Ed Lynskey - Isabel and Alma Trumbo 02 - The Cashmere Shroud (10 page)

“No
ne of the men do,” replied Karmine. “Our operation isn’t that large.”

Sammi Jo tipp
ed her chin at the outbuilding. “Then what’s done inside there?”

“
The mechanics repair and maintain our sod farm equipment,” replied Karmine.

“Have you been inside it?” asked Sammi Jo.

“My domain is strictly inside the office,” said Karmine.

“Then
how did you know my father was dead?” asked Sammi Jo.

Bewilderment
left Karmine stunned for a moment. “Because I first saw him from my office window.” Her upraised Aigner handbag directing their attention to behind them. Sure enough, there was a window in the office building.

“I
stood up from my desk and stretched when I looked out the window. Ray Burl was lying here on the pavement. I’d no idea he was dead, and I was alarmed he’d fallen from sunstroke, or Heaven knows what. I dashed out to try and help him before I called the guys from the shop and then phoned 911.”

“Did you hear a
single gunshot fired?” asked Isabel.

Karmine
did a curt headshake. “Even if I did hear a loud noise, I’d ignore it. The big diesel trucks are backfiring all day long, and by now I’m immune to hearing them.”

“Do you
happen to own a firearm?” asked Isabel.

“I don’t believe in them,”
replied Karmine. “My sister Loretta back in Hoboken came within a whisker of dying from the gunshot wounds she sustained during an armed mugging.”

“Who in your opinion killed Ray Burl?” asked Isabel.

“Frankly, I believe one of his old disgruntled workers returned and went postal on him,” replied Karmine. “He pushed them too hard, angered them, and a few malcontents soon quit the crew. I swear you just can’t find any hard workers anymore.”

“
Had Ray Burl worn any expensive jewelry like a gold wristwatch or a diamond stud earring lately?” asked Isabel.

“Not that I
ever saw on him,” replied Karmine. “We didn’t have that much contact. He worked in the fields and was only at the office when he came to work and when he left for home. I didn’t even know he had a daughter until you came just now.”

“Has Sheriff Fox
gotten with you?” asked Isabel.

“He asked me a few questions
that were different from yours,” replied Karmine. “He gave me his business card and told me he’d return with additional questions, but I haven’t seen him since then. I don’t like him. He’s too pushy and tyrannical.”

“You don’t know the half of it,” said Sammi Jo.
“We expect him to turn green and grow scales any day now.”

Karmine
smiled, but her eyes slitted with tension. “Otherwise, speaking for me, it’s been nothing but a pure pleasure and honor to live and work in Quiet Anchorage. I crack up when I talk to the three old codgers parked on the wooden bench. They are town treasures. Do you know them?”

“We’ve held a conversation or two
with them,” replied Alma.

“One was
telling me a wild UFO tale,” said Karmine. “He swears up and down the aliens abducted him, but he used his wiles and escaped from their flying saucer. He said he passed a polygraph to prove he’s telling the truth. Can you believe it?”

“That
old codger would be Willie,” said Alma.

“
Willie is prone to indulging a rampant imagination, so I wouldn’t put too much credence in it,” said Isabel. “We’ve taken up enough of your valuable time. Thanks for giving us a few minutes. Alma, do you have anything left to ask Karmine?”

“What time did you
see Ray Burl out here?” asked Alma.

“
It was after-hours on Thursday, around sixish or perhaps a bit later.” Karmine pivoted to face the office and took her first step going that way. “I didn’t check the clock to give you a specific time. Sheriff Fox can tell you when I placed the 911 call.”

Fat chance
was Alma’s mental response. “Sammi Jo, is there anything else for you?”

Her eyes fastened on
Karmine, Sammi Jo gave her parting instructions. “We’d prefer it if you’d keep our meeting in confidence. Working behind the scenes gives us our best chance.”

“I
can be discrete,” said Karmine without batting an eyelash.

Isabel
printed their cell phone numbers on a memo pad’s page for Karmine since they didn’t carry business cards like Sheriff Fox.

