HotDogs Page 24

“Brian?” My voice came out far shakier than I’d hoped.

  “Annike?” He struggled to his knees then bent forward on all fours. “What did I run into?”

  “Someone who didn’t like you very much?” I suggested.

  He shook his head slowly. “Damn. Where’s Sarkisian?”

  In the distance I heard a woman yelling and a renewed yapping as more poodles headed in that direction, apparently fallowing the trail of the dachshunds.

  “I don’t know where he is,” I admitted and realized how much I wanted him. But he undoubtedly had his hands full. “Why would someone want to hit you?” I demanded.

  By using a tree for support I made it to my feet and staggered over to him. He remained on the ground, both hands clutching his head. “You need a paramedic,” I said.

  He gave a shaky laugh only to break off with a groan. “Nothing crushed. Just a hell of a lot of blood.”

  I couldn’t see it through the dark. I had a very inadequate handkerchief in my pocket which would be next to useless. I eased out of the sling he’d given me only a couple of hours before and handed it over.

  “Thanks.” He pressed it against his head and swore again.

  The yapping drew closer and two of the poodles burst between the trees into our clearing. Someone broke through after them headed for the path leading back to the parking lot. Lizzie? No, Theresa, I realized as two more of the dogs raced across her path.

  Theresa stumbled over a red one, cried out and fell flat on her face. The dogs pounced on top of her, yipping their excitement. Sarkisian was there a moment later, dropping to one knee and reaching to help her up.

  No, I realized the next second. He was handcuffing her.

  “I’m arresting you for the murders of Lee Wessex, Pete Norton and Edward Vanderveer,” Sarkisian told her.

  “And the attempted murder of Brian Quantrell,” Quantrell stuck in, still holding my sling to his head.

  “And the attempted murder of Brian Quantrell,” Sarkisian repeated agreeably. “Sorry, I didn’t know about that. Yet. You have the right to remain silent…” And he continued with her Miranda rights.

  I stared, speechless, not believing what I was seeing.

  “So it really was her,” Quantrell said when the sheriff had finished at last.

  Sarkisian looked up. “I take it you’d figured it out?”

  “Yeah. Something about the barbecue and seeing her arguing with Janowski. It triggered a memory I couldn’t quite place. Then suddenly when the fireworks started it struck me. She’d been arguing in much the same way with Wessex at last year’s show. I remember thinking how odd it was, the way she worshipped him.”

  “If she did, she wouldn’t have killed him, surely,” I said. It had been a very long day and I knew I wasn’t thinking clearly but this made no sense.

  “I think,” Sarkisian said slowly, “she discovered Wessex was stealing all the money and leaving with it. I don’t think she’s one to take kindly to her idol having feet of clay. He disillusioned her.”

  “So she killed him?”

  “Struck out, more likely. Then she realized he was dead.”

  Theresa said nothing. She just lay there, limp, no fight or fury left. I wondered briefly if she were glad it was over or merely resting up for a serious effort at either escape or defiance.

  “And the briefcase with the money?” Quantrell asked. “Why did she hide it? She’s the type who’d return it to Merit County First.”

  “That’s what made me start to think about Ms. delGuardia in the first place,” Sarkisian said. “Anyone else would have taken the money and doled it out to themselves in small, unnoticeable amounts. But I don’t think she could bring herself to do that. Nor did she want people to find out what a thief he was. I think she just wanted people to believe he left his wife and taken a plane, not that he’d stolen anything. She couldn’t have known about the company funds until late the following afternoon when Vanderveer discovered it. She simply hid the briefcase with the Fourth of July money and hoped it wouldn’t be found. And it nearly wasn’t.”

  Theresa turned her head, staring at him in surprise. “You do understand,” she breathed, speaking for the first time since she’d been caught. “I was so afraid you wouldn’t. I was so horrified when I discovered what he was really like. I just couldn’t bear it!”

  “No,” the sheriff agreed soothingly. “Of course not. You’d never steal.” If he felt any sarcasm that she could kill but not steal he managed to keep it out of his voice. “Why did you hide his body?”

