Ed Lynskey - Isabel and Alma Trumbo 03 - The Ladybug Song (21 page)

Chapter 38

Sammi
Jo flumped down in front of the laptop on the kitchen table, and the others,
standing, bunched around her.

“I
should warn you I didn’t scratch up a lot new information,” she said. “Ladybug
and Curt Miles didn’t leave many electronic footprints for discovery.”

“Just
give us what you have found,” said Isabel. “We’ll do our best to fill in the
holes, but we can’t fill in all of them.”

“We’re
mighty good sleuths but we’re not perfect,” said Phyllis.

 “Where
did Ladybug get all the money to fill the three suitcases?” asked Alma.

“I
was able to confirm she made several withdrawals from the savings accounts she
held at the local banks,” replied Sammi Jo. “It wasn’t hard to figure out her
passwords with Phyllis’s help.”

“I
spoke to Helen on my cell phone as I was putting away our garden shovel,” said
Isabel. “She and Oscar visited Sheriff Fox’s office. He broke out in a sweat and
turned pale as a ghost after he met Oscar. While searching through the bundles
of money, they uncovered an address tag left zipped up in the inner pocket of the
final suitcase we found.

“The
address tag belonged to the suitcase’s previous owner. Sheriff Fox with Helen
and Oscar’s encouragement traced it back and determined the previous owner was
a distant cousin of Ladybug’s. Her cousin passed away and left her a nice pile
of money. She probably brought the three mango yellow suitcases back when she returned
from Cleveland after squaring away the legal affairs of her inheritance. She
kept it as a big secret from the rest of us.”

Sammi
Jo smiled at Phyllis. “You should recheck our family tree for any distant
cousins who owned an oil well or gold mine,” said Sammi Jo.

“You
never know about the eccentric Garners,” said Phyllis. “Meanwhile what happens
to Ladybug’s millions?”

“Dwight
and Helen are checking into her estate,” replied Isabel. “So far, they haven’t tracked
down Ladybug’s will and testament, but they haven’t given up looking.”

“Why
did she go to such bizarre lengths to protect her money?” asked Alma.

Again,
Sammi Jo addressed Phyllis. “Did Ladybug ever mention to you that Curt was a
compulsive gambler?”

“I
don’t recall it ever coming up in our conversations,” replied Phyllis, shaking
her head. “How bad did the gambling bug bite Curt?”

“Very
bad, it appears,” replied Sammi Jo. “He ran up tremendous debts, and I’m not
talking about with his credit card limits either. He owed money to the unsavory
characters we only want to watch in the movies or read about in crime novels.”

“Shylocks,”
said Isabel with an unpleasant grimace. “Of course I should have picked up on
that. The grim detail explains a lot about Curt’s motives.”

“Who
are the shylocks?” asked Phyllis.

“They
are the bad apples among the hard-money lenders better known as loan sharks,”
said Isabel.

Ossie
gave a low whistle of amazement between his teeth. “Those cutthroats mean
business. Trust me. I know.”

“Yes,
and those cutthroats pressuring Curt account for why he was so desperate to get
Ladybug’s money,” said Isabel “It was becoming a matter of life and death for
him to pay them off.”

“That’s
also the way I put it together,” said Sammi Jo. “I went into Google News and browsed
across a small item run in the crime blotter of the
Chicago Sun-Times
.
The Vice cops arrested one Curt Miles during their raid on a gambling house for
playing dice. Most of the gambling arrests the police make in Chicago are for the
illegal dice games. Anyway, his given residential street address corresponds to
Ladybug’s old residence.”

“The
loan sharks charge extravagant interest rates,” said Ossie. “Curt’s nonpayment
only increased what he owed them. He’d gotten in over his head and was down to
making his last ditch moves.”

Alma
summarized the probable version of Curt’s last
days alive while in Quiet Anchorage. “In disguise, he must have tailed Ladybug closely
enough to know she’d taken her money from the banks. She had discovered or
strongly suspected he was operating in the area. Perhaps he threatened her, and
she was frightened out of her mind to act as erratically as she did. At any
rate, she outsmarted him and buried her money suitcases at the swimming hole,
perhaps by moonlight, to escape detection.

