by Sandra Balzo
Amy frowned. ‘I’m not convinced. After all, they didn’t find your “Waiting Room”. Besides, everyone assumed my dreamboat mobster got away with it. Now Chitown . . . ohhh.’ Her facial expression changed.
‘What?’
‘This quotes an anonymous source who maintains that skeletal remains found at the state line may actually have belonged to this consigliere wounded in the attack and trying to make it back to Chicago.’
Amy looked heartbroken.
I said, ‘You do realize that whether the man was killed that day or not, he’d be at least sixty-five or seventy today. A little old for you and, besides, he’d have spent most of that money by now, with just petty cash left over to buy adult diapers and all.’
I was being facetious, but Amy’s eyes went round.
‘You’re right – it was only a million it says here and it’s been thirty-seven years. That’s what? $27,000 and change a year?’
Can’t say our barista didn’t have excellent math skills. ‘Good point. The police shouldn’t be looking for the guy at the state line. They should be checking the greeters at Wal-Mart.’
‘I hear it’s not a bad job, except for the customers.’ Amy seemed to shift gears. ‘You know, this could be a huge opportunity.’
‘For what?’
‘For us.’ She stared at me. ‘The gangster connection’s just been dropped in our laps. You know, sub machine guns, violin cases.’
‘This was the seventies, not the thirties,’ I said. ‘Al Capone did not sip here.’
‘A shame,’ my star barista said. ‘It’s got a nice ring to it. But it not being Capone – though I bet he stepped on or off a train here at some point – doesn’t mean we can’t make the most of what did happen. Like theme drinks. How about a triple-shot mob-uccino?’
‘Clever. Though in questionable taste, maybe, given that a woman’s body was just found under our place of business. A victim, who, by the way, worked for said coffeehouse’s co-owner. We don’t want people to think we’re exploiting someone else’s misfortune.’
Wait a minute. Dear God, did I just call having your head cracked open a ‘misfortune’?
‘Totally dead-on, Maggy. It would be unseemly to launch something too soon. We should hold off at least a week.’
I was still trying to get past ‘totally dead-on’.
‘Maggy?’
‘You’re right. We should wait a week. Or longer.’ Like a decade.
Amy brightened. ‘You’re a genius at public relations, you know that? I’m pretty good at marketing, but you have your finger on the pulse of the people.’
At least sane people, though that may be because I work with so few of them I go out of my way to impress those I do come across.
Amy was tapping her raspberry fruit-stripe now. ‘You know what I’m worried about, though?’
The henna hair dye eating away through scalp, then skull, and finally brain? ‘No. What?’
‘That in the process of being sensitive, we miss out on the wave of interest Chitown’s show might create.’
I hate to admit it, but except for the body in the basement, I could be in our barista-cum-marketer’s corner on this. It would be fun to build the business around a theme.
Amy stood up. ‘Do you think that’s why Brigid was in the waiting room? Looking for treasure?’
‘How would she know the room even existed?’ Through trial and error – literally, on both counts – I’d found it wasn’t a good idea to share anything I got from Pavlik unless he expressly told me I could. The probability that Brigid had been killed somewhere else and moved was something I needed to keep to myself for now. ‘You said it’s not mentioned in the news article.’
‘Well, then, maybe Brigid came up with independent sources. You know, like Sarah. After all, Kingston Realty has the listing for that whole block across the tracks.’
‘Including Roma . . . I mean, the one where the FBI raid took place?’ Sarah sure hadn’t shared that factoid with me. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Romano’s is the name of the restaurant.’ Amy staying casual, either not seeing the connection to Luc and Tien or not caring. ‘Part of Brigid’s rant about Sarah was that Kingston Realty had held the listing for years. And the woman Brigid was speaking to said – her words not mine – “anyone who knew her ass from a hole in the wall should have sold the property ten times over by now.”’
‘Sarah being the owner of the ass in question?’
Amy nodded. ‘’Fraid so.’
My turn to ponder. ‘Was this Monday night, by any chance?’
‘Monday? No, this was last week. I can check my calendar, if you like, because I had a meeting with Michael, Sapphire’s manager. That’s why I was sitting there eavesdropping.’
