Flat White

by Sandra Balzo

  ‘How prescient of me,’ Christy said, delighted with herself. ‘So that solves the bracelet. But what about the envelope? Do you think she has that, too?’

  I shrugged. ‘Probably. And if it really was an unset diamond, it would be easy to hide.’

  ‘That’s genius,’ Christy said. ‘You would be a great criminal, Maggy.’

  ‘Thanks.’ Deducing done for now, I got to my feet as the bells on the door chimed.

  ‘Maggy?’ Kelly Anthony stuck her head in.

  ‘Hi, Kelly.’ There were things I wanted to ask her but debated doing it in front of Christy and blabbermouth Sarah.

  As it turned out, I didn’t get a chance.

  ‘I’m looking for Christy Wrigley …’ She caught sight of Christy behind me, even as Pavlik came up behind her.

  ‘Would you accompany me to the station, Ms Wrigley?’ Anthony asked. ‘We have some questions.’

  ‘If this is about the false robbery report,’ Sarah said, ‘it was just an honest mistake. Or a stupid mistake, depending on how you look at it.’

  ‘Yes.’ Christy pushed back her sleeve as she stood. ‘The bracelet was in my coat pocket this whole time.’ A shadow crossed her face. ‘Or maybe not. Maggy thinks Helena did steal it, but then got scared and snuck it back into my pocket while we were on the couch. We’re not sure about the envelope and maybe the diamond.’

  Pavlik leveled a look at me. ‘What am I supposed to take out of all that?’

  ‘The robbery report from Wednesday night may be a mistake. Or not.’

  Pavlik shook his head.

  ‘Thing is,’ Christy said, shrugging into her coat, ‘Maggy says that Helena may own half of it all anyway, because the money came out of her and Barry’s joint accounts.’

  ‘I think it was Sarah who said that,’ I corrected.

  ‘I’m not sure that’s true,’ Christy continued. ‘But if so, maybe I could pay her back in installments. I really do love this bracelet.’ She sniffled. ‘And it is the only thing that I have of Barry’s now that he’s gone.’

  ‘Is it?’ Deputy Anthony said, putting a hand on her arm to usher her to the door. ‘Let’s go talk about whether that’s true.’

  I tugged at Pavlik’s sleeve as he started to follow them out. ‘You can’t possibly believe Christy killed Barry Margraves.’

  ‘Of course not. You’re her alibi.’ A glimmer of a smile that faded. ‘Unless you have something to tell me.’

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Then what are you questioning Christy about? Despite what she says, I know she’ll give back the bracelet. And the envelope, if Helena doesn’t already have it.’

  Pavlik glanced toward Sarah, who was hovering nearby. She held up a hand in acknowledgment and disappeared in back.

  ‘That was unusually accommodating of Sarah,’ Pavlik said. ‘She probably assumes she’ll just worm it out of you when I’ve gone, anyway.’

  ‘Probably,’ I murmured noncommittedly. Then: ‘Does Christy need a lawyer?’

  It was a question designed to get Pavlik to open up, and he knew it. So he didn’t. ‘Yes.’

  Damn. ‘Criminal or civil?’

  This time he did break a smile. ‘Is the next question going to be “animal, vegetable or mineral”?’

  ‘But what about Helena? Isn’t she already in custody?’

  ‘Not in custody. She’s a person of interest.’

  ‘You should see if she has that envelope.’

  ‘The one that was supposedly stolen and has a diamond in it?’

  ‘Supposedly. At least Christy assumed it was a diamond.’

  ‘No, Christy is right. It is a diamond. And she should know because she wired the money for it.’

  I put my hand to my forehead. ‘Oh, my God. She said something on the phone to Barry about a wire, but she swore to me that she wasn’t sending him money from her account.’

  ‘She wasn’t.’ Pavlik had started for the door and now turned. ‘In fact, she was doing just the opposite.’

  ‘Christy?’ I asked numbly, as through the window, Kelly Anthony loaded Christy into a squad car.

  TWELVE

  ‘Christy?’ Sarah repeated. ‘Fraud?’

  Pavlik had been right about Sarah to a point, but my partner was not so much worming information out of me as I was letting it gush out full blast. I’d turned the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’ and switched off the overhead lights, so Sarah and I were sitting in the quiet, semi-darkness.

