Cold Turkey

Chapter Fifteen

I must have blacked out, because the next thing I remembered was a nightmarish jumble of impressions, the worst being that damned bird peering at me, its beak a scant three inches from my face. I may have groaned, I’m not sure, but it scuttled to the other bucket seat and attacked the window. Rain beat down on my head, drenching me, running in rivulets down my face, drumming a violent tattoo on the soft roof of my car-at least, the portion that was still up. Those damned latches, I thought, that damned mechanism…

I became aware of men’s voices yelling in the distance. Then I remembered Sarkisian’s Jeep plunging over the embankment and I was struggling with my seat belt, trying to pull myself free. The buckle felt sticky, and my fingers kept sliding.

“I’m all right,” Sarkisian’s voice, muffled, a bit shaken, reached me.

All right. I stopped my struggles, leaned my head against the headrest and lost consciousness again.

This time when I roused, it was to the sensation of someone gripping one of my hands. I opened my eyes and focused on Sarkisian’s face. “Much better than the beak,” I said.

“I’ve got a beak of my own.” The sheriff touched his aquiline nose. Mud streaked his face, mingled with blood from a number of scratches and cuts. An odd puffiness altered the line of one cheek bone. He’d be covered in bruises in the morning, but he was alive and apparently not badly hurt.

“The Jeep…” I began.

“Stuck in the rocks, only about three feet down. You can see the top of it from here, just behind that tree.”

So it hadn’t gone all the way down, it hadn’t crashed into the rocky river. He hadn’t drowned, or been bashed to death. I closed my eyes again, relieved. Everything felt fuzzy, and I feared I was either going to be sick or pass out again.

“I’ve called a tow truck. What do you think, Annike? Think a tow truck can drag out the Jeep?”

“What?” I tried to look through the trees, but everything seemed blurry.

“Come on, Annike, talk to me. Just say a few words. The ambulance will be here real soon, but I want you to talk to me.”

“Thought you wanted me to keep quiet.”

“Not now. Go ahead and tell me what a rotten sheriff I am.”

“Not,” I mouthed, realized I hadn’t made any sound and tried again. “Just shouldn’t suspect Gerda.”

“That’s right.” He smiled, a not altogether felicitous effort considering the state of his face. He didn’t look like he really meant it, either.

“Sheriff!” Dave Hatter looked in through the passenger window, rain dripping down his yellow slicker hat.

I realized Sarkisian sat in the car, on the front seat where the turkey had squatted last time I looked. I supposed it would be too much to hope that Sarkisian had thrown it out. A rustling of feathers from the backseat answered that thought. Sarkisian and Dave were exchanging a few words, but my mind had drifted, missing them.

The sheriff released my hand which he’d held all this time. “Got to check on something. Be right back. Talk to the turkey.”

“Turkey talk,” I agreed with the affability of the seriously concussed. “Hi, turkey. You need a name.”

Sarkisian threw me a worried look, then climbed out into the downpour. Someone appeared at the driver’s window. “You okay, Annike?”

I looked hazily up into Adam Fairfield’s worried face. He looked unnaturally pale. And very wet.

“God,” he said, “when we heard the crash…”

“I crashed?” The edges of my vision seemed black, as if everything were tunneling.

“Not you,” he assured me. “You spun out, but hit your head on the side window. It was Sarkisian, swerving to avoid hitting you, who slammed into the rocks and bounced over the edge. It was a miracle he didn’t go all the way down into the gulch.” He sounded shaken.

I didn’t blame him. The thought of it left me pretty shaken, too. Sarkisian could have been killed, and all because I’d skidded in the rain.

“Your front left tire blew,” he explained.

I realized I’d said my last thought aloud. “Blew?”

“Ripped apart is a better description. Dave just found bolts and screws scattered across the roadway. It’s a miracle you didn’t go over the edge.”

“Good driving,” I muttered, not that I really believed that. “Or maybe it was that damned bird flapping her wings that kept us up.” I was tired, and talking was too much trouble. I closed my eyes.

