Ed Lynskey - Isabel and Alma Trumbo 01 - Quiet Anchorage Read Online Free PDF

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