The three
private investigators left in the sedan. Karmine watched, her right hand again shading her eyes, their departure stirring up a cloud of dust on the lane to the state road.

“
W
ere they close to each other?” asked Louise over their link.

Alma
nodded until she realized she was on the cell phone with her younger sister Louise. “Reasonably so as fathers and daughters go. Sammi Jo kept in regular contact with Ray Burl when he wasn’t putting in the loads of overtime at Mr. Barclay’s place.”

Louise chuckled. “
Ray Burl was always busy as a beaver. I bet Sammi Jo is a chip off the old block.”

“She’s a
tireless worker, too, but she also has a personal life, and she knows how it’s important to stop and smell the roses.”

“Is she seeing anybody
romantically?”

“Reynolds Kyle and she
are dating fairly regularly.”

“
Does she know that his daddy…”

“…no, and don’t you dare
breathe a word of it to her either. If Reynolds wants her to know, then he can be the one who tells her, not us. Plus we’ve got no concrete evidence except the rumors that flew around town.”

“
The apple might not fall too far from the tree.”

“Infidelity isn’t an inherited gene.
Maybe Reynolds saw the error of his father’s tomcatting ways and decided he’d become the better man because of it.”

“
I’m just saying I’d hate to see Sammi Jo get hurt because we felt it wasn’t our place to tip her off. I realize it happened decades back, but time doesn’t change a tiger’s stripes.”

Isabel spoke
up from also sitting in the living room. “I expect Sammi Jo already knows about Reynolds’ dad.”

“Sammi Jo knows how to take care of herself
,” said Alma to Louise. “Stuff a sock in it if you talk to her.”

“Uh-huh. And after Reynolds does her dirty, are you going to bring it up then? Or will your guilt and shame over your high-minded principles still keep you silent?”

“Maybe you and Isabel should take up this discussion.”

“
I heard her talking in the background. Put her on. I’ll wait.”

Alma
passed the cell phone over to Isabel in her armchair.

“Louise
is flinging one of her hissy fits with a tail on it,” whispered Alma. “You’ll have to settle her down because I don’t know what to do with her.”

Isabel accept
ed the cell phone from Alma. “The two of you come to loggerheads, and I have to play the umpire.”

Alma e
nacted a so what shrug. “The oldest sister has always arbitrated family squabbles since the dawn of time.”

“Hello, Louise,” said Isabel
, still looking at Alma. “How is your arthritis treating you?”

“I’m still beating it down with my
hickory cane. I suppose you just heard Alma’s side of our spirited discussion. What do you think? Should we tell Sammi Jo or stay mum about how Reynolds’ father was a skirt chaser?”

“You both make valid points, but this time
, I’m going to have to side with Alma.”

Alma
gave Isabel a thumbs up.

“Moving
right along then, why did she call me?”

“Sammi Jo asked Alma and I to give her a hand. Despite her brave face, she’
s all cut up and hurting inside. The only solace she can find is to punish Ray Burl’s murderer.”

“
I don’t blame her. Any suspects?”

“A few
make our shortlist, but none really stick out.”

Isabel hear
d the tinkle of Louise stirring the spoon in her ceramic mug of hot green tea. “Was robbery the motive?”

“
Sammi Jo went to the crime scene and says Ray Burl still carried his wallet with the money left folded inside it. She can’t zero in on anything missing among his personal effects. Robbery most likely wasn’t the motive.”

“Revenge?”

“That is quite possible even though it’s out of character for Ray Burl.”

“He was even
-tempered, as I recall.”

“You
have an impeccable memory. Sammi Jo said he hardly ever raised his voice to her.”

“
My impeccable memory of his ex runs just the opposite.”

“Maureen
Lionheart.”

“
The very one, or she was simply Mo, as she preferred to be called.”

“
Mo was a live wire is our most striking memory of her.”

Louise
had to laugh. “‘Live wire’ is for openers. Mo never knew of a party she ever missed.”

“Do
you remember anything specific?”

“All I
ever heard was the same tired gossip over the fences that you did.”

“We questioned the Three Musketeers, but Willie told us they’ve
got nothing to give us.”

