Hot Dogs (8 page)

Janowski opened his mouth then apparently thought better of
what he’d been about to say.
Instead he shouted for Theresa again despite the
fact she’d reached the bottom of the steps and was only a few feet away.
“Call
out for pizza and have it delivered,” he told her.

She brought her steno pad and pen to the ready.
“How many
and what kind?”

“Do I have to decide everything?” he demanded testily then
relented.
“Get a variety.
Four should be plenty.
They’re for the workers only.
The county is not going to pay to feed the auditioners.”

I wondered if I could sneak a couple of pieces out to Sarkisian.
Brownies were his preferred food for thought when he was working but I doubted
he was feeling particularly picky at the moment.
He must have eaten breakfast
at a ridiculously early hour before beginning his long drive.

Theresa nodded.
“That won’t be a problem.
I’ll have Pete
Norton set up one of the rooms for the food and have someone guard the door.”

With the efficiency I was beginning to suspect was her
normal way of doing everything she jotted down a few notes in the pad then
whipped out her cell phone and strode toward the rear of the auditorium where
it would be quiet enough for her to place her call.
I wouldn’t be surprised if
she had Janowski’s favorite pizza parlor in her phone’s directory.

Janowski watched her retreat, his mood mellowing.
“Very
capable woman,” he told me.
“Damn good at her job.”

“She seems to be taking the murder of her old boss fairly
well,” I said, curious to know what Janowski would say about that.

He shook his head.
“No she isn’t.
She keeps her feelings
bottled up all the time.
You have to know her pretty well to be able to figure
them out.
She’s upset.
Distressed in fact.” He fell silent for a moment.
“She
was devastated when it came out Wessex had been a thief.
She refused to believe
it at first but there was too much evidence against him.
She’d hero-worshipped
him, you know.”

So he’d already told me.
“And now,” I reminded him, “she’s
transferred a bit of that to you.”

Janowski’s brow creased.
“It’s very flattering of course but
it’s actually a relief to hear her talking the last couple of weeks about how
brave Brian Quantrell was to save those two kids the way he did.” He cast me a
sheepish glance.
“You have no idea how hard it can be to live up to her image
of you.”

Neil yelled at us again and I realized four acts waited
their turns, watching us with growing impatience.
I shooed Janowski back to his
seat, collected the pile of parade entries we already had and set to work.
Theresa, bless her heart, had sorted these by category as promised, leaving me
to add only the new ones who had arrived this morning.

Lunch duly arrived.
We ate while watching the tryouts that
had finally declined to the occasional group trickling in.
We’d have another
rush at seven tonight when those who worked showed up.

Sarkisian unfortunately was nowhere to be seen.
Nor were
Becky Deschler and John Goulding for that matter.
I couldn’t help but wonder
what they were doing—and if they were anywhere nearer to learning the truth
about what happened a year ago.
If Sarkisian could clean up this mess today then
he might have more time to spare for me before he had to head back to the
university.
I believe I’ve mentioned I’m an inveterate dreamer.

During the increasingly long breaks we finished off a lot of
organizing.
Faith and Paul, during their own quiet spells, had hit upon the
notion of numbering the entries in each category then drawing numbers from a
bowl to determine marching order.
“That way,” Paul told us happily from his
place on the edge of the stage, “no one can complain anyone else got
preferential treatment.”

“Oh, give them a chance,” chimed in Sue.

“Never underestimate the ability of people to find something
to gripe about,” added Neil, the best example of non-griping I’d ever met.

“We could keep score on what they gripe about,” Paul
suggested.
“We—” He broke off as a car door slammed somewhere outside and a
volley of barking disrupted our momentary peace.

“Damn.
Lizzie’s back,” muttered Vanderveer.
He pushed out of
the seat he’d taken and mounted the steps to the stage.
“Lizzie Mobley, you get
those damn dogs under control or get them out of here.”

The angry voices of Lizzie and Vanderveer arguing just
inside the stage door carried to us but fortunately not their actual words.
There could be no doubting the rise in their level of animosity though.

“Take it outside,” bellowed Janowski.
“We want some peace in
here.”

I did at least.
I was typing up the final marching order and
determining the staging areas for each group.
I wanted them posted on the
internet site as soon as possible to avoid people telephoning about it.

The volume of the arguing lowered then faded.
Apparently
they were doing as ordered.
Janowski looked a trifle surprised at his success.

“Now for the lineup for the talent show,” Janowski decided.
“In order of their quality, I think, with the best last.”

Paul groaned.
“You’ll risk losing the audience early on.”

“He’s right,” agreed his wife.
“The best idea is to scatter
them throughout the show.”

“And we should organize them for maximum diversity,” I said
quickly as I saw Janowski open his mouth.
“Divide them into types, then draw
them from bowls for order.”

“That way,” Sue murmured, “everyone will have equal cause
for complaint.”

The clicking of little toenails sounded from the stage and I
looked up to see Roomba making her appointed rounds vacuuming up any crumbs—or
anything else—that might have fallen since her last foray.
Lizzie followed with
three of the poodles on leashes and the three-legged Mazda under her arm.
“He’s
making such a fuss,” she complained though obviously not talking about any of her
dogs.
“You’d think someone had put Vanderveer in charge of everything instead
of you, Ivan.” She smiled sweetly at Janowski.

