Hot Dogs (4 page)

“The natives are looking a little too complacent,” Sarkisian
murmured to me as the others turned to follow Pete.
“Time I got them restless.”
He drew a plastic bag from his pocket and held it up.

Janowski stopped in his tracks.
“What’s that, Sheriff?”

“Anyone seen this before?” Sarkisian asked.

Quantrell came over and peered at it.
“Looks like a piece of
paper in an evidence bag,” he said with determined non-helpfulness.
“With
typing on it,” he added.

“This was in Mr.
Wessex’s coat pocket,” Sarkisian stated,
still holding up the bag.
“Do any of you have an idea what it might refer to?”

Lizzie, accompanied by Mazda and three of the poodles, came
over and peered at it, frowning.
Roomba continued her vacuuming patrols and the
other doglets followed in the dachshund’s wake.
“That’s—” She broke off and
shook her head.
“That’s got to be some sick joke.
‘Don’t forget.
I know
everything’.
I mean, how corny can anything be?”

“But have you seen it before?” Janowski asked.

Lizzie shook her head.
“Have you?”

Janowski snorted.
“Don’t be ridiculous.
Of course I haven’t.
Why don’t you ask Theresa?”

Sarkisian raised his eyebrows.
“You think Ms.
delGuardia
might know something about this?”

Janowski directed a patronizing stare at him.
“She was Mr.
Wessex’s administrative assistant, you know.
She opened all his mail for him.
He would have been lost without her or so she’s always telling me.”

Lizzie shifted her hold on Mazda.
“I wonder what it means.”

Janowski took the plastic envelope from Sarkisian and
studied it.
“No clue,” he said at last.
“Could be anything at all.”

“You think someone knew he was going to steal all that
money?” Lizzie suggested.

“But he didn’t,” Quantrell pointed out.
“He was killed.
Maybe he was trying to stop someone else from stealing it.”

Sarkisian rocked back on his heels, not saying anything,
merely waiting with that encouraging expression on his face.

Lizzie shook her head.
“I guess we won’t know until our
sheriff here sorts it all out.
If only some of all that money…” A sudden frown
creased her brow as she looked past Sarkisian’s shoulder.
“Maybe she knows
something about it,” Lizzie added without much hope.

We all turned to see what had caught her attention.

Connie Wessex approached, arguing heatedly with Pete Norton.
She glanced up as if aware of our scrutiny, snapped one last comment to Pete
and strode toward us.

“She knows more than she ever said about his disappearance,”
Lizzie declared.
“Ask her if she’s seen that paper before.
I’ll bet you’ll get
a reaction.”

Sarkisian’s gaze rested on Lizzie for a moment.
“Then I’d
better pick my time, hadn’t I?
And speaking of time, it’s racing along, isn’t
it.
Why don’t you all go into the auditorium and check the facilities?” He glanced
at me.
“Got the sign-up sheets with you?”

I gave him a slight nod of acknowledgement.
He wanted to
talk to Connie alone.

“I’ll be along in a bit,” he assured me.

“Promises, promises,” I muttered and began herding the
others back the way we’d come.

We reached the lot where we’d left our cars to find Theresa
talking to Pete and gesturing toward the entrance to the parking area.
Before I
could catch him, Pete headed into one of the other storage buildings and
emerged a minute later laden with sawhorses.
Two other men arrived in another
electric cart—this one built rather like a truck—and began loading the barriers
into its small cargo hold.
Pete folded his arms and supervised.
The dogs, Mazda
included, ran around yipping and generally adding to the air of confusion.
Only
Roomba wasn’t distracted from her never-ending search of the ground.

“Can you let us into the auditorium again?” I called.

He directed a frowning stare at his assistants.
Apparently
he decided they were capable of stacking the first load on their own because he
strolled over to join us.
“Ready for our tour of inspection?”

Janowski watched the chaos of men, sawhorses and dogs.
“Don’t you have to go with them to make sure they set them up in the right
place?”

Pete hesitated.
“I gave them their instructions.
I’ll go
along in a bit to make sure they haven’t messed up.”

Meaning he wanted to stick with us?
I couldn’t imagine why.
Admittedly, the early stages of getting organized usually held an element of
entertainment value for those not involved and easily amused—or terminally
bored.
I certainly wasn’t looking forward to listening to this group argue
about every detail.

Janowski shrugged and struck out across the grass, making
his own shortcut to the stage door.

“You shouldn’t do that,” Theresa protested.
“It’s not right,
there’s a sign that says ‘Keep Off the Grass’.”

