Triple Shot

by Sandra Balzo

  ‘I mean your Marine tattoo, Robert. You know, “Don’t tread on me”?’

  Ahh, I got it. Didn’t understand it, but . . .

  ‘Jane, how did you happen to see—’ Atherton started to say.

  ‘COBRA is an acronym,’ I hastily injected by way of conciliatory interruption. The last thing I needed today was a coffeehouse cat fight. ‘C…O…B…R…A with all capital letters.’

  Smith threw me a startled, who-asked-you look. And here I was just trying to help bail her out of an embarrassing – if obviously unappreciated – situation.

  Maybe MaryAnne Williams was right. I really was a mensch.

  Though no good deed goes unpunished.

  ‘COBRA stands for the Consolidated Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act,’ I drove bravely onward. ‘It allows people to extend health-insurance coverage through their former employers’ plans. If you can afford it.’

  Another lesson learned from personal experience. Both an individual health-insurance plan and, now, a group plan for our small business, had each proved cheaper than using COBRA after the divorce.

  ‘Or your former husband’s insurance plan, in this case.’ Atherton nodded to Robert. ‘Go ahead and get back to her, if you need to.’ She chin-gestured toward his pocket, looking all the world like the perfect future wife, totally unconcerned about any residual gravitational pull Robert might feel from his former spouse’s orbit.

  ‘Thanks, Gabriella. And I will, though I don’t know why she’s asking. Elaine dropped her COBRA months ago.’ He gave Atherton a kiss on the cheek. ‘I appreciate your understanding.’

  ‘Hey,’ Atherton said, waving her hand. ‘I know what it’s like to be there.’ A smile, though sickly sweet. ‘I’m just glad this realtor doesn’t have to be anymore. On my own, I mean.’

  The woman looked up at her fiancé with obvious affection. Barbie in love with GI Joe. Go figure.

  ###

  It was nearly seven when I turned the deadbolt on the front door of Uncommon Grounds, and then let myself out its platform one. Securing that deadbolt, too, I realized the palm of my right hand was itching.

  ‘You’ll be getting money soon,’ I could hear my grandmother saying in my head.

  ‘That would be very welcome, Grandma,’ I replied out loud as I descended the steps toward the depot’s parking lot. ‘I could use it to fix our Swiss-cheesed lawn.’

  Not wanting to bother Pavlik’s overburdened sheriff’s department, I’d called the town police and they had been kind enough to send an officer by to shoo away the treasure hunters. The holes, though, remained, which I realized as I veered off the sidewalk toward my car and nearly twisted an ankle.

  But . . . hole? It seemed more like someone had been laying pipe, parallel to the sidewalk and about three feet inside of it. Or maybe they had, back in the day, and I’d just never noticed the topographical dip. After all, the wastewater from the toilet and sink in the waiting room had to be borne away somewhere.

  Driving my Escape home, I tried to figure out what I should wear that night. It’d been a looong time since I’d gone clubbing in Brookhills.

  Try, like never.

  A small, ‘bachelorette’ apartment on the East Side of Milwaukee had been my home when I was single. It was only after Ted and I married that we’d moved to Brookhills and by that time my ‘clubbing’ days were over, fondly remembered through a haze of Bartles and Jaymes wine coolers.

  So, proper attire for Sapphire? I had no idea, but figured ’twas better to err on the conservative side. Maybe a nice skirt with a pretty cami and a jacket I could take off if I felt too buttoned up.

  Perfect, I thought, as I walked toward my house’s front door. This way I won’t look like I’m trying too hard. Or trying at all, for that matter.

  I went through the usual act with Frank, who apparently had gotten over his snit enough to shove past me toward bolting to the nearest tree, then follow me into our kitchen for his treat.

  From there, I went straight to the laundry room, where I stripped off my jeans and Uncommon Grounds T-shirt and then on to the bathroom and its shower. When the hot water hit me, a kaleidoscopic scent of coffee beans arose. While at work, the stuff seemed to sink into your pores. And while coffee is a relatively positive smell – enticing even – you don’t necessarily want to become one with it 24/7/365.

  I shampooed once and realized my right palm was still itching. Also red, though that may have been due to the hot water or the scratching I’d done earlier. I stuck my hand out past the shower curtain into the better light of an overhead fixture to get a better look.

  And that’s when I heard something. ‘Frank?’

