6 A Cup of Jo

by Sandra Balzo

  She nodded toward a clique of seven or eight women dressed in tennis togs, just turning the corner. While Sarah was better suited to interact with the ladies who do tennis – she'd actually been one (though, granted, only for a couple of weeks) – Anita was, for once, right: I really should get in there to help.

  Besides, I'd prefer to speak with Kevin privately, anyway.

  'That sounds . . .' I started, and then realized that Anita was nowhere to be seen. 'Fine.'

  'You're talking to yourself, Maggy,' one of the tennis players said, as they charged up the steps, sweeping me inside with them.

  'I always do that,' a squat woman offered.

  'That's because no one else will.' This from a fiftyish blonde.

  'Says you.' An elbow to the ribs, delivered by the squat woman.

  'Tough morning on the courts?' I asked, holding the door for them. Usually the ladies of tennis were companionable. Until someone left. Then the pack would rip the departed apart.

  'This is Buster Chops Day,' the blonde volunteered, slurring the phrase. 'First annual.'

  'Bust your chops,' the silver-haired lady corrected. 'It means the hell with the air-kissing, you bitches.' She slapped her hand over her mouth in horror and then giggled.

  Sounded like they'd done more busting open of the Gray Goose than chops. Bloody Marys all around. 'And what does Bust Your Chops Day involve?'

  'You know, like the guys,' the blonde said. 'We've been scratching our balls and swearing all morning. I sort of like it.'

  'I've watched a lot of men's tennis,' I said. 'But I don't recall any ball scratching. A fair amount of adjusting, front and back, but—'

  'Not those balls.' Silver Hair, seemingly the ringleader, set her tennis bag on the chair and, after pulling out sweatbands and a sun visor, hand sanitizer and a box of tissues, she finally came up with a canister.

  'Hold out your hand,' she commanded.

  Yeah, like I was that stupid. I had two older brothers and I'd fallen for all of their tricks. The offer of ABC gum which, when plunked into my eager four-year-old hand, turned out to stand for 'Already Been Chewed'. For God's sake, I was so young, I couldn't even spell. It took me until first grade to get the joke.

  Then there was Cowboys, the card game that consisted of throwing the cards all over the room and yelling 'round 'em up' to the gullible victim.

  My brothers were evil geniuses. Whoopie cushions and plastic vomit were child's play to them. Fake dog poop? They had the real thing.

  'C'mon, it won't hurt you.'

  I studied Silver Hair for ill intent. The top was already off the can, so a paper snake couldn't leap out at me.

  I sighed and held out my hand. Silver Hair rolled a ball from the can into my palm.

  'Feels like a real ball,' I said.

  'Scratch it to be sure,' someone yelled.

  Sheesh.

  I did a quick calculation. Eight customers, three times a week, buying pricey specialty drinks. 'OK, I get it. I'll scratch your ball.' Managing a weak smile, I did so, then handed the ball back.

  Silver Hair examined it. 'Seemed a lot funnier on the court.'

  'I think we could all use some coffee, don't you, Maggy?' Amy, who'd come out to man the window, said with a wink.

  'You bet. Coffee all around.'

  'On the house?' someone asked.

  'Hell, no,' I said loudly. 'This is Bust-Your-Chops Day. Pay for your own damn caffeine.'

  A good-natured cheer went up.

  Kevin Williams came in just as the last of the rowdy tennis group left. Let's hope the blonde Barbie was right about the 'annual' part and that B-Y-C Day didn't come but once a year.

  Still, the commotion had served as a welcomed distraction. I'd barely thought about Pavlik, but on seeing Kevin, everything came flooding back.

  The props man looked awful. Still thighs the size of tree trunks and biceps like tree limbs, but this tree was hurting.

  All I could think of was a weeping willow.

  'Why don't you tell me what you'd like to drink, Kevin, and we'll take them in back.' The store wasn't busy, but I didn't want anyone, even Sarah and Amy, to be able to overhear us.

  'A cup of black sounds good.' He leaned his elbows on the counter. 'What a difference a day or two makes, huh? Wednesday at dawn, everything was fine. Now it's all—'

  'Excuse me.' Anita was holding the door open, sleigh bells banging against the glass. 'Kevin, you can reach me at home tomorrow if need be.'

  He raised his bear paw of a hand. 'Sorry about getting our signals crossed, but we'll take care of it.'

