Flat White

by Sandra Balzo

  Christy lifted her chin. ‘Not my fault. And I have an alibi. What’s yours?’

  ‘My alibi?’ Helena repeated. ‘Why would I need an alibi? My husband was killed in an accident. With a snowplow.’

  I had let go of her and now she snagged her purse, pulling up the handle of her roller bag. ‘I’m getting out of this insane asylum.’

  ‘You don’t have a passport,’ I reminded her, wondering how Kelly Anthony had missed her at the airport. ‘Did you get all the way to Mitchell International?’

  ‘Yes. I was at the front of the security line and had to catch a ride back when I realized I’d left my passport.’ She checked her watch. ‘I’ve missed my plane now.’

  ‘Need a room for tonight?’ Caron wasn’t much help in an emergency, but she was an efficient hotelier.

  ‘This hotel is the last place …’ She stopped and took a deep, shuddering breath. ‘I am so sorry. This is not who I am.’

  She sat down, Christy scooting over to make room on the couch.

  ‘I’m sorry, too,’ Christy said. ‘I didn’t mean to steal your husband. I didn’t know he was a husband.’

  ‘I know,’ Helena Margraves said. ‘I guess I knew that the moment I saw you. But that meant Barry lied to us both and it … it …’ She burst into tears.

  Christy had her arm around Helena and the two women were sobbing on each other’s shoulders as Deputy Kelly Anthony burst into the main lobby.

  ‘What on earth do you make of all this?’ Anthony muttered, stopping short to take in the scene.

  ‘You didn’t catch Helena at the airport, because she lost her passport,’ I told her.

  ‘And her husband.’ Caron had joined us. ‘Christy, her married lover.’

  ‘Not quite lover,’ I said. ‘But I suppose that doesn’t make it any easier from her standpoint.’

  ‘So they’re … bonding?’ The deputy was still staring at the woman.

  I just shrugged.

  Caron turned to Anthony, nose wrinkled. ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘You called me.’

  ‘Maggy told me to,’ Caron said. ‘But I’m not sure why. Are you going to arrest one of them?’

  Anthony glanced over at me and then shook her head. ‘I need to ask Mrs Margraves some questions.’

  ‘Oh, yes. Because she told you she wasn’t in Brookhills when her husband died and she was,’ Caron said, head bobbing. ‘We wondered about that, didn’t we, Maggy.’

  ‘We did,’ I confirmed, then checked the time. ‘Umm, Christy?’

  The redhead lifted her tearful face. ‘Yes, Maggy?’

  ‘Did you lock the store?’

  ‘Uh-huh,’ she said, swiping at her nose. ‘And I texted Sarah to come back.’

  That was not going to go over well with my partner. Though Sarah had bailed on me, if truth be told.

  ‘Do you want me to go back?’ Christy asked, patting Helena on the shoulder before standing up.

  ‘That would be … lovely,’ I said, a little surprised.

  Kelly Anthony was visibly relieved. ‘Yes, I … um, yes, I need to talk to Mrs Margraves alone, so that probably would be best.’

  ‘Maybe call Sarah and tell her she doesn’t need to come back?’ I called after Christy as she went through the revolving door.

  To my disappointment, Deputy Anthony did not think the hotel lobby made a good interrogation room and took a still distraught Helena Margraves to the station.

  Which meant I had no reason not to go back to Uncommon Grounds. Unfortunately, Sarah was already there.

  ‘Christy was supposed to call you off,’ I said, kicking my boots off on the mat.

  ‘And you were supposed to keep the shop open and functioning,’ Sarah said sourly.

  Noonish and there was no one there anyway. Though the locked door and closed sign might have had something to do with that.

  ‘I’m sorry, but there were new developments. Kelly Anthony has taken Helena Margraves back to the station. She’s …’ I stuck my head around the corner. ‘Where’s Christy?’

  ‘I sent her home. She’s less than useless in this state.’

  ‘Besides, admit it,’ I said, sitting down at a table by the window, ‘you want a full update, unredacted.’

  ‘Redacted for Christy’s sake, you mean?’ she asked, joining me. ‘Yeah, pretty much. Besides, I am getting tired of being nice to her, just because of … you know.’

  ‘The death of her imagined love of her life?’

  ‘Right. Spill.’

  I did.

