Cold Turkey

Chapter Ten

You could only describe my mood as foul-or rather, fowl. After exchanging a few choice words with my Aunt Gerda, I stalked off to line the backseat of my beloved vintage Mustang convertible with numerous sheets of newspaper. After arranging a bowl of water on the floor and a plate of pancake scraps on the seat, I stalked back to the Hall to collect the unstrung turkey. To my disgust, it hopped right in, then settled down with all the air of a broody hen going to roost. It left me with a deep sense of foreboding.

I stalked-which was becoming my normal walk-back indoors to dish up the last of the bacon and pancakes to the lingering customers, and wished wholeheartedly that Adam Fairfield would run out of orange juice so we could all go home. And at last, he did pour the last glass, and I forked out the last bits of bacon and trudged with the greasy plate to the sink where Ida Graham and her husband Art had begun to soak the pans.

“Hey, Annike!” Sue Hinkel bounced in to collect a fresh trash bag for one of the big cans in the Hall. “How’re the preparations coming?”

I stared at her, trying to switch gears. “You mean for tomorrow?” I hadn’t finished coping with today, yet.

“Yeah, you remember? The Pumpkin Pie Eating Contest?”

Here I was, up to my elbows in bacon grease, with a gobbling turkey roosting in the back of my car, and Sheriff Owen Sarkisian chuckling every time he looked at me. I took a deep breath.

Sue held up her hands in a defensive gesture. “Hey, just trying to make conversation.”

“Why don’t you try helping?” I demanded, quite unfairly. “You can personally bake two dozen pies, even if it means having to cook them under your salon’s two hair dryers.”

Sue considered. “Might take awhile.”

“Then you better get started.”

“Take it easy, kiddo.” Ida patted my arm.

“I’ve been passing out tubs of pie filling as ordered,” added Sarah Jacobs.

“Not enough of them,” I sighed.

The doctor shrugged. “A lot of people got away before I could catch them.”

“And who can blame them?” I muttered.

“Soon as Art and I finish the pans, we’ll head home and phone all the bakers to see who got filling and who didn’t, then let you know. And we’ll call them again later, just to prod them along. And we’ll keep you posted on the tally.”

I kissed her cheek. “Bless you,” I said, and meant it. “Would you like a turkey? It’s the least I can do,” I added hopefully.

Ida laughed. “Good try, kiddo but Gerda would have a fit.”

I nodded, recognizing the futility of the effort. That didn’t mean I wouldn’t try again, though. “Well, thanks for the calls, anyway. The list is at Aunt Gerda’s.” I looked around, knowing I couldn’t leave until the Grange Hall was as spotless as it had been before we arrived. It said so on the papers I’d signed. “I don’t think I can get away yet.”

Peggy looked up from where she was retrieving her purse. “I’ve got to run home,” she said. “My son’s coming over. But I can swing by Gerda’s and pick it up for you. It’ll take less than ten minutes, round trip. No, I’ve got a key, don’t worry. I-” She broke off, her hand flying to her mouth in dismay. She threw a horrified look at the sheriff, who leaned against the table, and ran out.

Sarkisian cocked an eyebrow at me. “She has a key to your aunt’s house?”

“Of course she does,” announced Gerda. She entered the kitchen bearing empty pitchers and dripping the remains of the orange juice on the floor. “Peggy feeds my cats whenever I have to go away.”

“I hope Peggy likes feeding turkeys, too,” I muttered. I could guess what was going on inside Sarkisian’s head. Peggy didn’t like Brody, she could have let herself into Gerda’s house-and locked it up again when she left, the way I found it. Whoever murdered Brody, I realized, had to have a key. Aunt Gerda’s doors won’t lock without one. Where, I wondered, was Peggy while Brody was being murdered?

“Hi?” A woman’s voice penetrated the chaos of the cleanup. “Am I too late for a breakfast?” Cindy Brody, looking gorgeous in a narrow wool skirt, silk blouse, boots and sweater, all in tones of rust and cream and gold, appeared in the doorway behind Gerda. She clutched a handkerchief in one hand. A heavy floral scent hung in a cloud around her.

