by Sandra Balzo
Caron slid Laurel’s large decaf with steamed milk across the counter to her and slipped behind me. Roger was Brookhills’ former building inspector and he and Caron had a . . . history.
‘I’m working in Milwaukee.’ Roger flashed Caron a toothy grin by way of me. ‘I have my own company now.’
Probably Gigolos R Us.
Roger stepped up to the counter and handed me a card that read ‘Karsten Building Inspections, Inc.’
‘So you’re the inspector Rachel was meeting at the Hamilton?’ I asked. I might not like Roger, but I was willing to set that aside long enough to pump him for information.
‘Was supposed to meet,’ Roger said, giving a swipe to his slightly too long and slightly too sun-bleached hair. ‘She never showed.’
‘Are you sure?’ Laurel asked. The whole crowd was paying rapt attention.
For his part, Roger seemed equally mesmerized by Laurel’s cleavage. ‘Positive,’ he said, not looking up from her breasts. ‘I . . . um, waited until three forty-five.’ He licked his lips.
Ugh. ‘All of fifteen minutes?’ I demanded.
‘That’s ten minutes longer than he waited when he worked for the town,’ someone said. ‘Must be all that money the Slatterys have.’
We all turned toward the newcomer and a couple of people gasped.
‘You’re wearing a tennis skirt,’ Laurel said to Sarah.
Old news. What I was amazed at, though, was the time. To my knowledge, Sarah had never seen a sunrise. ‘You’re looking awfully bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for six forty-five in the morning.’
But Laurel was studying Sarah’s face. ‘Are you wearing make-up?’
Sarah stalked past her and up to the counter, edging Roger aside. ‘No.’
‘You are, too. You have mascara on,’ Laurel insisted.
‘I just have dark lashes.’ Sarah batted her eyes. ‘Besides, look who’s talking. Your boob is falling out.’
‘Damn. It’s this sweater,’ Laurel tucked the miscreant back in as Roger watched appreciatively. ‘Sometimes my breasts escape.’
‘The size of those honkers these days, she better put out an APB,’ Sarah said under her breath as Roger moved closer to Laurel.
I giggled. I don’t normally giggle, so I could only put my recent rash down to stress.
‘Who are you playing tennis with?’ I asked Sarah as Roger and Laurel moved away. I was hoping it was Emma Byrne. I was also hoping they were meeting here at Uncommon Grounds. It certainly seemed like everyone else was.
‘Emma. She’s meeting me here.’
Bingo.
As if by magic, the door opened again and in walked Emma Byrne tucked into a white tennis outfit. Roger’s head swiveled.
‘Morning,’ Emma said, catching sight of us.
I didn’t know how to broach the subject gracefully, and besides, I didn’t want to be tactful. I wanted to drop a bombshell and see what happened.
I beckoned her over. ‘Did you hear? Rachel Thorsen’s body was found in Lake Michigan this morning.’
Sarah’s mouth dropped open. Caron, aka Miss Manners, smacked me one.
Emma, however, seemed about to pass out. She went pale and her eyes widened so much I could see white all the way around the blue iris.
Dropping her tennis bag, she put her hand to her mouth. ‘How . . .?’ She cleared her throat. ‘Does Ted know?’
‘Ted was arrested,’ Laurel said, moving away from Roger. ‘He was arrested right here in the store not an hour ago. Right, Maggy?’
‘Is that true?’ Emma asked me. ‘Has Ted been arrested?’ Emma asked me.
‘All I know is that he was here waiting for me when I opened,’ I said, watching for her reaction. Getting none, I added, ‘The sheriff arrived, told us what happened and Ted left with him.’
‘They took him into custody for questioning,’ Sophie said, beaming proudly at Henry, the source of her knowledge. ‘That’s why they had to read him his rights.’
‘They read him his rights?’ Emma asked. ‘But do they think . . . do they know how she died?’
Apparently everyone thought to ask that question except me.
‘There weren’t any specifics on the news,’ Laurel said, ‘only that an unidentified woman’s body was found by the rocks on the breakwater.’
I looked at her. ‘Unidentified?’
