, but what’s your idea?” asked Alma.

“Let’s assume Clarence went to Jake’s shop spoiling to settle the old debt,” replied Sammi Jo. “He could easily goad Jake. I know from personal experience Clarence has the knack to grate on people.”

“If Clarence pulled the trigger, how did Megan’s prints end up on the .44 handgun?” asked Alma.

Isabel finished the final bite of her egg salad sandwich. “It’s doable,” she said, wiping her fingers on a napkin. “I recall reading in a mystery of the method Clarence could’ve used to transfer her prints by using nothing more than a piece of Scotch tape.”

Nodding, Alma dabbed a napkin at the corners to her lips. “So, Clarence creates a sensational murder. People clamor for action. Then he steps in to find the key clue and frames Megan. Folks talk him up as the hero of the hour. When November rolls up, he trounces Sheriff Fox at the polls, and we say hello to Sheriff Clarence Fishback. What a slick trick.”

“Who first discovered the .44 handgun, Sheriff Fox, Clarence, or another deputy?” asked Isabel.

“Dwight might wheedle that answer out of Sheriff Fox before we get to read Megan’s police report,” replied Alma. “Right now we can’t get past the padlocks on Jake’s file cabinets.”

“I’ve been in his office and seen them.” Sammi Jo smiled, her teeth stark white against her tan face. “An acetylene torch will slice off those wimpy padlocks.”

“How is it you’ve been in Jake’s office?” asked Isabel, suspicious.

Sammi Jo’s smile didn’t waver. “I went over with my dad for his car repairs. I never saw him for any other reason if that’s what you mean.”

“Of course you didn’t,” said Alma.

“Do you keep an acetylene torch handy?” asked Isabel.

Sammi Jo smiled with new mischief. “Pick up one at Ace Hardware, and I’ll show you how its done.”

“Then I say off with the padlocks,” said Alma.

Nervous, Isabel rattled the ice cubes in her glass. “We’ll get caught like the Watergate burglars.”

“Who’s Watergate?” asked Sammi Jo.

The older ladies laughed, and Alma winked at Sammi Jo. They paid, left Eddy’s Deli, and Isabel posed a suggestion. Shrugging, Sammi Jo went over to the culvert, retrieved her soda bottle, and trashed it. Alma gave her a second wink and as they left in the sedan, Isabel recounted the Watergate annuls to a skeptical Sammi Jo.

Chapter 15

Tempers at the Trumbo Sisters Detective Agency had frayed. Isabel and Alma disagreed on what they should tell Dwight. Sammi Jo sat on the ottoman flipping through the pages to Isabel’s Alaskan Outdoor magazine. A CMT diva in torn jeans, a spangly top, and a cowboy hat sang on their TV, her volume muted. Sammi Jo stood ready to act but for now the fussing continued. Knowing the futility of playing the peacemaker, she stayed out of it.

“Dwight won’t sit on his thumbs and let us do illegal stuff,” Alma was saying. “It stands to reason he won’t like us breaking into Jake’s office much less into the file cabinets.”

Isabel feared her argument had lost its starch. “If we tell Dwight, he won’t be caught flat-footed by our phone call from the prison.”

“Who said boo about prison? Sammi Jo can zip us in and out of Jake’s office in no time, can’t you, Sammi Jo?”

She stopped studying the picture of a massive caribou migration. “I’d say five seconds to cut each padlock, tops. Do you own flashlights?”

“Look in our mud room on the shelves next to the washer,” replied Isabel. “Sorry it’s so dark, but the light bulb blew out on us.”

“Heck, this is your lucky day. Light bulb changes are my specialty,” said Sammi Jo.

“Alma, show her to our mud room and the new light bulbs.”

“I will but don’t you dare touch the phone and call Dwight.” Alma led Sammi Jo into the kitchen where she asked point blank, “Why your interest in our problems, Sammi Jo?”

Sammi Jo gave a dry laugh. “Payback, Alma. That’s it. Clarence and I didn’t part on the best terms after he made me look like a jackass, so he’ll now get his comeuppance.”

“Been there, done that.” Alma dragged the kitchen stool into the mud room. “I’d never admit it front of Isabel, but we can get into some trouble by returning to Jake’s place.”

Sammi Jo hiked up on the stool and unscrewed the dud light bulb while Alma steadied her by the hips. “‘No guts, no glory’ is my motto. Are they combination or key padlocks?”

“Combination.”

Sammi Jo took the new light bulb from Alma and screwed it into the empty socket. “If he’s like me, Jake jotted down the combination numbers on a sticky note. Poke around searching a little bit, and we may not even need to fire up an acetylene torch.”

“What time do you have?”

After climbing down from the kitchen stool, Sammi Jo looked at her wristwatch. “Quarter to three.”

“There’s no chance to visit Megan in fifteen minutes.”

“Megan might be irked but look at this way. If you’re not keeping her company, you’re out taking care of her business, and she’ll come home that much sooner. Remind her, and she’ll understand, I’m sure.”

“I hope so.” Alma flipped on the light switch. “Viola! Success!”

Sammi Jo nodded. “Waiting until night to hit Jake’s place might make it safer for us.”

“Isabel believes that Jake’s will leaves his place to Megan. With her permission, technically we’re not trespassing.”

“I doubt if that technicality will sway Sheriff Fox.”

“My mind is made up. We’ll go right on and search the file cabinets.”

When Sammi Jo and Alma returned to the living room, Isabel was adjusting her floppy straw hat at the foyer mirror. “I overheard you both conspiring in the kitchen. Let’s go.”

The sedan wheezed on gas fumes. Three streets down at the corner, Alma slowed into a turn. Their rolling tires tripped the gas station’s bell cable, but Alma braked at the self-serve island. A gangly boy in a wife-beater and baggy cargo shorts with the top to his boxer briefs exposed scuttled out from behind a tool chest. He carried a skateboard and drew up to Alma squeezing the gas pump nozzle.

“Yo, Mrs. Trumbo.”

“Hello, Erskine.”

“Sorry about your allergy.”

“Thanks, Erskine.” Alma changed topics. “Erskine, did you know Jake Robbins?”

Erskine spun a small wheel on the skateboard. “Jake was an awesome mechanic, even on the foreign jobbers.”

“Did you talk to him?”

“A little. Jake ate and slept drag racing. Clarence Fishback and he teamed where Clarence raced it and Jake fixed it. When I watched, they never won many bragging rights but like my skateboarding, it was something fun to do.”

“I heard they wrangled over buying car parts.” The gas pump shut off, making a dull clank. “Have you any idea what touched it off?”

“Clarence said Jake padded the costs, then hit him with the fat bill. Jake saw it different. Their partnership ended, and they sold their Camaro to that rich dude Slade Roberts in Mechanicsville.”

“Did Jake start the fight?”

Nervous, Erskine scraped the ruff of his neck. “I heard it was the other way around, but you’d have to deal a couple aces short to go up against Jake.

“Did Clarence come out on the short end?”

“Waking up with a shiner, Clarence hated Jake’s guts. But I’m not sure if Clarence had enough venom in him to kill Jake. Isn’t your niece behind bars for doing it?”

Alma tucked back a silver strand of her wind-tossed hair. “Erskine, nobody is guilty, even in Sheriff Fox’s jail, until a jury of their peers in a court of law convicts them. Megan is a well-behaved girl and innocent of Jake’s murder.”

“I’m only repeating what I heard.”

“That’s what’s known as common gossip.”

“Uh-huh. You filled your tank, so pay me and off you go.”

Alma remounted the gas pump nozzle, screwed in her gas cap, and settled with Erskine. Once arranged under the steering wheel, she heard Isabel’s question.

“Did Erskine say anything worthwhile?”

“Nothing we don’t already know. He did say Quiet Anchorage is abuzz over Megan,” replied Alma.

“Next thing they’ll open a betting pot over if Megan is found guilty or not,” said Sammi Jo in disgust.

“It’ll never come to that point,” said Isabel.

Alma engaged the ignition key and let the engine idle. “Boy, that really steams me. What gives Erskine, or anybody else, in this town the right to trash Megan?”

“Alma, it’s smarter to let it ride.” Sammi Jo used a soothing murmur. “People will believe, and say, whatever they want. Our sole aim is to get a murderer, so don’t fly off in an anger tangent.”

“Sammi Jo is right,” said Isabel.

“You can relax. I’m back on track now,” said Alma.

As the sedan eased into the sun-scorched street, Sammi Jo saw out the rear window Erskine had skateboarded over to refill the snack and soda machines.

“Sorry I was born nosy, but were you ever married Isabel?” asked Sammi Jo.

“Yes, I’m a widow. When my husband Max passed away ten years ago, I dismissed any prospect to remarry since one man to cook and clean for in this lifetime was ample penance. Naturally I grieved over his death, and not a day goes by that I don’t have a good memory about us. But finally being on my own after forty-six years of wedded bliss felt liberating, and I even shamelessly reverted to my maiden name.”

“Do you have any kids?” asked Sammi Jo.

“A chronic smoker, our boy Cecil died too young from lung cancer,” replied Isabel.

“Sorry for your big loss,” said Sammi Jo with quiet respect.

“Thanks,” said Isabel. “It’s been tough but not impossible to cope with the grief, and I’m okay.”

Saying nothing, Alma recalled how the state of Virginia hadn’t always been for lovers. Isabel and Max had had a tough row. Their interracial marriage had caused a minor uproar in Quiet Anchorage, and for years the public snubs in places like restaurants and the firemen’s carnival were too frequent. Since then over the years the social mores had done a 180 for the better.

“My two marital flings were a little different,” said Alma. “The fellows I tried on for size didn’t fit, so I turned them lose. I outlived them both, and we stayed on friendly terms. Life just didn’t bless me with any kids.”

“It could be you still haven’t met Mr. Right,” said Sammi Jo.

Cocking her head, Alma smiled with amusement in the rearview mirror at Sammi Jo. “That’s a sweet thought, honey. Hold on to it.”

“Alma, don’t give the young lady the wrong notion. No doubt she’ll land a keeper,” said Isabel.

“No harm done, ladies,” said Sammi Jo. “I’m sharp enough to recognize the real deal whenever he struts by me, and you can be certain I’ll jump his bones. Hey, watch it and don’t miss the turnoff to Jake’s place.”

“Alma has a disconcerting habit of sailing by turnoffs,” said Isabel.

“Honestly, all this worry ruins my concentration.” Alma braked them into Jake’s driveway. “Do I go on back to the shop?”

“No, stop and park at the porch,” replied Isabel. “We’ve got nothing to hide plus our past sneaking around has left me feeling like a common thief.”

“Sheriff Fox will squawk at us,” said Sammi Jo.

“At our ages, we just don’t care,” said Alma.

She keyed off the sedan’s engine, and they coasted into the backyard.

Ambling over the brown lawn, they heard katydids rasp away high in the treetops, the sweltering day’s only audio. Grasshoppers leapt away to escape the foot tread. The ladies accessed Jake’s office, formerly the sun porch, through the unlocked door. Split bamboo blinds lowered halfway shaded the long space. At a collective glance, their jaws dropped—a void gaped where the three file cabinets had once stood by the large walnut desk.

“Sheriff Fox has beaten us again,” said Isabel.

Alma shifted her purse. “Or some other hustler sure has.”

“It wouldn’t hurt to peek again in the shop,” said Isabel.

Alma paraded them from the office over the dry lawn to the auto shop’s entrance. Sammi Jo let off the latch and shoved aside the door to let in the shafts of sunlight. Shudders circuited down their backs from their feeling like unwelcome intruders. Sammi Jo’s muttered oath, “no guts, no glory,” sent them stepping into the cooler shadows to the shop. After the barn cat flying off the barber chair scared them, she picked up a canoe paddle and wielded it as a club. She got down on all fours and looked underneath the work bench but only swiped at sticky cobwebs. The vise bolted to the work bench still held the six-inch length of rebar steel, and the hacksaw lay in the steel filings.

“Why is the hacksaw placed on the bench? When shot, Jake would’ve dropped it on the floor,” said Alma.

“Maybe he first set down the hacksaw,” said Isabel.

Sammi Jo tapped the canoe paddle against the rebar steel. “What caliber handgun are we talking about here?”

“A .38,” replied Isabel.

“No, Sheriff Fox told us the handgun was a .44,” said Alma.

“Either one, I expect, kills as effectively,” said Isabel.

“Could dainty Megan even fire a monster-sized.44?” asked Sammi Jo. “I seriously doubt if I could handle one. How might our brilliant sheriff explain that oddity away?”

“He always has a ready answer for us,” said Isabel.

Her eyes mashed into sharp slits, Sammi Jo grew analytical. “If I stand in the same spot as Jake did, I can hear any traffic noise on the state road. Also with the shop door ajar as it is now, I can hear any intruder crunching over the gravel besides having my clear view out this window. So ambushing Jake by surprise would be difficult. If he’d felt threatened, he’d snatch up a hammer or the rebar as a weapon to defend himself.”

“Evidently the murderer didn’t intimidate or surprise Jake,” said Alma.

“So we can deduce Jake knew his murderer,” said Isabel.

“That’s a safe bet to make,” said Alma.

Sammi Jo pointed the canoe paddle to direct their gazes out the shop door. “If the murderer circled around the shop, he moved into Jake’s blind spot.”

“Then in that case our murderer sprints into the shop and fires at a startled Jake.” Alma looked at the work bench. “Then the murderer used up valuable time having to stop and press Megan’s prints on the .44 handgun.”

“He probably did it in a few minutes if he knew what he was doing,” said Isabel.

“It was too easy since Sheriff Fox fell for the ruse,” said Alma.

“Too bad for the murderer we didn’t get suckered into accepting it,” said Sammi Jo.

“By now the murderer probably knows we’re on his trail,” said Isabel.

“That’s a scary thought,” said Alma.

Chapter 16

Small town funerals make for a public gala, and the afternoon of Jake Robbins’s funeral was no different. Attendees lined up in double file from the Baptist Church door hours beforehand. The mid-afternoon sun beat down on the men sweating in their open collar sport’s shirts and the ladies perspiring in their dark solid summer wear.

Neighbors, classmates, shadow cousins, and every stripe of busybody wilted in queue to grab a choice spot to sit, preferably a pew with a casket view. The more prurient ones thrilled to gawk at an open coffin. Despite this outpouring of community grief, Jake’s fiancée, Megan Connors, remained stuck in her solitary prison cell. Alma and Isabel had visited her, lunch compliments of Eddy’s Deli, but she’d only nibbled at the lettuce on her tuna hoagie. She hadn’t said a word, and her conspicuous absence made Jake’s funeral all the more sensational.

“His funeral could be the firemen’s carnival,” said Alma, gauging the crowd’s gape-eyed looks at them. “Half of those here wouldn’t have given him the time of day.”

“We came as Megan’s ambassadors so be nice,” said Isabel.

“That frosts my petunia, too. Sheriff Fox has sunk to an all-time low,” said Alma.

“We’ll vote accordingly in November.”

“Who even cares we set up this funeral?”

“Let’s leave our public guessing,” said Isabel, returning smiles with the several matrons swiveling their heads to measure up the sisters.

They strolled over to Rosie McLeod and Lotus Wang loitering under a mulberry tree’s patchy shade. Oblivious to the oppressive heat, both came in somber navy blue dresses though the more sensible low pumps. Rosie’s lipstick was a pinkish hue while Lotus favored a darker wine red.

“Hello, ladies,” said Isabel, neutral but polite.

“What a beautiful day it is for a loved one’s funeral,” said Rosie.

“A ray of sunshine does brighten a gloomy day,” said Isabel.

The rural banalities dispensed with, Lotus asked, “Do you know yet who did in poor Jake?”

“We expect it’s somebody local,” replied Isabel.

“Everybody in Quiet Anchorage is a suspect,” said Alma.

Lotus’s painted lips parted. “Surely you don’t lump us into that category.”

“We’d nothing to do with Jake’s death,” said Rosie.

“The ushers are now at the doors. Shall we go inside?” said Isabel.

Alma snagged her sleeve, and they waited, letting the mêlée, including Lotus and Rosie, crash through the church entry.

“Do we sit on the front pew?” asked Alma.

“As Jake’s closest family, we’re expected to go there,” replied Isabel.

“Glory be, look at Sammi Jo.” Alma’s surprised look guided Isabel’s behind them. “She’s put on a nice dress and wears pumps, too.”

Isabel gave an approving nod. “Do we invite her to sit in our pew?”

“We do. She’s now family by proxy,” replied Alma.

So Sammi Jo sat between them on the front pew. The attendant hymns, prayers, and sniffs highlighted the service in the jam-packed church. A bearish man in a beige tropical worsted suit recited Dylan Thomas’s elegy, “Do Not Go Gentle Into That Good Night”: Rage, rage against the dying of the light. The sniffs grew vociferous as Alma, Isabel, and Sammi Jo were permitted to file from the church first.

Their sedan folded in after the royal purple hearse to form the cortege proceeding to the cemetery on Quiet Anchorage’s north side. The funeral director had left instructions to drive with their four-way flashers on since the newer model cars used daytime running lights. The conga line of blinking headlights snaked around for six town blocks.

“You both did okay for Megan,” said Sammi Jo. “I’ve never seen a finer funeral and weren’t those gladiolas and mums breathtaking? The Three Musketeers away from their favorite bench cleaned up nicely in their dark suits. We made one big slip up though.”

“What’s that?” asked Isabel.

“If I’d murdered Jake, I’d’ve attended his funeral to make it look good. No murderer, I don’t care how cold-blooded he is, can mask a guilty smirk when inside of a church, and from our pew we couldn’t read any of the faces.”

“Then we’ll survey the faces at Jake’s gravesite,” said Isabel.

“Our murderer is hidden, but I felt his icy cold eyes on me,” said Alma.

“That was the air conditioner running, Alma. I shivered through the service, too,” said Isabel.

At the pair of brick gateposts topped by the zinc eagles, Alma tailed the royal purple hearse turning off the state road. The tires crunching over the crushed shell rolled on the lanes wending through the cemetery’s uneven turf. Miniature toys dotted the tops to children’s stone markers. Coffee tin vases clad in tinfoil held jonquils, irises, and chrysanthemums to decorate the Trumbo family plot. Two sites remained vacant. Alma glanced back twice as if for reassurance their gravestones weren’t yet in place, and Isabel smiled at her sister’s superstitions flaring up again.

Isabel frowned at seeing the potter’s field languishing down the gentle slope in the mushy swale. The deceased paupers only merited tin markers stamped in the shape of crosses except for the one cut as the Star of David. The royal purple hearse wheezed to a halt under the copse of sassafras trees where Alma also braked, and their doors hitched out.

The afternoon heat grew suffocating as Sammi Jo escorted them to Jake’s graveside. The allergy-stricken Alma stumbled once on her bulky foot, but Sammi Jo balanced her.

They came to stand beneath an olive-drab tarp pavilion where they could appraise the other goers parking their cars and approaching. Fake grass mats covered the mound of excavated soil. Six husky men who’d attended high school with Jake rested his coffin atop the chrome rack for interment, and it cast a horizontal shadow on the fake grass.

“Hello, ladies.” The speaker’s greeting used a congenial note.

“Sheriff Fox, you have got some nerve speaking to us,” said Alma.

“You elected me as your sheriff, and I’m just doing my job.”

Alma took a divergent viewpoint. “Your job is to stand in our way.”

“Yeah well, just don’t let your little, two-old lady PI firm impede my investigation.”

“Three ladies since Louise has joined us,” said Isabel with quiet pride.

“Louise Trumbo?” Sheriff Fox’s ruddy features darkened a shade. “But she hasn’t lived here for years.”

A lopsided grin showed how much Sammi Jo was enjoying the conversation, especially Sheriff Fox’s distress. “You better also lump in Phyllis Garner and me.”

“What? There are five of you now.” Sheriff Fox pivoted a half-turn to address Alma. “Why don’t you recruit the whole town to go on your scavenger hunt?”

“We’ll use however many it takes to free Megan and find Jake’s real murderer,” said Alma.

The jut to Sheriff Fox’s jaw gave his face a stubborn rigidity. “Quit this charade because my tolerance is running dangerously thin.”

“Why did you haul off Jake’s file cabinets?” asked Alma. “What did you find inside them? Where are they now? You can tell us, or our lawyer will file a motion.”

Sheriff Fox fastened his irate eyes on the sisters. “There’s only one way you’d know that detail. Jake’s residence is still my crime scene, and you trespassed. I’ll give you one more chance before throwing the book at you.”

Undeterred, Isabel continued their questions. “Have you finished charging Megan?”

“I have and Miss Connors’s arraignment is on the docket for tomorrow morning. I assume you’ll be there in force,” said Sheriff Fox.

“We sure will now that you’ve told us,” said Alma.

“Did it ever cross your minds that I got it right?” asked Sheriff Fox. “Maybe Jake and Megan bickered, and their overwrought feelings escalated. The events spiraled out of control and precipitated this tragic outcome.”

“Nice try, Sheriff Fox, but you’ll coax no plea bargains out of us. We insist on a complete exoneration to restore Megan’s good name,” said Alma.

“If your actions veer outside of the law, I’ll arrest you,” said Sheriff Fox.

“Sheriff, this is a funeral,” said Sammi Jo. “Show a little respect for the bereaved family.”

“Sammi Jo, the same deal applies to you. Make an illegal U-turn, and I’ll send you to the clink,” said Sheriff Fox.

“You sure are in a big hurry to fill your prison,” she said.

Shaking his head, Sheriff Fox gave them his back and strolled into the crowd buzzing beyond the olive-drab tarp. “You’ve heard me,” were his parting words.

Footsteps scratched over the dry leaves. “Ladies?” They turned around.

Vernon Spitzer, a rumpled dress hat and Bible in his hands, bowed his balding head in modest acknowledgement. Changed out of his white pharmacist smock into a brown suit gave him a plain look. Awkward in his politeness, he said, “I came to leave my sympathies with Jake’s folks, and that must be you. Jake and I went to high school together. Maybe it’s trite to say it, but he’ll be missed.”

“Thank you and, trite or not, yes, he will be missed,” said Isabel.

Vernon, backpedaling, went on. “Jake did a brake job on my car.”

“When was this brake job done?” asked Alma.

“He took care of me a couple of weeks ago.”

“Did you notice any strangers hanging around his shop?”

“Jake’s paraplegic tool salesman came by is all.”

“Did Jake mention any arguments with anybody?”

“We didn’t chat on personal matters. He said he hoped to expand his business.”

“Were you with him the entire time he repaired your car?”

Vernon nodded. “He was an efficient mechanic, and I was soon on my way.”

“Have you refilled my allergy meds?”

“Drop by the pharmacy, and I’ll fix you right up.” Vernon put on his rumpled dress hat. “Condolences again,” he said before shambling toward the parked cars fringing both sides of the state road.

“Jake was a popular fellow in our close-knit community,” said Isabel, surveying the milling crowd.

“It creeps me to think a murderer is among us,” said Sammi Jo.

“A faceless murderer,” said Alma.

“Hello, ladies,” said a third male voice. They shifted their attention to the bullish, freckled man in his beige tropical worsted suit. “Did my recital meet your usual high standards?”

“Your rendition of Dylan Thomas rang pitch perfect, Bexley,” replied Isabel.

Bexley smiled, flattered by the compliment. “Somebody did notice, and it was the bereaved family. I practiced in front of the mirror like I do for my barbershop quartet.”

“You recited the poetry real pretty, but we’ve moved on,” said Sammi Jo.

He went on smiling as he asked, “When do I get paid?”

“What?” Sammi Jo’s gray eyes snapped at Bexley. “Get paid?”

He outstretched his ink-stained palm. “I did my job and now I want my money.”

Squaring around, Sammi Jo balled up her fists. “Dude, I ought to knock you on your—”

“Call us tomorrow after ten, and we’ll settle our arrears,” said Isabel before Sammi Jo could punch out his lights.

Chapter 17

Sammi Jo assumed their chauffeuring duties from Alma who wanted her hands unoccupied, sure that it’d help her to focus better particularly since they’d not seen any shady suspects at Jake’s funeral. She covered a sneeze from her allergy. Finding any signal was troublesome to Isabel, and her finger taps on the cell phone didn’t improve its range. She gave up trying to contact the sheriff’s office.

“Sammi Jo, are you sure you’ve never been in an auto accident?” asked Alma.

“Alma, you’re safe as milk,” replied Sammi Jo.

Isabel replaced her formal, dark hat with the floppy straw one. “Sammi Jo, may I have your opinion on something? Does this hat make me look dowdy or frumpy?”

She gave it an obligatory glance in the rearview mirror. “Nothing of the kind, Isabel. Your hat has a real flair.”

“Yes, I’d like to think so as well,” said Isabel.

Alma stayed mum on Isabel’s hat style though her dim opinion of it wasn’t swayed. They took the baking blacktop to town as the cemetery crowd thinning out slowed their progress. The graveside service had been an object lesson in mortality, but ladies getting along in their years such as her passengers, Sammi Jo knew, never dwelled on death. They lived in the present moment, seldom reminiscing except on their landmark birthdays: 80, 90, and, the Good Lord willing, 100 years old.

“I bet Megan could do with some company this afternoon,” said Isabel.

“We won’t breathe a word about Jake or his funeral,” said Alma.

“Sheriff Fox will say it’s late,” said Sammi Jo.

“Surely for today he’ll make an exception,” said Isabel.

Sammi Jo parked and they marched into the station house to find the duty desk. Their excuse of Jake’s funeral didn’t win over the presiding squat deputy with the bushy sideburns.

“Visiting hours ended at three pm, funeral or no funeral. Strict adherence to regulations is the hallmark of a well-administered penal institution.”

“Quit putting on speechy airs, Rodney,” said Sammi Jo. “We’re hardly impressed.”

He cracked his knuckles, rocked back in his chair, and tweaked his lips into a leer. “Should I call in Clarence? He can better explain it to you.”

“Call Clarence or the Seventh Cavalry for all I give a fig.” Angry, Sammi Jo leaned her weight on her other hip.

Isabel interrupted them. “The deputy is correct, so tomorrow we’ll return during the scheduled visiting hours.”

Rodney’s smirking nod addressed Sammi Jo. “You see, Ms. Trumbo is a smart lady. You should take a page from her.”

“Oh drats, where are my sunglasses?” While pawing through her purse, Isabel leaned forward into the stronger light under the duty desk. “I had them right here.” Just then a crumpled ten-dollar bill spilled from her purse to land on the desktop. Her search was distracting her, but Rodney fastened his eyes on the money.

Alma’s elbow jab clued in Sammi Jo to pipe down.

“Didn’t you wear them inside?” said Alma.

“Did I? I must have, yes.” Biting her bottom lip, Isabel delved further in her purse. “Lately, I’m so mixed up, and I’d like to die if I lost those particular sunglasses.”

“Well, Rodney, which is it: yes or no?” asked Sammi Jo.

“On reconsideration, you do raise a good point.” His meaty hand swallowed the ten-dollar dollar bribe. “It’s not like a dude can pick his time to go. I’ll allow some leeway to approve of a five-minute visit.”

Frowning, Isabel rooted deeper for her errant sunglasses. A second balled up ten-dollar bill dropped to the desktop near the same spot. His eyes latched to the money as his tongue scraped his thick lips.

“Ten minutes rings twice as nice,” said Sammi Jo.

“Oh yeah, and fifteen minutes rings nicer still.” Grabbing the second ten-dollar bill, his greedy eyes moved up from the desktop to Isabel’s purse.

“Ten minutes will do us fine,” said Alma.

“Then ten minutes it is then.” Rodney, twenty dollars richer, sprang to his feet. “Hang loose and I’ll be back in a flash with Megan.”

A rolling strut sent him into the station house’s recesses, and Isabel slipped her sunglasses from a dress pocket and into her purse for safekeeping.

Sammi Jo grinned at her. “How did you know he’d go for the bribe?”

“He has a dishonest smirk, so I plucked out a trick I’d read from a mystery book,” replied Isabel.

“Smirkers are dishonest and can be bought,” said Alma.

In a few minutes, he strolled back to the duty desk. “Ms. Connors is in Interview Room Two. Head on down, if you like. But first for the record, are you toting any weapons or contraband on your persons?”

“Did you win the lottery?” asked Sammi Jo.

“Wow, you cracked a joke, and here it almost sailed right by me,” he said.

“Jake’s file cabinets disappeared,” said Sammi Jo. “Do you know their whereabouts?”

“I have no idea,” replied Rodney. “All right, go on and finish your visit.”