The passenger door opened, and Sarkisian slid back onto the seat. The turkey gobbled some protest. “Oh, shut up,” sighed the sheriff, endearing himself to me even more. “That had to be deliberate,” he declared. “That many large sharp objects…”

“If they’d been there when you arrived,” Adam said, “you’d have run over them then. No way you could have missed them, even if the road wasn’t so dark and wet. They’re everywhere.”

“So someone scattered them while we were going over the books.”

A very pregnant silence fell. “Deliberate,” said Dave. “Aimed at the sheriff?”

“I was inside,” I said, not bothering to open my eyes. “Best alibi in the world. Had the sheriff with me almost the whole time.”

“You could have done it on your way here,” Sarkisian pointed out with an attempt-I hoped-at humor.

“Maggie-the lab tech-left after Annike arrived,” Adam stuck in. “So that leaves Annike in the clear.”

“Why would someone do this?” Dave persisted. “Did you find something in all those ledger books?”

“Not yet,” Sarkisian’s voice sounded like steel, of the pointed, sharpened and honed variety.

“But you must be getting too close for someone’s comfort,” mused Adam. “Damn, who knew you were out here with a warrant tonight?”

“Anyone could have figured it out. Especially if they came by to hide evidence or correct the books and saw my car here.”

“You must be coming close to solving Brody’s murder, then.” Dave sounded almost regretful.

“Not Peggy,” I said. “She couldn’t.”

“She’d never do anything that might hurt Annike,” Adam agreed.

“Even if she was desperate?” Dave sounded skeptical, like one who knew the depths to which desperation might drive a person.

“Annike’s car was down at shipping and receiving,” Sarkisian pointed out. “Whoever did this might not have known she was here.”

“Except Gerda,” I stuck in. “I called her, remember?”

Sarkisian let out a deep breath.

“And don’t you go thinking Peggy and Gerda are in on this together, and Gerda killed Brody, and Peggy was trying to cover up by killing you and destroying the records, and…” I stopped, having lost the thread of what I was saying. In the ensuing silence, the rain pounded with renewed vigor, the river roared a few feet below the wedged Jeep, and in the distance a siren sounded. “They’re coming to take me away, ha ha,” I muttered, from the vague memory of an old song.

“The sooner, the better,” agreed Sarkisian.

I shot him a suspicious glance. The song referred to a mental hospital. “What about That Damned Bird?” I asked. The phrase was taking on all the power of a name in my mind. “Think they’ll take her away, too?”

“I’ll do that,” the sheriff assured me. “I’ll take your car back to your aunt’s house and tell her what happened. Lucky thing you have a spare tire in the trunk.”

I blinked. “It was raining in here.”

“Your top had popped open and been thrown back a bit,” Sarkisian told me. “I closed it.”

I nodded. “Flip-top.”

The siren screamed now with that odd rise and fall of volume as it wound around the hairpin curves. Dave produced a flare from somewhere in the depths of his rain parka and broke it open. He strode off into the middle of the road and disappeared around the bend, waving the sputtering light over his head. I leaned back, knowing that once you had paramedics on the scene, everything was taken out of your hands. I could relax, I could sink into that peaceful oblivion that waited for me with open arms…

Aside from a bit of rough and ready handling getting me out of the car and strapped onto a stretcher, the next few hours passed with less trouble than I would have imagined. Sarkisian refused transport to the hospital for himself, so the paramedics cleaned him up on the spot. They hauled me off to where I, too, was tended and mended, which involved a half dozen stitches to my forehead. By the time they were done, there was nothing left of the night for me to bed down in comfort in, so I called Aunt Gerda to come and rescue me.

She arrived in Hans Gustav a short while later, not the least ruffled at having to collect me from a hospital. “The sheriff was really quite capable,” she pronounced as she saw me tenderly into the passenger seat. For her, this was highest praise.

“How did he get home?” It felt like heaven to just lean back against the head rest. Then she handed me a thermos of tea, and as I opened it, and the heavenly aroma of chamomile, honey and rum reached me, I called down loud and glorious blessings on her head.

“He’d apparently called ahead. Whoever was on night duty swung by and picked him up. He really looked a mess, with all those bandages on his face, and he kept reassuring me you were going to be fine.”