Laurel shrugged. ‘I only had a chance to say “Did you hear?” before you jumped in. You’re the one who told me they took Ted away. It doesn’t take a genius to put two and two together and figure out it was Rachel.’
I’d been scammed. ‘Listen, if they haven’t publicly identified the body yet, maybe they want it kept quiet.’
Laurel tish-toshed me. ‘If the sheriff is questioning Ted, they know it’s Rachel. They’re probably just waiting until it’s confirmed with dental records or DNA or whatever before releasing it to the press.’
Both of which they could find in plentiful measure at Ted’s office or house.
Emma must have been thinking the same thing. She snagged her bag. ‘Sarah, forgive me, but Ted and I have been friends for a long time. I’d like to see what I can do to help.’
‘Not a problem,’ Sarah called to Emma’s back as it went out the door.
Then she said to me, ‘The other woman, I presume?’
‘I think to me, she’d be the other, other woman.’ I turned to Caron, who had been trying to wait on customers throughout all this.
‘I really think I should call Eric before this gets out,’ I told her apologetically. ‘Can you hold down the fort for a couple minutes?’
Sarah shrugged her bag off her shoulder and raised her hand. ‘I can help.’
‘That’s fine,’ Caron said gratefully, looking at the growing line. ‘You pour coffee and handle bakery and I’ll do the specialty drinks.’
‘She likes to keep you away from the frothing wand,’ I told Sarah, putting my hand on her arm. ‘Thank you.’
‘That’s not what Eric is going to say when you wake him up before seven,’ Sarah said, tying on an apron.
‘Don’t I know it,’ I muttered. ‘Especially with news like this.’
Once in the office, I closed the door and sat down at the desk. I’d wanted to call Eric when I knew he’d be up, but I also didn’t want to chance missing him. Digging through my purse, I pulled out my cellphone and punched in his number.
As I suspected it would, my call went to voicemail. I’d try texting. Where Eric would ignore calls, he never received a text message he wouldn’t answer. Or at least read.
Eric sent a thousand text messages a month, the reason we had ‘free texting’ on our phones. When I’d asked how he managed to fit both texting and school into his day, he’d looked at me like I was crazy. ‘Texting is fast.’
‘It is not,’ I protested. ‘It takes me ten minutes to write a message.’
In self-defense – so I wouldn’t cut off his cellphone – Eric taught me how to write text messages using something called predictive text or T9. Until then, I’d been punching in single letters – pushing the ‘(2)abc’ key on the cellphone once for ‘a’, twice for ‘b’, three times for ‘c’. It took forever.
With T9, though, you tap each key once and a computer built into your phone predicts the word you’re typing by the combination of keys you’ve pushed. Push ‘(8)tuv’, ‘(4)ghi’ and ‘(3)def’ and the computer knows you want the word ‘the’.
Miraculous. And, OK, maybe it still takes a lot longer than actually calling someone, but at least I could count on getting Eric’s attention, even if he was half asleep.
I texted, ‘Call me.’
Like I said, miraculous, but not necessarily infallible. ‘Me’ came up as ‘of’, but I fixed it with a push of a button and sent it off.
And waited.
I was about to give up and go up front to help, when the familiar beep-beep-beep alerted me to a text message.
‘Asleep,’ it said.
I punched in his phone number and
hit send. He answered, after a fashion, on the third ring. ‘Huh?’
‘Hi, sweetie,’ I said.
A groan on the other end.
‘Listen, I’m sorry to wake you up.’
This time a sigh, followed by the pounding of a pillow and then, finally, a barely discernible: ‘Class is noon.’
Honest to God, Eric was starting to sound like a text message. No hellos, no goodbyes, and no prepositions.
‘Eric,’ I said, ‘I have bad news.’
‘What?’ I could hear him sit up, suddenly alert. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ I started. ‘It’s―’
‘Grandma or Grandpa? Or Grandma Thorsen?’ Then I heard real fear creep his voice. ‘Or Dad? Is Dad OK?’
I struggled to control my voice and not show any fear for Ted. First things, first. ‘It’s Rachel, Eric. She’s dead. She―’
‘Rachel?’
I could hear the disbelief in his voice. Rachel was young. Not all that far from his age. Young people didn’t die. ‘How?’