  'I know you will.' She gave me a self-satisfied smile. 'And now that the police are gone, Maggy, I'm sure Kevin will take care of your breakdown as soon as he resolves my issue. Right, Kevin?'

  Anita Hampton didn't wait for an answer, instead disappearing with the incongruously cheery jingle-jangle of the sleigh bells.

  '"'ere she drove out of sight",' Kevin recited. '"Happy Christmas to all, and to all a goodnight!"'

  'I'd love to stuff her up a chimney,' I said under my breath.

  'Christmas is coming,' Kevin muttered right back.

  Our eyes met and we both laughed. He shrugged. 'Anita's a good customer of mine. Things are tough these days, so you do what's necessary.'

  Amen. Like hosting Tennis Barbies Gone Wild.

  I hadn't realized that Kevin's company was having trouble, though, other than the pilfering of materials he'd told us about. Now to make matters worse, he'd be minus both JoLynne and her outside salary.

  'Ready?' I said, handing him his coffee and picking up my iced latte.

  'Sure, but instead of sitting in your office or something, can we go out to the boarding platform? I'm still trying to figure this thing.'

  'Of course.' We took our drinks to a trackside door, the one by . . .

  I gestured to where the machine had been. 'Did the police take your air pump?'

  'My compressor? Yeah. And the inflatables themselves, of course.' He swung the door open and we stepped out, settling ourselves on the edge of the planking, legs dangling.

  The stage was cleared off, but Kevin's men hadn't gotten much further on the breakdown before he'd pulled them away to do Anita's bidding.

  Kevin was staring at the spot his wife's body had hit. He might look like a big muscle-bound lug, but he had the most beautiful, golden-brown eyes. And now there were tears in them. 'I'll have all this crap out of here tomorrow. My guys had to leave off on the gallows and go downtown.'

  'Anita. Got it.' I wanted to talk to him about Pavlik and JoLynne, but I needed to ease into it. 'Any idea what event she's having?'

  Kevin looked up, surprised. 'Don't know. All Anita said was she needed the train dedication stuff cleared out.'

  'She probably made it up.'

  He looked sideways at me. 'So I'd do what she wanted?' A moment of cogitation. 'That Anita, she's a piece of work.'

  'Don't I know it. I used to work with her.'

  'So I heard. You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din.' A weak grin.

  'I thought Anita might mellow when she got married.'

  'I'm sure the pants in the family hang from her closet pole. That Brewster, he bends with the wind.' He seemed to remember himself. 'Sorry, I don't mean to be bad-mouthing clients.'

  I rearranged my butt on the hard boards and stuck out my hand. 'Nothing we say goes beyond here. Deal?'

  He looked at my palm, then took my hand. 'Deal.'

  'By the way, I met your mime.'

  Kevin chuckled. 'Ragnar? What'd you think?'

  'Adorable. That hair? That accent? I can almost forgive him for being a mime.'

  'How did you make him?' Kevin asked.

  'A smudge of make-up,' I said, pointing to the part of my neck that corresponded with Ragnar's dab of face paint. 'And certain mannerisms.'

  'I hope everybody's eyes aren't as sharp as yours. I told Ragnar to keep his secret life as a mime under wraps.'

  I laughed. 'A hidden closet with a
lone red-and-white striped shirt and short pants awaiting the next assignment? A phone booth for the quick change?'

  'Yeah, only it's an imaginary phone booth, which can cause problems,' Kevin said, his lips between a grin and a grimace.

  'Charges of . . . indecent mimicry?'

  Kevin hesitated, then got it. 'Exactly.'

  I liked the man and it was good to see him animated, but the time had come to steer the discussion toward my agenda. 'I understand the sheriff talked with you.'

  'Nice way of putting it.' His face was flushed. 'All the time he's asking me if I was jealous or if Jo had been unfaithful, I have no idea the guy who's asking the questions is the one who already knows the answers.'

  'Did you suspect?' We were still sitting side by side, faces forward, not looking at each other.

  'About the affair? No.' A pause. 'You?'

  'No.'

  'You and the sheriff were – what, engaged or something?'

  'No, just dating.' Seeing each other. Not even sure it was a relationship. 'It's a lot harder for you.'

  Duh. Of course it's harder for him. Not only did Kevin's wife cheat on him, but she's dead. And, oh yeah, the police thought – hell, might still think – he killed her.