  ‘The money being pulled out of the Margraves’ accounts,’ I said in a low tone. ‘They’ve traced the transactions back to Christy.’

  ‘But didn’t Christy tell you that it was Barry who asked her to do it?’

  ‘So she said.’

  ‘You don’t believe her?’

  ‘Yes, I do believe her. But that’s what Pavlik is going to say.’

  ‘Then he doesn’t believe her.’

  ‘Think about it. According to Christy, Barry gave her his permission and everything she needed to conduct these transactions. But with Barry dead—’

  ‘What kind of transactions are we talking about?’ Sarah interrupted.

  ‘Beyond the diamond? Pavlik didn’t say, but the word Christy used at the time was “trades”. She said they had to be done when the market was open and the time difference between New York and wherever Barry was traveling in Europe made it difficult.’

  ‘So he asked her to make them.’

  ‘So she said.’

  ‘There it is again.’

  Both of us had our elbows on the table, heads on our hands.

  ‘But as we know now,’ I said, dropping one hand to thump the table. ‘If Barry wanted a trade done while the US stock market was open, all he had to do was call his wife.’

  ‘Unless he didn’t want his wife to know,’ Sarah said. ‘How do we define “trade”?’

  ‘Buying or selling, presumably? Though selling seems most likely in this case.’

  Sarah’s eyebrows went up. ‘Why do you think that?’

  ‘Because I also heard Christy telling Barry she’d made a “transfer”. The trade would have been to liquidate the stock – or whatever it was – in order to transfer the proceeds out of the account.’

  ‘That would account for Pavlik’s “siphon”. Do you want something to eat? Drink?’

  ‘No.’ My stomach was churning.

  ‘But this was all at Barry’s direction,’ Sarah protested, getting up and picking up a cranberry juice we used – along with an orange, grapefruit and apple – for display purposes.

  ‘You’re not going to drink that, are you? It’s been there for a year.’

  ‘It’s juice.’ She twisted off the top and took a swig. ‘And warm.’

  Served her right. ‘Now Barry is dead, and we have only Christy’s word that she had his permission to make these trades. She certainly didn’t have Helena’s.’

  ‘Yeah, what about that?’ Sarah said, coming back to sit down with the juice. ‘Didn’t Christy notice there was another name on the account?’

  ‘Assuming there was. When I was married, I had my own investment and retirement accounts from First Financial. Ted and I were each other’s beneficiaries, of course, but—’

  Sarah held up her hands. ‘OK, so I’ll stipulate that Helena might not have been on every account Barry had. But you just said you heard Christy talking to him about the transfer. Wouldn’t that be proof she did it with his permission?’

  ‘She’d taken the phone off speaker, so I was only hearing Christy’s side of the conversation at that point. I’m not sure how much weight it would carry. Hopefully, there are emails or texts from him providing the numbers and giving her instructions.’

  ‘Did you call Bernie?’

  Bernie Egan was a corporate lawyer, but he had been good enough to refer me to criminal attorneys in the past. I was starting to feel like I was taking advantage.

  So I shrugged. ‘I’m not sure I want to get Bernie involved this time.’

  Sarah sat back.
‘You think Christy did this.’

  ‘I think Christy is a big girl and can find her own attorney. She’s done it before.’

  ‘For Ronny, and he ended up in the slammer.’

  ‘Because he tried to kill me,’ I reminded her, checking my phone. ‘Nothing from Christy yet.’

  There was a knock at the door. Sarah and I exchanged looks.

  ‘We’re closed,’ I called.

  The doorknob rattled and a voice said, ‘It’s locked.’

  ‘Because we’re closed,’ Sarah muttered under her breath as she disappeared around the corner. ‘Not that anybody gives a shit.’

  I, actually, did.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said, going to the door. ‘We had an emerg—’

  ‘You’ve had an emergency?’ Helena pushed in, trailing her omnipresent roller bag. ‘Try finding out your husband is a cheater and a thief, all in one day.’ She pulled a chair out from a table and replaced it with her bag before sitting on another. ‘Oh, and dead, of course.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said.

