I was just testing the first two for doneness when I heard a car in the drive, followed by slamming doors and footsteps on the stairs.
Peggy opened the door without knocking. “Ready for us?” she called, a lilt in her voice, and she came in, kicking off her shoes into a corner. Her son Bill, short and solid, in his mid-thirties and as good-natured as his mother, followed her inside. He gave me a sheepish grin and handed over the covered casserole dish he held. Peggy placed another on the table. “All meatless,” she assured Gerda.
“So, where’s this turkey of yours?” Bill asked.
I bit back a nasty retort. He was a rare breed of auto mechanic—as honest as he was good. He had never overcharged anyone, and frequently came in under his estimates. He’d kept all our cars operational for the past fifteen years. It would not pay to antagonize him. “Still in my car,” I said without further elaboration.
He shook his head. “Hope you’ve got the seats well covered. Hate to see a classic like that turned into a turkey coop,” he added, thereby winning my unswerving devotion for life.
I beamed at him. “Want it for a mascot for your garage?”
He laughed, shaking his head. “What are you going to name it?”
Several possibilities sprang to mind, but before I could utter the choicest, Peggy squealed. “Ooh! I know! Let’s have a Name-the-Turkey contest! We can announce the winner at the Dinner-in-the Park!”
“No!” I cried, but too late. The idea appealed to my aunt, and while we arranged our meal on the dining room table, they happily made plans for announcing this addition to our weekend activities to the community at large. As long as they planned it, it was fine as far as I was concerned. If they tried to foist anything else onto me, though, they were going to find out just how loudly I could yell “no”.
Bill wandered into the living room, turned on the television, and began switching channels until he found the pre-game show. He stretched out in my aunt’s recliner in a typically male fashion, prepared to watch as much football as he possibly could.
Holiday filled the house. Wonderful aromas wafted through the air, of pumpkin spices and green bean casseroles and mashed potatoes and Gerda’s savory concoctions. The sounds of the football game drifted in from the living room, and working beside me, Gerda and Peggy talked happily of recipes and knitting. It was all so homey and comfortable, an absolute delight after the craziness of the last couple of days. A respite, I knew. It wouldn’t last for long. But I intended to make the most of it while I could.
The growing number of pies on the counter proved a constant reminder of the horrors still in store for me, and soon had me searching out every possible surface on which to set them to cool. We had barely sat down to eat when Ida Graham called with the bad news that one of the pie bakers had been called out of town on a family emergency. The family had dropped their filling and shells off at the store, but now I had to find someone else to bake a dozen of the damned things. Surely three hundred, the number we’d decided on for the morrow’s event, would be far too many. Surely we could cook a few less.
Ida laughed at me. “Good try, kiddo, but we’ve got well over a hundred people signed up for it.”
“Can’t we make them bring their own?” I tried, but Ida merely laughed again and hung up on me.
Great. I no longer had much appetite for my dinner. I pulled out another batch of pies, shoved in the next, and felt stumped. Maybe I could call Sarkisian, get the key for the Grange Hall, and use their ovens to bake. And why hadn’t I thought of that earlier?
I called the sheriff’s department and reached some poor soul low on the hierarchy who’d gotten stuck with working the holiday. He promised to get my message to Sarkisian somehow, but didn’t sound too hopeful. The sheriff, we agreed, was probably out trying to unravel the tangled motives surrounding Cliff Brody’s death.
Well, I could only wish Sarkisian luck. There were far too many people whose lives Brody had disturbed, far too many who were only too relieved to see him dead. And the problem was that I liked all of them. They were part of my life. I returned to the table and the perplexing question of who else I could con into baking pies.
“Can’t we eat just one?” Bill asked, eyeing the grouping I’d set to cool on the sideboard. “What’s Thanksgiving dinner without pumpkin pie?”
“A lot easier,” I sighed.
Gerda directed a forgiving look at me. “Of course we can spare one. I wonder,” she added, “if my turkey would like some?”
