Janice Bennett: Cold Turkey

“Unless you want to count the school, library, and post office,” I offered without looking up from the second pot of tea I prepared. “That makes three more.”

“Thank you, Ms. McKinley. I’m sure I couldn’t have figured that out on my own. Now, Ms. Lundquist,” he turned back to Gerda, “I just want to make sure I have a few basic facts straight. The victim came here, to your house, at your invitation? So you did know he was here. But then you went out and left him alone?”

“Yes, but…” Gerda’s face drained of blood.

“I’m just trying to get an overall picture.” The sheriff leaned forward, folding his hands on the table and fixing her with a compelling smile. “Why don’t we begin with why you asked him to come over, and why you then left.”

“Why I…” As abruptly as Gerda had blanched, stormy color now surged into her cheeks. “You don’t believe I did go out! You think I stayed right here and murdered him! You’re actually accusing me! Annike, I told you this was going to happen!”

Sarkisian’s eyebrows rose. “That’s a pretty strong reaction to a simple question, Ms. Lundquist.” His tone invited an explanation.

Her flush deepened. “I do not have a guilty conscience, so quit implying that I do.”

“Oh, I rarely need to imply anything,” the sheriff assured her with a misleadingly gentle smile. “I let people do that for themselves.”

And that, finally and thankfully, rendered my aunt speechless.

Gerda’s silence didn’t last for long. Or rather, not for long enough. She turned on me. “He’s trying to make me say I killed Brody! He actually thinks I’m capable of committing murder!” She swung back to face the sheriff, and the look she directed at him gave that suspicion some justification. “And you’re just basing it on the circumstances of where he was found! You haven’t even gotten to motives-” She broke off, snapped her mouth closed, then regrouped her forces. “Don’t you think you ought to look at real evidence?”

Owen Sarkisian closed his eyes for a moment. “That’s what I’m trying to do.”

“I think,” I said in an attempt to diffuse the situation, “she wants you to look for exotic foreign cigarette butts with traces of outlandish colored lipstick.” I couldn’t understand what had set Gerda off like this. It was completely unlike her.

The sheriff turned a pained look on me.

“Or maybe,” I went on, hoping Gerda would take the hint and lighten up or cool down or something, “a trail of gum wrappers leading to a size nine shoe print with an unusual pattern on the sole?”

“Thank you, Ms. McKinley. Your insights are invaluable. I’m sure. To someone. Now, Ms. Lundquist, I only asked-”

“You’re trying to upset me and make me say things I don’t mean!” she accused him, still in full flare. My interruption hadn’t done any good.

A ragged sigh escaped him. “Calm down, Ms. Lundquist.”

“How can I calm down when you’re accusing me of murder!”

He spread his hands. “I’m not accusing you of anything. I only asked-”

“Then you’re stopping just short of it!” she exclaimed. “Is that how you go about your investigations, bullying people? Or,” and her gaze narrowed on him, “is this your first murder case?”

“Here, yes. Over the course of my career, not by a long shot.”

“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?”