  No answer.

  ‘Frank, is that you?’

  A partial bark answered me, but like the sheepdog had been somehow quieted.

  Uh-oh.

  I shut off the water, not bothering to finish rinsing my hair. Janet Leigh might have been perfectly clean on the floor of that Bates Motel shower, but what good did it do her? Or her sheepdog.

  Stepping over the side of my tub, I pulled a green flowered towel off the rack and wrapped it around me. A squeak now, from outside the bathroom door but certainly inside my bedroom. Floorboard perhaps? Or bedspring? Whatever, but Frank didn’t squeak. The big lummox thudded. Bounded.

  Or, when he was feeling stealthy, he padded.

  But Frank never squeaked.

  ‘Jake, you . . .’ I tried to say conversationally, but it didn’t come out. Clearing my throat, I started again. ‘You must hear that, too. Get your gun out of the . . .’ Where in the hell would my supposed shower-mate have stashed a gun in this room? ‘. . . um, the linen closet, Jake.’

  Another squeak, this one seeming startled, assuming noises can be startled.

  ‘I’ll open the door,’ I continued loudly. ‘And you just start shooting. OK, Sheriff Pavlik?’

  ‘OK,’ from the other side of the door.

  I cracked it open. ‘Pavlik?’

  Sure enough. The sheriff got up from the foot of my bed, just as Frank came romping toward him, tennis ball in the pooch’s slobbery mouth.

  I was incredibly relieved. And, therefore, pissed. ‘How did you get in?’

  ‘Your door was ajar and I was worried,’ he said, looking me and my towel up and down. ‘Even more so, when I heard you talking like somebody was next to you in the shower.’

  ‘You were supposed to be scared away. By you.’

  ‘Well, since I knew it wasn’t me . . .’ Pavlik pushed open the door and my towel slipped.

  I grabbed the cotton hem. ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Oh, yeah.’ He ran his hand up my bare arm and across its shoulder as he dropped his lips to the notch below my throat.

  As Pavlik kissed me there and worked his way southward, I felt my towel fall away completely. He murmured, ‘You know how I knew it wasn’t me in there with you?’

  ‘N . . . n . . . no!’ Apparently I’d suddenly developed a stutter. Then my back arched on its own and I tangled my fingers in Pavlik’s dark, curly hair.

  He craned his head back to look up at me. ‘Maggy, you never call me Jake.’

  ###

  Turns out that eleven thirty wasn’t all that late. In fact, after Pavlik left I had time for only a quick turnaround shower.

  I hadn’t told our sheriff about my visit to Sapphire, lest he think I was officiously intermeddling. Besides, it felt a little like cheating. Not that I planned to. Cheat, that is. Officious intermeddling, however, was quite definitely in my plans.

  I’d briefly considered scolding Pavlik for showing up at my house unannounced and then letting himself in. But . . . a tremor at the memory, it had been an awfully nice surprise.

  Exercising uncharacteristic decisiveness at home – I’d decided to stay the conservative course on dress-code and therefore mirror-front dithering was kept to a minimum – I pulled up in front of Sapphire only a minute or two past half past eleven. By day, you wouldn’t even know the place was there. Or, if you did noti
ce the empty parking lot and hulking building with its windows blocked out on the edge of an industrial park, you’d think it was just another vacant warehouse.

  But at night? My-oh-my, things were très différent.

  The parking lot was packed and after joining the parade of cars looking for spaces, I gave in and circled back to the building, waiting this time for the luxury of paying the valet fifteen bucks to park my Escape.

  Leaving my keys and my vehicle, I hurried to the canopied door, where I was stopped by a man with a clipboard.

  ‘Name?’

  ‘Maggy Thorsen, but I don’t think I’d be on—’

  ‘Go right in, Ms Thorsen.’ He unclipped a velvet rope just like you see on television and a muscular young man opened the door for me, giving me an almost quizzical once-over as I passed by.

  When I stepped through the entrance, I realized why.

  ‘Toto, we’re not in Kansas anymore,’ I said under my breath.

  The foyer was huge, with a vacated hostess stand to one side. The only light came, faintly, from sconces on the dark walls. Although, no more illumination really was needed. Young women, in short dresses layered in sequins and spangles of various types, were everywhere. Female walking/talking mirror balls, most of them heading to or from the restroom. Though why any bothered was a mystery to me. They all seemed to be grooming on the fly. Applying lip gloss, tidying their hair. I even saw one woman pulling a set of tweezers out of a tiny clutch bag. I wondered what kind of plucking emergency had sent her scurrying from the dance floor.

