“You mean they’re going to analyze every single cat hair? I wish them luck.”
Aunt Gerda stared at the wavering flames as they consumed the compacted sawdust pellets. “They’ve tracked mud all over the rugs.”
“It’ll come out. Come on.” I stood, turned her around, and marched her into the kitchen. The homey aroma of drying herbs surrounded us, comforting in its familiarity. I pressed her onto a chair painted bright blue. “Careful not to lean back. There’s wet rain gear.”
The kettle, which had been rumbling in an agitated manner, gave an experimental whimper which rose to a shrill scream. I scooped both it and the saucepan off the burners and began assembling mugs from one of the oak cabinets. I couldn’t remember how many people had come. Reaction, I supposed.
“Why did this have to happen!” Gerda exclaimed suddenly. “Why—” She broke off, then resumed with suppressed savagery, “He’s dead! Clifford Brody is dead. He’s been murdered. Here, in my house!”
“That just about sums it up.” But it didn’t provide the key I needed to understand her fears. I removed the cozy from the pot and poured my aunt the last of our previous chamomile and peppermint brew, then rummaged in the pantry cupboard for the bottle of emergency rum. I added a healthy dollop and handed it over.
Gerda sipped in silence for almost a minute. “Someone,” she said at last, “came into my house while I was gone, and killed him. I don’t feel safe, here, now.”
“Yes, you are.” I set down the ceramic pot in which I’d placed new herbs and boiling water, and laid a soothing hand over her trembling one. “Tell you what, though. I’ll get you a dog. A great big one with a worthwhile woof.”
Gerda sniffed. “It would scare the cats.” She looked around. “Where are they?”
“Probably hiding under your bed. Or more likely, in it. You know how they are with strangers clomping around. How about if I get you a flock of geese? They’d make even more noise than a dog.”
Footsteps approached down the hall, crossed the living room, and Owen Sarkisian strode into the brightly lit kitchen. He accepted the mug of fresh tea I handed him, and sat at the table across from Gerda. His brow puckered as he stared into his steaming mug.
“Small town.” He looked up and his brown eyes studied Gerda. “Everyone knows everything about each other, I suppose?”
Uneasiness flickered across my aunt’s face, to be replaced almost at once by her determinedly sweet, mildly reproving smile. “That’s a bit of a cliché, don’t you think? Besides, we’re larger than we seem. We have a population of nearly two thousand. Upper River Gulch is a bedroom community for everyone who wants to escape the computer industry during off hours. I would have thought that as sheriff, you’d know that.”
Sarkisian inclined his head in acknowledgment. “But there aren’t many of you who have businesses in town, are there? Dr. Jacobs tells me there’re only nine of you.”
“Eight, now,” I murmured. I measured more herbs into a stainless steel tea ball and set it into the saucepan to steep.
Sarkisian ignored my interruption. “Do you belong to any sort of business association?”
Gerda blinked. “Or course not. That would be too formal. Hugh Cartwright—he owns the Still—suggested it once, but they’re not really part of our little community.”
“The Still? You mean Brandywine Distillery? Why don’t they count?”
“They aren’t downtown. Not in our little district, I mean. And they’re a large business—well, large by our standards. We only count the ones that cluster at the intersection of Fallen Tree Road and Last Gasp Hill.”
Sarkisian nodded. “So there are a total of nine—” he shot a challenging glance at me, “—shops or offices in Upper River Gulch.”
“Unless you want to count the school, library, and post office,” I offered without looking up from the second pot of tea I prepared. “That makes three more.”
“Thank you, Ms. McKinley. I’m sure I couldn’t have figured that out on my own. Now, Ms. Lundquist,” he turned back to Gerda, “I just want to make sure I have a few basic facts straight. The victim came here, to your house, at your invitation? So you did know he was here. But then you went out and left him alone?”
“Yes, but…” Gerda’s face drained of blood.
“I’m just trying to get an overall picture.” The sheriff leaned forward, folding his hands on the table and fixing her with a compelling smile. “Why don’t we begin with why you asked him to come over, and why you then left.”