The window air conditioner installed in Interview Room Two was chuffing away in its labor. After hugging the ashen Megan, Alma punched off the power switch for quiet and they sat.

“Megan, Sammi Jo is our new assistant,” said Isabel.

“We went to school together,” said Megan, her voice husky and tight.

“Actually I was one grade behind you,” said Sammi Jo.

Megan quit fidgeting with her hands as her pale face contorted in its anger. “Why are you helping my aunts, Sammi Jo? What’s in this for you? Are you Sheriff Fox’s hand-picked spy?”

“Not at all. Clarence made me look foolish, and I’m thrilled to knock him down two or three pegs,” replied Sammi Jo. “As for me and sneaky spies, no, my style is more like in your face.”

“You can trust Sammi Jo,” said Alma. “We do.”

Megan let her glare drop from Sammi Jo. “Okay, I will. For the time being.”

“Megan, how have you been?” asked Isabel.

“I missed not being at Jake’s funeral. How was it?”

“Everybody was there, and Bexley recited the Dylan Thomas poem you like so much,” said Isabel.

“It was a dignified funeral,” said Alma.

“Thanks for being there in my stead.” Megan fidgeted again with her hands. “It’s not as creepy as you might imagine. The food is pretty drab, but I’m alone in my cell. Since it has a bunk bed, my status might change. I spend a lot of my time reading paperbacks the lady deputy lent me. I have gotten blisters from pacing back and forth so much.”

“First off, we get you out of that orange hazmat suit,” said Alma. “Then we negotiate another deal with the deputies to keep your accommodations private.”

Megan’s distressed eyes sought Isabel’s, then switched to Alma’s. “You’ll negotiate another what deal with the deputies?”

“Alma is just letting off a little steam,” said Isabel.

“Just a little,” said Alma. “Have any new details while at Jake’s shop occurred to you?”

Eyes downcast again, Megan’s head wagged. “No, I’ve replayed the scene over and over, but I can’t add more.” Her tone grew matter-of-fact and her sentences choppy. “I stopped at Jake’s. He wasn’t in the house. Or the office. I ran to the shop. Went inside it. Jake lay in front of me. Shot dead. His chest bloodstained. It was horrid. In a daze, I phoned the sheriff. That’s it.”

“You should’ve called us first, said Alma.

“Megan did fine. It’s not like we’ve got any influence with Sheriff Fox,” said Isabel.

“You’d have to tell it all to him anyway,” said Sammi Jo.

“Did you see a handgun on the floor, Megan?” asked Alma.

“If I did, I’ve no memory of it,” she replied.

“Do you own a handgun?” asked Sammi Jo.

“No, I’ve never touched one. Guns scare me,” replied Megan.

“Then the .44 can only be a plant,” said Sammi Jo.

“Clarence, I can recall hearing, is the one who discovered it,” said Megan.

“Then sneaky Clarence definitely left the .44,” said Sammi Jo.

“It’s a distinct possibility,” said Alma.

“Think back, Megan. Did you smell any whiffs of cordite?” asked Isabel.

Megan scratched at an eyebrow. “What’s cordite?”

“Gunpowder smoke that has an acrid smell so you’d’ve covered your mouth and nose,” replied Isabel.

“The strong fumes made my eyes water,” said Megan.

“She came in seconds after the murderer had left,” said Alma.

“I don’t recall hearing any gunshots fired,” said Megan.

“Did a car engine start up?” asked Alma.

“No, I heard nothing at all,” replied Megan.

“The murderer escaped into the woods,” said Isabel.

“We’ll go canvass there.” Alma looked at Megan. “Dwight should’ve met with you.”

“No Dwight. I assume he’s been too busy working on my case.”

“We know Jake kept several file cabinets locked up. Did you open them?” asked Isabel.

Megan’s eyebrows canted. “They’ve always sat by the big walnut desk, but he rarely undid their padlocks. I believe he told me once he stored old car manuals and business records inside them.”

“Rodney might know if we grease his palm again,” said Sammi Jo.

Megan’s face knotted into an anxious tangle of furrows. “You bribed the deputy out front right under Sheriff Fox’s nose?”

“Bribe has a negative connotation. We did like the Senators and CEOs do to expedite their business,” said Sammi Jo.

Before Megan responded, Isabel asked, “Did Jake tell you Clarence owed him money?”

“I know Jake and Clarence owned and raced a car,” replied Megan. “But something, probably money, caused a rift. They quit speaking, and I played their go-between for a while, but I never learned many details. Clarence fell out of the picture, and I was only glad to see him go since I don’t like him much.”

“You ain’t alone in feeling that way,” said Sammi Jo.

“Did he two-time you?” asked Megan.

“He’s no better than a rabbit hopping from one girl’s bed to the next,” said Sammi Jo.

“Welcome to the fold. Jake pulled the same crap until we had ‘The Talk’. As far as I know he flew straight, but the distrust lingered like a bad taste in my mouth.”

“But you both had weathered that storm. He had to grow up, and he worked hard at the shop,” said Isabel.

Megan averted her teary eyes. “I’m sure you must be right.”

“Did Sheriff Fox run paraffin tests, or whatever they’re called now, for gunpowder residue on your hands?” asked Isabel.

“After my booking, I’ve only sat in my cell except for a trip to the prison showers,” replied Megan.

“He doesn’t need more physical evidence with the .44 handgun as his Exhibit A,” said Alma.

“So it appears.” Isabel tipped up her watch. “Alma, do you have any parting words? I hate to rush us along, but our allotted time is almost up.”

“Megan, we’re doing everything possible,” said Alma.

“I already know it, and thanks.”

“You’ll be out of here in next to no time,” said Sammi Jo.

They watched Rodney escort Megan back to her prison cell and left the station house. Quiet Anchorage had dipped into late afternoon, and as they neared the sedan, a series of deafening whistles went off. Their fire department even in this high tech age of cell phones, pagers, and beepers still called its crew the old-fashion, loud way. Each new whistle blast pealed out shriller.

A driver revved up the fire pumper truck inside the station and began the frenzied honking of its air horn. The three ladies watched in awe as the firefighters roared down the side streets and sprang out of their cars. The second fire pumper truck pursued the first one. As the furor subsided, Isabel pondered again why the fire department hadn’t responded swift enough to the house fire claiming Megan’s parents.

“Rodney sure bit on that bribe.” Sammi Jo put the sedan into gear. “It makes you think of things, now doesn’t it?”

“Like how deep the graft runs in our local law enforcement,” said Alma.

“For twenty dollars, I proved one deputy is crooked,” said Isabel.

“Pair Rodney with Clarence, and a disturbing pattern emerges,” said Sammi Jo. “It only takes two bad deputies to frame Megan for Jake’s homicide.”

“The same two deputies can also shred the contents of Jake’s file cabinets,” said Alma.

“And to think they’re paid to serve and protect the citizens,” said Isabel in a miffed but glum voice.

Chapter 18

On the way home, the ladies decided to check on Megan’s apartment. The parking lot at this hour overflowed with the vehicles of the residents home from their jobs. At Alma’s request, Sammi Jo made a vigilant circuit around the apartment building as Isabel fanned herself with her floppy straw hat.

They spotted no lurking deputy cruiser, marked or unmarked, so they parked, and exited the sedan.

A shaggy, orange tomcat hunched on the dumpster hissed as they approached the apartment entrance. A knot of kids dressed in baggy, solid-colored khakis jerked their heads and necks in time to a boom box blaring a discordant noise. Despite straining her ears, Isabel couldn’t make out the lyrics chanted over the staccato bassline.

“Gangsta rap sucks,” said Sammi Jo. “I’d die laughing if the world awoke tomorrow morning infatuated by Gregorian chants. You could kiss off all the bad ass rappers with their fake steel teeth and macho swagger.”

Alma nodded off to their right. “Is that our Phyllis?”

“It is and why is she out here?” said Sammi Jo.

Phyllis looked chipper dressed in all blue from her floppy hat to her sneakers.

Sammi Jo handed the car keys to Alma and went over to her aunt, the exasperation putting a noticeable hitch in her stride. “Why are you hanging out in the parking lot?”

Phyllis smiled, hooking her elbow in Sammi Jo’s, and led them over to Alma and Isabel. “Because I’m an undercover agent.” Phyllis’s whisper evoked the atmosphere of mystery and intrigue. “My mission is a stakeout, and this bag lady getup that’s giving you hysterics is my latest brilliant disguise.”

“Phyllis, you’ve accomplished enough mission for one afternoon,” said Isabel.

“Aw, let her report in. Did you see anything suspicious, dear?” asked Alma.

“It’s been Dullsville, and I missed my beautician appointment,” replied Phyllis.

“You don’t use a beautician. I cut and perm your hair,” said Sammi Jo.

“Your quality has slipped a notch or two.” Phyllis touched her pin curls under the floppy blue hat. “I can pay a bit more for a superior cut in Warrenton.”

“You haven’t been to Warrenton lately since neither of us owns a car,” said Sammi Jo.

“Sammi Jo, I’m not pleased by your impertinent tone. Alma, am I right?” Phyllis’s glance appealed to her.

Her pat on Phyllis’s forearm was reassuring. “I asked Sammi Jo to help us straighten up at Megan’s apartment. Can you also lend us a hand?”

“Go ahead and I’m hot on your heels,” replied Phyllis.

They strode halfway down the building’s hallway when a goateed man backed out of his apartment door. His batik shirt over his chino pants offset the yellow guitar he slung over a heavy shoulder. Their stares caught and held his eye.

“Hiya, Bradford,” said Phyllis.

“Bradford, we need to get into Megan’s apartment,” said Isabel.

He looked doubtful. “I’m not sure if I should let you inside.”

“Then you’re stuck with cleaning it. This morning the deputies left it as a pig sty,” said Sammi Jo.

“I’m too busy to fool with it.” He walked on with them before he set down his yellow guitar, selected a worn key on a ring, and undid Megan’s door. “Have at it, ladies. I’m late for my rooftop gig.”

The irrepressible Phyllis strummed her air guitar. “You’ll croon stardust memories.”

He grinned at her. “It’s just cooler and breezier up there.” He picked up his yellow guitar, and left for the nearby exit to the stairs.

Isabel, the last one through, shut the door. “I admire his stick-to-itive-ness. Is he any good at his singing and playing?”

“He’s vastly underappreciated,” replied Phyllis. “I’m his biggest fan, and he knows it. In ten years, I predict all of his CDs and DVDs will become collectors’ items. I’ll be sitting on a gold mine.”

“All singers like to think that way,” said Isabel.

“Meanwhile we’re left straightening up this squalor.” Alma’s hand circled to signify the disheveled rooms.

“Seeing it also upsets me,” said Phyllis.

Megan’s magazines, recipe cards, and phone directories sat heaped at the living room’s center. The deputies had pitched the cushions to her divan and upended the ottoman. Potted shamrocks had fallen off the window ledges and shattered on the floor. The pieces left to her swag lamp made it a total loss. Alma poked into a closet to rescue a broom and dustpan.

“The deputies were thorough.” Alma swept the potting soil and broken pieces to the lamp into the dustpan.

“No, Sheriff Fox was truthful that his deputies struck out,” said Isabel.

Alma leaned the broom against the butcher block table. “I only hope you’re right.”

Sammi Jo retrieved the tossed phone directories from the floor. “Bradford knew the deputies would go nuts and do this.”

“Bradford who’s pals with the deputies also knew we’d spruce it up,” said Alma.

“When Megan walks through her door, she can’t face this mess,” said Isabel.

“Go on, the bunch of you.” Phyllis shooed them back into the hallway. “I’ll scour the apartment from top to bottom, and Megan will never know the deputies set foot in here.”

“Aunt Phyllis, this can’t be a lick and a promise. You better come through,” said Sammi Jo.

“I said I’d do it, so I will,” said Phyllis.

“What a tremendous help,” said Isabel.

Phyllis halted at her apartment door, and the others strolling on to the outdoors heard Bradford’s guitar riffs filter down from the rooftop to replace the rap music. Alma drove them to Sammi Jo’s apartment over the drugstore on Main. She climbed out and waved as the sisters tooled away. The tinsel bugs splatted on the windshield, and Alma said it was a harbinger of ill luck. She agitated the windshield washer, and the wipers scraped the luminous bug remnants off the glass as if their ill luck could be cleared away.

“Who was that boy with the guitar who was sweet on you?” asked Alma.

“You’ve confused me with somebody else.”

“You and he sat on the wraparound porch—what Mama called ‘the verandah’—in the ladder-back chairs. You listened to the radio, ate his cherry-filled chocolates, and he made goo-goo eyes at you.”

“Did you kneel down in the hydrangeas and spy on us?”

“And you never knew it until now.”

“Of course we knew you were there.”

“His guitar wasn’t yellow like Bradford’s but blue. Oh, what the devil was his name?”

Isabel sighed. “The guitar was indigo, if you must know, and he dubbed himself ‘The Indigo Kid’. An odd pair of eggs, weren’t we? He sang the radio songs, took himself too seriously, and the townspeople snickered behind his back.”

“Why did he call himself ‘The Indigo Kid’?” The brakes Alma applied eased the soft halt in their driveway.

“Because he was a starry-eyed nobody from nowhere who cultivated big dreams. His boyish passion, I suppose, is what swept me away. Thankfully after a month—or was it less?—I came to my true senses. Fame and fortune weren’t in the cards dealt to him, only he couldn’t read the cards, so I told him straight out.”

“Oh-oh.”

“Oh-oh is true. We went for a ride one drizzly midnight, and I doubt if you followed our detour to stop on Lakota Bridge. He began the usual rigmarole young couples do when parked on the dark, remote bridges, but this session I didn’t indulge him. Instead, I laid it on the line, telling him his prospects to make it as a singer were spotty, and, mister, you’d better face up to that music.”

“What did he say?”

Again Isabel sighing stared out the windshield at the bushy hollyhocks overdue for a trim. “What do all the boys say when you poke holes in their improbable dreams? He accused me of dashing his spirit. Maybe I did, but I didn’t back down.”

“Bravo for you. What happened next?”

“Well. On the spot he burst into a sob. I was aghast and told him to take me home, but he didn’t, not right away. First he threw a tantrum and stalked to the far end of the bridge, the indigo guitar held in his shaking fists. I knew what he’d taken in his head to do.”

“It wasn’t pretty, was it?”

“It was silly. He smashed the indigo guitar over the bridge rail into smithereens. Still raving, he stomped on the pieces, and I never batted an eyelash, but I can tell you the ride back to the house was the longest ride I ever took.”

Alma chuckled. “At least The Indigo Kid spared you from hearing more songs.”

“Yes, and that put an end to our torrid romance. It’s ironic how years later I heard that he’d made a fortune by playing the stock market. So, who was the real fool?”

“You weren’t foolish, just young and in love for the first time.” Alma paused. “In all candor, did you like Jake Robbins?”

Tilting her chin, Isabel stared out again. The moonlit azaleas also looked a bit shaggy. “As a worker, Jake was tireless, a strong point in his favor. But I saw an aloofness in him. Arrogance, I often thought, but maybe it wasn’t. How did you see him?”

“Dark and handsome, he was catnip to young ladies, and his carefree ways broke Megan’s heart. I should’ve told her all bets are off until the man says ‘I do’ and even then it’s a roll of the dice.” Alma laughed as if at the absurdity of permanent love.

“Don’t give all marriages a failing mark. For better or worse and richer or poorer, I stayed married to the same fellow until we grew old, and Max dropped dead on me.”

“So you did.” Alma paused again. “Your marriage upset a lot of the locals. The races all those years ago didn’t mingle too well.”

“I know it, but I never groused nor gave a fig what the other people thought. If our marriage broke any laws, I never heard it from the sheriff. Max and I lived our quiet lives, riding with the prejudices that got thrown our way. I lost count of how many restaurants we left still hungry. All in all, we managed to pull it off with grace under pressure, I believe.”

“I agree wholeheartedly. Do you hear any word from his family?”

“Not since our wedding day, and I don’t expect any communication with them.”

Alma nodded. “Anyway, I also found likeable qualities in Jake. If you could draw a conversation out of him, he said perceptive things. But also like you, I never completely relaxed around him because he always seemed to be coiled so tight.”

“Maybe he just felt the world more intensely than we did and only shared his deepest feelings with Megan.”

Alma fished out the house key from her purse. “I couldn’t put it any better. I worry a lot about her. She’s mature and levelheaded but love, especially first love, distorts our clear judgments.”

“She loved him enough to marry. They may’ve made a good life and raised a nice family. We’ll just never know.”

“Amen to that.”

“If he made any enemies, they shouldn’t be hard to shake out.”

Alma snapped open her door latch, and the sedan’s dome light flickered on them. “It’s possible his enemies didn’t live in Quiet Anchorage. He traveled to the Carolinas, Georgia, and anywhere else the boys go to race their cars.”

“It’s a bigger sport than even that nowadays.”

“Then maybe somebody in the big, fast sport of race cars murdered him.”

Isabel also opened her sedan door. “Tomorrow let’s take Quiet Anchorage’s drag strip by storm.”

Chapter 19

Sleep proved elusive but popping a pill was taboo. Flaked out in bed trying to get lost in a new mystery, Alma fretted over whether Megan was tossing and turning on a lumpy, narrow cot in a cold, dark cell. A ringtone sent Alma unearthing the cell phone buried in front of the headboard, and she gave her signature “hallo” greeting.

“I don’t have much to say, but I can’t sleep worth beans,” said Isabel from their house’s opposite wing.

“Count me in the same boat,” said Alma.

“Deputy Clarence Fishback fought with Jake.” Isabel deliberated for a long second. “Put Clarence under our microscope, and what do we see?”

“Even with my memory holding like a sieve, I recall Sheriff Fox hired him straight out of high school.”

“Wait, my air conditioner is whining at me, and I can’t hear you,” Isabel set down her cell phone.

Meanwhile Alma placed the mystery facedown on her bed table. Thinking better of it, she inserted a playing card—the queen of hearts—to mark her right page.

“Hey, I’m back,” said Isabel. “Wasn’t Clarence a stinkpot as a kid? This one time I saw him tip over the gumball machine in the drugstore. You should’ve seen the gumballs and charms bouncing every which way. I was shocked, but his mama just scolded our lad. If it’d been you or me, we’d’ve tanned his hide but good.”

“Old school discipline isn’t kosher now. Besides that behavior, no matter how bratty, doesn’t brand a kid as a future killer.”

“True. What’s your take on Sammi Jo?”

“She’s well-intentioned and helpful but opinionated as all get out. That said, I still like her.”

“She’s awfully excited to take her shots at Clarence.”

“That’s part of why I like her. Look, she’s a high-spirited, proud girl. Apparently he made her look bad, and she wants to cut him down to size. If I were in her shoes, I’d do the same thing.”

Isabel let Alma’s assertion fade away, then said, “I’m debating on getting another dog, but a friendly mutt, not a lap dog.”

“Fine, but you’ll also take care of this one.”

“A dog isn’t so much hassle. This time I’ll build a pen out back by the patio, and we’ll just let out Samson to take care of his business.”

“Some lucky recipient gets to rake out the pen. Samson will also pick up fleas if he’s outdoors. My allergies can’t handle setting off flea bombs every other week.”

Isabel had a ready solution. “The exterminators in Elkton can come out and spray the place.”

“Maybe we’d better shelve the dog idea for the time being. Our all should focus on freeing Megan.”

“Are we making any headway? So far our floundering around hasn’t struck any live nerves.”

Alma swapped the cell phone to her other ear. “Do you think our search has been that far off the mark?”

“Enough so we should consider taking a different angle. Who tops our suspect list?”

“You said Deputy Clarence Fishback.”

“But besides him, there’s Jake’s peeved customer. We can add a rival at the drag strip as well as a jealous ex-lover. Investigating those four possibilities should keep us busy.”

“We better try and get some sleep.”

“See you in the morning then.”

Alma thumbed off and dropped her cell phone into the knitting basket, a short-lived hobby she’d taken up, then abandoned due to having ten thumbs. Her half-foot stirred under the sheet. Stupid accident. She sat up and unfolded the funny papers to spread out on the bed.

Feeling guilty for the distraction, she returned the funny papers to the bed table. If Isabel and she struck too close for comfort, she reasoned, the murderer would make an impulsive move to better cover his (or her) tracks and unveil himself (or herself). She didn’t quibble with Isabel’s appraisal on how they hadn’t made the murderer nervous enough, but surely no murderer could lay low forever in a hamlet like ours.

“Has anyone left town lately?” asked Alma.

She picked up the local newspaper, flipped to the gossip column, and slipped on her pair of drugstore reading glasses. She found six families had hit the road and then gave up her search. Many families had left for the beach or mountains in the weeks before Labor Day. In the “Around the Area Roundup” column at the page bottom, she noted a new cancer treatment center soon to open its doors in Gainesville, a spate of jewelry store burglaries in Fredericksburg, and the new Civil War museum near completion in Brandy Station. Restless, she gave the newspaper a fling back to the bed table, ranged up from the bed, and tugged out her closet door.

The small cedar chest decorated with brass fittings was Alma’s trunk. What did one do with one’s trousseau that had long since outlived its original purpose? She opened it to whiff the tangy cedar before removing a sheaf of pages ripped from kids’ coloring books. Serious crayon marks gave the cartoons their colorful character. Megan as a preschooler years had mailed her works of art, and Alma converted them into sentimental keepsakes. With no children of her own, she lavished too much love on her only niece.

Feeling sadder, she nestled the pages back in the trunk and shut the closet.

She warded off a rising stab of despair. Isabel and she ached for a solid lead. Then she knew where to go and find a little support. Flipping on the lights as she advanced, she reached the end of their long house. The last door let her into to a cavernous room. Left unheated through the winter, it was called Siberia, and it was a mystery bookworm’s paradise. Paperbacks lined the inset shelves from floor to ceiling because neither sister liked to part with a book once it was read.

Dabbing her nose on a tissue, Alma launched her paperback hunt for the right title to refresh her memory on a plot. The exact twists were hazy, but she felt rereading this particular one would offer her a fresh, new approach to go at cracking Jake’s murder. Her thumb pad bumped across the book spines. She paused at one mystery, but she knew it was the wrong title. She pressed on. The author was female. She’d narrowed down her search by that much.

A rash of vintage lady mystery novelists—the mystery aficionados of her age group would know most—was represented, alphabetized, and eager to share a story. She greeted Charlotte Armstrong, Ann Bannon, Frances Crane, Babs Deal, Helen Eustis, Leslie Ford, Dolores Hitchens, Dorothy B. Hughes, Helen Innes, Helen McCloy, Margaret Millar, Helen Reilly, Dorothy L. Sayers, Dorothy Uhnak, and Ethel Lina White. Whew, that was some authorial lineup.

After removing her reading glasses, Alma chewed on the temple piece. As luck would have it, no author or title chimed its clear bell in her. She prowled down the same rows of books, only slower and repeating each title out loud, and after reaching a few science fiction novels, the second foray also petered out. Frustrated, she broke off her search and shut her eyes.

“This murder took place at a bump in the road like ours, but the plot’s details are all fuzzy. Am I really losing my mind?”

After taking down an Agatha Christie, she riffled through its dog-eared pages. Isabel liked to crease the page corners to mark her reading place. Alma had bought her a batch of wild flower bookmarks for Christmas, but the old habits died hard. Isabel had turned huffy the one time Alma brought up her peeve. Going along to get along, she had made her peace to co-exist with the dog-eared pages.

Isabel’s corny notion to adopt a dog also bemused Alma. She’d seen the neighborhood dog owners, their plastic bags in hand, walking their charges at all hours of the night. Rain, sleet, or snow, the dog still had to visit the wilds. She thought a dog’s keen talent of smell could track Jake’s murderer into the woods near his auto shop. Yes, the woods, she ruminated. They hadn’t extended their quest beyond Jake’s yard to the treeline. Did the evil forest harboring witches and hobgoblins also hide the vital clue?

She reshelved Agatha and slipped out a well-thumbed copy of Dorothy B. Hughes’s The So Blue Marble and shuddered. Ms. Hughes had created a pair of ice-blooded antagonists in the Montefierrow twins. Those nasty villains sporting trick canes, wiry smiles, and decorous cigarette holders had personified Evil with a capital E. Alma’s eyes gleamed, and her lips pursed. Right, twins and Jake, she thought, something rippling the waves in her memory. She returned to her bedroom and fished her cell phone from out of the knitting basket.

“Isabel, didn’t Jake have a twin brother?” asked Alma.

“I don’t know but Old Ben Taffy used to joke how Jake had one.”

“Uh-huh, but didn’t Ben have an ax to grind?”

“Ben disliked Jake’s father because Hiram got the girl and Ben didn’t.”

“That’d goad Ben to start rumors out of spite. Foiled again, it appears.”

“Take heart. We’re not doing all that badly. I’m deliberating about writing a book.”

Alma smiled at her older sister’s whimsical mood tonight. Earlier it was dogs and now books. “What genre?”

“Why, it’ll be a mystery, naturally. Lillian Carter joined the Peace Corps late in life. If she could swing the Peace Corps, I can hunt and peck on the keyboard. I’ll pick up a used typewriter from the pawnshop in Culpeper. Last time down in Charlottesville, I saw a typewriter repair shop, and I bet typewriter ribbons are easy to order over the Net.”

“You might find it more expedient to use a computer.”

“No, I’ll stick with a typewriter because I know from experience you can’t teach this old dog new tricks.”

“Be careful what details you include your book or some angry troublemaker will sue the pants off you.”

Isabel clucked her tongue. “No, they put in that disclaimer at the front of books. I’ll read it to you. ‘This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, and occurrences are blah, blah.’ So there.”

“I’m not trying to talk you out of it. God knows we’ve read enough mysteries to understand how they work. I’m only acting as the agent of caution.”

“Doesn’t Megan’s situation remind you of a mystery plot?”

“Yes, it does so I poked down to Siberia and scanned every library title, but nothing jumped out at me.”

“Maybe we’re striving too hard. Let’s say we sleep on it.”

“Four sound hours should do me splendidly.”

“Goodnight for real this time.”

* * * *

Isabel soon discovered she was also too jazzed to fall asleep. She sat up on her pillows, her eyes shut, and replayed the events in how they solved their recent mystery, the one that had put them on the local map as amateur sleuths. It tickled her how they’d followed the trail of right clues and gave the solution to Sheriff Fox. One day after lunch, they’d driven the block to reach their church, went inside, and sat in the tortuous chairs outside their pastor’s office.

“Did you know a soda now costs a dollar?” said Isabel.

Blinking, Alma squirmed in the chair. “Didn’t you buy one?”

“I’ll never pay a dollar for a soda once costing only a dime.”

“Aw, don’t be tight as Dick’s hatband and go buy your soda.”

Isabel put on a superior look. “Being older, I’m also wiser.”

Alma tweaked her lips into a sly smile. “You’re also thirstier.”

“Remind me why are we cooling our heels here.”

Alma rearranged the bulky, black purse to rest in her lap. “The money in Sunday’s missionary fund went astray. The ushers last saw Mrs. Brittle carrying the basket.”

“Do they now accuse her of the theft?”

“If you already knew, why did you ask me?”

“I only drew the most reasonable conclusion.”

“Pastor Cecil is anxious to settle this before it mushrooms into a Federal case.” A crumpled tissue appeared from Alma’s rolled up cuff, and she sponged her nose. The spring days brought toxic dandelions, tree pollen, and the devil’s spawn of allergies.

“Why is Pastor Cecil asking for our help? We solve one mystery, get feted in the newspaper, and—presto!—we’re instant ace detectives. I believe it’s perfectly silly.”

“We came because we like to help people in trouble like Mrs. Brittle.”

Isabel’s eyes gleamed with mischief. “I’ll bet you that I can crack this case first.”

“You’re on. Make it our usual dollar?”

“May the best lady win.” After a pause, Isabel added, “If you pay me my dollar now, I could go on and buy my soda.”

“Let’s just see how this one pans out.”

“Fine by me since my thirst can wait. Does it feel drafty in here to you?”

“I’ve been battling frostbite since we came in.”

The office door swooshed on its well-oiled hinges, and a compact man dressed in a dark, ill-fitting suit smiled at them. “Please accept my apologies for the wait. This fuss has riled folks, and I was on the phone with the bishop of all people. Please, come in.”

As Alma strode into the threshold, turning, she sidemouthed to Isabel, “Shall I do the talking since your mouth is so dry from thirst?”

