A Cup of Jo (11 page)

'No.'

'Good, then you've been spared his "next generation" spiel.' Tien was trying to act perturbed, but she seemed more amused than irritated.

'Luc wants grandchildren, I take it?'

'Of course.'

I could picture Tien throwing her hands in the air. If she wasn't holding the receiver in one.

'After all,' she continued, 'everyone
else
has them.'

Not me. Not yet. And, when your only offspring is a gay male, maybe never. But that was OK with me, if it was OK with Eric. 'Sounds like peer pressure.'

'That's what I told him. All those "if everyone jumped off a building, would you do it?" lectures are coming back to haunt him.' Then her voice changed. 'Umm. Not that having kids is like jumping off a cliff, of course.'

Yeah. Like Tien had to worry about offending me. 'At three a.m., with a colicky baby and a job to leave for in three more hours, it sure can feel that way.'

She laughed. 'So, how's this? I won't show up before closing tonight. I'll arrive more like midnight or one a.m. and get my baking done, put together sandwiches and maybe make soup. Then I'll be able to help after you get in at six.'

'I can't tell you how much I appreciate this, Tien.'

'Maggy, it'll be fun.'

I hung up the phone thinking I didn't deserve her. Before I could start pondering less pleasant things I also didn't deserve, I heard a commotion out front.

Enter the soccer moms.

At the original Uncommon Grounds, the group had staked out their favorite tables, even their favorite seats around same. On this occasion, though – the soccer moms' first visit to our new location – you'd think we'd just shanghaied them to another planet.

Ten minutes, minimum, for the ladies to decide on a table. And I thought they'd never find the condiment cart and napkins.

'Maggy, just lovely,' one of them said, as she went to open the door to finally leave. Since Caron had, in the first incarnation of Uncommon Grounds, a better memory for names than me, I'd never bothered to differentiate among 'the moms'. The whole group knew me, though.

This mom dropped her voice. 'I thought we'd be here yesterday, but with all the unpleasantness. . .' Hands held out and a shrug.

Yes. Death could be so . . . inconvenient. Especially for the dead guy. Or gal, in this case.

'Well, I'm glad you made it this morning,' I said, genuinely meaning it, despite the fact that I sometimes (OK, often) make fun of their foibles. The group had sought us out in our new location, and I really was very grateful. 'Thanks so much.'

I went to close the door behind her, but it was pulled out of my hands.

'Sorry, Maggy,' Jerome said.

He wasn't carrying his camera today, but he did arrive with Kate McNamara, more's the pity.

'C'mon in,' I said, circling back to my post behind the service window. 'What would you like?'

'Answers.' Kate slapped a five on the counter.

I pushed it back. 'I refused to be bought for a ten yesterday.'

'This is for the coffee.' She shoved it again. 'I don't pay for information.'

'Kate has journalistic ethics,' Jerome said.

'And,' Sarah whispered in my ear, 'no slush fund for informants, I'll bet.'

'OK,' I said to Kate. 'Let's start with the coffee and forget about the answers.' And, please, God, everything else that had happened over the last two days – at least until I could get home for a decent glass of wine, a good think, and a better cry. 'Jerome? What can I get you?'

'Coffee. Black.'

'Really? When did you start drinking the stuff straight?'

The hardbitten videographer waggled his head. 'All right, I'm outed. Iced mocha, extra whipped cream.'

'Cherry?'

He looked at Kate, who rolled her eyes, before he said, 'Sure.'

I'd plop on two.

'And you?'

'Coffee. Black.' Kate threw Jerome a withering look.

Sarah reached for the pot on a bottom burner of the coffee brewer, but I redirected her to one on top.

Again she whispered in my ear, 'But should we use that? Hasn't it been sitting too long?'

'Of course. And who else would we serve it to?'

I slid the inky brew over to Kate. As I feared, instead of carrying it to a table, she stayed put.

'Your sheriff took Kevin Williams in for questioning.'

My
sheriff. I didn't bother to correct her or, for that matter, rein in my growing anger at Pavlik. Mad, I could still function. Sad, I'd curl up in the fetal position under a table.

'So they're sure JoLynne's death wasn't an accident?' I knew the answer unofficially, but I wanted to hear it from Kate.

'An accident?'