Janowski rolled his eyes.
“That damn woman sees everything
in black and white,” he muttered to me as he joined me on the walkway.
“Now
she’ll spend the rest of the day trying to punish me in subtle ways for
‘breaking a law’.”

“Will she really?” The idea seemed absurd.

The supervisor gave a short nod.
“She’s a stickler, that
one.
Comes in useful when dealing with the general public but you’d think she’d
lay off when it comes to her boss.”

“Double standards,” I murmured.

Janowski didn’t seem to hear.
He was watching Lizzie
strolling toward us, her pack of mini-yappers tearing around as if the air
itself represented some terrible threat.
“She’s walking on the grass,” he
muttered.

Beside him, Theresa gave an exasperated sigh.
“Really, you’d
think people couldn’t read.” She raised her voice.
“It costs money to put up
those signs, you know.
There’s a reason for them.”

“Probably to keep sign painters in business.” Lizzie
shrugged, her thoughts obviously elsewhere.
“Look, if Lee Wessex didn’t steal
the money after all, then what happened to it?
Who really took it?” She sounded
aggrieved and I didn’t blame her.
The money was supposed to have gone to the
charity organization she ran.

“There was a considerable amount,” she went on, “because it
wasn’t just the entrance fees, it included a large number of charitable
contributions.
No one else has disappeared.
So where is it?”

Good question, I reflected.
Someone must have a sizeable
amount of money stashed away somewhere.
Sarkisian would check everyone’s bank
accounts of course but would the murderer be stupid enough to just deposit it
somewhere obvious like that?
I had a sinking feeling I’d probably be finding
out firsthand.
Any situation that comes up at the sheriff’s department that
hints of money usually gets dumped in my lap.
For some reason I’ve developed a
reputation for being able to unravel financial swindles.
I have no idea why.
I
think they just like to dump work on me and watch me sweat trying to come up
with answers.

Theresa sniffed.
“I hope the sheriff will talk to Mr.
Vanderveer.”

“What?” Ivan Janowski stared at her.
“Edward Vanderveer?
But
he—” He broke off.
“Damn.”

“What?” I asked, looking from one of them to the other.
Vanderveer
was a member of the Fourth of July Committee of course but I had no idea what
connection he might have with Lee Wessex.
And come to think of it, Vanderveer
should have been here by now.

“Vanderveer and Wessex were partners in their brokerage
firm,” Lizzie explained.
“The business went bankrupt when Wessex ran off.
Vanderveer said Wessex cleaned out the accounts and took everything.”

“But Mr.
Vanderveer managed to salvage more than a million
dollars,” Theresa declared, “of what he claimed to be personal funds and not
stolen client funds.”

“And you didn’t get anything.” Lizzie patted Theresa on the
arm.
“He should have given you some sort of severance package, all things
considered.”

Theresa stiffened.
“I wouldn’t have accepted any.
That money
should have gone to the investors who lost money because
one of them
stole
it all.
And we now know it couldn’t have been Mr.
Wessex.”

Janowski shook his head.
“Maybe it was.
Someone else could
have killed him and taken it all.”

And was that someone his business partner, trying to save
himself when Wessex tried to abscond with everything—including the investment
firm’s reputation?
If Vanderveer had found out what his partner was up to, that
could be a viable motive for murder.
I wondered how long it would be before Edward
Vanderveer showed up this morning—or if Sarkisian would be forced to run him to
earth for questioning.

Chapter Four

Our auditorium isn’t large but neither is our county.
Nor
our county’s budget for that matter.
According to the fire marshal’s sign in
what passes for the lobby, maximum occupancy is five hundred and eighty-three.
How they arrived at that number is anyone’s guess.
Like the rest of the
fairgrounds, construction began in the late 1930s and continued sporadically
until the early 1990s when it was declared not so much finished as a waste of
more money.
Let’s just say the style is eclectic though it has a charm to it
I’ve always enjoyed.
Judicious use of climbing ivy covers the worst of its sins
and careful pruning reveals its more beautiful points.
Now, aside from making
sure the roof doesn’t leak and the wiring doesn’t catch fire, it’s left pretty
much alone.

Pete Norton led the way to the stage door and unhooked from
his belt the carabiner with its heavy ring of keys, identified the right one
and let us back in.
The poodles raced inside along with Roomba doing her crumb
searching routine.
Even Mazda put on an impressive burst of her former zoom to
investigate this previously
terra incognita
.

“Hey.” Pete turned from the vanishing dogs to glare at Lizzie.
“No animals allowed.”

