Hot Dogs (13 page)

“Careful,” I said.
“You’re betraying your devious mind.”

That drew a chuckle—also reluctant—from him.
“If I were all
that devious I’d have found a way to be rich by now.”

“What about last night?” Sarkisian asked.
“You weren’t on
duty.
Any alibi for when Mr.
Norton was killed?”

Quantrell stared at him.
“That depends on when it happened.”

“We’re still determining the approximate time.
Why don’t you
just tell me when you left here and what you did?”

Quantrell hesitated.
“About six I think.
All of you were
still here, I know that.
I went back to the office to fill out some paperwork
so the dispatcher and several of the guys saw me there.
But after that I went
home, ate a frozen dinner and watched TV.
Oh damn, you’ll have to excuse me.
I’ve got to check on who’ll be opening the gates for the ambulance tomorrow.”
He raised his hand in a half-wave to us and strode off.

I cast Sarkisian a sideways glance.
He was frowning after
the paramedic’s retreating figure.
“Doesn’t sound like anyone can prove where
they were last night,” I said.

Sarkisian’s expression softened as he looked at me.
“I know
where I would have liked to have been last night.” The warmth in his voice left
me in no doubt about his meaning.

“Me too.
‘A policeman’s lot—‘”

“‘Is not a happy one’,” he finished for me.
“I’ll try to get
through things earlier tonight.”

“Promises, promises.” I shook my head.

“On the bright side—for you at least—the team’s done with
the decorations.
Roberta’s at the shed now giving it a final go-through.”

I gave a short mirthless laugh.
“Well I suppose we can hang
things up outside at least.”

“We’ll—” he began only to break off.

Ivan Janowski’s voice rose above the general noise level and
I turned to see who he was berating in the absence of the long-suffering
Theresa.
He was facing Edward Vanderveer.

“Duty,” Sarkisian reminded me.

With a sigh I went to mediate.
We’d had far too much
bloodshed already and those two looked ready to kill each other.
Sarkisian
started after me but his phone rang and he paused.
So did I.

“What’s up, Becky?” he asked then listened to whatever she
had to say.
His grim smile assured me it was something very relevant to the
investigation.
“Good job.
Thanks.
Heading anywhere next?
Okay.
I’ll see you
back here later.” He disconnected.

“Something good?” I asked.

“Let’s find out.” He started walking—in the direction of
Vanderveer and Janowski.

The two men ignored our arrival.
They appeared completely
caught up in whatever they were arguing about.
We didn’t interrupt.
It was
amazing what one could learn by being the metaphorical fly on the wall.

“I wouldn’t trust you not to lose them if they were hanging
around your neck,” Janowski shouted at his opponent.

Vanderveer’s face, which was already an angry shade of red,
darkened to an alarming hue.
“I’m not the one who loses things.
I didn’t lose
all the money from last year’s event.”

“What the hell are you talking about?
That money was never
in my charge.
And we’re talking about keys—if you can remember anything for
more than two seconds.”

“
I’m
talking,” Vanderveer corrected.
“
You’re
shouting.
Didn’t anyone ever tell you that you catch more flies with honey than
with vinegar?” He shot a suspicious look at Sarkisian, acknowledging our
arrival for the first time.
“The sheriff knows that.”

Startled, Janowski turned and finally registered our presence.
His color slowly faded as he took a deep breath.
“He needs to turn the keys
over to me.”

Sarkisian raised his eyebrows.
“He doesn’t have them.
I
do—in an evidence bag.
But don’t worry.
Someone from the Fairgrounds Committee
is on their way over.
They’ll bring another set of keys and make certain
everything is unlocked for you.”

Both Vanderveer and Janowski started protesting at once with
the result that I only caught scattered phrases such as “there’s no need” and
“it would be easier”.
Why, I wondered, was it so important to them to have the
keys?
Did one of them want access to some locked area without anyone else
knowing about it?
And if so, was the other man suspicious—or did he merely want
to feel important and in control?

