Hot Dogs (5 page)

“No more facts?” asked Janowski in a dry tone.

“Those are, I believe, the major ones.
Have I missed any?”

“That you’re a pompous ass?” muttered Janowski.

“So everything pointed to Lee Wessex stealing everything he
could get his hands on and running for it,” Lizzie summed up.
“Until now.”

“No one else could have stolen the money from our investment
firm,” Vanderveer repeated.

Janowski fixed him with a challenging stare.
“No one?”

Vanderveer straightened.
“Are you daring to suggest that I—
I
—would
do such a thing?
Our clients’ funds are sacred.”

“Mr.
Wessex must have stolen everything,” Theresa said
softly.
She sounded broken.
“Then someone stole it all from him.
He should
never have done such a terrible thing.”

For once we were all silent.

“A murder of opportunity,” Janowski said at last.
“Someone
probably saw him take off with the charity funds and killed him for them then
found they’d really hit the jackpot.”

“An interesting theory,” said Sarkisian from just behind me.
He laid a hand on my shoulder, which was the only thing that kept me from
jumping a foot off the stool and scattering dogs.
The man moves as silently as
a proverbial cat.
Not a specific cat, mind you.
They tend to be clumsy little
beasts and make an incredible racket for their size.

Connie Wessex, all aging sultry allure, strolled in from the
direction of the stage, her stiletto heels clicking on the wood floor.
Pete
must have let them in the main entrance.
“Hello, Edward.
Are you telling
everyone what happened?”

He looked down the length of his classically straight nose.
“I was merely stating the facts.”

Connie’s eyes flashed and she opened her mouth but Sarkisian
intervened smoothly before she could utter whatever scathing remark occurred to
her.
“I’d like each of you to remember what you can about that night.
When you
last saw Mr.
Wessex, what he was doing, what you were doing.
That sort of
thing.”

“That,” stated Edward Vanderveer, “was a long time ago.”

“True.
But considering what happened and the uproar that
followed the next day I imagine you can all remember a great deal.
Would you
like to begin, Mr.
Vanderveer?”

The man hesitated.
“I left early,” he said at last.
“I never
liked fireworks, they’re much too loud.”

Sarkisian nodded.
“So where did you go?”

Again Vanderveer hesitated.
“Home and straight to bed, I’m
afraid.
I wanted to get up early to call clients on the east coast.”

“Unprovable alibi,” muttered Lizzie just a touch too loudly.

Sarkisian turned to her and smiled.
“And you, Ms.
Mobley?”

Lizzie colored.
“I skipped the fireworks,” she said shortly.
“Poor Mazda had been badly hurt—as you can see—so I spent most of the time at
the emergency vet clinic waiting for his surgery to be completed.
By the time I
got back here, that—” She broke off.
“The ticket booth told me that weasel
Wessex had collected all the money about half an hour before.
At the time I was
just glad someone had it safe.
I didn’t know he intended to make off with it.”

Sarkisian’s gaze moved around the room.
“Ms.
delGuardia?”

Theresa tilted up her chin as if facing an unpleasant duty.
“I saw him take his place in the stands with the other committee members.
But
then all the lights were turned off for the fireworks and when they came back
on again he’d gone.
Then I discovered I’d lost my keys so I called for a taxi
and went to meet it at the Main Gate.”

The sheriff turned to Janowski.
“And you?”

“My wife and I had to sit with him during the show.
He made
some excuse about halfway through and left.
Didn’t see him again but I wasn’t
exactly looking for him.
Then my wife and I went home.”

Sarkisian’s gaze shifted to Brian Quantrell and he raised
his eyebrows.

“Me?” Quantrell grinned.
“Let’s see.
I wasn’t on duty but I
was helping out.
Keeping an eye on the fireworks, that sort of thing.
Then
afterward I was supervising the clean-up in case there were any accidents or
burns.
I left right about the same time as the ambulance.”

The sheriff nodded.
“And Ms.
Wessex?” He turned to her at
last.

She’d remained silent since her initial acrimonious greeting
of Vanderveer but that was hardly surprising.
It couldn’t be pleasant to know
her husband had stolen everything he could get his hands on including her
jewelry, planned to run out on her, then gotten himself killed.
Though come to
think of it, that sounded like a damn good motive for her to have been the one
who killed him.

She reached out to stroke Mazda’s head.
The little hound
retreated, sinking lower into my lap.
“I didn’t feel like sitting with the
organizers—it was Lee’s project, not mine—so I strolled around a bit, watched
the fireworks, talked to a few people—no, no one I actually knew, just people I
bumped into—then went home before it was over.
We’d brought separate cars, you
see.
So I guess the last time I saw him was when he made his way to the stands
and I went to see if I could find anyone interesting to talk to.”

So it didn’t sound as if any of these people had a definite
alibi for the time Lee Wessex picked up the money and checks and headed to his
car—and was murdered.

“How was he killed?” Vanderveer asked.

Sarkisian studied him.
“We won’t know for certain until
after the autopsy.”

“Then there wasn’t any outward sign?
No bullet holes or
knife wounds or his head bashed in?”

“You sound like you’d like it if there was,” Sarkisian said
mildly.