“
That doesn’t come as a surprise to me. You tapped the wrong oracle.”

“
Is that a fact? Who, then, might know better than they do?”

“If it was me, I’d
go see Rosie McLeod and Lotus Wang, your champion townie busybodies. If they don’t know anything, then you’re simply out of luck.”

“
How could I overlook thinking of Rosie and Lotus, especially when they’re in plain view? We’ve used them before, and I appreciate your reminder. Alma does, too, as she’s sitting here with a smile stretching from ear to ear.”

“Glad I could
do some good since I’m an honorary member of your private detective firm, but I hardly contribute to it.”

“You offer
us excellent quality in lieu of quantity, and we’re indebted. We’ll go pin down Rosie and Lotus the first thing after church lets out this morning.”

“
Tell them I said hi. That’s it, though. Say anything else to them, and it will be all over Quiet Anchorage faster than a pack of dogs on a three-legged cat.”

“Alma and I have found the best policy
is to get them primed to talk. Then we just hang back and let them cluck away like a couple of Domineckers. Most times we don’t have to give them any personal information.”

“Then I’ll let you get
along with it. Thanks for giving me a holler. Do it again at any time. I love hearing from you gals back home.”

“
Sure thing. Bye-bye, Louise.” Isabel hung up, smiling. “She’s always a help in one way or the other to us.”

Alma
nodded once. “I can’t stay angry at her for any real length of time. She’s still one of us even if she doesn’t live here anymore.”

“
Our campaign of enticing her back to Quiet Anchorage goes on,” said Isabel.

“Maybe we should hold off on
doing that until the homicide rate has declined a bit,” said Alma.

“Good idea,” said Isabel.
“I should hasten to add I wonder if we can hold off for that long.”

***

Isabel and Alma tooled by the Lopezes’ yard, which was showing off blooming dahlias, hydrangeas, and zinnias, all colorful and vibrant enough to be the table arrangements at an August bride’s wedding reception. Alma had tied the knot twice, both failed social experiments and both exes—their names had been redacted from her memory—now buried in out of town cemetery plots. She preferred to shy away from cultivating any memories about her marriages.

Instead, she
centered her idle thoughts to recount Isabel’s marriage to Max. That came as close as you could get to a storybook one. He’d passed away a smart while back, and Isabel still grieved in her quiet, stiff upper lip way, most folks unaware of how much pain she’d suffered from the personal loss.

Alma
had also felt bad for Isabel who’d lost her only child, a son named Cecil, to lung cancer. The three-packs-a-day cigarette habit he couldn’t lick no matter how valiantly he tried had claimed him early. Max had been a happy-go-lucky guy always quick with a joke. By contrast, Cecil had been a reserved young man who took more after his mother than his father.

“Today marks the anniversary of
Max’s death,” said Isabel.

Alma
startled, spooked at how Isabel had read her thoughts. “How long has it been? I lost track of time very soon after I retired when calendars weren’t nearly as important anymore.”

“The truth be told, so did I about the same time. The number of years is irrelevant since the loss never lessens its sting. But those were
blue ribbon years, and I don’t regret living them. If I had the chance, I’d do it all over again exactly the same way.”

“
Max was a good man, and we were all a little better off from having known him.”

“
Thanks for saying that. Some days I ache for him more, and other days I pine for my boy Cecil more. The double whammy days are when I miss them both just as much. Today might be one of those double whammy days.”

“I don’t mean to begrudge your right to
indulge your melancholy, but we’ve got solving a big murder on our hands.”

“Don’t
fret, Alma. I keep everything under control because I know I can’t let you and Sammi Jo down. That wouldn’t be fair after I agreed to help.”

“
Did you and Petey Samson do the morning loop?”

“Indeed
we did. I was set to ask you if you wanted to go along with us, but I saw you nestled in bed snoozing away, and I couldn’t bring myself to wake you.”

“That was probably for the best,” said
Alma. “I’m not a morning person, especially before downing my first cup of coffee.”

“Yes, I’m keenly aware of
that idiosyncrasy,” said Isabel.