I glanced at Sarkisian but he merely stood there, a quietly
concerned expression on his face, listening to the all but unintelligible
babble.

When it finally petered out he smiled at them.
“I’m sure
you’ll be able to come to arrangements with the Fairgrounds Committee member.”

Vanderveer gave Janowski a superior smile.
“
I
certainly will.
I’m a member of the Fairgrounds Committee as well as the Fourth
of July Committee.”

Janowski glared at him.
“Damned if I know how you managed to
get accepted onto either one.”

“Pure ability,” Vanderveer informed him then beat a hasty
retreat before Janowski could come up with a suitable retort.

Sarkisian stepped in quickly, preventing Janowski from
chasing after him to continue the fight.
“One of my deputies checked your
arrival time last night with your wife,” he said.

Janowski snorted.
“I’ll bet she told you I was drunk when I
got home, which is a damn lie.
I wouldn’t have driven my car if that were the
case.”

“She didn’t mention anything about that,” Sarkisian said.
“She did though have a slightly different account of what happened last year.”

Janowski stiffened.
“I have no idea what she might have
said.
Her memory—” He broke off with a slight shrug.
“She confuses dates all
the time.”

“Her memory was excellent,” Sarkisian assured him.
“Apparently she had reason to remember the fireworks show and the drive home
afterward.
It seems you had a fight over your flirting with Connie Wessex and
you got out of the car and told her to go home without you.
And you didn’t
return until the next day.”

Janowski flushed.
“Did we do that on the Fourth?
I guess
it’s my memory that’s becoming faulty.
That wasn’t the only time that sort of
thing has happened.
I’ve spent quite a few nights in a hotel.
Believe me, it’s
much more peaceful.
And,” he added darkly, “I can usually get a much better
dinner and breakfast.”

“Flirting?” Vanderveer had apparently returned.
“You only
fought about
flirting
?
Didn’t your wife realize you were having an
affair with Connie?”

Janowski fixed him with a withering look.
“My ‘affairs’, in
all senses of the word, are none of your business.” And with that he stalked
off.

Vanderveer smiled.
“That,” he announced, “was extremely
satisfying.
Well, I had best have a talk with that comedy troupe.
Really, we
need the stage.”

“There’s a chance we can let you have it in about another
hour,” Sarkisian assured him.

There was?
I could have kissed him.
Of course I wanted to do
that anyway but hey, an extra excuse never hurts.
He must have been about to
tell me about it when we were interrupted earlier.

Vanderveer let out a long breath.
“I’m very glad to hear it.
Is there any reason why I can’t go into the lighting loft right now then?
If I
could get started that would help to move things along for us.”

“I’ll take you over there and get it cleared with the team.
Annike?”

I fell into step with them.
Sarkisian’s pocket, I noticed,
was empty.
He must be in dire need of a brownie fix.
I knew I could
murder—damn, I’ve got to stop using that expression—a block of dark chocolate
right about now.
Somewhere in the bottom of my carryall purse I’d stashed a
small bag of chocolate chips for emergencies.
Unfortunately I seemed to have
left my purse in Freya’s trunk when I’d collected my laptop.
I was definitely
not thinking clearly today.
When I had a chance I’d have to pick it up—and
transfer some of the chocolate ration to one of the pockets in my computer
case.
This was beginning to look like another long day.

“Sarkisian.” John Goulding hurried down the path, not from
the auditorium but from the storage shed where Wessex’s body had been…stored.
The deputy looked excited and was putting on an unusual turn of speed.

The sheriff paused but indicated to Vanderveer he should
continue.
As soon as the man was out of earshot he turned his attention to the
deputy.
“Got something?”

John came abreast of us, breathing heavily.
“Roberta’s
almost got the last of those damn decorations out and you’ll never believe what
she found.” He beamed in triumph.

“If it’s another body…” I let the threat in my tone finish
the sentence for me.

John grinned at me.
“Much, much better.
A briefcase.
Tucked
into the wall of the shed through a broken sheet of drywall, far enough back so
it was almost impossible to find.
And it’s got initials on it.” He looked
expectantly at Sarkisian.