“Just shush, you.”

Still smiling, Pastor Cecil flumped down the opposite of them behind his desk. He related how Sunday’s missionary fund had been gathered, prayed over, and entrusted to Mrs. Brittle. They’d followed the same successful routine for twenty-three years, and Pastor Cecil concluded with, “I naturally thought of you when this brouhaha reared its ugly head.”

“This is most strange,” said Alma. “Mrs. Brittle for the longest time oversaw the collection of the missionary fund, and a penny never went unaccounted for. Then last Sunday, two hundred dollars and change vanished.”

Pastor Cecil put on his salesman’s smile. “Perhaps Mrs. Brittle was a wee bit strapped for cash and too ashamed to admit it. If true, something can be mediated, but we need the funds recovered as quickly as possible.”

Isabel’s hand went up. “Mrs. Brittle should be innocent until she’s proven guilty.”

Pastor Cecil stopped smiling. “But until the money is accounted for, she remains under a dark cloud of suspicion. Do you see my sticky wicket? Please, see what you can do for us.”

Isabel led Alma out of the church and drove back to their brick rambler. Neither sister sitting in their respective armchair spoke. As Young Thor rumbled by in his truck, Isabel snapped her fingers and giggled at her spontaneous antic. “Doesn’t Mrs. Brittle have a nephew?”

“Harry Carson lives in Philadelphia and can do no wrong in her eyes,” replied Alma.

“We can spring for the long distance call to reach Harry.”

Alma dialed the number that Directory Assistance gave her, and a man answering in the cultured baritone of a banker said, yes, he was the Harry Carson with an aunt residing in Quiet Anchorage, Virginia. Alma asked him their questions and repeated, “I see” a half-dozen times. She promised to keep him apprised of further developments, and they hung up.

“Well...?” said Isabel.

“Mr. Carson shared Ruth’s tragic secret with me: she’s becoming, uh, forgetful. The clinic in town prescribes her medication for it.”

“Very sad, but it might be our big break.”

Alma grabbed her purse and followed Isabel already out on the front porch. “How is it our big break?”

“We’ll only know from our chat with Mrs. Brittle.”

They got in the sedan and drove the whole two blocks to park at the unassuming, green A-frame, and Isabel saw the corner to the garden plot out back. Zinnias, marigolds, and impatiens bloomed inside a ring they passed. Isabel thumbed the door chimes button until Mrs. Brittle, a slim, youthful-looking lady in denim jeans, let them come inside. She smiled, grateful to entertain midday company even if the visit was under duress. Her interior with its maple and wicker furniture paralleled the neat order she kept outdoors in her yard.

“I know the missionary fund is why you’ve come.” Mrs. Brittle fussed with a rubber band, probably a memory aid for taking her meds, encircling her slender wrist. “You’re more than welcome to search my home. I like to have died when Pastor Cecil told me, and I’ve racked my brain. All I do know is that I’m no crook.”

Alma nodded, squeezing Mrs. Brittle’s forearm. “We’re here only on your side, Ruth.”

“Sometimes the most obvious is overlooked,” said Isabel. “Ruth, your purse might be such a place.”

Cooperative, she brought out her purse and shook out its contents on the coffee table, but aside from the thirteen cents in a dime and three pennies, they found no money.

With a sigh, Alma sat back. “Well, scratch the most obvious.”

“Reflect back with me, Ruth,” said Isabel. “First you collected the money in the basket, right?”

“The same way as I do every Sunday.”

“Where did you take the basket?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Try to picture how the basket appears in your mind. What do you see first?”

“It’s just a plain wicker basket.”

“Wicker?”

“Yes.”

“So, do you own a wicker basket?”

“I use mine to haul the turnip tops out to my compost pile.”

“Well…the turnip tops are crisp and green.”

Alma’s face brightened. “So are banknotes. Where is your compost pile, Ruth?”

“My compost pile, where?” She snapped the rubber band on her slender wrist and smiled. “Okay there, the memory comes back. Follow me.”

They smelled the mowed grass while crossing the back lawn. Fresh grass clippings and turnip tops capped the compost piled inside the chicken wire enclosure. Alma retrieved a wood stake for the tomatoes, scraped away the compost’s top layer, and exposed the curly end to a five-dollar bill before a ten-dollar bill also poked up.

Isabel smiled at Mrs. Brittle. “An honest mistake, you brought the money home after the church service. Later you threw out the banknotes with a batch of your turnip tops in your wicker basket.”

Alma turned, her hand outthrust. “Pay up. You owe me a dollar.”

“We better call this one a tie.”

“How peculiar all of our bets end up as a tie.”

The seamed worry in Mrs. Brittle’s face melted away. “Stay for some lunch, won’t you? My day companion will drop by in a few minutes, and we can offer you cucumbers on light bread.”

“We should call your nephew Harry and tell him everything is okay,” Isabel had said.

Chuckling to herself, she finished remembering how they’d not only recovered the missionary fund accidentally dumped in the compost pile, but also spared Ruth Brittle from major embarrassment. But her case also had an ominous backlash. Shortly afterward, Alma had begun thinking she’d forgotten small stuff, then bigger things, and it touched off her mounting dread of developing Alzheimer’s. Isabel did her best to reassure her younger sister that she was doing fine and to quit all the worry.

Chapter 20

Early the next morning—Wednesday already—Isabel snapped awake. She’d swooned so fast in and out of sleep that no dreams had materialized.

Eyes mashed shut, she lingered in bed and mapped out their day’s itinerary. First they’d concentrate on Clarence Fishback. If the town’s grapevine didn’t hum with the latest on him, they’d tap more creative sources.

She greeted Alma in her housecoat pulled up to the kitchen table. Mason jars, a future task to can the basket of pears they’d picked at a local orchard, were lined near her elbow.

Alma poured them each a glass of cranberry juice, but Isabel disliked its tartness. Alma said a dietician had told her cranberry juice flushed your system and kept you on the beam. Every meal now included a food that either staved off a disease or cured an ailment. Isabel had had her fill of the healthy and ate whatever foods tasted delicious to her.

“Did you find the right book title?” asked Isabel.

“I’m afraid a night’s rest didn’t jog my memory,” replied Alma.

“It might yet occur to us.”

“I hope you’re right.”

“Relax. Your memory stays as sharp as mine does.”

“Sometimes I feel a glimmer of a thought hovering in my mental fog and by the next instant—poof!—all I can see are the rising wisps of gray smoke.”

“Everybody’s brain works that way. Something diverts us, and the thought flies right out of our head.”

“My senior moments are more frequent. Stuff slips my mind any number of times in a single day, and I’m getting ulcers over it.”

“Right now you’re just oversensitive to it.”

“Once Megan returns home, I’ll ask the clinic to recommend a specialist to me.”

“You’d better write it down somewhere.”

“Oh, I won’t forget something so important.”

Resisting the urge to roll her eyes, Isabel filled the coffee pot with water she drew from the sink faucet. She drained out enough water to brew them four cups. “How do we pry into Clarence’s background?”

“Political candidates, sheriffs included, register with the Election Board.”

Isabel fetched the coffee can from the refrigerator and spooned the French Roast grounds into the coffee pot’s white paper filter. “We can ask if Clarence has signed up to campaign for sheriff and also clear any doubt if he and Sheriff Fox are political rivals.”

“Sheriff Fox must be seething,” said Alma. “He figures he’s a shoo-in to win the race until with no warning an upstart, in his own department no less, dares to challenge him. Furious to trounce his opponent, he solves the most lurid murder case to hit us in ages.”

Shock arched Isabel’s eyebrow. “You believe Sheriff Fox murdered Jake, or had him murdered, and then implicated Megan for it in order to look heroic in the voters’ eyes?”

“Is it so far-fetched? Sheriff Fox will garner maximum public approval by doing it.”

“Sure, but this morning Clarence is our primary concern.”

Alma nodded. “I’ve been thinking. Gloria Ewer, the guidance counselor, should have access to his school records.”

Isabel found the white pages and circled the phone number listed for “G. Ewer.” She didn’t realize until her third jangle it was seven am, but they never troubled with clockwatching except at pill times.

“Hello,” said an educated voice enlivening the connection.

“Gloria, Isabel Trumbo here. How are you, dear?”

“Isabel, don’t say you’ve got more dire news.”

“No, but can I beg a personal favor?”

“Just name it.”

“A former student of yours, Clarence Fishback, interests us.”

“Oh him. That boy was a handful. Why your interest?”

“We’re looking into the death of Jake Robbins. Clarence and he were friends, but we heard they had a dispute, possibly over car parts or something to do with their drag racing activities.”

“Clarence was addicted to fast cars.”

“Does anything else on him stick out in your memory?”

“He loved any excuse to play hooky.”

“What boy doesn’t? Was he a good student?”

“So-so, I’d say. He was laconic but not shy. He always seemed busy sizing up people to con them. A spiteful thing to say, but that’s my lasting impression of the boy.”

When Alma touched a shoulder, Isabel looked over.

“Ask Gloria if he was a troublemaker.”

“Gloria, did he ever wind up in the principal’s office?”

“He once smuggled a handgun to show off. That ill-advised stunt cost him a few days.”

“Where did he find it?”

“I don’t recall if we ever knew but probably from his father.”

“Thanks a bunch, Gloria.”

“I’m always delighted to pitch in.”

Isabel set down the cell phone and pouring herself a cup of coffee said, “Clarence sneaked a handgun into school. What incites a kid to do that?”

“He likes his firearms, but then so does every guy in town,” said Alma.

“After you get ready, we’ll go see Megan.”

Waiting for Alma, Isabel ventured into the living room. For the lack of anything better to do, she decided on something mindless like watching morning television. Her eyes settled on the end table, but she found no TV remote. She poked in every likely spot but no luck. She groped between the crack of Alma’s armchair cushions and latched to the missing Z letter tile to their Scrabble board. After returning the Z letter tile with its brethren in the Band Aid box, Isabel thought of another possibility. Sure enough, the TV remote lay under a Social Security check inside of Alma’s purse.

“Honestly, she’s so bossy about what we watch now she carries the TV remote in her pocketbook.” Isabel aimed the TV remote and turned in the TV set.

Expecting the Seven-Thirty Morning News, she encountered the implacable blue screen of death. She flipped it off and riffled through her Alaskan Outdoor magazine until Alma hurried into the living room.

“Vernon is supposed to refill my allergy pills,” she said after a sniff.

“I’ve been after you for weeks to do it.”

“But my allergy has now reached the crisis point.”

“So I’ve noticed.”

Alma drove them down Church to Main Street where they parked by a newspaper vending box and climbed the drugstore steps to the door. The aroma of lemony furniture polish pervaded the interior. Isabel saw the copper cowbell usually clanking had detached from the door handle, but she said nothing. They passed the gumball machine and a hand-printed sign advertising a 50% off sale on alarm clocks. They continued on a path worn in the plank floor by the generations of Quiet Anchorage sick. The pharmacy counter was deserted, and Alma tapped the stem to ding the miniature bell.

In his white smock, Vernon wiping his hands on a paper towel moseyed out from behind the pebbled glass panel. Apologetic, he pleaded inventorying a new pharmaceuticals shipment in the back room before Alma asked him if he’d refilled her allergy prescription.

He mopped the damp paper towel to cool his perspiring forehead. “I’m about caught up, and your prescription is my first task. I’ll have it for you no later than three o’clock and sorry for the inconvenience.”

Frowning her displeasure, Alma waved him off. “Maybe hiring an assistant might ease your workload. They don’t cost much, plus it gives a deserving, responsible young person a part-time job.”

“I certainly appreciate the suggestion.”

“Where all does a pharmacist travel?” asked Isabel.

“Boring conventions.” He swiped any imaginary dust off the Bible he kept by the cash register. “Our license renewal requires us to complete thirty hours of CEUs annually to dispense the latest and greatest nostrums to keep our clients healthy.”

“You’ll have my mine ready by three,” said Alma, her sniff punctuating her desperate need.

“Right, right.” His nods confirmed it.

The sisters left for the sheriff’s station house with the bright morning sun splashing on its tan bricks. The deputy cruisers, washed and waxed, sat in a phalanx waiting for their drivers to go on patrol.

“Megan’s breakfast should’ve come,” said Isabel.

“If it isn’t tasty, I hope it’s at least nutritious,” said Alma.

They grappled out of the sedan with their customary early morning groans and hiked to the double glass doors. Inside the cooler hallway, they let their eyes adjust to the institutional gloom. They probed further, and at Sheriff Fox’s office found his door locked. No clerks sat at the receptionist’s kiosk, and no deputies manned the duty desk.

“Nobody is holding down the fort,” said Alma.

“They’re at the morning roll call,” said Isabel.

“If we came as desperadoes, this would be the ideal instant to pull off a prison break.”

“Right now I’m feeling pretty desperate.”

Just then, Bexley, the freckled poetry reader at Jake’s funeral, appeared in the hallway. He nodded, and Alma revealed their mission as Isabel paid him with a tip for his oratory services.

Tucking the wad into his billfold, he said, “You can visit Megan but under one condition.”

“Out with it then, Bexley,” said Alma.

“You never tell Sheriff Fox I let you, or my head goes on a spear.”

“Deal,” said Isabel.

Sniffing harder, Alma trailed a step behind Bexley and Isabel where the disinfectant scent reminded her of ghoulish hospital wards. Bexley walked fielding Isabel’s questions.

“I went straight from high school to here. This year is my twelfth, and I’ll retire in eight more. Then it’s off to my cabin to go inner tube rafting and bass fishing for the rest of my born days.”

“You’ll cruise on Easy Street. Meantime do you like Sheriff Fox for a boss?”

“About as much as I do eating spinach.”

Isabel nodded. “He’s a real slave driver, eh?”

“I can’t tell you my honest feelings. Let’s just say I liked it here fine before he arrived, and nowadays I just punch a time clock and go home.”

“The last time we saw Megan in here.” Isabel laid a hand on the doorknob to Interview Room Two.

“Go on in, and I’ll bring her down to you.” Bexley snickered. “Suddenly working here is a gas again.”

“Except Sheriff Fox is liable to show any second,” said Alma.

Alma’s warning put the bounce in Bexley’s gait. His crêpe-soled shoes squeaked on the hallway tiles, and she tugged on the door. They sidled inside and planted on a wood bench where their noses puckered. A deputy had feasted on Limburger cheese and onion sandwiches for breakfast.

“What do they serve the prisoners?”

Before Isabel replied, the door moved, and Megan cringed before them, and for a horrifying moment, they just gaped at her. Overnight she’d grown chalk pale, apparently dropped fifteen pounds, and aged by the same number of years. She took mincing steps, and Isabel flew up from the wood bench and wrapped her arms around in a hug. Alma hovered near while Megan swooned faint, and they assisted her to sit on the wood bench.

Meanwhile Alma buttonholed Bexley at the door. “You guys spirited off the file cabinets inside of Jake Robbins’s office.”

“Yep, I brought them here on a flatbed truck. Sheriff Fox told me to deliver them to his house since extra space is cramped here.”

“Clarence Fishback said he got the file cabinets,” lied Alma.

“He doesn’t know his butt from a biscuit,” said Bexley with heat.

“Does he get under your skin?” asked Alma.

“His cop style gets almost too good results.” Bexley gave her a disdainful look.

Her eyes widening, Alma faked her shock. “You mean he does dishonest stuff like manufactures evidence to make his case?”

Bexley turned cagey. “Your words, Alma, not mine. I can’t accuse him of such wrongdoing without ironclad proof.”

“Is there any truth to the rumblings that he’s going to be the next Roscoe?”

“It’s no secret Clarence would sell his grandmother into slavery to pin on the sheriff’s badge.” Bexley’s glance included his wristwatch. “I better get busy. Holler when you want out but keep it brief. Most mornings Sheriff Fox rolls up at eight.” With a cheerful wave, Bexley left them in Interview Room Two.

Isabel was saying, “Megan, keep your chin up.”

“I’ve done my best. Are you getting any closer to freeing me?”

“Next we’ll go shake Dwight’s cage,” replied Alma.

“Inside a prison cell isn’t much fun.” Megan stopped. “But I know you’re working hard, so I’ll quit with my wimpy complaints.”

“We’ll keep on Dwight to step it up,” said Isabel. “When you arrived at Jake’s house, did you hear any noise from the direction of the woods? Say, like footfall tramping over the dry leaves?”

Balling up the tissue in her fist, Megan clenched her eyes shut. “Didn’t I tell you already? I heard no noises.”

“Isabel just hopes to jostle your memory,” said Alma. “Were the shop overhead lights on or off when you arrived?”

“The lights were on, blazing down on Jake.”

“How did he feel to the touch? Was he warm?” asked Alma.

“Yes, hot even.” Eyes shut again, Megan swallowed, and the shiver jolted her shoulders. “Being inside there felt creepy, as if this pair of eyes were pinned on me, but I didn’t detect anybody.” Her eyes flew open. “My only wish is I could be more helpful to you.”

Alma sat down on the other side of the wood bench by Megan. “We’re certain the murderer had left by the time you drove up and parked.”

“Suppose the murderer did stay behind to spy on her?” asked Isabel.

“He had a reason since her arrest saved his own skin,” said Alma.

Megan supported between them shuddered. “You make it sound so predatory.”

“As long as you’re in here, the murderer sits easy. I wager he’ll get plenty jumpy once we spring you.” When Isabel didn’t chime in to agree, Alma asked, “Sis, you look preoccupied. What’s on your mind?”

“Don’t snap off my head, but toss this idea around with me. What if Megan doesn’t post her bond just yet, and she stays put. It’s an horrible thing to say, I realize.”

Alma’s gaze on Isabel held steady. “It is, so what’s your logic behind it?”

She went over and pulled out the door. Peering into the hallway, she searched both ways, but no eavesdroppers lurked there. She sat back down on the wood bench, her tone confidential. “Megan can be our ears. If we nail our suspicions on Clarence, only somebody on the inside can spy on him. Bexley just revealed this place is a hotbed of rumors.”

Perking up, Megan threw off the yoke of her dismal trance. “Hey yeah, I can be the spider on the wall with an ear out for any good stuff being discussed. Why didn’t I think of it?”

Alma’s tight mouth left her face grim. “Do the deputies actually talk it up in the hallways?”

“I can hear the loud voices and laughter, but I’ve never paid any real attention.”

“You can’t stay in this snake pit for another day,” said Alma.

“We’ve almost exhausted studying the crime scene. What’s another day or two of Megan in here going to hurt?” Isabel looked at her. “Zero in on any chatter you overhear on either Clarence or Sheriff Fox.”

Growing agitated, Alma stood and then paced the room. Her cadence turned cynical. “Why not bribe Bexley to steal Clarence and Sheriff Fox’s personnel files? Or better yet, we’ll hook up Clarence to a polygraph and grill him.”

“I can stay safe a little while longer,” said Megan.

Isabel’s sober face regarded Alma. “Your call. If you say it’s too dangerous, then we’ll pressure Dwight to expedite Megan’s arraignment.”

“You both seem pretty jazzed by this idea, so I’ll go along with you,” said Alma.

The door flailed open, and Bexley lumbered into Interview Room Two. “Quick.” His hand wagged at Alma and Isabel. “Quick. Sheriff Fox pulled in. Megan, lightfoot it back to your cell, duck inside, and pull the door shut behind you. Alma and Isabel, stick close to me. Move it.”

Adrenaline goaded them into action. The sisters shadowed Bexley, Megan in tow. At the hallway corner, she left them, hurrying off a different way to her prison cell. A steel door out front clanged as they folded into an alcove.

“Bexley!” a distant man hollered out. “Yo, Bexley! Did you doze off again? Where are you?”

“Sheriff Fox sounds fit to be tied,” said Isabel.

Bexley’s hand beckoned at them. “Escape out this emergency exit, and then put your car in the wind. Wait, let me flip off the fire alarm. There. Now be gone before Sheriff Fox throws us all in prison.”

Isabel hesitated—Megan had looked so defenseless and helpless. Alma tugged on the strap to Isabel’s purse. “You heard Bexley,” she said. “Come on, now. Megan will be fine.”

Bexley pushed out the emergency exit door to let in the flush of sunshine. “I’ll look out for her.”

Alma and Isabel stepped into the bright alley, and the end gave way to the street where their sedan parked down the way shimmered in the hot morning. They merged to the sidewalk. Once buckled up, Isabel feeling their tires roll on the asphalt had a depressing insight.

“Sheriff Fox enjoys a large staff to do his bidding, but it’s just you and me against all of them.”

“Ah, that’s so true,” said Alma. “But…he doesn’t enjoy our secret weapon.”

“What secret weapon is that?”

“Sammi Jo.”

Now also smiling, Isabel glanced at Alma. “You’re having the excitement of a lifetime with this investigating malarkey, aren’t you? Sammi Jo and you both love the thrill of the chase. I can see how it gets the juices flowing, and I’m the only rational one who’s left in this outfit.”

Chapter 21

The tidy, two-room flat with a closet bath and kitchenette over the drugstore was a castle to Sammi Jo. The rent didn’t break the bank, and she liked the serenity. Friday and Saturday nights grew boisterous enough to call the sheriff, although she hadn’t done so yet. Her back room’s window looked out on the canyonesque alleyway tracking behind the drugstore. The view in the morning, she thought, made it look rather drab. On the other hand, she knew of the long backlist to rent the apartments, so she stuffed her complaints to take up with Vernon Spitzer, her landlord.

Earlier in the summer, she’d entertained Deputy Clarence Fishback in her flat. Discord ensued after he visited a different girl’s flat on the same hallway. On her trip out one night, Sammi Jo had overheard Clarence (scheduled, he’d told her, to work the night watch), and the little skank amplifying their obvious lovemaking noises from her squeaky mattress.

Sammi Jo had banged a fist on the door, but neither had had the guts to confront her. Shortly afterward, the little skank moved back in with her mother. Speak of wanting to kill somebody, Sammi Jo fumed, before she decided to forget her ever knowing Clarence, not that easy to do since she still had some feelings for him.

Her apartment had a long, colorful history. If she stayed within its walls, they whispered their secrets to her. She distrusted talking walls, and when they talked back, she knew she needed to grab some fresh country air and sunshine. At present, the quiet walls behaved, and she channeled her deliberations on her new avocation.

While raised in Quiet Anchorage, she’d on occasion seen Alma and Isabel Trumbo riding in their navy blue sedan. Her memories of them remained constant. They bore the same look: silver, proud, and dignified. They were senior citizens who lived in the same hamlet she did. They waved if you passed them, and both were ready to share a smile. Being a private eyes appealed to her sense of adventure, and she thrilled that Clarence was their target.

During her darker moments, her vengeful fantasy shot him down into a tailspin, the flames and smoke spiraling after him.

After turning on three oscillating fans, she picked up her cell phone and saw it held enough of a charge. Her rings, three in, roused a man from sleep to greet her with a thick-tongued “hello.”

“Hi, Daddy, just saying hey there.”

“Sammi Jo? Wow. What’s the time?”

“Eight o’clock.”

“So it is. Don’t you need to be at work?”

“Well, that’s why I called. See, I landed this new gig.”

An exaggerated moan came. “What’s the job this time?”

“Before I say, promise you won’t blow your stack.”

He laughed. “After all this, nothing you can throw at me is a shocker.”

“I’ve taken up the private detective trade. Alma and Isabel Trumbo started a new firm, and they asked me to come and work for them.”

He laughed again. “The gumshoes in the old movies are an odd bunch.”

“What do you think of it?”

“Any honest labor tied to a steady paycheck is cool by me. I didn’t realize we’d a demand for private eyes in town. Are they bonded and licensed or whatever?”

“Not yet but it’s in the works. We’re still setting up shop, and Megan Connors is our first big case.”

“I can flat-out say she is no killer.”

“Same thought here. Any theories on who pulled the trigger?”

“I’ve been too busy to give it much thought. Jake wasn’t a hothead to go out and pick fights. He kept to himself and fixed the cars. His daddy Hiram and I were road dogs back in the day. Now, Hiram had an Irishman’s temper, and I’d lay betting odds Jake also kept one buried inside of him.”

“Clarence and Jake were pals who fought over their race car.”

“Clarence lacked the grit to take out a gun and use it on Jake.”

“Crazy Willie swears a UFO did in Jake.”

Sammi Jo’s father had a dry chuckle. “True story. Ages ago on a whim, he rode the Greyhound to a powwow held in Roswell and got hooked on reading spooky stuff.”

“That accounts for his bizarre slant on life.”

“That’s just his shtick. Crazy like a fox, Willie is perceptive if you’re able to look beyond his goofiness.”

“So, do you think this PI job can pay the bills?”

“Go kick some major butt for Megan.”

“Your vote of confidence is appreciated. How’s the turf farm treating you?”

“My crew humped under the floods until midnight. An eighteen-hole golf course in Gainesville yelled for a rush shipment, but we made schedule.”

“Now I know where I got my working fool genes. Well, I better also make some money. Swell talking to you,” said Sammi Jo before they disconnected.

Her spirits boosted, she clambered downstairs to the drugstore and bought a sugar cone at the fountain. The older lady in a shrimp pink apron who piled on the Neapolitan ice cream three scoops high didn’t approve of the junk food breakfast, but her sour face didn’t faze Sammi Jo. She paid the lady and sidled out into the hot morning’s haze.

As she tacked her course on Main Street’s sidewalk toward the trio on the wood bench, she hatched a scheme.

The first pair of eyes scoped her, and a few glib nudges later all three parked their sights on her.

In private, she smirked. Ah, men: so predictable, so shallow, and so pliable. Profiling her coltish legs, bronze midriff, and full top drawer conjured the desired spell. She added an extra spicy wiggle in her approach.

Their jaws left dangling, Ossie Conger, Willie Moccasin, and Blue Trent kept on gawking at her.

“Salutations, gents.” She hoisted the sugar cone to toast them. “How goes the battle?”

“Why if life got any grander, Sammi Jo, we’d have to hire someone else to help us enjoy it,” replied Ossie.

Willie placed his quail decoy on the sidewalk, scooted over on the wood bench, and patted the new vacated space. “Take a load off, Sammi Jo.” Ossie and Blue Trent grunted their encouragement.

“Oh, thanks but a hundred things need doing.”

“What keeps you hopping so much?” asked Willie.

Feeling the goopy ice cream dribble down her knuckles, she lapped her tongue around the sugar cone’s nub.

Watching, the men sat mesmerized.

“I’m helping Alma and Isabel,” she said.

“Megan behind bars is a miscarriage of justice,” said Ossie.

“A travesty of justice,” said Willie.

Sammi Jo nodded and posed her question. “Didn’t her boyfriend Jake and Deputy Fishback team up for a race car pit crew?”

“Sure and Jake was their bang up mechanic,” said Ossie.

“Without him, that race car was a scrap heap,” said Willie.

“I never heard why they’d a falling out,” said Sammi Jo.

“They mixed it up over some car parts. One said the other stiffed him,” replied Ossie.

“The way I heard it was Clarence felt ripped off and vowed he’d kill Jake if they crossed paths,” said Willie.

Sammi Jo’s eyes narrowed. “Clarence threatened to kill Jake?”

Ossie snorted. “Aw, he was just talking trash.”

“Sheriff Fox had to patch up things,” said Willie.

“Why did he stick out his neck?” asked Sammi Jo.

“Maybe he’s bucking for the Nobel Peace Prize,” replied Willie.

Blue Trent weighed in. “It was more likely he didn’t want any hotheaded deputies giving his department a black eye. With the election bearing down, he always makes nice. The voters enjoy a genuine sheriff for a month or so. As soon as the election is in the bag, he’s back to his old, sunshiny self.”

“Clarence will square off against Sheriff Fox this time,” said Willie.

“That’s the first true thing you’ve said,” said Ossie.

“Clarence will give Sheriff Fox a run for his money, too,” said Willie. “He’ll resort to anything that wins over the voters.”

“Why are they so gung ho for the thankless job?” asked Ossie.

Balancing his quail decoy on a thigh, Willie dished Ossie an astute stare. “Being sheriff is a position of power offering the perks we don’t see or know about.”

“Despite your little, pop-eyed aliens Willie, sometimes you actually make sense,” said Ossie.

Sammi Jo sensed she’d finished milking the senior brain trust. “My thanks, gentlemen.”

“If you need more help, we’re always here,” said Willie.

“Rain or shine,” said Ossie.

While crossing Main headed for Jumpy’s store, Sammi Jo overheard Ossie say, “Just give me some fries and a burger with that shake.”