“Here.” Nancy picked up a plate and forked on one of the few remaining pancakes. “Bacon? Sausage?”

“Yes,” Cindy said. “And another pancake.”

Where, I wondered, did she put it? Not on her hips or thighs, that was certain. Liposuction? Or one of those incredible metabolisms that devoured food molecules before they even entered the digestive system?

Cindy took the proffered plate. “Who gets the money?”

I took it, then snagged a cup of coffee and trailed after her to the table where she sat. I took the chair opposite. “It’s good to see you getting out,” I said, and won a smile from her.

Sarkisian followed and perched on the edge of the table. “Where are your out-of-town guests?” His tone held nothing more threatening than casual curiosity.

“Oh, they decided to go home last night. Left me to grieve in solitude.”

“So you came here?”

“I felt certain I’d find you here, Sheriff.” She offered a sad smile. “I want to know what you’ve found out. It’s not fair of you to keep so quiet. After all, the victim was my husband.”

“About to be ex-husband,” Sarkisian reminded her.

Cindy’s lower lip quavered, and her eyes actually filled with tears. “Can you blame me? I do have my pride. The way he chased after every woman he saw… I couldn’t put up with it any longer. When he started dating Lucy Fairfield…” She shuddered. “That really was too much.”

Sarkisian’s eyebrows rose. “You mean Adam Fairfield’s ex-wife?”

Cindy nodded, her mouth full. When she had swallowed, she said, “It was absolutely disgraceful. I’d have been insulted, him chasing after a woman with a twenty-year old daughter, except he didn’t seem to be able to help himself.”

Jealousy? I wondered. Or outraged humiliation? She wouldn’t be the first wife driven to murder an unfaithful husband.

“How did Adam Fairfield feel about your husband dating his ex-wife?” Sarkisian asked.

Simon, who walked past carrying an armload of folding chairs, overheard this last. “He was so jealous he couldn’t see straight.”

The sheriff turned to him. “What makes you say that?”

Simon snorted. “Haven’t you seen all the work he’s done around his place? Everything Lucy ever wanted. Fairfield’s not doing it for himself, you know. And he went ballistic when he caught her having dinner with Brody.”

“She ought to be impressed by his effort, if nothing else,” Sarkisian said. “That must have cost a fortune. Did he take out a loan?”

Simon shook his head. “Nancy says he can’t stand going into debt. No,” he shot a glare toward the kitchen, “he’s stealing from her college fund.”

“You’re kidding!” I protested. “It means so much to him to have her at Stanford!”

“So maybe he’s just borrowing it.” He shrugged. “At least he’s working a lot of overtime. Nancy says he’s always at the Still. But what if she needs the money before he’s able to pay her back? She’d never make a fuss, but it’s worrying her. You can tell.”

“Why would he take the risk of upsetting his daughter?” Sarkisian asked.

Simon snorted. “I’ve never seen a man that jealous.”

“Haven’t you?” Ida Graham, also laden with folding chairs, came up behind him. “You weren’t even the teensiest bit jealous, then, when Brody started hanging around Nancy?”

Sarkisian’s eyes gleamed. “When was that?”

“Last week,” Ida said. “And you can stop glaring at me like that, Simon Lowell. Half the town heard you threatening Brody.”

Simon flushed. “Yeah, well.” A sudden embarrassed grin broke through. “She’s too smart to fall for a jerk like that. Oh, sorry, Ms. Brody. But it’s true, you know.”

Cindy sniffed. “He certainly made a fool of himself.”

“Annike, why are you just sitting there?” Sue Hinkel hurried past with an armload of decorations. “We have to clean this room, you know.”

I sighed and stood. For a moment I met Sarkisian’s amused glance, then turned away quickly as his grin broadened. With what dignity I could muster, I went to encourage everyone still in the room to help with reestablishing order to the Hall.

