“But the money just doesn’t add up to enough…”
“It’s not the amount,” Sarkisian pointed out, “but the being caught.”
“But murder?”
He shook his head. “I think I’d better talk to her before I come to any conclusions.” He rose. “I’ll take you home, first.”
I nodded. We locked away the books, then set off on the drive back to Upper River Gulch. The rain had stopped some time earlier, but the sky looked like it might let go again at any moment. Neither of us said anything until we’d turned onto the second street past Last Gasp Hill. Then, as we neared Peggy’s, I asked, “Can I come with you?”
He hesitated. “Sure you want to? It might not be pleasant.”
“I-” I shook my head. “It might make it easier for her.” To do what, I had no idea. I just didn’t want her to face what might come alone, even if it were just her disillusionment in her protégé.
We pulled into her driveway to find the old Pontiac poking out of the carport. Lights showed behind curtains, and almost as soon as we came to a stop the porch light flicked on. Peggy opened the front door and peered out at us. “Annike? Are you all right?”
“Sorry to bother you, Ms. O’Shaughnessy, I need to talk to you.” Sarkisian waited for Peggy to step back and usher us into her cluttered but comfortable living room.
She waved us to chairs, then perched on the edge of her sofa. “What’s up?”
“We found out about Discount Office Supplies,” Sarkisian said.
Her eyes widened in dismay, then she gave a philosophical shrug. “Well, that was clever of you.”
The sheriff blinked. “You aren’t going to try to deny it?”
Peggy peered over the top of her glasses. “Would it do me any good?”
“No,” he admitted.
“Besides, I’m proud of it,” she added.
“Proud? You’ve been paying a dummy company every month. Ms. O’Shaughnessy, that’s called embezzling and in case you weren’t aware, it’s illegal.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. A bit unorthodox, certainly, and I admit I didn’t want to be caught at it, but I was only doing what was right.”
“Why don’t you start at the beginning,” I suggested.
Peggy nodded. “You’ll appreciate this, Annike. It all started at last year’s Christmas party at the Still. Hugh Cartwright always puts on such a spread and he was in such a good mood because the raspberry liqueur was selling so well. So when I suggested that he make a pledge to support the homeless shelter, he agreed, even on the amount.”
“So he made a pledge,” Sarkisian murmured, his gaze narrowing. I began to see what had happened.
Her face worked. “But when I brought him the first check to sign, he refused. He actually said he’d changed his mind. And after he’d pledged!”
“He didn’t do it in writing, did he?” I asked.
“I should have made sure he did,” fumed Peggy. “He had the nerve to claim the pledge wasn’t legally binding! And then he gave that exact same amount to himself every month and called it a bonus, just to spite me because I called him a skinflint to his face.”
“So you came up with a creative way to make him honor that pledge anyway?” Sarkisian sounded resigned.
Peggy raised her eyebrows. “Well, wouldn’t you?”
That silenced the sheriff, but I got the distinct impression he didn’t wholly disapprove of Peggy’s outrageous stunt. “Is that why you lied about being at the shelter on Tuesday?” I asked.
She hesitated, then nodded. “I really didn’t want to bring attention to how much time I spend there. How much the place means to me.” She straightened, and her chin came up in defiance. “It’s important work, you know.”
Sarkisian stared at her, frowning, then looked to me.
“I think,” I said slowly, “that my aunt can help out with this. Hugh Cartwright listens to her, sometimes. I think she can shame him into endorsing what Peggy did.”
He nodded, obviously relieved. “We’ll have a talk with Ms. Lundquist, then.”
Peggy beamed at him. “Did you want to arrest me? That would have been quite an experience. I’ve never been arrested before.”
“One can only wonder why not,” Sarkisian muttered as we at last headed out the door.
“No one’s dared, I expect.”
He climbed into the car, then turned to look at me. “If she didn’t really mind our finding out, it doesn’t seem likely she’d panic over Brody’s finding out, either.”
“Or Dave’s,” I agreed. “And Tony would have known it wasn’t a matter of life and death to her, so that lets him out, too.”
His expression went blank with that look I was beginning to recognize as a rapid review of facts. “Hatter’s prints weren’t on the ledgers,” he announced abruptly. “Only on the inventory sheets waiting for processing.”
I groaned. “You mean we’ve been wasting our time on the wrong thing?”
Sarkisian ran a hand through his curly pepper-and-salt hair. “Hatter had been going through papers. Maybe he knew what he was looking for, maybe he was just doing it as part of his job. But someone didn’t want him doing it?” He made the last a question.
“Not Peggy,” I asserted. “She was fiddling the books, not the inventory-” I broke off, realizing what I had just said.
“Fiddling the inventory,” Sarkisian repeated, an odd expression in his gray eyes. “Damn.”
We fell silent, then reason intervened and I shook my head. “Sorry. That doesn’t make sense. The employees can get all the bottles-”
“The experimental batches,” he corrected. “Good for personal drinking, but not for resale. Hugh Cartwright will never let anyone have the bottles with labels bearing the Brandywine Distillery seal. Because,” he added with emphasis, “they sell for so much money.”
“So Dave might have caught someone making off with stock?” I warmed to this line of thinking until I realized it didn’t let out Peggy, or for that matter, Gerda. “Anybody in the whole damned town could have been stealing from the Still!” I said in disgust. “Dave might even have been taking bribes to keep quiet about it.”
“Until his conscience got the better of him, perhaps?”
We crested the hill to be greeted by a bright spotlight focused on Aunt Gerda’s gate. Or more accurately, on the fence post beside it that Simon’s van had knocked over the night of the murder. The halogen bulb flared from a massive battery, illuminating Simon, his van, a new post and the remnants of cement mixing.
Sarkisian slowed to a stop, and Simon waved to us. “A bit late, isn’t it?” Sarkisian called to him.
“Thought I’d better do it before it started pouring again.” Simon’s mouth twitched into a lopsided grin. “I’ve felt damned guilty about this.” He turned back to his labors.
Sarkisian guided the Honda along the winding drive-missing most of the potholes, I noted-and stopped again behind the garage.
The front door opened, and Gerda came out on the deck and looked down at us. “Annike? I was getting worried.”
“It’s been a long evening,” I agreed as I crawled out of the car. Right now, I wanted my bed and twenty-four hours of uninterrupted sleep. I’d be lucky if I got six.
“Is that the sheriff? Good. I’ll be right down.”
Sarkisian waited while Gerda hurried back into the house. She emerged a couple minutes later, wrapped in her purple cloak, and came down the stairs.
“Here!” With an air of triumph, she thrust out her hand, holding a piece of paper liberally smeared with garbage. “The cash register receipt for my vanilla, with the date and time of purchase printed right on it.”
“Your alibi?” Sarkisian took it by a corner, eyeing the crumpled, slimed thing with distaste. I could only hope it would satisfy him.
Simon’s rattling old van pulled up beside him. “All done, Gerda,” he called. He opened up the back and dragged out a spare fence rail. “I’ll shove this in the crawlspace.” With the board balanced on his shoulder, he opened the garage, felt around until he found Gerda’s spare key, then unlocked the low doorway that led to her tool storage area. He came out several minutes later. “Some of that floor insulation has come loose,” he said as he returned the key to its not-very hidden home. “I’ll come by in the morning and fix it.”