  ‘You’re sorry,’ she started, and then waved the rest of the sentence off. ‘I really am sorry. This angry, mouthy person isn’t me.’ She ran a hand through her dark hair. ‘I just don’t know what to say or do.’

  Nor did I really. ‘The police released you?’

  This probably was not the thing to say. Helena’s anger flared and then fizzled. ‘I was brought in for questioning, not arrested. But, yes. They’re done with me for now. They seem to have moved on to the other woman.’

  ‘Christy?’ I sat down, too. Some of this I was aware of already, but I wanted to hear it from Helena.

  ‘Literally, like I said, the “other woman”. For fraud.’ Helena put both palms flat on the table and pulled in a long breath, before letting it back out. ‘Such a nice antiseptic word for stealing everything I had. Everything we had.’

  ‘Bank accounts, you mean?’

  ‘Bank, investments. Even our charge cards.’

  ‘They’ve been stolen?’

  ‘The numbers, apparently. They’re all charged up to the max.’ She tapped one finger. ‘And I thought a couple of plane tickets and some jewelry was the end of the world.’

  ‘Are you saying Christy did all that?’ I asked, appalled.

  ‘Christy or Christy and Barry. But since he’s dead …’

  ‘Christy’s left holding the bag.’

  Her head jerked up. ‘Forgive me if I don’t feel sorry for her.’

  ‘Of course,’ I said. ‘That was stupid of me. It’s just that Christy … well, everything I know about her says she’s not a thief.’

  ‘Yet she stole my life and my husband.’

  There was that. ‘Christy said Barry gave her the account numbers. Told her to do a trade for him because he was out of the country.’

  ‘She’s lying.’

  I cocked my head. ‘I heard her on the phone with him.’

  She pushed back from the table a little. ‘When was this?’

  ‘Tuesday morning before he arrived here. You can check his phone records.’

  ‘Uh-uh. He wasn’t using his regular cell phone for his little affair. I thought I’d told you that.’

  And I’d forgotten. ‘That’s right. You said nothing was on his bill, so he must have a pay-as-you-go. Did the police find it?’

  ‘On what was left of his body? I don’t know.’ Her lips were tight. Either trying not to cry or throw up.

  ‘I’ll ask,’ I told her.

  ‘Yes, do that. Help get your little friend off the hook.’

  ‘I don’t want … OK, I do want to help Christy, if she was just following orders of some kind.’

  ‘From Barry, you mean?’ Helena shrugged now, almost in surrender. ‘It’s possible, I suppose. I obviously didn’t know the man, even after fifteen years of marriage. Maybe his plan all along was to hide our money in offshore accounts and then disappear with another woman. Any other woman.’

  ‘I don’t know about that. Things seemed to go awry when he got here,’ I told her. ‘Maybe Barry changed his mind. Do you have his computer? If he and Christy corresponded by email, he might have sent her the account information that way.’

  ‘In Denver,’ Helena said. ‘My mother went to the house and got both the computer and a different form of identification for me and is overnighting them to the sheriff.’

  ‘Your passport is still missing?’

  ‘Yes. Which is in line with everything else. I feel like every part of my life has been stolen. Wiped off the board.’

  ‘And then Christy accuses you of taking her tennis bracelet, too.’ I was backing into the subject, best I could.

  ‘Her bracelet which was purchased with my charge card? Yes. She has a nerve.’ She held up a hand. ‘But before you ask, no I did not.’

  ‘She found it in her pocket.’ I purposely did not say which pocket since I suspected Helena might have put it there.

  ‘Figures.’ She laughed humorlessly, not giving anything away. ‘And I’ll likely find my passport in the lining of my coat or something. Wish the same were true of everything else I’ve lost.’

  I hesitated. ‘Are you staying at the Morrison meanwhile?’

  Her face tinged pink. ‘I was at a motel across from the sheriff’s department last night.’

  I knew the place. ‘You can’t stay there. It’s a rat trap.’

  ‘Well, I’m not sure I’m welcome at Hotel Morrison, given the scene I made in the lobby yesterday.’

  ‘Nobody cares about that.’

  ‘I do.’

  I stood up. ‘Come on. I have an idea.’