  ‘Seems to me,’ Sarah said after I had finished, ‘that the gigolo was run down by a truck left unattended by somebody with bowel issues. The fact that the suspicious wife—’

  ‘Rightfully suspicious.’

  ‘Yes, yes,’ she said, waving me off. ‘The fact that the rightfully suspicious wife was here or not, doesn’t change that.’

  ‘But Helena lied.’

  ‘Wouldn’t you?’ Sarah asked, pushing her chair back and crossing one trousered leg over the other. ‘She snooped on her husband’s charge card and phone bills—’

  ‘Not the phone. He must have had a burner because there was nothing on their bill.’

  ‘Smart man,’ Sarah said. ‘Anyway, you’ve had a cheating husband. You snoop around—’

  ‘Justifiably, as it turned out. And after the fact. Ted had already left.’

  A groan. ‘Yes, but you still felt guilty, didn’t you? That’s why you keep with this “rightfully, justifiably” shit.’

  ‘Well, yes, I suppose.’

  ‘So Helena invaded Barry’s privacy’ – she held up a finger to prevent an interruption – ‘and then flew halfway across the country to see the woman he was corresponding with and maybe even catch her and the slimeball in the act.’ She shrugged and held up both hands. ‘And then?’

  ‘Slimeball dies horribly,’ I said.

  ‘Horribly, really?’ Sarah asked. ‘I thought you said it was quick.’

  ‘Well, yes,’ I said. ‘I think he probably died when the plow hit him, but then the tires, at least one maybe two, caught him …’

  ‘Yeah, see what you mean.’ She got up. ‘Want something?’

  ‘Not a flat white.’

  She turned back. ‘I was thinking sticky bun.’

  Hmm. ‘Fine. And maybe just pour me a cup of brewed?’

  ‘Got a broken leg? Get it yourself.’

  I did, as she retrieved the pastry.

  ‘We’re sharing?’ I asked as she set the plate with one bun on it between the two of us. Sarah usually wasn’t a sharer. Nor was I, really.

  ‘Only one left,’ she said as she cut it into four pieces.

  ‘Gotcha.’ I took one piece and popped it into my mouth.

  We were lucky to have any of Tien’s sticky buns left, though if I said that to Sarah, she would point out – again – that the store had been closed smack dab in the middle of the day.

  Sarah ate one piece and then picked up a second. ‘The person who is really in trouble in all this is Harold. I heard the county wants to fire him.’

  ‘Oh, no,’ I said, leaning forward. ‘If it was his fault, it was an accident.’

  ‘Thing is, he can’t prove that he locked the truck. Or even turned off the ignition. The engine was on when it finally came to a stop, I’m told.’

  ‘Like I said. I never should have doubted myself.’ The roaring wind, my butt.

  But poor Harold. It would be a tough thing to live with, accident or not. ‘I can still see Margrave’s face, illuminated as …’ I stopped.

  ‘What?’

  ‘The headlight from the snowplow. It illuminated his face.’

  ‘You said that. So?’

  ‘So it was dark and then it wasn’t.’

  ‘You’re saying somebody turned on the headlights before mowing him down.’

  ‘I don’t know what I’m saying.’ I reached to take the last piece. It was gone. ‘I just remember thinking at the time that the plow must have come a
round the corner. That’s why I suddenly heard the sound and saw the light.’

  ‘But you know that doesn’t make sense. It had been sitting there not half a block away the whole time.’

  ‘But turned off,’ I said. ‘No engine, no lights.’

  Sarah used her finger to collect sticky crumbs. ‘If you’re right, that gets Harold off the hook.’

  ‘But somebody else on.’

  TEN

  ‘You have your cell phone?’ I asked Sarah.

  ‘In the office. Why? Where’s yours?’

  ‘Get it.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’ Pulling a face, she carried the empty plate to the back and returned with the phone.

  I took it. ‘You were taking photos that day, remember? Do you have any of the … Damn! What’s your passcode?’

  ‘How should I know?’

  I looked up. ‘How do you get into your phone?’

  ‘My face.’ She snagged the phone and held it up in front of her. ‘See?’

  It opened. ‘Of course, I see. But you still need the passcode when you restart your phone.’

  ‘Who restarts their phone?’

  ‘Me,’ I said, taking the phone back to punch up her photos. ‘When things start acting funny. Or slowing down.’ I tapped the photo icon again. Nothing. ‘Like now.’