  She considered. “It wasn’t panic,” she said at last. It was—” She broke off, frowning. “I wasn’t thinking clearly. I only wanted to save his reputation.”

  “Why did you attack me?” Quantrell demanded.

  “You realized what happened last year, just like Pete Norton. I could see it in your face when you looked at me tonight. And you were going to tell him.” She jerked her head toward Sarkisian. “I couldn’t let you do that. He might have been suspicious but he couldn’t prove anything. Could you?” she challenged the sheriff.

  “Oh I wouldn’t say that.” Of course he wouldn’t. It might be true but he wouldn’t say it. “Come on, let’s go down to the office and we’ll get all this straightened out.”

  “Can we? Oh good.” She smiled, apparently under the misapprehension that everything was going to be fine.

  Some twenty minutes later we watched John Goulding drive off with Theresa delGuardia safely handcuffed in his car. He’d never gotten around to arresting Brian Quantrell but I guessed that could wait until tomorrow. It still didn’t seem real to me. Nothing did, except the throbbing pain in my shoulder.

  “Why did she talk so freely back there?” I asked, still staring after the car. Behind us, the fire had long since been extinguished and the show resumed. Another rocket burst in the air.

  Sarkisian put his arm around my waist. “She was convinced she’d done the right thing and she wasn’t ashamed of it. Proud of it even, I’d guess, once she learned just how much Wessex stole.”

  “And now we go to the office so you can begin the paperwork?” It had already been a long day and it didn’t look to be over any time soon.

  “Not we. Me. You need to go home and get some sleep.”

  “Not without you.”

  He shook his head. “It’s going to take me a long time. I’d like to get the rest of her story from her if I can.”

  I fixed him with as steely an eye as I could manage considering how tired I was. “That’s fine. I’ll borrow a bed in a holding cell. You can wake me up when you’re done.”

  “You should go home,” he repeated.

  “I am not,” I informed him, “letting you out of my sight.”

  “I’m not driving back to school until the day after tomorrow, you know.”

  I draped my good arm around his neck and kissed him. “It’s already almost tomorrow and I’m not taking any chances. I’m following you over to the department.”

  He eyed me thoughtfully for a minute but apparently he could see a lost cause when it was glaring him in the face.

  I called Aunt Gerda and filled her in, both on what had occurred and where I was going. She promised to gather Sue, Neil, Faith and Paul and together they’d tidy up any loose ends from the event. I thanked her, climbed into Freya and set off after Sarkisian.

  I arrived at the department less than twenty minutes later. After arming myself with my laptop I went inside. Sarkisian, who had gotten there only a couple of minutes before me, was fighting back a yawn. Our gazes met for a moment then he went to talk to first John then Theresa. That left me facing a grinning Chris.

  As soon as she’d settled me behind bars with a fresh sling to support my shoulder, a cup of tea—surprisingly drinkable, considering—and a generous supply of her emergency chocolate chip cookies, I flipped open my computer and got to work. I needed to know a few things. At this time of night there wasn’t much else I could do but I wasn’t about to make any mistakes
that might ruin what I had planned.

  Satisfied at last I switched it off and curled up to get what sleep I could. I was going to need it.

  Epilogue

  It was almost four-thirty in the morning when the squeak of the hinges woke me.

  Sarkisian, looking more tired than I’d ever seen him, held the door wide. “You’re free to go,” he said.

  I eyed him with suspicion. “You’re free to go?” I countered.

  “I’m taking about twelve hours to sleep then I’ll have to be back here.”

  That should work.

  “Come on,” I said. “I’ll drive you home.”

  It spoke volumes for his exhaustion that he didn’t argue. I led the way through the office, waved at the night crew and guided Sarkisian outside to where Freya waited, rusting patiently. As he climbed into the passenger side I grabbed a water bottle from the backseat and surreptitiously swallowed another of the pain pills supplied by Sarah. Sarkisian didn’t seem to notice. He leaned back and closed his eyes.

