A Cup of Jo (7 page)

The silhouetted figure inside the truck saw me looking. I waved. He gave a finger-wave back, vaguely familiar.

I gestured for him to come out.

He pointed to himself, as if saying, 'Who, me?'

'Yes, you,' I called back. The guy and I must have met, given the grief he was handing me.

But when the door finally swung open, out came a Nordic-looking blonde stranger.

'Hello,' I said, walking around the truck to him. 'Do you work for Williams Staging?'

'Yah. I am Ragnar Norstaadt. I come to do pick up. And you are?'

Charmed is what I was. My grandparents had been born in Norway, making all Scandinavian accents subliminally attractive to me.

'Maggy Thorsen,' I said, extending my hand. 'I own Uncommon Grounds, inside. But I don't think I saw you here earlier.'

'It is good to meet you, Maggy Thorsen,' said Ragnar, taking my hand in his. He had a smidge of white shaving cream clinging just south of his right ear.

I was dying to wipe it off. Or run my fingers through the curly blonde hair springing out from under the 'Williams Staging' cap. I settled for the more universal greeting and shook.

'Kevin ask me to tell you that he is very sorry,' Ragnar continued as we walked up to the depot's front porch, 'but he will not today return here. He is . . . detained.'

Detained? 'By the police?'

'Please?' Ragnar looked puzzled.

'You said that Kevin wouldn't be here? That he is . . .'

'Detained.' Seeing that I didn't understand, Ragnar seemed to search for an alternate word. 'Busy is better, maybe?'

'Yes,' I said, feeling silly for jumping to conclusions.

Detained. I had been hanging around cops and coroners way too much. Though that did remind me. 'I assume Kevin knows about his wife?'

'That she is late?' Ragnar asked.

Late. Who knew that so many perfectly serviceable English words could result in such ambiguities?

'Late?' I repeated, feeling my way. 'You mean as in . . .'

'Dead,' he said solemnly. 'Mrs Kevin, she is dead.'

'Yes. I am so sorry,' I said. 'Have they told Kevin how JoLynne died?'

Ragnar seemed surprised. 'It is here.' We'd reached the porch.

'Around back, but—'

'She was in the, how you say . . .' Ragnar held out his left hand, palm up, to form a bowl, then used the right hand to indicate holding a handle.

I could feel my eyes narrow. The pinky sticking out. The loose-fingered wave. The blonde curls that could be pulled back into a braid. It finally came together.

'Cup,' I supplied. I reached over and swiped at the 'shaving cream' on his neck. 'Face paint,' I said, holding up my finger for him to see. 'You're the mime.'

'But, yes.' Ragnar looked so innocent. 'You did not know?'

'No, I did not.' I was still ticked about his spitting out my imaginary coffee, but given the circumstances, it would have been pretty petty of me to bring it up.

'I am very sorry,' Ragnar said. 'But I must remain on character when performing.'

'In character.' But I got the point. Mickey Mouse and Cinderella couldn't very well go out drinking together after a hard day's work in the theme park.

'So, are you an actor?' I asked.

Ragnar nodded eagerly. 'I am, yah. But acting does not pay so well the bills.'

Especially this far from the legitimate stage in New York and the sound stage in Los Angeles. Though our northern climate probably made him feel right at home.

'You work for Kevin, then?'

'It is a good putting together. Clients sometime need performer and, when I am not that, I can help the display work with Kevin.'

He pointed to the white-clothed table from which Tien had served coffee. The eight-foot table had been pushed up against the building, empty except for a cluster of Mylar 'Celebrate!' balloons tethered to a clear round bowl filled with pink and white quartz for ballast.

'Pretty,' I said. 'There are two more on the stage.'

'Thank you. The police say I must leave those for now.' Ragnar thumped the balloons with his thumb and middle finger. 'I must have this bowl, but you keep the balloons. They are good still.'

'No, thank you.' The metallic floaty things lasted forever. When my son was little, I'd resorted to skewering 'Barney' balloons with a letter opener after Eric was in bed, so I could finally get rid of the dang things.

As Ragnar took the bowl to the truck, balloons trailing, I, in turn, trailed after them.

'I know you talked to Kevin,' I said. 'Did he say whether JoLynne had been sick or anything?'

'Sick?' Ragnar carefully put the breakable bowl on the passenger seat, pushing down the balloons like a deputy guiding the head of a bad guy into a police cruiser.

