Janice Bennett - Cold Turkey

“Unless it becomes necessary to bring it out,” the sheriff agreed at last. Simon, looking much relieved, headed off to decorate another tree.

“All right, what is this terrible secret of his?” I demanded when Simon was out of earshot.

Sarkisian shook his head. “Sorry.”

Oh, well, I hadn’t really expected him to tell me.

“Now, why don’t you-” Sarkisian broke off and looked up. “Felt a drip,” he said, then, “Oh, damn!”

Droplets struck the windshield, harder and harder, until we had a full-on downpour. People grabbed up armloads of tools and ran for their cars. Sarkisian let himself into the backseat of Hans Gustav and watched the chaos resolve itself into an empty park.

Gerda scrambled into the driver’s seat. “I’ll take you home, Annike, then I’ve got to come back to the store. People want videos.”

“I’ll take Ms. McKinley home,” Owen Sarkisian said.

Gerda jumped and turned around. “I didn’t see you, there.”

“Special police camouflage training,” he assured her. “We’re taught how to blend into the backseats of nine different makes of vehicles.” He exited the car and opened the door for me.

Gerda raised her eyebrows at me. I shrugged and climbed out, then eased my way over to the plain white Honda Sarkisian had commandeered as temporary replacement for his Jeep. “Thanks,” I said as I sank into the seat.

“It gets better,” he assured me, and produced a towel from the back. “Even the heater works in this thing.” He started the engine.

I looked back at the park as we pulled away. “We only got it about half decorated,” I sighed.

“Don’t worry,” he assured me, “it’s going to be too wet to hold the dinner there, anyway.”

“Great.” I stared out into the downpour, depressed, tired, and sore all over. “I wonder if we can get the school cafeteria?”

He glanced at me. “I’ll see what I can arrange.”

He turned onto my aunt’s street, and we fell silent as we headed up the hill, listening to the beating of the rain and the rhythmic swipes of the wipers. I stared out the side window, my thoughts drifting over the occupants of each house we passed, over the many times I’d hiked up this ever-steepening incline going home from school, over all the things that pop to mind when you’re tired and have handed control over to someone else, even if only for a few minutes.

We passed Peggy’s house just as she emerged from her front door, her arms loaded with several apparently heavy boxes. She could only have just gotten home- She saw the car and ducked back inside.

Sarkisian slowed, then pulled over. “Be right back,” he said, and clambered out into the rain.

I followed. He knelt behind a hedge, looking down the slope into Peggy’s yard. He had a clear view of her door. It opened again, and she peered out. Then she ran the few steps toward her car, opened the trunk and ran back to the house. This time she emerged once more with the boxes. She stowed these in her trunk, returned to lock her house, then directed her searching gaze up the road toward Gerda’s. The way our car had been heading. Apparently satisfied, she climbed into her Pontiac.

Sarkisian darted back to his own car, with me scrambling after him. “What…” I began as I fastened my seat belt.

“We’re going to follow her.” He sounded grim.

“She’d never have scattered those bolts.” But even as I said those words, I knew a moment’s doubt. Desperate people had sunk to doing desperate and terrible things before.

“It didn’t have to be her.” Sarkisian didn’t look at me. “Her faithful shadow was at the Still last night.”

Tony. I’d seen him, seen his sullen stare when he hadn’t bothered to acknowledge me. If he thought he was saving his benefactress, he might not care if I went over the ravine along with the sheriff. What sorts of things had he been arrested for, anyway? I’d assumed they’d been relatively harmless. I couldn’t see Gerda helping him out if it had been something violent or cruel. But maybe she didn’t know. I wondered if a sheriff could break open the sealed files of a juvenile felon who was no longer a juvenile. But Peggy…

“No.” I clung to that conviction. “She wouldn’t be involved in anything truly wrong.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’d describe her manner just now as suspicious. Or do you prefer the term ‘furtive,’ maybe?”

“A little odd, perhaps, but then this is Peggy, remember.”

“Oh, I remember. And this may have a perfectly innocent explanation. I’m just dying to hear it.”

We sped on in silence through the gloom of the storm. Any hope I had that she might be going to my aunt’s store faded as she drove right past and turned onto the road to Meritville. “Probably on her way to see her son,” I suggested.

Sarkisian made a noncommittal sound. I found I was beating my fingers on my leg and instead clasped my hands in my lap. Whatever Peggy was up to, it would undoubtedly be scatterbrained, pure Peggy at her most ridiculous, but it would also be innocent. It had to be.

Other cars traversed the rain-drenched road. Sarkisian allowed a blue Dodge pickup to pass us on an empty stretch, making us less obvious in case Peggy checked her rearview mirror. Five minutes later we reached the outskirts of Meritville, where traffic proved almost as heavy as usual. We were no longer the only white Honda on the road.

Sarkisian allowed other cars between ours and the old yellow Pontiac. We made several turns, and once I thought we’d lost her when she beat a light and we didn’t. But Sarkisian made a rapid right turn, cut down the next block and returned to the main street to pull in just two cars behind Peggy’s. I was impressed. The next light we made by the plastic of our bumper. Peggy made a sharp left almost at once, then a block later pulled into a parking lot behind a dilapidated old building that showed signs of recent refurbishment. Sarkisian leaned back in the seat as he watched Peggy pull up beside a rear door and jump out of her car.

“The homeless shelter,” I said after a moment. I hadn’t seen it from this angle before. On the few visits I’d made with Peggy or Gerda in the past, we’d parked on the street.

“The homeless shelter,” Sarkisian agreed. He pulled up just behind the Pontiac, blocking any possibility of its retreat.

She had reached the door, but turned around at the sound of the engine so close. The expression of dismay on her face would have been comical if it hadn’t been tinged with panic. I climbed out into the rain, hurrying to join her for whatever support she might need. Together we huddled under the meager shelter of the back door’s overhang.

“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.”

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.”