So at least two men might have wanted to kill Brody out of jealousy. There might well have been others, too, people we hadn’t even thought about. Someone completely unconnected with Upper River Gulch. Except it had to be someone either with a key to my aunt’s house, or who knew where she hid the spare. Which brought the murder back home, again.

Peggy returned with the list of pie bakers while we were packing away the last of the fall garlands in their cupboard. “What, you’re not done, yet?” she called from the doorway. To her credit she pitched right in, in spite of wanting to go home to meet her son.

And so, forty-five minutes later, I made the final inspection, checked off the list, locked the door, and handed the key back to Sarkisian. Those few of us who had remained until the bitter end regarded each other with that sense of shock that always follows a major production.

“Rest for an hour?” the sheriff suggested.

I shook my head. “Some of them escaped without their pie filling. Soon as I find out who, I’ll have to deliver it.”

“At least you’ll have help.” He gestured toward my car.

Through the back window I could just make out the ridiculous head of the turkey. I turned back to Sarkisian, but he was walking away as fast as he could.

Gerda strolled over from where she’d been talking to Ida and Art. “We have to stop by their store on the way home,” she reminded me. “I’ll need some nuts or soy or something.”

Her vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. I closed my eyes and groaned. I’d hoped she’d forgotten about that. I had my heart set on the turkey currently roasting in our oven.

I carried the sole remaining unused bag of pancake mix to the car and glared at the bird that contentedly pecked at a pancake on the plate beside it. My thoughts weren’t printable. I had to get rid of that damned bird. I needed the backseat of my car for ferrying containers of defrosting pie filling.

Peggy, aided by her shadow Tony, dragged a trash bag from around the back. Together they heaved it into the bin. Together, they just about had the strength. She said something to him and he nodded, waved, and strode toward his motorcycle. Peggy hurried toward her car.

Sarkisian headed her off. “Never got a chance to ask you where you were Tuesday afternoon,” he said. “Around four to six o’clock.”

Peggy hesitated. “Didn’t you? You asked so many questions.” She shot a glance at Tony, who had mounted his bike and donned his helmet. He started to roll the thing toward her, as if in response to some unheard plea, but she waved him away. He hesitated, then kicked the motor into life and shot out of the lot.

“You said you were at home when you heard the sirens going up to Ms. Lundquist’s,” he persisted. “How long had you been there?”

“Oh.” Again, she hesitated. “Not long. I-I’d been in Meritville. At my son’s garage. He’s a mechanic, you know. I do his bookkeeping for him.”

“That’s what you were doing on Tuesday?”

“Not then, no,” she admitted. She didn’t meet his steady gaze. “I just dropped in to say hi, and stayed talking.”

“Meritville’s a long way to go to just to drop in.” Sarkisian kept his tone purely conversational.

She raised her pointed chin. “You obviously aren’t a mother.” And on that unanswerable note, she stalked to her car, climbed in and drove off.

Sarkisian watched her go. So did I. I’ve known Peggy most of my life, and thought I knew her well enough to know when she was being evasive or downright lying. And that, I would swear, had been a downright lie. But why? I honestly could not believe she would have killed Brody-at least, not in Gerda’s house. She was too good a friend to leave my aunt to face the resulting mess. But could she, I wondered, have killed him on a furious impulse? What if she’d gone over to Gerda’s and found him there alone poring over my aunt’s financial records? Was she, in fact, capable of murder? It upset me to realize I couldn’t be certain. Most people, I knew, if threatened sufficiently, might be capable of killing. You just never knew, even about yourself, until you were pressed to your very limit.

Cindy stood beside her sporty little Mazda but showed no inclination to climb in. She sighed in an exaggerated manner. “It’s going to be strange, with just me for Thanksgiving dinner,” she called to me.

“Then you shouldn’t have sent your friends home,” I muttered, but too softly for anyone to hear. For that matter, I wasn’t all that sure there ever had been any friends.

Gerda caught my arm. “Don’t invite her,” she hissed.