“Why I…” As abruptly as Gerda had blanched, stormy color now surged into her cheeks. “You don’t believe I did go out! You think I stayed right here and murdered him! You’re actually accusing me! Annike, I told you this was going to happen!”
Sarkisian’s eyebrows rose. “That’s a pretty strong reaction to a simple question, Ms. Lundquist.” His tone invited an explanation.
Her flush deepened. “I do not have a guilty conscience, so quit implying that I do.”
“Oh, I rarely need to imply anything,” the sheriff assured her with a misleadingly gentle smile. “I let people do that for themselves.”
And that, finally and thankfully, rendered my aunt speechless.
Chapter Three
Gerda’s silence didn’t last for long. Or rather, not for long enough. She turned on me. “He’s trying to make me say I killed Brody! He actually thinks I’m capable of committing murder!” She swung back to face the sheriff, and the look she directed at him gave that suspicion some justification. “And you’re just basing it on the circumstances of where he was found! You haven’t even gotten to motives—” She broke off, snapped her mouth closed, then regrouped her forces. “Don’t you think you ought to look at real evidence?”
Owen Sarkisian closed his eyes for a moment. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”
“I think,” I said in an attempt to diffuse the situation, “she wants you to look for exotic foreign cigarette butts with traces of outlandish colored lipstick.” I couldn’t understand what had set Gerda off like this. It was completely unlike her.
The sheriff turned a pained look on me.
“Or maybe,” I went on, hoping Gerda would take the hint and lighten up or cool down or something, “a trail of gum wrappers leading to a size nine shoe print with an unusual pattern on the sole?”
“Thank you, Ms. McKinley. Your insights are invaluable. I’m sure. To someone. Now, Ms. Lundquist, I only asked—”
“You’re trying to upset me and make me say things I don’t mean!” she accused him, still in full flare. My interruption hadn’t done any good.
A ragged sigh escaped him. “Calm down, Ms. Lundquist.”
“How can I calm down when you’re accusing me of murder!”
He spread his hands. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I only asked—”
“Then you’re stopping just short of it!” she exclaimed. “Is that how you go about your investigations, bullying people? Or,” and her gaze narrowed on him, “is this your first murder case?”
“Here, yes. Over the course of my career, not by a long shot.”
“Well, maybe you can get away with making wild accusations in Los Angeles,” she snapped, “but not here.”
“So who’s making wild accusations—except you? I just asked a very logical question—why you went out and left Clifford Brody in your house. Was he alone? Were you expecting anyone else? What was he doing, anyway? And where’s his car?”
Gerda drew a shaky breath and pushed up the sleeves of her lilac turtleneck. After a moment she smoothed them down to her wrists again. Her anger visibly faded, leaving her deflated. Only a haunted look remained in her eyes. “His car was getting an oil change. I promised to drive him back to his office when he was done.”
Sarkisian nodded, smiling in a deceptively gentle manner. He made no interruption.
After a moment, Gerda went on. “He was checking over my tax records for me. Before the end of the year, so I’d know where I stood while I could still make investments. And I wasn’t here because I ran out of vanilla.”
The sheriff’s mobile eyebrows rose. “I presume there’s a connection there, someplace.”
Gerda clenched her hands. “Of course there is.”
“Cooking the books,” I murmured, unable to prevent myself.
Sarkisian shot me a quick glance containing an unexpected gleam of amusement before turning back to Gerda. “So you went out when? How soon after he got here?”
Gerda frowned. “His sister dropped him off around three-thirty. So an hour, maybe a little less. I left here just before four-thirty.”
The sheriff cocked an eyebrow at me. “And you? I take it you hadn’t arrived, yet. When did you get here?”
“A little after six, I think. It’d been dark for awhile.” I hesitated. “The—his blood—it felt sticky when I touched his shoulder.”
“We’ll leave the time of death up to the doctor, I think.”
I folded my arms. “You mean you aren’t about to trust anything I say?”