  “How did Theresa manage it?” I asked. “I mean getting Lee Wessex’s car to the airport? Did she tell you?”

  “Mmm?” He sounded half asleep already. “Oh. After she hid his body she ran back to the bleachers and tossed her keys underneath. Then she drove his car to San Jose and left it in long term parking. Took a bus most of the way home then walked the last mile so no one she knew would see her getting off. The next morning she took a taxi out to the fairgrounds, located Pete Norton and had him help her find her supposedly lost keys. Told him she’d just taken a taxi home the night before, knowing it would be impossible to find the keys at night. She says she made sure Pete was the one who found them.”

  I considered. Theresa had certainly lived up to her reputation of being efficient. And she’d nearly gotten away with three murders. “Did she have Connie’s jewelry?”

  He yawned. “That and the rest of the money Wessex stole.” He yawned again. “He’d put it all in a duffel bag in his trunk. She says she just buried it in her back yard for safekeeping until she could figure out how to return it to the owners without incriminating herself.”

  “And all those pranks? Were they Theresa too?”

  “Mmm. Trying to confuse things, make me think things like changing the damn program order and switching the lights and upsetting things at the parade were important clues.” He mumbled the last few words.

  We both fell silent while I digested this. After a little time had passed I glanced at Sarkisian. “Owen?” I asked softly.

  He didn’t answer but it was possible he couldn’t hear me over Freya’s ear-splitting decibel level. His head seemed to be propped somewhere between the window and the rest on the back of the seat. If I were lucky he’d be asleep before we reached the freeway. The less he guessed, the better for me.

  I was lucky. In spite of the engine noise he never woke until we were well into the Sierras. Then he merely repositioned himself, muttered something I couldn’t hear over Freya’s racket and went out again like a light.

  It was almost ten o’clock in the morning when we at last pulled onto the main drag in Reno. Freya isn’t exactly capable of breaking speed limits and we had some serious trouble on some of the steeper climbs, not to mention the stop to refill the gas tank. I was just relieved the poor old girl had been able to make it. Both of us poor old girls. I needed another of Sarah’s pills.

  Sarkisian straightened, opened his eyes and looked around. “This isn’t Upper River Gulch.”

  “Really? I must have taken a wrong turn.”

  “Quite a few of them, by the look of it. Annike—”

  “You don’t have any say in the matter,” I informed him. “You’ve been kidnapped.”

  He was silent for a long minute. “Your aunt is going to kill us. Not to mention everyone in the department. And the whole damn town.”

  “Would you really want half of Merit County at your wedding? It was either that or this.”

  “Mmm.” He stared out the window as I drew up in front of the county office that housed the marriage license bureau.

  The woman behind the counter who received our application eyed us with barely hidden amusement. “Do you have reservations at a chapel yet?”

  I shook my head. None of them had been open when I’d done my quick research on Reno.

  “Here.” She handed Sarkisian a card. “This should be exactly what you’re looking for.”

  He passed it to me. “Chapel of Memories” it read. I looked up at Sarkisian.

  He shrugged. “This seems to be your show. Go ahead and call.”

  I did. They were open. They could take us at once. That settled it.

  A short time later we arrived at the chapel on the outskirts of town. It looked nice. Simple. Just what I wanted. I’d staged so many elaborate weddings since starting in the event coordinating business I couldn’t bear the thought of having one for myself.

  Inside we were met by a middle-aged man wearing a neat business suit and a pleasant smile. It broadened at sight of us. “Oh. You didn’t say you wanted our specialty theme,” he said. “Just give us ten minutes and we’ll have everything set up.”

  “We don’t want anything fancy,” I said quickly.

  He winked. “Of course not. Don’t worry, we have exactly the thing to suit you.” He hurried away, leaving us staring at each other.

  Slowly, through my exhaustion from the event and the drive, the light dawned. “You’re still in uniform.”

  “Oh my god.” His hand went to his holster where his gun still rested. “I should at least put this in the trunk.”

  “Don’t.” I was having trouble not laughing. “You’ll ruin the effect.”