“Oh, yeah. All set for a fun-filled day in the park,” I agreed.

Gerda sighed and looked up at the sky, which showed an annoying tendency not to rain. “It’s going to be dry enough to work,” she agreed without enthusiasm.

“Oh, damn, I never got the decorations,” I exclaimed.

“Don’t worry, we’ll call over to the Still. Dave or Adam or Tony or someone will cart them over.”

Any hope I had of being put on sick leave for the remainder of the weekend faded. Apparently it was back to work at once. “Did That Damned Bird survive?” I asked.

“It was a bit distraught, but I settled it down with a pancake.”

I lowered the thermos from which I was about to take a swig. “Do you mean you made pancakes, for a turkey, at three o’clock in the morning?”

“Four,” Gerda corrected me. “And it helped. It ate, then settled right down. And you can have the leftover batter when we get home.”

Leftovers from the turkey’s breakfast. “I’m honored,” I muttered, and swallowed some of the tea.

I not only got breakfast, but a short nap, as well, before I had to drag myself down to the park. By unspoken mutual consent, Gerda collected her keys. Freya-and That Damned Bird-were going to get the day off. I wished I could, too, but that would be too much to hope for.

I trudged down the redwood stairs-no more than damp after hours without rain-and opened the door to the garage. But instead of climbing into Hans Gustav, I went to inspect my beloved Mustang. Top down, turkey in rear seat, no dented fenders or torn metal or scratches or other signs of damage. All normal except for the driver’s side window, where the impact of my head had broken the supposedly safety glass and left an amazing amount of blood. No wonder I’d had so many stitches and now had a skull that throbbed like it had been hit by a car. It had. The true miracle lay in the fact that with all that slick, curvy road and rocky hillside, I hadn’t hit anything except myself. It could so easily have been me slamming into that guard rail, careening over the edge of that gully, bouncing from boulder to boulder to land in that raging river…

I patted the trunk of my car. That jarred the flip-top’s rear mechanism, which rose and fell with alarming ease as I tested it. The top latches wobbled when I touched them. Maybe I could tie the soft top in place. Or fasten it with duct tape. With a sigh, I turned back to Hans Gustav. On the whole, Freya and I-and That Damned Bird-had come out of last night’s affair pretty lightly.

Gerda watched me as I climbed into her passenger seat, but didn’t say a word. I was glad she hadn’t been there. It was going to be bad enough explaining away the bandage that covered half my face to every inquisitive SCOURGEie.

Gerda backed out of the garage in a sweeping curve to face the winding drive. “You know, Annike,” she said as we bounced through a pothole and out the gate, “I did set a trap for Brody.”

I froze. Not now, I moaned silently. My head wasn’t clear enough for this. “Please, don’t-” I began.

She interrupted me. “I know you’ve been hearing rumors, and I know I denied it, but-well, I don’t know why I was making such a big deal out of it. Stubbornness, I guess. It’s really pretty silly. All I did was copy all my financial records and take them to a second C.P.A. I wanted to compare what the two had to say about my investments, what they came up with for deductions. If there was a serious difference, I might have had a case for some criminal proceedings, or a lawsuit, or something.”

I considered this. “Sounds like a good idea to me.” And for Gerda, amazingly sound thinking.

My eccentric aunt spared me a glance from the road. “You think so?” She sounded relieved. “I was so afraid the new sheriff would think it too stupid to be possible and decide I was lying.”

“He’d approve,” I assured her. “Go ahead and tell him.”

Gerda cast me another sideways glance. “He was awfully nice last night.”

I nodded, then wished I hadn’t. The pain was almost as bad as the dizziness.

To my surprise, the SCOURGE elite had beaten us to the Park. Peggy ran up to the car as Gerda pulled up to the curb, practically bouncing on her toes in her eagerness. “You poor dear!” she cried. “Why don’t you sit just where you are. You can oversee the rest of us from here.”

I came as close to beaming at her as I could manage under the circumstances. “What a wonderful idea.”

She peered into the back of the Pathfinder. “You didn’t bring her! Really, Annike, how could you forget? We’re going to start the Name-the-Turkey contest today.”