'Yes. I'm wondering why a healthy young woman would die so suddenly.' And without dignity. In a giant coffee cup.

'Kevin tell me only JoLynne is killed.' Ragnar closed the passenger door and now moved on to the rows of folding chairs in front of the stage. The cop-as-sentry gave a nod to let him know he could clear them but was still being watched.

I lowered my voice so the officer couldn't hear. 'Ragnar, killed, as in "murdered"?'

'Kill, murder – is all the same, yah?'

'Yah,' I replied, my own Norwegian coming back to me. 'And yah, not.' I collapsed a chair and put it on the pile Ragnar had started. 'Killed could also mean accident.'

'I do not know.' Ragnar said, picking up the stack. 'All they say is Mrs Kevin was. . .'

He lifted his burden into the back of the pick-up and looked around to see if anyone else was within hearing range.

I did, too. Nobody.

Ragnar Norstaadt lowered his voice anyway. 'Mrs Kevin was stuffercated.'

Chapter Five

In normal towns, the fact that the south-west side of our building was a crime scene would ward people off.

In Brookhills, though, notoriety served as a doorbuster special. By noon the tidal wave that had receded when the press left had been rehydrated by locals. It was now about three in the afternoon, however, and the trickle was down far enough for me to send Amy for milk, cream and other staples we were running low on.

I drew the line at asking her to also pick up kibbles for Frank and a light bulb for my porch.

'It might be good for business,' I said to Sarah, who was back to poking at the cash register like it was going to bite her, 'but it's too bad tragedy brings out the ambulance chasers.'

I looked at octogenarian Sophie Daystrom, our sole customer at the moment. 'Present company excepted.'

'Oh, fudge, Maggy,' Sophie said. 'I chase ambulances with the best of 'em.'

'Fudge?'
Sarah echoed. 'That's not up to your usual swearing standards.'

Sophie shrugged. 'Henry is giving me shit . . . sorry,
crap
over what
he
calls profanity. So, I'm trying to clean up my act.'

I didn't think Henry, Sophie's current old-goy boy-toy, meant she should turn to a thesaurus in search of synonyms for excrement. Henry was a true gentleman and, much as I loved Sophie, the old bird admittedly had a mouth on her.

Even as I had the thought, a staccato birdsong pierced the room, sending Sophie frantically digging through her handbag.

Finally, a cellphone found, button punched, and screen studied. 'Hmm.'

'Aren't you going to answer it?' I asked.

'It's a tweet,' Sarah said.

'What do you mean?'

'The bird call? Tweet? Get it?'

For the second time today, I didn't. 'Sure.'

'You like it?' Sophie was pushing buttons as she spoke. 'That ringtone was as close to a "tweet" as I could find without actually having to pay extra.'

Ahh. The birdsong must be Sophie's ringtone for Twitter updates. I didn't know much, but I did know that Eric always seemed to know things before I did. Hell, before the TV news did. Downside? Rumors could spread like wildfire.

'So, what's the news?' I asked Sophie, pouring coffee into a ceramic Uncommon Grounds white and blue cup. No matching saucer, but aside from that, it was a small-scale model of the one in which JoLynne Penn-Williams had been found. I hoped no death-junkies noticed, or they'd start filching the things for souvenirs.

But Sophie warded me off the pour, pointing at our to-go cups. 'Put it in one of those,' she said. 'There's been a "sheriff sighting".'

I reached for a to-go, but held up. '
My
sheriff?'

It might seem presumptuous, but Pavlik and I had, after all, been together for nearly eighteen months now.

'Yes, "your" sheriff,' Sophie said, scoring a cup from the top of the stack herself and holding it out for me to fill.

'But why would you want to follow Pavlik?' And was he on Twitter?

'Same reason we track you,' she said. 'Things happen wherever Maggy Thorsen goes.'

Wait a minute. I was on Twitter?

'Your life is like an old-time radio serial.' Sophie gestured toward the pot with her cup. 'We can't wait for the next episode.'

And who was 'we'? 'But I'm not on Twitter.' At least I didn't think so.

'You don't have to be.' Sarah took the carafe away from me and filled Sophie's waiting cup. 'People just use the network to report where they see you.'

'I'm here.' This senior stalking was creeping me out.

'I know,' Sophie said. 'I've already reported it.'

