Ellis Trumbo died unexpectedly of a heart attack while vacationing in the Poconos with his family.’ It lists his age, sixty-two, and briefly mentions his military service and that he had no surviving children. No mention of Mrs. Filly. I guess Mrs. Trumbo wrote the obit.” She typed a moment, then looked up. “And here’s another obituary in a veterans’ magazine. A bit more here. Yes, it says Major Trumbo was vacationing at his stepson’s cabin with his wife, stepson, and one of Ronald’s female friends, in the Poconos, near Cold Bluff. Sounds like a girlfriend to me. Just a second.” Pippa called up the Poconos on her tablet map. “Here we go. Cold Bluff is a tiny hamlet, maybe half an hour from Bushkill, which is very small, too. The obit goes on to say the heart attack was sudden, with no medical warnings. He was cremated, and a memorial service was held at his home in St. Lumis, Maryland.”
Wilde held up his hand and punched in a number on his cell. “Davie? Do you remember a memorial service for Major Trumbo here in St. Lumis? Really? Okay, I see. No, no problem.” He looked up. “Davie says there was no memorial service held here for Major Trumbo. I wonder where the major was cremated.”
“Hang on. Okay, no funeral homes in Bushkill; it’s too small. Here we go, the closest funeral home is in Stroudsburg. Give me your cell, Wilde.” He listened to her talk a clerk at the funeral home into checking her records. When she hung up, she shook her head. “He wasn’t cremated in Stroudsburg. Of course, there are other funeral homes in the wider area, but you know what’s smacking me in the face?”
He clasped his large hands in front of him on the desktop and raised an eyebrow.
“If Mrs. Trumbo and her son and his unidentified girlfriend didn’t take the major to the local hospital, there wouldn’t be a physician’s report, no death certificate, no autopsy, even though it was an unattended death. There were evidently no questions because no one knew to ask any. He was cremated. Mrs. Trumbo came back to St. Lumis and bought the B&B and put an obituary in the St. Lumis Herald. Ronald went back to Baltimore. And that leaves the question: Did Major Trumbo really fall over dead with a heart attack? Or did something else happen, something Mrs. Trumbo doesn’t want anyone to know? And what happened to Ronald’s girlfriend? Hang on a second.” Pippa found Mrs. Trumbo’s Facebook page without difficulty and scrolled through her public photo gallery. “Wilde? Here’s a photo of Ronald Pomfrey and his mother. Given the date, the major was already dead.”
Wilde looked down at the photo on Pippa’s tablet of a slight young man with a big smile, carrying several books.
Pippa said, “He’s handsome as sin even with his hair beginning to recede. I don’t see any of Mrs. Trumbo in him, so I guess his dad was a looker. Here’s another photo of him with his art.” Ronald Pomfrey was standing next to a loom covered with a kaleidoscope of colored yarns forming a vivid picture of a dozen different fruits all tumbled together, so real you felt you could pluck out a plum or a pear and munch. His long, narrow hand rested possessively on the loom. “He studied at the Maryland Institute College of Art, a private art and design college in Baltimore.”
Wilde waited, then cocked his head to one side. “And?”
Pippa grinned. “Drum roll… I’ve studied Savich’s file on Marsia Gay. She also studied at the MICA, for one year. She’s an artist, modern sculpture in metals.”
He sat forward, eyes gleaming. “Tell me, how old is Ronald Pomfrey?”
She typed. “He’s thirty-six. Young enough to be Black Hoodie.”
“Sure is. And Marsia is in her late twenties. That puts them both at MICA, but, Cinelli, there are years between them.”
“Well, Ronald didn’t go to MICA until he was thirty. He was an assistant manager in a hotel in Baltimore his mother managed before she married Major Trumbo. So we have Marsia Gay and Ronald Pomfrey at the same place, same time. That doesn’t prove they knew each other, but it’s way more than a start.”
Wilde said, “You’re thinking Marsia Gay was the girlfriend at the cabin in the Poconos when Major Trumbo died?”
“If she was the girlfriend, then Mrs. Trumbo lied about knowing her.”
Wilde smiled. “Okay, we’re getting somewhere, Cinelli. I can think of a bunch of phone