  Kevin glanced quickly at me and then away. 'If you trust someone and they betray that trust . . . well, nothing's harder than that.'

  Amen. 'So now the authorities are questioning Pavlik,' I said. 'Does that mean they've cleared you?'

  It should have been an awkward question to handle, but, somehow, it didn't seem to be.

  'For now.' Kevin's big shoulders went up and down. 'Between the background film the television crews have – the B-roll I think it's called – and me seeing and talking to people, the cops can't find a time that I could have killed Jo and gotten her into the cup without somebody seeing something.'

  'That's a relief.' I knew I was saying it weakly, but I meant it. Nothing could bring JoLynne back or change what she and Pavlik had done, but the last thing I wanted was for Kevin to be falsely accused of her killing. 'I've been told the cause of death was asphyxiation. Do you know anything more than that?'

  Also, an apparently awkward question, but again it didn't feel that way.

  'She was –' he swallowed hard – 'burked.'

  The word sounded like 'burped' and I knew it couldn't be that. 'I'm sorry, Kevin. But . . .?'

  'B-u-r-k. I'd never heard of it either.' He was staring off in the distance, almost reciting. 'The cops told me it's when you hold someone's nose and mouth closed until they suffocate.'

  Awful. The murderer could be looking right into the victim's eyes as life began to fade from them. 'But JoLynne would have struggled.'

  A barely noticeable shake of the head, then almost a spasm. 'Not if you're sitting on the person's chest, arms pinned under your knees.'

  'JoLynne was so little, I guess it wouldn't have to be someone very big.' God help me, I was thinking of Pavlik at almost six feet. Or Kevin, himself, a giant of a man. Or even . . .

  'If you do it right, they tell me, anyone can . . .'

  Do it right. When the act itself was so wrong. 'Do you think Pavlik killed JoLynne?'

  'Not for me to say.' A shrug. 'She's gone. Nothing will change that.' A silence, then: 'Do you?'

  'Do I what?'

  'Think the sheriff did it?'

  I started to shake my head automatically, but after the way Kevin had opened up to me, I owed it to him to really consider his question. Not to mention my owing Pavlik as well.

  No matter what kind of sugar-coating you layered on, 'my' sheriff knew that I cared about him. Yet, instead of being with me as much as his demanding job would allow, he'd started an affair with a married woman.

  That did not mean he was a killer.

  Yet, like Sarah, I believed Pavlik would kill. He'd take a life to protect me. Or to protect someone else. He would kill to defend his country – or his county – and the people in it. Pavlik would use deadly force to stop an armed bad guy.

  My lover might even kill in anger. Or for revenge.

  But Pavlik could not sit on a woman's chest, pinch her nose closed, place a hand over her mouth and watch the light drain from her terrified eyes.

  That he could never do.

  'No.' I turned to Kevin. 'No. Pavlik did not kill JoLynne.'

  Chapter Thirteen

  My answer did, however, pretty much kill the conversation. And if that weren't enough, Sarah arrived to put a second bullet in its head.

  'I've been looking for you everywhere,' she said, standing on the gravel below where Kevin and I were seated. 'Are you going to stay out here all day? Tomorrow's Saturday and you're off. We have to talk about scheduling.' Then, as an afterthought to Kevin: 'Sorry.'

  'That's OK.' He hopped off the train platform. 'I have to get going anyway. Ragnar's car is in the repair shop, and I said I'd pick him up around noon.

  'Noon?' I asked. 'It's not that late, is it?'

  'Nah, but he lives out in the boonies. Pain in the butt, only we need him.'

  'Ragnar is one of Kevin's guys, Sarah. He also—'

  'I'm sure he's fascinating.'

  My. Weren't we in a snit all of a sudden?

  'OK, I'm coming in.' I brushed off my bum and turned to the props man. 'It was good talking to you, Kevin. Let me know if there's anything I can do.'

  'Same here, Maggy. Thanks.'

  Sarah waited for Kevin to drive away before asking, 'Does he know about his wife and Pavlik?'

  'Ohhh, yeah.'

  'Must have been a sprightly discussion out here.' Sarah inspected me. 'Are you all right?'

  'Of course.'

  'Of course?'

  'Yes.' I led the way around the corner to the front entrance. 'It's not like being cheated on is exactly new to me.'