  Where the foyer and bathroom brigade had contained mostly women, inside there seemed to be a more even ratio of men to women. If spangly dresses were de rigueur for women, the men of Sapphire seemed to have, for once, more options. Suits drew even with sports jackets. Just a nice pair of slacks, dress shirt open at the neck and sleeves rolled up seemed comfortably in the competition.

  Some clubbers were already pairing off, but others ranged in packs, drinks in hand, surveying the crowd. Still early, I thought. Plenty of time to rove individually, cut someone of the opposite sex – or same sex, as the case might be – off from the herd and engage them for a minute, an hour or even a lifetime.

  By 1 a.m., I wagered, the now-nearly vacant dance floor would be pulsing with people. Some moving with the percussion of the pumped-up house music, others dancing to the beat of their hearts.

  Or, let’s face it, wallets and purses.

  I slowly did a three-sixty, trying to get my bearings. In fact, any bearing, singular. The walls and ceiling were nearly completely covered with mirrored glass panels, the tables surrounding the dance floor seeming to march on to infinity. Left of the entry . . .

  ‘Hey, honey,’ a voice said.

  No, not the man of my dreams.

  I turned to see MaryAnne Williams, who was wearing a long-sleeved version of the requisite spangly number.

  I was seriously underdressed.

  Well, no matter. I was there to work. ‘Hi, MaryAnne –’ giving her a hug – ‘I was running late, so I didn’t have time to change.’

  A small fib, but one I hoped could be first accepted, then forgiven. If my funeral plan called for burning in hell, I figured that far worse transgressions were already ledgered into His Big Book of Sins under my name.

  ‘You’re not at all late, Maggy, and you look wonderful.’

  When you normally saw somebody in jeans and a T-shirt, I guessed pretty much anything was an improvement.

  ‘Can I get you a drink?’ she asked, motioning me toward a bar stool. ‘I had a chance to ask around and I think you’ll be interested in what folks told me.’

  ‘About Brigid?’

  ‘And more.’

  ‘Evening, ladies.’ A bartender with red curly hair and freckles put cocktail napkins in front of us.

  ‘I’ll have a tonic and lime, Benjy,’ MaryAnne said. ‘Oh, and this is the woman I was telling you about?’

  ‘Maggy Thorsen,’ I said, extending my hand to shake his.

  ‘A pleasure.’ Benjy reciprocating. ‘What can I get you?’

  ‘Red wine?’

  He slid a laminated twelve-inch long menu card to me.

  ‘Oh, I don’t need this,’ I said, sliding the ‘wine list’ back toward him. ‘Whatever you have by the glass.’

  A faint smile from Benjy. ‘But, ma’am, these are what we offer by the glass.’

  ‘All of . . . ?’ There had to be twenty-five different entries, many with prices I could easily have mistaken for by-the-bottle tags.

  ‘Maggy, Sapphire has a wonderful wine selection,’ MaryAnne said. ‘Benjy, show her the full wine list.’

  The artifact he held up looked like a leather-bound Manhattan telephone directory. ‘Would you like to look?’

  ‘Uh, no. Thanks,’ I said, and read off the cheapest red atop the by-the-glass offering.

  ‘You don’t want that Pinot, Maggy. It’s dreck. Benjy, bring her a glass of the Cakebread Cab,’ MaryAnne commanded, sounding more savvy club-owner than Southern belle.

  ‘Will do, Ms Williams.’

  ‘I love red wine,’ I told MaryAnne as her bartender slid a balloon-bowl glass from the overhead rack, ‘but I’m afraid if I don’t recognize a bottle from the shelves of my grocery store, I’m lost.’

  OK, maybe an exaggeration, but I figured it was an acceptable – even slick – way of reminding MaryAnne that my wallet was considerably thinner than hers. If I wasn’t mistaken, the wine she’d ordered for me was listed at twenty dollars. American. Per glass, plus tax and tip.

  ‘Not to worry, my dear. You will really enjoy this wine, I think, and it’s my treat. Despite the fact I don’t drink it anymore, I love wine and I’ve taken take great pride in layering Sapphire’s wine cellar.’