“He’d splatter it all over my car!” I protested.
“Nonsense,” said Gerda. “That poor bird has a great deal to be thankful for this Thanksgiving. I’m going to give it a slice.”
“You and that beastly bird—” I began, when it dawned on me there was another beastly bird I hadn’t heard anything from. I sprang up and hurried to my room, to be greeted by Vilhelm calling, “I’m a pest! Let me out!”
“Later,” I promised him, even though his demand was addressed to his favorite cola can as he threw it around the cage. Water and seed levels both fine, Vilhelm in good spirits. Relieved, I returned to the table to speed our guests on their way.
Bill was standing in front of the television, shoveling in pie, watching some poor player get smeared on the snow-dotted grass. The ball bounced free, but the pile of players remained where they lay. Bill grinned at me. “Great game.”
“Got another one for you. It’s called, ‘how many pies can you bake?’”
“At least a half dozen more,” Peggy assured me. “That’s on top of the dozen I already promised.”
“I’ll miss a chunk of the game if we leave now,” Bill complained.
“Look, you could stay here if we had another oven, but we don’t.” I plucked the empty plate from his hand.
Peggy shoved a washed casserole dish at him. “Come on, we’ve got to straighten up the living room. Sheriff Sarkisian said he might stop by in a little while.”
“If he does,” I called as they headed down the stairs, “get the Grange key from him.”
Two batches of pies later, Sarkisian had not appeared bearing the key, nor had Peggy called. And I still had way too many pies to get baked. Leaving Gerda to man our own ovens, I armed myself with several tubs and a canvas tote bag full of defrosted shells, staggered out into the dark and cold and rain, and made my cautious way down the stairs to the garage.
Telltale signs littered the cement floor to prove the damned bird had indeed hopped out, not only for a drink but to stroll around a little. But it had returned, and now slept happily in its chosen roost. There really didn’t seem to be much I could do about it. I dumped my burdens onto the passenger seat, raised the top on my car, and set off for Peggy’s.
Bill opened the door for me, all the while looking over his shoulder so he wouldn’t miss a moment of the game. “We need a couple more crusts,” Peggy called from the kitchen. She emerged into her comfortably cluttered front room wiping her hands on a towel. Specks of orange clung to her face, clashing with her hair. “And bad news on the key. The sheriff said he’d already taken it back to the office.”
I muttered a word my aunt would never approve of.
Peggy eyed me benignly. “If it will do you any good, he said he was on his way over to see Simon Lowell. He only left a few minutes ago.”
Something about her manner, the brightness of her eyes, alerted me. “What else?”
“Oh, not much.” She grinned. “But I remembered something I thought our sheriff might find interesting. And he did, I’m sure of it, though he acted like it wasn’t of any importance.”
Forebodings nudged at the edges of my mind. “What have you done?” I demanded.
She looked hurt. “Really, Annike…”
“Sorry, but really, what did you tell him?”
She hesitated between disapproval of my suspicions and delight in what she had accomplished. “Last week Cindy asked me—ever so casually, which is why I forgot about it until now—about options-to-buy on houses. I got the impression she had to come up with some cash real fast if she wanted to purchase that fancy place she’s living in. And she was worried about it.” Peggy beamed at me, waiting for the applause such a revelation deserved.
“She really asked you about that?” I was impressed—though still a touch suspicious.
“I guess she didn’t want to ask her husband.” Peggy still beamed. “And I’m the only other financial person she knows.”
I nodded. “I just bet Sarkisian found that interesting. Cindy’s been going on about not having any money—or any understanding of it.”
“And,” Peggy added, her delight bubbling over, “she’s the primary beneficiary of Brody’s will—and a very fat insurance policy.”
I grinned for the first time in a very long while. “Bless you, Peggy. He needs someone other than Gerda to think about.”
“That’s what I thought.” She tilted her head to one side. “You know, you haven’t asked Simon Lowell to bake any pies, have you?”
