“Need more pain pills?” Sarkisian’s sympathetic voice interrupted my bout of self-pity.
“Tedi Bird!” Peggy told him, beaming. “Isn’t that a wonderful name?”
He looked to me for an explanation. I gave it to him. He didn’t laugh, but I could see it was a struggle.
Peggy eyed him with a frown. “You look like you’ve been in a pretty bad fight.”
“You should see the rocks,” he told her with a straight face-probably because it hurt too much to smile. “They got the worst of it.”
“They got hit with the Jeep,” I added.
When Peggy and Gerda had strolled off to join Ida and Art Graham, he leaned a hand against the door, and all trace of humor ebbed from his eyes.
“How do you feel?” I asked. “You haven’t had any sleep, either, I’ll bet.”
He waved that aside. “Look, I’m really sorry, Ms. McKinley. I never should have gotten you involved last night. If I hadn’t, if you’d just left with those damned holiday decorations…”
Remorse from Sarkisian was more than I could take. “Then who knows what would have happened if you’d hit that trap first. You might have gone over in a different spot, and the Jeep might not have caught on those rocks…” I broke off and closed my eyes. I’d have nightmares over last night.
“Well, we all got out of it pretty well. Even the Jeep wasn’t totaled, though I won’t be able to drive it for a week or so. Thought for sure it would have bent or mangled the frame or something else important, but amazingly it didn’t.”
We were silent for several minutes, watching Adam Fairfield pruning a hedge. Simon Lowell pulled a short ladder out of the back of his van, set it up beside a tree and mounted it. Art Graham brought over a box of banners and handed one up. Ida, Peggy, Sue and Gerda hung oversized inflatable Christmas balls on lower branches of the other trees. Adam must have brought the decorations. I called down silent blessings on his head. Now, if he’d brought the bottles of liqueur, as well, I’d be forever in his debt.
“Can you think of any reason why Dave Hatter’s fingerprints might have been all over the inventory sheets?” Sarkisian asked, breaking across my reflections.
I blinked, changing gears from the peaceful park scene to the murder investigation. “He might have delivered them,” I said, then realized that sounded ridiculous. “He’s the night watchman. Maybe it’s part of his job to check inventory.”
“These were the original papers, the records kept by the bottlers. The ones Ms. O'Shaughnessy used to enter onto the computer.”
I bit back my first thought, that Dave might have altered a few figures and stolen a few bottles. That didn’t make much sense. Employees could take home all the failed experiments they wanted.
Simon, the ladder under one arm, strolled toward us. He gave Sarkisian a nod of greeting. “Well?” he asked. “Interesting reading?”
I stared at Simon, confused, then memory rushed back. “The letters! I forgot…”
“I found them,” Sarkisian assured me. “The envelope was on the front seat of your car, with my name all over it.”
Simon, not meeting the sheriff’s steady gaze, explained about my catching him in the act of destroying evidence. His own words. He was making a joke out of it, but I could tell he was relieved, at the same time. “So, you think that’s enough motive for murder?” Simon finished.
Sarkisian sighed. “It’s been known to happen for less,” he said. “And the phrasing implied these weren’t the first words you and Brody had about blackmail.”
Simon’s jaw tightened. “Look, the guy was getting annoying, I admit it. He had a real talent for getting on everyone’s nerves. But if he revealed my great and terrible secret-well, it would have been a bit embarrassing, I admit that. But I’m not a hypocrite. Just keep that little matter quiet, will you?”
“Unless it becomes necessary to bring it out,” the sheriff agreed at last. Simon, looking much relieved, headed off to decorate another tree.
“All right, what is this terrible secret of his?” I demanded when Simon was out of earshot.
Sarkisian shook his head. “Sorry.”
Oh, well, I hadn’t really expected him to tell me.
“Now, why don’t you-” Sarkisian broke off and looked up. “Felt a drip,” he said, then, “Oh, damn!”
Droplets struck the windshield, harder and harder, until we had a full-on downpour. People grabbed up armloads of tools and ran for their cars. Sarkisian let himself into the backseat of Hans Gustav and watched the chaos resolve itself into an empty park.
Gerda scrambled into the driver’s seat. “I’ll take you home, Annike, then I’ve got to come back to the store. People want videos.”
“I’ll take Ms. McKinley home,” Owen Sarkisian said.
Gerda jumped and turned around. “I didn’t see you, there.”
“Special police camouflage training,” he assured her. “We’re taught how to blend into the backseats of nine different makes of vehicles.” He exited the car and opened the door for me.
Gerda raised her eyebrows at me. I shrugged and climbed out, then eased my way over to the plain white Honda Sarkisian had commandeered as temporary replacement for his Jeep. “Thanks,” I said as I sank into the seat.
“It gets better,” he assured me, and produced a towel from the back. “Even the heater works in this thing.” He started the engine.
I looked back at the park as we pulled away. “We only got it about half decorated,” I sighed.
“Don’t worry,” he assured me, “it’s going to be too wet to hold the dinner there, anyway.”
“Great.” I stared out into the downpour, depressed, tired, and sore all over. “I wonder if we can get the school cafeteria?”
He glanced at me. “I’ll see what I can arrange.”
He turned onto my aunt’s street, and we fell silent as we headed up the hill, listening to the beating of the rain and the rhythmic swipes of the wipers. I stared out the side window, my thoughts drifting over the occupants of each house we passed, over the many times I’d hiked up this ever-steepening incline going home from school, over all the things that pop to mind when you’re tired and have handed control over to someone else, even if only for a few minutes.
We passed Peggy’s house just as she emerged from her front door, her arms loaded with several apparently heavy boxes. She could only have just gotten home- She saw the car and ducked back inside.
Sarkisian slowed, then pulled over. “Be right back,” he said, and clambered out into the rain.
I followed. He knelt behind a hedge, looking down the slope into Peggy’s yard. He had a clear view of her door. It opened again, and she peered out. Then she ran the few steps toward her car, opened the trunk and ran back to the house. This time she emerged once more with the boxes. She stowed these in her trunk, returned to lock her house, then directed her searching gaze up the road toward Gerda’s. The way our car had been heading. Apparently satisfied, she climbed into her Pontiac.
Sarkisian darted back to his own car, with me scrambling after him. “What…” I began as I fastened my seat belt.
“We’re going to follow her.” He sounded grim.
“She’d never have scattered those bolts.” But even as I said those words, I knew a moment’s doubt. Desperate people had sunk to doing desperate and terrible things before.
“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.”