“L.W.?” Sarkisian hazarded.

“Well, add an E for his middle name and yeah, that’s what
we’ve got.”

Sarkisian looked at me with raised eyebrows.
“Mind telling
Vanderveer I’ll be along in a few minutes to see about letting him into the
auditorium?” His tone didn’t hold out much hope I’d agree.

“No way.
I’m not missing this.
Lead the way, John.” But I
started for the storage shed first.

Roberta Dominguez stood just outside its entrance.
Just as
John had said, a hodgepodge of red, white and blue buntings and
who-knew-what-else lay in untidy heaps toward the far side.
The sight warmed my
heart.
But right now I was more interested in the briefcase that lay on the
hood of her semi-official dirty-white car.

“I’m dying to open it,” Roberta called as we neared.

“Dusted for prints?” Sarkisian came to a halt at her side,
eyeing the case with interest.

Roberta nodded, her short dark hair bobbing around her
rounded face.
“Nothing.
Wiped clean.
The outside at least.”

Sarkisian pulled a pair of gloves from his pocket and donned
them.
He checked the locks and they clicked open with only a token resistance
from a fine coating of rust, a byproduct of our damp coastal climate.
He lifted
the lid and we all peered over his shoulder.

Money almost overflowed from the interior.
Bills, checks,
even loose change.
All just stacked in haphazardly.

“How much do you think there is?” Roberta breathed.

Sarkisian rocked back on his heels.
“I don’t know.
How much
was the take from last year’s Fourth of July?”

Chapter Ten

I resisted the almost overwhelming urge to scoop up the top
few layers of bills and checks just to see if there really were more lying
beneath.
“You think this is the stolen money.” It wasn’t a question but a
statement.

Sarkisian nodded.
“And it was hidden in the building,” he
added, his tone musing.

“So who hid it?” John asked, getting right to the heart of
the issue.
“Wessex or whoever killed him?”

“It wouldn’t make sense for someone to kill him for it then
just leave it here,” Roberta said.
But she glanced at Sarkisian for his
opinion.

“Unless they didn’t kill him for the money?” I suggested.

John shook his head.
“Anyone who found that would consider
it a windfall.
I can’t imagine anyone just leaving it to rot.”

“Whoever left the body must have known we’d also find the
money when we started getting ready for the event this year,” I said.

“It was really well hidden,” Roberta assured me.
“And
nowhere near where the body was lying.
It wasn’t until I got out that last
armload of stuff I spotted that hole.
Or rather the board that had been
covering it up.
It was no wonder we didn’t find it before.
We nearly didn’t at
all.”

“Yeah.” John picked up a bill with his gloved hand then set
it down again.
“If they’d wanted to be sure the money was found they’d have
left it with him, not hidden it like that.
And if they’d wanted to be sure it
wasn’t found they’d have thrown it in the ocean or something.
This just doesn’t
make sense.”

“Unless they didn’t want to risk getting caught with the
briefcase,” I suggested.

Sarkisian, I realized, wasn’t saying anything.
He just stood
there frowning at the briefcase and its contents, his mind obviously not on our
conversation.

“Should I dust the cash for prints?” Roberta sounded
dubious.

“Hmm?” Sarkisian emerged from his reverie.
“Bag the whole
thing and take it back to the department.
We’ll need to count the money and
check it against the total from last year.”

John nodded.
“Lizzie Mobley will sure be glad to see this
stuff.
And so will all the charities that were counting on it last year.”

A lot of people were going to be glad to see this money.
But
would one person not be happy?
And why hide the money like that?
The more I
thought about it, the more likely it seemed that Wessex himself had to have
hidden it.
But when?
Or possibly more importantly, why?