I grinned. “We’re having a vegetarian meal,” I called. “But if you’d like…”

Cindy shuddered. “I’m not into tofu.”

Actually, I quite liked the stuff. Normally. But not when it replaced something I’d been dreaming about for weeks.

“Well,” Cindy went on, “I suppose I’ll have to try to prepare some sort of meal.” She looked sideways at the sheriff, who had just walked away from Simon Lowell’s psychedelic van.

Was she angling for sympathy from the sheriff? Or an invitation to join him? “What about all that food you were preparing for your guests?” I demanded.

Cindy shot me a glare, which she masked with an artificial laugh. “I’d even stuffed my turkey, but I’ve been having second thoughts about it. After all, Gerda is always lecturing about the bacteria in a pre-stuffed bird.”

I doubted any such bird existed. To Cindy’s patent annoyance, Sarkisian helped me pack the remaining pie filling into my trunk. I couldn’t tell if she was making a play for him or merely trying to charm him into believing her incapable of murdering her cheating, money-hiding husband. But I’d begun to develop a pretty fair opinion of Sarkisian’s intelligence-his bullshit detector, as he called it.

And so we sailed out of the Grange lot at last. Unfortunately, I had to stop a short block later to take Gerda to the store, but while she made her selections, Ida set to work on the phone. Art busied himself ringing up my aunt’s purchases, and Ida assured me she’d have a list of filling deliveries for me by the time I got home.

I dropped Aunt Gerda off at the house. But not, much to my growing fury, the turkey. It refused to get out. When I tried to pick it up, it pecked me, drawing blood. Since we were in the garage, and therefore sheltered from the renewing drizzle, I lowered Freya’s top, which toppled back with only the slightest push. Definitely, too much WD-40. Maybe by the time I’d called Ida, the damned bird would have hopped out.

It hadn’t. I made a few more attempts to rid my car of its squatting tenant, then had to admit that for right now, at least, the damned turkey was winning. I put the top up again-which seemed to please the bird-pressed the latches extra hard in the hope they’d hold, and set off on my rounds to deliver the pumpkin pie filling, chauffeuring my unwelcome feathered passenger.

By the time I returned home, I felt a little better. I’d managed to unload almost all the pie filling and obtained promises from everyone that they wouldn’t forget to bake and that they’d see me without fail the following afternoon. A few of them I even believed.

Once more in the garage, that damned bird still wouldn’t vacate the backseat. Disgusted, I gave up-for the moment-and went upstairs.

I found Gerda in the kitchen, standing beside a table filled with foil-wrapped packages. She looked up, arranging her features in her most determined expression. “Take this over to the church for me. They’ll be glad of the extras.”

I sighed. “That’s our dinner, isn’t it?”

“Was our dinner,” she corrected. “I won’t have anyone eating turkey in my house today out of deference to my new pet.”

I told her what she could do with her new pet, loaded myself down with foil packages, and stalked back down the wet steps to my waiting car. I drove off with both turkeys, wondering if I could make them an all-or-nothing deal.

On impulse, I drove right past the church and turned down the road to the Still. Dave Hatter had missed breakfast, he might welcome one of the packets of turkey. And in exchange, I might find out why he ran from the sheriff.

I negotiated the winding road with caution, for the drizzle was increasing to a steady downpour. I pulled at last into the parking lot to find not only Dave’s old Ford truck, but Adam Fairfield’s Chevy, as well. And the sheriff’s Jeep. Had Sarkisian come to ask Dave a few pointed questions? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he, too, had noticed the way Dave had fled the breakfast. The man didn’t seem to miss much.

I pulled into a space as close to the entrance as I could manage, then ran for the shelter of the overhanging roof. The door was locked, but I rang the bell and heard it buzzing from the depths of the building. A few minutes later Dave appeared, trailed by both Fairfield and Sarkisian. To my surprise, everything seemed amicable enough. I was dying to ask questions, but couldn’t figure out how without obviously meddling.

The sheriff eyed me with resignation. “What’s your excuse this time?”

“Turkey,” I said.

