I got lucky with the first item on the list. The homeless shelter’s source for bulk foods promised me not only all the pancake mix I needed, but sausages, sliced bacon, and dozens of cartons of eggs. They could even supply a crate or two of oranges. When they told me they’d deliver, as well, I nearly swooned with delight. We struck a deal, I gave them directions to the Grange, and promised to meet them there in the early afternoon. Now, if only the rest of my arrangements would go as smoothly, I might survive this SCOURGE scourge, after all.
They didn’t. I spent the next ten minutes going down the list item by item, noting names and numbers of likely prospects, without getting a single phone response from any of them. Then I reached “coffee maker.” Peggy had warned me the night before the Grange’s machine had broken. “Anyone have a coffee machine big enough for the breakfast?” I called to where Gerda still sat in the living room. “Or am I going to have to have everyone bring their own?”
“Let’s see.” Aunt Gerda’s voice trailed off, and a long minute of silence stretched. Then, “Try the Fairfields. Lucy inherited the one from the defunct women’s club. I doubt she hauled it away with her when she left Adam. Maybe Nancy can find it.”
Adam Fairfield, whom Sheriff Sarkisian had found parked part way into the street last night, too drunk to drive. And whom the sheriff had stated his intention of visiting first thing this morning.
If our visits coincided, I just might find out if Adam remembered seeing someone pass his house headed toward Aunt Gerda’s at about the time of the murder. Or if he didn’t, perhaps his daughter Nancy had. I came to a decision. Someone had ruthlessly dumped poor Gerda in the middle of this mess, making her a prime suspect. I took that as a personal affront. I had no intention of letting the wheels of justice inch forward in low gear. I intended to make sure this new sheriff did his job, and did it efficiently. And first on that list would be to see if the Fairfields could offer us anything other than coffeepots.
With renewed vigor, I picked up the phone and dialed.
Chapter Five
The driveway leading to the Fairfields’ place opened off the main road about a quarter mile below Peggy O’Shaughnessy’s house. As I drew closer, I could see that Adam had made some improvements since I’d been home last. Actually, quite a few. I was really impressed. It’s not easy to make a country property look like anything but a haven for weeds.
He had transformed the entry into a magnificent array of flowering shrubs and boulders, with a covering of shredded bark and a brick border. A brilliantly white post and rail fence stretched to either side. Vinyl, not wood, I realized. No more whitewash, termites or rot. The old broken gate that had hung on rusted hinges was history, as well. In its place gleamed black wrought iron, complete with spikes tipped in gold. It stood open, the two halves drawn back so they lined the asphalt that had not been there the last time I stopped by. I took a closer look as I started up the drive. An electric gate. The brick posts from which it hung also supported a control box, complete with an intercom.
More of the flowering shrubs and shredded bark lined the full length of the drive. It wasn’t a short one, either, leading a good hundred yards up a hill. Someone—and I wagered it was Adam Fairfield himself—had put in a tremendous amount of back-breaking labor. And a tremendous amount of money, as well. And all in an attempt to get his wife back, I supposed. If he’d done all this when she’d begged for it… But that was exactly like Adam, applying bandages after the patient had bled to death.
Adam’s white Chevy pickup truck stood in front of the garage, probably where John Goulding left it last night. My gaze moved on to the house, and I slowed to a stop, impressed. It had received a new coat of paint, bright yellow with white trim. Raised brick planting beds surrounded the foundations, as yet unplanted. New shrubs lined a recently added brick walkway, though as yet no flowers filled the empty areas. That would probably wait until spring—or until Lucy returned to tend that herself. I hoped she would. So much effort deserved some reward. And I hated to see couples who’d been together for so long break up. You had to give Adam credit for trying. I hoped Lucy would.
I climbed out and walked toward the door, which opened as I neared it. Nancy Fairfield looked out, her dark, curling hair—natural, no need for a perm, here—framing her pale face and delicate features. A bulky fisherman knit sweater topped a long corduroy skirt that hugged her slender hips, and she wore sheepskin-lined boots that added an inch to her five foot four. With her eyes rimmed with red, as if she’d been crying, she looked frail and fragile.