Lizzie straightened to her full if unimpressive height.
“They’re my act for the talent show.
They’ve got every right to be here.”

“I don’t want those animals scratching the floors and
shedding all over the place,” Pete snapped.
“And they’d damn well better be
housebroken.”

“How dare you even suggest—” she began.

“Lizzie,” I intervened quickly before the argument could
escalate, “we need to put up signs directing people from Lot B to this door.”

Pete transferred his glare to me.
“My guys will take care of
that.”

“Great.” I managed to put some real enthusiasm and approval
into that word.
Rule Number Three for the business, try to keep the clients and
the facility people from wanting to murder each other.

I looked around.
“They’ll be coming in by this door and we
don’t want them running amuck all over the backstage area.” Here I had the
satisfaction of Pete regarding me with a measure of approval.
“Mr.
Janowski?
Let’s set up three tables right here.
One for handing out registration forms,
one where the people can fill them out and one to hand them in.
Then the
committee can sit in the seats right in front of the stage to watch the
auditions.
Pete?
Where are the folding tables?” I pushed the forward momentum
before it got away from me.
I’ve discovered—the hard way—there’s a fine line
between productivity and chaos.

Pete headed toward the nether regions of the backstage area.
Janowski—typical of him—sent his assistant Theresa to help rather than go
himself.
Janowski lounged against a wall flipping papers in the massive stack
he held and glaring at them.

Fortunately it was only a short distance to the stage.
It
shouldn’t be too hard to herd the acts in the right direction so we could check
them for suitability.
We had agreed to hold the number of performances down to
thirty-six, which gave us an excuse for turning down the R-rated and the
painfully untalented.
Of course with my luck we wouldn’t have enough show up.
You never know with this sort of event.

In a way it felt odd carrying on as if a man’s body hadn’t
been discovered only a few dozen yards from here but his death had probably
happened a year ago and this event would be starting all too soon.
Keep your
mind on your job,
I reminded myself.
Let Sarkisian do his.

Just the thought of Sarkisian made me smile.
Even if he was
working, at least he was here in Merit County and not hours away at school.

The rustling of papers let me know Janowski had accompanied
me.
Better get him busy before he thought up more things for me to waste time
on.
“Where are the people who signed up to handle the registrations?” I asked.

He looked up and blinked at me as if his mind had been miles
away.
“Oh.
They’ll be here.”

Great.
I much preferred hearing, “they’re right here”.
But
as I’ve said before, I take what I can get and try to make the best of it.

“Let’s get the committee sitting there.” I pointed to the
first row of seats.
“Did you bring the clipboards?” As I’d reminded him to do
at least a dozen times over the last few days.

He shrugged.
“I told Theresa to take care of it.”

And that, as I’d already discovered, was his usual response
to just about everything.

Poodles erupted from the wings, yipping and bouncing,
followed by the vacuuming Roomba and lastly by Mazda.
Lizzie arrived in a more
restrained manner.

“What’s next?” she asked brightly.
“Are we going to check
the lighting and sound?”

“Who’s in charge of that?” I asked Janowski.

The supervisor grimaced.
“Edward Vanderveer.
He’s done it
for a community players group before.
I gather he’s pretty good at ordering
stage hands to get the right lights pointed in the right directions.”

Theaters with decent budgets now have all that computerized.
Merit County?
We’re back in the Stone Age.
We do everything by hand—and with
volunteers, not professionals.

Although I’d been to see several concerts and plays that
various groups had put on here, I’d never had reason to come backstage before
and I found it fascinating.
Everything seemed a tangle of hanging ropes and
backdrops and wires, though I knew there must be order to all this madness.
Behind
the stage was a long hallway.
Several dressing rooms stood along one of its walls
opposite two long storage rooms for costumes and props.
A door at the far end
led to a stairway and the basement that housed anything not currently considered
useful.
I begged Pete to unlock the door and let me look—hey, I’m incurably
curious.

“You can do that later,” Janowski objected.

He was right of course.
Right now I needed to arrange
everything so we could deal with our “amateur night” performers in as simple a
manner as possible.

“We only have today and tomorrow to organize both the show
and the parade,” he went on irritably.
“Then it’ll be the Fourth of July and
all hell will break loose.”

I could only hope he was speaking figuratively.

While Pete and Theresa tripped over dogs and dragged the
requested tables into position, I made a dash for my car and my laptop and
briefcase.
I had a sneaking suspicion it would be my only chance.
I’d also
hoped to get at least a glimpse of Sarkisian but he wasn’t anywhere in sight.
Can’t win them all, I guess.
At least I now had all my notes.
I returned to the
auditorium with no more than my usual sense of foreboding that accompanied the
launch of every event.

