5 From the Grounds Up

by Sandra Balzo

  Sarah took the relay baton. 'Your dough streaked with butter . . . my hips big as Mame's.' She grabbed a stick for her own microphone. 'Your breath full of garlic . . . that puts Frank . . .' Right on cue, the sheepdog came padding through, ' . . . to shame.'

  Frank stood in the center of the room in front of the fireplace as Sarah and I collapsed in laughter.

  'Mame?' I said, when I could finally form words again.

  'Maybe it was a stretch, but remember her quote? "Life is a banquet and most poor suckers are starving to death".'

  'Not us.' I said, surveying the spread of food. 'This is ridiculous.'

  Frank trotted up and sniffed one of the pizza boxes.

  'Sorry, no anchovies,' I told him. 'Do you like artichokes? Same first letter.'

  He turned tail.

  'Suit yourself,' I called after him. 'But you'll thank me in the morning.'

  'Unlike me,' Sarah said, holding her stomach. 'Don't let me eat too much of this crap.'

  'I won't. But back to Ronny's fall. That railing--if we're talking about the same one--was not flimsy. I pushed on it. I leaned on it. Sturdy, absolutely solid.'

  'Yeah,' said with a poker face. 'And you probably weigh more than he does.'

  'I do not,' I said indignantly. Though, admittedly, Ronny was a skinny little guy. Not that skinny, though.

  I hoped.

  'Then what's your point?' Sarah, after considering all three pizzas: pepperoni, mushroom and banana peppers; smoked chicken and artichokes; and the aforementioned 'dessert pizza', chose a slice of each and topped them off with a buffalo wing.

  'No bleu cheese dressing for the wings?' I asked.

  'I'm watching my weight.' She poured herself a glass of Zinfandel. 'Besides, I try not to eat anything that's started to mold.'

  'Please. I've seen the contents of your refrigerator. You're probably top-ten nationally in the cultivation of penicillin.' I considered the pizzas and opted for 'dessert', which turned out to be a chocolate chip cookie the size of a hubcap and covered in whipped cream.

  Selecting a garlic stick as a sensible side dish, I checked out the wines. Two were open--the Zin and a Cabernet Sauvignon. I chose the Cab--a perfect accompaniment to chocolate chips. And God knows, everything goes with garlic.

  'So?' Sarah asked. She was ensconced on the couch, feet on a hassock, facing the fireplace that took up one full wall of my sky-blue stucco living room. Not my color choice, but I had been there just two years. And I was lazy.

  Not to mention poor as well. Like my grandmother said, you get used to hanging if you hang long enough, which I thought was akin to 'prisoners fall in love with their jailers'.

  These days, though, even the green toilet was looking good to me and I was falling in love with my baby-blue stucco walls. Tomorrow we'd be picking out drapes together.

  Struggling back to the context of our conversation, I said, 'So what?'

  My favorite chair, a big overstuffed floral number that didn't fit in the room, enveloped me. But then again, Frank was too big for the room and I didn't toss him in the dumpster, either. He was splayed out on the hearth of the unlit fireplace.

  'God, you're getting old,' Sarah took a bite of the pepperoni slice. 'Short-term memory loss. My question is, so what are your thoughts on the railing?'

  I set my Cabernet on the end table. 'Honestly? I don't know what I'm thinking.'

  Sarah looked like she had waited a long time for a non-answer. I tried to give her something: 'It just seems like there have been a lot of inexplicable accidents at the depot over the last two or three days. Your uncle and the train, your cousin Ronny and the deck, the missing clock—'

  'Not exactly an accident.' Sarah put her hand up to shield the fact that she was talking with a mouthful of pizza.

  'But inexplicable, you have to admit.'

  'Uh-huh.' Sarah was still chewing. She'd once told me her mother had taught her to masticate every bite fifty times. Given the size of Sarah's choppers, the food must experience the equivalent of five minutes in a Cuisinart. 'So my question is, again, what's your point?'

  'And, again, I say, I don't know what my point is.' I started to toss the end of my dessert pizza to Frank and then thought better of it. Chocolate--chips or otherwise--and dogs don't mix.

  The sheepdog, however, alerted by my aborted movement, was sitting up and looking plaintive. Full-blown begging at his size would be overkill. 'Give Frank your crust.'

