Ed Lynskey - Isabel and Alma Trumbo 03 - The Ladybug Song (15 page)

“After
Sheriff Fox tricked Isabel and Alma to arrest you, they’ve redoubled their
efforts.” Sammi Jo was nodding, her smile a taut but optimistic one. “I’d say they’ll
have you out of there in a flash.”

“What then
will happen to Sheriff Fox?” asked Phyllis.

Sammi Jo laughed.
“Let’s put it this way. I would not want to be in his shoes right about now.”

“Watching
him get his comeuppance gives me something to look forward to,” said Phyllis.

Chapter 26

Alma was feeling restless as a caged leopard as she prowled through the hallways of their
brick rambler. She disliked taking the pills her doctor had prescribed during high
stress times such as now. Why should she take the pills when she had something else
that worked better? Reading a well-written, well-plotted mystery book relaxed
her jumpy nerves just fine.

In the meantime,
Isabel sat in her favorite armchair resting her eyelids for a moment. The
latest issue arriving by snail mail of
Outdoor Alaska
lay spread open on
her lap. She cultivated a quirky romantic attachment to the Land of the Midnight
Sun, but such an extreme place was not one for Alma to even visit. She couldn’t
picture herself snuggled up inside an igloo with only her pack of huskies and
malamutes for warmth and company. Petey Sampson snoring away or gnawing on his
favorite chew toy while stretched out at the foot of her bed was bad enough.

If
Isabel ever purchased an airline ticket for Alaska, Alma would do the opposite
and call their travel agent to book her a flight to the Sunshine State. Petey Samson would go with her since he also disliked the cold weather. Taking him out for
his daily walk during the wintertime took lots of encouragement.

Alma stepped through the doorway into the spacious room they used as their personal library.
However, its books weren’t classical works of fiction bound in tooled Morocco leather and gilt-edged. Instead, their library housed the two senior bookworms’ mystery
titles they had accumulated over the decades, including the first paperback buys
they’d picked up from the old drugstore or five and dime spinner racks for
twenty-five cents apiece.

They
kept all the books to reread any of them if the urge ever came. Alma half-suspected Isabel and she could medically qualify as borderline hoarders of books.
Guilty as charged, Alma would admit. They had alphabetically arranged the
mystery authors, and the recent books were large print editions. They initialed
and dated the upper right-hand corner on the first page of each book they
completed reading before it went on a library shelf.

During
Megan’s brief arrest and incarceration, Isabel had entertained a notion to pen her
own mystery novel. She bought a secondhand Underwood Number 5 Manual Typewriter
at an estate sale. Her literary ambitions fizzled out after the dynamo of energy
Petey Samson joined their household and diverted her. The Underwood was now a
doorstop gathering dust in the library.

Alma realized she’d left her drugstore reading glasses on her end table in the living room.
Schlepping there and back was too much hassle. Since she’d forgotten them before,
she kept an emergency pair in here, and she slipped them on. The murder of
Ladybug Miles had a déjà vu quality making it feel similar to the murder plot Alma remembered from a mystery novel.

She concentrated
on identifying where she’d read it, but she didn’t get far. Isabel had also devoured
the mystery since they read the same books, and she might know it. They could
reread the novel, and its plot might suggest to them a new way to unmask
Ladybug’s killer.

Alma knew they had struck a raw nerve while visiting Lotus and Rosie where Lotus made it
clear how much Ladybug was not her favorite person. Ladybug had called Lotus “a
fat cow,” only the latest dust-up in a history of acrimonious feelings between
the two women going back for years. Whether the culmination of their feud had
been Lotus murdering Ladybug was the main question.

Isabel
and Alma had singled out Lotus as the most likely murder suspect. Alma hoped and prayed they would discover Lotus was innocent because she was a member of
the sisters’ circle of friends. Nobody wanted to find out their friend was a killer
and have to turn her in to the sheriff. Alma wasn’t a rat or snitch, but she
could never let a known killer go unpunished. That would not be right, and she
couldn’t live with knowing it if she did such a thing.

Alma
decided to call for some help. After her party greeted
her, Alma said, “Hello there, Isabel. Did you have a nice snooze?”

“I was
just resting my eyelids. Where are you?”

Alma wondered about their laziness to stroll down the hallway in order to hold a
conversation. “I’m just down in the library.”

“Did you
find anything good to read?”

“I was
more interested in tracking down an old mystery whose plot bears a striking parallel
to Ladybug’s murder.”