“She won’t get out of my car,” I reminded her. “Anyway, you’re too late. I’ve already given her a name.”

Gerda, who had gotten out and joined Peggy, straightened to her full and very impressive height. “You named my turkey?” Menace sounded in every word.

“Well, you always say that animals have to earn their names, don’t you?”

“What are you calling her?” demanded my indignant aunt.

“That Damned Bird.” I faltered over the middle word, but finished strong.

“That Damned Bird,” repeated Peggy, tasting the name in her mouth. “T.D.B. for short?”

“T.D…” Gerda broke off. She and Peggy stared at each other, grins spreading across their faces. “Tedi Bird!” they proclaimed almost in unison.

I groaned and leaned my head gently against the rest.

“Need more pain pills?” Sarkisian’s sympathetic voice interrupted my bout of self-pity.

“Tedi Bird!” Peggy told him, beaming. “Isn’t that a wonderful name?”

He looked to me for an explanation. I gave it to him. He didn’t laugh, but I could see it was a struggle.

Peggy eyed him with a frown. “You look like you’ve been in a pretty bad fight.”

“You should see the rocks,” he told her with a straight face-probably because it hurt too much to smile. “They got the worst of it.”

“They got hit with the Jeep,” I added.

When Peggy and Gerda had strolled off to join Ida and Art Graham, he leaned a hand against the door, and all trace of humor ebbed from his eyes.

“How do you feel?” I asked. “You haven’t had any sleep, either, I’ll bet.”

He waved that aside. “Look, I’m really sorry, Ms. McKinley. I never should have gotten you involved last night. If I hadn’t, if you’d just left with those damned holiday decorations…”

Remorse from Sarkisian was more than I could take. “Then who knows what would have happened if you’d hit that trap first. You might have gone over in a different spot, and the Jeep might not have caught on those rocks…” I broke off and closed my eyes. I’d have nightmares over last night.

“Well, we all got out of it pretty well. Even the Jeep wasn’t totaled, though I won’t be able to drive it for a week or so. Thought for sure it would have bent or mangled the frame or something else important, but amazingly it didn’t.”

We were silent for several minutes, watching Adam Fairfield pruning a hedge. Simon Lowell pulled a short ladder out of the back of his van, set it up beside a tree and mounted it. Art Graham brought over a box of banners and handed one up. Ida, Peggy, Sue and Gerda hung oversized inflatable Christmas balls on lower branches of the other trees. Adam must have brought the decorations. I called down silent blessings on his head. Now, if he’d brought the bottles of liqueur, as well, I’d be forever in his debt.

“Can you think of any reason why Dave Hatter’s fingerprints might have been all over the inventory sheets?” Sarkisian asked, breaking across my reflections.

I blinked, changing gears from the peaceful park scene to the murder investigation. “He might have delivered them,” I said, then realized that sounded ridiculous. “He’s the night watchman. Maybe it’s part of his job to check inventory.”

“These were the original papers, the records kept by the bottlers. The ones Ms. O'Shaughnessy used to enter onto the computer.”

I bit back my first thought, that Dave might have altered a few figures and stolen a few bottles. That didn’t make much sense. Employees could take home all the failed experiments they wanted.

Simon, the ladder under one arm, strolled toward us. He gave Sarkisian a nod of greeting. “Well?” he asked. “Interesting reading?”

I stared at Simon, confused, then memory rushed back. “The letters! I forgot…”

“I found them,” Sarkisian assured me. “The envelope was on the front seat of your car, with my name all over it.”

Simon, not meeting the sheriff’s steady gaze, explained about my catching him in the act of destroying evidence. His own words. He was making a joke out of it, but I could tell he was relieved, at the same time. “So, you think that’s enough motive for murder?” Simon finished.

Sarkisian sighed. “It’s been known to happen for less,” he said. “And the phrasing implied these weren’t the first words you and Brody had about blackmail.”

Simon’s jaw tightened. “Look, the guy was getting annoying, I admit it. He had a real talent for getting on everyone’s nerves. But if he revealed my great and terrible secret-well, it would have been a bit embarrassing, I admit that. But I’m not a hypocrite. Just keep that little matter quiet, will you?”