“I mean it’s a damned difficult thing to determine. For all I know, the murderer could have stood there with a blow dryer pointed at the blood. Now,” he offered Gerda a placating smile. “You went out to buy vanilla. Just that? Nothing else?”
“That’s all I needed.”
Before he could voice his next question, lights flashed through the big front window as a car swerved around the curve in the drive. Owen Sarkisian rose, strode into the living room, and pulled back the curtain. “Light-colored four-door sedan,” he called over his shoulder. “Old Pontiac, I think.” He watched a few seconds longer. “Woman getting out. Short curly hair, it looks like.”
“Peggy,” Gerda announced. “That’s Margaret O’Shaughnessy. She’s my nearest neighbor. You’d have passed her driveway about a quarter mile down the road.”
Sarkisian looked back at Gerda. “You expecting her?”
“No, but we’re always dropping in on each other.”
Light footsteps hurried up the outside steps, and Sarkisian crossed to the front door and swung it open. A moment later, Peggy O’Shaughnessy poked her thin, bird-like face inside, an anxious expression creasing her brow. She stared blankly at the sheriff through her huge wire-rimmed glasses, blinked, then her searching look slid past him.
“Gerda?” Her voice rose, trilling like a reed flute. “What’s going on? I heard the sirens. Are you all right? Annike? Oh, wonderful! We didn’t expect you until tomorrow. That wasn’t you arriving, was it?” She peered at Sheriff Sarkisian again. “With a young man?” she added, forever hopeful.
I located an almost dry kitchen towel and presented it to Peggy. The little woman ran it over her flyaway mop of short permed hair, currently an improbable orange-red to hide the gray, then touched it gently to her face, careful not to smudge her makeup. She kicked off her running shoes in a corner, then padded into the kitchen in her bright chartreuse socks, hand-knit from one of Gerda’s more outrageous dying and spinning jobs. Settling at the pine table across from her friend, she accepted the cup of tea Gerda proffered.
“Well?” Peggy demanded. She turned to look at Sarkisian, who had followed her into the cozy room. “Oh.” Her face fell. “Not a gentleman friend of Annike’s. You’re our new sheriff, I take it. What’s happened? Did someone try to break in?”
Sarkisian folded his arms. “You hear or see anything unusual during the last couple of hours? Loud noises? Cars racing past?”
Peggy slid her glasses down her pointed nose and peered at him over the top. “Why?”
Sarkisian closed his eyes for a pregnant moment. “Can’t anyone just answer a simple question around here? Did you hear or see anything?”
“Well,” Peggy pointed out kindly, “if I knew what you had in mind, it might help.”
“Someone murdered Clifford Brody in my study while I was out,” Gerda explained.
Sarkisian glared at her. “If you don’t mind, Ms. Lundquist…”
“I’m just trying to move things along. There’s no point in not telling her, is there?”
“Maybe you’d like to drive down the middle of your main street shouting it through my loudspeaker,” he suggested, exasperated.
“Why on earth would I want to do any such thing?” Gerda shot back, her expression far too innocent. “Really, don’t you think you ought to stop being so frivolous and set about finding out who murdered him? We’ve got a lot of things to take care of.”
Peggy, who had been staring open-mouthed at Gerda during this exchange, turned to me. “Is he really dead? Clifford Brody?” At my nod, Peggy’s wide mouth worked, as if she struggled to contain some strong emotion. Her control slipped, and for a fleeting moment she broke into a broad smile, which she mastered at once. With a suitably somber expression, she turned to the sheriff. “How terrible. Especially for Gerda. And Annike. Who did it?”
“He seems to think I did,” Gerda stuck in before Sarkisian could speak.
“I never said that!” the sheriff protested. “Damn it, I’m trying to find out—”
“Then why are you just standing there?” demanded Peggy. “For heaven’s sake, young man, what do you expect to accomplish if all you do is open doors for people?”
He started to speak, then closed his mouth again. “Next,” he finally said through gritted teeth, “I suppose you’re going to tell me how Tom McKinley would have had this murder solved by now.”
“Well, he certainly wouldn’t have wasted time suspecting Gerda,” Peggy pointed out.