Smiling, she shoved through the door, inspired to try some more canvassing.

With a toothy grin, Jumpy down the aisles in the rear area returned her nod.

She ambled to the meat counter, and Jumpy, clutching a meat cleaver, scratched at his temple. He smiled over the frosty glass counter.

“Your store feels like I’m quaking inside an igloo,” she said, rubbing the goose bumps carpeting her bare arms.

“The cool temperatures keep my produce and meat fresh. What brings you downtown so early? Are you scraping up old acquaintances or looking for a job or what? I could use a bag girl like you. The pay is one buck over minimum, a raise in thirty days if you hit the ground running. What do you say?”

“None of my acquaintances qualify as old, and I’m a gainfully employed ‘girl’, but thanks just the same.”

His face crinkled in amused surprise. “Gainfully employed doing what?”

“I do private investigations with Alma and Isabel Trumbo.”

“Peyton Places like our own little town must keep the PIs busy.” He laughed at his quip. “Didn’t I see you riding in their sedan yesterday?”

“That was me,” replied Sammi Jo. “Didn’t you once hire Clarence Fishback?”

He nodded. “Yeah, I took him on one summer as my delivery boy. That isn’t done now. People use their cell phones to place orders. Eating frozen food trays delivered on a refrigerated truck can’t be healthy for you.”

“Did he ever steal from the till?”

“No, but he was an ornery cuss.”

Sammi Jo gave Jumpy a chance to elaborate but after only a watchful silence she asked, “In what way did he act ornery?”

Jumpy shrugged under his stained butcher’s apron. “Some kids carry a nasty streak, you know. He was always in your face over some perceived slight. Look at him cross-eyed, and he’d tee off on you. It used to drive me crazy trying to deal with him and run a store.”

“Did he like to pick fights?”

“I was always breaking up a scuffle on the loading dock.”

“He’s still combative.”

“It’s not a winning quality for a deputy much less for our sheriff, is it? Anyhow, he got into one too many fights, and my patience ran out, so I gave him the axe.”

“He couldn’t have been too happy about that.”

“So you might reckon, but he didn’t seem to mind. He always kept a few irons in the fire. Within the week, I saw him driving a feed truck for the Co-op.” Jumpy paused, cleaning off his meat cleaver’s sharp edge on a brown paper towel. “Why do you come in with all of these questions? Don’t you two lovebirds still date?”

“We did until he showed his true bird colors, and I didn’t like the way they looked.”

“He screwed around on you, eh?”

“He also enjoys being a bully.”

“Truthfully, I never liked him. He ain’t welcome in this store, deputy uniform or not, because I threw him out for keeps.”

“Is he mean enough to murder?”

Jumpy stopped polishing his meat cleaver with a thoughtful nod. “You broke up with him. Let’s just leave it that you did the smart thing.” Jumpy draped his thickset arms over the frosty countertop. “Need any pork chops?” His thick finger pointed out a section to the freezer. “I just packaged and set out a fresh batch.”

The shrink-wrapped packages oozing their vivid red meat juices left her queasy. “Thanks, Jumpy, but these days I’m more of a vegetarian.”

“You’re nibbling gerbil food?” In disbelief, he wagged his head, the meat cleaver in his hand waving about. “You’ll wither away to nothing but teeth and eyeballs.”

“Jumpy, get to your eye doctor because I look fine.” Throwing back her shoulders, she thrust out her chest.

He took the free shot, his eyes soaking in her lush dips and curves. She didn’t rebuff his observation, but his self-conscious shame overtook him. “I’ve got produce, too, so go on and sample my kumquats and radishes.”

“Next time, you bet, but I’m on the clock.”

“What clock is that?”

“I just told you I’m helping to bag a murderer.”

“Well, good luck on that.” His meat cleaver whacked into the wood block, slicing the pork chop in half. “Just be sure and watch your back out there.”

Sammi Jo had turned to leave. “Always good advice.”

Chapter 22

Sammi Jo met Alma and Isabel seated in Eddy’s Deli at a window booth. Isabel proceeded to fill in Sammi Jo on their morning prison visit with Megan. In turn, Sammi Jo briefed the sisters on what she’d gleaned from the three benchwarmers and Jumpy at the grocery store.

Isabel gnawing on her upper lip moved aside her floppy straw hat on the tabletop. “Clarence liked to duke it out. Do boys outgrow their pugilist tendencies?”

“You gals here for brunch?” asked the waspy, tall server at their booth.

“No brunch for us, Tabitha,” said Alma with a nod and a sniff to include Isabel. “Bring us a cup of your freshest coffee. Both black, no sugar or cream. Sammi Jo, what’s your yen?”

“You got any Hush Puppies?” Sammi Jo asked Tabitha.

“They’re on our dinner menu, but this is brunch.”

“How are you set on the deviled eggs?”

“Deviled eggs are on our lunch menu, but this is brunch.”

“Then I’ll take scrambled eggs, OJ, and sausage links.”

“No, those are all breakfast menu items.”

“Uh-huh, and let me guess: this is brunch. Tell you what, just bring me ice water and don’t look so put out. We won’t slink off and stiff you on the tip.”

“I didn’t say you would,” said Tabitha, leaving them.

Alma resumed their conversation. “If Jake and Clarence argued, one or both of them may’ve flown into a rage. Jake was easygoing, and Clarence always wears a scowl.”

“Yeah, it’s his proudest merit badge,” said Sammi Jo.

“Sammi Jo, you look as if you can hold your own in a fair fight. Did your arguments with him escalate to physical blows?”

“Not unless he wanted his fists shoved up his—uh—nose,” replied Sammi Jo.

“Why did Sheriff Fox mediate Clarence’s dispute with Jake?” asked Isabel.

Alma smiled up at Tabitha who’d returned with their coffees. After she left for the kitchen, Alma spoke. “He most likely played the peacemaker because he didn’t want his deputies getting into brawls. We contacted the Election Board and confirmed that Clarence hasn’t filed any paperwork.”

“By now I suspect everybody knows of his political ambitions,” said Isabel.

Sammi Jo raised a neglected point. “The disappearance of Jake’s file cabinets is what bugs me.”

“Bexley blabbed he took the file cabinets to Sheriff Fox’s house,” said Alma.

“Why is he keeping Jake’s file cabinets under wraps?” asked Sammi Jo.

“My biggest fear is Sheriff Fox is tampering with evidence,” replied Isabel.

Sammi Jo shifted her glass of ice water back and forth like a chess piece. “He wouldn’t outright break the rules and jeopardize his election campaign. He likes his cushy job. On the other hand, he might sit on evidence.”

“What do you mean?” asked Isabel.

“The hidden file cabinets will be gone and forgotten,” replied Sammi Jo.

“We won’t forget them. You’d better update Dwight,” Alma told Isabel. “We demand the full disclosure of the file cabinets’ contents and have them moved and stored at the station house.”

Isabel did as asked on her cell phone, but any interest in the file cabinets got postponed for the moment.

“Megan faces arraignment this morning,” Dwight informed her.

“Sheriff Fox told us. We didn’t hear what time, however.”

“It’s eleven on the dot. Your show of support might help a wishy-washy judge see things more favorably our way.”

“We’ll be there. Now Jake’s file cabinets sit at Sheriff Fox’s place. Are some shenanigans at play? We don’t know, but we insist the file cabinets stay at the station house.”

“I’ll take it up with Sheriff Fox.”

“Just tell him that we can pass this unusual police tactic along to our reporter friend.”

“I better omit any hints of a threat or blackmail.”

“Have you deposited our personal check? Are you prepared to post Megan’s bail?”

A sulky pause fell over their connection, and Isabel wondered if she’d insulted Dwight with her questions.

“I did, so you can quit your fretting.”

“Megan’s arraignment has to go off without a hitch.”

“At this juncture, I think her making bail is just an administrative detail.”

Isabel repeated Dwight’s message to the others as she closed her cell phone. She finished by saying, “Three ladies seated behind Megan’s defense table will make a forceful impression on the judge.”

“You two should go, but I’ve got something else to take care of,” said Sammi Jo.

Alma did a double-take at her. “I caught a gleam in your eye, and I know something is afoot. You better let us in on it.”

“This morning while Sheriff Fox is tied up in court, what’s say I saunter over to that part of town and do a little innocent spying?”

“You go case Sheriff Fox’s house?” Isabel took a sip, but her coffee cup only held the dregs. “Sounds too risky.”

Alma held Sammi Jo’s gaze. “I always see Sheriff Fox’s cars parked out in the driveway, so his garage is probably a catch all and might also hold Jake’s file cabinets.”

“I’m telling you this is playing with fire,” said Isabel.

“Isabel, you go with Alma and lend Megan support.”

Alma smiled. “I know the perfect excuse you can use. Sheriff Fox taped a For Sale sign in the window of his big, black Plymouth. Just tell any know-it-all who asks that you’re shopping for a used car.”

“Since I’m being outvoted, I’ll add to tread with caution,” said Isabel.

An optimistic wave marked Sammi Jo’s exit from Eddy’s Deli.

“I hope Megan has overheard something by now,” said Alma.

“Me, too.”

“I thought you wanted her to stay inside and keep an ear out for any jailhouse rumors.”

Isabel shrugged. “Not now. I don’t want her in the prison anymore. She belongs home with us.”

“You know already who killed Jake Robbins, don’t you? Well, give. I want to know.”

This time Isabel shook her head. “I’m not saying a word more and jinx us.”

“And you say I’m superstitious.”

“Just finish your coffee, Alma. We’ve got our day in court upcoming.”

* * * *

The late morning sun broiled all, and Sammi Jo picked up her gait as the sweat pilled above her brows. She appreciated walking under the leafy, shady Japanese elms. Arriving at the drugstore, she couldn’t resist the temptation to stop and buy a cold soda and went inside under the ceiling fans stirring a draft. A young lady with dun-colored hair standing at the cash register had locked stares with Vernon behind the counter.

“Hey there, Jewel.” Sammi Jo was a step from the young lady’s elbow. “How’s your summer going?”

Jewel half-turned. “Hi, Sammi Jo. Up until now, my summer has gone fine, thank you. But I can’t get my prescription filled with Vernon being a stinker.”

Sammi Jo gave Vernon in his white smock the once over. “Vernon, has the cat got your tongue? What’s this all about?”

“This is between Jewel and me,” replied Vernon. “There’s no need to concern yourself with it.”

“He has decided it’s against his religion to fill my BC prescription,” said Jewel.

“The law is clear saying you’ve got no choice but do it, Vernon,” said Sammi Jo.

“Another pharmacy might feel differently, but I won’t cave on my principles,” said Vernon.

Sammi Jo dealt him a look. “She can’t very well go elsewhere beings as you’re the only game in town.”

“I’m sorry but that’s I how feel about,” said Vernon.

Before Sammi Jo could speak, Jewel went on. “I’ll just catch a ride up to Warrenton.”

Sammi Jo trailed Jewel to the door when Vernon asked, “Sammi Jo, can I help you now?”

“I came in to buy a Co-Cola, but I’ll keep my money now,” replied Sammi Jo.

“Suit yourself,” said Vernon.

The pair of young ladies left the drugstore and at the sidewalk the late morning sun burst into their flinching eyes.

“I’ll go flag down a ride to Warrenton,” said Jewel.

“I’d chuck those BC pills,” said Sammi Jo. “Tell your amorous fellow to take some responsibility and make it loads cheaper for you, too.”

“Good point.” Jewel paused. “I heard you’re pitching in with Megan’s defense, and I hope you win it. She and I graduated together.”

“Didn’t she go steady with Jake?”

“Oh yeah, they were real high school sweethearts. You could see the love they felt for each other beaming in their faces. I always envied what they had.”

“Some girls lasso their fellows early in life.”

“Her murdering him doesn’t add up at all.”

“Then who killed him?”

Jewel shrugged. “He liked to hang out with a rough crowd at the drag strip. He probably rubbed one of them the wrong way. But that’s only my guess since I’ve never been there. Have you?”

“I’m an old veteran,” replied Sammi Jo. “We’ll have to keep digging to find his murderer.”

They exchanged sympathetic smiles and separated. Sammi Jo detoured across Main Street and walked in the shade of the grocery store. Her surreptitious glimpse showed Ossie, Willie, and Blue Trent sat slumped over in their sunny nook, a catnap holding them in its thrall. She pulled up short at the railroad crossing by the Co-op when the crossbars, wig-wagging their red-blue caution lights, descended to block the cars and pedestrians. She heard the banshee whistle before she saw the train gallop into view.

A sooty black-and-silver Amtrak express barreled through the junction. She peered through the blur of the train car windows but saw no passengers in the rows of seats. Few rode the trains anymore, but she also had childhood memories of watching the ghostlike passenger trains just as empty flying through Quiet Anchorage.

It left her to wonder why the trains still ran at all. She could next picture Alma and Isabel taking the courthouse by storm and winning Megan’s liberty. Sammi Jo patted at her belt and with a start realized her cell phone sat on the hamper in her apartment. She continued once the caboose shambled past, and the crossbars lifted.

Sheriff Fox lived in his deceased parents’ ramshackle house a stone’s throw behind the old barbershop. A pair of African-American men had worked as the town barbers. Men waited in their shop’s folding chairs to chew the fat, and a few even paid to get a haircut. The older gentlemen in five-button dress jackets and narrow ties dropped in for their hot shaves.

Sheriff Fox parents were the barbers’ landlords. After his parents passed within the same six months, he groused how the barbershop wasn’t profitable enough, didn’t renew the lease, and the barbers were out of a long-tenured job. Closing down the barbershop that way, she thought, revealed something about Sheriff Fox’s devious, petty nature.

She angled off the sidewalk at his place. As Alma had predicted, the black Plymouth profiled out in front of the garage. A stand of Kentucky Coffee trees she strode under shaded the dustbowl lawn. She shuffled up the steps to the wraparound porch and rapped on the oval glass portion to his door. Her firmer knocks also didn’t rouse anybody. So, she went to the detached garage. Eyes shielded by cupped hands against the sun’s glare, she leaned in and peered through the garage’s window. What she detected—Jake’s file cabinets—caused her heart to vault up and thump harder.

“It’s high time we caught a lucky break,” she said.

Chapter 23

On further thought, Sammi Jo searched for and found her cell phone. It lay buried at the bottom of her purse rather than left on her nightstand after all. She placed her call. Isabel grabbed it, listened to the good news, and replied.

“Wait and I’ll put on Alma. Just be careful is all I ask.”

“I won’t take any big risks,” said Sammi Jo.

Alma hurried out to the courtroom’s anteroom and came on with a soft “hallo”. She let Sammi Jo tell of finding the jackpot hidden in Sheriff Fox’s garage. “Court is in recess, and Megan’s case hasn’t come up. Are the file cabinets empty?”

“I don’t know.”

“Let’s hope they’re not. Getting them back to the station house comes next.”

Sammi Jo offered a solution. “Is Sheriff Fox there with you?”

“He’s sitting in front of us.”

“Daddy can borrow the turf farm’s truck, and I’ll use it to haul the file cabinets.”

“Your plan is masterpiece,” said Alma before their hang up.

She returned to the court just gaveled into session and spoke to Isabel. “Sammi Jo is taking care of business.”

Isabel’s lips grew tight. “I only hope you two know what you’re doing. It feels bizarre stealing from the town sheriff in order to keep him honest.”

Alma did some encouraging. “See your niece up there wearing blaze orange? Tell me she wasn’t railroaded, and then prove to me Sheriff Fox isn’t crooked as a barrel of fishhooks. Those file cabinets belong at the station house, not in his garage. We’re righting a wrong.”

“Dwight hasn’t said boo. Why is he so quiet?”

“This is the wrong time to take a siesta.” Alma frowned at him. “How can we light a blowtorch under him?”

“We also didn’t iron a dress for Megan.”

“Time is too short for doing such frills.”

The gavel rapped. Judge Redfern, an angular lady with cider brown hair straight as a hatpin and large, dark eyes, stared down from her bench.

“Ladies, I forbid talking in my courtroom unless it’s court business,” she said.

Isabel buttoned up, but Alma shifted on her seat. Expecting the worst, Isabel closed her eyes, making a wish to vanish from the courtroom, but the redoubtable Alma got to her feet and spoke her mind.

“Your Honor, we—Mrs. Isabel Trumbo and I—stand here on the defendant’s behalf. Megan’s attorney hasn’t presented our side, and we request he be afforded an equal opportunity to speak.”

Judge Redfern almost smiled. “Alma, this is a bond hearing, not a criminal trial. Didn’t your niece’s counsel make the distinction plain to you?”

Sheriff Fox pivoted in his chair, frowning with an adversarial look. “You’re out of line, Alma. Shut up and sit down, or I’ll slap the cuffs on you.”

Judge Redfern fastened her icy glare on him. “Sheriff, you don’t issue edicts here. I do. Now you shut up, or I’ll slap the cuffs on you.” She again addressed Alma. “By the same token, I don’t brook outbursts either.”

Alma held her ground. “Let Mr. Holden speak for our side, and we’ll pipe down as you like. Dwight, sing out and let’s be heard.”

She resumed her seat and felt an elbow jab. Isabel didn’t roll her eyes, but Alma could imagine her doing it.

“Counselor,” Judge Redfern said to Dwight. “Speak fast because my docket is overburdened, and I’m a breath from snapping my cap. Do I make myself clear?”

“Never more so, Your Honor,” said Dwight, standing up at the defendant’s table. “As you know, Megan Connor is a Quiet Anchorage native. She has no criminal record, is employed as a hairdresser, and poses no flight risk. We request her bail be set at a reasonable amount.”

“Your request is noted,” said Judge Redfern. The portly, clean-shaven Commonwealth Attorney Carl Goldenstein made a throat noise to speak, but she put up a firm hand. “I’ve already heard enough from your side of the aisle, sir.”

Sensing an opening, Alma lodged a request. “Your Honor, as Megan’s two aunts, we stand ready to have her released into our custody. You should take our offer into your deliberations.”

Judge Redfern’s stern face softened a degree. “Tell me this, Alma. Can you keep a close eye on your niece, and do I have your solemn oaths she won’t fly the coop?”

This time Isabel responded. “Absolutely.”

“Very well. Murder is a serious matter, and I’ll want to take due time to render my decision. I’ll hand down my bail ruling by the close of court business on Thursday. Fair enough?”

“Fair enough,” said Alma, somewhat disappointed.

Sheriff Fox gave an exasperated groan earning a reproachful stare from the bench.

“One additional matter, Your Honor.”

“Yes, Alma?”

“We request a short, private talk with our niece.”

“Permission granted.”

This time a livid Sheriff Fox bolted up from his chair. “This is irregular—”

“Roscoe, stick a sock in it. My migraine is back.” Judge Redfern’s pained glance attracted the bailiff’s solicitous eye. “Is there a bottle of aspirin in chambers?”

“As you always wish it, Your Honor,” replied the bailiff.

“It’s always a godsend.” Judge Redfern ranged up and gathered her robes to step through her chamber door.

“Megan and Dwight, over here.” Alma gave them an urgent wave. “Let’s huddle up for a quick word.”

They convened in a niche just beside the jury box. Dwight’s hands trembled as his white knuckles gripped the worn handle to his black attaché case, and the anxiety made his posture rigid.

“I’ll probably get a letter of professional misconduct from the state bar association over your courtroom outburst,” he told Alma.

“What did you expect from us? You just sat there like a toad in a mud puddle,” she said.

“I was saving my best ammo to fire it at the trial.”

“Dwight, we discussed this, and our goal is to never reach trial. Have you received Megan’s police report from Sheriff Fox?”

“He’s been a little less than forthcoming.”

Before Alma responded, Isabel asked, “How have you been bearing up, Megan?”

“I’m making out,” she replied.

“What have you learned inside The Big House?” asked Alma.

“It’s mind-boggling the amount of gossip you pick up,” replied Megan. “Clarence Fishback, I discovered, is tossing his hat into the ring for sheriff, and Sheriff Fox is in a royal stew over it.”

“Everyone knows it,” said Alma. “Who do the deputies support?”

“It’s difficult to say,” replied Megan. “They’ll probably throw their support to the one looking the most like the winner. If you bet on the wrong horse, you’re suddenly out of a job.”

“Jake’s murder must keep the grapevine astir,” said Isabel.

“Not so much as you would think,” said Megan.

Dwight tapped on his attaché case for their attention. “Don’t gaze over all at once, but the bailiff is shooting us daggers. They want Megan back in their custody, so might we wrap this up?”

“Let him wait. Go on with what you were saying,” Alma told Megan.

She fiddled with the frayed collar to the orange prison suit. “Jake’s murder is yesterday’s news. Their biggest buzz is the upcoming furor between Deputy Fishback and Sheriff Fox. On something else, I saw Bexley and Sheriff Fox acting friendly in the hallway.”

“So, the two-faced Bexley cozies up to Sheriff Fox,” said Alma. “From here on, we won’t confide in Bexley. Could you make out their words?”

“They mumbled too much,” replied Megan.

Isabel’s eyes grew large. “Oh no, Bexley is who tipped us off the file cabinets are in Sheriff Fox’s garage. Sammi Jo has to be walking into a trap.”

Megan reacted first. “Quick—go warn her.”

Nodding their rapid good-byes, Alma and Isabel left the group, taking their brisk strides to the exit. Judge Redfern enthroned again behind her bench nodded with a friendly wink at them. Goldenstein, the yawning Commonwealth Attorney, happened to observe her gesture. His tilted chair fell back and landed on the carpet. He first studied the backs to Alma and Isabel disappearing through the door and then Judge Redfern. She squared a sheaf of papers in her hands and tapped the bottom edge to neaten the corners. Despite her nonchalance, he didn’t like what he’d just witnessed.

“Roscoe, we’ve got a slight problem.”

A headshake was Sheriff Fox’s disagreement. “No, Carl, we’ve got two big problems, and we just saw them tear out of here.”

“All right, what are we up against exactly?”

“Pit bulls,” replied Sheriff Fox, but then a sly smile imprinted his face. “Except I arranged a trap to get these pit bulls, and they’re off to stumble straight into it. In a few minutes Bexley will call me to report a trespasser.”

“But will your trap be effective?”

“Oh, they won’t suspect a thing until it’s too late,” replied Sheriff Fox, smiling wider.

“There can’t be any screw ups,” said Goldenstein. “This is a big case, and scoring a quick conviction is crucial. The elections are a few months away.”

Sheriff Fox now grunted. “Tell me something I didn’t already know.”

Chapter 24

Sammi Jo heard the trouble before she saw it. She’d just lifted Sheriff Fox’s garage door and ducked inside the dim bay when a clumsy footfall outside scuffed over the gravel, and she froze in her tracks. After detecting a second and third step, she darted out of the bay where the sunshine in her poker face betrayed no emotion. The burly, freckled man shambled around the garage corner.

“Ha, I caught you red-handed, Sammi Jo.”

His accusation left her to laugh. “You caught me red-handed at doing what?”

Arms swinging at his sides, Bexley approached her, his doughy face growing smugger. “You’re a trespasser on Sheriff Fox’s property.”

She kept her poise. “You’re plain nuts.”

The smirk on Bexley’s face wilted a little. “When I turned the corner, I caught you inside the garage. The law says you’re trespassing on private property unless you’ve permission, and I know you don’t.”

By now she read through his subterfuge: she’d been set up. “This is a pathetic trap with the file cabinets used as the bait. You leaked the news to Alma they’re here. Then Sheriff Fox paid you to hide and nab whoever showed up for them. Too bad you were catnapping back there in the sun.”

“Never mind what I was doing. This is about what you were doing. If you’re so innocent, why were you ogling the file cabinets?”

“I strolled by on the sidewalk, saw the For Sale sign on this car, and came over to check it. The garage door was up so naturally I spotted the file cabinets.”

“What about the Plymouth?” His finger jabbed to behind them. “Are you going to be its proud, new owner?”

Her nose wrinkled. “I wouldn’t be caught dead riding in that hoopty.” She recalled Alma saying the file cabinets had probably been ransacked. “Those file cabinets only hold air, Bexley, and you stand guard over a lot of nothing. Dumb, right?”

He sounded defensive. “The sheriff gave me some overtime plus a bonus to watch them. He said you’d right along.” He was smirking again. “Sure enough, I nailed you pilfering stuff.”

“How can that be? There’s nothing in the file cabinets to steal,” she said.

Goaded by her haughty tone, he fished out a wad of paper from his hip pocket to smooth out. “Sheriff Fox gave me these combination numbers. Go ahead and open up the padlocks and prove you’re the dumbbell here.”

Figuring he didn’t excel at undoing combination padlocks, she took the scrap of paper from him. She wasn’t all-fired sure about playing Alma’s hunch on the file cabinets being empty. Sammi Jo’s heart became a hammer striking against her chest as the dial on the first combination padlock in her fingers didn’t turn. She gave up on it. The second padlock was also too rusty, and she skipped trying to unlimber it. The third padlock’s tumblers spun, and a clink let her break it free. She removed the vertical steel bar from its cabinet fittings and tipped out the top drawer.

“Just like I said: nothing,” she said, feeling a wave of relief.

“Huh?” Bexley huffed inside the garage bay and stopped short of her. His glance took in the top drawer, and he then went down the file cabinet, rolling out the lower drawers for inspection. Each drawer contained the same emptiness as the top one did.

“How could this be? I inventoried all the stuff at the station house.”

“What did you find?”

“Bunch of accordion folders, auto manuals, and whatnot.”

“Where is your inventory list?”

“Sheriff Fox took it.”

“Obviously he’s moved the files. Are the other file cabinets also bare?”

“It’s easy enough to check.” Bexley took down a can of Liquid Wrench on the shelves over the work bench. A squirt into each padlock eased twirling its dial. She spun the right combination to open the padlocks and a peek inside all the drawers confirmed their zero contents.

She re-secured the cabinets and floated a suggestion. “Bexley, if I were you, I’d stay quiet on this matter. I know I’ll never mention it, but you were played for a sucker, and Sheriff Fox is rolling on his office floor laughing at you.”

“It sounds like to me you’re trying to wiggle off the hook.” Bexley followed her from the gloomy garage bay into the bright daylight.

She gave a mild shrug, grasped the garage handle, and lowered the door. “If Sheriff Fox doesn’t want people in his driveway, tell him to take down his For Sale sign. As for you, hey, keep on guarding a lot of nothing here for all I give a fig.”

“After seeing this, I’m out of here,” said Bexley.

He lumbered off down the sidewalk, heading for the railroad crossing. She felt a little sorry for him until she glimpsed from the corner of her eye a navy blue sedan. At a full on look, she felt a surge of joy inside of her.

The familiar sedan veered over, slowing to stop at the curbstone. As the window rolled down, she saw Alma and Isabel wore their out-of-vogue sunglasses over their stern looks. Something heavy plunged inside her. Their news had to be ugly, but then Isabel smiled.

“Did your morning go eventful as ours?” she asked.

Sammi Jo leaning her forearms on the car windowsill briefed them on Bexley and the file cabinet’s drawers full of only air.

Alma’s face showed her testy resentment. “Sheriff Fox has resorted to setting simple-minded traps to catch us.”

“That’s good if we’re making him extra nervous,” said Isabel.

“I also hope he’s the one sweating bullets for a change,” said Sammi Jo.

Glancing in the rearview mirror, Alma said, “Sheriff Fox is charging up like a hero. You better hop inside and be quick about it.”

As Fox glided up in his cruiser to his driveway entrance, the three ladies in the sedan were disappearing at the end of the short street. There was no sign of Bexley, and his clever trap had fizzled without producing any good results. He scowled into his rearview mirror at the sedan’s taillights, tempted to flip them half of the Boy Scout salute.

“Those two old pit bulls don’t know when it’s time to quit,” he growled instead.

Chapter 25

Alma whisked them down the highway past Quiet Anchorage’s clinic. Several sign-carrying pro-lifers picketed within several paces of its lobby door, leaving Sammi Jo with a puzzled frown. Their faces were unfamiliar to her, and she resented the outsiders’ intrusion in local affairs.

Alma parked under the patchy shade in their driveway on Church Street, and they waved back to the pair of young kids building a tree fort one yard over. Isabel and Sammi Jo sat in the cooler kitchen while Alma put on her favorite TV game show emceed by Bob Barker, the octogenarian still a dynamo in full stride. She relaxed and when their telephone rang, she quieted the television.

“We’re foundering, but not from the lack of trying,” Alma told the caller. “Have you had any better luck?”

