“Why so secretive, Ms. O’Shaughnessy?” Sarkisian asked.
“What are you talking about?” She put a brave face on it, but you would have thought we had caught her in the act of committing a crime.
A young man, of the Simon Lowell school of fashion, emerged from the back entrance, wiping his hands on his overalls. “Need help, Peggy?” he asked, then took in the sheriff. “What can I do for you, officer?”
“Was this lady here on Tuesday afternoon?” Sarkisian asked.
The man stared at Peggy, his eyes unfocussed with the effort of memory. “You came over at about four o’clock, didn’t you?” he asked at last. “I remember, you brought all those cans and those sleeping bags.”
“And when did she leave?”
The man considered, then shook his head. “No idea. We were pretty busy. I’ll check around if it’s important.”
“Please do.” Sarkisian waited until the man had returned inside, then joined us in the tiny sheltered space. “Why did you lie, Ms. O’Shaughnessy?”
Her face contorted. “Because where is the point in helping people if you make sure everyone knows about it?” she demanded. “I don’t do this so everyone will say I do good works. I do it because-because it’s important to do.” She shut her mouth.
Sarkisian glanced at me. I gave an almost imperceptible shrug. That might be true. “Does your son object?” I asked.
She hesitated. “He doesn’t know how much time I spend here,” she admitted. “It’s no one’s business but mine.”
“It’s becoming my business,” Sarkisian told me some twenty minutes later when we climbed back into his car. No one at the shelter could remember what time Peggy had left on Tuesday night. It might have been as early as four-fifteen or as late as six. Volunteers don’t punch time clocks, they reminded us. Volunteers were so precious, they were welcomed for however many minutes they could spare. “I still think she’s hiding something,” he added as we headed back toward Upper River Gulch.
I didn’t say anything for the simple reason that I feared he was right. She was too nervous, too upset, just for being caught out in delivering boxes of used clothes. And why had she bothered lying about Tuesday? We all knew she helped out there. It didn’t make sense. I leaned back and closed my eyes and began to drift off to sleep.
The crackling of the radio roused me. Sarkisian answered it, and I heard the voice of Jennifer, the dispatcher.
“Hey, Sheriff? You’re not going to believe it. We’ve got another body.”
Chapter Sixteen
The body belonged to-or at least had belonged to-Dave Hatter. Adam Fairfield had come on duty at two o’clock and found the man lying face down in the bathtub-sized vat. When I’d seen the tank last night, it had stood empty, as usual. Now it almost overflowed with apricot brandy. And body.
I sat on one of the upholstered chairs in the Still’s reception area, shivering. I was tired, my head ached, I was sore all over, and I couldn’t face the fact that someone I’d known most of my life had just ended his own.
Adam Fairfield paced the floor in front of me. “I mean,” he said for perhaps the tenth time, “I’d only just walked in here! No one expects to find-” He broke off. “I can’t believe it.”
“Sit down,” I suggested. His eyes looked too bright, his face flushed, but I would have sworn he hadn’t taken a drink, not even something medicinal to steady his nerves. I wouldn’t have blamed him in the least if he had. I wouldn’t have minded sampling one of the liqueurs myself, right now.
But not, I amended, the apricot brandy. I didn’t think I’d ever touch apricot brandy again.
Adam flung himself into a chair, then out of it again and resumed pacing. “My God, Annike, if you’d seen him, face down, half floating in that stuff…” He shuddered. “Well, I suppose if you’re going to kill yourself, drowning in brandy might not be such a bad way to go.” He sank onto the chair, this time so exhausted he remained where he sat.
“Definitely a touch of class,” I agreed.
Dave Hatter, a suicide. It seemed all too horribly possible, with his depression over losing his life savings. And if he’d killed Brody…I could see where guilt could have driven him to this. I wondered if he’d left a note. Not all suicides did, but Dave struck me as the type who’d feel obliged to explain his actions, to apologize one last time to his poor wife.
