“She’d never do anything that might hurt Annike,” Adam agreed.
“Even if she was desperate?” Dave sounded skeptical, like one who knew the depths to which desperation might drive a person.
“Annike’s car was down at shipping and receiving,” Sarkisian pointed out. “Whoever did this might not have known she was here.”
“Except Gerda,” I stuck in. “I called her, remember?”
Sarkisian let out a deep breath.
“And don’t you go thinking Peggy and Gerda are in on this together, and Gerda killed Brody, and Peggy was trying to cover up by killing you and destroying the records, and…” I stopped, having lost the thread of what I was saying. In the ensuing silence, the rain pounded with renewed vigor, the river roared a few feet below the wedged Jeep, and in the distance a siren sounded. “They’re coming to take me away, ha ha,” I muttered, from the vague memory of an old song.
“The sooner, the better,” agreed Sarkisian.
I shot him a suspicious glance. The song referred to a mental hospital. “What about That Damned Bird?” I asked. The phrase was taking on all the power of a name in my mind. “Think they’ll take her away, too?”
“I’ll do that,” the sheriff assured me. “I’ll take your car back to your aunt’s house and tell her what happened. Lucky thing you have a spare tire in the trunk.”
I blinked. “It was raining in here.”
“Your top had popped open and been thrown back a bit,” Sarkisian told me. “I closed it.”
I nodded. “Flip-top.”
The siren screamed now with that odd rise and fall of volume as it wound around the hairpin curves. Dave produced a flare from somewhere in the depths of his rain parka and broke it open. He strode off into the middle of the road and disappeared around the bend, waving the sputtering light over his head. I leaned back, knowing that once you had paramedics on the scene, everything was taken out of your hands. I could relax, I could sink into that peaceful oblivion that waited for me with open arms…
Aside from a bit of rough and ready handling getting me out of the car and strapped onto a stretcher, the next few hours passed with less trouble than I would have imagined. Sarkisian refused transport to the hospital for himself, so the paramedics cleaned him up on the spot. They hauled me off to where I, too, was tended and mended, which involved a half dozen stitches to my forehead. By the time they were done, there was nothing left of the night for me to bed down in comfort in, so I called Aunt Gerda to come and rescue me.
She arrived in Hans Gustav a short while later, not the least ruffled at having to collect me from a hospital. “The sheriff was really quite capable,” she pronounced as she saw me tenderly into the passenger seat. For her, this was highest praise.
“How did he get home?” It felt like heaven to just lean back against the head rest. Then she handed me a thermos of tea, and as I opened it, and the heavenly aroma of chamomile, honey and rum reached me, I called down loud and glorious blessings on her head.
“He’d apparently called ahead. Whoever was on night duty swung by and picked him up. He really looked a mess, with all those bandages on his face, and he kept reassuring me you were going to be fine.”
“Oh, yeah. All set for a fun-filled day in the park,” I agreed.
Gerda sighed and looked up at the sky, which showed an annoying tendency not to rain. “It’s going to be dry enough to work,” she agreed without enthusiasm.
“Oh, damn, I never got the decorations,” I exclaimed.
“Don’t worry, we’ll call over to the Still. Dave or Adam or Tony or someone will cart them over.”
Any hope I had of being put on sick leave for the remainder of the weekend faded. Apparently it was back to work at once. “Did That Damned Bird survive?” I asked.
“It was a bit distraught, but I settled it down with a pancake.”
I lowered the thermos from which I was about to take a swig. “Do you mean you made pancakes, for a turkey, at three o’clock in the morning?”
“Four,” Gerda corrected me. “And it helped. It ate, then settled right down. And you can have the leftover batter when we get home.”
Leftovers from the turkey’s breakfast. “I’m honored,” I muttered, and swallowed some of the tea.
I not only got breakfast, but a short nap, as well, before I had to drag myself down to the park. By unspoken mutual consent, Gerda collected her keys. Freya-and That Damned Bird-were going to get the day off. I wished I could, too, but that would be too much to hope for.
I trudged down the redwood stairs-no more than damp after hours without rain-and opened the door to the garage. But instead of climbing into Hans Gustav, I went to inspect my beloved Mustang. Top down, turkey in rear seat, no dented fenders or torn metal or scratches or other signs of damage. All normal except for the driver’s side window, where the impact of my head had broken the supposedly safety glass and left an amazing amount of blood. No wonder I’d had so many stitches and now had a skull that throbbed like it had been hit by a car. It had. The true miracle lay in the fact that with all that slick, curvy road and rocky hillside, I hadn’t hit anything except myself. It could so easily have been me slamming into that guard rail, careening over the edge of that gully, bouncing from boulder to boulder to land in that raging river…
I patted the trunk of my car. That jarred the flip-top’s rear mechanism, which rose and fell with alarming ease as I tested it. The top latches wobbled when I touched them. Maybe I could tie the soft top in place. Or fasten it with duct tape. With a sigh, I turned back to Hans Gustav. On the whole, Freya and I-and That Damned Bird-had come out of last night’s affair pretty lightly.
Gerda watched me as I climbed into her passenger seat, but didn’t say a word. I was glad she hadn’t been there. It was going to be bad enough explaining away the bandage that covered half my face to every inquisitive SCOURGEie.
Gerda backed out of the garage in a sweeping curve to face the winding drive. “You know, Annike,” she said as we bounced through a pothole and out the gate, “I did set a trap for Brody.”
I froze. Not now, I moaned silently. My head wasn’t clear enough for this. “Please, don’t-” I began.
She interrupted me. “I know you’ve been hearing rumors, and I know I denied it, but-well, I don’t know why I was making such a big deal out of it. Stubbornness, I guess. It’s really pretty silly. All I did was copy all my financial records and take them to a second C.P.A. I wanted to compare what the two had to say about my investments, what they came up with for deductions. If there was a serious difference, I might have had a case for some criminal proceedings, or a lawsuit, or something.”
I considered this. “Sounds like a good idea to me.” And for Gerda, amazingly sound thinking.
My eccentric aunt spared me a glance from the road. “You think so?” She sounded relieved. “I was so afraid the new sheriff would think it too stupid to be possible and decide I was lying.”
“He’d approve,” I assured her. “Go ahead and tell him.”
Gerda cast me another sideways glance. “He was awfully nice last night.”
I nodded, then wished I hadn’t. The pain was almost as bad as the dizziness.
To my surprise, the SCOURGE elite had beaten us to the Park. Peggy ran up to the car as Gerda pulled up to the curb, practically bouncing on her toes in her eagerness. “You poor dear!” she cried. “Why don’t you sit just where you are. You can oversee the rest of us from here.”
I came as close to beaming at her as I could manage under the circumstances. “What a wonderful idea.”
She peered into the back of the Pathfinder. “You didn’t bring her! Really, Annike, how could you forget? We’re going to start the Name-the-Turkey contest today.”
“She won’t get out of my car,” I reminded her. “Anyway, you’re too late. I’ve already given her a name.”
Gerda, who had gotten out and joined Peggy, straightened to her full and very impressive height. “You named my turkey?” Menace sounded in every word.
“Well, you always say that animals have to earn their names, don’t you?”
“What are you calling her?” demanded my indignant aunt.
“That Damned Bird.” I faltered over the middle word, but finished strong.
“That Damned Bird,” repeated Peggy, tasting the name in her mouth. “T.D.B. for short?”
“T.D…” Gerda broke off. She and Peggy stared at each other, grins spreading across their faces. “Tedi Bird!” they proclaimed almost in unison.
I groaned and leaned my head gently against the rest.