“I paid a neighbor boy to scrounge through my attic for my scrapbooks.” Louise sounded concerned. “Do you suffer from hay fever due to the ragweed pollen?”

“Or something just as bad but I’m having my prescription refilled.” Alma sniffed again. “I didn’t know you kept scrapbooks.”

Found out, Louise laughed. “Looking at them, I’d forgotten our times when growing up on the farm. You should see this one photo of—”

“Uh, Louise, we’re a little pressed for time here.”

“All right. Did you know Jake’s paternal grandfather, Skeeter Robbins, and I once dated?”

“No, but why is he important to this situation?”

“Because I see the Robbins holding a gun in every photo I have. I also went through a batch of newspaper clippings. Jake crops up in a couple of the photos with his dad, a turkey shoot champion, and they’re always holding a shotgun. Let’s suppose during the fracas with his murderer that Jake pulled out a handgun. Suppose he waved it around. Can you predict the likely outcome?”

“It would heat up an already tense situation.”

“With two men jawing at each other, that’s my same thought. I think the murderer came with blood in his eye, whipped up Jake into an argument, and then shot him. Megan’s prints were left on the discarded murder weapon. The whole town must know how they quarreled, and it’s made-to-order to set her up for killing him in a crime of passion.”

“Well, good then. Your theory pretty much aligns with our thinking. Any good words for Isabel?”

“Just to say hi.”

Off the phone, Alma reflected on how Quiet Anchorage harbored a rich store of tales, and Jake’s murder and Megan’s subsequent arrest for it was the latest entry. Even if she cleared her name, the indelible stain was daubed on her. Going out in public, she became the object of talk and ridicule. Alma saw Bob Barker on the TV awarding a dryer and washer as a prize to a lady in a pants suit. The silly lady jumped up and down, squealing and clapping for all she was worth, and Alma never realized doing the laundry brought such ecstasy into a person’s daily humdrum existence.

“Alma, soup’s on!” said Sammi Jo.

Alma turned off the TV, went into the kitchen, and plopped down at the drop-leaf table. “That was Louise on the phone. She said hi, all.”

Isabel stripped the crust off her peanut-and-jam sandwich and nibbled to its center as Sammi Jo nuzzled a Co-Cola. Alma’s first sigh didn’t escape Isabel’s notice, and she gave Alma a closer look.

“What’s wrong, sis? Did Louise give you some bad news?”

“No, this deal with Megan gets me down in the dumps,” replied Alma.

“Shrug off the blues and eat your lunch because we’ve got a busy afternoon,” said Isabel.

Alma sighed again. Her moist, red eyes fell, and she turned her head.

The Co-Cola bottle halfway to Sammi Jo’s mouth went back down to rest on the table coaster. She craned forward in her chair and touched Alma’s wrist.

“You wall off those negative feelings since we know this isn’t nearly a done deal. Everybody we’ve seen agrees Megan got a raw deal. Any local jury will see things the same way and find her not guilty.”

“Sammi Jo is right so eat your lunch,” said Isabel.

Alma nudged aside her lunch plate. “Louise speculated the handgun was a plant because Megan is easy to frame. The murderer rigged the crime scene to resemble a lovers’ quarrel that flew out of control.”

“Louise’s idea tracks along the same lines as ours do,” said Isabel.

“Did Jake and Megan fight all that often?” asked Sammi Jo.

“Well...” said Isabel.

“Well what exactly?” asked Sammi Jo.

“You’ve heard that Jake did some extracurricular romancing,” replied Alma. “Megan had reached her fill, and they held a summit allegedly clearing the air.”

“She never gave us the nitty-gritty on what he did,” said Isabel.

“She mentioned Jake’s floozy lived in Mechanicsville,” said Alma.

“Maybe we better plan on a Mechanicsville trip,” said Isabel.

“Anyway they had enough rows to incite the gossips,” said Alma.

“I can relate. People talk about my breakup with Clarence, and I feel their stares when I venture out in public. They can take a flying leap for all I care.”

“What comes after lunch?” asked Alma, plucking a new tissue from the box kept atop the refrigerator.

“My thoughts keep circling back to Jake’s place,” said Isabel. “We’ve hit his shop and office but skipped the main house and woods.”

“Sheriff Fox beat us looking in there,” said Alma.

But Isabel stuck by her idea. “Sammi Jo, you’ll cast the tie-breaking vote. Which is it? Do we look inside of Jake’s place or not?”

“I say crawl through it like an army of spiders,” replied Sammi Jo.

A fussy Alma didn’t capitulate. “To make this an official tally, Louise also gets a say.”

“So call her, put it to her, and I’ll abide by the majority decision,” said Isabel.

“But Louise’s vote might create another tie, two against two.”

“Don’t worry, Sammi Jo,” said Alma. “We’re practically on our way to Jake’s now. Sly Isabel has been goading me back to my cranky, old self, and it worked in spades.”

Sammi Jo saw Isabel’s crafty nod.

They filled the toasty sedan, but at Alma’s insistence Isabel returned to rattle the doorknob to verify the forgetful Alma had locked it. The early afternoon sun blazed in the cobalt blue sky, and the day though oven-hot lacked yesterday’s humidity. Sammi Jo made a suggestion, and Alma stopped at Megan’s apartment. Phyllis Garner in a yellow ruffled blouse, billowy skirt, and yellow pumps walked out the front alcove. At spotting them, she gave a two-hand wave.

“Maybe Phyllis has seen more shady characters,” said Isabel.

“I hope she has picked up in Megan’s apartment,” said Sammi Jo.

“If not, don’t object. Pitching in together, we can do it,” said Isabel.

“Not without spending loads of more time, we can’t,” said Alma.

Isabel hailed the approaching lady. “Phyllis dear, how are you?”

The exuberant Phyllis had to share her news. “Guess what I’ve decided to do?” She snickered at their quizzical looks. “I’m tacking up the flyers for your detective agency on every telephone pole and street sign up and down Main. In three shakes of a dog’s tail, your office phone will ring off the hook.”

“Aunt Phyllis, let’s hold off on your idea for a little while,” said Sammi Jo.

Petulance clouded Phyllis’s face. “How do you expect to drum up any business if you hide under a crocus sack and don’t advertise?”

“We’re out to close Megan’s case,” replied Sammi Jo. “Speaking of which, did you pick up in her apartment?”

Phyllis gave the apartment building behind them a cavalier flick of her wrist, her copper bangles clacking together. “Bah, I’ve got no time for doing menial housework.”

“I’ll record that as a no, and now we’re stuck with it. Aunt Phyllis, we’ve already got a ton of work to do.”

“Well, I’ve also been busy doing my personal stuff.”

“But when Megan returns home, everything should look spic-and-span.”

“Phyllis, what if we hire you?” asked Isabel. “At four members strong, we’re very selective on who we let in our all-lady detective agency. If you accept, we’ll be a solid five, so what do you say?”

“Fine with me,” replied Phyllis. “Lay out my shamus duties.”

“Our principal client is Megan Connors,” replied Isabel. “Why don’t you search in her apartment for a new lead and while you’re at it, tidying up would be a feather in our cap.”

“Say no more. I’m all over it.”

Smiling again, Sammi Jo spoke to Agent Phyllis. “People have said Megan and Jake fought. Did you overhear their arguments?”

Phyllis shook her head, her snickers turning devious. “Any time I stole pass her door, all I heard were her mattress coils squeaking like the birdhouse waking up at the zoo.”

“Aunt Phyllis!”

Alma burst out in a peal of laughter.

“Mercy,” said Isabel. “Maybe I should look into remarrying.”

“Just go on with you,” said Phyllis. “Megan’s apartment will soon look like a showroom.”

Chapter 26

En route to Jake’s house, Alma drove by the fire station. The twin rusty anchors salvaged from the Coronet River stood in front between the bay doors as stoic sentries. Sammi Jo failed to recall a time of not seeing them perched there, and her Coronet River memories followed.

The town river’s name derived from the eccentric notion of the old-timers who claimed the water riffling over the black rocks and sandbars piped out the musical notes blown by a jazzman’s coronet. Having never heard a coronet played, she took their word for it. But Jake’s murder had bleated a dark, jarring note, she thought.

She knew Quiet Anchorage had its favorite swimming hole on the Coronet. By day, the town kids dove off a rope swing into the cool river depths, and by night, the older kids skinny dipped by the light of the bonfires they blazed on the sandy bank. She had grown up participating in both rituals. Lately however, the local swimming hole had lost its appeal after the townspeople swore the Coronet River coursed with toxic pollutants flushed in it by a fertilizer plant upstream.

The three Main Street benchwarmers no longer fished in the Coronet. The catfish and bluegill the anglers pulled out didn’t end up pan-fried on their dinner plates. Canoeists and kayakers from the suburbs flocked to Quiet Anchorage on temperate weekends and plied the waterways. The jaded townspeople didn’t warn away the diehard sport enthusiasts who enjoyed the contaminated river all to themselves.

Jake had operated a canoe rental business to cash in on the public’s interest. He built a small office shack and boat landing just below the iron truss bridge the ladies now clattered across. Water enthusiasts rented his canoes and paddled downriver the ten miles to his second boat landing. They docked and drove home in their cars that he had driven down to have waiting for them. He turned a profit for a couple of seasons, but early one summer he shut down the operations, and Sammi Jo drew a blank over the details of why.

“Why did Jake’s canoe rental outfit go belly up?” she asked.

Isabel, speaking, shifted in her seat. “As I recall, one customer took deathly ill. The incensed family blamed it on the dirty water, and they sued him, and they settled out of court. Naturally, his insurance company dropped him, and our loyal town bank foreclosed. He tried to woo in other investors, but nobody would give him a second shake. He couldn’t beat the bad publicity, so he called it quits.”

Alma nudged the sunglasses back up on the bridge of her nose. “Who did he get for his lawyer?”

“Dwight Holden. Who else is there?” replied Isabel.

“Several new lawyers have hung out their shingles,” said Alma.

“They’re interlopers, not Quiet Anchorage natives,” said Isabel.

“Right and that’s why we hired Dwight,” said Alma.

“You can go your whole life paying premiums on time, and the insurance companies love you, but if you file one claim, you become their red-headed stepchild,” said Isabel.

“What became of the freeloader suing Jake?” asked Sammi Jo.

“The next summer he won a big tennis match. Louise sent me a newspaper clipping of his picture,” replied Isabel.

“If this ill canoeist received a fat settlement, he’d go away happy and wouldn’t do in Jake who was his cash cow,” said Alma.

“I didn’t say it was a murder motive. Sammi Jo asked why Jake closed up his canoe business, and I told her,” said Isabel.

What amazed Sammi Jo, what left her shaking her head, was how Alma and Isabel could fuss with each other at the drop of the hat. Though she could tell their banter was good-natured, she moved to quell this round. “Seeing the old, rusty anchors raised my question.”

“You know, bad karma always seemed to dog Jake,” said Alma. “The only thing he put in order and ran was the auto repair shop.”

“You better credit Megan for that success,” said Isabel.

“But she didn’t fix the cars,” said Alma. “Jake did and auto repair is greasy, back-breaking work.”

“It’s true nobody can say Jake didn’t hustle,” said Isabel.

“Bexley never told us where the stuff inside Jake’s file cabinets went,” said Sammi Jo.

“A self-storage unit springs to mind,” said Alma.

“That might be traced back to Sheriff Fox,” said Isabel. “I’d select a more creative hiding place.”

They rattled over the railroad spur. Off to their immediate right stood a factory enclosed by a chain link fence crested with coils of barbed wire. A Canadian firm had originally built the factory to produce modular homes, and the flat cars transported the finished modular homes from the factory to market.

When the economy soured, the Canadians riffed the local workers, pulled up stakes, and scooted back north of the border. Various entrepreneurs in the intervening years had attempted to make a go of it at the factory, but each business had flopped. Few local jobs since the modular home factory closed down paid anything approaching a livable wage.

Sammi Jo vouched that the low-paying jobs were plentiful since at various times, she’d worked them all—waitress, cashier, fry cook, dishwasher, and for a long, hot summer a flag girl on an asphalt crew. Her bosses cut her back to a thirty-nine hour workweek to avoid giving her benefits. Right now she floated between prospects, and her two-figure rainy day fund reflected it. Wanting an exciting job with a real career, she wiggled forward on the seat.

“Once Megan is home safe, are we still making the Trumbo Sisters Detective Agency into the real thing? You know, incorporate or syndicate, but we go professional.”

Isabel giggled. “What did you have in mind?”

Sammi Jo warmed up to her idea. “Quiet Anchorage is on the verge of boom times. Look around and you can see a tsunami of people is moving in. The homes are sprouting in the subdivisions and with them come people’s problems. A detective agency is one solution so why not ours?”

“We’ve got no track record,” said the more pragmatic Alma.

“Call me the eternal optimist, but I believe Megan’s case will soon turn in our favor. I’m taking the long range view.”

“It’s a smart long range view, too. Between us, Alma and I have devoured a library of mysteries,” said Isabel.

Alma gave a headshake. “We’re a little thin in the experience department. Besides I’ve read in the newspapers that modern PIs have gone high tech. Gumshoes are computer geeks, and we don’t know diddly jack about computers.”

“I’ll master them,” said Sammi Jo. “How hard is it to point and click?”

With an assured smile, Isabel looked at Alma. “Sammi Jo wears our computer geek hat, so there you go.”

“Louise and Aunt Phyllis have already signed on,” said Sammi Jo.

“Oh, I just love Sammi Jo’s scheme. How about it, sis? You wanted something more exciting to do. So, are you in or out?”

“Oh, I’ve always been in,” replied Alma. “Don’t forget Mr. Oglethorpe. Can you con him into accepting us as bona fide PIs?”

“As long as we pay for his silly license, we’re okay by him,” replied Isabel.

“Who’s going to be the big kahuna at our agency?” asked Alma.

“Since we’re equal partners, we don’t need a boss,” replied Isabel.

“All right, we can give it a whirl,” said Alma.

“We’ll free Megan and swing into action,” said Sammi Jo.

“For now, any creative ideas on how we can access Jake’s house?” asked Alma.

The fumbling in a purse came before Alma eyed a credit card appearing over her seat.

“Do we bribe a crooked locksmith to drive out and pick Jake’s lock?” she asked with a sniff.

“No, this old credit card can jimmy any ordinary door lock,” said Sammi Jo.

“How are you savvy to that trick?” asked Alma.

“In my troubled youth, I picked up a few pointers,” replied Sammi Jo.

“There’s a more logical way,” said Isabel. “We know a spare key is always hidden in a fake rock near the door.”

“I’d forgotten the spare key.” Alma’s face lined with palpable apprehension. “I swear I’m growing dottier by the day.”

“All this adrenaline has unsettled your mind,” said Isabel.

“You should see how I forget stuff like paying my light bill. When my apartment suddenly falls dark, I go oops,” said Sammi Jo.

Alma’s arm flew out to catch Isabel as she slammed on the brakes. They pitched forward, then backward in their seats before they gaped out the windshield at a skunk toddling across the sunny blacktop.

“You see, your mind and reflexes are still sharp,” Isabel told her.

A more watchful Alma drove the remaining distance to Jake’s turnoff. She didn’t halt out front but pulled them around behind the brown stucco house and stopped by a scrubby mugo pine near the rear door.

“We should be safely out of sight,” said Isabel.

“Our tire prints pressed in the lawn will give us away,” said Sammi Jo.

“This is Megan’s property now, and we’ve got her permission to be here,” said Alma.

“We should first confirm that as a fact.” Isabel’s cell phone reached Dwight’s office, and his voice mail message said he’d gone to lunch, expecting to return by two. Alma told Isabel buzzing him at home to interrupt his siesta was hardly rude, and Isabel’s second attempt reached him.

“Your timing is impeccable, Isabel,” he said. “I was set to phone you.”

“Then I’ll yield the floor to you,” said Isabel.

“Don’t forget Megan returns to court for her arraignment on Thursday. Now, how can I help you? Please be brief as I can spare only three minutes.”

“Hold on, Alma has an important question,” said Isabel.

“Did Jake will his property to Megan?” Alma asked into the cell phone.

Dwight yawned to cover his nervousness. “Yes, Jake left his estate to her, but I’m bound by oath not to disclose any further details.”

“We’re not out to get you disbarred,” said Alma. “By the way, is any member of the sheriff’s department also your client? We have to avoid any appearance of impropriety.”

“Alma, you’ve got my pledge no such impropriety taints our chances.”

“Then I’ll let you get cracking again on Megan’s case.”

“Why did you call me about Jake’s will?”

“Isabel and I had a vague recollection and wanted a confirmation.”

“See you Thursday morning in court, and this time let me do the talking.”

“We’re just backing you up.”

Alma returned the cell phone to Isabel whose nod indicated through the windshield. “Sammi Jo is waiting on us.”

They got out of the sedan and followed Sammi Jo through the still disheveled office/sun porch to enter Jake’s main house. They stood in the foyer appalled by the specter in the closest room. In every direction they turned, ankle deep trash—beer cans, pizza boxes, soda bottles, and plastic utensils—waited for pick up and disposal. The odor turned gamy, suggestive of rancid cheese.

“Jake was a big slob or hoarder even,” said Sammi Jo.

“I’d no idea he lived in this squalor, and Megan never hinted at it.” Alma turned sardonic. “Why did she sign up for such high maintenance? I did with Husband Number One, but I wised up fast, and I never repeated that error twice.”

“She did it because she loved him unconditionally,” said Isabel.

Alma scoffed. “But love, even first love, has its limits. After seeing this, maybe he wasn’t such a good catch, after all.”

“He never pitched a thing in the trash.” Sammi Jo’s shoe tip punted a cardboard chicken bucket, striking the rowing machine Megan had bought him for his cardiovascular exercise.

“I suspect coping with the loss of his father in June contributed to Jake’s disorderliness,” said Isabel.

“Just gingerly pick your way around the rubbish,” said Alma.

“Hazmat suits might be in order,” said Sammi Jo.

“I’d settle for a six-foot pole,” said Alma before she went back to the sun porch/office to retrieve the State Bank of Quiet Anchorage yardstick. She used it to poke and prod at the trash piles.

Several paces took Sammi Jo to the beige brick fireplace where she picked up a gold-framed photograph from the roughhewn plank of red oak adapted as a mantle. The striking lady she studied had a lean, tanned face framed by white blonde hair but lifeless eyes.

“Was she his late mom?” Sammi Jo asked Isabel also taken by the photo.

“Reba died when Jake was a small boy,” replied Isabel.

“What from?” asked Sammi Jo.

“A mysterious insect bite is what the doctors claimed,” replied Isabel.

“Odd. Where’s Jake’s dad’s photograph?” asked Sammi Jo.

“Hiram’s truculent scowl always shattered the camera lens, he said,” replied Alma.

Sammi Jo returning the photograph to the mantle had a morbid thought on how Hiram fatally poisoned his wife Reba. “I’ll bet Reba knows who murdered her son, and it’s a pity her ghost can’t drop us a hint.”

“Don’t bring up ghosts around Alma who’s superstitious to a fault,” said Isabel.

“For what Sammi Jo says, I’ll make an exception,” said Alma.

“Careful on what you smudge,” said Isabel. “We’d have an awkward time explaining away our prints in here to Sheriff Fox.”

They pried around in the various rooms for the better part of an hour. An occasional groan, sigh, or even mild oath interrupted their rustling in the detritus. While unearthing treasures worthy to sell at a third-rate flea market, they struck out scavenging any that might lead to unveiling Jake’s murderer.

Alma voiced their disillusionment. “I’m too bushed to go on.” Wincing, she clutched at her lower back.

“Only the attic is left. Sammi Jo, are you game to crab around up there?” asked Isabel.

“If he couldn’t lift a broom, I can’t picture him climbing a stepladder to store anything there,” replied Sammi Jo.

Also massaging her lower back, Isabel peeked under the Venetian blind at their sedan gleaming navy blue in the mid-afternoon sun. She allowed her mind to freewheel and spin up an earlier aim they’d intended to do. “Touring the drag strip might be useful,” she said.

“We’ll be out of our element there,” said Alma.

“The drag strip is like my second home,” said Sammi Jo.

“Good. But first let’s have a go at the woods,” said Isabel.

They trooped out of Jake’s house and filed over the dry, brown lawn and past the auto shop. The grasshoppers springing up in their jumps scattered before their shoes. As the shadows to the trees engulfed them, they halted for Isabel and Alma to doff their sunglasses. But they could probe no deeper into the forest. The wall of undergrowth, its labyrinth of vines bristling with cat-claw thorns, proved impenetrable.

“Unless Jake’s murderer was Brer Rabbit, I don’t see how he poked through here,” said Alma.

Isabel patrolled the margin of the prickly scrub’s density. “Can you pick out any pathway tunneling through it?”

Sammi Jo tracked her glance along the obstacle and shook her head. “The murderer needed a quick escape route, and these brambles don’t allow for that.”

“He’d leave behind torn shreds of clothing and break off the vines, but I see nothing,” said Alma, her eyes watery and nose redder. “These savage thorns would claw his face and hands with heavy lacerations.”

Angry in her disappointment, Isabel picked up a long stick and beat at the undergrowth. “It’s clear Jake’s murderer didn’t come this way. Foiled again, it seems.”

Sammi Jo offered consolation. “Cheer up. I still haven’t taken us on our drag strip tour yet.”

Chapter 27

Reynolds Kyle was to Quiet Anchorage, Virginia, what Richard Petty is to Level Cross, North Carolina, but Reynolds was more laid-back. His granddaddy, it was reputed, ran illicit moonshine over the hogback ridges to his customers, but one difference separated Reynolds from his forebears. He’d given up his seat strapped inside of a racecar and instead owned and operated Quiet Anchorage’s drag strip.

Growing up, Sammi Jo had heard all the reverential yarns spun on Reynolds Kyle. Families congregated at his church of speed on Sunday afternoons where the inspirational thrush of the hog-block engines drowned out their cheers. Even the worst rowdies stayed on their best behavior. Alcohol was permissible if it was sipped on the sly, but the young kids should never witness its consumption. Reynolds operated a clean-cut enterprise. If any rowdy acted up, he gave a subtle nod and his well-dressed, polite bouncers escorted the rowdy to the gate with a ticket refund and firm invitation to leave.

Sammi Jo centered on this while the backseat navigator directing Alma on which routes to take. Plumes of yellowish dust billowed in their wake. Isabel coughed and Alma sneezed until Sammi Jo suggested they roll up their windows and flip on the air conditioner. The stubborn sisters balked. Breathing in a little natural dust, they insisted, never hurt anybody so they rode on. A rustic cinderblock store bounded up, and Sammi Jo made another suggestion. Alma turned, slowed to circle the gravel loop, and halted.

“Country stores still sell Brownies,” said Sammi Jo.

“Brownies?” Isabel smiled at Sammi Jo. “Are you hungry?”

“No, I mean the chocolate soda pop,” said Sammi Jo.

“Then make it two Brownies,” said Isabel.

“No, order three cold ones,” said Alma, not to miss out.

Going inside, they read the “Wilma Smith, Proprietress” legend posted on the store’s lintel. Goose bumps chased the shivers down Sammi Jo’s spine. She heard an air conditioner compressor behind the store wheezing and chuffing to spew the Arctic blasts from the overhead vents. Alma and Isabel, their sunglasses off, saw the yellow patina of dust covering the flat surfaces. A lady behind the beaverboard counter stood up from a stool. Seams stitching her leathery face gave it a weather-beaten character, and her words issued in asthmatic rasps.

“Can I be of service?”

“Mrs. Smith?” said Sammi Jo.

“All of our Mrs. Smiths are buried in the Mount Holly Cemetery, and I’m just Wilma.”

“We’ll take three of your coldest Brownies, Wilma,” said Sammi Jo.

She cackled but in a nice way. “Is this a joke? Brownie Beverages went out of business years back. Antique stores sell their empty bottles for more than the two cents apiece I used to pay for their deposit.”

As if amazed, Sammi Jo shook her head. “Time marches on, doesn’t it?”

“You said it.”

Sammi Jo dropped in her next question. “Have you seen Clarence Fishback lately?”

“Most Sundays he’s goofing off at the drag strip.”

“Clarence at one time or another raced a Camaro, didn’t he? He partnered with, oh, who was the guy?”

“Jake Robbins,” said Wilma, beaming to know her local drag strip lore.

“Right you are. Do they still race?”

“Lord no, girl. Clarence and Jake had a sweet deal going, but the wheels fell off it.”

“I heard something or other of their squabble.”

Wilma turned distrustful. “How do you know that if you couldn’t recall Jake’s name?”

Having her gaffe pointed out, Sammi Jo crafted a quick lie. “Doesn’t your memory ever run spotty? Our talking jogged mine.”

“Well, they argued over car parts, and it turned nasty.”

“Clarence made a bad move there.”

Gumming her bluish lips, Wilma bobbed her double chin. “He was plenty PO’d and bragged how he’d do this or that to Jake to even the score.”

“What sort of this or that did he mean?”

“I can’t repeat specific threats. If it got back to Deputy Fishback, I’d be in deep yogurt with him.”

“He’s all bark, no bite.”

Wilma gulped, her double chin quivering. “I believe I’ve said enough. What else can I get you?”

“Give me a pack of smokes, non-filters please. Say, is Reynolds out at the drag strip now, you reckon?”

Wilma stuffed the pack of cigarettes into a small paper bag and rolled the top down. “He practically lives out there. Why do you ask?”

“I wanted to stop and say hey.”

She gave the total with tax, and took Sammi Jo’s money with a lewd smile. “Sure, go for it. Even at 77 young, I confess Reynolds takes my breath away, too.”

Sammi Jo winked with a devilish smile.

Riding again on the country roads, Isabel turned to peer back at Sammi Jo. “I saw you buy a pack of cigarettes, but I thought you’d kicked the nicotine habit.”

“A conversation starter is needed if I’m to pick Reynolds’s brain.”

“I’ve never been to the drag strip,” said Alma. “Misty summer nights out on our porch, I can hear the far-off din to the roaring engines. On Sundays, the souped up jalopies rumble through the streets of Quiet Anchorage on their way getting there.”

“It’s a religion in a lot of folks’ lives,” said Sammi Jo. “That’s why the fight erupted between Clarence and Jake.”

“Boys should learn to share their toys,” said Isabel.

“You’re asking for a lot from the boys I know,” said Sammi Jo as she pointed. “At the stop sign, go left. Drive up the grade and at the top we’ll see Reynolds’s drag strip. Follow the main road, and his office is in the faded red building.”

Alma steered them into the turn and navigated to the blue stone pad, stopping behind the faded red building. “What’s your plan?” she asked Sammi Jo.

“Hope that he’s in a gabby mood.”

“Ask him about Jake’s fight with Clarence,” said Alma.

“Just keep a third eye open,” said Isabel.

“You can sure bet I will,” said Sammi Jo as she winged out the sedan door.

As she sauntered off, Isabel followed her progress through the windshield. “That girl is something else, but the exact term to define her eludes me.”

“Moxie.” Alma used her tissue. “I’d say she brings us lots of moxie to the table.”

“Moxie. There’s a term that’s fallen out of usage.”

“What if things get out of hand, and she needs back up?”

“Then we’ll find out how much moxie we possess,” replied Isabel. “Maybe in future situations like this, we should come armed with more than moxie.”

“You know that’s for sure,” said Alma.

* * * *

The sunshine warmed Sammi Jo’s back. She’d casually known Reynolds Kyle from her Sundays spent here before she’d dumped the sorry, no-account Clarence Fishback. One sporty car, a carmine red GTO that she recognized, sat by the building. He was in.

Shouldering through the office door, she saw a baby moon hubcap over the lintel to catch any luck raining down. She made a wish that a little of it fell on her, too.

The fluorescent lights flickered down on a tall beanpole of a young man. Eyes closed, he rested prone on the red leather banquette. The movement of air alerted his curly eyelashes to flutter, and his onyx black eyes trained on her.

“Whoa there. Sammi Jo? Is that you, or do I dream? Pinch me, quick. But dream or not, you’re a glorious vision,” he said in a tuba voice. “How long did I doze off? What’s the time?”

“Time for a few answers to my questions,” she replied.

“You brought questions for me?” Rubbing his eyes with the heel of his palms, he sat up on the banquette. He swiped a hand over his tousled hair and then patted his shirt pocket. “I’d trade my left kidney for a smoke.” His hopeful dark eyes landed on her.

Anticipating his need, she tapped a cigarette from the bought pack she’d already unsealed. “Sorry, it’s a generic, but it’s free, and it’s here.”