His wife. I wondered if Sarkisian would draft me into helping him break the news to a second widow. I’d never really thought Cindy would be upset, so I’d known telling her wouldn’t be an ordeal. But Barbara would be a very different matter. She adored Dave, she would have seen him through whatever troubles had fallen on them. She was probably even going to forgive him for taking the easy way out and leaving her to face the future alone and penniless, with a cloud of shame hanging over her head. I prayed Sarkisian would pick on someone other than me this time.
Adam blinked and looked up as if coming out of his own reverie. “It only sounds classy ‘til you know the details.” He stretched his face into a wolfish grin as if trying to lighten the atmosphere. It wasn’t working very well. “Before he climbed in, he stripped down to his boxers. White ones, decorated with turkeys.”
The idea seemed so preposterous as to be funny, but I felt no inclination to laugh. I shook my head. “He should’ve worn a tux.”
“And the number of bottles it took to fill that vat! He used ones with the official seal on them, did I tell you? Apricot’s one of the most expensive products, too. Cartwright’ll have a screaming fit when he finds out.” He thrust himself to his feet and resumed pacing. “God, I can just see it happening, him pouring each bottle into the vat, then arranging his empties in that smiley face and cross bones.” He shuddered. “Then stripping down, folding each thing he wore, placing them all on the counter in that damned neat pile. Then climbing into the vat, lying face down, and drinking himself into oblivion…”
“What a way to go,” I agreed.
Rumblings sounded from the work floor below. The forensic team must be finishing up. They’d cart away the body, and poor Sarah Jacobs would have another autopsy to look forward to.
“You look awful, Annike.”
I looked up to find Adam hovering over me, contrition all over his face. “Sorry, I shouldn’t have been rattling on like this to you. You should go home. Need a ride?”
“I was going to call Aunt Gerda when we got here,” I said. In fact, Sarkisian and I had argued over whether he would take me home, where he said I ought to be, or go straight to the Still, where he was needed on official business. He’d only agreed to the latter when I’d promised faithfully to call for a ride as soon as we got here. That had been over three hours ago.
The metal stairs thudded with the sound of several people climbing back to our level, and the low murmur of men’s voices preceded their entry into the lobby. Sarkisian, looking even more disheveled than when I’d last seen him, strode into the room and came up short. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “You promised to go home.”
“Been keeping Adam company,” I explained.
Sarkisian’s glare transferred to Fairfield. “Yeah,” he said after a minute. “That must have been a bit of a shock for you. How come no one else is working this afternoon?”
“Holiday,” Adam explained. “One of the techs came in to check the batches this morning, so there’s nothing else to be done until tomorrow. Hatter’s the night watchman, so he was alone.”
“What brought you in, then?” Sarkisian asked.
“I’m Hatter’s relief this weekend. He can’t stay on duty twenty-four hours a day, you know, even if he did need the overtime.” Adam’s mouth twisted. “I need it, too, so I volunteered to give him a break.”
Sarkisian sighed. “Too bad you didn’t come a little earlier.”
Adam nodded. “But Hatter knew when I was due. He must have planned to be dead long before then.”
“Oh, I doubt he planned anything,” the sheriff said.
&n
bsp; Adam looked up. “An accident? You think Hatter got drunk, then decided to soak in brandy for the fun of it?”
“I think someone got him drunk and set the stage to look like suicide.”
“But…” I began, then broke off, feeling sick.
“Why?” Adam demanded. “Why would anyone kill the poor sod? He was about as inoffensive as a guy could get!”
“Well, we’ll know more tomorrow,” Sarkisian said with a note of finality. He looked at me for a long moment, then shook his head. “Not this time, Ms. McKinley. You’ve gone through too much already in the last twenty-four hours. I’ll take Jennifer.”
Conscience won out over self-preservation, and I shook my head. “She’ll need friends. Let’s take…” I hesitated. My aunt remained a suspect in one murder, and if this was another, and the two were connected- Lucy-no, she’d be at work. “Ida Graham,” I decided. That woman’s brisk, motherly cheerfulness might be exactly what Barbara Hatter would need.
