Flat White

by Sandra Balzo

‘The commercial license,’ I said to Sarah in an undertone.

  ‘What?’ she asked loudly.

  I kept my voice low. ‘Kelly said that Barry Margraves had a job here and should have had a commercial license. She was talking about a commercial driver’s license, which would be needed to drive the snowplow for Brookhills County.’

  ‘They thought Margraves stopped by to see Christy and had been run over by his own plow,’ Sarah said, catching my drift.

  ‘I guess so.’ I rubbed my forehead. ‘Though he wasn’t dressed much like a truck driver. I think his coat was cashmere.’

  ‘Bloody, smooshed and snow-covered cashmere now,’ Sarah pointed out. ‘They can be excused.’

  ‘True.’ Until autopsy, when all is usually revealed.

  Rebecca came around the corner. ‘Which coat is Christy’s? I’m going to take her home.’ She glanced at the deputy. ‘Assuming that’s OK?’

  ‘It’s fine.’

  I pointed Rebecca to the hook with Christy’s heavy wool coat. I had hung her bag back over it. ‘There with the bag. She’ll want that, too.’

  ‘Thanks.’ She turned toward them.

  ‘Rebecca, one thing,’ I said, stopping her.

  ‘Yes?’ We had never really been friends, and now her eyes regarded me suspiciously.

  ‘It’s just that I know you helped Christy with the online dating and all. You’ve gotten close.’

  ‘Are you going to tell her about Margraves?’ Sarah asked me.

  ‘I was going to, but I don’t know if I should,’ I said, glancing toward the deputy’s back.

  ‘Tell me what about Margraves?’ Rebecca asked.

  ‘I don’t know if I should say,’ I said. ‘The deputy may want to do it.’

  ‘Deputy may want to do what?’ Kelly Anthony had been speaking in low tones to Harold and now swiveled her head toward us.

  I went over. ‘Tell Christy about Barry being married,’ I whispered.

  ‘She’s not a suspect,’ Anthony said in a normal voice. ‘If there’s a crime here, it’s vehicular homicide.’

  Harold Byerly groaned. ‘Oh, no. I …’

  Anthony held up her hand to him before turning to me. ‘If you want to break the bad news to your friend, have at it.’

  ‘I was thinking we should tell Rebecca and she could help us decide when to tell Christy.’ Or, even better, do it herself.

  ‘Tell me what?’ Rebecca asked testily. She had good hearing, but not much patience, and we were trying what little supply she had left at this point.

  ‘That Barry-boy was married,’ Sarah said. ‘Happy?’

  Rebecca closed her eyes. ‘Damn.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘So what do you think? Do we tell her? And if so, when?’

  Rebecca rubbed her face, thinking it over as she went to retrieve the coat and bag. When she came back, she was shaking her head. ‘I don’t want to tell her tonight.’

  Christy popped her head out. ‘Can we go?’

  ‘Of course,’ Rebecca said, giving her the coat. She held the bag as Christy pulled on the coat and then handed it to her.

  ‘Is there anything else I can do for you?’ Christy said, approaching the deputy. ‘For Barry?’

  Deputy Anthony stood. ‘Not at the moment. But we’ll be in touch.’

  ‘Thank you.’ Christy touched Byerly on the shoulder. ‘I know it was an accident.’

  ‘It was,’ he said, tears coming to his eyes. ‘I don’t know how it happened.’

  ‘I forgive you for killing the love of my life,’ Christy said, making the sign of the cross before she curtsied. ‘Go in peace.’

  ‘Well, that was … nice of her,’ Anthony said, as the door closed behind the two women.

  I watched as they picked their way across the snow-covered road to Christy’s studio, avoiding the still taped-off area where Barry Margraves had lain.

  ‘She’s had a shock.’ Kelly Anthony had appeared at my shoulder as Byerly excused himself to go to the bathroom. Again. ‘She won’t be operating on all cylinders for a while.’

  ‘It’s up to debate whether Christy even has all cylinders,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Be nice,’ I said automatically, as Christy stopped to pull a manila envelope from the mailbox before pausing at the door and looking down at her feet and then back across the road at us. ‘She’s just realized she forgot her boots.’

  ‘Her shoes are already wet,’ Anthony said, as a verbal push-pull ensued across the street, with Christy apparently wanting to come back for the boots and Rebecca arguing against it. ‘Crossing back will only make it worse.’

