by Ed Lynskey
Chapter 30
Something about the Ladybug Miles homicide mystery was bugging Sammi Jo. She’d pooh-poohed it twice before when it wiggled its stubborn way back into her consciousness. The garden shovel, dummy, she thought. This time she didn’t push away the insight. If it kept cropping up, she reasoned it must have some merit and be worth her time to look into it.
She knew from Isabel and Alma that Ladybug had purchased her garden shovel at Matthiessen’s Hardware Store, and they assumed she’d used it to bury the money suitcase on the riverbank. Why hadn’t the garden shovel turned up in their search of Ladybug’s townhouse? Where had the missing garden shovel gone?
If it wasn’t in her possession, it seemed logical there was a chance her killer had gotten it. By tracing the whereabouts of the garden shovel, Sammi Jo might not only identify but also find Ladybug’s killer. Isabel and Alma could close out the murder case, and more importantly, Aunt Phyllis would leave jail and return home. Sammi Jo had plenty of incentive to go after the garden shovel.
She wanted to rule out whether or not Ladybug had kept the garden shovel once she was finished burying the money suitcase. If she had retained the garden shovel, she probably returned it to her sedan’s trunk. Where might Sammi Jo find Ladybug’s sedan? They hadn’t spotted it in the parking lot at her townhouse. Moreover, Sheriff Fox was the only person in town who had any real interest to take her sedan.
Sammi Jo remembered the fenced-in paved lot behind the sheriff’s office where they’d found Sheriff Fox with his broken down cruiser. The same area might also be the impoundment lot where he’d towed and parked Ladybug’s sedan intending to process it for any evidence. What prevented Sammi Jo from sauntering off on her stroll about town, and her shoes happening to take her to the sheriff’s office to do a little innocent spying while she was there anyway?
She left her apartment but not before she locked the door and also put on its deadbolt. All the townies now were taking extra security precautions. Downstairs she saw Eustis in his marshmallow white lab coat. He stooped over behind the pharmacy counter and fussed with an electronic gizmo on the table. He tapped its digital readout, scratched his head, and tapped the digital readout again.
She needed a partner to play her lookout at the sheriff’s office while she scoped out the impoundment lot. How might she cajole the happy-go-lucky Eustis into taking the job? She stopped at the pharmacy counter, speaking to his back turned to her.
“Hey there, Eustis, what’s new with you?” she asked,
He twisted about from the waist, saw who’d spoken his name, and turned all the way around. He was smiling, the trademark of genial pharmacists who were everybody’s friend.
“It’s just the same old same old, Sammi Jo. You know how it is with me to dispense lots of different pills and tablets. If only I’d listened to my dear old dad and become a surfer dude like he is. They enjoy a worry-free life under the Southern California sun and blue skies. How is it going for you?”
“I’m off to investigate the newest lead on the Ladybug murder.”
He lost the smile. “What is going on with that? I can’t make heads or tails out of it. Is there an evil microbe in the air we breathe that turns a few of us from Doctor Jekyll into Mister Hyde?”
“I’m confident nothing that sinister is at work,” replied Sammi Jo. “Don’t forget our slice of paradise is also a part of the world at large where murders have occurred since biblical times when Cain slew Abel.”
“I guess it must be so then. I never for one second believed your Aunt Phyllis is guilty of murdering Ladybug Miles. Sheriff Fox is wrong as wrong can be, and I’d be happy to tell him that to his face.”
“Of course she didn’t since they were best friends.”
“Well, don’t let me bend your ear and hold you up.”
Sammi Jo looked at Eustis. “Have you ever in your wildest dreams fancied yourself as a private eye, Eustis?”
He smiled again. “The private detective profession is too hardboiled for my tame blood. I’m just a nerdy pharmacist dedicated to keep the townies healthy, and that is enough reward for me.”
“But if you had the once-in-a-lifetime chance, would you snap it up or would you go on scratching your head over how to use your electronic gizmo there?”
“I’d give it a whirl to have something to tell my grandkids. As you point out, it will be difficult to tell them very many captivating tales about my running the humdrum pharmacy.”
Sammi Jo nodded. “Then how would you like to be my lookout while I pursue this new lead?”