Sarkisian placed the call from the reception desk, and Ida promised to meet us at the Hatters’s house in fifteen minutes. Adam went home, several deputy sheriffs took over the night watchman duties in what was now a crime scene rather than a business, and I accompanied Sarkisian out to the Honda.
“What makes you think it’s murder?” I asked as we started out the drive. Sarah Jacobs, in her little Toyota, followed us. It was my opinion, confided to the sheriff and endorsed by Sarah, that Barbara Hatter would need a sedative.
“Needle mark on the inside of his elbow.”
“But drugs would show up on an autopsy!” I exclaimed.
“I think whoever did it injected alcohol, probably enough to get him so drunk that more could be poured down his throat.”
“Then with Dave incapacitated, your killer set the stage, then what? Held Dave’s head under ‘til he drowned?” My stomach clenched. Oh, God, Sarkisian was right. I should never have gotten myself mixed up in the murder investigation. I’d give anything to pull out now, go home, forget any of this awful business ever happened. But life-and reality-didn’t work like that.
“Seems probable. The autopsy should clear up a few questions, but I think it must have gone something like that.”
The next hour went every bit as badly as I’d feared. As soon as Barbara opened the door to us, panic filled her face. Then when we got her inside and broke the news, she went into full-blown hysterics. Ida Graham, who arrived to find Sarah struggling to administer a sedative, took charge and swept the poor woman off to bed.
“She thought we’d come to tell her you’d arrested Dave for murder,” I said as we returned, shaken by the ordeal, to the Honda.
Sarkisian held the door for me, then closed it without answering. He went around to the other side and climbed in.
“At the breakfast the other day,” I went on after he’d started the engine, “she was afraid he was going to hurt himself. But I don’t think that was on her mind tonight.”
He looked at me. “Ever thought of becoming a psychologist?”
“If you’re going to insult me-”
“I’m not. I was just working around to that conclusion, myself. Something must have happened to make Dave Hatter feel better. To make his wife no longer think in terms of him killing himself.”
“He came into some money?” I suggested.
Sarkisian kept his gaze on the road. “Blackmail?”
“No, he wouldn’t have been stupid enough to meet his victim at the Still with no one else around. I mean, no one could be that dumb!”
He shook his head. “You’d be surprised.” Silence settled between us, then abruptly he slammed his hand against the steering wheel. “Damn, why couldn’t I have figured this out sooner! If I’d solved Brody’s murder, Hatter might still be alive!”
“If the murders are connected,” I pointed out in a vain attempt to relieve his guilt.
He cast me a withering glance. “What are the odds they aren’t?”
We’d reached the intersection of Fallen Tree Road and Last Gasp Hill. We had to turn right to get to Gerda’s. Abruptly, we swung left. “Where…?” I began.
“The office.” Anger sounded in his voice. “I’m drafting you again. The answer’s got to be somewhere in those damned ledgers or papers, and I’m going to find it before anyone else dies.”
Half an hour later, we settled in the small room given over to the Still’s financial books, armed with a pot of strong coffee and a plate of brownies fetched from a grocery store bakery by Jennifer.
“All right,” Sarkisian heaped sugar and cream into his mug, “how many bookkeeping or accounting cons can you think of?”
“You’re back to Peggy again,” I said. “And Peggy couldn’t have killed Dave! She was at the park, then we followed her to the homeless shelter.”
“Was she at the park the whole time? Could she have left for an hour without our noticing?”
She could, of course. Anyone could have. There was so much chaos, and people racing off to get things they’d forgotten. And if I protested too much, he might go back to the theory that Gerda and Peggy were pulling this off together. And Gerda would have had time to kill Dave, no matter how much I couldn’t believe it possible.
“And don’t forget Tony Carerras,” Sarkisian stuck in.