‘I don’t know. They found her body in Lake Michigan this morning. I didn’t want you to hear it on the news.’
‘Why are you calling instead of Dad?’ he asked. ‘Is he OK?’
We didn’t raise a dumb kid.
‘Dad is fine, but he’s been worried. He’s at the police station now.’ It was true as far as it went.
‘Did she jump?’ Eric asked. ‘Why would she do that?’
‘Nobody knows what happened at this point. When I do find out more, though, I’ll call you.’
‘Will you have Dad call me when he can?’ Eric asked. ‘He might need to talk to someone.’
The remark was so quintessentially Eric that I wanted to cry. ‘I will,’ I promised. Then I told him that I loved him and hung up.
A knock at the door. ‘We’ve whittled the line down and I have to leave. Did you get hold of the kid?’ Sarah asked.
‘I did.’ I stuffed my cell back in my purse and my purse back in the desk drawer. ‘He wants Ted to call, because Eric figures Ted probably needs someone to talk to.’
‘You and Ted did good with him.’ Sarah hung up her apron.
‘I didn’t tell him his father was being questioned by the police.’
Sarah shrugged. ‘Why would you? It won’t help Ted and it sure won’t help Eric.’
‘I know, but I don’t like keeping things from him.’
‘With luck, maybe there won’t be anything to tell him,’ Sarah said.
‘And if Ted is arrested?’ I asked, following her out into the store.
‘Then you’ll tell him.’ She picked up her tennis bag and left.
I didn’t have much time to think about what I should or shouldn’t have told Eric as Caron and I dealt with the second morning rush – commuters picking up their coffee on the way to work in downtown Milwaukee.
For years, I’d made the trek myself, so I was sympathetic to people needing to get their coffee and be on their way. To make it easier for them, I’d set up an express lane for customers who wanted plain old brewed coffee. That way, they didn’t have to wait behind a ‘decaf triple-shot, skim, sugar-free vanilla latte’ person. Believe me, it was healthier for everyone.
I worked the express lane today, both because Caron prefers to chat with people as she makes their specialty drinks and . . . I don’t. Especially today.
Not that I couldn’t hear the discussion, which naturally centered on the discovery of ‘the body’. Happily, between pouring coffee and brewing a fresh pot every five minutes, I couldn’t very well be expected to join in.
Besides, everyone knew I was Ted’s ex-wife and would be sensitive to that, right?
‘I understand your ex-husband was taken into custody right in front of you,’ a voice said. ‘How did that make you feel?’
I looked up to see Kate McNamara, editor of The Observer, Brookhills weekly newspaper. In addition to editing The Observer, Kate was staff photographer and has been known to sell the occasional ad. She also reads the school lunch menu on the local cable access station.
I would wonder how she found the time, if I didn’t know that most of the news she ran in The Observer was lifted directly from the daily newspaper, the CitySentinel.
Kate McNamara is, simply put, a pain in the butt. ‘The latte line is over there, Kate,’ I told her.
‘It’s Kat. And I’ll have a black coffee today.’
‘Kat? You’re changing your name?’
She sniffed. ‘I didn’t change my name, I shortened it. I’m entitled.’
‘Don’t you think Kat is a little trendy?’ I reached for a fresh pot of coffee, proud of the restraint I’d shown by not adding, ‘for a woman your age’.
‘I think it says who I am.’ She pulled her notebook out of her over-stuffed bag. ‘Quick. Cunning.’
And totally self-absorbed. She was right. It was the perfect name for her.
‘Now tell me,’ she continued. ‘What do you know about your husband killing his new wife?’
I put the pot I had in my hand back on the burner and picked up the one I’d been about to dump down the sink. ‘Nothing.’ I poured the old coffee into a road cup and handed it to her.
‘Come on, Maggy. You were married to the man for twenty years. Can you honestly tell me you don’t know if he killed his wife?’
Actually, I honestly could tell her that. But I wouldn’t. ‘I am not going to talk to you about this, Kate.’
‘Kat,’ she corrected.
‘Kate.’
‘Kat.’
‘Children.’ Caron stepped between us with a half-made cappuccino in her hand. ‘Call each other names . . .’