My grin broadened. “Probably the only oven in town not busy. I guess I better get over there.” I took off, for once not resenting having to chauffeur that dratted bird with me.
The rain had let up while I’d been indoors, and a few stars actually lit the night sky, though the trees dripped enough to keep my windshield wipers busy. I turned up the side road that lead to the real estate agent’s property, bounced onto the bridge, and the latches popped on my car’s top, sending the canvas back a couple of inches. I left it, the opening let in that terrific wet pine aroma. It also let in a few drips, but not enough to worry about.
As I neared the last winding turn, a soft glow lit the gravel. It made negotiating the next dozen or so potholes much easier. I found the source when I rounded the final bend and pulled into Lowell’s yard. A powerful spotlight, mounted on the barn, illuminated the entire front of the property. A truck stood near the barn, but what caught my attention was the jerky movement of two men near the fence. About ten feet away from them stood the sheriff’s Jeep, with the sheriff himself leaning with his back against its hood, his arms folded.
I pulled up near him and climbed out. He glanced at me, nodded, and returned to glaring at the figures who had now come together in an odd-looking dance. I stared at them for a long moment. “They’re fighting!”
“If you can call it that,” Sarkisian said.
“What…?” I began.
“Drunk,” the sheriff said succinctly. “Both of them.”
“Aren’t you going to stop it?”
He shrugged. “They’ll stop on their own, soon enough.”
I could see his point. Both men looked bruised and muddied, and their breathing came in short, ragged gasps. Simon had one arm slung over the fence to support himself while he took an ineffectual swing at Adam Fairfield. Adam had collapsed over a rail and now could muster only enough energy to wave a feeble arm in Simon’s direction.
Sarkisian gave a short nod. “That’s about enough,” he announced in a loud voice. “Either of you want to explain?”
“That damned hippie!” Adam paused, struggling for breath. “Been preachin’ at Nancy again. Damn comm’nist philos’phy.” He took a staggering step toward Simon but collapsed in the sheriff’s arms. Sarkisian propped him against the fence.
“Apparently,” Simon said with the careful enunciation of one who knows his speech is slurred, “she packaged up their leftovers—”
“Every single one of ‘em,” nodded Adam.
“And took them down to the church.”
“I like turkey san’ches,” Adam mumbled. “An’ b’rittos and cass’roles. Wan’ a court order. Keep ‘im an’ ‘is sub—subvers—”
“Subversive ways,” Simon interjected with the superiority of one who could still pronounce it.
“S’right. Keep ‘im ‘way from m’girl.”
“Well, you can come down to the office in the morning,” Sarkisian told him. “An—Ms. McKinley?” He jerked his head toward Simon.
I nodded and took the real estate agent by the arm.
He responded by pulling it free and draping it around my shoulders. “I’d be delighted if you escorted me inside.” Leaning heavily on me, he started for his one-room cabin.
“Are you going to be all right?” I asked when I’d gotten him through the door. The place felt cozily warm. Not at all what I expected from the shabby exterior.
He looked around, then nodded solemnly. “Go straight to bed. My apologies for your seeing me like this.” He staggered across the small room and fell face first onto the narrow bed.
After a moment’s consideration, I dragged off his muddy boots, then reached for a flying geese patterned quilt. To my surprise, it proved to be a duvet cover encasing a thick down-filled comforter. Very warm—and very expensive. I pulled this over him, and he muttered something that might have been “thank you”.
I looked around and found the place unexpectedly neat. A pile of split logs and branches lay in a cast-iron hoop beside a massive stone hearth. Inside of this stood a wood burning stove, a modern necessity in such a fire trap as this. The blaze within had reduced to a low burn. I checked the flue, opened the door and banked the fire for the night. After readjusting the air flow, I stood back and looked around. Everything looked safe enough. I let myself out and walked back to where Owen Sarkisian tried to boost the unconscious Adam into the passenger seat of his Chevy.
The sheriff looked up as I approached. “Want to pull from the other side?”