  ‘We’re not going to your house, are we?’ Helena asked nervously, as I started the Escape and went to back out of the parking space behind the shop.

  Sarah had stayed hidden – and likely eavesdropping – in the office, so I hadn’t bothered to tell her I was leaving.

  ‘Heavens, no,’ I said. ‘Not that you wouldn’t be welcome to stay, but—’

  ‘For God’s sake, I’m a total stranger. I shouldn’t be welcome,’ she said. ‘For all you know, I killed my husband.’

  I glanced sideways at her before pulling out onto Junction Road. ‘Did you?’

  ‘No.’ She didn’t look at me. ‘But would I tell you if I did?’

  ‘No.’ We were both quiet as I made a left to go east on Brookhill Road.

  ‘So … where are we going?’

  ‘Downtown Milwaukee. The Slattery Arms.’

  ‘That’s where the sheriff said Barry stayed.’

  ‘Exactly,’ I said. ‘We’ll get you a room there and do some nosing around. Did you get his belongings from the hotel?’

  Barry Margraves had not left a bag at the Morrison because it had been Helena staying there, not Barry. And Helena had packed up and left on Tuesday after her husband was killed. I could only assume that meant Barry’s suitcase was still at the Slattery Arms, where he would logically have left it when he came to Brookhills to see Christy and never came back.

  ‘His suitcase? No,’ she said. ‘I didn’t have the heart to deal with it right now.’

  ‘Then what was the hotel going to do with it?’

  ‘Box it up and ship it originally,’ she said. ‘I figured that way I could decide whether or not to open it.’

  ‘You said “originally”?’

  She glanced sideways at me. ‘Now that they’re thinking Barry’s death wasn’t an accident, I don’t know if plans have changed.’

  Another example of the original assumption messing things up investigation-wise. But at least the suitcase hadn’t been snowed-on like the crime scene was. Barry’s belongings should be just as he had left them. Unless the hotel had already cleaned the room, boxed the personal effects and sent them out. ‘Your husband definitely didn’t have his computer with him here, though?’

  ‘No. That is at home.’ She glanced over at me. ‘Are you thinking about the burner phone?’

  ‘In his room? No, he would have taken that
with him to go see Christy,’ I said. ‘But I’m curious to know what else he brought, aren’t you?’

  ‘Massage oil? Sex toys? Candles? Can’t say I am.’

  I couldn’t imagine any of those things in connection with Christy, who was more the gloves, bleach and scrub brush type. But the little redhead had surprised me before.

  ‘I have a connection at the Slattery Arms. If the sheriff hasn’t confiscated your husband’s things or they already haven’t been shipped, would you mind if I took a look? You don’t have to.’

  She groaned. ‘Fine. I will. Otherwise it’ll kill me thinking you know something I don’t.’

  We were quiet for the rest of the drive east.

  I finally broke the silence as we pulled into the Slattery Arms’ circle entranceway. ‘You identified your husband’s body, right? And you’re sure it’s him?’

  She was staring at me like I had lost my mind. ‘Of course I am. I may say that I obviously didn’t know him after all this, but after fifteen years, I certainly know what he looked like. Why do you ask?’

  ‘Just something somebody said.’ That somebody being Sarah. But Helena’s comment earlier had resurrected it in my mind.

  ‘Which was?’

  I switched off the ignition. ‘You said that maybe Barry had planned all along to transfer your money to offshore accounts and disappear.’

  ‘With another woman. Yes, I said that.’

  ‘It wouldn’t have to be another woman.’ I swung open the car door and, leaving the key in the ignition for the valet, climbed out. ‘He could have just wanted to disappear.’

  ‘But why?’ Helena said, getting out of hers. ‘We were happy. Or so I thought. He was not having a crisis at work. We weren’t having financial problems.’

  Which left ‘the other woman’, of course. ‘I just thought that if you weren’t absolutely sure it was him …’

  ‘Because of the plow?’ She gave a little shiver and came around to join me on the sidewalk as the valet got into the driver’s seat. ‘It was Barry. His face was’ – she swallowed hard – ‘intact.’

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I said, putting my hand on her shoulder.

  ‘You watch too many movies,’ she said, looking up at the façade of the Arms. ‘Nice place, though.’