“Imagine a nerd like me playing a private eye.” As his playing the role sank in, it enchanted Eustis. “Why can’t I be one?” He canted his head at a devil-may-care angle as he’d watched the private eyes do in those atmospheric forties and fifties crime movies.
Sammi Jo was on the verge of a giggle. He was a real character when he got into the part.
Eustis went on. “I’d cut a debonair figure if I wore a snazzy fedora, its brim snapped down in the front, and talked with a tough guy growl. What else do I need? Do I pack a heater in my pocket or waistband?”
“Don’t go overboard, Eustis. We better skip the fedora and handgun along with your marshmallow white lab coat that sticks out like a neon sign.”
“I can fix that problem.” Eustis was removing the marshmallow white lab coat to reveal his wrinkled shirt under it. “Will putting on my windbreaker be okay?”
“It depends. What color is your windbreaker?”
“It’s nothing too flashy, just your run-of-the-mill robin egg blue windbreaker.”
“Then go grab it and we’ll be off on our assignment.”
Eustis clapped his hands. “This is electrifying stuff.” While he hustled off to stuff on his windbreaker he kept hung up on the coat rack in his back office, Sammi Jo broke with her protocol to keep Isabel and Alma appraised of her activities. The brief trip wasn’t a significant enough event to report, and Isabel and Alma were always just a cell phone call away.
“Are you all set to start?” asked Eustis back with her. He displayed an uncustomary eagerness, and Sammi Jo liked it.
“Have you got somebody to cover for you while you are out on the case?” she asked, looking around at the deserted drugstore aisles and soda fountain.
“Right now is the slow part of the day,” he replied. “I’ll just hang out my ‘Gone Fishin’ for the Whopper’ sign on the doorknob, and my understanding customers will come back later when I reopen for business.”
Sammi Jo smiled. “But you don’t even like to fish, Eustis.”
“I do when it’s convenient like it is now.” Eustis zipped up the front of his windbreaker. His wide eyes gleamed as if he’d just won the premier door prize at a pharmacists’ convention. “I’m ready to roll,” he said.
“Just don’t let your boyish excitement get too carried away and be sure to follow my instructions,” said Sammi Jo. “We have to ensure you return to your pharmacy counter safe and sound. The townies rely on you for getting their right pills to cure their ills.”
Smiling again, Eustis turned and faced the drugstore rear exit. “I’ll be right on your heels all the way.”
***
“How will I alert you if I spot anybody coming?” asked Eustis.
“You would have to ask a good question, and I didn’t plan ahead,” said Sammi Jo. “Did you bring your cell phone?”
“Drats, I left it standing in its charger beside the electronic gizmo. Sorry about that. I could hurry back to the drugstore and fetch it.”
“It’s not worth making the return trip, so let’s scratch that idea and proceed to Plan B. Can you make a noise anything close to a crow’s caw or an owl’s hoot to alert me?”
“I’m not very good at making birdcalls since I was never a Boy Scout. Wouldn’t my imitating a crow’s caw or a owl’s hoot while I’m standing on the public sidewalk draw a few strange stares from the passersby?”
“That is true, Eustis. The townies might begin to wonder i
f their pharmacist has a few screws loose upstairs.”
“That reputation would be bad for business,” said Eustis. “Who would trust a crackpot pharmacist with filling their prescriptions?”
Sammi Jo felt silly for having suggested it. They had stopped on the side street running parallel to the sheriff’s office where the impoundment lot was off to the side behind a row of cedars and chain-link fence. She planned to dart over to the cedars and have a look through the chain-link fence.
If she saw Ladybug’s sedan that Sheriff Fox had left there, Sammi Jo planned to return later under the cover of night. She’d access the impoundment lot and attempt to lock pick her way (she still had Sheriff Fox’s burglar tool kit) into the sedan’s trunk to finish her quest looking for Ladybug’s garden shovel.
If it wasn’t in there, Sammi Jo lay odds on the killer had kept it. Who in their right mind would throw away a practically new garden shovel? Sammi Jo would learn who the killer was by tracking down the garden shovel. She couldn’t wait to get started.
“Why don’t I hiss like a cat does by making a low p-s-s-s-t noise at you?” said Eustis.