“Many of
the mysteries we read use murder plots disguised to appear as unfortunate fatal
accidents.”

“Are the
killers caught and get their just deserts?”

“They do
in the fair play mysteries I enjoy reading.”

“Can you
put a finger on the title of a mystery in print that reminds you of Ladybug’s
murder?”

“This discussion
sounds like one we should be holding face to face.”

“Then
mosey on down here to the library.”

“I was
hoping you’d mosey on down to the living room to be with Petey Sampson and me.
You are the younger and fitter sister, after all.”

“But our
mystery books are kept where I am sitting.”

“Good
point. Okie-dokie, I’ll be right there. Don’t go anywhere.”

“Where
might I go? See you in a few.” They hung up, and Isabel soon arrived.

Alma repeated her question. “Can you think of a mystery title reminding you of Ladybug’s
murder?”

Isabel
closed one eye as she deliberated. “Not off the top of my head I can’t peg any
such title, but it might come to me later. I wake up in the middle of the night
with my mind on the darnedest stuff sometimes.”

“If you
should recall the mystery title, you don’t have to wake me up to give me the
news.”

“Naturally
I’ll wait until the morning.”

“What should
we do next at this point?”

“I’m mulling
over how we can take another crack at Lotus, only this time with her shadow Rosie
not in the same room.”

“Good
luck on accomplishing that. They’re practically joined at the hip like Siamese
twins and do everything together.”

“With
Rosie laid up in a leg cast, Lotus is more likely to go off and do errands
alone, and that’s the opportune time when we can buttonhole her. I’d like to
ask her some direct questions and see what kind of a reaction we get from her.”

“Rosie flat
on her back and out of commission would also have given Lotus the opportunity to
kill Ladybug without Rosie knowing about it. The next point to discuss is does
Lotus have the right smarts to plot a murder?”

“Oh, come
on, Alma. You or I could draw up a simple murder plot using an accidental drowning
to disguise it. Whether or not we’d get away with it is another question since
there’s no such thing as the perfect murder.”

“It’s
hard for me to accept Lotus would go so far as to commit murder just because
she resented Ladybug’s name-calling.”

“Not if
Lotus let her various grievances build up, smolder over time, and this latest quarrel
lit her short fuse.”

“If she had
taken as much as she could bear, then she could get her ultimate revenge by killing
Ladybug. Did Rosie have anything to do with it?”

“Presumably
not but she might help Lotus in its cover-up like providing her with an alibi.”

“Let’s
talk about the nuts and bolts. How do you envision Lotus going about perpetrating
Ladybug’s murder? Step me through the most reasonable scenario you can develop
based on the facts as we know them.”

Isabel’s
mind hummed away. “Maybe Lotus poisoned Ladybug with cyanide which, as we know
from our reading mysteries, is tasteless and odorless. She could mix it
undetectable with solid food or even a drink. She could download the
instructions on how to administer it from the internet.”

“Maybe she
bought the cyanide from somewhere on the internet, too.”

“I
wouldn’t doubt it. Lotus slipped the Mickey Finn into Ladybug’s beverage when
she wasn’t looking at Eddy’s Deli. She ate her lunch there daily, and we know
how frenetic it gets with everybody jostling elbows with each other.

“After finished
drinking her spiked beverage, Ladybug felt sick as if she was coming down with
an illness. We know a cyanide death isn’t instantaneous, but it takes minutes
to work its lethal power on the victim. Would she be able to leave Eddy’s Deli
and return to her townhouse? Probably so. Anyway, she laid down on her bed or
sofa and died a short while later.”

“She’d
grown too painfully sick and weak to call 911.”

“Exactly.
That night the sneaky Lotus stole inside Ladybug’s townhouse during the wee
hours while the rest of us were asleep in bed. Lotus cleaned up the townhouse,
leaving it extra tidy as we later found it. The next part took a little more
effort when she had to switch the clothes on Ladybug’s dead body and put on the
swimsuit. Lotus carried out the dead body to load it into her spacious SUV, and
she returned to lock up the townhouse.”

“Ladybug’s
end unit is more isolated making it easier for Lotus to do it unseen,” said Alma. “We might ask around to see if there are any eyewitnesses like a smoker who ducked
outdoors for a cigarette.”