“Then it’s doubly fine by me.” With the cigarette pinched between his lips, he flicked a kitchen match on the cinderblock wall. He drew down to fire a cherry-red conical ember and then exhaled through his nostrils with a contented smile at her.

“Long time no talk, Reynolds.”

“Not since you gave Clarence the heave ho.” Reynolds inhaled, vented out a second banner of smoke. “Heady move, by the way. What instigated it?”

She backpedaled to avoid his smog cloud. “The usual reason you get shed of a liar and a cheat.”

“Was the tramp a local gal?”

“I think you know who she was. Anyway, fill me in on Clarence and Jake’s infamous spat.”

“First off, there’s no rough stuff at my place. Period.”

“People respect you for it.”

“They do, and that’s why everybody feels welcome here. Even goofy Vernon Spitzer up in the bleachers offers a benediction at the start time.”

“He’s a regular choir boy but getting back to Jake and Clarence. Wasn’t their squabble over auto parts?”

“Dumb argument, too.” Reynolds squinted at the smoke curling between his less fidgety knuckles. “These cancer sticks will be the death of me yet.”

“Next to seatbelts, experts say it’s the cheapest insurance.”

“You alone?” He flashed her a risqué grin.

“Never mind. What auto parts did our two lads brawl over?”

“Jake popped for a set of Mag wheels at Lopez’s. Clarence said he’d paid Jake back, only Jake didn’t go for it.”

“Who did you believe, Clarence or Jake?”

Reynolds made a noncommittal shrug. “It didn’t matter since I made them take their fisticuffs outside the front gate.”

“What did they do next?”

Flicking cigarette ash to spill on the concrete floor, he gave a slighter shrug. “They went their separate ways because neither bought another ticket. Losing steady patrons like that hurts, too.”

Relaxed enough in his company, she decided to use a blunter approach. “What’s your take on Jake Robbins’s murder?”

“That throws me for a loop.” Reynolds snubbed out the half-smoked butt under his boot heel. “Clarence is stupid if he killed Jake after their big blowout.”

“If we strike Clarence off the list, who is left?”

“Beats me. Could be a faceless killer like those bloodthirsty gunslingers roving from town to town in the Old West.”

“It’s possible but my money says Jake knew his murderer.”

“How can you tell if he did?”

Smiling in coyness, she replied, “I rely on my feminine wiles.”

“Do your feminine wiles foresee any sparks for us?” Reynolds reached his hand to rest it on Sammi Jo’s hip. Grinning, he gave her a flirty squeeze.

“Chances look slim.” She stepped away and lobbed him the pack of cigarettes. “Keep ’em, Big Time.”

“Hey seriously, what are our chances for later?”

At the door, she leaned back. “Stay tuned, Reynolds.”

“My radio is always tuned in,” he said, returning her roguish wink.

Chapter 28

After relating what she’d gleaned from Reynolds, Sammi Jo took a quick breath. Alma drove, hands at ten and two on the steering wheel. A tight-lipped Isabel watched a stretch of slash pines blur by them. The greedy loggers had harvested, leaving behind an army of stumps. To her mind, a clear-cut pine barren was a haggard scene. Bulldozers had cleared the stumps to make way for another new subdivision, an even more haggard scene.

“So their disagreement turned ugly enough for Reynolds to toss them out,” said Sammi Jo.

“We might ask Clarence about it and gauge his reaction,” said Alma.

The idea provoked Sammi Jo’s headshake. “I don’t give any good odds that will work. He’s a liar and he’ll deny everything.”

She recalled Reynolds had said Jake bought the contested Mag wheels at Lopez’s, and she suggested pitstopping there. A short distance later, Alma parked them on a packed clay pad under a grove of Osage orange trees. They saw the hood to a maroon sedan flipped up, and three oilcans lined up on the radiator. Sammi Jo didn’t recognize the skinny kid upending the spout to glug in the next quart of oil to the crankcase, but his multiple body piercings made her flinch. Squeamish over any needles, she nodded at Isabel also giving the skinny kid a skeptical look.

Lopez’s sales room was akin to a frosty October dawn. They heard an air wrench’s whine behind the plexi-glass door to the shop area. The smell of motor oil reached their noses. Sammi Jo hailed Monty, the teen-ager bearing a moon-face, pointy nose, and burnt brown hair working the counter.

His easy nod greeted her. “Air filters, oil filters, and batteries are all on sale.”

She hatched her most captivating smile. “Just a little info, Monty. What’s that cost?”

“For you, a buck seventy and a doughnut.” Amused by his jibe, he grinned at her. “If I know it, no charge.”

“Reynolds Kyle told me Jake Robbins bought a set of Mag wheels. Did you wait on him?”

“Reynolds is mixed up,” replied Monty. “I sold Jake a ton of car accessories but nothing that flashy. That’s too much inventory for us to carry, my boss says.”

Alma edged up to the counter. “Have you any ideas where Jake bought these Mag wheels?”

Monty filed his fingernails across the smooth countertop. “My guess says he ordered them from a car parts catalog.”

Alma swabbed a tissue at her uncooperative nose. “Do these catalogs deliver the parts directly to your house?”

“That’s how they turn a profit,” replied Monty. “Why do you ask?”

“Clarence Fishback and he had a quarrel over the Mag wheels,” replied Alma.

“Some quarrel. Jake takes a bullet to the ticker,” said Monty.

An eyebrow arched, Sammi Jo leaned in, and Monty’s eyes stayed glued to her. “Did you pick up any rumors on his murder?”

“Who me? No-no.”

“Monty hon, my eyes are above my nose, not below my neck,” she chided him.

“So much better. Let’s try again. What have you heard for real on his murder?”

“The same as everybody else,” replied Monty, meeting her eyes.

“When did Clarence last stop by here?” she asked.

“He no longer does,” replied Monty. “My boss and he jawed, and my boss banned him.”

“What instigated it?”

“Clarence was outside the door handing out campaign pamphlets, and my boss took exception to it. He shouldn’t feel alone. My boss also gave Vernon Spitzer the hook.”

Sammi Jo smiled. “What did Vernon do?”

“The same as Clarence except Vernon was pushing religious tracts,” replied Monty.

“Were the religion tracts for his church?” asked Alma.

Monty drifting down the counter shrugged. “You got me. I believe he was out of sorts over the abortion doctors.”

“He should stick to running the pharmacy,” said Sammi Jo.

“Thank you for your time and help,” Alma told Monty fiddling with the cash register.

Halfway to the exit behind Alma and Isabel, Sammi Jo heard Monty say, “You guys hurry back.” She glanced over her shoulder and smiled at him. Outside, she ducked into the sedan’s rear seat, and Quiet Anchorage became their destination. They passed a full lot at the clinic—the sign-carrying protestors had left—and made the turn off the highway to Main Street. Sammi Jo said she better go home and tackle doing some laundry from her Mount Rushmore of dirty clothes.

Alma nodded, aware of how many generations of singles had used the quaint apartment rentals over the drugstore. In fact, she’d moved off the farm to live in one before finding Husband Number One. At the corner of Main and Franklin, they spotted the trio on the wood bench basking in the sun. Ossie was the only one alert enough to wave.

“Why do they put me in mind of three iguanas?” asked Isabel.

“Iguanas without body heat use the sun to warm their blood,” replied Alma.

“Did you get that trivia from a crossword puzzle?” asked Isabel.

Alma just nodded.

Disappointment soured Sammi Jo’s face. “I hate to admit it, but today we got skunked.”

“Tomorrow is a new start,” said Alma, trying to be philosophical.

The sedan occupied one of the empty parking slots in front of the drugstore. A loud engine sounded. Their turned heads saw a maroon car with a white vinyl roof snake out of the alleyway from behind the drugstore and accelerate heading the opposite way.

“Where is Vernon off like a streak?” asked Isabel.

“He tears off like that all the time,” replied Sammi Jo.

“What he needs is a wife and family to settle down,” said Isabel.

“He’s too busy with being Vernon,” said Sammi Jo.

“I don’t know about you, but I’m set to faint from hunger,” said Alma.

“We’ve put in a full day’s work,” said Isabel. “Let’s go to dinner, my treat. Is Eddy’s Deli acceptable?”

“You don’t have to twist my arm,” replied Sammi Jo. “Chowing down at the deli always trumps doing laundry at Clean Vito’s.”

“My allergy meds should be ready,” said Alma, sniffing.

Inside the drugstore a hatchet-faced blonde in a crisp blue smock—Vernon’s new part-time assistant, she proudly said—waited on Alma. She took her allergy pills with a Dixie cup of water drawn at the soda fountains.

The sedan ferried them to Eddy’s Deli where Deputy Clarence Fishback’s cruiser parked at a diagonal stance took up two slots. A wise guy had etched in the trunk’s coat of dust, “Wash Me!” However Clarence’s spare time had been curtailed from scrubbing his cruiser. They watched him through the deli windows rotating from booth to booth, shaking hands and chatting it up with the locals who for the most part didn’t reciprocate his attention.

“Clarence is a regular politicking machine,” said Sammi Jo, the first one out of the sedan.

“Are you okay with eating here?” asked Isabel.

“Let’s get a pizza in Warrenton,” said Alma.

“No, we picked Eddy’s, and Clarence isn’t running us off,” said Sammi Jo.

Isabel the first one inside the deli said, “Grab the booth closest to the door.”

“Sit wherever it suits your fancy,” said Sammi Jo.

Once again the plunging temperatures set teeth chattering and turned lips blue. Isabel tugged Alma’s sleeve, and they hung back while Sammi Jo stalked up the aisle between the booths. With his back to her, Clarence leaned into a booth to reach for a shirking lady’s hand.

Isabel whispered to Alma. “This was a terrible idea I had.”

“Too late to stop Sammi Jo,” said Alma. “She’s in rare form, fangs bared to mangle Clarence.”

“At least we can lend her any moral support,” replied Isabel. Still on their feet, they poised near the door, their eyes wary.

Hearing footsteps behind him, he turned and lowered his militant eyes to skewer Sammi Jo.

“Gee, all, look at what the pole cat coughed up,” he said as a snarl. “If you’re here for us to get back together, sorry, baby cakes, no can do. We’re history.”

The orange-haired deputy’s taunt seemed to lash at her. Her eyes moistened, and her sandy face crumbled into jagged pieces.

“Clarence, you hurt me,” she said, emotion thickening her voice.

“Well, boo-hoo-hoo. What, you’ve never broken up with a man before me? If you want pity, go look in the dictionary.”

“You’ve twisted around why I called it quits. But people know what you are.” Her glance swept across the attentive diners. The nearest lady nodded in agreement. “You’re just a cheat as well as a liar.”

“Hey, careful how liberally you fling around those slurs.” He wagged his finger at her. “You’d better respect this uniform.”

Knowing a thing or two about how to counter smart alecks, Alma spoke up. “It looks wrinkled. Who’s your dry cleaner? Next time I’ll know who not to use.”

A run of amused titters circulated through the seated diners. The deputy’s sight shifted over Sammi Jo’s shoulder. “Alma, is this conversation any of your affair?”

“Don’t take that contrary tone with me,” said Alma with heat.

A barrel-chested man in a polo shirt and bleached denim cutoffs set down his glass of iced tea, wiped his mouth, and ranged up, towering a half-dozen inches over Clarence. His eyebrows veed in a no-nonsense attitude. “Deputy, you’re done speechmaking. So, hit the road.”

“Eddy, don’t stick your nose where it doesn’t belong,” said Clarence.

Eddy grinned as if tickled by his arrogance. “It’s funny how you waltz into my deli and interrupt people’s dinner with your glad-handing, but if someone objects, you get all bent out of shape.”

“I’m sick and tired of this girl chasing me,” said Clarence.

Wounded too much, the distraught Sammi Jo backpedaled a half-step. Her shoulders jerked, each rising sob made rawer. Alma and Isabel moved in and helped to cover her embarrassed retreat to the door.

Clarence’s lips gnarled into a leer until Eddy spoke. “Deputy, you can feel proud for berating a young lady and making her cry. People, don’t we deserve such a stand up guy for our next sheriff?”

A round of murmurs approved of Eddy’s denouncement.

“He’s nothing but a bully,” said the nearest lady.

“See this badge, Eddy? You better respect it. That’s a fair warning.”

“Fair warning, rot. I own this deli, and the property it sits on. As of this moment, you’re a pariah here. You better scram before I call Sheriff Fox and report your campaigning for his job while on duty.”

“Hold on, Eddy,” said Clarence, also backpedaling. The diners’ grouped their derisive stares on him. “There’s no call for that. Sammi Jo and I had a misunderstanding, and this wasn’t like it looked.”

Eddy unhooked a cell phone from his belt. “You better make tracks, or I make that call.”

Clarence licked his lips into a feeble smile. Stony glares at him increased the tension. “A misunderstanding,” he repeated, angling for the door.

* * * *

Alma’s curt glance monitored the deli. “Eddy just tossed out Clarence.”

“Serves him right,” said Isabel.

Sammi Jo dabbed the crumpled tissue at her bleary eyes. “Wow, I didn’t see that Mack truck barreling down the pike. My emotions must bubble awfully close to the surface. I’ll go hide in my apartment until next Christmas.”

“It wasn’t so catastrophic,” said Isabel. “You exposed Deputy Fishback for what he is, and Eddy backed you up. Everybody was sympathetic. Clarence won’t endear a raft of voters, especially among the ladies. He’s astute enough to realize he just committed a possibly career-ending gaffe.”

“A man shooting another dead over a few shiny hubcaps is hard to swallow,” said Alma. “No jury will buy it, and I know juries are big on motive. They have to understand why a murderer acted as he did, or they won’t go thumbs up to convict him.”

Sammi Jo’s lips parted to speak when a red-faced Clarence banged open the door, barging out of the deli. He vaulted into his dusty cruiser, his engine grumbled to life, and lurched off to turn at the traffic light where the highway intersected Main. The ladies traded mild smirks.

“Do you speak from personal experience with juries?” Sammi Jo asked Alma.

Put on the spot, she described her episode serving in the jury box. “In the mid-nineties I moved to a garden apartment on Columbia Pike in Arlington and started a new job. My jury summons arrived in the mail, and the next week like any good citizen I reported to the courthouse.

“The jury pool I mixed with drew from all walks of life. When the deputy summoned us, I took the elevator to my assigned courtroom. The defendant, a young man fused with a vile temper, had allegedly shot his wife through the heart like what became of Jake. Man and wife bickered over who’d paid for a carton of non-filters, and he kept a handgun in the breadbox. He went postal, grabbed out the handgun, and cut loose on her. It was a brutal, stupid act, and the young man wept throughout the trial.”

“How did that shake out?” asked Sammi Jo.

“We found him guilty, and the judge sentenced him to life imprisonment.” Alma tweaked the ignition key to engage the sedan’s engine. “You know, I now doubt if Jake was killed in the heat of the moment. His murder wasn’t like this young man shooting his wife over the carton of non-filters.”

“It sounds as if Clarence no longer tops your suspects list,” said Sammi Jo.

“My leading hunch tells me he isn’t our guy,” said Alma as they left Eddy’s Deli.

Stopped at the drugstore, Sammi Jo bailed and waved to the sedan. She sidled through the drugstore and saw nobody behind the soda fountains or the pharmacy counter. After entering the cluttered back room, she took the inner stairway up to her hallway. Her key let her inside her apartment. “Home sweet home.” After she flumped down on the sofa and started to unwind, she saw her dirty laundry and then her top dresser drawer somebody had left hanging out.

“I’ve been robbed.” She hurried over to the dresser.

Panic set her pulse spiraling. She yanked out the top drawer and flipping it over poured out her socks on the bed. The business envelope taped to the drawer’s underside came off. In relief, she counted the nine ten-spots tucked inside the business envelope, the sum of her rainy day fund.

“Who broke into my place?” she said. “I’d call in the attempted robbery if I had a sheriff or deputy who I could trust.”

Chapter 29

Like every VFD, Quiet Anchorage’s sponsored bingo matches. Every week the word of mouth, the sole means of advertising, lured in the crowds. Not fond of noisy gatherings, the sisters never attended; however, this Wednesday night was different. They’d go work the bingo patrons and glean any information on Jake Robbins murder.

Alma, the extroverted one, got a bigger kick out of gussying up and heading out to schmooze. Isabel favored a more subtle style, focusing her attention on a single lady or no more than three in their group. Still, she was no slouch when it came to gossiping. Just as they finished dressing, their living room telephone woke up. Alma strolled in, picked up the receiver, and her usual cheery “hallo” befuddled her caller.

The gruff male voice hesitated for a beat and then asked, “Isn’t this the residence of Mrs. Isabel Trumbo of Quiet Anchorage?”

“Yes sir, it is,” replied Alma.

“Well, is she the party to whom I’m speaking?”

“No sir, this party is Mrs. Alma Trumbo, Isabel’s sister. Now, just who is this party?”

“I’m not obligated to tell you,” said the male voice, a trifle snide.

Alma laughed. “Then I don’t feel obligated to speak to you.”

“Wait! Don’t hang up on me. This is Mr. Oglethorpe from the Richmond office.”

“You’ve have me at a disadvantage, Mr. Oglethorpe. Richmond has many offices. Which one is yours?”

“My office licenses the private eyes in the Commonwealth of Virginia.” Mr. Oglethorpe assumed a paternal tone. “Mrs. Isabel Trumbo and I had a previous conversation on this subject, and we arrived at an understanding. Or so I thought when we hung up. The trouble is she hasn’t lived up to her end, and I’m quite upset.”

“Well, I can tell you our circumstances have changed, Mr. Oglethorpe. Our detective agency has undergone a growth spurt. Before there was only two but now we number five, and I hope my niece Megan will shortly put us at six.”

“Very interesting.” During the delay, Alma visualized Mr. Oglethorpe hunched over his desk jotting down notes about them on his laptop. “What role do you fill in this new agency, Alma?”

She smiled. “I’m glad you asked. You might call me the brains. As you already know, Isabel is in charge of our PR work. Our sister Louise, the out-of-towner, is our agent-at-large. Phyllis Garner is, well, she’s our soul. Sammi Jo is the youngest and lends us the moxie as needed. Finally, Megan will bring the grace and charm that an all-lady PI firm thrives on.”

“Brains...PR…agent-at-large…soul…moxie…grace and charm. Okay, I’ve got all that down.” With sly ease, he segued into his main question. “Can you please summarize your fee schedule, moving from the low- to high-end services?”

“That’s impossible.”

“I beg your pardon.”

“We charge no fees.”

“That’s hard for me to believe.”

“Whether you do or don’t believe me is irrelevant. It’s the gospel truth. Our detective work is done free of charge.”

“Nobody can work for free.”

“Sorry to bust your bubble. We do.”

Dispirited, Mr. Oglethorpe fretted. “Surely you’ve put a quarter into the parking meter or bought a stapler for the office.”

“Are you kidding me? Isabel won’t even spring for a cold soda.”

“Then why does my Quiet Anchorage source report otherwise?”

“I have no idea. Do you care to share what you’ve heard from your source? Or better yet, which of our local busybodies snitched on us? We’d like the opportunity to confront our accuser.”

“Sorry, but that’s proprietary information.”

“Is Deputy Fishback or Sheriff Fox your spy?”

“I can’t disclose my confidential informant’s identity.”

“Well Mr. Oglethorpe, we’re late for bingo. Let’s leave it this way. If and when we decide to turn professional, you’ll top our list when we break the news.”

“That’s reasonable. I hear you’re pretty darn good at what you do.”

“We’re too modest to brag. On the other hand, we don’t discourage such impressions.”

“Your agency seems to fill a niche market.”

“We serve anybody, but right now we’re late for bingo.”

“Then I’ll let you go.”

Alma after hanging up said, “Finally, thank goodness.”

Isabel emerged from the hallway. “Who was that?”

“Our good friend Mr. Oglethorpe is from the Richmond office. He’s gotten an update about us. I guess our stirring the pot has scared somebody here into calling him.”

Isabel’s hands pressed the worst wrinkles out of her paisley dress. “Who keeps such a keen eye on us?”

“I wonder, too, but Mr. Oglethorpe says his source is officially hush-hush.” Alma tugged at the cuffs to her off-blue pants suit.

“It might be more ambitious than the one informant. Maybe a spy network watches us and feeds a steady stream of information to him.”

“Then I hope they get their eyes full.” Alma took up the straps to her large, black purse.

They waded into the stultifying night. Honeysuckle smothering the paling fence hung its cloying fragrance on the heavy air. A train whistle, soulful and long, wafted up the dark streets and yards to their porch. Both Trumbo sisters reveled in the familiar small town noises and smells. However now murder had cast its ominous pall over the tranquil scene they called home.

“While Judge Redfern mulls over Megan’s fate, the best we can do is play bingo,” said Alma.

“We’ll also stoke a hotter fire under the pot. I bet somebody knowing something and just needs a nudge to speak up,” said Isabel.

“Should we also post a reward for any useful information?”

Isabel folding into her side of the sedan gave a dry laugh. “Those never work. How much money does it take to lure out an informant?”

“A few hundred dollars is my guess.” Alma driving, they prowled into the darker street.

“I’d put it more like a few thousand dollars. Picture how it’d be. We’d set up a tips hotline, and we’d have anarchy, swamped with the calls from the greedy types saying anything that might lead to claim the reward money.”

“Anarchy does not advantage us.”

“Our Richmond watchdog might also bark at us for offering such a reward.”

“Mr. Oglethorpe is all bark.”

“He seems like a fellow with a lot pressing on his mind.”

“As long as we never accept a dime, we’ll be in the clear with him.”

“Amateur sleuths aren’t his worry. You know this might be our dream for filling the time in our retirement. We come and go as we please. We’re not beholden to any regulations. We can work when we want and quit any old time we feel like it.”

“But right now we can’t back off from helping Megan.”

“That goes without saying.”

They rolled up on the fire station and saw the interior light filling its loft windows. The cars and trucks parked on the streetside had overflowed into the gravel lot at the Baptist Church, the site of Jake’s funeral. The standing knots of people murmured, and the rusty anchors stood guard between the opened bay doors to the garaged fire pumper trucks. A patriotic fireman had tied the yellow “Support the Troops” bows to the anchors. Alma and Isabel crept through the intersection, each surveying her side of the activities.

“My, bingo is now a marquee event,” said Isabel.

“We need to get out more and soak up the nightlife,” said Alma.

The sedan glided into a berth not far from the church portico. They put up the windows, piled out, and made their way to the fire station.

“Can you believe Sheriff Fox is out making speeches?” asked Alma.

“We’ll just give him the cold shoulder,” said Isabel.

Their strides lengthened. Sheriff Fox in his rolled up shirtsleeves gave the appearance of a diligent peace officer. He planted his legs wide apart to project an aura of confidence while chatting with a pair of elderly ladies. Expressive hand gestures and easy smiles leading to a resonant laugh demonstrated his rapport with his audience.

His eyes roaming to line up his next targets of opportunity spotted the two ladies in the shadows approaching. It was a cinch to flatter the senior citizens, wooing their sure votes. Detaching himself with the proper excuses, he ambled toward these new ladies. He’d locked up four more votes simple as you please, but then his confident smile dissolved.

“Why, Alma and Isabel, I’d no idea you were bingo fanciers,” he said with fake cheer.

“We can stand and talk to you, or we can go inside to claim a good seat,” said Alma. “If you’ll excuse us, we’ll be on our way.”

A perfunctory smile came with his shrug. “I’m just out greeting my constituency.”

Isabel smiled as they edged past him. “Good evening, Sheriff Fox. I better not share my frank opinion with you, or a lightning bolt might zap me within the sight of the Baptist Church.”

“You just better not get up your foolish hopes,” he said.

Isabel’s saccharine smile deflected his words. “Megan will have her day in court, and we’ll see what the upshot is. Meantime tomorrow morning, Helen Redfern will set bail, and we’ll bring Megan home where she belongs, and you took her away from.”

“Judge Redfern is keenly aware this is a homicide and will rule accordingly.”

“Why haven’t we seen a copy of Megan’s police report?” asked Alma.

“I’m going to turn over all of my stuff to Dwight.”

Alma and Isabel urged each other through the fire station’s doorway where they climbed the stairs. The festive gales of laugher poured down from the bingo loft as they ascended.

“Every time we cross swords with Sheriff Fox, my blood pressure spikes by twenty points,” said Alma.

“Your heart is too ornery to quit on you,” said Isabel. A furtive glance up and down the stairs assured her of their privacy. “Scoring a victory in this race sent him out hustling votes tonight. Have you ever seen him so psyched as we just saw him?”

“Are you ready to see if he planned Jake Robbins’s murder to feather his political nest?”

“Yes, we should put our top cop under the microscope.”

“Do you think like me now that Clarence had nothing to do with killing Jake?”

Isabel gazed up the stairwell to the door they wanted to use. “I wouldn’t rule out Clarence just yet, and the idea of Sheriff Fox as behind Jake’s murder isn’t so bizarre. Worse horrors have rocked small towns. Sheriff Fox knows how to transfer prints and stage a crime scene. Why he hasn’t done anything to oppose our playing private detectives except to give us his blowhard warnings?”

“Because we haven’t poked into his affairs?”

“Bingo.”

“Speaking of which, I can smell popcorn, pretzels, and frankfurters. We must be at the right gala.”

They entered the bingo loft, an expansive, low-ceilinged room also used for banquets put on by the Lions, Kiwanis, and Jaycees. Fluorescent lamps donated by the refurbished town bank beamed down on the cafeteria tables arranged end-to-end in long rows. Alma abhorred the loft’s kitschy décor: the baize curtains were Zulu blue, the tablecloths tangerine orange, and the walls knotty cedar panels. The new faces mingling with the townspeople had to be the transplanted McMansionites living on the fringes of Quiet Anchorage.

“Do we team up or do we work alone?” asked Alma.

“Tonight let’s work as a pair. If anything hot falls into our laps, we can make a quick exit and go chase it down.”

“Are Rosie and Lotus our first targets?”

Isabel deliberated while exchanging distant smiles and nods with them camped out at the coffee urn. “No, we’ve already struck out with them, so we should try bending some different ears.”

“To recap, first we puff up people and that’s the bait. Then we listen to them brag, and that’s the hook. Next, we spring our Jake questions on them and reel them in.”

“Yes, I’ve read the same police procedurals that you have.”

The overhead fluorescent lamps flickered, the bingo start signal. The crowd’s drone fell off as the players visiting along the aisles, including Main Street’s three benchwarmers, dispersed. The superstitious ran to claim their lucky chairs at the tables while the other bingo regulars grew territorial. When Alma and Isabel went to sit, two teenage girls in lipstick red halter-tops snatched away the chairs as being reserved for their friends.

“Good grief, do we crawl out a window and play on the roof?” asked Alma.

“With no seats left, keep it in mind,” replied Isabel.

The ear-piercing din of the fire whistle from below saved them. The young men and ladies leapt up from the tables, knocking over the chairs in their stampede for the exits. Alma towed Isabel behind the coffee urn to avoid getting trampled in the rush. The volunteer firefighters clambered down the stairwell and once on the ground floor pelted into the bays. Donning their coats and hats, they hitched aboard their perches on the fire pumper trucks.

The thunder to the diesel engines cranking below echoed through the loft’s joists and walls. Every object near Alma and Isabel—the windowpanes, tables, chairs, and even dried lima beans substituted for bingo chips—vibrated in place. Then the fire pumper trucks rumbled, charging out of their bays, and the multiple sirens wailed out into the night.

“It sure makes the heart pound and the blood race,” said Isabel.

Alma located their ideal spot to sit for bingo. “Phyllis can update us on the state of Megan’s apartment.”

Isabel gave a chuckle. “It’s sparkling clean, I hope.”

Phyllis, her ensemble for the night sequined purple, smiled up at the sisters. “You picked up my gamma ray signals, I see.”

“Your gamma rays are emitting crisp and clear signals,” said Isabel, her face kept deadpan.

“Willie told me gamma rays communication was developed at Area 51,” said Phyllis.

“He should be well-versed in that esoteric stuff,” said Alma.

“Any progress to report on Megan’s apartment?” asked Isabel.

“You can both take a chill pill. Her apartment looks immaculate and pristine.” Phyllis patted the two seat bottoms flanking her. “Park it ladies since bingo is set to commence. Beware: the competition is cutthroat. But stick with me, and I’ll show you how to mop up in here.”

“We sure came to win,” said Alma.