“After
he plotted and then staged her murder as a drowning in the river, he couldn’t figure
out where in the dickens she’d concealed her money after he didn’t find it in
her townhouse. Remember Isabel’s theory of how somebody had broken into it,
searched it, and left it looking too neat and orderly before leaving.”

“The
housecleaning maids didn’t tidy up Ladybug’s townhouse,” said Sammi Jo. “Curt
did it.”

“Ladybug
also mentioned to me Curt was meticulous like Felix Unger was on
The Odd
Couple
,” said Phyllis.

“Unable
to find Ladybug’s money tormented Curt like the cash-strapped Cartwright family
trying to dig up Farmer Cartwright’s buried Ball Mason jars of money,” said
Isabel.

Alma
continued. “Since Curt was unable to put his hands
on her money and pry the loan sharks off his back, he saw no other way out, so he
just gave up and dove headlong off the old highway bridge. Death was instant. He
probably didn’t have the time to shout Geronimo like he did in San Francisco.”

“Did he
make the leap before we dug up the first money suitcase?” asked Isabel.

“Most
fortunate for our sakes, yes, I believe he did,” replied Alma.

“How
did Curt murder Ladybug?” asked Ossie.

“That’s
a real puzzler,” said Isabel. “My leading guess is he poisoned her with
something easy to administer like
cyanide. Getting
close enough to her to do it undetected took some daring. She ate her lunches
daily at Eddy’s Deli, so maybe he capitalized somehow on that personal habit.”

“Did he slip
her a lethal Mickey Finn?” asked Ossie.

“If Curt
was crafty enough, quite possibly he did,” replied Isabel.

“Where
did Curt stay while he plotted his murder and theft of Ladybug?” asked Ossie.

“Deputy
Bexley told me Curt rented a budget motel room in Warrenton,” replied Sammi Jo.
“The deputies found his rental car hidden near the old highway bridge. In
searching his motel room, they discovered a cheap disguise kit with a bald cap,
black-framed Buddy Holly glasses, and fake buckteeth. He’d gained a few pounds,
grown bushy sideburns, and dyed his sandy blonde hair jet black. There was also
an extra arm sling left in his motel room.”

“Was
his arm broken?” asked Phyllis.

Sammi
Jo nodded. “He’d fractured his left arm. Draw your own dark conclusions.”

“The
loan sharks can be very persuasive if they have to be,” said Ossie.

“Is
there any word about Ladybug’s elusive garden shovel?” asked Phyllis.

“Deputy
Bexley also said they searched her townhouse again, and the garden shovel lay
hidden under the sheets of pink fiberglass insulation,” replied Sammi Jo. “I
took a peek in the attic, but I wasn’t thorough enough.”

“Nobody
wants to handle that itchy fiberglass insulation without gloves on,” said Alma.

“Ladybug
must have fibbed to me although I can’t say I blame her,” said Phyllis. “Maybe
I should be angry with her, but I’m not. She was distraught because of her dreadful
suspicion Curt’s leap off the Golden Gate Bridge was a phony. His real aim was
to come after her and get her money he needed to make his gambling debts go
away. His stunt in San Francisco never fooled the loan sharks.”

“They
kept close tabs on him, and they probably knew he’d show up here where Ladybug now
lived,” said Alma.

“If
the loan sharks were in the area, they probably knew about Curt’s suicide
before anybody else did,” said Ossie. “They couldn’t squeeze the money owed
them out of a dead man, so they cut their losses and returned home.”

Isabel
nodded. “The news of our discovering the money suitcase never reached them.”

“I
never had any idea Ladybug was living under so much strife,” said Phyllis.

“It’s
easy to understand why she divorced Curt, legally separated their assets, and moved
away from Chicago,” said Alma. “Even so, she knew she better keep track of what
he was up to most likely by keeping in regular contact with their mutual
friends.”