‘Did you know the woman with Brigid?’ Less important, since the conversation hadn’t taken place the night Brigid had disappeared. Still, the information might lead somewhere. And that somewhere might be an itch Pavlik hadn’t scratched.
‘Maggy, I’ve seen her right here in Uncommon Grounds, though just occasionally, so I don’t recall her name. But she’s a Barbie.’
‘Tennis or soccer mom? Blonde, brunette or redhead?’
Animal, vegetable or mineral?
‘Redhead, I think,’ Amy said. ‘Though it’s hard to be sure with the lights in Sapphire. Sometimes they make my hair look blue.’
Amy, honey, sometimes your hair is blue.
But if the woman Brigid had been talking to was a redhead, she couldn’t have been any of the Barbies I’d seen yesterday. One brunette and three blondes. Pretty much the demographic in Brookhills, where you’d swear blonde was the magically dominant gene.
‘I’m not placing her,’ I said.
‘Not surprising, Maggy,’ Amy said with a smile. ‘The only time you actually look at our customers is when you’re evaluating them for jail time.’
‘Is that true?’ I said, a little shocked. Not at myself, necessarily, so much that Amy had noticed. My mind did tend to wander when I was working my shift.
‘Maybe not the jail part, literally. But you’re not much of a people person.’
‘In fairness,’ I said, ‘my original partners Patricia and Caron were supposed to be the “people” people. I was more the planner and marketer. When Patricia died and Caron called it quits, Sarah—’
‘Who, in my humble opinion, is better with the customers than you are.’
‘Is not.’ Drive a dagger through my heart, why don’t you? ‘Sarah is . . . is insulting at best. Caustic even.’
‘Granted, but at least she talks to them.’ Amy plucked her dishcloth from the back of the chair. ‘Anything else I can do for you, Maggy? I promised Tien I’d package the soup into carry-out containers once it cooled.’
‘Nope,’ I said, picking myself up in more ways than one. ‘Hey, Amy?’
‘Yes?’
‘When was the last time you saw Brigid Ferndale at Sapphire?’
Our barista stopped at the door to the kitchen. ‘The last time? Just a couple of days ago. Monday night, maybe?’
Bingo. The night Sarah’s apprentice was killed.
Time for a little off-campus people-watching of my own.
Chapter Ten
Meaning that I, Maggy Thorsen, was going clubbing. I thought about asking Amy to accompany me, as her shift ended at noon. Truth be told, though, I was still smarting from my employee’s low opinion of her boss.
Not a ‘people person’, my ass.
I was kind of hoping to go right from work – sort of a dance club version of your early-bird special – but Sapphire’s outgoing message told me the place’s doors didn’t even open until 10 p.m.
Which gave me plenty of time to close the shop and go home to patch things up with the indignant Frank before dining together. And, finally, shower/make-up/dress-up.
After Amy left, I put a call into Sarah. She hadn’t returned it, so I went out to see if the sheriff’s deputy guarding the waiting room door need
ed lunch, but he was gone, as Pavlik had predicted. The only vestige of what had happened there was the yellow crime-scene tape that still sashed the door.
By 2:30, I was sitting at our counter with a pad of white, lined paper in front of me when MaryAnne and two other women came through our streetside jingle-door.
I stood up to serve the trio, thinking that if I kept finding bodies around the depot, a ‘The Bell Tolls for Thee’ signature might be more appropriate.
One of the women was the brunette with MaryAnne yesterday, but the other was neither Elaine Riordan nor the other blonde.
This was a redhead. Of course – Gabriella Atherton, owner of the new real estate office in town and Sarah’s prime rival for any upscale properties. ‘Broker Barbie’, in Sarah’s mind, but I feared she could be underestimating the woman.
More in the current context, though, was it Gabriella Atherton that Amy saw Brigid Ferndale speaking with at Sapphire? Looking back on what our barista had overheard, it seemed likely that Brigid’s companion was a fellow agent capable of picking apart Sarah and her abilities. And, as a broker herself, Gabriella Atherton could offer Brigid a desk in the redhead’s own office.
As simple as that, though? Competing broker luring apprentice and future employee away from status quo? Or, given what I’d heard about Brigid, was the apprentice selling out my Sarah to become part of a newer, hipper agency?