Had Wessex not been killed on the night of the Fourth?
Had
he hidden the money then returned for it at a later time only to be killed
before he could retrieve it?
I opened my mouth to offer this idea only to close
it again.
It wasn’t reasonable.
If Lee Wessex hadn’t been killed on the Fourth
then it would have been almost impossible to bury his body so completely under
all the decorations.
Almost but not completely.
It might have happened.
But the
more I thought about it the less likely that scenario seemed.

“Sheriff.” Ivan Janowski stormed up the path from the arena
toward us.

“Put that thing out of sight,” Sarkisian told Roberta.
“Good
work, by the way.”

She beamed at the praise only to frown the next moment.
“We
should have found it yesterday.”

“That’s why crime scenes are roped off.
Things occasionally
slip past us.
But you did find it and that’s what’s important.”

Roberta nodded, patently grateful for not getting told off
for careless clue hunting.
That wasn’t Sakrisian’s style though.
And his praise
would probably go a long way further to making her more diligent in her work
than if he had yelled at her.
Besides, she hadn’t been the only investigator
going over that shed.
They’d all missed that broken bit of drywall.

Roberta closed the briefcase and bagged it.
She’d placed it
on the floor of the backseat of her car and climbed behind the wheel before
Janowski reached us.
“I’ll call if we get anything useful from the inside,” she
said and started the engine.

“Find something?” Janowski demanded as he watched her pull
away.
Then his gaze shifted toward the piles of miscellaneous red, white and
blue decorations and his eyes took on an avaricious gleam.

“Just routine business,” Sarkisian said smoothly.
“Let’s
take a look at the auditorium.”

He headed across the asphalt and up the path that led to the
stage door with the rest of us hurrying after him.

“How soon can we start hanging all that stuff up?” Janowski
demanded.
“We’ll need to get a crew of workmen over here.”

“Outside, right away.
Inside, well we’ll see.”

Janowski dragged out his phone and in moments was barking
orders at Theresa to make the necessary calls.

As we neared the building I spotted a bevy of poodles racing
down the path that led toward Parking Lot B.
Lizzie was nowhere in sight and I
was sure she wouldn’t want her little beastlies running around loose where cars
would still be arriving.
I hurried after them to see if I could round them up
before they got hurt.

The yipping started as soon as they neared the end of the
paved walkway.
I slowed to a stop.
Lizzie was there in an animated discussion
with an older man not much taller than herself.
He was waving his arm in a big
circle.
Mazda sat on his foot and Roomba ran her vacuuming act in a small
circle around him.
The poodles leapt up at him in obvious delight as Lizzie tried
ineffectively to hush them.

Relieved they were safe I headed back to rejoin the others.

Inside, the ghoul squad had roped off a large section of the
backstage area with crime scene tape.
I was surprised they hadn’t cordoned off
the entire building.
If Sarkisian decided to—and I wouldn’t blame him if he
did—well, we had several options though none of them were good.
There was the
stadium despite the difficulties presented for lighting and sound—not to
mention the workers putting the final touches on the fireworks display.
And if
we couldn’t make that work, we had the backup option of the high school
auditorium.
For that matter there was the mini-theatre at Stowridge College,
the liberal arts school located outside Meritville.
Both the schools though tended
to use the fairgrounds since their facilities were so small.

Thinking of the problems with the arena reminded me the
truck bearing the fireworks and the work crew should be arriving soon to begin
setup.
It would be a relief to see it rolling through the gate.
One less thing
for me to worry about.

“Annike?” Sarkisian recalled me to the present.
“Want to
keep everyone out of here for a few minutes?” He gestured for John to join him
and went to consult with Salvador Ramirez.

“Can’t he just give us a yes or no?” Janowski complained.

“Would you rather we got a ‘no’ when we might be able to get
a ‘yes’?”

Lizzie looked in the door, the doglets clustering about her
legs.
“What’s the holdup?
The talent is beyond restless.
I think they’re going
to rebel.”

“You can bring them in,” Sarkisian announced.

“You’re kidding,” I said.

“It’s about time,” Janowski cried, drowning me out.