  Sarah seemed offended. 'I want the crust. It's my favorite part.'

  'You have two of them,' I pointed out. She'd already finished most of both the pepperoni and the smoked chicken slices, leaving only the end portions.

  'I save them for last.' Her jaw jutted out.

  'Fine.' I climbed out of my cushy chair. 'Be selfish.'

  'You bought enough pizza to give him a whole pie.. Or maybe he'd like a wing.' She held said chicken part up and Frank came running.

  'No, Frank! Sit.'

  The sheepdog put on the brakes, but the polished wood floor of the living room didn't give him much traction. He went sailing past Sarah and into the wall. Sitting back up, Frank looked dazed.

  'Good boy,' I said, bringing him a slice of smoked chicken and artichoke. I patted him on the head. 'You OK?'

  He wobbled a bit, burped, and then scarfed down the pizza.

  Sarah frowned. 'He can have pizza, but not wings? What kind of diet is he on?'

  'He should be on a diet, but in this case it's the chicken bones he can't have.' I pointed at the wing in Sarah's hand. 'If he swallows them they can splinter and get stuck in his stomach or intestines.'

  'Why would he eat the bones?' Sarah was stripping the meat off the wing as she spoke, with Frank looking on plaintively. I tossed him another piece of pizza.

  He caught it and swallowed it whole.

  Sarah looked at me. 'Got it.'

  Chapter Fourteen

  The next morning was pretty much a repeat of the one before, except that I was clean, changed and piloting my own vehicle.

  As I rounded the corner from the parking lot, I saw Christy standing in the window of her studio, presumably watching for a student. I waved and she waved back. I couldn't see the yellow rubber gloves, but maybe she changed into transparent latex for work.

  The front railing of the depot porch already had been replaced with fresh, unfinished wood spindles and handrail. 'Quick work,' I said to Ronny as I entered. 'It looks great.'

  He was wearing khaki shorts, a polo shirt with the collar flipped up, and a sweater tied around his shoulders.

  'Nineties?' I guessed.

  'Yes.' He shrugged, hands splayed. 'It's not my favorite decade.'

  'You do look pretty normal.' At least in comparison to yesterday. 'The sweater's a nice touch.'

  'You think?' Ronny petted the V-neck. 'Cashmere.'

  'Timeless,' I agreed. 'But wearing it with the collar on the polo shirt flipped up is what projects Nineties.'

  He tugged on the sleeves tied at his throat. 'Thank you.'

  'And tomorrow?' I asked. 'The Fabulous Fifties?'

  'I think so. The twenty-first century is a wasteland so far and, though I enjoy the forties, I'm too short for double-breasted.'

  'No twenties or thirties either?'

  'Poverty, war--even more depressing than the rise of the double-breasted suit.'

  'Well, at least you look very cheery today,' I said. 'Not to mention comfortable.'

  'Pleated-front khakis.' He put his hands in the front pockets of his shorts and rocked back on his heels. 'Comfort and style. A good breather after the polyester pants of yesterday.'

  Both literally and metaphorically.

  'Speaking of yesterday,' I touched a scratch that ran from his from his temple to his lower cheek. 'Is that from your fall? I'm so sorry you got hurt.'

  He turned red. 'It's nothing. I should have looked before I leaned.'

  I laughed at his turn of phrase. 'I'm not so sure it would have mattered. I tested that part of the porc
h railing when Sarah and I arrived the first day to look at the place.' I was trying to avoid saying it was also the day his father was killed.

  'The day my father was killed?' Ronny asked. 'Was the railing loose then? I have to say I never noticed it. And I should have, being a contractor and all.'

  'But that's my point. No movement at all when I pushed on the railing.'

  'Did you wiggle it forward and back?' Ronny seemed puzzled.

  'Absolutely. From the porch side.'

  'That's odd.' He was chewing on the inside of his cheek.

  I followed him outside. 'I pushed right about here.' I pointed at the center of the new handrail that spanned the four-feet from the stairs to the first post on the right.

  'That's where I went through,' Ronny admitted. 'But there was no rigidity or resistance at all.' He rubbed his chin. 'I have to admit, it seemed wrong.'

  'Wrong how?' I asked.

  'Well, like I said, there wasn't even any resistance. The top railing,' he pointed at the horizontal cross-piece, 'just slipped from the box post.'