“I know Cecil
used to light up a cigarette at night before he could go back to sleep. Somebody
may have observed something. At any rate, Lotus drove her SUV and its cargo to
the swimming hole. She arranged the scene by the illumination of her SUV’s
headlights to appear as if Ladybug had met with a fatal drowning in the river. Lotus
gambled on the probability everybody would just accept it as the reason for Ladybug’s
death. There would be no suspicion raised to touch off a homicide investigation
or to order an autopsy along with a toxicology report.”

“Our
scenario is an imaginative while also plausible one.”

“Now if
we could only prove it. Perhaps we can by putting more of our focus on Lotus
and her recent activities.”

“Tell me
about something else that’s been on my mind,” said Alma. “Is taking a trip north
to hang out in Alaska on your bucket list?”

Isabel
looked horror-stricken. “You know how much I dislike the winter cold, and my growing
older only makes it worse. I just get a kick out of looking at the Alaskan photos
and reading the articles. All the women’s magazines I used to read are only geared
for the young ladies’ interested in their physical beauty, but those days are a
fading memory for this old gal.”

Alma nodded in relief. “Do you need to gather any new reading material before we leave the
library?”

“I have
a tall stack of books to be read piled on my nightstand,” replied Isabel. “Petey
Samson keeps knocking against it and spilling the books on the floor for me to pick
up and restack.”

A small
frown appeared on Alma’s face. “He’s such a troublemaker. I sometimes have to
wonder about the reasons why we keep on loving him like we do.”

Isabel
smiled. “We just can’t help ourselves when he’s that lovably cute.”

Chapter 27

“We’ve at
last had a stroke of good luck,” said Sammi Jo who had visited the Trumbo sisters
at home. “Aunt Phyllis sneaked a cell phone by Sheriff Fox and his deputies,
and she can reach us from her jail cell any time she feels like it. Is that
cool as grits, or what?”

Isabel
smiled as Alma got a hearty laugh from Sammi Jo’s disclosure.

“The
ingenious Phyllis sure has got a bag of tricks,” said Alma.

“Her
worse things to deal with in the town brig are the shabby wardrobe and the bland
food plan,” said Isabel.

  “Other
than that, how is she bearing up?” asked Alma.

“Aunt
Phyllis says she is doing as well as can be expected under the circumstances,”
replied Sammi Jo. “I’m sure she’ll live and come out of it without any lasting
scars.”

“When is
her bail hearing?” asked Alma.

“No such
thing will happen if Sheriff Fox gets his way, and since he’s the top cop, it
looks as if he will make the call,” replied Sammi Jo.

“Roscoe
is getting a little too big for his britches,” said Isabel. “There’s always the
next election to turn out the rascal, but that does us little good now. Our
options are limited to following the only viable choice left to us.”

“Whisper
the real killer’s identity into Roscoe’s cocked ear, and he comes out of this case
smelling like a rose again,” said Alma.

“You
left out the one important new step,” said Isabel. “This time we’ll withhold the
killer’s identity until he has released Phyllis from his custody.”

Alma gave a nod. “You have a couple of tricks up your sleeve, do you?”

Before Isabel
could tell a fib, her cell phone on the end table shrilled out. She greeted the
caller.

“Hello
right back at you,” said Sheriff Fox. His voice had turned smugger if that was
possible. “I hope your day is going well, Isabel.”

His
condescending tone annoyed her. “No thanks to you but we’re doing reasonably okay.
I can hardly believe your telephoning me is a social call, not after the shady shenanigans
you pulled on us.”

“It’s
not a social call, but there’s no reason why we can’t keep this civil and
adultlike,” said Sheriff Fox.

“As you
wish it then,” said Isabel. She cast her troubled eyes on Alma. “What might be
on your mind, Roscoe?”

Alma scowled over how Sheriff Fox, low as a snake, had the brass to expect them to accept
taking his phone call made to their house. Being nice to folks had its limits,
especially at a stormy time like this.

“I’ll get
to the point. My message is a heads up given to you and Alma. Deputy Sheriff Audrey
Vogel while conducting her prison cell inspection ran across something very
interesting.”

During
the Sheriff’s pause, Isabel could picture the gloating grin breaking across his
face. She grew so angry she could spit nails as Blue liked to put it.

“Isn’t Deputy
Bexley in charge of doing that?” she asked.

“Not
anymore because I’ve reassigned him to a desk job and confiscated his keys,”
said Sheriff Fox. “He’s grown lax in performing his duties, and I won’t sit
still for that in my department.”

“Then what
did the eagle-eyed Audrey find of such great interest to us?”