  ‘Which is exactly what Rebecca is probably telling her,’ I said. ‘But Christy is a creature of habit. I think it’s what keeps her functioning.’

  ‘We all need some semblance of routine in our lives, I guess,’ Anthony said with a shrug.

  ‘Maybe you should take Christy her boots,’ I suggested to Sarah.

  Sarah had been about to sit down. ‘You’re kidding, right?’

  Yes, but only myself. ‘Never mind.’

  Seat taken, Sarah said, ‘Best she and Rebecca have some alone time anyway. She can tell Christy about Margraves being married.’

  ‘It didn’t sound like she was in any hurry to do that,’ I said.

  ‘I hope she doesn’t wait too long,’ Sarah said, leaning back in the chair. ‘Meeting the wife at the funeral could be awkward.’

  An exceptionally good point. ‘Has she been notified?’ I asked Anthony. ‘Barry Margraves’ wife, Helena, I mean.’

  ‘Margraves had a cell number for her on his phone, but it went directly to voicemail. I asked that she call us back.’

  ‘Good thinking,’ Sarah said. ‘“Your husband has been killed by a snowplow while visiting his mistress” isn’t a message to leave on voicemail.’

  ‘Christy wasn’t his mistress,’ I said. ‘She had no idea he was a cheating bastard.’

  ‘What are you saying?’ Deputy Anthony asked, head cocked to look at me. ‘That Margraves got what he deserved?’

  I could feel my eyes go wide. ‘No, of course not. I only meant—’

  She waved me off with a grin. ‘Just messing with you. I know how much you get off on this murder stuff.’

  When I am not a suspect, thank you very much.

  Deputy Anthony picked up her notebook as we heard the toilet flush. ‘Happily, this is probably an accident or, at worst, negligent homicide.’

  ‘Not so happily for Margraves,’ I muttered to myself, as the door closed behind her and Harold Byerly a few minutes later. ‘Or Harold, for that matter.’

  ‘Is Harold in big trouble?’ I asked. ‘I mean, criminal kind of trouble?’

  Pavlik and I were sitting on our living room sofa waiting for Thai takeout to be delivered. Maybe my ordering Thai food for dinner was as insensitive as Sarah hankering for a flat white as Barry Margraves’ body was being scraped off the snowy ground. But pad thai had just sounded good. Minus the extended bathroom time, I hoped.

  ‘Still to be determined,’ Pavlik said. ‘We do know a twenty-ton truck apparently sat idling unattended for nearly twenty minutes before rolling down the street to kill a man.’

  The twenty minutes was admittedly a puzzler. ‘Was the truck in gear?’

  ‘It was in neutral when the deputies found it.’

  ‘Are garbage trucks manual transmission?’

  ‘The county has both. This one was manual, from what Anthony said.’

  ‘Was the parking brake set?’ I asked, tucking one foot under me and turning to face him more directly.

  ‘Apparently not.’

  I cocked my head. ‘Are you saying that because it rolled or is there a way of actually telling that mechanically?’

  ‘You mean when we take the truck into the shop for processing?’

  ‘Do you do that?’ I asked. ‘I mean, I know you do. But in a case like this?’

  ‘There’s always the possibility of mechanical failure, which will enter into the findin
g of fault.’

  ‘So say if the brake was pulled, but the truck still rolled. That would be a mechanical failure.’

  ‘Yes. The plow stopped in the pile of snow cleared from the depot parking lot. There’s no indication the parking brake was on and failed, but we’ll check, of course.’

  ‘Why would Harold park the truck and not put the brake on?’

  ‘He was in a hurry to get to your bathroom?’ Pavlik checked his watch. ‘When is the food being delivered?’

  ‘Should be here soon,’ I said, getting up to glance out the window. No action yet. I turned. ‘If Harold did leave the truck without pulling the handbrake, he would be negligent.’

  Pavlik patted the sofa next to him. ‘I’m sure we’ll hear when the delivery comes.’

  I sat back down next to him. ‘And?’

  ‘And, yes, Byerly would be negligent. But it also begs the question I referred to earlier.’

  ‘Why did it sit there idling before it rolled down the street?’ I rubbed my chin. ‘Maybe the heat of the truck melted the snow around it, freeing it to roll?’