“Unless it becomes necessary to bring it out,” the sheriff agreed at last. Simon, looking much relieved, headed off to decorate another tree.

“All right, what is this terrible secret of his?” I demanded when Simon was out of earshot.

Sarkisian shook his head. “Sorry.”

Oh, well, I hadn’t really expected him to tell me.

“Now, why don’t you-” Sarkisian broke off and looked up. “Felt a drip,” he said, then, “Oh, damn!”

Droplets struck the windshield, harder and harder, until we had a full-on downpour. People grabbed up armloads of tools and ran for their cars. Sarkisian let himself into the backseat of Hans Gustav and watched the chaos resolve itself into an empty park.

Gerda scrambled into the driver’s seat. “I’ll take you home, Annike, then I’ve got to come back to the store. People want videos.”

“I’ll take Ms. McKinley home,” Owen Sarkisian said.

Gerda jumped and turned around. “I didn’t see you, there.”

“Special police camouflage training,” he assured her. “We’re taught how to blend into the backseats of nine different makes of vehicles.” He exited the car and opened the door for me.

Gerda raised her eyebrows at me. I shrugged and climbed out, then eased my way over to the plain white Honda Sarkisian had commandeered as temporary replacement for his Jeep. “Thanks,” I said as I sank into the seat.

“It gets better,” he assured me, and produced a towel from the back. “Even the heater works in this thing.” He started the engine.

I looked back at the park as we pulled away. “We only got it about half decorated,” I sighed.

“Don’t worry,” he assured me, “it’s going to be too wet to hold the dinner there, anyway.”

“Great.” I stared out into the downpour, depressed, tired, and sore all over. “I wonder if we can get the school cafeteria?”

He glanced at me. “I’ll see what I can arrange.”

He turned onto my aunt’s street, and we fell silent as we headed up the hill, listening to the beating of the rain and the rhythmic swipes of the wipers. I stared out the side window, my thoughts drifting over the occupants of each house we passed, over the many times I’d hiked up this ever-steepening incline going home from school, over all the things that pop to mind when you’re tired and have handed control over to someone else, even if only for a few minutes.

We passed Peggy’s house just as she emerged from her front door, her arms loaded with several apparently heavy boxes. She could only have just gotten home- She saw the car and ducked back inside.

Sarkisian slowed, then pulled over. “Be right back,” he said, and clambered out into the rain.

I followed. He knelt behind a hedge, looking down the slope into Peggy’s yard. He had a clear view of her door. It opened again, and she peered out. Then she ran the few steps toward her car, opened the trunk and ran back to the house. This time she emerged once more with the boxes. She stowed these in her trunk, returned to lock her house, then directed her searching gaze up the road toward Gerda’s. The way our car had been heading. Apparently satisfied, she climbed into her Pontiac.

Sarkisian darted back to his own car, with me scrambling after him. “What…” I began as I fastened my seat belt.

“We’re going to follow her.” He sounded grim.

“She’d never have scattered those bolts.” But even as I said those words, I knew a moment’s doubt. Desperate people had sunk to doing desperate and terrible things before.

“It didn’t have to be her.” Sarkisian didn’t look at me. “Her faithful shadow was at the Still last night.”

Tony. I’d seen him, seen his sullen stare when he hadn’t bothered to acknowledge me. If he thought he was saving his benefactress, he might not care if I went over the ravine along with the sheriff. What sorts of things had he been arrested for, anyway? I’d assumed they’d been relatively harmless. I couldn’t see Gerda helping him out if it had been something violent or cruel. But maybe she didn’t know. I wondered if a sheriff could break open the sealed files of a juvenile felon who was no longer a juvenile. But Peggy…

“No.” I clung to that conviction. “She wouldn’t be involved in anything truly wrong.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’d describe her manner just now as suspicious. Or do you prefer the term ‘furtive,’ maybe?”

“A little odd, perhaps, but then this is Peggy, remember.”

“Oh, I remember. And this may have a perfectly innocent explanation. I’m just dying to hear it.”

