Finely Ground

by Jennifer Templeman

  “Oh yes.” Janice seemed bored with the whole matter and rattled off what she knew quickly. “I think he’s in his mid-fifties, was married to a woman a whole decade younger than him who kept her hair dyed too light for her complexion and wore white shoes at Thanksgiving. They divorced, which wasn’t a surprise to anybody except him. For a while he seemed to let himself go. He would come in for drinks before dinner and never even made it to the dining room, just sat on the stool all night long, talking about how he’d been blindsided. Then when the word got around that she’d left him for someone even older than he was—I think he worked at some kind of gas station that stayed open all night…or maybe it was a chain… Yes, I think that’s right. He was the head of security for an entire chain of highway truck stops. He even had a ridiculous name—Stewart, like the little mouse in the children’s book. Anyway, she left John for the mouse fellow and then found some way to get nearly everything in the divorce too. Bless his heart, he lost the girl, most of his money, their house, and according to some version, he even lost one of his biggest customers for whatever it was he did. He hasn’t come around much lately. I hope he’s getting help. Seeing someone unable to handle their drinking issues is such a sad thing; wouldn’t you agree?” As she asked the question, she set down the newspaper clipping and picked up her drink, looking to Ellie to see if that was what she’d needed.

  “As always, Mom, you knew exactly what I needed to hear.” It was hard to hold the sarcasm back as she spoke to her mother. Ellie had long known of her mother’s own struggle to keep her need for alcohol covered up. Janice had rules she lived by, which included doing most of her drinking after she returned home from the club. No matter how well she tried to hide it, Ellie knew her mother was on at least her second drink that night, and before she went to sleep she’d have at least two or three more.

  The waiter stopped by and informed everyone of the specials for the evening, stopping only to take drink orders for the latecomers to the table. Ellie stuck with her usual water, no lemon, giving Janice a hard look when her mother rolled her eyes at the disappointing choice. Joe, however, intrigued them both by ordering an iced chamomile and tonic.

  As their waiter walked away, Janice asked, “What was that you ordered? I don’t believe I’m familiar with that drink.”

  “It’s something my grandmother swore by when I was growing up,” Joe explained. “You brew a cup of chamomile tea, sweeten it with simple syrup, and then dilute it with tonic. You get the comfort of the light flavor, but the tonic gives it enough kick to make you feel like you’re having something more substantial.”

  “Do you avoid all alcohol?” Janice wondered, leaning away as though ready to dismiss him if he answered incorrectly.

  “No, ma’am. I love a good glass of wine, and I’ve been known to sip an aged Scotch every now and then too, but I’m driving us back tonight, and the temporary pleasure of a drink now wouldn’t sit well with me if I caused something to happen to your daughter,” he explained, causing Janice to put her hand over her heart, showing how touched she was.

  Over the next hour and a half, Ellie watched Janice interrogate Joe. Briefly, she was able to detach herself enough to be impressed with Janice’s style. She kept it surface enough to not put him on edge, but by the end of the night, she knew three generations back on both sides of Joe’s family, his preference of American-made cars, the fact that he was a cradle Episcopalian who didn’t attend church as much as his mother would like—although he did manage to get there more than just on Christmas and Easter—and that while he was conservative in many of his beliefs, he was a registered Democrat because he believed the government should help its citizens and protect them in ways he felt that party better represented.

  Just before Ellie could announce it was time for them to leave, Joe leaned forward and the smile fell from his face. “Mrs. Michaels, I know there’s a lot more you’d like to know about me, and I’ll happily answer every question you have when we meet again, but I can’t let this evening end without telling you that I think the world of your daughter. She is brilliant, with a biting wit that keeps me on my toes, she’d got a beauty that goes well beyond her face, and she has a way of staying in my mind even when there’s a list longer than Sherman’s march through Georgia that I should be focused on. I can’t tell you I’m the best man for her, because I think she could do worlds better. But God as my witness, I’ll do everything I can to support her and keep her safe.”

  “Good heavens,” Janice whispered. “Son, that declaration is the thing many a romance novel has been made of. It’s what women want to hear but men never think to say.”

  “I think it was easier to say it to you than to Ellie,” he confessed. “You’re very easy to talk to.”

  “Ellie…” Janice turned to look at her daughter, who was holding her glass of water partway to her mouth, stunned at the eloquent way Joe had just spoken of her. “Come now, dear. You’ve never been good at taking a compliment, but that’s no excuse to leave your mouth open like that. People will think you’ve run out of things to say, which plays counter to your type.”

  Despite how insulting it might have sounded, Ellie knew her mother was trying to snap her out of her haze.

  “In listening to him, I can see that Joseph recognizes what a treasure you are, which only speaks of his good sense. I hope you two will join me again sometime soon, when I won’t monopolize so much of the evening prodding you with questions and can introduce to you some of the people who have known Ellie since she was quite young.”

  “I’ll look forward to it,” Joe answered for them, basically agreeing to another night of torture with Janice.

  It took another fifteen minutes before they could make an exit to the parking lot. Joe escorted Ellie to the truck and waited until he had started the vehicle before turning slightly to ask, “Was I too over the top?”