And one with more than an absentee mentor on board.
‘Ladies, you’re late,’ I said. ‘I was afraid we wouldn’t see you today.’
‘Now don’t you worry, honey,’ MaryAnne said. ‘Georgia had an emergency appointment after lunch—’
Atherton interjected, ‘How do you break a nail using chopsticks, I ask you?’
But MaryAnne plowed onward. ‘Be that as it may, Maggy, the rest of us you can’t shake loose with a stick.’
Remember the Amy, if not the Alamo. People-person, people-person.
‘Tennis and lunch – what a nice day.’ I sounded phony even to my own ears, but I was trying.
‘Honey, you don’t even know the half of it,’ MaryAnne said with a broad grin. ‘You see, our league had a special, very special, Thursday round-robin? Followed by lunch with the opposing team, of course.’
Of course.
‘Losers.’ Gabriella Atherton tucked a lock of auburn hair behind one ear. Up close, she looked to be mid-thirties – more than a full decade older than Brigid, but about the same number of years younger than Sarah. Which probably didn’t please my business partner either.
‘Honestly,’ the brunette said, sitting down heavily. ‘That waiter was so inefficient. You’d think no one had ever asked for separate checks before. I can’t imagine whatever took so long.’
Let’s see. Two teams of eight, maybe ten women, all persnickety about their calorie-counts and each demanding salad dressing on the side and a separate check. That’s a whole lot of artificially-sweetened iced tea to spit in.
‘Inexcusable,’ I said chirpily. ‘Now what can I get you?’
‘I’ll have an iced mocha,’ Atherton said. ‘Light on the ice.’
She turned to the brunette. ‘It just goes against my grain to pay for frozen water. Sometimes I get an iced mocha that’s not.’
‘Not iced? But isn’t it warm?’
‘The espresso is warm,’ said Atherton, ‘but Maggy here takes care of me.’
She favored me with the Atherton smile, made famous by her most recent billboard campaign to establish her new agency, yard signs considered déclassé in Brookhills. Why hadn’t I been able to dredge up her name when Amy had described a redheaded Barbie?
Honest answer? I’d never noticed Gabriella Atherton in Uncommon Grounds before – this, despite the fact that I’d obviously served her in the past.
‘Maggy just mixes the espresso with cold milk,’ Atherton was saying, ‘and then I take it back to the office and pour it over ice there. I get almost twice as much that way.’
The woman drove a high-end Mercedes and owned the hottest real estate company in town, yet she was feeling triumphant over wringing an extra half-cup of milk out of struggling little me. Lovely.
Then again, she did remember my name.
‘But you did tell me you wanted some ice today, Gabriella?’ I smiled. Take that, Amy Caprese.
‘Yes, please.’ A hesitation. ‘Oh, wait, Maggy. Can you make it an iced latte, instead of a mocha? With whole milk.’
‘Whole milk?’ The brunette voiced the kind of horror I reserved for things Frank coughed up on the carpet.
‘Ohhh, you’re right,’ Atherton said, patting her artfully flat abdominals. ‘Maggy, best make it skim, then. With one Splenda, as usual.’
‘Of course.’ I made an effort to file away the ‘usual’ no-ice/one Splenda for future reference, though I feared Amy was right.
I just didn’t give a shit.
‘And don’t forget: that’s light on the ice.’
‘Gotcha.’
‘I’m surprised you aren’t busier, Maggy,’ from the brunette. I really had to find out what her name was. ‘I mean, what with the poor woman dying in your cellar. You know what gossipmongers some folks can be. Waaay –’ this accompanied by an eye roll – ‘too much time on their hands.’
Sayeth the woman who took a two-hour athletic endeavor, added a social luncheon and topped it off with coffee out with friends.
During her last sentence, Brunette glanced around the room, hoping, I thought, to spot some mongers she could gossip about later.
‘The entrance to the room where she was found is outside,’ I said. ‘Sealed by police tape and everything.’
Brunette blushed. ‘Just a black coffee for me, please.’
‘Coming up.’ I brewed Gabriella Atherton’s espresso shot so it could cool down as I poured the other woman’s coffee.