  The box post was apparently the four-inch by four-inch piece of wood that connected the railing running up the front steps with its sister spanning the veranda.

  'Once that happened,' Ronny continued. 'There was nothing to hold the spindles in and the whole section came down.' He laughed. 'Not that it mattered, I was already swimming through the air.'

  'How is this attached?' I said, pointing at the box post.

  'Sometimes with angle brackets, but this one seemed to be toe-nailed in.' I could tell that he saw the blank look on my face. 'You drive long nails through the railing at an angle so they also go into the post. Only it's not as sturdy as brackets or using long screws.'

  Evidently not. But I was looking at the railing. 'This has brackets.'

  'Sure. I used them when I rebuilt it.'

  I gestured at the section in front of me. 'No, I mean here. The old part.'

  Ronny came over and looked. When he bent down his tied sweater did a 180, so it looked like a cashmere bib. 'Huh? Sure enough.'

  He rearranged the sweater. 'Maybe part of the deck had already been replaced.'

  'And not very well,' I said, eyeing the shrubs where Ronny had landed. A pile of spindles and railings were stacked to one side. 'Good thing the juniper bushes were here.'

  'You're telling me.' Ronny went down the steps and examined the pile. Holding up the top rail, he asked, 'See anything?'

  'Nails,' I said. 'On both ends.'

  'Anything else?'

  'They're bent,' I tried.

  'Nothing else?'

  Risking redundancy, I'm not one for twenty questions or guessing games. I hate it when somebody knows something I don't and won't tell me. Still, Ronny seemed a good guy, so I went along.

  'They're silver?'

  'Bingo!' He looked very proud. I just wasn't sure why.

  'Aren't most nails silver?' I asked. 'I mean in color. I know they're not really the good stuff.'

  'Yes, but these are shiny, which means they're not mechanically galvanized.'

  'OK, I'll bite.' If he teased me anymore with this, I might actually do it. 'What does that mean?'

  'Mechanically galvanized nails are used in treated lumber and they have a dull gray coating, so you can tell the difference.'

  I was following him: I just wasn't sure where we were going. 'So these aren't mechanically galvanized.'

  'Correct.'

  'And therefore . . .'

  'If they're not, the same chemicals that treat the lumber would have eaten away at the coating of the nails. They would have started to rust.'

  'Sarah said the deck was rebuilt a few years back, when the antique store was here.'

  'But understand, that's exactly my point. The whole porch is fairly new, and it's constructed--properly--with treated wood and galvanized nails. We know that because otherwise the chemicals that preserve the wood would have eaten away at the coating of the non-galvanized nails and caused them to rust.'

  That didn't compute. 'But you said the nail in your hand isn't galvanized and it hasn't rusted.'

  'Correct.' Ronny nodded and held up the nail triumphantly. 'Because this is new. Brand new.'

  'So you two are saying someone intentionally sabotaged the porch rail?' Sarah asked.

  She'd arrived late looking a little ragged, but the moment she parked her car, Ronny and I had fallen on the poor woman/realtor/partner, talking over each other about what we'd found.

  'Somebody must have taken off the . . .' I turned to Ronny. 'What did you call them? The little L-shaped braces?'

  'Angle brackets.' He tugged at the collar of his polo shirt, clearly proud of what he'd deduced. 'That same somebody must have removed them on both ends of the top rail and then replaced them with a couple of nails. So when I leaned on it—'

  'The rest is history,' I said, indicating the long scratch on his face.

  Sarah, though, was always one to rain on another's parade. 'Great work, Spin and Marty. But have you asked yourselves the question . . . why?'

  'Why?' Ronny and I echoed.

  'Yes, why. As in, what would anybody gain by booby-trapping our porch?'

  I said, 'Destroying our business, of course. I mean, think about it. First your uncle's car has its fuel line disconnected. Whether the perpetrator expected it to go any further or not, it's still vandalism.'

  'Perpetrator?' Sarah asked. 'Will you lay off the TV and movie jargon?'

  'Impossible,' I said. 'But that's beside the point. May I continue?'

  'Sure. So Lieutenant, do we have a profile of the perp?' She said it in her best James Earl Jones voice.