  ‘I don’t even know how to turn this one off,’ she said. ‘Or on. That button at the top is missing. I wish they’d stop changing things.’

  I sighed and handed her back the mobile. ‘Can you pull up your photos?’

  She diddled around with it and then finally: ‘There.’

  Sure enough. I did not know or care how she did it. I scrolled through recent photos. Most of them were of her car, a vintage 1975 Firebird, then a couple frames of the EMTs around Margraves’ body. But one … ‘See?’

  ‘See what?’ Sarah asked, sliding her chair around so we both could, indeed, see. ‘The garbage truck stuck in our snow pile?’

  I squinted. ‘The plow was traveling at a good pace. Do you think that pile of snow was big enough to stop it without somebody inside braking?’

  ‘It’s all the snow from the parking lot from the first snowfall up until that day.’ She got up. ‘Let’s go see.’

  I didn’t quite understand why we had to go outside in the cold to see a mound of plowed snow that was perfectly visible on a picture. I followed her out onto the train platform, though.

  ‘Brrr,’ I said, folding my arms against the cold. ‘Let me go get my coat.’

  ‘Don’t be a wuss,’ she said, pointing. ‘There’s the pile.’

  I surveyed the dirty gray pile, a mix of snow and salt and sand put down to both melt the snow and provide traction. It stood about six feet high, maybe eight feet across. There was an impression where the wheels went in. ‘Snow has been added since Tuesday.’

  ‘When they plowed out the lot after the storm that night.’

  ‘And anything that fell on top of the pile throughout,’ I said. ‘Still, even in the pictures it looks substantial enough. Plus’ – I pointed – ‘there’s the light pole in the middle of it.’

  ‘True,’ Sarah said. ‘To keep going it would have had to plow through the pile, the pole and back out the other side.’

  ‘Let’s go in.’ I was rubbing my hands together to keep circulation going. ‘I want to see something.’

  Back inside, I peered at the photo. ‘Obviously it’s sitting with the headlights in the snow, but the taillights are visible and they’re on.’

  ‘Then you were right,’ Sarah said. ‘The lights were switched on. Unless Harold left them that way and you just think they flashed on because the truck was getting closer. Same with the noise.’

  ‘Hmm,’ I mumbled, not really paying attention. I pinched to expand the photo more. ‘What’s …?’

  ‘What’s what?’ Sarah said impatiently, shouldering in.

  ‘That.’ I pointed to the snow next to the passenger door. ‘Is that a footprint?’

  She squinted. ‘Pretty small.’

  ‘But the snow was still falling. It might have filled in the print or prints. Yes! Look.’ I slid my finger down. ‘There’s another and another.’

  Sarah peered closer and then stood back. ‘Somebody got out of the truck. But from the passenger side.’

  I tick-tocked my head, thinking. ‘Harold had a passenger with him? Is that possible?’

  ‘It would explain why he left the thing running,’ Sarah said. ‘To keep his passenger warm.’

  ‘But why not say so?’ I asked.

  ‘Because it was against the rules to have somebody ride with him, presumably. He didn’t want to get fired.’

  ‘But he’s been fired,’ I said. ‘Why not come clean now?’

  Sarah shrugged. ‘Maybe he has, for all we know. He seems to have gone underground.’

  I frowned. ‘Can you send me the photo?’

  ‘You’ve seen how well my phone works,’ Sarah said.

  ‘Well then, can I borrow it?’

  ‘So you can run to Pavlik? With my evidence?’ Sarah was untying her apron. ‘I’m going, too.’

  ‘Somebody has to stay here.’

  ‘Why?’ Sarah chin gestured. ‘The closed sign is still up.’

  From when Christy closed the shop. No wonder nobody had come in since we had been back.

  ‘Fine,’ I said, untying my apron as well. ‘Let’s blow this joint.’

  Brookhills County Sheriff Jake Pavlik was behind his desk, Deputy Kelly Anthony hunched over his shoulder. Sarah and I sat in the sheriff’s guest chairs.

  ‘I see what you mean.’ He handed the phone to Anthony. ‘Send those to yourself.’

  ‘All of them?’

  ‘All of them,’ Pavlik said a little shortly. ‘Who knows what else we missed in those early minutes.’

  Anthony wisely kept her head down.