As I neared the door I could hear the sound of two men
engaged in a low-voiced argument.
I hurried up the few steps, hoping to smooth
things over and was almost run over by Pete Norton as he sauntered out.
Apparently smoothing wouldn’t be needed after all.
Or else I was too late.
As I
reached the top step I saw Ivan Janowski just inside, leaning against the wall,
looking positively ill.

“Are you all right?” I asked, concerned.

He looked up.
“What?
Yes.
Fine.
Why shouldn’t I be?” He
straightened and strode off toward the stage.

Odd.
But I didn’t have time to wonder what this latest
disagreement had been about though I could probably guess.
The entry here was
in a mess.
Pete had managed to arrange the tables so they seemed to direct
people toward the basement instead of the stage.
Folding chairs blocked most of
the doorway and little doglets ran everywhere, tripping people and knocking
over anything in their way.

Yup, chaos.
My aunt accuses me of thriving on it.
She might
be right.
At least I felt at home with it.

“Come on, Theresa,” yelled Janowski.
“You aren’t normally
this scattered.”

Theresa looked up from a pile of papers knocked over by one
of the dogs.
“What do you expect?” she demanded.
“He’s been murdered.”

“That happened—” the supervisor began, only apparently
thought better of what he was about to say.

I didn’t blame him.
Everyone stared at him.

He cleared his throat.
“All right, let’s talk about it and
get it out of our systems.
In light of his turning up dead, that means a lot of
our suppositions from last year had to be wrong.
What do we actually know?
What
are the facts?”

Lizzie scooped up the whining Mazda.
“Are you trying to play
detective?
I’m sure the sheriff will want to hear all this.”

Knowing Sarkisian, he’d probably already recalled all the
facts.
Even though he’d been away on one of his “mysterious trips” that I now
knew were stints at the university catching up on class work he had to miss
because of his job, the department would have kept him informed.
And the man
has a disconcertingly accurate memory.
He’s caught me out more than once when
I’ve tried to hedge about something.

“Fill me in,” I invited.
Sarkisian would do that later—if he
had time—but it might be interesting to hear these people’s perspective on the
disappearance of Lee Wessex.
After all, they were the most involved.
I cleared
enough chairs to let myself inside.

“The facts,” said a clipped tenor voice from just behind me
in the doorway, “aren’t that many.”

I turned to see Edward Vanderveer had arrived at last.
Although he was of no more than medium height, his very expensive-looking
designer suit drew one’s attention to him at once.
He appeared perfectly
styled, from the top of his graying brown hair to the toes of his wing-tipped
leather shoes.
His piercing green eyes seemed to take us all in and file us for
later consideration.

Theresa gasped.
Her hand, still holding her steno pad and
pen, fluttered to her chest.

“You all right?” Lizzie asked her.

Theresa took a shuddering breath.
“He-he just startled me.
Hello, Mr.
Vanderveer.”

“Theresa.” The man inclined his head toward her.

What was that all about, I wondered?

“Fact one,” Edward Vanderveer said in precise tones.
“All of
the fund-raising money disappeared on the night of the Fourth last year.”

“Was stolen, Ed,” Lizzie corrected.
An undercurrent of
dislike touched her words.

Vanderveer held up a manicured hand.
“Disappeared, for now,
Lizzie.
Fact two.
Our company’s money vanished the day before, although I
didn’t know about it until the banks reopened on the fifth.
And no one but Lee
and I could withdraw funds from our business’s account.
You are still, as you
were then, Theresa, in the clear.”

I found his precise tones irritating.
I suppose precision
was what a person would want in their financial advisor but coming into contact
with him on a daily basis would have driven me crazy.
With the sinking
sensation his recitation was going to take awhile, I looked around, spotted a
stool and settled onto it.
At once the three-legged Mazda tried to scramble
into my lap.
I’m a sucker for fur of any species so I scooped the hefty armload
up and let him settle.
As if that were a signal, three of the poodles joined
us, though Roomba continued her nonstop circling of the floorboards with
several of the other poodles following her.

“Fact three,” Vanderveer continued.
“The joint account
belonging to both Wessex and his wife was also emptied.
Fact four, a suitcase
was missing from Wessex’s house along with a number of his clothes and personal
items, his passport and all his wife’s jewelry.
Fact five.
Wessex’s car was
found in the long-term parking lot at the airport.”

Theresa sniffed audibly and tears started in her eyes.
“I
still can’t believe he’d do such a thing.”