“Phyllis
had a cell phone on her person. However, as you can well imagine, possessing
such contraband is not allowed, and we confiscated it.”

“Oh.”

Alma whispered to Isabel who looked crestfallen. “Oh, what?” asked Alma.

Oh can’t
be anything good,
thought Sammi Jo also disconcerted.

“Therefore
Phyllis won’t be placing any further covert phone calls to you ladies on the
outside,” said Sheriff Fox. “That’s too bad, isn’t it?”

“Will
that be all for now, Sheriff Fox?” asked Isabel.

“Not
quite, no, it isn’t. Consider this to be my last warning,” replied Sheriff Fox.
“Anymore monkey business which I find going on like this will be dealt with swiftly
and severely.”

“Our
attorney will be in touch with you shortly,” said Isabel.

“I shall
await Dwight’s call with bated breath since I’ve got something to tell him,”
said Sheriff Fox. “In the interim, have a nice day.” He gave with a boastful
snicker as he ended their connection.

New
worry wrinkles creased Isabel’s forehead as she set down her cell phone. “I
guess you can tell what that was all about. Sheriff Fox has found and appropriated
Phyllis’s cell phone, and she no longer has a lifeline to reach us. She must be
left devastated. We better look up the prison visitation hours.”

“Sheriff
Fox also sounds well pleased with himself,” said Sammi Jo.

“He’s reverted
to acting like the same old Roscoe,” said Isabel.

“Don’t hesitate
to call a spade a spade, Isabel,” said Sammi Jo. “Sheriff Fox is being a twenty-four
karat jerk.”

Isabel
didn’t jump to his defense, and her silence spoke volumes about how much she
agreed with Sammi Jo’s frank assessment.

“This
new development puts us at a slight disadvantage,” said Alma. “Phyllis is on
her own down there now.”

Isabel
was unwilling to yield even a slight advantage to Sheriff Fox. “We’ll have to put
on our thinking caps and bear down to work smarter and harder than he does.”

“Oh
sure, that’s no big deal,” said Alma. “We’ll just work smarter and harder than
Sheriff Fox. Do you want to translate the specifics of what that means to Sammi
Jo and me? I’m running out of brilliant ideas about what to do next. Sammi Jo,
are you seeing any way out of this latest sand trap?”

“Nothing
that’s worth mentioning,” replied Sammi Jo. She tapped on the side of her head.
“My thinking cap must be a defective one, or it isn’t performing up to snuff
today.”

“Let’s
start from the first of the case and run through it again,” said Isabel.

“The
beginning is Curt and Ladybug Miles residing as husband and wife in Chicago,” said Alma.

“Then
Ladybug got divorced, left Chicago, and moved back to Quiet Anchorage,” said
Sammi Jo.

“Later Curt
flew out to San Francisco,” said Alma. “But he didn’t return home to Chicago.”

“One
detail about Curt’s bridge jump bugs me,” said Isabel. She looked at Sammi Jo.
“Phyllis indicated Ladybug told her the authorities never recovered Curt’s dead
body from the bay.”

“Ladybug
gave Aunt Phyllis that piece of information,” said Sammi Jo. “I googled it before
her laptop bit the dust. Sometimes the bay’s tides sweep the dead body out to the
open Pacific where the recovery is made almost impossible.”

“The changing
tides might account for the fate of Curt’s dead body,” said Isabel. “But it also
might be true there was no dead body to recover.”

“Do you
mean to say Curt Miles never—?” asked Sammi Jo.

Isabel’s
busy cell phone got even busier, and she smiled apologetically at Sammi Jo
while greeting her caller.

“Hi, Isabel.
Dwight here.”

“Hello,
Dwight. Your tone sounds agitated. What is going on?”

“Nothing
that is good.”

“Then you
better talk to me.”

“For
starters, I just got off the phone with Sheriff Fox.”

“He
doesn’t waste any time since I also just had a chat with him.”

“Well, he
lowered the boom on us during my chat.”

“That is
strange since I haven’t heard any loud noise made at our house. Hold on, and
I’ll ask Sammi Jo and Alma sitting here if they’ve heard anything.” Isabel took
down and covered the cell phone with her palm. She spoke to the other ladies.
“I’ve got Dwight on the line, and Sheriff Fox has done something else unpleasant
to get Dwight all stirred up like a poked hornets’ nest.”

 “Sheriff
Fox doesn’t mind throwing his weight around when he goes on a tear,” said Sammi
Jo. “Is there anybody who can rein him in before it’s too late for us?”