  “No,” Ellie assured him. “In fact, I think Janice is more than ready to adopt you and forget about me.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous,” he disagreed. “She still hasn’t asked how I got into this line of work or what I did before setting up the shop. I’m a novelty right now.”

  “No, she was more than ready to find fault with you, but you completely won her over,” Ellie promised. “Janice has a lot of issues, but she never mistakenly insults someone, and she doesn’t give praise without meaning it. You were perfect.”

  He turned to face the windshield and put the truck in drive. As he pulled away, he said, “We don’t need to talk about it now, but just so you know, I meant every word I said to your mother. I encouraged her questions so she’d leave you alone tonight and let you mull over the information she gave you on your suspect. At the same time, I didn’t say anything that wasn’t completely true.”

  “I don’t know how to respond…” Ellie found honesty easier with the darkness surrounding them.

  “Not everything needs a response,” Joe replied.

  “I feel like that does.” Ellie tried to explain, “Being open like that…it doesn’t come easy to me. My dad showed how he felt by how he took care of me and supported me. And, despite her faults, my mother showed it by trying to get me interested in the things she liked so we’d have things in common to talk about. But neither of them would just come out directly and tell me how they felt.”

  “Okay, then how about I give you the chance to show it instead of you trying to explain it?” Joe suggested.

  “That would depend on what you meant.” Ellie was wary to agree too quickly.

  “My mother is hosting Sunday lunch this week for the whole family. Garrett will be there, and I’d hoped you might be willing to come with me,” Joe said, glancing quickly to his right before giving his full attention back to the road.

  “You want your family to meet me?”

  “No,” he said. “I want you to meet the craziness that is my family so you’ll see why accepting yours is so easy for me.” After a brief pause, he added, “Besides, you’ve already met Garre
tt and you haven’t run off, so I’m hoping the rest won’t be so bad.”

  The idea of meeting his family was exciting and terrifying at once. There was no denying she wanted to meet them, but the prospect of being grilled as Janice had Joe wasn’t as appealing.

  While she was lost in her mind, Joe spoke up to sweeten the deal. “Besides, this way you’ll get to hear all the stories about my childhood from my relatives before your mother has the chance to share yours when we come back.”

  Knowing exactly the kinds of tales Janice would share, she made up her mind. “Do I need to bring anything for lunch?”

  Chapter 15

  The day after their dinner with Janice, Ellie called Anne to get her opinion on the upcoming lunch with Joe’s family.

  “Meeting the family is a pretty big step,” Anne agreed. “What are you going to wear?”

  “I don’t know,” Ellie admitted, having never put that much thought into her wardrobe. She liked dressing up as much as the next girl, but her mind always went to all the potential troublesome interactions she might have to endure instead of stressing over what her clothes might say about her.

  “We could go shopping,” Anne volunteered. “Unless you want to wear one of the dresses you picked up the last time we went out.”

  Ellie struggled to remember the last time she and Anne were at the mall. “Wait… The last time I bought a dress with you was when I was trying to find something to lure out a serial killer at a dance club. I can’t wear that to meet Joe’s parents!”

  Anne laughed, clearly enjoying having gotten the upper hand on her old friend. “Whatever you wear, you should keep your hair down.”

  “What difference does that make?” Ellie asked.

  “None to the family, but you wear it up all the time to work, and if Joe is like everyone else in America, he’d rather see it down. If you take the time to style it, he’ll appreciate it,” Anne guessed. “And if he likes it, he’ll want to play with it. You know how much you love it when someone messes with your hair.”

  Anne had made a good point. Ellie had weaknesses like everyone else, and she did love it when someone brushed her hair or softly ran their fingers through it. The last time she could remember anyone giving it that kind of attention was when Janice arranged for someone at her salon to cut and style it. Ellie ran her fingers through her loose hair and pulled the ends around to check them out. None of them looked frayed, but she could probably still benefit from a check-in at the salon. That would give her an excuse to see Janice again so they could catch up about Joe. Ellie knew her mother probably had a lot to say from their initial dinner, and it would help their next meeting to go smoother if Ellie let her ramble to her first instead of saving it all for Joe.

  It was strange to think about a next time. She’d been determined to keep Janice and Joe away from each other in order to protect him from her mother, but she went along with the suggestion when he made it to help with her case, which completely alleviated what probably would have been an awkward first meeting otherwise. If Joe hadn’t brought it up, Ellie would probably still be thinking of her life in terms of separate silos—work, family, and personal.

  “Do you think I bucket my life?” Ellie wondered aloud.

  “You mean like keep things in tidy little areas to avoid any kind of cross contamination?” Anne reworded.

  “That sounds like a mental disorder, but yeah, that’s what I meant.”

  “Then, yes, you do—you always have,” Anne replied, as though it were as apparent as the certainty of a sunrise in the morning. “Remember that time when I was picking you up to go shopping and your neighbor walked down with you so that we were all in the parking lot together? I’ve known you since we were both eight, but once you called him your coworker at the Bureau, you could barely finish the sentence to tell him who I was. I think I eventually just stuck out my hand and told him my name.”