From behind me came Atherton’s voice. ‘The Mafia connection with Brookhills is just absolutely fascinating. I had no idea when I moved to our little fly-speck of a town that its history was so colorful.’
‘Or that you would find the love of your life.’ This from Brunette. For her part, MaryAnne was standing nearby, paging through a magazine from our news-stand.
‘This chapter of it, certainly,’ Atherton said. ‘But life is a book with many leaves still to be turned.’
‘Chick-lit, no doubt,’ I heard MaryAnne mumble under her breath.
Atherton apparently didn’t hear her. Or chose not to. ‘Robert and I have booked the Wisconsin Club’s Grand Ballroom for June.’
‘June? And on such short notice?’ Brunette, again. ‘Robert must have had to pull an awful lot of strings.’
‘Not Robert, really.’ Atherton seemed miffed. ‘It was all my doing, actually.’
‘Oh, I’m so sorry, Gabriella,’ Brunette said, as though she’d just accidently lopped off an Atherton forearm with a negligently wielded machete. ‘I just thought that Robert, being from here and having been married once at the Wis—’ She slapped her mouth shut.
‘Not to worry, Jane,’ said Atherton, seeming to mellow when confronted with the gaffe of a lesser Barbie, ‘I knew perfectly well that Robert and his ex were married at the Wisconsin Club, but I have no intention of letting that historical coincidence prevent me from choosing the venue I want for my reception.’
‘Very wise of you,’ said Brunette – or, hereafter, Jane. ‘Oh, Maggy. Could you put just a smidge of steamed milk in my coffee?’
‘Of course.’ I pulled back the cup I’d started to slide to her and set the milk to steam.
‘And half a packet of Splenda.’
‘Certainly.’ I added the sweetener, then, milk steamed, poured a bit of that in as well.
‘A little more, please?’ She pivoted to Atherton, who was still waiting patiently for her latte.
Lest I overflow the cup, I dumped her drink into a latte mug, then added more milk.
‘And a little foam?’
I reached for my long-handled spoon and droppe
d a dollop of foam on top. ‘Anything else?’
The woman had already managed to wangle the equivalent of a latte – though, admittedly, made with brewed coffee instead of espresso – for the price of a black coffee. Maybe she’d like me to tap a vein, as well.
‘Not a thing.’ She put two dollars on the counter and carried her enhanced drink under her enhanced boobs to a table in the corner.
I took a tall glass, tore open another Splenda and poured the powder down the middle. Then I stirred in the espresso and added milk, topping off my creation with a couple of ice cubes.
‘Perfect,’ Atherton said, taking out a fiver. ‘And keep the change please.’
Gladly. I felt a chorus of ‘She works hard for the money’ coming on, ala Donna Summer. ‘What can I get you today, MaryAnne?’
MaryAnne approached, studying the menu board as she came. ‘I believe I’d like to try something new and exciting?’ Despite the syrupy Southern accent, MaryAnne still struck me as more down-to-earth than her Barbie friends. ‘Any suggestions Maggy?’
‘Maybe our seasonal specialty drink?’ I said, pointing. ‘Triple Shot, fully-loaded.’
‘Ah, for the days when I was fully loaded,’ MaryAnne said ruefully, glancing back at the women she was with. ‘It made so many things – and people – so much more bearable.’
MaryAnne made no secret of the fact that she’d battled drug and alcohol addictions throughout a privileged adolescence in Atlanta where, according to her, neither parent – or anybody else – had ever told her ‘no’.
MaryAnne moved here and eventually cowboyed up to ‘Just say no’ herself, to both drugs and booze. And she’d never forgotten the people who’d helped. The alcohol treatment center on the east side of town bore her name as proudly as did the interior design firm she’d built on the foundation of her recovery.
‘I’m afraid you’ll have to deal, friends-wise,’ I said. ‘The “loaded” part is only sugar. Or I can make it Splenda, if you prefer.’
‘Hell, no,’ she said, Southern belle morphing into Southern broad. ‘And use whole milk . . .’
She paused and we both looked skyward, as if waiting for lightning to strike.
Nothing.
MaryAnne shrugged. ‘Well then, Maggy, let’s really tempt fate and make it cream instead. I have very few vices left and I prefer to make the most of them.’