“You should be lying down!” I blurted out. Not the most encouraging greeting, perhaps, but she really looked drained. She had started her senior year at Stanford, only to develop pneumonia two weeks into classes. She’d spent almost three weeks in the hospital before being sent home to recuperate. From the looks of her, she might not be able to resume her studies in January, as Gerda had said she’d planned.
“Just got up from the sofa.” She managed a wan smile. “I’m doing better.” She stepped back and waved for me to enter the hall.
The renovations hadn’t reached the interior yet, which remained comfortably cluttered and shabby. I looked around, trying to remember the last time I’d visited here. More than a year ago, long before Lucy had packed up and moved out. It still felt like her, warm and friendly.
A loud thud sounded from somewhere above us, and we both glanced up. “He’s getting the pot out of the attic,” Nancy explained needlessly.
“Your dad’s been doing a lot of work.” I sat in the large, padded chair she indicated. To my relief, she sat down in another.
“Everything Mom always wanted,” she agreed. Her lower lip trembled. “A bit late, though.”
“She might appreciate the gesture,” I suggested. “It’s a rather impressive one.”
“God, I hope not!” Tears started in her eyes. “They just weren’t meant to be together. Not like—” She broke off.
“Not like you and…” I racked my memory. What was the name of that guy Gerda had told me Nancy was seeing? Someone her father hated— Lowell, that was it. “You and Simon Lowell?” I finished.
Nancy blinked rapidly, then dabbed with a handkerchief at the moisture that slipped down her cheeks. “And Dad just can’t see it!” she cried with the voice of youth throughout the ages. “Just because Simon’s a little unconventional.”
Unconventional was putting it mildly, according to Gerda. Everything from his appearance to his politics seemed to upset most of the town. But I didn’t voice that comment. I’d never actually met Simon Lowell, after all. “Probably because he isn’t a third-generation Upper River Gulcher,” I said with an attempt at diplomacy.
Nancy sniffed. “He inherited his place, you know. From a great uncle. Only three years ago,” she added, grudgingly.
“That puts him in the category of summer visitor,” I said.
She didn’t smile. Just goes to show how deep in her misery she was. Normally jokes about newcomers—those who’d lived here for less than twenty years—were met with more jokes.
“I don’t see why he can’t try to get to know Simon,” she declared. “He—”
Steps sounded on the stairs, accompanied by bumps and mutters. Nancy fell silent. Another thud followed, then a minute later Adam Fairfield strode into the room. He looked as if he’d thrown on an old sweater and jeans at random onto his tall, wiry frame. He certainly hadn’t combed his sandy hair. His eyes, normally a mundane shade of brown, were so bloodshot I didn’t see how he could be standing, let alone moving coffeepots. He clutched his head and groaned.
“Hangover?” I asked, more matter-of-fact than sympathetic. It never seemed to me that the pain a person was trying to forget could possibly be worse than the one he inflicted on himself. Adam wasn’t an alcoholic. He drank by choice, not compulsion. And he seemed living—if you could call it that—proof that he’d made a very bad choice.
He nodded, then winced and sank onto an old floral pattern couch. “Your pot’s in the kitchen. You’re welcome to keep it.”
“Meaning you don’t want to haul it back to the attic?”
He grinned, then winced again. “Yeah. Hey, that’s tough about your finding Brody. Rotten thing to happen to you.”
“To him, too,” I pointed out. “How’d you hear?”
“Dave Hatter.”
“Dave…?”
“Night watchman at the Still. Thought you knew him.”
“I do. But how’d he hear? And why’d he call you?”
“Woke me up.” Adam leaned back with a groan, massaging his temples. Could his drinking be self-punishment, maybe, for driving away his wife? “Wanted to share what he thought was good news.”
“Dad’s swing-shift manager, now,” Nancy stuck in with a touch of pride. “Dave reports just about everything to him, even when Dad’s got a night off, like last night. Then Tony called, too.”
