“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.”
Chapter Sixteen
The body belonged to—or at least had belonged to—Dave Hatter. Adam Fairfield had come on duty at two o’clock and found the man lying face down in the bathtub-sized vat. When I’d seen the tank last night, it had stood empty, as usual. Now it almost overflowed with apricot brandy. And body.
I sat on one of the upholstered chairs in the Still’s reception area, shivering. I was tired, my head ached, I was sore all over, and I couldn’t face the fact that someone I’d known most of my life had just ended his own.
Adam Fairfield paced the floor in front of me. “I mean,” he said for perhaps the tenth time, “I’d only just walked in here! No one expects to find—” He broke off. “I can’t believe it.”
“Sit down,” I suggested. His eyes looked too bright, his face flushed, but I would have sworn he hadn’t taken a drink, not even something medicinal to steady his nerves. I wouldn’t have blamed him in the least if he had. I wouldn’t have minded sampling one of the liqueurs myself, right now.
But not, I amended, the apricot brandy. I didn’t think I’d ever touch apricot brandy again.
Adam flung himself into a chair, then out of it again and resumed pacing. “My God, Annike, if you’d seen him, face down, half floating in that stuff…” He shuddered. “Well, I suppose if you’re going to kill yourself, drowning in brandy might not be such a bad way to go.” He sank onto the chair, this time so exhausted he remained where he sat.
“Definitely a touch of class,” I agreed.
Dave Hatter, a suicide. It seemed all too horribly possible, with his depression over losing his life savings. And if he’d killed Brody…I could see where guilt could have driven him to this. I wondered if he’d left a note. Not all suicides did, but Dave struck me as the type who’d feel obliged to explain his actions, to apologize one last time to his poor wife.
His wife. I wondered if Sarkisian would draft me into helping him break the news to a second widow. I’d never really thought Cindy would be upset, so I’d known telling her wouldn’t be an ordeal. But Barbara would be a very different matter. She adored Dave, she would have seen him through whatever troubles had fallen on them. She was probably even going to forgive him for taking the easy way out and leaving her to face the future alone and penniless, with a cloud of shame hanging over her head. I prayed Sarkisian would pick on someone other than me this time.
Adam blinked and looked up as if coming out of his own reverie. “It only sounds classy ‘til you know the details.” He stretched his face into a wolfish grin as if trying to lighten the atmosphere. It wasn’t working very well. “Before he climbed in, he stripped down to his boxers. White ones, decorated with turkeys.”
The idea seemed so preposterous as to be funny, but I felt no inclination to laugh. I shook my head. “He should’ve worn a tux.”
“And the number of bottles it took to fill that vat! He used ones with the official seal on them, did I tell you? Apricot’s one of the most expensive products, too. Cartwright’ll have a screaming fit when he finds out.” He thrust himself to his feet and resumed pacing. “God, I can just see it happening, him pouring each bottle into the vat, then arranging his empties in that smiley face and cross bones.” He shuddered. “Then stripping down, folding each thing he wore, placing them all on the counter in that damned neat pile. Then climbing into the vat, lying face down, and drinking himself into oblivion…”
“What a way to go,” I agreed.
Rumblings sounded from the work floor below. The forensic team must be finishing up. They’d cart away the body, and poor Sarah Jacobs would have another autopsy to look forward to.
“You look awful, Annike.”
I looked up to find Adam hovering over me, contrition all over his face. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have been rattling on like this to you. You should go home. Need a ride?”
“I was going to call Aunt Gerda when we got here,” I said. In fact, Sarkisian and I had argued over whether he would take me home, where he said I ought to be, or go straight to the Still, where he was needed on official business. He’d only agreed to the latter when I’d promised faithfully to call for a ride as soon as we got here. That had been over three hours ago.
The metal stairs thudded with the sound of several people climbing back to our level, and the low murmur of men’s voices preceded their entry into the lobby. Sarkisian, looking even more disheveled than when I’d last seen him, strode into the room and came up short. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “You promised to go home.”
“Been keeping Adam company,” I explained.
Sarkisian’s glare transferred to Fairfield. “Yeah,” he said after a minute. “That must have been a bit of a shock for you. How come no one else is working this afternoon?”
“Holiday,” Adam explained. “One of the techs came in to check the batches this morning, so there’s nothing else to be done until tomorrow. Hatter’s the night watchman, so he was alone.”
“What brought you in, then?” Sarkisian asked.
“I’m Hatter’s relief this weekend. He can’t stay on duty twenty-four hours a day, you know, even if he did need the overtime.” Adam’s mouth twisted. “I need it, too, so I volunteered to give him a break.”
Sarkisian sighed. “Too bad you didn’t come a little earlier.”
Adam nodded. “But Hatter knew when I was due. He must have planned to be dead long before then.”
“Oh, I doubt he planned anything,” the sheriff said.
Adam looked up. “An accident? You think Hatter got drunk, then decided to soak in brandy for the fun of it?”
“I think someone got him drunk and set the stage to look like suicide.”
“But…” I began, then broke off, feeling sick.
“Why?” Adam demanded. “Why would anyone kill the poor sod? He was about as inoffensive as a guy could get!”
“Well, we’ll know more tomorrow,” Sarkisian said with a note of finality. He looked at me for a long moment, then shook his head. “Not this time, Ms. McKinley. You’ve gone through too much already in the last twenty-four hours. I’ll take Jennifer.”
Conscience won out over self-preservation, and I shook my head. “She’ll need friends. Let’s take…” I hesitated. My aunt remained a suspect in one murder, and if this was another, and the two were connected— Lucy—no, she’d be at work. “Ida Graham,” I decided. That woman’s brisk, motherly cheerfulness might be exactly what Barbara Hatter would need.
Sarkisian placed the call from the reception desk, and Ida promised to meet us at the Hatters’s house in fifteen minutes. Adam went home, several deputy sheriffs took over the night watchman duties in what was now a crime scene rather than a business, and I accompanied Sarkisian out to the Honda.
“What makes you think it’s murder?” I asked as we started out the drive. Sarah Jacobs, in her little Toyota, followed us. It was my opinion, confided to the sheriff and endorsed by Sarah, that Barbara Hatter would need a sedative.
“Needle mark on the inside of his elbow.”
“But drugs would show up on an autopsy!” I exclaimed.
“I think whoever did it injected alcohol, probably enough to get him so drunk that more could be poured down his throat.”
“Then with Dave incapacitated, your killer set the stage, then what? Held Dave’s head under ‘til he drowned?” My stomach clenched. Oh, God, Sarkisian was right. I should never have gotten myself mixed up in the murder investigation. I’d give anything to pull out now, go home, forget any of this awful business ever happened. But life—and reality—didn’t work like that.
“Seems probable. The autopsy should clear up a few questions, but I think it must have gone something like that.”
The next hour went every bit as badly as I’d feared. As soon as Barbara opened the door to us, panic filled her face. Then when we got her inside and broke the news, she went into full-blown hysterics. Ida Graham, who arrived to find Sarah struggling to administer a sedative, took charge and swept the poor woman off to bed.