“I can also guarantee Megan will soon see light at the end of her tunnel,” said Phyllis.

Wiggling his pink almost Mr. Spock ears, Fats Browning seated at a table on the raised stage turned the brass wire cage rattling the numbers balls inside it. The first numbers ball ricocheted out the side slot. He bellowed out from reading the number.

“B-32, ladies and gents. Welcome all and may Lady Luck shine on you. B-32 kicks off tonight’s games.”

“Quick, help me play these cards,” said Phyllis. “I overheard on the police scanner that just now is a milking parlor fire in Lakota, and so the firefighters won’t be back for a couple of hours.”

“I-12,” said Fats Browning from the head table. “Ladies and gents, I-12. Somebody will win early, and it might well be you.”

Alma and Isabel took the empty chairs on either side of Phyllis. Before giving more news, she placed her next dried lima beans to mark several bingo cards. “I ran my Hoover over every square inch of Megan’s carpet, waxed her kitchen floor to a mirror shine, and even polished up her silverware.”

“N-8,” said Fats Browning.

“You’re a sweetheart. Has anybody else been by Megan’s?” asked Isabel.

Fats Browning making a croaky sound cleared his throat, then announced, “O-17. I repeat, O-17.”

“Not so much.” This time Phyllis centered her dried lima beans on four card spaces. Alma and Isabel had yet to play their first dried lima bean chip. Leaning to each side, Phyllis scanned their cards to play the right numbers. “Stay alert and keep up with Fats. Tonight’s grand prize is a brand new lady’s and man’s wristwatch donated by Vernon from the drugstore.”

“That’s very generous. Maybe I’ve been wrong about him,” said Alma.

“When is Megan coming home?” asked Phyllis.

“We’re keeping our fingers crossed for tomorrow morning,” replied Isabel.

“Hey, if I win the lady’s wristwatch, I’ll give it to you for her,” said Phyllis.

“That’s sweet. I’m sure she’ll be most appreciative,” said Isabel.

Fats Browning boomed like a radio announcer. “G-2. That’s G-2, people.”

Phyllis squealed, stirring her sparkly, purple arms above her. “Bingo! Fats, I said bingo.”

Fats cocked a cynical eye at their table. “Hold the phone, we may have a winner. March your card on up here, Phyllis dear. We’ll just check out your claim.”

As she gained her feet, Alma nudged her in the side. “You’d better watch Fats. His eyesight has a slippery way of going out of focus.”

A nod indicated Phyllis was wise to his faulty vision. Envious eyes followed her toting the winning card to the head table. Then Fats grunted with each dried lima bean he removed and verified that he’d called out all of the numbers. With little relish, he awarded her the lady’s wristwatch, and she accepted it with dignity. Halfway back to her seat, however, she barked out a gleeful yelp and gave a fist pump. The bingo crowd chuckled and clapped for her. After taking a sassy bow, she flumped down in her chair and set her prize on the tabletop.

“Do you think Megan will enjoy it?” asked Phyllis.

“I’m sure she’ll love it.” Isabel picked up the lady’s gold-band wristwatch in its plastic display case. “This is a handsome timepiece, and she needs something to pep her up.”

Chapter 30

Isabel saw through a cracked eyelid that her Venetian blind was down. Thursday morning’s pinkish sunlight rubbed at the slats and edges as a vague worry flickered in her mind. She next felt a jolt of fear when she recognized its origin. Their niece Megan was still a jailbird a few streets away from their house. She pounced on the cell phone.

Alma answered in mid-chirp with her usual eloquent “hallo.”

“We’d better shake a leg to get Megan freed this morning.”

“Good morning to you, too, but I’ve already shaken a leg. In fact, I’m sitting at the kitchen table sipping my second cup of coffee. My day’s crossword puzzle is almost finished, but I’m stuck on a four-letter word beginning with the letter ‘k’ for a New Zealand bird.”

“Try inserting kiwi, k-i-w-i. You didn’t think to roust me?”

“K-i-w-i is a nifty fit, thank you. Yes, I looked in on you a little earlier, but I couldn’t bring myself to wake you.”

“Today we’ll be sure to look closer at Sheriff Fox.”

“Having to investigate our sheriff feels weird.”

“Does your weird feeling prevent you from doing it?”

“Not in the least.”

“Good. Have you called Sammi Jo?”

“I rang but she doesn’t answer her cell phone, so I left her a recorded message.”

“Dwight?”

“It’s the same deal with him.”

Within the hour, both ladies, their sunglasses on, rode in the sedan, and it was Isabel’s idea they first stop at Megan’s apartment building. Cars packed its lot with the vans, motorboats, and RVs. The metallic banging was a garbage truck emptying the overflowing dumpsters. The sisters spotted no pesky deputy cruisers, so they pushed on, hoping to catch Sammi Jo at her apartment.

Isabel said she needed baby powder to soothe her heat rash, a new ailment that she attributed to her sudden exposures to the iceberg air conditioning and then stifling tropical heat outdoors. Alma’s screeching brakes frightened off a half-dozen fantail pigeons scavenging for grimy food scraps by the newspaper vending box.

“I hope Vernon keeps early hours,” said Isabel.

“The lights are ablaze inside,” said Alma.

The ladies entering the medicinal smells removed their sunglasses, and the copper cowbell on the drugstore door clanged. Alma peering down at the doorjamb noticed the fittings and hardware to a new burglar alarm. She felt the overhead fans swirl a draft of musty air and saw the white-smocked Vernon waving a mop over the green linoleum tiles under the counter stools. He made an annoyed expression as Isabel branched off at a likely aisle to find her baby powder. Never bashful, Alma headed over to him where a comic book sat out on the countertop by the soda fountains.

“Top of the morning, Alma,” he said.

“Hallo, Vernon. How is business?”

Mopping, he talked to the floor tiles. “Steady, I’d say.”

“I see that you’re installing a new burglar alarm.”

“It’s been in the works, but Jake’s tragedy shows how Quiet Anchorage is not quite the safe haven as its name implies. I’ve got little confidence that our sheriff can protect us from a murderer.”

“We might look into having one installed at the house. You’ll have to give me your salesperson’s name and phone number.”

“Gladly, Alma, but when I’m not so busy like I am right now.”

“We’re on our way to court. Megan is posting bail today.”

He ceased mopping. “That’s swell. I don’t like Sheriff Fox, and he better not count on my vote in November.”

“Who do you see as Jake’s possible murderer?”

“Did I also say Sheriff Fox is absolutely ruthless to win his reelection?”

“I see. So he’d go to any extent to assure a victory.”

“I’d say you’re right on the beam.”

“Hey, I hear taking the flights today is a real hassle. Do you like to use Dulles or BWI airport for your travel out of town?”

“Dulles airport,” he replied as he resumed mopping. “I always fly out of Dulles. Now, can I assist you with something specific?”

“No, Isabel knows what she wants.” Alma set her large, black purse on the countertop, taking closer look at the comic book. Dragon-monsters assailing ladies clad in skimpy togas didn’t look very comedic to her. “We might fly up to Vermont or New Hampshire to see the October foliage. Despite all the airport security, do you like flying okay?”

“Okay enough. But then I’m your pharmacist, not your travel agent. May I suggest you see one about your concerns on using the airlines?” He swished the mop over the floor tiles under the final counter stool.

“I’m just shooting the breeze, Vernon.”

His mopping halted as he checked his wristwatch. “I’m rushing to open in three minutes, so do you mind if I get on with my preparations?”

By now Isabel had selected her baby powder and joined them. “Vernon, ring me up, and we’ll be out of your hair.”

“Is Sammi Jo in her apartment?” asked Alma as they walked to the cash register.

“How should I know?” he asked. “Why don’t you go upstairs and knock on her door?”

The corner to Alma’s mouth gave an irate tic. “Those were nice wristwatches you donated for a bingo prize.”

He propped his elbows on the Bible by the cash register. “What bingo prize are you talking about?”

“You gave the two wristwatches to Fats Browning and don’t remember doing it?” said Isabel.

“My new clerk, the one who you suggested that I hire, must’ve given Fats the wristwatches I had under the counter by mistake.” Vernon worked the cash register. “I’ll just deduct the charitable contribution so it’s no biggie.”

“Megan will come home with us today,” said Isabel, paying for her baby powder.

“So Alma told me.” He smiled under the trim mustache. “Good for you and her.”

“You make it a nice day, Vernon,” said Isabel.

Alma first out the drugstore door and down the steps articulated their same thought. “Vernon is an odd bird, isn’t he? I saw his comic book on the countertop.”

Isabel laughed. “Apparently the humor didn’t rub off on him. He was a big grouch this morning.”

“I don’t wonder since it wasn’t a funny comic book. He says Sheriff Fox could well be responsible for Jake’s murder.”

“Can Vernon make his assertion stand up against Sheriff Fox?”

“No better than we can.”

“That’s a pity but we’ll stay on Sheriff Fox until we know.”

The ladies filed down the alleyway to the drugstore’s rear where a flight of exterior steps led them up to the apartments. They went inside the hallway and rapped on Sammi Jo’s apartment door. No response sent them back down to the sedan, and they left for Sheriff Fox’s house.

Their sedan glided through Quiet Anchorage’s serene morning streets, and Isabel’s forehead leaned against the window glass. She gazed out at the passing revue, and she liked what she observed. Crêpe myrtles, their blossoms maroon and white, in the tidy yards nodded on the cat’s-paw breezes. The most reassuring aspect was no “For Sale” signs staked on any lawns. If Quiet Anchorage was a place that time had forgotten, she approved of the slight. Their small town didn’t wither away on the vine, threatening to die or get swallowed whole by the suburban sprawl.

Young people such as Sammi Jo and Megan didn’t move away to seek better paying jobs and raise their families. At the same time, seniors stayed to live out their days. This social fabric stitched from the young and old alike gave Quiet Anchorage its resilience, stability—and the greatest of all—hope. Only Jake Robbins’s recent murder had marred the peaceful atmosphere, she lamented as they rumbled over the railroad tracks. She reached Dwight on her cell phone.

“Sheriff Fox told us that he was giving you Megan’s police report.”

“I’ve reviewed it and nothing new comes to light,” said Dwight.

“Does it include his sneaky arrest?”

“Of course not. You saved me a call. Keep in mind this morning we return to court at ten o’clock. Hopefully she can post bail.”

“Nothing would give us any greater pleasure,” said Isabel before their hang up.

On their first flyby of Sheriff Fox’s house, Isabel told Alma. “His Plymouth isn’t parked out for sale.”

“If he found the space to move it into the garage, did the file cabinets return to the station house?” asked Alma.

Isabel nodded under her floppy straw hat. “Park us in his driveway, and we’ll have the answer.”

Not adept at executing U-turns, Alma tooled around the block, equally as effective. They wheeled under the copse of sycamore trees and at Sheriff Fox’s driveway entrance, Alma signaled the blinker to turn into it.

They parked to wait in the denser shade and through the rolled down windows took in the katydids’ raspy arias song in the treetops. A male cardinal, scarlet and vibrant, alit on a Pyracantha sticker bush to chortle at them. A freight whistle from somewhere down the railroad line whelped out louder. The duller, dun-colored female cardinal flitted up to join her mate. Still the patient ladies sat and kept watch on Sheriff Fox’s house and yard for any signs of activity.

“From all appearances, Sheriff Fox has left for work,” said Isabel.

Alma nodded.

Rapping knuckles clanged on the sedan’s metal roof, and their whiplash glances up saw the grinning Sammi Jo.

“Sorry to startle you but here I am,” she said.

“How did you know where to find us?” asked Alma.

“I ordered breakfast at Eddy’s Deli, and then Vernon at the drugstore said you’d come by. The process of elimination sent me here.”

“Breakfast out? Don’t you watch your expenses?” asked Alma.

“Why do I have to pinch my pennies? We’re pros now, right?” Sammi Jo quit grinning with a sharper look at them. “Didn’t we decide I’d start to draw a paycheck?”

Alma groaned. “Isabel, you better talk to Mr. Oglethorpe. We can no longer afford our amateur sleuth status, and Sammi Jo is right in that she has to eat. We better turn a profit soon, too, because our pensions and Social Security will keep us afloat for only so long.”

“Megan has our first priority,” said Isabel.

“Her court time is this morning, and we can’t get into Sheriff Fox’s garage to check on the file cabinets,” said Alma.

“Leave that problem to me.” Sammi Jo walked to the garage, stooped in the knees, and wrested up the unlocked door with the flicks of her wrists. Alma and Isabel scooted off their seats and followed Sammi Jo into the garage bay. The dim space reeked of decayed burlap, bug spray, and gasoline.

“The last time in here, I saw the file cabinets right there,” said Sammi Jo, pointing to the vacant spot.

The file cabinets first missing from Jake Robbins’s office were missing yet again from Sheriff Fox’s garage.

Isabel stopped just short of the bare spot. “By going to all this trouble, Sheriff Fox has to be hiding something important from us.”

“The gangster Plymouth is also missing,” said Alma.

“Oh, this morning I saw Bexley driving it around,” said Sammi Jo. “The word I get is that Sheriff Fox gave it to him.”

“Sheriff Fox appeased Bexley after pulling that empty file cabinet stunt on him,” said Alma.

“How was last night’s bingo?” asked Sammi Jo.

“Your Aunt Phyllis won the first game, and Fats gave her a lovely lady’s wristwatch for a prize. She’s decided to give it to Megan,” said Alma.

“Phyllis is a sweet lady, and we adore her,” said Isabel.

“The wristwatch will make a cool gift for Megan,” said Sammi Jo.

“Sheriff Fox also showed up to hustle a few votes,” said Isabel in a disgusted voice.

“S-h-h-h, listen, you all,” said Sammi Jo.

A car engine’s drone on the street sent them fleeing out of the garage, its bay door left up. Alma bumbled on her bulky foot, and Sammi Jo helped her gimp to the sedan while Isabel sank down into its upholstery. Once seated, Alma turned the key in its ignition, and the sedan moved in a circle as if they’d intended to use Sheriff Fox’s driveway as a turnaround space.

After maneuvering to the sunny street, they saw the car had pulled to the curb. A six-footer, slender Asian man emerged from the driver seat. The lemons and limes topped the brown paper bag he carried in one arm. As Alma sped up to go by him, the man ogled them, and Sammi Jo gave a congenial salute, but he didn’t return a wave, just stared.

“That was a close call,” said Sammi Jo.

“We did fine,” said Isabel.

As the sedan bumped over the railroad crossing for the straight shot down Main Street, Alma had a thought. “Could Clarence beat Sheriff Fox in the political race?”

“I wouldn’t bet more than two nickels on it,” said Sammi Jo. “People don’t cozy up to Clarence, and well-liked is what wins you elected office.”

“Look, our street corner oracle is open for consultation,” said Isabel.

“Hearing you say that dumbfounds me,” said Alma.

“Why? I’m not totally down on the gentlemen,” said Isabel.

“Particularly when you hope to nick them for a favor,” said Alma.

Isabel’s hands made a shooing motion. “Just stop without your commentary.”

Alma parked in one of the many vacant slots, and they double-timed it across Main. However, only Ossie Conger and Willie Moccasin sat on opposite ends of the wood bench. The shade cast by Lago Azul Florist behind them hadn’t let in the day’s sunlight. Again, Isabel surprised Alma by speaking to ask the first question.

“Where is Blue Trent, fellows?”

Probing a tongue inside his cheek, Ossie nodded at Willie to respond. “Blue Trent says he isn’t feeling up to par.”

“He’s been playing hooky more often,” said Ossie. “We don’t know what all he does, but I’d put my dog tags on he’s been lazing around in bed.”

“What odds do you give Deputy Fishback to be our new sheriff?” asked Alma.

Ossie made a sarcastic growl. “He stands a better chance to fly with one of Willie’s little, pop-eyed aliens.”

“I heard Sheriff Fox might slip Clarence a few dollars under the table to drop out,” said Willie.

“Clarence is crooked enough to go for it,” said Sammi Jo.

A pressing thought prompted Alma. “Have you seen a truck hauling file cabinets go by this morning?”

“Yes ma’am, we saw Bexley driving a flatbed rumble by no more than an hour ago,” replied Willie.

“Were they green metal ones?” asked Sammi Jo.

“They were the file cabinets from Jake’s office,” replied Willie.

“Ladies, I’ve got a question for you. Are you trying to spring Megan from jail?” asked Ossie.

Sammi Jo snapped her eyes on him. “Of course we are. Do you have something to give us?”

“We heard where the stuff in Jake’s file cabinets went,” said Willie.

“How are you privy to that?” asked Isabel.

“Once told, Bexley can’t keep a secret at all,” replied Willie.

“Let us in on the secret,” said Sammi Jo.

Willie stabbed a gnarled finger. “Over in Clean Vito’s you’ll recall a broom closet is located by the soda machines. If an inquisitive soul poked inside there, they’d spot the reams of paper and folders dumped from Jake’s file cabinets.”

“Who put the stuff in there?” asked Sammi Jo.

“Bexley bragged how clever Sheriff Fox was to stash it there,” said Willie.

“Now he’ll return to Clean Vito’s to fetch the stuff,” said Ossie.

Sammi Jo consulted her wristwatch. “Not if we beat him to Clean Vito’s just opening now.”

“Hey all, look at who’s coming,” said Alma.

They pivoted around and saw Blue Trent’s coming toward them. His Bermuda shorts displayed his matchstick legs, and the dog tags at his neck jangled at each jerky step he took.

“Aw right, pipe down, you guys,” said Blue Trent. “I can lie in the fart sack and feel crummy, or I can haul my skinny butt down here so you are honored with my presence.”

Pleased to see his friend, Willie tapped the middle seat. “We kept your spot reserved, Blue Trent.”

Blue Trent assumed his throne and asked, “How much did I miss out on?”

“I’ll spin you up later,” said Willie.

“Nuts on later. I want to hear it all now.” Blue Trent sized up their lady visitors. “Can we get a little privacy here?”

Chapter 31

The ladies returned to the sedan and headed over to Clean Vito’s unfilled lot. Sammi Jo doubled her pace to keep up with the sisters entering the soapy smelling laundromat. A cross-breeze between the open doors on the opposite ends blew over them. No early birds had yet schlepped in with their baskets of dirty clothes.

Sammi Jo saw a pay phone, arcade video games, and soda machines as they tramped down the middle aisle. The bubble glass doors to the front-load dryers lined the walls. The rows of washing machines, their metal flaps pulled up, squatted front-to-back. Give it a more few hours, she thought, and the laundromat would bustle like at the zoo. She used the back of her wrist and swiped her sweaty brow.

“There’s the broom closet,” said Alma.

They bunched at its door. A cheap zinc padlock securing the door had Alma and Isabel looking to Sammi Jo.

Laughing, she said, “Okay, but I’ll need a bobby pin and some luck.”

“I haven’t used a bobby pin since I don’t know when. Will a bent paperclip suffice?” asked Isabel.

“Yes, I believe we can make do with that,” replied Sammi Jo.

Two deft jabs of the paperclip in the keyhole, and a couple of jiggles sprung the padlock. She turned her shoulder and gave the door a ram to open it, and she beheld the columns of manila folders, stapled papers, and automotive manuals stacked in the closet’s corner. She picked up a manual on Volvo repair bearing a name—THE PROPERTY OF JAKE ROBBINS—printed in bold red across its top edge.

“Pop the bubbly, gals,” she said.

Alma edging up to Sammi Jo eyed the manual she held and then the stacks. “We can’t sift through so much stuff in here.”

“Back your sedan to the doorway, and I’ll load the paper into your trunk,” said Sammi Jo.

Alma rattled the car keys from her purse.

“I’ll go stand guard at the front door,” said Isabel.

Sammi Jo tugged on a string switch inside the closet. A dolly, its handles wrapped with duct tape, lay under the tub sink. She wedged the dolly’s shiny-scuffed lip under a stack of paper. After tipping up the load, she rolled it out of the closet and laundromat to its rear door. Alma reversed the sedan into position and bundled out. Smiling at Sammi Jo, she grabbed an armful off the dolly and heaped into her opened trunk.

“Uh-oh, a visitor is rushing this way,” said Isabel from her sentry post. “Sheriff Fox’s face is radish red, and he’ll keel over from a heart attack.”

“I don’t know CPR,” said Sammi Jo.

Alma dropped the next bundle into the trunk and flung down its lid. She closed the rear door and moved into the laundromat with Isabel and Sammi Jo. She walked to the other corner, knelt by a large pasteboard box labeled on the outside as “Lost And Found”, and started sorting through the different items. The boot soles scraped up the concrete steps outside before the door opened on them.

“Good morning, ladies.” Sheriff Fox’s abrasive greeting boomed through the laundromat. “You’re searching for lost articles of clothing, huh?”

“Is that a problem?” said Sammi Jo.

“Did you come over to see us, Sheriff Fox?” asked Isabel, stepping up.

“That’s a fact. Old Man Conger from across the street told me where to find you.” The ladies noticed Sheriff Fox’s nervous eyes lingering on the closet door and the cheap padlock securing its hasp. “My neighbor phoned me to say he saw three ladies leaving my driveway earlier this morning. Granted Old Man Ting’s eyesight isn’t the keenest, but he believes that he knows what he saw.”

“If you’re making an accusation, spit it out, Sheriff,” said Sammi Jo. “Of course by your own admission, your eyewitness Mr. Ting is unreliable.”

“He isn’t that unreliable,” said Sheriff Fox. “I just put what I heard out there for your benefit, and I’ll also tack on that trespassing is a misdemeanor.”

“Sheriff Fox, don’t try and bully us,” said Alma.

He wagged his head, brooding over why every time he bumped into the Trumbo sisters he left in an exasperated frame of mind. They’d been cordial enough before the present troubles, but Jake Robbins had been murdered, and he as the town sheriff had arrested his prime suspect, their niece. Well, that was his sworn duty, and his toughness on crime went a long ways to assure his reelection in November. So that was that.

“Where can I find all of you today?” he asked them.

“You can reach us at Alma and Isabel’s house,” replied Sammi Jo.

“We’ll be playing Scrabble and drinking iced tea like the sensible ladies do in late August,” said Isabel.

“As well as hashing over Megan’s situation,” said Alma.

“No big surprise there.” Sheriff Fox removed his Smokey the Bear hat and swiped a palm over his hair damp from perspiration. “The actual reason I’m here is because of an interesting call I took from Mr. Oglethorpe who grants licenses to the professional PIs in our Commonwealth.”

“Why should we give two hoots in Hades?” asked Alma.

“He laid out for me why he’s kept tabs on you,” said Sheriff Fox.

“We’ve spoken to Mr. Oglethorpe on several occasions,” said Isabel. “He informed us no PI license is necessary since we’re amateur sleuths, not professionals.”

Sheriff Fox replaced his hat and knitted his heavy eyebrows. “Yeah, so were the Hardy boys and Nancy Drew. But they were kids’ fiction, and that’s a far cry from what you’re trying to do. If I catch you interfering in my homicide investigation or accepting one red cent for your hokey detective services, I’ll lower the boom on you.”

“You falsely arrested Megan, and we have every right to prove her innocence,” said Isabel with quiet fortitude.

“She can tell it all to the judge and jury during her day in court. Good morning, ladies.”

Vain of his military precision, Sheriff Fox enacted an about-face and paraded out to his cruiser. It growled to run and then spewed up gravel on his dash out to Main Street and hard turn making for the highway. The dust devils kicked up in the lot by the sheriff’s tires earned Sammi Jo’s contemptuous glare out the door.

A growing frown reflected Alma’s new concern. “Who in town apprises Mr. Oglethorpe of each time we sneeze?”

“Somebody is getting itchy,” said Sammi Jo.

“Somebody has something like a gory murder to cover up.” Isabel dabbed a tissue to mop the perspiration off her forehead. “We can sift through our treasure taken from here at home.”

Chapter 32

Sammi Jo jabbed in her paperclip to reopen the cheap padlock. They piled the rest of the paper, manuals, and folders on the dolly. Sammi Jo hoisted up the load and wheeled the dolly to the rear door. The drop to the concrete pad jolted but didn’t spill the freight, and they filled the sedan’s trunk. Breathless, Sammi Jo returned the dolly to the broom closet, and they left Clean Vito’s, the sedan’s weighed down rear end scraping its bottom on the turn. The three gentlemen lolling in front of Lago Azul Florist saluted the three ladies going by them.

“It would hardly amaze me to learn our grouchy sheriff has bribed Clarence to stay off the ballot,” said Sammi Jo.

“Such cynicism, even if it is probably true,” said Isabel.

“Sheriff Fox might stay off the ballot once we’ve toasted him,” said Alma.

Lugging their freight from the sedan’s trunk into the house unseen proved tricky. The two kids playing next door in their tree fort waved their bows-and-arrows like small savages, and Alma left the driveway, wheeled over the far side of the lawn, and cut at the corner. Then she backed up the sedan’s rear to nuzzle up as close as possible to the patio steps.

The ladies hurried out and transferred the old stuff from Jake’s file cabinets in the sedan’s trunk to their kitchen. They worked in the manner of a bucket brigade. Isabel left the piles on the table, drainboard, and countertops. Sammi Jo toted in the last armful before Alma locked the kitchen door and lowered the window blinds. They caught their breaths while sitting in the kitchen chairs, sipping iced tea, and taking stock of the daunting task awaiting them. Alma retrieved an automotive manual from the countertop and riffled through its crinkly pages.

“What sort of clues should we look for?”

“Just skim through the lot and put aside what strikes you as pertinent for follow up study,” said Isabel.

“Pertinent as in what way?” asked Alma.

“Jot down the phone numbers and names for leads,” said Sammi Jo.

“Also save out any unpaid bills and personal correspondence,” said Isabel.

The three of them went at it, and Sammi Jo laughed after a few minutes of rustling through the paper. “This is more fun than an Easter egg hunt.”

After they’d slogged on for the better part of the hour poking through the manila folders and auto manuals, she came to regret her words. Their flush of initial enthusiasm wore off and left their doleful gazes sizing up the remaining paper stacks on the countertops. They took five for an iced tea break, and gathered at the kitchen table with tired faces. Alma refilled her glass, pouring from the sweaty pitcher. She moved aside the old Volvo repair manual that was marked in bold red letters as THE PROPERTY OF JAKE ROBBINS to prop her elbows on the tabletop.

“This is the type of stuff you’d expect to find in a company’s business records,” she said. “Nothing is special or useful for our purposes.”

“Why did Jake hang on to the old auto repair manuals?” asked Sammi Jo.

Isabel knew the answer. “Megan said he wanted to specialize in repairing older models. It was the market niche he sought to grow. Someday he wanted to restore the rusty clunkers he towed out of the woods around Quiet Anchorage like the antique cars seen at the auto shows.”

Sammi Jo retrieved the Volvo manual and riffled through its pages. “Jake liked old Volvos, it would seem.” A yellow sheet of paper fluttered from the manual’s pages to land on the tabletop. She unfolded the yellow page and read it before her voice crackled with excitement.

“According to this bill of sale, Clarence and Jake sold their race car to Slade Roberts with a Mechanicsville address.”

“The buyer living in Mechanicsville jibes with what Erskine told me at the gas station,” said Alma.

“We may leave for Mechanicsville shortly,” said Isabel. “Meantime how do we prove if the angry Clarence went to the auto shop and killed Jake?”

“This bill of sale doesn’t help us,” said Sammi Jo.

“Then we have to ferret out the right document that does prove it,” said Alma.

They went back to rummaging and after fifteen minutes into their futile quest, Isabel wagged her head with a painful cry. Straightening up in her chair, she rubbed at her stiff fingers. Manila folders lay strewn at her feet where Sammi Jo knelt on the kitchen floor.

Alma sat upright in her chair and rubbed her eyes under her bifocals. “I’ve been pondering something. Why did Vernon leave out the nice wristwatches for his new clerk to offer for the bingo prize?”

Improvising with a manila folder, Isabel fanned her perspiring forehead. “You’d think he’d train his new clerks better and keep a sharper eye on his expensive merchandise.”

Sammi Jo stood, her face knotting into a frown. “I don’t recall seeing a wristwatch display carousel set out on any of the aisles.”

“He sells alarm clocks,” said Isabel. “The wristwatches are probably sold next to them.”

“No, I’ve never seen wristwatches, men’s or ladies’, out for sale,” said Alma.

“Vernon wouldn’t carry the wristwatches as inventory and not try to sell them,” said Sammi Jo.

Alma dropped a manual on the countertop with a dramatic thud. “Then maybe he’s a sneak thief who steals his new wristwatches.”

