“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.
The sheriff flushed. I watched in sympathy as his jaw clenched. Frustration seemed to radiate from every pore. Peggy frequently had that effect on people.
I turned a quelling glance at the little bird-like woman, only to surprise an odd expression in her eyes. Fear? Peggy? No, that had to be absurd. What had my aunt’s closest friend and neighbor to fear? Except possibly the same undisclosed worry that haunted Aunt Gerda?
“You want me to get on with the investigation?” Owen Sarkisian strode up to the table and glowered at all of us, indiscriminately. “Okay. Which of you ladies smokes?”
“Not in my house!” Gerda objected.
“Smokes?” I looked from my aunt to the sheriff, perplexed. “Why?”
“There’s a rather fancy lighter, a Navajo-design case of stamped silver with a chunk of turquoise, lying on the desk beside the body. But no smell of cigarettes, cigars, or smoke anywhere. Not on Brody, not in the room. So what’s it doing there?”
“Silver and turquoise…” Peggy’s voice trailed off. She fumbled at the strap that hung over her shoulder, dragged her cavernous hand-woven bag into her lap, unsnapped the top, and pawed through the contents. Slowly, her gaze rose to Gerda.
“I took it last time you were here,” Gerda said quickly.
Too quickly? I studied the set of my aunt’s features. I knew her expressions, could read them no matter how hard she tried to disguise them. I hadn’t a doubt she was lying.
“You took it?” Peggy blinked.
Gerda turned to the sheriff. “I’ve been trying to get her to quit smoking for years, now. Everyone in town knows that. Nothing’s worked so far, so I thought I’d try subtle means for a change. Like hiding her lighter, or her cigarettes. Make it more difficult for her.”
Owen Sarkisian looked from one to the other of them. “And when was she here last?”