With a shiver, I glanced toward the big front window just in time to glimpse a woman with steel-gray hair peer through the glass. When she saw me looking at her, she ducked sideways and disappeared with a dull thud.

'Oh, dear,' Sophie said, grabbing a cover for her cup and hurrying to the door. 'Teresa has toppled again. I keep telling her that she should bring her walker instead of a cane on stake-outs. More stability, of course.'

Stake-outs. 'Of course,' I repeated woodenly.

I turned to Sarah as the door closed behind Sophie. 'What was that all about?'

'The senior book club. They read a novel about this detective agency and decided to try it themselves.'

'Using Twitter?' And twitting me? And Pavlik?

Sarah shrugged. 'What can I say? The geezers in residence at Brookhills Manor are more technologically advanced than we are. Rodney Houston "friended" me on Facebook the other day. Said he's "in an open relationship" and wants to hook up.'

My head began to spin. 'Rodney has
got
to be eighty-five.'

'But not dead, apparently.'

'Apparently,' I said, feeling a little sheepish. 'And so long as people like Sophie and Henry and Rodney keep busy and occupy their minds, they'll stay sharp. Vibrant.'

'No,' Sarah said. 'I meant literally. Rodney's not dead. The
Brookhills Observer
accidentally ran an obit on him last week. Complete with "X's" for where his age should go when he finally does kick.'

'Rodney must've had a pretty impressive life for the paper to have a death notice already written and waiting.' That kind of pre-planning at media outlets was usually restricted to public figures or celebrities.

'Nah, Caron is writing them for everyone in town.' Sarah pulled a napkin toward her and made a note on it. 'I have to remember to let her know when I win the train contest.'

'
If
you win . . .' Wait a minute. 'Caron?'

Caron Egan was my former partner in Uncommon Grounds. Not the deceased one, but the woman who pulled the plug on our partnership because of 'employment stress', as she put it. 'Caron is working again? For Kate at that rag?'

'Don't trundle your undies into a bundle,' Sarah said. 'She's just working at the
Observer
part-time. I think Kate needs the help because of the moonlighting she herself's doing for cable news.'

Caron and I had met years ago in the marketing department of First National. Luckily for Caron, that was pre-Anita Hampton. At the time, Caron wrote advertising copy and I'd managed special events. When she married her lawyer-husband Bernie, and I got hitched to his college room-mate, Ted, the four of us became 'couple friends'.

The relationship with Caron had survived my divorce, our partnership and that partnership breaking up. She and I remained tight, but . . . 'This is the first I've heard that Caron hadn't adjusted very well to the "life of leisure".'

'Maybe she needs a new challenge,' Sarah said.

'Writing obits?' And b
efore
people died?

'You're right.' A dry reply. 'Pales in comparison to pouring coffee.'

I could debate Sarah on the subject. Expound on the challenges of running a small business. Extol the rewards of financial self-sufficiency.

Nah.

My new partner was looking a little hurt. 'Why do you care, Maggy? It's Caron's life.'

'You're right,' I said, sensing Sarah was looking for reassurance. I rested a palm on her shoulder. 'And things have worked out for the best. I could never top you as a partner.'

Sarah looked at my hand.

I removed it and cleared my throat. 'Anyway, things were so busy when I came back in that I didn't get a chance to tell you: JoLynne stuffer . . . I mean, suffocated.'

'That was quick. How'd you find out?'

'One of Kevin's guys. Apparently his boss told him.'

'If I was the deceased's husband,' Sarah said, 'I'd stop talking and start running.'

'Why?'

'Why not?' Sarah picked up a dish towel and started to wipe the counter. 'Rebecca maintains her sister is – OK, was, but always had been – a slut. Maybe Kevin got tired of it.'

'Aren't you making a lot of assumptions?' I asked. 'We don't even know JoLynne was murdered.'

Though that determination sure would be easier on our umbrella insurance policy. At least, I didn't think you could be held liable for Person A murdering Person B. Unless, of course, Person B died because of your negligence. Like not having the damn inflatables roped off . . .

'
Not
murder? Please.' Sarah snorted. 'What was it then, suicide? JoLynne presses a pillow over her face and then cannon-balls into a giant coffee cup?'

'I concede that suicide is a stretch. But it could have been an accident.'

'You mean like she
fell
into the cup and hit her head, had a seizure and choked on her tongue?'