Sammi Jo nodded “Not an original approach but I like it just the same. Make that noise if you spot a problem, and I should be in good shape. Well, here goes nothing.”
She left the edgy but attentive Eustis rocking back and forth on his heels and sidled up to the chain-link fence where she had a careful look inside at the impoundment lot. Sheriff Fox’s cruiser was gone, but Ladybug’s sedan sat there. She grabbed the wire mesh to the chain-link fence and gave it a little jingly shake.
Scaling over the top of it shouldn’t be too difficult if she did it barefoot and didn’t rush it. Sheriff Fox would have to erect a chain-link fence a lot higher if he expected to keep her out of his impoundment yard. When she returned, she found the dutiful Eustis still posted on the sidewalk trying his best to look inconspicuous.
“If you don’t mind my asking, what is the hot clue you are after over there behind the chain-link fence?” asked Eustis.
“Would you believe it if I told you it’s something as ordinary as a garden shovel?” replied Sammi Jo.
“I’d believe you more if you told me in twenty-five words or less why this garden shovel has gotten you so excited.”
Sammi Jo didn’t see any harm in explaining the garden shovel’s possible significance to the case. Once she finished outlining her theory, Eustis had a bemused look.
“Not to be too critical or nitpicky, Sammi Jo, but is it reasonable to suggest you might be grasping at straws?”
She gave a small shrug as if to admit everything was guesswork at this stage. Until a few of the different puzzle pieces snapped into place and fitted together, the sleuths kept plugging away with the trusting faith the right solution would come to light somewhere down the line.
“I believe our work here is finished,” she said. “I’ll be slipping back tonight, scale the fence nimble as a cat, and have a good look in the trunk for Ladybug’s garden shovel.”
“I’ve got to believe you are moving on the right track. Phyllis will be out of prison, and life will be back to good.”
“Thanks for the vote of confidence, Eustis. It sure is nice to think something positive like that will happen. We’re due for a change in luck.”
Eustis looked a little glum. “Sorry I wasn’t much of a help to you.”
“Not every caper we take offers edge-the-seat thrills, so maybe next time we’ll run into more than enough spinetingling action to handle.”
“Do you mean I can partner with you again?” Eustis looked perkier.
“We’ll run into another need for your spot duty,” replied Sammi Jo. “Who in Quiet Anchorage would suspect a nerdy pharmacist is actually a sharp-eyed, whip-smart private eye?”
“Today is the dawning of my glamorous second career,” said Eustis. “I will be ready when you call on me again.”
“Awesome but until then, why don’t you splurge and buy yourself that snazzy fedora you were going on about?” said Sammi Jo.
“I don’t mind if I do,” said Eustis. “Should I get the heater, too?”
“Only if the handgun shoots toy caps or has been converted into a cigarette lighter,” replied Sammi Jo, recalling the customized handgun/lighter her Aunt Phyllis kept tucked away in her nightstand drawer.
Chapter 31
“Is that object what I think it is, or are my septuagenarian eyes playing mean tricks on me?” asked Alma, squinting in the direction Blue was pointing out. They stood huddled behind the waist-high concrete bridge railing.
“Trust what your eyes are telling you is my advice,” said Blue.
Alma looked at Isabel. “Do you happen to carry a pair of opera glasses in your pocketbook?”
“Sorry, but no I don’t,” replied Isabel. “All I have is the magnifying glass.”
“It won’t help us out this time,” said Alma.
They had parked on the far side of the old highway bridge under a squatty pair of chinquapin oaks and climbed out of Blue’s taxicab. He led them across the bridge’s concrete walkway, and they stopped at about its midpoint. The cat’s-paw breeze from the Coronet River swept up the fresh and clean smells from the moist sand and rank weedy vegetation. Yellow tinged the broad, distinctive sycamore trees’ leaves and complemented their trunks’ creamy white bark. Only the river’s main channel ran with any appreciable depth and swiftness below them.
“What is it you think you’re looking at down yonder?” asked Willie.
“If I had to hazard a wild guess, I’d say it is a—” Alma craned her neck forward, rubbed her eyes, and peered closer at the dimmer shady site. “Well, I’d have to say it is a human corpse.”