My head came up. “None of this might have anything to do with Peggy, at all! Tony might…”
“Does he have access to a key to your aunt’s house?”
That stopped me, but only for a moment. “He might.”
“Okay, let’s look at Tony. Why would he kill Brody at that particular time and place?”
I swallowed. The only link between the two was that they both worked for the Still. Tony had no involvement in the financial matters.
“Unless,” Sarkisian went on with ruthless determination, “he did it to protect Ms. O’Shaughnessy.”
“And Dave?” It was time to get Sarkisian’s thoughts running along another line. “Why would he kill Dave?”
“Same reason, I suppose. To protect Ms. O’Shaughnessy.”
That seemed all too possible, but I forged ahead. “Peggy could-must-be completely innocent. Maybe Tony just thought she was going to get into trouble, so he killed Brody and then Dave because Dave guessed…” My words trailed off under Sarkisian’s pitying look.
“Would you like me to take you home?” he asked, all solicitude. “A few hours’ sleep, and I’ll bet your brain will be back on track again.”
“There’s nothing wrong with my brain,” I snapped, but I feared he might be right. I needed to think clearly, logically. And for any relative of Aunt Gerda’s, that took some doing. “We don’t even know when Dave was killed,” I managed at last, trying to regain some measure of credibility.
Owen Sarkisian actually smiled. “Sarah will be able to give us a rough idea. Now, back to the matter at hand. Bookkeeping cons?”
I tried to shift my maligned brain back into gear. “Entering invoices with wrong amounts,” I said after a moment’s consideration, “but that’s the easiest to catch. Phony personnel for a payroll scam is always popular. And then there’s always phony vendors.”
“Right.” Sarkisian took a swallow of coffee, then started sorting through books. “Those last two don’t require any accounting knowledge, just grunt work. That’ll do for me.”
Leaving me to continue checking the journal entries against their source material and their posting accounts, he turned his attention to the payroll ledger to see if any nonexistent employees had been drawing wages. Apparently he could verify every name, for a little over an hour later he slammed the book shut and shoved it aside. “And I have to do that with every damned supplier?” he demanded in disgust.
I shoved a file of paid invoices toward him. “Starting with January,” I said, and went back to my own comparisons.
He spent a lot of time calling information for phone listings for out-of-area venders. Just because an invoice had a phone number printed on it didn’t mean it was r
eal. The same went for websites. Almost anybody, he said, could make what looked like a legitimate business website, and for very little money. There were companies on the internet that made it incredibly easy.
I left him to it and went back to checking the accuracy of figures. My head had been throbbing for some time, and I was nibbling my second brownie, when Sarkisian gave a deep sigh. “Ever hear of ‘Discount Office Supplies’ here in Meritville?”
I shrugged. “Is it one of those large outfits that move in and kill the business for the small, privately owned companies?”
“Sounds like it, but there’s no phone number, and the street address isn’t real. It’s a cover for one of the post office box companies.”
“For what?”
He looked up, his eyes gleaming like a hound that has caught a scent. “They’re designed for small businesses, sometimes operated out of people’s homes, that want to look larger. Gives them more legitimacy than a box number.”
“So how do you find out if it’s real?” I asked.
“For starters, check with the service and see who rented the box.”
Since it was late on a Saturday evening on a holiday weekend, this took a little time. Jennifer got stuck with finding the appropriate person to provide the required information. The sheriff’s office obviously had more pull than mere civilians, because in an amazingly short time she managed to track down the company’s manager at the restaurant where the woman was having dinner with her family. The woman pronounced herself thrilled to be able to help in an official investigation and didn’t even demand that the sheriff obtain a warrant. She promised to go to her office at once to check her records, adding that she would call the sheriff as soon as she had the information in hand.
Owen Sarkisian spent the intervening time searching for other invoices from the same company. He found them, too, at the rate of one a month. Always for unspecified office supplies and always for the same amount of one hundred and fifty dollars, even, no loose change. Every month and I didn’t know how many years back they might go.
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