Peggy returned with the list of pie bakers while we were packing away the last of the fall garlands in their cupboard. “What, you’re not done, yet?” she called from the doorway. To her credit she pitched right in, in spite of wanting to go home to meet her son.
And so, forty-five minutes later, I made the final inspection, checked off the list, locked the door, and handed the key back to Sarkisian. Those few of us who had remained until the bitter end regarded each other with that sense of shock that always follows a major production.
“Rest for an hour?” the sheriff suggested.
I shook my head. “Some of them escaped without their pie filling. Soon as I find out who, I’ll have to deliver it.”
“At least you’ll have help.” He gestured toward my car.
Through the back window I could just make out the ridiculous head of the turkey. I turned back to Sarkisian, but he was walking away as fast as he could.
Gerda strolled over from where she’d been talking to Ida and Art. “We have to stop by their store on the way home,” she reminded me. “I’ll need some nuts or soy or something.”
Her vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. I closed my eyes and groaned. I’d hoped she’d forgotten about that. I had my heart set on the turkey currently roasting in our oven.
I carried the sole remaining unused bag of pancake mix to the car and glared at the bird that contentedly pecked at a pancake on the plate beside it. My thoughts weren’t printable. I had to get rid of that damned bird. I needed the backseat of my car for ferrying containers of defrosting pie filling.
Peggy, aided by her shadow Tony, dragged a trash bag from around the back. Together they heaved it into the bin. Together, they just about had the strength. She said something to him and he nodded, waved, and strode toward his motorcycle. Peggy hurried toward her car.
Sarkisian headed her off. “Never got a chance to ask you where you were Tuesday afternoon,” he said. “Around four to six o’clock.”
Peggy hesitated. “Didn’t you? You asked so many questions.” She shot a glance at Tony, who had mounted his bike and donned his helmet. He started to roll the thing toward her, as if in response to some unheard plea, but she waved him away. He hesitated, then kicked the motor into life and shot out of the lot.
“You said you were at home when you heard the sirens going up to Ms. Lundquist’s,” he persisted. “How long had you been there?”
“Oh.” Again, she hesitated. “Not long. I-I’d been in Meritville. At my son’s garage. He’s a mechanic, you know. I do his bookkeeping for him.”
“That’s what you were doing on Tuesday?”
“Not then, no,” she admitted. She didn’t meet his steady gaze. “I just dropped in to say hi, and stayed talking.”
“Meritville’s a long way to go to just to drop in.” Sarkisian kept his tone purely conversational.
She raised her pointed chin. “You obviously aren’t a mother.” And on that unanswerable note, she stalked to her car, climbed in and drove off.
Sarkisian watched her go. So did I. I’ve known Peggy most of my life, and thought I knew her well enough to know when she was being evasive or downright lying. And that, I would swear, had been a downright lie. But why? I honestly could not believe she would have killed Brody-at least, not in Gerda’s house. She was too good a friend to leave my aunt to face the resulting mess. But could she, I wondered, have killed him on a furious impulse? What if she’d gone over to Gerda’s and found him there alone poring over my aunt’s financial records? Was she, in fact, capable of murder? It upset me to realize I couldn’t be certain. Most people, I knew, if threatened sufficiently, might be capable of killing. You just never knew, even about yourself, until you were pressed to your very limit.
Cindy stood beside her sporty little Mazda but showed no inclination to climb in. She sighed in an exaggerated manner. “It’s going to be strange, with just me for Thanksgiving dinner,” she called to me.
“Then you shouldn’t have sent your friends home,” I muttered, but too softly for anyone to hear. For that matter, I wasn’t all that sure there ever had been any friends.
Gerda caught my arm. “Don’t invite her,” she hissed.
I grinned. “We’re having a vegetarian meal,” I called. “But if you’d like…”
Cindy shuddered. “I’m not into tofu.”
Actually, I quite liked the stuff. Normally. But not when it replaced something I’d been dreaming about for weeks.
“Well,” Cindy went on, “I suppose I’ll have to try to prepare some sort of meal.” She looked sideways at the sheriff, who had just walked away from Simon Lowell’s psychedelic van.
Was she angling for sympathy from the sheriff? Or an invitation to join him? “What about all that food you were preparing for your guests?” I demanded.
Cindy shot me a glare, which she masked with an artificial laugh. “I’d even stuffed my turkey, but I’ve been having second thoughts about it. After all, Gerda is always lecturing about the bacteria in a pre-stuffed bird.”
I doubted any such bird existed. To Cindy’s patent annoyance, Sarkisian helped me pack the remaining pie filling into my trunk. I couldn’t tell if she was making a play for him or merely trying to charm him into believing her incapable of murdering her cheating, money-hiding husband. But I’d begun to develop a pretty fair opinion of Sarkisian’s intelligence-his bullshit detector, as he called it.
And so we sailed out of the Grange lot at last. Unfortunately, I had to stop a short block later to take Gerda to the store, but while she made her selections, Ida set to work on the phone. Art busied himself ringing up my aunt’s purchases, and Ida assured me she’d have a list of filling deliveries for me by the time I got home.
I dropped Aunt Gerda off at the house. But not, much to my growing fury, the turkey. It refused to get out. When I tried to pick it up, it pecked me, drawing blood. Since we were in the garage, and therefore sheltered from the renewing drizzle, I lowered Freya’s top, which toppled back with only the slightest push. Definitely, too much WD-40. Maybe by the time I’d called Ida, the damned bird would have hopped out.
It hadn’t. I made a few more attempts to rid my car of its squatting tenant, then had to admit that for right now, at least, the damned turkey was winning. I put the top up again-which seemed to please the bird-pressed the latches extra hard in the hope they’d hold, and set off on my rounds to deliver the pumpkin pie filling, chauffeuring my unwelcome feathered passenger.
By the time I returned home, I felt a little better. I’d managed to unload almost all the pie filling and obtained promises from everyone that they wouldn’t forget to bake and that they’d see me without fail the following afternoon. A few of them I even believed.
Once more in the garage, that damned bird still wouldn’t vacate the backseat. Disgusted, I gave up-for the moment-and went upstairs.
I found Gerda in the kitchen, standing beside a table filled with foil-wrapped packages. She looked up, arranging her features in her most determined expression. “Take this over to the church for me. They’ll be glad of the extras.”
I sighed. “That’s our dinner, isn’t it?”
“Was our dinner,” she corrected. “I won’t have anyone eating turkey in my house today out of deference to my new pet.”
I told her what she could do with her new pet, loaded myself down with foil packages, and stalked back down the wet steps to my waiting car. I drove off with both turkeys, wondering if I could make them an all-or-nothing deal.
On impulse, I drove right past the church and turned down the road to the Still. Dave Hatter had missed breakfast, he might welcome one of the packets of turkey. And in exchange, I might find out why he ran from the sheriff.
I negotiated the winding road with caution, for the drizzle was increasing to a steady downpour. I pulled at last into the parking lot to find not only Dave’s old Ford truck, but Adam Fairfield’s Chevy, as well. And the sheriff’s Jeep. Had Sarkisian come to ask Dave a few pointed questions? I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he, too, had noticed the way Dave had fled the breakfast. The man didn’t seem to miss much.
I pulled into a space as close to the entrance as I could manage, then ran for the shelter of the overhanging roof. The door was locked, but I rang the bell and heard it buzzing from the depths of the building. A few minutes later Dave appeared, trailed by both Fairfield and Sarkisian. To my surprise, everything seemed amicable enough. I was dying to ask questions, but couldn’t figure out how without obviously meddling.