‘Nicknames,’ I corrected.
‘. . . later,’ Caron finished, glaring at me. ‘Please. We have customers.’
Caron was right. And all of them were staring at us.
I turned to Kate/Kat. ‘Listen to me,’ I hissed in a low whisper, ‘this is personal. I am not going to give you a quote. So, please, go away.’
Kate just looked at me.
‘Please go away, Kat.’
She put up her hands. ‘Fine,’ she said loudly enough that people could hear. ‘I have no intention of intruding on your grief. If there’s anything that you would like to say to the public, though, I hope you’ll call me.’
She pulled a card out of her bag and slid it across the counter, and then she was gone.
‘Kat McNamara, Investigative Reporter on the Prowl?’ Caron said, picking up the card a couple of hours later.
‘I hope she chokes on a hairball,’ I muttered.
I was busy wiping down the tables for the next rush of the day, which would be the tennis moms. Unlike the soccer moms, whose kids played soccer, tennis moms were simply moms who played tennis. So, technically, you could be both a tennis mom and a soccer mom. And most probably were. Sports were big in Brookhills.
The tennis moms would have had just enough time to get the kids off to school and themselves off to a couple of sets of tennis before coming by for coffee. The weird thing was that despite playing tennis, none of them seemed to sweat. Stepford Moms.
Moms.
I sat down in the chair I’d been wiping off.
‘You OK?’ Caron asked.
‘Yeah. It just hit me again that Rachel was pregnant. Two lives lost.’
‘How far along was she?’ Caron asked.
‘I don’t know, but it had to be pretty early in the pregnancy. She certainly wasn’t showing.’
‘Do you think the police know?’
‘Pavlik is the one who told me,’ I said.
Caron took the rag out of my hand and continued cleaning the tables. ‘You know, I was thinking that you should go see the sheriff. Maybe you can find out what’s happening with Ted and patch things up with Pavlik at the same time.’
‘That’s not a bad idea.’ Not the “patching things up”, because it probably wouldn't be that easy, but I really did want to check up on Ted. If I didn’t
owe it to Ted, I did to our son.
Besides, why should Emma Byrne have all the fun?
When I finished work at two o’clock, I drove home, showered and changed. Then I dialed Pavlik’s cellphone number. He didn’t answer.
‘He has to have his cellphone,’ I said to Frank. ‘He’s the sheriff.’
Unless ‘the sheriff’ was avoiding my calls.
I hung up the phone and pulled out my keys. I’d go to his office and drop in unannounced. How bad could it be?
I had no idea.
Pavlik was in his office.
‘Can I come in?’ I asked, sticking my head around the doorjamb.
‘Certainly.’ It was what you said to a stranger. Or, even worse, a constituent. The sheriff waved me to a chair next to his desk. I closed the door and went to sit. The chair made a whistley noise.
‘First, I want to apologize,’ I started.
‘No apology necessary,’ he said.
That was it. That’s all he said. His eyes were neutral. Not blue. Not stormy gray. Not anything.
Feeling awkward, I glanced down at his desk. ‘Those are my calendars.’
‘I know.’
I was getting a little tired of the polite little responses. ‘Don’t you need my permission to have them?’
‘They’re evidence. Stephen Slattery turned them over to me.’
Two sentences. I was making progress. I was also feeling uncomfortable about Pavlik pawing through my calendars. Since he’d already pawed me, though, I wasn’t sure why. ‘Am I going to get them back?’
‘Eventually.’
Back to single word responses. ‘Aren’t you being a bit juvenile?’
Pavlik’s eyes darkened, just a little. It felt like progress. ‘I’m being professional, Maggy. I don’t know what else I can be with you.’
I wasn’t sure what to say to that. ‘Are you still holding Ted?’
His eyes went even darker. ‘For now.’
I stood up. ‘Does he need a lawyer?’
‘If he wants one.’
I wondered if Emma had been there. The way things were going between Pavlik and me, she’d probably be more help to Ted than I could be. ‘Did you see a woman? Black hair, blue eyes?’
‘Can’t say. Why?’ Pavlik looked suddenly interested.