I'd never seen anybody physically project the word 'dumbfounded' before. It seemed a little over the top.

But, then, so was Kate. 'You're the one who had that inflated monstrosity built. The sides were like four-feet tall.'

'Five, if you count the saucer,' I corrected.

Kate was trying to look patient. 'So
five
feet, even better. It's not like she just "oopsied" and fell in.'

'Told you.' This from Sarah passing behind me as she went to empty the dishwasher.

I said, 'Maybe JoLynne first climbed up so she could see into the cup and . . . slipped?'

'Funny. The sheriff doesn't think a five-foot two-inch woman in a pencil skirt and strappy high heels could have climbed a five-foot high –' Kate checked her notes – '"convex surface" – that means a curved out one.' She showed me a supercilious smile.

'I know what it means, Kate.'

'Splendid. And here I thought your former partner was the wordsmith.'

At this rate, in a minute, Ms McNamara was going to be 'former' – as in formerly able to stand erect. 'OK, so JoLynne didn't clamber in on her own. Could she have had help?'

'Or a ladder.' Sarah again, now moving the other way.

'Good guess,' Kate said. 'But there was no ladder in reach.' The smile had gone from supercilious to deprecating.

Had Kate been practicing in the mirror? What was next? Envy? Lust? Despair?

Life is short, and it was time for me to cut through the crap. 'Then what
do
the authorities think happened?'

'Murder, plain and simple. Someone smothered her and hid her body in your screwy cup.'

'Why?'

'Apparently JoLynne was having an affair with someone in county government. Her husband probably found out.'

Sarah dropped the handful of clean spoons she'd been using to restock the condiment cart. To her credit, she picked them up and kept her mouth shut.

'Who?' My question came out more like a croak.

I got 'contempt' from Kate on this one. 'Kevin Williams, of course.'

'Thanks, but I meant who was JoLynne having an affair with?'

I didn't want to ask the question and I sure as hell didn't want the answer. My hands were sweating and the top of my head tingling.

'With
whom
.'

I vowed never to correct Pavlik's English again.
Assuming
I ever talked to him.

'Fine,' I said through clenched teeth. 'With
whom
was JoLynne having an affair?'

'Oh, that.' Kate flapped her hand, like it was inconsequential. 'No one knows. Or maybe they're just not talking. If the person is important enough, there could even be a cover-up.'

From her tone, I could tell Kate hoped so, just as I did. My reason was that whatever was going on between Pavlik and me, I didn't like to think of him publicly embarrassed. Or run out of town on a rail. Tarred and feathered . . .

I had a hunch, though, that Kate McNamara actually, genuinely, wanted the opportunity to dig out the truth.

Jerome, who had been quiet so far, wiped whipped cream off his lip. 'Kate's a great investigative reporter. She'll find out what really happened.'

That's what I was afraid of. I needed to hear what the woman already knew.

Maybe throw out some alternative scenarios, keep her busy. 'Could JoLynne's body have been in the cup
before
it was inflated?'

Jerome's brow furrowed.

'Still wouldn't clear Williams,' Kate said. 'He inflated the thing. Who knows what – or who – was in it?'

'I do.' Jerome turned to face Kate. 'You told me to get there early and film background stuff. I taped Kevin and one of his guys filling the cup.'

Which, presumably, didn't contain JoLynne's body or Jerome would have seen it.

'So where's that leave us?' I asked.

Impatience was now Kate's emotion of choice. 'Just what I said, weren't you listening? Someone killed JoLynne Penn-Williams and dumped her body into your precious balloon after it was inflated.'

'It's not—' I interrupted myself because a thought suddenly struck me. Turning to Sarah, I said, 'We were on the porch with a clear view of the cup, right?'

She slid the dropped spoons back into the dishwasher's utensil basket. 'Right.'

'We stayed until after the thing fell, but what time did we get there?'

'Seven fifteen,' Amy contributed, coming from the back. 'I saw you pass by the side window –' a gesture toward the tracks – 'as I was filling the second thermal pot of coffee for Tien to take outside.'

'And when did they inflate the cup?' I asked Jerome.

'I'm not sure.' He seemed distracted by Amy's appearance, both in the sense of her joining us and her looks.

Cougar Kate growled at him. 'Jerome?'