Also studying it, Isabel shook her head. “Stop being melodramatic, Alma. It’s just a driftwood log stranded on the river’s edge and trapping a lumpy clutch of woody debris.”
“My first reaction was similar to yours,” said Ossie. “But then Willie and Blue pointed out how bloody unlikely a driftwood log’s shape would resemble a human. So, I squinted at it a little harder and longer until I could make out who I’ll call Mr. X more clearly.”
“Mr. X drowned in the Coronet River,” said Alma.
“Either that or Mr. X was also murdered,” said Willie with a noticeable shiver traveling through him.
Feeling herself go all cold with the goose bumps covering her skin, Alma gave Isabel an alarmed look. “This gory trend had better stop, or we’re moving back to the city where it’s got to be a safer place to live.”
“That’s so impractical,” said Isabel. “Petey Samson would get homesick for Quiet Anchorage, and I know you’d never do that to him.”
“All right, tell us everything that happened,” said Alma.
“We hustled over to your house after we spotted Mr. X,” said Willie. “You ladies have more recent experience on how to treat corpses than we do.”
“How did you come to be on the bridge?” asked Isabel.
“We’ve been meaning to get in a little pole fishing before the season ends,” replied Blue. “I parked Ralph’s taxicab where I just did for us, and we crossed the bridge toting our fishing rods, a carton of night crawlers, and our tackle boxes.”
“I also brought my ice chest packed with deviled eggs and the usual sumptuous fixings,” said Willie. “But once on the bridge and seeing Mr. X, we lost our fishing and picnic feeling.”
“Who first laid eyes on Mr. X?” asked Alma.
“Credit that to Deadeye Ossie,” replied Blue. “Otherwise we’d be fishing for sun perch right now and unaware Mr. X was hanging out with us.”
“Of course the pair of turkey buzzards I first spotted might have returned and tipped us off,” said Ossie.
“The turkey buzzards are always in search of a meal,” said Blue.
“That ghoulish situation would scare five years off my life,” said Willie. “Something I can ill afford to do at my hoary old age.”
“This from our friend wh
o swears UFOs are real,” said Blue.
“The UFOs are piloted by the living, not dead, space aliens,” said Willie. “There is a big difference.”
“Have any of these living space aliens ever abducted you?” asked Blue.
“They only abduct their most vocal skeptics,” replied Willie. “Be sure to deadbolt your doors at night; sleep with your fully charged ray gun stuffed under your pillow; and strap on your tinfoil helmet to repel their tracer signals.”
Blue waved off Willie’s half-serious warning. “Bah, you’re nuts.”
“Not to ask the obvious, but did any of you gentlemen think to also contact Sheriff Fox?” asked Alma.
She looked both ways, checking at each approach to the bridge, and no sheriff’s cruiser had pulled into view. The old highway bridge didn’t draw a lot of traffic crossing it. The majority of motorists used the other bridge on the newer bypass, which skirted Quiet Anchorage proper, and the few passing motorists probably couldn’t clearly make out what the Three Musketeers walking across the bridge had espied.
“Sheriff Fox should be the one here to deal with this situation,” said Isabel.
“Not until you all mosey on down and see who Mr. X is,” said Willie, his gnarly hands doing a shooing motion. “Meantime I’ll stay here on the bridge.”
“Why don’t you mosey on down with us?” asked Ossie, suspicious.
“He’s afraid of the three-eyed troll who lives under the bridge,” replied Blue.
“Wrong, my friend,” said Willie. “Somebody should stand guard as our sentry, and I volunteer to do it. If I spot any sign of danger, I’ll peal out with my eagle screech as a warning signal to you.”
Ossie was quick to add his suggestion. “We’d be prudent to post two sentries, one for constantly watching each end of the bridge. Since it’s my idea, I’ll serve as the other sentry.”
“What about any danger coming from above us?” asked Alma, annoyed over how the Three Musketeers were so eager to wimp out on Isabel and her.
“Hey, that’s right,” said Blue, electing to take her seriously. “I don’t mind getting a crick in my neck from keeping my eyes on the sky. Well, that only leaves you two ladies to head on down and look at Mr. X. Be sure to stay alert for stepping on the venomous copperheads and water moccasins.”