“Ladybug
was either too ashamed or embarrassed to ask anybody for advice or help,” said
Isabel.

“The
best I can do for her now is to hold a proper funeral and bury her in our town cemetery,”
said Phyllis.

“I’m
sure Reynolds and his guys from the drag race track will be happy to serve as the
pallbearers if you like,” said Sammi Jo.

“Corina
at Azul Largos does lovely funeral flowers that will honor her memory and life,”
said Isabel.

“Do
we forward our new information to Sheriff Fox?” asked Sammi Jo.

Isabel’s
questioning glance met Alma’s, and they couldn’t reach a consensus. Isabel
switched her attention to Phyllis who felt as uncertain to offer any opinion. They
looked at Ossie, the wise elder among them, for his take on their next course
of action.

“The
two principals involved are no longer with us,” he said. “I can’t see what purpose
will be served by giving your information to Sheriff Fox. Let him do his own investigative
work for a change. Ladybug’s autopsy will soon tell him she was poisoned, and
he can tie it back to Curt Miles and why he did it without too much trouble.”

“Slowpoke
Sheriff Fox won’t make too much effort,” said Sammi Jo. “That is unless Judge
Redfern and Oscar hold his feet to the fire.”

“As
Ladybug’s closest friend, I say we let the chips lie where they’ve fallen and consider
the book closed on this case,” said Phyllis.

“The
Trumbo sisters wholeheartedly concur,” said Isabel.

“Speaking
for the Three Musketeers, I vote likewise,” said Ossie. “The ayes have it, and
so the motion carries.”

“It
looks as if we are all done here,” said Sammi Jo.

“Oh
darn, I just remembered we ran out of doggie treats,” said Alma.

“Petey
Samson will make do until we go grocery shopping,” said Isabel.

“I
believe he’s well-earned getting his doggie treats before then,” said Alma. “After all, his keen bloodhound nose is what led us to the money suitcases.”

“Then
we’ll shop at the IGA but not before we do something else important,” said
Isabel.

“What
else important comes before your precious Petey Samson?” asked Alma.

“We
sit at the table and play Scrabble using Ossie’s game board,” replied Isabel.
“I can’t hold out any longer, or I’ll snap my cap.”

“Hearing
you say that puts me on cloud nine,” said Ossie, smiling.

“I’ve
got a dictionary to look up any word challenges,” said Sammi Jo.

“Then
tee it up,” said Alma. “I’m ready to play.”

Sammi
Jo turned off and moved the laptop from the kitchen table while the others took
their seats. She removed the pitcher of iced tea from the refrigerator and opened
the take-out box of bear claws Alma had brought with her. She grabbed the first
one with Isabel a close second behind her.

“Maybe
the next time we can play Monopoly for a change,” said Phyllis.

“Maybe,”
said Isabel but in a decisive tone suggesting otherwise.

Alma
didn’t see any reason to bring up Isabel’s
declaration she made at the start of the Ladybug Miles murder mystery to retire
from the sleuth trade after solving her case. Alma didn’t need the 3X
magnifying glass from Isabel’s pocketbook to see how she still took pleasure in
every minute of her snooping adventures.

The
Trumbo sisters were back to their old lives of baking pies (they still hadn’t
swapped their specialty pie recipes), solving crossword puzzles, and reading
mysteries. Tomorrow Isabel would phone Louise to give her the case’s outcome. Alma also noted with pride how their friends the Three Musketeers, Helen Redfern, and
Eustis Blake along with their pooch Petey Sampson had played instrumental roles
in cracking the mystery. By working together, they’d just plugged in most of
the large holes.

In
fact, to Alma’s way of thinking as she enjoyed chewing her bear claw, e
verything had returned to pretty much normal in drowsy Quiet
Anchorage, Virginia. For now, anyway.

The End

Reference

“Golden Gate Bridge Suicides Brochure.” Dr. Kim Norman, M.D., Professor of Psychiatry,
Langley Porter Institute, University of California, San Francisco. 2007.