He blinked. 'Uh, sorry. Maybe a little before six a.m.?'

'Isn't there a time stamp or something on your tape?' I asked as he continued to stare at our barista. Amy might be pierced, dyed and tattooed, but under it all she was a mighty attractive girl.

Jerome colored up. 'Oh, sure. I can check the counter on my camera, but I'm pretty sure it was about then. Still dark, with that white cup the only thing filmable until County Exec Hampton arrived around the same time to take the train to Milwaukee.' He shrugged. 'Since the engineer was making the run just to take him down and have the train in place for the Milwaukee celebration, even that wasn't very visual.'

Brewster? Not visual? 'Was his wife Anita leading him?'

Jerome shook his head. 'She came later. In fact, almost missed her ride. I remember because I got a nice long shot of the locomotive and cars heading off into the sunrise.'

Anita was probably off somewhere primping. Or sharpening her talons. 'And what time is sunrise these days? Six fifteen?'

'Roughly,' said Jerome.

I turned back to Kate. 'Well, there's your timeline. JoLynne could have been put in the cup between six a.m. and when Sarah and I arrived at seven fifteen.'

The reporter's eyes darted left-right-left, then her mouth dropped open. 'You're right.'

'Of course she is,' Sarah said. 'We've gotten good at this detection stuff.'

We? 'Now go tell the sheriff,' I suggested.

'Sheriff?' Kate virtually spat out the word. 'Don't be silly. I'm taking this to my station. I could get lead story, with a page one follow-up in the
CitySentinel
.'

'But shouldn't Maggy get contributing credit?' asked Jerome.

I waved him off. 'Whatever helps solve the case is fine with me. I don't need – or want – any more publicity from a homicide.'

And I was being truthful, so far as it went. But my unstated motivation was to have Kate fixate on JoLynne's murderer, rather than the dead woman's paramour.

Because, I feared, the victim's lover was also mine.

Chapter Nine

When they say love hurts, they ain't kidding.

'Damn.' I was grasping the handle of what used to be a glass coffee carafe, blood dripping from a cut on my right thumb.

'What did you do?' Amy searched for a towel in the drawer next to the sink.

We were reaching the end of a day that felt longer than the prior, dead-body one. Soccer moms, the lunch-bunch, even a sprinkling of seniors and home-office types looking for someone,
any
one, to talk to. All our usuals had come and gone, bless them, leaving us with just the returning commuter trains left. One at 5:30 and one at 6:30. And they couldn't arrive a moment too soon.

'Maggy broke a carafe,' Sarah said, gesturing to the shards on the floor. 'Another one.'

'Another one?' Carefully, Amy traded the towel for the handle, about all that remained of the pot. 'We have the clumsies today, don't we?'

Clumsies. The pre-school teacher coming into play again.

'Clumsies is right,' Sarah said. She was watching my blood drip on to the glass. 'You don't see me dropping any carafes.'

'I didn't drop the thing,' I protested. 'The bottom fell out on its own.'

'After you banged that carafe against the brewer, probably cracking—'

'They should be sturdier than that,' I grumbled, going to the sink to run water over my cut.

'You might get away with hitting the brewer's metal corner once, maybe even twice. But you were at least grazing it every time you put a carafe up there.'

By 'up there' Sarah meant the top of our tall brewer. The piece of equipment had three heating elements. One below, where you brewed the coffee, and two on top, so you could keep the filled pots warm, while you were brewing a replacement.

'It's too high.' Oww. The water rushed over the cut, circling pink around the stainless steel tub before draining out.
Psycho
in a slop sink.

'You're too
short
,' Sarah countered. 'You should let someone who can reach the carafes and brewers move them.'

She meant herself and, when I glanced over my shoulder, I realized my partner was preening – proud of mastering the process. The hell of it? She had. Sarah was even using the 'right technical jargon, like 'brewers' for the machines and 'carafes' for the glass pots.

'OK,' I said, turning off the water with my left hand. I picked up the towel to dry my thumb. 'You're right.'

Amy was already standing ready with a Band-Aid. 'Do you think you need stitches?' she asked, ministering to me.

'Nope,' I said, wiggling the finger. 'It'll be fine.'

'Good,' Sarah said. 'Because I hear a train coming. You stay at the espresso machine, where you can't break anything.'