I stared at Sarkisian but he avoided my gaze.
For some
reason he wanted us in there.
The only explanation I could think of was he
wanted his suspects—at least those who were involved in some way in the talent
show—on the site of Pete’s murder.
The reason escaped me unless he hoped to
make the killer nervous.
Despite his open and affable manner, Sarkisian has a
deeply devious nature.
I guess that’s one of the reasons I love him so much.

I made some rapid calculations.
“Mr.
Janowski, why don’t you
and Lizzie round everyone up and get them in here.
I’ll…” Demand a few answers
from Sarkisian?
Snatch a few much needed seconds alone with him?
Both?
“I’ll
help set up barriers to direct people where we want them,” I finished lamely.

The crime scene tape, so beloved by Rodriguez and his crew,
did a pretty good job of that.
Lizzie and Janowski accepted what I said though
and together made their way toward the stadium once more, accompanied by the
dogs.

I rounded on Sarkisian.

“You’ve got questions,” he said, forestalling me.

Oh what the hell.
I grabbed him by the shoulder with my free
hand and kissed him while I had the chance.
“A few,” I agreed when I finally
released him.
Or rather, when he released me.
His response had been
gratifyingly thorough.
“I didn’t get a close look at poor Pete.” I could have
of course but I hadn’t been able to bring myself to do it.
“He was hit over the
head?”

Sarkisian nodded.
“With a metal pipe.
We’ve got it bagged
and on its way back to the department.”

“Lee Wessex was killed the same way, wasn’t he?”

“Barring anything unexpected from the autopsies,” Sarkisian
agreed.

“Why?” I demanded.
I didn’t need to explain I meant motive,
not the similarity in the deaths.

“At a guess,” he said slowly and his guesses tended to be
accurate, “he must have known or realized something about Wessex’s murder.
Or
course there’s always the chance someone who really hated him took the
opportunity to get rid of him and hoped we’d assume the two murders were
related.”

I ignored that last bit.
It was possible but I could tell by
the way he said it he didn’t really believe that.
“You think he tried to
blackmail Wessex’s killer?”

“It’s amazing how stupid some people can be,” Sarkisian
agreed.
“Or he might have remembered something and asked the person to explain
it.”

“Everyone talked with him yesterday.
Or rather they all
seemed to be arguing.” I considered a moment then shook my head.
“And to think
I was hoping we could sneak off for dinner tonight.”

“We’ll work something out,” he promised.

And that was all the time we had.
People began filing
through the stage door, peering avidly at the roped off area.
Sarkisian gave me
an encouraging smile then went to join John Goulding, presumably to give him
more instructions.
With a sigh I donned my lion tamer persona and went back to
work.

“Hey Annike.” Janowski waved at me from the back of the
crowd.
“Vanderveer isn’t able to do his job without Theresa’s help.
Will you
get up there and tell him what to do?”

I squelched an impulse to tell Janowski what to do.
I headed
toward where Edward Vanderveer stood at the base of the steps leading up to the
lights.

“Theresa has the notebook with all the comments I made,” he
informed me in injured tones.

“She’ll be back soon,” I told him soothingly.
“Besides,
except for the couple of people who asked for specially colored lights you
don’t really need any help.
I heard you’ve done some pretty complicated things
in the past.
This should be a breeze for you.” I managed an admiring tone.
A
bit of blatant flattery can smooth over all sorts of messes.
That’s another one
of my business rules though I can’t remember which number it is.
Not that it
matters, as long as it works.

And I could tell this one did—as usual—because of the way he
preened.
“If Janowski will quit stalling,” he said in a too-loud voice that
carried easily even over the hubbub of the acts settling into the theatre seats
to wait their turns, “we could get to work.”

Janowski’s head shot up and he directed a baleful glare in
our direction.
“Don’t you need to be up there?” He pointed toward the lighting
loft.
“Or have you forgotten how to climb stairs?”

“So we’re ready now?” I called brightly.
That’s another of
my rules for staying in business.
Keep the clients from actually coming to
blows.
Besides, it was bad for the county’s image to have their committee
members at each other’s throats.