  'Ahh, that's a good sign,' Sarah said, climbing the steps after me. 'You're blaming Pavlik and your ex rather than yourself. And about time, too.'

  I stopped at the door. 'I wasn't blaming myself.'

  A rude noise. 'Like hell you weren't. It's what you always do.'

  She put her palms together and laid them aside one cheek, a la Pauline, the damsel perennially in peril. 'Oh, woe is me. What could I have done to make my husband of twenty years run off with his bimboid hygienist?'

  'First off, Rachel wasn't a bimboid.' A slut, sure, but a rich one with more brains than my ex-husband. 'Secondly, you barely knew me back then. You can't have any idea how I reacted.'

  'I do, too.' Sarah opened the door to usher me into our shop. 'To know you is . . . well, to know you.'

  I could feel my fingers curl involuntarily.

  'Oh, dear,' a voice behind us said. 'Isn't that just the most irritating thing someone can possibly say?'

  I pivoted, running into Sarah who was still holding the door open for me.

  She let go, the automatic closer taking over.

  A hand caught the door before it could shut itself. A yellow-gloved hand. 'I'm so sorry,' Christy said. 'I didn't mean to eavesdrop.'

  'Then don't,' Sarah said. 'Maggy, will you please go in?'

  But Christy was still talking. 'It's just that people have said that about me and Ronny, and he hasn't even gone to trial yet.'

  She followed us over the threshold. 'They'll say, "I know you, Christy. You'll never be happy with a felon." Or "I know you, Christy. You won't be able to set so much as a foot in that filthy jail." Just goes to show.'

  The piano teacher stood in the middle of our coffeehouse, feet wide, yellow fists planted defiantly on her hips, like a superhero. 'No one really knows you. Except . . . you.'

  A smattering of applause from the peanut gallery, which consisted of Jerome and Amy, seated at a table together by the window. Jerome had left the shop with Kate earlier, but apparently wended his way back.

  Christy blushed in response. 'Sorry. I guess I get so, so . . .'

  'Passionate,' Amy said, rising to wait on her. 'Passion's a good thing.'

  Christy looked li
ke she was going to cry. 'It's just that I'm not used to, to . . .'

  'Touching human flesh?' Sarah said in my ear. 'I wonder if Cousin Ronny and Christy are . . . conjugating.'

  As in conjugal visits. I smacked my partner in the shoulder. 'That's mean.'

  And none of Sarah's business, either. Besides, Courageous Christy was too busy fighting grime, if not crime, to have a personal life. Maybe she should dump Ronny and hook up with Ragnar. They could share an invisible phone booth.

  All right, a very clean invisible phone booth.

  I waved Amy back to her table. 'I've got this.' I pushed through the swinging door into the service area behind the windows.

  'I've been waiting for you.'

  'Holy shit, Pavlik,' I said, hand on my heart, checking to be sure it was still beating. 'Are you going to make a habit of scaring the hell out of me?'

  He didn't look much like a sheriff in his jeans and a black, long-sleeved Harley-Davidson 'Fat Boys Rule' T-shirt. I was surprised I hadn't heard him vroom up on his motorcycle, but I'd been otherwise engaged.

  Pavlik held up a hand. 'Sorry.'

  Yeah, everybody was sorry today.

  I went to the service windows and stuck my head through one. 'Christy, can I get you something?'

  'Not this second, Maggy.' The piano teacher was sitting with Amy and Jerome at their table, deep in conversation.

  For her part, Sarah had disappeared. I had a feeling I now knew why she'd been so eager to get me to come inside.

  I turned to Pavlik, hovering by the sink. 'I assume Sarah smuggled you past our airtight security?'

  Pavlik looked hurt. 'I walked through the front door.'

  'So why are you hiding in here?'

  'I wanted to talk to you and Sarah thought it would be better—'

  'Gotcha.' I leaned against the door jamb to the kitchen, facing him. 'I understand there's been a twist in your case.'

  'I wasn't having an affair with JoLynne, Maggy.'

  Pavlik's eyes, which I'd come to believe reflected his moods, were basic gray. No sparkling blue floaters, like when he was teasing me and happy, or brooding charcoal embers, like when he was angry. In short, they told me nothing.

  I tried to pull in a deep breath, but it was like a sledgehammer had collapsed a lung. 'Are you a suspect in her murder?'