“Oh, they decided to go home last night. Left me to grieve in solitude.”
“So you came here?”
“I felt certain I’d find you here, Sheriff.” She offered a sad smile. “I want to know what you’ve found out. It’s not fair of you to keep so quiet. After all, the victim was my husband.”
“About to be ex-husband,” Sarkisian reminded her.
Cindy’s lower lip quavered, and her eyes actually filled with tears. “Can you blame me? I do have my pride. The way he chased after every woman he saw… I couldn’t put up with it any longer. When he started dating Lucy Fairfield…” She shuddered. “That really was too much.”
Sarkisian’s eyebrows rose. “You mean Adam Fairfield’s ex-wife?”
Cindy nodded, her mouth full. When she had swallowed, she said, “It was absolutely disgraceful. I’d have been insulted, him chasing after a woman with a twenty-year old daughter, except he didn’t seem to be able to help himself.”
Jealousy? I wondered. Or outraged humiliation? She wouldn’t be the first wife driven to murder an unfaithful husband.
“How did Adam Fairfield feel about your husband dating his ex-wife?” Sarkisian asked.
Simon, who walked past carrying an armload of folding chairs, overheard this last. “He was so jealous he couldn’t see straight.”
The sheriff turned to him. “What makes you say that?”
Simon snorted. “Haven’t you seen all the work he’s done around his place? Everything Lucy ever wanted. Fairfield’s not doing it for himself, you know. And he went ballistic when he caught her having dinner with Brody.”
“She ought to be impressed by his effort, if nothing else,” Sarkisian said. “That must have cost a fortune. Did he take out a loan?”
Simon shook his head. “Nancy says he can’t stand going into debt. No,” he shot a glare toward the kitchen, “he’s stealing from her college fund.”
“You’re kidding!” I protested. “It means so much to him to have her at Stanford!”
“So maybe he’s just borrowing it.” He shrugged. “At least he’s working a lot of overtime. Nancy says he’s always at the Still. But what if she needs the money before he’s able to pay her back? She’d never make a fuss, but it’s worrying her. You can tell.”
“Why would he take the risk of upsetting his daughter?” Sarkisian asked.
Simon snorted. “I’ve never seen a man that jealous.”
“Haven’t you?” Ida Graham, also laden with folding chairs, came up behind him. “You weren’t even the teensiest bit jealous, then, when Brody started hanging around Nancy?”
Sarkisian’s eyes gleamed. “When was that?”
“Last week,” Ida said. “And you can stop glaring at me like that, Simon Lowell. Half the town heard you threatening Brody.”
Simon flushed. “Yeah, well.” A sudden embarrassed grin broke through. “She’s too smart to fall for a jerk like that. Oh, sorry, Ms. Brody. But it’s true, you know.”
Cindy sniffed. “He certainly made a fool of himself.”
“Annike, why are you just sitting there?” Sue Hinkel hurried past with an armload of decorations. “We have to clean this room, you know.”
I sighed and stood. For a moment I met Sarkisian’s amused glance, then turned away quickly as his grin broadened. With what dignity I could muster, I went to encourage everyone still in the room to help with reestablishing order to the Hall.
So at least two men might have wanted to kill Brody out of jealousy. There might well have been others, too, people we hadn’t even thought about. Someone completely unconnected with Upper River Gulch. Except it had to be someone either with a key to my aunt’s house, or who knew where she hid the spare. Which brought the murder back home, again.
Peggy returned with the list of pie bakers while we were packing away the last of the fall garlands in their cupboard. “What, you’re not done, yet?” she called from the doorway. To her credit she pitched right in, in spite of wanting to go home to meet her son.
And so, forty-five minutes later, I made the final inspection, checked off the list, locked the door, and handed the key back to Sarkisian. Those few of us who had remained until the bitter end regarded each other with that sense of shock that always follows a major production.
“Rest for an hour?” the sheriff suggested.
I shook my head. “Some of them escaped without their pie filling. Soon as I find out who, I’ll have to deliver it.”
“At least you’ll have help.” He gestured toward my car.
Through the back window I could just make out the ridiculous head of the turkey. I turned back to Sarkisian, but he was walking away as fast as he could.
Gerda strolled over from where she’d been talking to Ida and Art. “We have to stop by their store on the way home,” she reminded me. “I’ll need some nuts or soy or something.”
Her vegetarian Thanksgiving dinner. I closed my eyes and groaned. I’d hoped she’d forgotten about that. I had my heart set on the turkey currently roasting in our oven.
I carried the sole remaining unused bag of pancake mix to the car and glared at the bird that contentedly pecked at a pancake on the plate beside it. My thoughts weren’t printable. I had to get rid of that damned bird. I needed the backseat of my car for ferrying containers of defrosting pie filling.
Peggy, aided by her shadow Tony, dragged a trash bag from around the back. Together they heaved it into the bin. Together, they just about had the strength. She said something to him and he nodded, waved, and strode toward his motorcycle. Peggy hurried toward her car.
Sarkisian headed her off. “Never got a chance to ask you where you were Tuesday afternoon,” he said. “Around four to six o’clock.”
Peggy hesitated. “Didn’t you? You asked so many questions.” She shot a glance at Tony, who had mounted his bike and donned his helmet. He started to roll the thing toward her, as if in response to some unheard plea, but she waved him away. He hesitated, then kicked the motor into life and shot out of the lot.
“You said you were at home when you heard the sirens going up to Ms. Lundquist’s,” he persisted. “How long had you been there?”
“Oh.” Again, she hesitated. “Not long. I-I’d been in Meritville. At my son’s garage. He’s a mechanic, you know. I do his bookkeeping for him.”
“That’s what you were doing on Tuesday?”
“Not then, no,” she admitted. She didn’t meet his steady gaze. “I just dropped in to say hi, and stayed talking.”
“Meritville’s a long way to go to just to drop in.” Sarkisian kept his tone purely conversational.
She raised her pointed chin. “You obviously aren’t a mother.” And on that unanswerable note, she stalked to her car, climbed in and drove off.
Sarkisian watched her go. So did I. I’ve known Peggy most of my life, and thought I knew her well enough to know when she was being evasive or downright lying. And that, I would swear, had been a downright lie. But why? I honestly could not believe she would have killed Brody-at least, not in Gerda’s house. She was too good a friend to leave my aunt to face the resulting mess. But could she, I wondered, have killed him on a furious impulse? What if she’d gone over to Gerda’s and found him there alone poring over my aunt’s financial records? Was she, in fact, capable of murder? It upset me to realize I couldn’t be certain. Most people, I knew, if threatened sufficiently, might be capable of killing. You just never knew, even about yourself, until you were pressed to your very limit.
Cindy stood beside her sporty little Mazda but showed no inclination to climb in. She sighed in an exaggerated manner. “It’s going to be strange, with just me for Thanksgiving dinner,” she called to me.
“Then you shouldn’t have sent your friends home,” I muttered, but too softly for anyone to hear. For that matter, I wasn’t all that sure there ever had been any friends.