  Pavlik dipped his head. ‘Good theory. I would think that’s possible, but the crime scene investigators will tell us more. It’s just a shame that a lot of the physical evidence has been lost.’

  ‘Because of the snow.’ I was trying to think back to what I had seen of the truck’s path before impact with Barry. It had been moving at a good clip, or so it seemed in that freeze-framed moment.

  I had just assumed the truck had a driver. Who wouldn’t? It was obscured by snow and my attention was on Margraves as he stepped back into the street. ‘Kelly and the first responders found a man dead on the street and an empty truck crashed nearby. Didn’t they wonder where the driver was?’

  ‘Of course. That’s why they assumed the driver had gotten out of his truck for some reason and been run over by his own plow.’

  ‘I told Kelly Christy’s friend had been hit by the plow but didn’t realize she thought he was the driver.’

  ‘Believe me,’ he said, perturbed, ‘I’m not happy about Anthony’s assumption. It wasted precious time and allowed the scene to be compromised.’

  ‘You know what they say,’ I said, shifting so I could snuggle my back against him. ‘When you assume, you make an ass of—’

  ‘Please don’t.’

  Fine. I wouldn’t. I did smile just a little.

  ‘But you’re right,’ Pavlik said. ‘And that assumption stalled and confused everything until you produced Harold Byerly.’

  Aw shucks. ‘I didn’t so much produce him as he emerged. Took us all by surprise, but Kelly more than the rest of us, given she thought he was dead.’

  ‘And what did you assume?’ Pavlik wrapped an arm around me. ‘That Byerly had finished in the bathroom and gone back out?’

  ‘Yes, though in hindsight he’d have had to use the side door onto the train platform and then gone down the stairs from there. Christy and I were standing by the front door or on the front porch the entire time, so we would have seen him go out the front.’

  ‘The platform door is right across from the restroom,’ Pavlik pointed out. ‘So, it would have made sense for him to go out that way.’

  Our sheepdog Frank wandered in, sniffing the air.

  ‘I guess. When Margraves was hit, I figured it was Harold or even another snowplow completely. Either way, I didn’t expect him to still be in our bathroom.’

  Finding no aromas wafting here in the living room, Frank padded back out, likely to report to Mocha that dinner was not yet served.

  ‘Harold left the truck in front of Clare’s shop.’ Clare’s Antiques and Floral Shop was on the other end of our block, across the street from the former Penn and Ink.

  Pavlik hesitated. ‘Do you know that or are you fishing?’

  I squeezed one eye closed and squinted at him. ‘Does it matter?’

  ‘Not really.’ He snugged me closer to him. ‘I usually get more information than I give in one of these consultations regardless.’

  I pulled away. ‘I beg to differ.’

  ‘Which is exactly why we keep doing this,’ he said, pulling me back. ‘We both delude ourselves into believing we’ve won.’

  Well, yes. But I win more. I leaned back into him. ‘Anyway, Harold parked the truck in front of Clare’s because the space in front of our shop isn’t big enough for a truck.’ There was a driveway leading to the parking lot on one side of our building and the train tracks on the other. ‘Then he hot-footed it to Uncommon Grounds to occupy our bathroom.’

  ‘We’ll have to take the word of you and his irritable bowel. By the time Deputy Anthony realized Margraves wasn’t the driver—’

  ‘The blowing and drifting had made a mess of any footprints,’ I guessed. Sarah and I had cleared our sidewalk three times before we had finally called it a day and closed.

  ‘It was a full thirty minutes after the accident that Byerly re-emerged, as you say, and told Anthony where he had parked the truck and when.’

  The dogs came trotting back in the room and I disengaged myself from Pavlik’s arm around my waist and stood up. ‘An accident, like you say.’

  The doorbell rang. The four canine ears and two canine noses were seldom wrong. I didn’t know why I had bothered to look out the window earlier.

  ‘Thanks,’ I said, taking one big bag and one small from the driver. They had my charge card on file.

  ‘Beef with basil, I hope?’ Pavlik said, taking a bag from me.

  I closed the door against the cold and led the way back to the couch and glass-topped coffee table, where I had already stacked plates and silverware. Plus poured a nice dry Riesling in two glasses. ‘Beef with basil, pad thai with shrimp and chicken satay. A veritable Thai smorgasbord.’ I was opening boxes as I spoke.