That would be Tony Carerras, one-time—or I gathered frequent-time—resident of juvenile hall, now Peggy’s prize protégé. She’d picked him up at the homeless shelter where she donated hours of work, and got Gerda to help her convince the Still’s owner, Hugh Cartwright, to hire the guy as a janitor and general grunt laborer down in shipping and receiving to give him another chance. And one chance he never missed was to pass on any tidbits of gossip, the more gruesome the better.
It wouldn’t be quite accurate to call the Still—that’s Brandywine Distillery—a grapevine. They don’t crush grapes there so much as apricots, cherries, and other varieties of fruit—and a lot of rumors and hearsay. And come to think of it, they don’t really crush them. They ferment them, add flavor, and distribute them.
“Neither one of them knew very much,” Adam opined, “only what Peggy told Tony, which was that you’d been the lucky one to find him. So, give with the gory details. Who done him in?”
“No idea. But I think the new sheriff is eyeing Aunt Gerda.”
“Gerda?” Adam sat up too fast, groaned, and sank his head back against the couch. “I’d laugh, but it’d hurt too much.”
“Peggy’s running a close second.”
That brought a deep chuckle and another groan from him. “God, if old Tom were here—” He broke off. “Sorry,” he muttered.
“Oh, I agree,” I said as brightly as I could.
The sound of an engine approaching saved us from embarrassment. A moment later it cut off, and a car door slammed. Correction, a Jeep door. I could just make out the uniformed figure of our new sheriff as he headed toward the brick walkway.
Adam peered out the window. “I’m not home,” he told Nancy.
The girl closed her eyes, then gripped the arms of her chair to leverage herself up.
“I’ll get it.” I pushed her gently back against the cushions, hurried into the hall, reached the door as the first knock landed, and swung it wide.
Sheriff Sarkisian blinked at me, then frowned. “What the hell are you doing here?” he demanded.
“Good morning to you, too.” I bowed him in with a sweeping gesture. “Is that the way you normally say hello?”
He studied me for a long moment, but his gaze gave nothing away of his thoughts. “Just dropped in for a visit, did you?”
“Needed a giant coffee maker. They’ve got the only one in town.”
Sarkisian nodded. “Don’t let me detain you.”
“Oh, I’m in no hurry.” I led the way back to the living room, and his glare burned into the back of my head as he followed.
“Good morning, Sheriff,” Adam said, accompanied by Nancy’s murmur of greeting. Apparently he’d decided against a hasty retreat. “Do you want a coffeepot, too?”
“Information.” The sheriff took the seat I had vacated and turned his back on me.
Adam’s brow creased. He grimaced and smoothed his fingers across his forehead. “Don’t have any. Sorry.”
The sheriff glared pointedly at me. I smiled and perched on the arm of Nancy’s chair. He seemed to consider the possibility of telling me to get lost, apparently gave up on it, and turned back to Adam. “I take it you already know what’s happened. Can you remember seeing anything last night that might help the investigation?”
“I didn’t go in to the Still, it was my day off.” Adam shook his head—carefully. “I did some work around the place, but that started me thinking about Lucy—my wife.”
“That’s the only time he ever drinks,” Nancy put in.
“Yeah, and I did, too. Went out at one point to buy some bourbon. Think I went out a second time, too. Then later—God knows when—I set off to visit Lucy. Got all the way down to the road before I realized I was too drunk to drive. I remember trying to back up, to get the truck out of the way so people could get by. Meant to leave it just inside the gate and walk home, but I couldn’t get the damn thing in reverse. So I took a nap, then tried again. Apparently I made it.”
“Nope,” Owen Sarkisian said. “John Goulding drove you home.”
“God.” Adam rubbed a hand over his face. “I’ll have to thank him.”
“Can you remember hearing or seeing anything while you were down near the street? Any cars go by?”
Adam concentrated hard. “Something loud. Woke me up.” His gaze focused on me. “That damned Mustang of yours! I heard it again just now, when you came. What’ve you got on it, glass packs?”
“There’s just a bit of a hole in the exhaust system.”
“Again,” Adam put in.