  Benjy returned with the big glass, about an inch of a lovely wine between red and purple in color glowing in the light from the pendant fixtures also suspended above the bar. ‘Before Ms Williams took over the wine-buying, people would ask what wines we had, and I’d have to recite, deadpan, “red, white and blush”. And then blush myself.’

  I laughed and took the glass he’d set in front of me. I swirled its contents as Benjy filled a rocks glass with ice, tonic and a freshly cut wedge of lime for MaryAnne.

  ‘Go ahead,’ she said. ‘Try it.’

  And so I did. Carefully. At twenty bucks the inch, I wasn’t about to chug this puppy. And the vintage was, admittedly, heaven come to earth. I’d definitely not be finding this wine on the shelves of Pick ‘n Save during my lifetime, and probably not during that of my son, Eric.

  ‘Taste the black fruit?’ MaryAnne asked eagerly. ‘And there should be some roasted coffee and dark chocolate tones, as well.’

  Danged if she wasn’t right. ‘I do. And . . . and –’ I sniffed the wine – ‘caramel?’

  ‘Bravo,’ she said, taking a sip of her tonic water. ‘Your good palate deserves better than grocery-store stock, though I have to say there are some very drinkable wines available for under ten dollars the bottle.’

  But those weren’t wine/coffee/dessert melded seamlessly in one lovely mouthful. I set down the glass so I wouldn’t guzzle its remaining contents. ‘MaryAnne, I know you’ve quit drinking. Does that include wine?’

  ‘Sadly, my dear, yes. Alcohol, by any other name, is still alcohol. At least in my case.’

  ‘So how can you know the way this –’ I nail-tapped my own glass and it gave off a regal ping – ‘tastes?’

  ‘I read, study. And I supplement that information with opinions from people like you, who have a palate and a nose. Not, by the way, the same gauges. For example, many won’t be able to detect those caramel notes.’

  ‘Well, any time you want an opinion,’ I said, taking another seductive but cautious sip, ‘I’m your woman.’

  I set the glass down, suddenly feeling guilty about deriving such pleasure from something MaryAnne obviously loved, but couldn’t touch. ‘Isn’t it difficult, though, being around wine – ev
en studying it, as you say – when you can’t partake yourself?’

  ‘Strangely, Maggy? No. I’d describe it as cooking my family a great dinner when I’m dieting. You are enjoying the wine, which validates my decision to buy that one and place it prominently on Sapphire’s list in the first place. And choose it for you, in particular. It keeps me . . .’ She seemed to be searching for a word.

  ‘In the game?’

  ‘Exactly.’ MaryAnne beamed at me and resettled on her stool. ‘I imagine it’s not much different from your desire to find out how and why Brigid Ferndale ended up in such an undignified state at your place of business. Your need to feel in control of your destiny. In the game, as you say, even if it's more your sheriff's bailiwick than your own.’

  I hated to think what Pavlik would say about murder investigation as sport, though Sherlock Holmes certainly viewed it that way, with his ‘Come, Watson, come! The game is afoot’.

  But then, Holmes was a fictional character.

  I swirled some more Cakebread Cab. ‘Did you say you’d found out who Brigid was with on Monday night?’

  ‘I did.’ MaryAnne nodded toward the bartender, who was washing out glasses. ‘Benjy saw them.’

  ‘Really?’ Wow, interrogating employees was easy when the boss sat next to you and subpoenaed the witness.

  MaryAnne said to Benjy, ‘I told Ms Thorsen that you’d seen Brigid Ferndale on Monday night.’

  ‘That’s right.’

  ‘What time was she here?’ I asked.

  ‘I checked when the sheriff’s deputies questioned me.’ He closed his eyes. ‘Ms Ferndale opened her tab at eleven ten and settled up at . . . uhm, twenty minutes past midnight.’

  No surprise that Pavlik’s people had already been here, asking the same questions I was. The negligible difference might be that I was familiar with the Brookhills community, though – glancing at the milling mass of spike-heeled lasses and hair-restored lads – not this aspect of it.

  ‘An hour and ten minutes, then?’ I asked Benjy. ‘That doesn’t seem very long.’ Unless Brigid had met someone. And left with him. Or her.

  ‘It’s not, for Bri–’ a sideways cut toward MaryAnne – ‘for Ms Ferndale. Most nights she’d clock in around eleven and stay ’til last call.’