  A string of drool landed on my bare foot.

  Mocha. Frank’s drool was usually absorbed by his beard, at least until it reached saturation point and rapelled onto the coffee table.

  ‘You’ll get yours after we have ours,’ I assured her.

  She gave me the chihuahua stare and sat down on Frank’s foot. He pulled it out from under and harrumphed down next to her.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, sticking serving spoons in the beef and pad thai. ‘You were saying?’

  ‘What?’ Pavlik scored a satay skewer.

  I slid the little plastic cup of peanut sauce closer to him for enticement. ‘You were saying that it was an accident and Harold won’t be charged.’

  He took the sauce. ‘Just because you voice something doesn’t make it true, you know. Harold Byerly was careless to leave the plow unlocked and running, at the very least.’

  ‘This is Brookhills, though. And it is winter. People start their cars and leave them running to warm up all the time.’ Not one to let myself starve, even in the pursuit of justice, I dished pad thai onto my plate and added a bit of beef with basil.

  ‘They shouldn’t do that either.’ Pavlik dunked. ‘But at least most are smart enough to leave the car in their own driveway, not on a public street.’

  I stopped, fork in the air with a rice noodle hanging off it. ‘Do we know that he left the engine running? Harold wasn’t sure when Deputy Anthony asked.’

  ‘Odd thing not to be sure of.’ Pavlik took another skewer and used his fork to push the meat off.

  ‘You think he’s lying?’

  Pavlik shrugged. ‘I think that Byerly knows that admitting he left his truck unlocked with the engine running will get him into trouble. With Brookhills County Services, if not with us.’

  ‘You’re both Brookhills County.’

  ‘Yes, but one of us can fire him, the other can revoke his license and put him in jail.’

  I put my fork down and picked up my wine glass. ‘Tell me about commercial driving licenses. Kelly mentioned them in connection with Margraves when she thought he was the driver.’

  ‘A CDL is required to operate a vehicle over twenty-six thousand pounds.’ Pavlik ha
d moved onto the beef with basil.

  ‘But …’ Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a string of drool coming off Frank’s beard. Catching it with a napkin, I tidied his beard and set the napkin gingerly aside on the coffee table, oozy side up. ‘Of course, Barry Margraves wasn’t the driver at all so it’s no surprise he didn’t have your CDL. Is the license he had on him enough for identification? Kelly didn’t ask Christy to ID him, even though she volunteered.’

  ‘I bet she did,’ Pavlik said. ‘For as meek as Christy might appear, she has a backbone of steel. She was quite the champion for Ronny Eisvogel when he was in county jail before his trial and sentencing.’

  To state prison. ‘I found a shiv in her purse yesterday.’

  This made Pavlik put down his fork. ‘You’re kidding.’

  ‘Made from a toothbrush,’ I told him. ‘She used it to clean the wheels of our condiment cart.’

  ‘Christy got it from Ronny?’ Pavlik was appalled.

  ‘No, she made it herself. She said she wanted to show him she cared.’

  ‘Prisoners make shivs out of what they can get their hands on in prison. Visitors don’t try to smuggle them in.’

  ‘I see what you’re saying.’ I put down my glass as I considered what to add to my plate. ‘Better to smuggle in a real weapon like a gun or knife.’

  ‘Or not,’ Pavlik said dryly.

  Spoilsport. ‘Anyway,’ I said with a grin, ‘we were talking about the identification of Margraves’ body. Is the Colorado license he had on him sufficient?’

  ‘Mrs Margraves will confirm the identification when she gets here,’ Pavlik said. ‘Can you pass the pad thai?’

  I complied, pausing to add a hefty spoonful on my plate en route. ‘You got hold of her? Kelly said she had to leave a voicemail message.’

  ‘Yes, Mrs Margraves called Anthony back,’ Pavlik said, cherry-picking shrimp from the pad thai. ‘Tough one. The poor woman didn’t even know her husband was here in Brookhills.’

  ‘Where did she think he was?’

  ‘He told her he was going to San Diego to meet about a property for some tech company.’

  ‘Is that what he does?’ I’d realized earlier that Christy hadn’t told me what the man did for a living, which was kind of amazing. I did, however, know his dog’s name. ‘Technology of some sort?’