  ‘Has the truck cab been fingerprinted?’ I asked.

  Pavlik swung his head a millimeter toward Anthony.

  ‘No, sir,’ she said. ‘We had no way of knowing—’

  He held up his hand. ‘Then do it.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She was still fiddling. ‘I cannot get these to send. I’m going to shut it down and re—’

  ‘No!’ both Sarah and I shouted.

  Anthony lifted her head. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because Sarah doesn’t know her passcode,’ I told her. ‘You won’t be able to start it up again.’

  But Pavlik just shook his head. ‘Take care of it, will you, Anthony?’

  ‘Yes, sir.’ She departed the office.

  ‘My phone,’ Sarah wailed, as the door closed.

  ‘Big deal,’ I said. ‘It was barely working.’

  ‘Working well enough to solve the crime for you all,’ she said, settling sullenly back in her seat.

  ‘Is Helena Margraves still here?’ I asked Pavlik.

  ‘Yes. When you called, I told Anthony to hang onto her in case we had more questions.’

  ‘Which you do,’ Sarah said. ‘Thanks to me and my crappy phone.’

  ‘Which you will get back,’ Pavlik said, with a little grin. ‘But, yes. Thank you.’

  ‘It seems to me that there are two possibilities,’ I said. ‘Or maybe one certainty that’s caused by the two possibilities.’

  ‘Spit it out, dammit,’ from a grumpy Sarah.

  ‘We know somebody was in that truck.’

  ‘That’s the certainty,’ Pavlik said. ‘The possibilities?’

  ‘We don’t know who. It’s possible Harold had a passenger. But Helena Margraves was in town. If I were her and had tracked down the woman that my husband was cheating with—’

  ‘You’d be staking out that woman and waiting for him to make an appearance.’ Sarah had absolutely no patience today.

  ‘Not to kill him, I hope.’ Pavlik held up his hands. ‘Not that I’m asking for personal reasons.’

  I smiled. ‘My point is that it’s very possible Helena was in the immediate area. She wasn’t
scheduled to leave until the next day. What else was she going to do until then?’

  ‘That’s true,’ Pavlik said, seeming a little surprised. ‘I don’t know that Anthony has asked her that question. But what’s your theory?’

  ‘I know it’s a long shot, but maybe she saw the empty truck—’

  ‘If she was there, she couldn’t have missed it,’ Sarah said, perking up. ‘Maybe she climbed in to keep from freezing to death.’

  ‘Exactly. Even if she did not start the engine, it would be warmer than out in the wind and the snow.’

  ‘But Harold could have come back at any minute,’ Sarah pointed out.

  ‘So? Sitting high up in that truck gave her a good line of sight,’ I said. ‘She could have hopped out the driver’s side door and disappeared into the storm. Harold would never have known.’

  ‘It would also provide a good vantage point for seeing her husband with Christy,’ Pavlik said. ‘Then what? She puts the truck in gear, switches the lights on so as not to miss and floors it?’

  ‘Sounds pretty callous when you say it like that,’ I said.

  ‘Running somebody down with a snowplow is pretty callous.’ Pavlik steepled his hands. ‘Assuming it was deliberate.’

  ‘The evidence of the footprints isn’t enough to prove anything, is it?’ I asked.

  ‘No. If it wasn’t just a photo—’

  ‘Time and location stamped,’ Sarah reminded him.

  ‘True, but still a photo and still with snow actively falling at the time. Measuring footprints from a photo like that?’ He shrugged. ‘Not that we won’t try.’

  ‘Fingerprints in the cab?’ I suggested.

  ‘Also a good thought. But given it was the middle of a blizzard in Wisconsin, it’s likely whoever was in there had gloves on.’

  Ugh. ‘True.’

  ‘Unless Harold did have a ride-along,’ Sarah suggested. ‘If so, he or she had been in there the entire time and might have taken them off.’

  ‘We’ll check,’ Pavlik said. ‘Or Anthony will.’

  ‘Don’t be too hard on Kelly,’ I said. ‘It was a confusing scene.’

  ‘Even so,’ Pavlik said. ‘Taking photos immediately to preserve a changing crime scene would have been good, as evidenced by Sarah.’

  ‘You’re welcome,’ she said, self-satisfied.

  ‘Anthony also should have noticed those footprints. The truck was the cause of death.’