We sped on in silence through the gloom of the storm. Any hope I had that she might be going to my aunt’s store faded as she drove right past and turned onto the road to Meritville. “Probably on her way to see her son,” I suggested.

Sarkisian made a noncommittal sound. I found I was beating my fingers on my leg and instead clasped my hands in my lap. Whatever Peggy was up to, it would undoubtedly be scatterbrained, pure Peggy at her most ridiculous, but it would also be innocent. It had to be.

Other cars traversed the rain-drenched road. Sarkisian allowed a blue Dodge pickup to pass us on an empty stretch, making us less obvious in case Peggy checked her rearview mirror. Five minutes later we reached the outskirts of Meritville, where traffic proved almost as heavy as usual. We were no longer the only white Honda on the road.

Sarkisian allowed other cars between ours and the old yellow Pontiac. We made several turns, and once I thought we’d lost her when she beat a light and we didn’t. But Sarkisian made a rapid right turn, cut down the next block and returned to the main street to pull in just two cars behind Peggy’s. I was impressed. The next light we made by the plastic of our bumper. Peggy made a sharp left almost at once, then a block later pulled into a parking lot behind a dilapidated old building that showed signs of recent refurbishment. Sarkisian leaned back in the seat as he watched Peggy pull up beside a rear door and jump out of her car.

“The homeless shelter,” I said after a moment. I hadn’t seen it from this angle before. On the few visits I’d made with Peggy or Gerda in the past, we’d parked on the street.

“The homeless shelter,” Sarkisian agreed. He pulled up just behind the Pontiac, blocking any possibility of its retreat.

She had reached the door, but turned around at the sound of the engine so close. The expression of dismay on her face would have been comical if it hadn’t been tinged with panic. I climbed out into the rain, hurrying to join her for whatever support she might need. Together we huddled under the meager shelter of the back door’s overhang.

“Why so secretive, Ms. O’Shaughnessy?” Sarkisian asked.

“What are you talking about?” She put a brave face on it, but you would have thought we had caught her in the act of committing a crime.

A young man, of the Simon Lowell school of fashion, emerged from the back entrance, wiping his hands on his overalls. “Need help, Peggy?” he asked, then took in the sheriff. “What can I do for you, officer?”

“Was this lady here on Tuesday afternoon?” Sarkisian asked.

The man stared at Peggy, his eyes unfocussed with the effort of memory. “You came over at about four o’clock, didn’t you?” he asked at last. “I remember, you brought all those cans and those sleeping bags.”

“And when did she leave?”

The man considered, then shook his head. “No idea. We were pretty busy. I’ll check around if it’s important.”

“Please do.” Sarkisian waited until the man had returned inside, then joined us in the tiny sheltered space. “Why did you lie, Ms. O’Shaughnessy?”

Her face contorted. “Because where is the point in helping people if you make sure everyone knows about it?” she demanded. “I don’t do this so everyone will say I do good works. I do it because-because it’s important to do.” She shut her mouth.

Sarkisian glanced at me. I gave an almost imperceptible shrug. That might be true. “Does your son object?” I asked.

She hesitated. “He doesn’t know how much time I spend here,” she admitted. “It’s no one’s business but mine.”

“It’s becoming my business,” Sarkisian told me some twenty minutes later when we climbed back into his car. No one at the shelter could remember what time Peggy had left on Tuesday night. It might have been as early as four-fifteen or as late as six. Volunteers don’t punch time clocks, they reminded us. Volunteers were so precious, they were welcomed for however many minutes they could spare. “I still think she’s hiding something,” he added as we headed back toward Upper River Gulch.

I didn’t say anything for the simple reason that I feared he was right. She was too nervous, too upset, just for being caught out in delivering boxes of used clothes. And why had she bothered lying about Tuesday? We all knew she helped out there. It didn’t make sense. I leaned back and closed my eyes and began to drift off to sleep.

The crackling of the radio roused me. Sarkisian answered it, and I heard the voice of Jennifer, the dispatcher.

“Hey, Sheriff? You’re not going to believe it. We’ve got another body.”