  'Very funny.' Actually, it was. Yet I was having none of it. 'Next, the clock was torn off the wall and now this.' I gestured toward the re-built portion of railing.

  'Seems kind of petty, don't you think?' Sarah said. 'We certainly aren't going to change our plans because of a little vandalism or thievery.'

  'Your uncle's death wasn't exactly petty,' I pointed out.

  'True.' Sarah blushed. 'But as you've already said, tinkering with his fuel line may have been simple vandalism that just happened to result in something worse.'

  'Far worse,' I said, cocking my head toward Ronny.

  'Right,' Sarah said, rolling her eyes. 'Far worse. Or maybe Kornell just didn't tighten the line and the thing slipped off on its own.'

  'I doubt that,' Ronny said. 'My father didn't make mistakes. At least, with his car'

  'Which is why it's still running,' I said.

  'Or was,' from Sarah.

  A moment of silence.

  Ronny and I were getting nowhere with Sarah. I didn't have anything beyond intuition to support my suspicion that someone was targeting us in particular. Or the Junction in general.

  Not unlike that 'uneasy feeling' Sarah had about Courtney and Sam.

  Which reminded my dim self. 'Have you called the kids?' I asked Sarah as we followed Ronny into the depot.

  'They called last night after I got home,' she said.

  'But you didn't leave my house until after eleven--that makes it midnight, eastern time.'

  'You would have been a pain-in-the-ass mother.' Sarah said. 'The kids're on vacation. Besides, their bodies are still dialed to central time.'

  'That's not such a good idea,' Ronny said, beckoning us over to the ticket counter. 'When you travel you should start living according to the local time immediately.'

  'I think that's when you're going abroad, not just one time zone away,' Sarah said.

  'The principle still applies.'

  Sarah squinted at Ronny. 'Have you ever visited another country?'

  'Of course,' Ronny said defensively. 'Niagara Falls.'

  'Niagara Falls is half in the US, isn't it?' I pulled the diagrams Ronny had given me yesterday out of an old Priority Mail envelope.

  'We crossed the rainbow bridge,' Ronny said.

  'More than once, I'll wager,' Sarah mumbled under her breath.

&
nbsp; I stepped hard on her foot. As a mother of a proud gay man, I figured I was entitled. Besides, I was fairly certain Ronny was not a gay man. Despite the fact he played one. To the hilt.

  'Why'd you do that?' Sarah was standing on one shoe, rubbing the other one.

  'Sorry,' I said.

  'No, you're not.'

  I shrugged. 'You're right.'

  Ronny was looking back and forth between us. 'Did you want to talk about the electrical?'

  'Yes,' I said. 'But I invited Luc and Tien Roman—' I was interrupted by an uncertain knock on the door.

  'Come in,' Sarah and I called in unison. Ronny had already been heading over to open it. Probably why he was so skinny. Wasted calories.

  Tien Romano stepped in. 'Am I late?'

  'Not at all,' I said, waving her over. I introduced Ronny and Tien. If infatuation was a physical force, I thought Ronny would have fallen over. Good thing he wasn't wearing his platform shoes.

  'Where's your father?' I asked after the pleasantries.

  'He's not coming.' Tien had her head down, curtain of dark hair covering her delicate features. She looked up. 'I hope it's all right, but he said he wanted me to do this alone. He's enjoying retirement.'

  'Of course,' I said. 'I don't blame Luc for wanting to take time off. He's earned it.'

  Tien's mother, An, and Luc met when he was stationed in Saigon during the Vietnamese War. The two married in the United States, but An died when Tien was just a year old.

  The baby became a fixture in the family delicatessen--full-grown adults making fools of themselves trying to entertain the beautiful little girl in the playpen behind the counter. Later, practically as soon as she could walk, Tien became an indispensable partner in the store.

  When the business went under with Uncommon Grounds and the rest of the strip mall, Luc told me Tien should strike out on her own--that he'd held her back all these years. Tien had said the same thing, but about Luc.

  I though neither of them had meant it, but now it looked like Luc was doing his best to push his daughter out of the nest.

  And what better transition for Tien than to land at Uncommon Grounds?

  'Wow,' she said, looking around. 'I'd forgotten how big this place is.'

  'You've been here before?' I asked, surprised.

  'When Art Jenada had the cafe. We sold soups and bread to him, so I delivered here a couple times every week.'