He grinned. “Sorry, you’re stuck with the thing.”

“I meant a cooked one.” I explained about Gerda’s casting out our dinner, and remembering that Dave hadn’t been able to stay for any pancakes. We all trooped back to my car, where Dave admired the huge white bird in the backseat-currently napping. I think he admired the plate we put together for him even more.

Adam and Sarkisian both took a few pieces from the packet, as well, and as we turned back to the building, the sheriff fell into step beside me. “Know why Hatter ran this morning?”

I shook my head. “Hasn’t he said anything?”

“Nervous as hell when I got here, but he calmed down pretty fast. Apparently I don’t know something he thinks I might.”

“I came by to see if I could get it out of him,” I admitted, thereby winning a triumphant glance from the sheriff.

“I told you-”

“To stay out, I know. But how can I? These are all people I know, who I grew up with.”

“Whom,” he murmured. “Yeah, makes it tough. You never want to believe that anyone you know could be a murderer. You keep hoping to find innocent explanations to all their inconsistencies.”

“Tom always said it’s easier to arrest someone you don’t know, but easier to understand situations when you do know everyone-and everything about them.”

Sarkisian nodded. “If I stay here for long, I’m going to have to split myself into two people-the sheriff and the community busybody.”

That got a smile out of me. “It’s what made Tom so good at his job.”

He opened his mouth, closed it again, then after a moment said, “And he had you to help. And your aunt.”

“And Peggy, and the rest of the SCOURGE elite. Gossips, all.”

“You don’t like Cindy Brody, do you?” he asked abruptly.

I stopped. We’d reached the lobby, and Dave and Adam had long since gone on ahead. “I don’t really know her all that well,” I said at last. Was he asking if I’d be upset when-if-he arrested her?

“She lied about being at home when her husband was murdered,” he mused. “She’d taken her car out, she had mud on her shoes, and a very strong motive for wanting him dead before their divorce became final.”

“Several hundred thousand motives,” I agreed, “all in nice, spendable cash.” Then I shook my head. “I don’t know. There are a number of people who had both the reason for wanting him dead and the opportunity to kill him.”

His mouth twitched. “But only one of them did it.”

“Not everyone resorts to murder to get out of their problems,” I agreed. “That takes a certain disregard for the value of someone else’s life.”

“Or an extreme desperation to protect one’s own-or someone or something one loves.” He shook his head. “The psychology of murder is never easy.”

He watched while I returned to my car. Once I started my engine-not so much as causing that damned bird to ruffle a feather-the sheriff turned and headed after the other two men into the depths of the Still. I left him to his study of psychology. I had a turkey dinner to deliver.

It received a warm welcome at the church on the outskirts of town, where they never seemed to have enough food to pass on to those suffering through the difficult economic times. I stayed for awhile, helping wherever an extra hand came in useful, then made my way back to Gerda’s, tired, more than a little depressed, and still with that damned bird infesting my beloved car.

The rumble of the garage door caused it to wake up at last. It shifted its wings and eyed me as if selecting the best spot to peck. I pulled into my parking space, rolled up my sleeves, climbed out, pushed the driver’s seat forward, and hauled on the leash.

To my delight, I managed to drag the bird out. It landed on the cement of the garage floor, ruffled its whole body, and dove back to its preferred nest. It settled down with what I would swear was a smug expression, and no amount of cajolery or threats got it to budge again. An attempt to lay hands on it resulted in my getting pecked. Not badly, just a warning.

I knew when I was licked. I located an old shower curtain that Gerda used as an emergency tarp and protected as much of the upholstery as I could. Over this I laid more newspaper and finally left the triumphant bird in peace in its four-wheeled nest in the comfort of the garage. I placed a bucket of water and the plate with the half-eaten pancake on the ground nearby, but my unwelcome passenger showed no interest in getting out for a snack.

With a sigh, I lowered the convertible top, but without much hope the turkey would take the hint and vacate. “Happy Thanksgiving,” I told it, with more than a touch of sarcasm, and headed for the stairs.