  That was a couple of years ago, but Anne was right. Seeing her lifelong friend next to someone she worked with was like seeing two alternate realities come crashing together. “I’m a lot more together than I was then.”

  “Of course you are,” Anne mocked. “I’m guessing it has something to do with your little coffee hottie.” After she calmed down her laughing, she asked, “Any chance I’ll get to meet him, or are you keeping him all to yourself?”

  “He’s planning on coming to see Janice again, so we can probably plan a swing by your place too,” Ellie reluctantly agreed, feeling some of the carefully constructed walls she’d built over years begin to crumble.

  “I can’t wait!” Anne said excitedly. “Except that you’re probably in that newlywed stage where you can’t keep your hands off each other. I’ll have to lay off the sweets that day so the sight of you sucking face in my living room doesn’t make me want to hurl.”

  “Why is it whenever we talk, you always sound like you did when we were in high school together?” Ellie wondered, hoping her friend didn’t sound like this at PTA meetings. “Besides, we aren’t like that…not yet, at least.”

  “Wait, you aren’t like what?” Anne grew suddenly serious. “You keep your affection displays for private or you don’t do them at all?”

  Ellie waited, knowing the silence was probably answering the question better than her words could.

  “You took him to meet your mother, and you don’t even know if you guys have chemistry?”

  “We definitely have chemistry,” Ellie defended quickly. “There are times when it’s like sparks are flying between us but I just can’t see them. The thing is…he’s affectionate, he reaches out to me a lot, but he hasn’t made a big move yet.”

  “Maybe he’s waiting for you,” Anne suggested. “If he thinks you aren’t ready, or you might reject him, then he’s not going to jump all in.”

  “I’m right here,” Ellie reminded her. “What more could he be waiting for?”

  “You said he reaches out, but do you? When you’re together, do you ever initiate contact?”

  “Sure I do,” Ellie quickly replied, but after thinking it through, she had to correct it. “I think about it, but it’s a hard thing to do. I’d rather just follow his lead.”

  “That’s a double standard. You can’t pout about him holding back when it’s exactly what you’re doing. If he has any skills at all at reading people, he can probably sense your hesitation, and he might think you aren’t ready or something. I mean, for a normal person, you have recently been through a major ordeal. Maybe he thinks you need some time to come to terms with your near-death experience and he’s waiting for some kind of signal.”

  “What do I do?” Ellie bit back. “Wear a sign around my neck that says, ‘kiss me; I’m ready!’?”

  “Hmmm. I wonder if you can get that engraved on a pendant.”

  “Remind me why I bother calling you?” Ellie asked.

  “Because you trust me to tell you the truth,” Anne reminded her, pausing when there was a massive crash in the background. “Is there blood?” she called out before there was some muffled response. “I should go,” Anne said once more into the phone, letting Ellie know the answer to that question was probably yes. “Remember what we talked about: hair down, sharp outfit, and for goodness sakes, make a move of some sort.”

  ****

  When Ellie arrived at work the next day, there were four voice mails and three e-mails, all marked urgent from George. She decided to save herself some time and dialed his extension instead of sawing through everything.

  “Ellie, I’m so glad you called. Did you read my case notes?” he asked before Ellie even recognized the phone was ringing.

  “Why don’t you just catch me up to date to be sure,” Ellie teased.

  “I think I’ve got him,” George said excitedly.

  “Who?”

  “The guy responsible for the cargo thefts,” George explained. “My first major case, and I’ve already wrapped it up. I know it’s early still, since we haven’t arrested him, but I’m pretty pumped ab
out it.”

  “Wait. Who do you think is responsible?” Ellie wondered exactly what she’d missed.

  “I went to the Stop and Go headquarters and spent a few hours there. The head of security, a Mr. Murphy, met with me and gave me access to everything I needed. It’s like he thought he was too good to get caught, so he answered every question I asked. Well, he completely messed up when he admitted he was solely responsible for the exports of video from each chain’s local server to their back-up security storage off-site. Each store keeps their tape for twenty-four hours, and then Murphy runs some program that goes into each of their locations’ security systems and downloads the film to store remotely for three years in order to protect the company in case something like this happens. He’s the only person who has access to run the export commands, and he’s the only person with a password to access the film once it’s stored on the Stop and Go security server.”

  “That hardly means he pulled off the thefts himself,” Ellie reminded him. “Sure it gives him a means of altering the video, but was he in those cities on the days of the losses? What would be his motive, anyway? If he’s in charge of security, why would he rob his customers and risk looking like he doesn’t know how to keep his truck stops safe?” There were more holes in George’s theory as he’d explained it than there were in her colander.

  “It’s more than that,” George said in defense of his work. “He kept saying that he’s been arguing with the owners for a year now that they needed to upgrade their security at some of the stops. Having these kinds of losses would give him evidence to force a change. Plus, he was so confident that Stop and Go was not to blame that I felt like he was covering up something. He kept referring me back to the program they have to collect all the video feeds and said they’d paid thousands of dollars to a consultant years ago who created it for them so they’d be ready in case something like this ever happened.”

  “Did he say who created the program?” Ellie wondered, much more interested in that person than the security manager.