The man flushed.
“It would make it simpler, wouldn’t it?
And
even though I had no reason to be mad at him at the time, I’ve since found out
he destroyed our business and our reputations as investors.
So yes, as shocking
as it might sound, the idea of him being battered a little doesn’t bother me in
the least.
I’m sorry, Connie.
But I imagine you’ve felt the same.”

Connie Wessex drew a shuddering breath.
“I admit the shock of
his disappearance faded a bit under the shock of realizing
why
he’d
disappeared.
That he could steal everything like that and just leave me
behind—” She broke off.

Her story had changed, I noted.
Earlier she’d said her
husband must have been forced, that he’d never have left or stayed away from
her on purpose.
Interesting.

Pete Norton stuck his head in the doorway.
“There are people
arriving.
Thought you’d want to know.
We’ve put up arrow signs directing them
around to this side.”

“Right.” Gathering up Mazda and dislodging the poodle that
had been sitting on my feet, I stood.
“If we don’t want a riot on our hands
we’d better get set up.” That’s what we should have been doing all this time but
I suppose we could be forgiven for getting sidetracked.
I wondered how much
curiosity we were going to get from the hopeful amateurs and drill teams.
They’d be bound to notice the crime scene tape.
It has such a jaunty way of
catching the eye.

First things first though.
With the help of Theresa and
Lizzie I repositioned the tables.
As planned, I placed the applications for the
talent show and the parade at either end of the first table and left Edward
Vanderveer sitting behind it, looking important, promising him it was only
until our volunteer reinforcements showed up.
I scattered a few pens on the
second table then left Lizzie Mobley behind the third, ready to accept the
completed forms and make sure they went into the right stack.
Ivan Janowski,
with Theresa delGuardia at his elbow, headed toward the seats to await the
first audition.
Brian Quantrell and Connie Wessex, I noticed, had faded into
the background while I was passing out assignments but they both trailed after
Janowski and Theresa.
That left me free to run interference in case of
problems—and try to sneak a few minutes with Sarkisian.

Fat chance of that.
There’s nothing like the lure of an
amateur performance to bring people—talented and untalented—out of the
woodwork.
One middle-aged woman gushingly told me she hadn’t played her
clarinet since high school band but when she heard about this wonderful
opportunity she got on the internet and looked up a number of her former
bandmates and they’d gotten six of them together to play a selection of old
marching favorites.
Well, you never know.
They might have practiced.

At any rate I enjoyed the excitement of the crowd as the
people waited their turns to hand in their applications and be given an
audition time—which would start in about twenty minutes.
An all too familiar
plunging sensation in my stomach accompanied that realization.
At least Edward
Vanderveer, our light and sound specialist, was here.
As soon as our volunteers
showed up, I could chase Lizzie out front with the other committee members and
Vanderveer into the lighting loft.

I was a bit surprised the volunteers hadn’t arrived yet.
I’d
rallied the assistance of a few old friends, members of the SCOURGEs—that’s the
Service Club of Upper River Gulch Environs, the tiny town where I live with my
aunt.
That group tends to live up to their acronym but they mean well.
And they
do turn out
en masse
when needed.
I’d told them to report to Janowski
though—a diplomatic move I now regretted.
I should have kept control of the
volunteers myself.
Worried, I peered over the heads of the growing number of
people, trying to catch a glimpse of a familiar head.
What time had he told
them to get here?

Someone grabbed my arm and the next thing I knew Sarkisian
had propelled me behind one of the stage curtains and kissed me soundly.
It was
great having him back, even if I was working an event and he was working a
case.
At least we could catch glimpses of each other—and occasional moments
like this together—because the damn things overlapped.
Again.
Not that it
happens often.
I mean, I’ve staged numerous events since the fiasco last
Halloween.
There’d been a Thanksgiving pageant, a Christmas extravaganza, a New
Year’s Eve gala, a Valentine’s Day bash, an Easter festival, a May Day revelry,
even a summer solstice bonfire, not to mention the normal weddings,
anniversaries and other assorted parties, all without so much as a spoon going
missing or someone stubbing a toe.
And now I had to stumble into a year-old
murder.

Hell, I hadn’t had anything to do with last year’s Fourth of
July parade and fireworks.
Of course, with the addition of my services, the
celebration had grown a little this year.
Now it included not only the talent
show but a picnic at the fairgrounds where various county restaurants and
service groups would serve up food—for the support of Merit County First’s
charities.
There would also be competitions, with both professional and amateur
categories, for ice cream flavors and cotton candy sculpting.
I’d also dreamed
up a host of other events last month when the county supervisors, as
represented by Ivan Janowski, had first approached me.
I’m great at kicking out
spur-of-the-moment ideas to impress a potential client.
The problem is, the
client all too frequently loves the ideas, which leaves me stuck with carrying
out even some of the more ridiculous ones.

Sarkisian kissed me again and turned to go back on duty.

I caught his arm.
“When are we getting married?” No point in
being subtle with this man.
I was determined to bring him around to my point of
view—and the altar—before he went back to his classes.

He touched my cheek.
“As soon as I’m not living in two
places all the time.”

“To hell with that.
I’m not getting any younger.” It’s a bit
of an issue—with me, not with him—that I’m six years his senior.
I turned forty
last November and the biological clock was ticking away to an ever-increasing
beat.
“And if you dare quote Gilbert and Sullivan at me—”