“The
mayor flew to Marco Island to look for his retirement property, and Sheriff Fox
doesn’t have a boss,” replied Alma.

“Nice
work if you can get it,” said Sammi Jo.

Alma scratched one elbow and then the other felt itchy, so she scratched it, too. “See what
Dwight has to say, and we’ll have to take it from there.”

Isabel got
back on her cell phone, saying, “Give me the latest developments, Dwight, and please
don’t sugarcoat them.”

“Sheriff
Fox has banned me from stepping foot inside his station house,” said Dwight. “Therefore
I’m unable consult with Phyllis today which I consider to be crucial for her legal
defense.”

“Can he
do such an overbearing thing?” asked Isabel.

“It’s
highly irregular and questionably constitutional,” replied Dwight. “But Sheriff
Fox runs the show at the station house and jail as he wishes, so what he says
goes. We can do little about it except abide by his tyrannical decisions.”

“Well,
then—”

“Before
you say what I think you’re going to say, let me tell you it gets more painful.
He has further stipulated you ladies are also placed under his new ban.”

“We are not
allowed to see Phyllis, too. Our bully of a sheriff has gotten away with too
much of pushing around the little people.”

“I had
the same thought,” said Dwight. “That’s why I’m getting off the phone, and I
want you to stand by for taking the next ring soon after I hang up. Make sure
to leave on your cell phone and be listening for it.”

“Who
will I be talking to when I answer my ring, Dwight?” asked Isabel.

“I
prefer you to hear it directly from the party rather than from me. Bye for now,
Isabel.”

Dwight cancelled
their signal, and Isabel did likewise. She looked at Alma then Sammi Jo, saying,
“Roscoe just banned Dwight and us from going into the station house and seeing
Phyllis.”

“Let’s ask
Willie to go let the air out of Sheriff Fox’s tires again,” said Sammi Jo. “That
should slow him down a little.”

“Dwight
is our attorney,” said Alma. “What does he recommend we do now?”

“He says
a mystery caller is supposed to contact me any second,” replied Isabel.

“Will his
mystery caller be able to help us?” asked Alma never looking any glummer.

Isabel gave
a shrug. “It beats me but to hear Dwight tell it, yes. The best I can say to do
is to sit tight and see what happens.”

Just
then, her cell phone, as promised, rang. The skeptical Isabel fielded the call
with a dispirited greeting. “Hello, this Isabel Trumbo speaking.”

“Isabel,
how are you, dear?” was her caller’s upbeat salutation.

Alma was tugging on Isabel’s sleeve and whispering. “Who is it, Isabel? Huh? Who has called
you? Tell me. I’ve got to know, or I’ll go bonkers.”

“Helen, the
sound of your voice is a relief to hear,” said Isabel while giving Alma a
confident wink translating to they were riding tall in the saddle again. The
jubilant Alma responded with a fist pump in the air. Judge Helen Redfern was in
touch, and the sisters finally had a way to slow down and maybe stop Sheriff
Fox’s steamroller.

“I contacted
my bailiff who had me call Dwight, and he filled me in on what’s been going on
while I’ve been away,” said Judge Redfern. “I’m appalled over the negative
report I received.”

“How did
you know to call back home?” asked Isabel.

Judge
Redfern laughed with little mirth. “A good judge always keeps her ear planted to
the ground, especially if her sheriff is anything like our rogue one. Roscoe
Fox’s head has gotten too swollen to wear his sheriff’s hat.”

“We are feeling
the same way,” said Isabel. “Can you do anything to fix that situation?”

“Best
case scenario, I can pull some strings and get him fired on the spot,” replied
Judge Redfern. “That should put him in his place. What do you think about my
doing that? Should I contact the mayor down in Marco Island? I have his
personal cell phone number.”

Isabel
gave the prospect a moment’s due reflection. Getting Sheriff Fox sacked as he
deserved was tempting, but was it a prudent move? She didn’t know what blowback
they’d catch from any of his loyal deputies. On the other hand, they might also
rejoice over their callous boss getting fired, but she wasn’t willing to take
the chance to find out.

  “Maybe this
time it would be better if you let Sheriff Fox off with a stern warning,” said
Isabel.

“I’m a
professional when it comes to chewing out anybody who has stepped over the
line,” said Judge Redfern. “This time Sheriff Fox has clearly done that. Let me
get back to you after he and I have had a little chat.”