  The man returned, beaming. “We’re almost ready. Oh, I see you brought your own handcuffs. What a marvelous costume. It almost looks real.”

  I choked. “Almost,” I agreed.

  “But you’re not dressed to match. Don’t worry, you can rent the perfect gown. You’ll find them on the rack by the restrooms. Now, where are the Witness for the Prosecution and the Witness for the Defense?”

  “We didn’t have time to round them up,” Sarkisian said.

  The man shook his head. “You won’t have much of a case without them. Not legal at all. But don’t worry, we can provide them as well.”

  “Sounds rigged to me,” I managed. “How will I get a fair trial?”

  “You’re going to do hard time,” Sarkisian assured me.

  “That’s the spirit,” the man said. “Now, if you’d like to go over the music?”

  Sarkisian shot me a glance. “I’ll take care of that. Why don’t you see what kind of ‘costume’ you can find?”

  “Yes.” The man eyed me critically. “And I’m sure you’ll want to freshen up a little for the mug shots.”

  I nodded weakly. What had I gotten us into?

  Sarkisian seemed to be getting into the spirit of the thing though so I left him to it and made my way to where several racks of dresses and suits, arranged by size, stood along a hallway wall. Most of them, I noted, were either prison garb or uniforms. I couldn’t bring myself to wear a bright orange jumpsuit or even a straight-hanging gown with wide gray and white horizontal stripes. If Sarkisian could get married in the clothes he’d been wearing for the last twenty-seven plus hours then so could I. I washed my face, applied a touch of lipstick, did what I could with my hair—Sue would have a fit when she saw the photos if I ever dared show them to her—and returned to see what Sarkisian had been up to.

  He grinned as I approached. “Probably a good choice. You look absolutely beautiful.”

  Which only went to prove I was right not to let him get away. Still I did have a conscience. “Are you sure you don’t mind?”

  He stared somberly at me—except for the corner of his mouth that kept twitching. “I don’t have a choice, do I? I seem to remember being kidnapped.”

  “You can back out.”

  “After all the trouble I just went to? Not on yo
ur life.”

  That roused my suspicions but I never got a chance to voice them. The door to the chapel opened.

  “We’re ready,” the man announced and stepped aside. “If you would like to attach the handcuffs?”

  Solemn-faced, Sarkisian snapped one side of the metal bracelet around my wrist and the other around his own. He raised his arm, bringing mine with it. Our gazes met and I felt a besotted grin spreading across my face.

  The interior chapel looked like a miniature courtroom. A judge dressed in a black robe and white wig sat behind a large wooden desk. The man who had initially greeted us took up a position at the judge’s side, picked up a staff and beat the end of it against the floorboards.

  “Hear ye, hear ye. Court is now in session. Will the arresting officer escort the prisoner to the bench?”

  Sarkisian and I stepped forward which was apparently the cue for the processional to begin. The Pirates of Penzance sang forth about it being a first-rate opportunity to get married with impunity and I almost collapsed.

  “They actually had that?” I demanded.

  Sarkisian struggled to keep his face straight. “I downloaded it while you were getting cleaned up. They usually offer a choice of themes from TV cop shows.”

  We reached the bench and the volume of the music lowered as it segued into the rondele from the same operetta, “He Loves You, He Is Gone”.

  “Will the witnesses take their places,” the clerk called and a man and woman stepped forward.

  The judge fixed me with an accusing stare. “You are charged with kidnapping with intent to commit matrimony.”

  They had me there. Guilty as charged. But he didn’t give me a chance to enter my plea.

  “You may read the prisoner her rights,” the judge went on, this time addressing Sarkisian as he handed him a large card.

  The sheriff took my hand and read, “You have the right to tell me off in no uncertain terms whenever you think I need it. Anything you say can and will be taken with all the seriousness with which it was meant and may be used as evidence in all future discussions…”

  It went on with a lot of nonsense that had us both laughing. There were also serious moments, ones I knew we’d both treasure and words we meant with all our hearts.