What was she up to, I wondered?
Her comments about Janowski
earlier had been far from sweet.

A sudden stillness seemed to grip those in the auditorium
and I didn’t have to look up to know Sarkisian had returned.
At last.
I’ve
developed a sixth sense concerning that man.
I could only wish we weren’t both
working.
It had been too long since we’d been able to spend any time together.
Or even just look at each other for more than a few seconds.

He looked around, met my gaze with a rueful smile then
addressed the group as a whole.
“Where is Mr.
Vanderveer?”

“Outside sulking,” Lizzie declared.
“Didn’t you see him on
your way in?”

Sarkisian refrained from pointing out that if he’d seen him
he wouldn’t have had to ask.
His silence said it for him.
“If he comes in,” he
said at last, “tell him I’m looking for him?”

“That’s bound to make his day,” I said.

“Make whose day?” Vanderveer himself emerged onto the stage from
the wings only to stop as he neared the footlights.
“Why are you all staring at
me?”

Sarkisian offered up his most affable smile which normally
puts everyone at ease.
“Could I have a word with you?”

Vanderveer spread his arms.
“Of course, Sheriff.
Unlike some
people I’ve nothing to hide.”

“Except your good manners,” Lizzie muttered a shade too
loudly.
“You keep those pretty well hidden.”

Janowski snorted and tried to turn it into a cough.

Vanderveer’s jaw tensed but he pointedly ignored the jibes.
He
headed to the side of the stage where steps led up from the auditorium floor.
Sarkisian mounted them and he and Vanderveer disappeared into the wings, just
out of earshot.

“Wonder what that’s about,” Janowski mused.

“We could listen,” suggested Lizzie then her eyes narrowed
as she looked beyond my shoulder.
“Or maybe we don’t have to.”

I turned and there was Connie Wessex now in a long black dress
holding a cello.
She didn’t look happy.
“What do you mean?” I asked.

“Connie Wessex.
I’ll bet the sheriff was just talking to
her.”

Very probably.
Connie had the look of someone just realizing
she’d revealed more than she’d intended.
It usually took people a minimum of
ten minutes to catch on to the fact that Sarkisian’s charm had led them into
deep water, frequently of the scalding variety.
Some never figured it out.

“What could she have told him about Vanderveer?” I asked.

Lizzie gave me a knowing smile.
“Probably that she was
having an affair with him right before her husband disappeared.”

My eyebrows rose.
“But Vanderveer was her husband’s business
partner.” Not to mention the fact Vanderveer had just told us she’d been having
an affair with Brian Quantrell.
And both Quantrell and Lizzie had already said
she’d been having one with Ivan Janowski.
All at the same time or in rapid
succession, I wondered?
Or did those affairs only exist in the gossipers’
minds?

“According to Theresa—who was their secretary, remember—Lee
Wessex had been talking for months about leaving his wife,” Janowski told me.
“She
admitted as much last year when he disappeared.
She blamed Connie’s affairs for
his wanting to end the marriage.”

Affairs.
In the plural.
Okay, apparently they had been real.
Had one of her lovers killed him?
It would have to have been someone who didn’t
know he was planning on leaving her anyway.

“Why didn’t Wessex just leave?” I asked.

“The money was all hers,” Lizzie told me.
“If he left he
wouldn’t have had anything.
So he stole everything he could get his hands on
and was heading out.”

“Now there’s a thought,” Janowski mused.
“Think Connie
killed him to get it all back?
She’s been complaining all year about not having
some of the jewelry that had belonged to her mother and grandmother.”

“Yes, poor dear.” Lizzie’s lip curled.
“She’s had to buy new
diamonds and rubies, hasn’t she?
I bet she complained all the way to the
jewelry store.”

I glanced at Lizzie.
She wore a gaudy bead necklace and
flashy earrings but they were costume jewelry, nothing expensive.

Lizzie caught my look and sniffed.
“I don’t waste money on
jewels,” she said.
“I use it to take care of my dogs.
And if there’s any left
over I give it to Merit County First.
And I certainly didn’t kill Lee Wessex
for the money or the charities would be in better shape.”

But might she have killed him in fury over his hitting her
beloved Mazda?
If she had though, what did she do with the money?
Over the
course of the intervening year it had never turned up.
If Wessex had never
managed to escape with it, where had it gone?

My gaze strayed back to the stage where Connie had now been
joined by two men and another woman, all in evening dress, two with violins and
one with a viola.
They seated themselves on chairs Pete Norton produced and
began warming up without the frequent screeches usually associated with string
instruments.
They also didn’t have musical scores which implied they’d done a
lot of practicing.

The other woman in the group wore a simple gold-toned chain.
Connie wore a beautiful triple strand of large cultured pearls with more hanging
from her ears.
Old family money, Janowski had said and jewelry she had
inherited.
If she had caught on that her husband had stolen her money and
jewels and was leaving her, might she have intercepted him and killed him in a fury?
But then what would she have done with everything he’d stolen?
She could hardly
tell the world he had taken her jewels and then be seen wearing them.

Or course she could always produce the pieces one by one
saying she’d had copies made of her favorites.

The string quartet progressed from scales to Mozart.
They
were amazingly good, the cello superb.
Could anyone who played like that be a
murderer?
I didn’t want to believe it but then Sarkisian tells me I’m too
sentimental, especially where art and music are concerned.
And chocolate of
course.