“That’s silly. Pharmacists make gobs of money, so why does he need to be a thief?” asked Isabel.

“Why do robbers steal in the mysteries we read? Maybe he’s tapped out, or he does it for kicks.” Alma stared off for a moment and grabbed a memory. “Let me show you what I read.” She left the kitchen for her bedroom.

“Vernon with that rat-tail mustache has a villainous look,” said Sammi Jo.

“Looks don’t prove he steals from people,” said Isabel.

“But it sets you to wondering about him,” said Sammi Jo.

“Perhaps a little,” said Isabel.

Alma came rushing into the kitchen, shaking the newspaper from her bed table. She turned the pages to the “Around the Area Roundup” column. “I saw this piece on a rash of jewelry store burglaries in Fredericksburg. Guess who might be behind them?” She handed the newspaper to Isabel.

Finished with reading the column, she reacted. “Coincidence.”

“I don’t believe in coincidences,” said Alma.

“He’s sure spiteful enough to steal.” Sammi Jo related to the sisters how he’d refused to sell Jewel her birth control pills the previous morning.

“Odd, stingy, and mean-spirited don’t combine to make him into a thief much less a murderer,” said Isabel.

“He’s also always bolting off to someplace,” said Sammi Jo.

“He said he attends pharmacists’ conventions,” said Isabel.

“When I talked to him about his flying, he acted evasive and vague,” said Alma.

“Remember he leaves every weekend,” said Sammi Jo.

“He probably moonlights in other towns as a cat burglar,” said Alma. “He’s slim and athletic enough to break into jewelry stores and residences.”

“How does he tote the loot home?” asked Isabel.

“He rips off small valuables like rings, antique coins, and wristwatches, all easy to hide in his car,” replied Alma.

Sammi Jo nodded. “While waiting for the best time to fence his stolen goods, he warehouses them at the drugstore. I watched him one night stash the boxes taken from his car to his back room.”

“What precisely did you watch him do?” asked Isabel.

“His loud engine woke me up,” said Sammi Jo. “Angry, I peeked out my window, and he’d parked in the alleyway under the exterior lamp. I saw him carry inside the small boxes taken from his trunk. Drugstore supplies, I thought, and I didn’t give it another thought until just now.”

Alma leaned forward and held each lady’s eyes. “It’s a clever front. Sammi Jo is on the right track. He socks away the stolen goods in those packages he keeps in his back room.”

“He allegedly socks away,” said Isabel. “He treats me all right. The man keeps a Bible by his cash register. Let’s not waste our time on him.”

“If Jake discovered Vernon’s operation, Vernon sure had a ripe motive for murder,” said Alma. “Our working assumption says Jake knew his murderer.”

Sammi Jo’s glance at the pile of work invoices on the drainboard triggered an idea. “At the cemetery Vernon told us Jake fixed his brakes within the last couple of weeks.” She picked up the work invoices. “Did he run across something in Vernon’s car that he wasn’t supposed to see?” She shuffled through the work invoices. “Can we pin down the exact day Vernon really had Jake work on his brakes?”

“What did he run across that was so earth-shattering in Vernon’s car?” asked Isabel.

“A cigar box overflowing with emerald rings and posh wristwatches would’ve aroused my suspicions,” replied Alma.

Sammi Jo finished thumbing through the stack. “I can’t find any work invoice filled out for Vernon.”

“He’d destroy any such invoice. Vernon is our guilty culprit,” said Alma.

“I still say Clarence or Sheriff Fox is our top suspect,” said Isabel. “But to rule out Vernon and put both your minds at rest, I’ve got no choice but to go along with you. Then we’ll get back to our real investigative work. Can we agree to do that?”

“Absolutely,” said Sammi Jo before Isabel changed her mind or Alma contested the compromise. “We can go on in your car and park in the rear alleyway. Then I’ll slip up to my apartment hallway, boogie down the inside stairway, and let you inside the drugstore’s back room.”

Alma nodded, saying, “It’s always an edge to have somebody working on the inside for you.”

The living room phone jangled, and Isabel went in to take the call. The quavery male voice belonged to Dwight Holden.

“Where were you at ten o’clock? Why didn’t you attend Megan’s arraignment?”

A spasm of icy fear gripped Isabel’s chest, but she kept her voice even. “We’ve been so busy we let it slip our minds. Where’s Megan this instant?”

“Her outcome wasn’t favorable since Judge Redfern denied her bail. Megan returned to prison.”

Isabel’s despair left her tongue-tied.

“Isabel...are you still on the line with me?”

“Indeed, but I’m still collecting my wits,” replied Isabel. “Why in Heaven’s name did Helen Redfern rule against Megan’s bail? We’ve known Helen since she was a girl.”

“I can’t put words in Her Honor’s mouth, but I suspect the homicide charge swayed her to take the most conservative route.”

“Did you sit at the defense table like a toad in a mud puddle?”

“Hey, don’t blame me. I stood up, and I argued my eloquent best on Megan’s behalf.”

“But not eloquent enough, it would now appear. Okay, this development raises the ante,” said Isabel, her voice grim but determined.

“Direly, I’d say. Megan is a young lady floundering in a sea of trouble. Sheriff Fox was all smiles marching her out of the courtroom.”

“Oh goodness gracious.”

“On my way out, I saw Clarence Fishback making tracks. He’d stood at the back during her arraignment.”

“Don’t the deputies and sheriff typically attend arraignments?”

“But Clarence wearing a sport’s shirt attended out of uniform, so I placed a couple of calls. He’s turned in his job resignation and filed papers with the Election Board to run a full-time campaign for sheriff.”

“Now Clarence and Sheriff Fox can both claim the credit for solving Jake’s murder.”

“It’s a footrace to see who can make the biggest splash with the voters. Has it occurred to you that Jake’s murder was perpetrated for political gain?”

“Oh, we’ve had our eyes peeled on Sheriff Fox and Clarence for some time.”

“To take the next leap, could Judge Redfern be in league with either of them?”

“Let’s not take that leap just yet, Dwight. You sit tight until you hear from us. Meantime we’re off to do some more gumshoeing, only this time we have to score some concrete results.” Isabel hung up on Dwight’s sputtering words of protest and hurried back the kitchen to deliver the bad news.

“Megan must be appalled by our forgetting her,” said Alma.

“We’re all equally guilty,” said Sammi Jo.

“This changes the complexion of everything,” said Isabel.

“We’ll unmask Vernon and turn him into the sheriff’s department,” said Alma.

Isabel shook her head. “Clarence should be our target. He quit his deputy job and then showed up to laugh at Megan’s downfall in court this morning. Clarence is who killed Jake, not Vernon.”

“All Clarence is interested in doing is pinning on the sheriff’s badge,” said Alma. “Quitting his deputy’s job was a dumb move. I can’t believe he did it, but I doubt if he’s intelligent enough to engineer an elaborate murder plot.”

Her face livid and eyebrows arched, Isabel stamped her foot on the kitchen floor. “We can’t be looking at Clarence and Vernon simultaneously, not with Megan on her way to trial for murder.”

“Simmer down, sis,” said Alma. “Since we like to run things as a democracy, we’ll let Sammi Jo cast the deciding vote.” She looked at her. “Who do we target first, Clarence or Vernon, or even Sheriff Fox?”

Sammi Jo caught in the crossfire of their fierce stares hesitated a moment. “Your putting all this on me isn’t fair. What if I’m wrong? Well, I’m going with my gut. I say we first we hit Vernon, but hard, then we move on to Sheriff Fox and Clarence. Good enough?”

Her face as if carved from wax and never set any graver, Isabel nodded.

Chapter 33

Arriving at the Quiet Anchorage drugstore in the early afternoon, Sammi Jo’s plan easily put the three ladies inside the back room. She tugged on the two string switches and tugged down the torn shade to cover the door’s glass pane. Their eyes adjusted in the sixty-watt bulbs’ sketchy illumination. Alma took off her sunglasses and pawed through her purse. Pleased by her foresight, she removed a flashlight and flipped it on. The bright beam’s shaft proved the batteries were still strong.

Squinching her nose, Isabel peered about them at the cluttered space. “It feels musty in here.”

“Filthy, too.” Alma brushed off her sleeve. “I tote the wet wipes in my purse if you need to use one.”

“You tote the kitchen sink in your clunky purse,” said Isabel.

“You just never know when you might need the kitchen sink,” said Alma.

“Okay, ladies, let’s not lose our focus,” said Sammi Jo.

“Where does Vernon live?” asked Alma.

“He camps in the penthouse apartment at the end of the hallway upstairs,” replied Sammi Jo. “But I knocked on his door loud enough to wake the dead, and he’s not in, so we’re safe.”

“Should we go up and prowl through his penthouse apartment?” asked Alma.

“He wouldn’t keep any incriminating clues in there,” said Isabel.

“Why not?” asked Alma.

“Our odd bird wouldn’t doo-doo in his own nest,” replied Isabel.

The three ladies navigated their way through the obstacle course—a dilapidated big screen TV, a plastic nativity scene Vernon put out each year, and a grandfather clock minus its big hand—and stood in front of the small cardboard boxes stacked in tidy columns from the floor to head high. Sammi Jo directed the flashlight’s halo of light over the boxes as Alma stretched on tiptoes and took down the top box. She flipped it over and read from its oval label.

“Tompkins Baby Powder is extra absorbent, lavender scented, and made in Malaysia. Nothing is too unusual in all that.” She traced her fingernail over the edges to the box. “The original seal feels intact, I’m afraid.”

“Too obvious, the top box isn’t where a crook elects to hide his booty,” said Isabel. “Hold these boxes in place, and I’ll slide out a more likely one.”

Sammi Jo did as asked and then let go of the boxes to lower then and fill in the vacated space. Isabel aimed the flashlight beam on the box and smiled.

“Observe, ladies, how the original seal has been tampered with, so what is our valuable prize hidden inside?”

Alma’s patience ran a bit testy. “Well, what is it, sis?”

Isabel’s thrill just as fast deflated, and she pitched the box over her shoulder. “Drats, I only find those foam peanuts.”

Alma sized up the four columns of boxes. “Talk about your looking for a needle in a haystack.”

“Who stockpiles such a huge inventory at a town drugstore?” asked Sammi Jo.

“A thief with a lot of plunder to hide from prying eyes,” replied Alma.

“A better search strategy will get us out of here sooner,” said Isabel.

“Since Jake worked on Vernon’s car, maybe we should look inside it first,” said Sammi Jo.

“Our research would move faster,” said Alma.

“I’ll go along with the idea,” said Isabel.

Sammi Jo opened the door voiding to the alleyway. Vernon’s car parked under the exterior lamp was the maroon sedan with a white vinyl roof they’d seen speeding off down Main Street. Now the sedan sat in the afternoon’s nebulous shadows. Isabel, a handkerchief covering her fingers to prevent depositing any prints, yanked at the door latches, but found they didn’t budge.

“Locked,” she said.

Alma made a wry face. “Sammi Jo, do you have any Houdini trick up your sleeve?”

She nodded. “I keep some handy-dandy tools upstairs in my apartment.”

“Handy-dandy works swell for me,” said Alma.

Sammi Jo went back into the drugstore, sidled up to her apartment, and within two minutes reappeared. A claw hammer and a large screwdriver were her tools.

“How will those tools aid us?” asked Isabel.

Sammi Jo waved them away from the sedan. “Stand back and I’ll show you.”

“Before you go smashing out the window glass, try and jimmy the trunk lock,” said Alma.

Again, Sammi Jo did as she was asked and using the large screwdriver as a chisel she jammed the trunk lock. By her third hammer stroke, the trunk lid hoisted with a distinct pop. She reached inside the trunk and lifted out the carpet shield from the empty, cavernous space. A wing nut tightened the screw securing the spare tire in the circular inset.

Gritting her teeth, she broke the screw’s seal and undid the wing nut. After hefting out the spare tire, she pointed the flashlight beam down at the circular inset in the bottom and spotted a modest-looking cloth bag. With a stronger heart pulse, she snatched up the cloth bag.

Glancing at the drugstore door, Sammi Jo shook the cloth bag and something heavy inside it rattled. She emptied its contents on the white vinyl roof and out rolled a master lock pick, a hooligan bar, tin shears, and surgical tongs. Sammi Jo also poked her finger through a roll of electrician’s tape, a glasscutter, and two pocket screwdrivers.

Isabel recognized the bevy of items. “Burglar tools,” she said, her words bleak. “So, the little, greedy worm really did try and fit Megan for Jake’s murder.”

“Put the tools back where you found them,” said Alma.

Sammi Jo returned the burglar tools, spare tire, and screwed on the wing nut. Then she fitted the carpet shield back into place and spoke as she slammed down the trunk lid. “We better notify Sheriff Fox.”

“Hold on. What stolen merchandise has Vernon hoarded inside of his lair?” asked Isabel.

“Recovering all of his stolen merchandise will sew up our case good and tight,” said Alma.

“That’s how to finish this,” said Isabel. “Good and tight.”

“I’ll mosey up front and check for any sign of him,” said Sammi Jo.

They filed into the back room where she left by the pharmacy door to run a hasty recon. She soon returned to report that he had left a note taped to the drugstore door saying he’d ducked across the street to Jumpy’s grocery for a few minutes. This time not as careful on creating a ruckus, the three ladies ransacked the different boxes, searching their way down the columns.

Sammi Jo did the heavy lifting, extracting the boxes while Isabel and Alma tested the seals and labels. Nothing exciting—just more baby powder, hand lotion, and shampoo dispensers—shook out from the boxes. The chaotic heap where the discarded boxes landed grew larger, and their frustrations mounted.

At last, Isabel shouted out. “Look here, all.”

The other two pairs of eyes channeled on the object brandished in her trembling palm. The gold ring’s glitzy diamond spit out its fiery glints.

“Vernon must’ve knocked off Tiffany’s,” said Alma. “He has regal tastes in jewelry even if he’s stealing it.”

Sammi Jo snapped a glance at the door leading into the drugstore. “Hear that?”

“Somebody is coming,” said Isabel.

Chapter 34

The doorknob clattered, and they watched in horror as their nightmare materialized. The door gave way, and Vernon Spitzer in a beige dress jacket slinked through the threshold into the brighter radiance.

“Why, good afternoon, ladies,” he said.

The gloat growing on his face hardened his eyes and warped his lips. Taking Sammi Jo’s earlier advice, he’d shaved off the pencil-thin mustache that had masked a long scar. The ladies stared down at the .44 handgun—it was black with a cannon’s borehole—in his grip. He clutched the Bible in his other hand and went on speaking with a triumphant sneer.

“I thought I heard voices back here. Gullible me went off and didn’t set my own burglar alarm to snare a brood of lady snoops.”

“You mean like you snooped earlier in my apartment?” said Sammi Jo. “But we’re on to your racket.”

“What racket?” he asked. “I’ve got you dead to rights on trespassing. Sheriff Fox can sort it out, and I’ll press charges on any other laws you’ve violated.”

“Go ahead and call Sheriff Fox on Isabel’s cell phone,” said Alma. “We’ll gladly wait and let him sort it out.”

Vernon caught the diamond’s icy glimmers in Isabel’s palm. “Where did you find that ring?”

“From where you squirreled away your haul,” said Sammi Jo. “Vernon, you’re hanging up your burglar tools.”

“Shut up, you!” His livid face trembled, and a throbbing vein scribed his corded neck muscles. “Just shut up!”

“You enjoy one of the best paying jobs in town,” said Isabel. “What made you take up robbery?”

“I fence my swag to buy sophisticated arson supplies to stock my crusade.” He raised the Bible for them to observe.

“Is your refusal to sell birth control to Jewel part of your crusade?” asked Sammi Jo.

“I adhere to only God’s Law: ‘Speak for them as they cannot speak for themselves’ as is instructed by Proverbs.” He laughed. “You astound me, Sammi Jo. Here I’ve always written you off for a plodding, dumb farm girl.”

She also laughed with cynicism. “Only I clipped your wings so that makes me a little smarter than you.”

“Vernon, tell us more on your crusade,” said Isabel, stalling for time and crafting an escape plan.

“My crusade kicks off with the demolition of the abortion factory a.k.a. clinic in our little town,” he said. “By day, I’m a mild-mannered pharmacist, but by night I blow up what poisons our society.”

“Just because you say it’s poison doesn’t make it so,” said Sammi Jo.

“Hand me the gun, Vernon.” Isabel took a tentative half-step toward him.

Alma, petrified with fear, gaped at her sister’s foolish bravery.

Shadows hooding his scar face, he leered at them. “You’ll meet with a fatal accident, say, trapped in a tragic fire that ignited in the back of the drugstore. The fire trucks won’t shriek up in time to extinguish the four alarm blaze. Quiet Anchorage will host three more funerals, and I can press on with my crusade.”

“Did Jake also stumble upon your burglar tools?” asked Sammi Jo.

“Yes, he flew into a manic rage until I sedated him,” replied Vernon.

“You shot Jake and doctored the murder weapon with Megan’s prints,” said Sammi Jo.

Vernon leered harder. “Scotch tape is all it takes, and I carried this handgun’s mate in my glove compartment. Megan had left behind a pill bottle, and their well-known lovers’ quarrels provided all the motive I needed to frame her. Scrunched down behind the barber chair in the shop, I enjoyed watching her agony before I lit off for my car parked on the state road.”

Alma pointed to Vernon’s beige jacket sleeve with a black grease stain. “You wore that jacket to Jake’s shop and picked up that grease smudge like I ruined a good blouse.”

Glancing at his sleeve, he frowned in annoyance.

“Vernon, just hand over your pistol and end this madness,” said Isabel. “Now.”

Sammi Jo caught Alma’s cat-quick wink. She flicked her eyes down at her large, black purse before giving Vernon a subtle glance. His full attention was on Isabel daring to advance yet another half-step. Sammi Jo understood what she had to do. She maneuvered a bit more edgewise and flexed her shoulder muscles.

“Isabel, stand still,” said Vernon. “Or I’ll have to—”

Sammi Jo’s hand whipping out seized Alma’s purse, heavy as a kitchen sink, the forward swing gathering its momentum. The hurling bulky purse clobbered Vernon on the ear, smacking him like a horsehide baseball does to the fat part of a slugger’s bat. Stunned, he yelped out. Her wallop thumped him staggering to the floor.

The handgun and Bible tumbled from his grasp, and the spry Alma scooped up the handgun but left the Bible alone. Isabel dropped her shoulders and rushed out a breath of relief. Sammi Jo returned the purse to Alma and took control of the handgun.

“Vernon, this time you keep still,” said Sammi Jo.

Staying silent, the dazed Vernon on the floor pressed a hand to his head.

“For something ad-libbed, we executed that like pros,” said Sammi Jo.

“Nobody is more shocked than me it actually succeeded.” Alma gripped her purse by its now broken strap. “My heart pulse is a runaway freight train.”

“Yours and mine both, sis.” Isabel removed her cell phone from her purse. “Now I’ll call Sheriff Fox.”

“Unless he’s in cahoots with Vernon,” said Alma.

The pharmacist just dealt them a baleful glower.

“No, Vernon acted alone. The skinflint would never divvy up the profits from the stolen loot with any partner,” said Sammi Jo.

“But the sad truth is he probably could’ve recruited Sheriff Fox or Clarence if he’d approached them,” said Isabel.

“Don’t taunt me,” said Vernon.

“I’ve never been more serious in my life.” Isabel picked up her floppy straw hat from the dirty floor, brushed it off, and then decided to toss it away. “Our local law is just that corrupt,” she said.

Chapter 35

One week later, the five ladies—Isabel, Alma, Megan, Sammi Jo, and Phyllis—gathered for an iced tea klatch in the sister’s living room where they talked and laughed. The Quiet Anchorage newspaper on the ottoman was folded over to the feature article titled, “Trumbo Sisters Detective Agency Sleuths Again!” The rousing story was an entertaining read. Cathy Johnson had written that no PI case had been as dramatic since “Sam Spade had tracked down the bejeweled dingus in San Francisco’s fog-shrouded knolls.”

The local reaction had been swift, not all of it good. One prospective client contacted their house. The abrasive lady said she’d pay plenty for “certain photos” taken of her husband’s infidelities “to nail the cheater to the barn wall”. Isabel, once her throat had cleared, apologized for how all of the PIs’ cameras were in the shop for repairs. The rude lady hung up on Isabel who felt nothing but relief. A little while later her cell phone on the end table chirped again. Excusing herself from their guests, Isabel took her cell phone, retreated into the quieter kitchen, and accepted the call.

“Mrs. Trumbo? Isabel Trumbo? Oglethorpe, here.”

“This is Isabel. Before you go on, the answer is yes, I’m delighted to say that we’ve decided to incorporate our detective firm.”

“Excellent. Do you still have the instructions and application I mailed?”

“Indeed.”

“The completed application isn’t so important for you guys, but we accept check, money order, or credit card.”

“Look for our paper check in the mail sometime early next week. Meantime I expect you saw our write up in the local newspaper.”

“I did and you must be the royal toast of Quiet Anchorage. So, I won’t be receiving any more phone calls from Mr. Spitzer.”

“Yes, Vernon’s heyday as a thief, murderer, and spy has ended.”

Mr. Oglethorpe fell silent for a beat. “Just for the record, I never liked Mr. Spitzer, and I’d no idea he was such a zealot, only a well-intentioned citizen.”

“Vernon duped many of us. He’s a young man with bizarre and dangerous ideas.”

“No acrimonious feelings then?”

“But of course not, sir. Life is too short.”

“Well good, I’m pleased to hear you say that. Since I have your ear.” Mr. Oglethorpe stopped as if to order his next thoughts. “You see, I’m coming to grips over this family dilemma. My younger brother Claude has gone missing for two years, and he owes me a great deal of money.

“I’ve made extensive inquiries to locate him, but I’ve met with meager success. He seems to have disappeared off the face of the earth. Anyhow, I was thinking perhaps if your agency isn’t too swamped with work, I might retain you to help me find Claude.”

“This isn’t a good time to discuss your situation, Mr. Oglethorpe. We’re in the midst of celebrating our niece Megan’s homecoming. Tell you what, contact us tomorrow at this same number.”

“Sounds good. What time do your office hours start?”

“At our age, whenever we can crawl out of bed. Bye for now, Mr. Oglethorpe.”

“Thanks and listen for my ring. Again, my congratulations. Bye, now.”

Isabel had no sooner thumbed off the cell phone than it rang again in her hand. Wrinkling her brow, she put the cell phone to her ear and greeted her next caller. It was Cathy Johnson, the reporter from the Quiet Anchorage newspaper.

“We’ve been fielding phone calls from readers all morning,” said Cathy.

“Why for heavens sake do they bug you?” asked Isabel.

“Because Alma and you are an overnight sensation. Some enterprising soul even tipped off the big TV news channels.”

“I just wonder who did that. We hoped things might settle down now that Megan has come home. Frankly, I have half a mind to drop doing this nonsense.”

“Fat chance, I’m afraid. You’ve both caught the big wave and can’t just hop off your surfboards.”

“So it seems,” said Isabel, amused by the beach metaphor. “Alma and I haven’t discussed what’s in store for us.”

“She must have some thoughts.”

Isabel gave a small pause. “She’s a people person, but I’m more of a homebody. I’m sure in the end we’ll go ahead with it. She’ll insist and I’ll just go along with her. That’s how things usually work out in our household.”

“But I can’t see one of you as a detective without the other. You play off each other’s strengths.”

“I suppose that is true. But first we’ll drive up to New England and see the leaves change.”

“My gut says you’ll soon be at it again. I’d love to scoop your next case.”

“Okay, you’ll get the first crack. Promise.”

“Awesome and my thanks again.”

“I’ll be in touch with you shortly. We’re hosting a wingding for Megan, who’s going to be a part of our agency. I better get back and rein in Alma telling all of her tall tales.”

“Then I’ll look forward to your next call.”

Isabel stuck the intrusive cell phone inside of a kitchen drawer and buried it under a clutch of Irish linen napkins they never put out. She glanced through the kitchen window and admired the dog pen that Bradford, the guitar-playing superintendent at Phyllis’s apartment building, had erected. Isabel still preferred the name Samson, and the local pound had just the dog, a part beagle and part terrier, for her waiting at their kennel.

The old-fashioned manual typewriter on the kitchen table attracted her next glance. The first page scrolled inside its platen had “Chapter One” typed at the top center. For a moment, she brooded over how her book project wasn’t off to a rip-roaring start, and she might be a better actual private detective than the writer of private detective stories. As she returned to the living room, a solemn Megan was speaking to the hushed others.

“Aunt Louise and I have ironed it out, and I’ll move no later than next week. I’ll work for the hair salon that she uses.”

“Well, this is quite a surprise,” said Alma.

“Sorry I can’t be a part of your new agency right now,” said Megan.

“This strikes me as a snap judgment,” said Alma. “I’d better have a chat with Louise.”

“But I have to leave Quiet Anchorage,” said Megan.

“I can dig it just fine,” said Phyllis. “Megan wants to get her groove back on, and she can’t do it here in our town.”

Isabel had a seat in her armchair. “Megan, we wish you all the best and will be here if you need to call on us. Dwight with our help will handle the legal niceties on the sale of Jake’s property.”

“You’ve already done enough.” Megan gazed at each face smiling at her.

“You know what’s best for you,” said Alma, now also treading in the safe clichés relied on in the times of saying difficult goodbyes.

“I can help you pack and whatnot,” said Phyllis.

Sammi Jo raised an important point. “Megan, you’ll be back to testify at Vernon Spitzer’s trial.”

“Reluctantly, yes,” said Megan as thorny disbelief contorted her face. “What a poor, sick man he is.”

“Perfect description,” said Alma.

“He won’t be filling any prescriptions for a long time,” said Sammi Jo.

“Not unless his prisons have pharmacies,” said Alma. “Isabel and I will travel north to New England for October’s foliage, so we’ll stop by to visit your new digs.”

“Don’t forget we’ve got a detective agency to run,” said Isabel.

“Ah, so it’s still a go with you,” said Alma. “It’s fine with me to start tomorrow.”

Isabel turned to current events. “The political polls show Clarence Fishback and Sheriff Fox are running neck-and-neck.”

“One is no fitter than the other to be the sheriff, but that’s politics for you,” said Sammi Jo.

“Well, Sheriff Fox owes us for staying mum on his moving Jake’s file cabinets,” said Isabel. “Some day that chit might come in handy to redeem.”

In a bit, all their guests left, and Alma collapsed in her armchair to unwind. The blank squares in the crossword puzzle on her lap beckoned her to fill them in. Isabel in her armchair stared at the static photograph of the massive caribou migration in her Alaskan Outdoor magazine. Alma sighed. It being contagious, Isabel also sighed, only louder.

“Are you bored to tears like I am?” asked Alma.

“Probably,” replied Isabel.

“This sedentary lifestyle doesn’t cut it for us.” Alma tossed down the crossword puzzle on the ottoman. “What we better get is a little more pizzazz.”

Isabel flipped the magazine to land on top of the crossword puzzle. “I have a heretical idea on what to do. Let’s shake a leg.”

“Sure, but where are we off, sis?”

“To claim our sunny spots on the Main Street bench. Ossie, Willie, and Blue Trent are our resident oil wells, so we’ll go pump them for leads and drum up some new detective business.”

“Finding any new work might be a ways down the pike.”

“Then during the slow times we can hit them up for a game or two of Scrabble.”

Alma snatched up her large, black purse. “Do we invite Sammi Jo?”

“No, she’s busy getting ready for her date tonight.”

Alma looked amused. “Sammi Jo has a date tonight?”

“Why not? She’s a pretty, warm-blooded girl. Reynolds Kyle from the drag strip is taking her to see the funny cars run at Budds Creek. I didn’t know race cars can be humorous, but that’s what she told me.”

“Good for her. By the way, did you catch my bit on Sam Spade in our newspaper article?”

“Yes, it caught me flatfooted, but turnabout is fair play. Tomorrow I’ve arranged a little surprise for you.”

Alma grabbing the doorknob cast a wondering glance at Isabel. “What sort of a little surprise?”

“I won’t know until Mr. Oglethorpe phones to discuss our possible next case. Now don’t go off and leave our Scrabble board.”

“I haven’t forgotten.” Alma smiled at Isabel. “In fact, I already put it in the car since I had a sneaky intuition that we’d be going to see the benchwarmers.”

Isabel laughed. “I can see your mind is as sharp as it ever was.”

The End