by Sandra Balzo
Grounds for Murder
A Maggy Thorsen Mystery
Sandra Balzo
Copyright © 2009 by Sandra Balzo
Chapter One
‘Slut in a cup!’
It might sound like an expletive, but my friend Sarah Kingston meant . . . Well, I wasn’t sure what she meant.
‘Are you nuts?’ I hissed. ‘It’s Marvin LaRoche. And he’s dead.’
I was trying to keep my voice down in an effort to appear calm. The packed bleachers in front of us held nearly two hundred spectators, all of them staring open-mouthed at us, like we were actors on a stage. Which we were.
Sarah and I stood stage right, holding up opposite ends of the table bearing the trophies for the Second Annual Barista Competition at Java Ho, the specialty coffee convention. A barista is the equivalent of a coffee bartender, with espresso taking the place of alcohol.
The audience had probably assumed we were shifting the table in preparation for the awards ceremony that would follow the morning’s finals. The truth was, though, I’d found an oval stain smack dab in the middle of the stage and – obsessive personality that I am – I had to camouflage it.
Putting the trophy table, with its floor-length white tablecloth, over the stain had seemed just the thing. Unfortunately, when we’d lifted the table from its original position, we revealed something nobody could cover up.
Marvin LaRoche, head judge and Java Ho organizer, was lying face up, his burgundy tie flipped over his shoulder. The man was slightly cross-eyed in life, and now his blue eyes seemed to be trying to get a good look at the two bloody dents in his own forehead.
I shivered.
Sarah glared at me. ‘I know who it is, Maggy, and even I can tell he’s dead.’
She’d been in a vile mood ever since I’d commandeered her from the exhibit hall to track down LaRoche for the finals. You’d think she’d be happy now that we’d found him.
Sarah nodded toward the biggest trophy, which had fallen over when we’d picked up the table. ‘I’m talking about the murder weapon.’ She dropped her end, and the smaller runner-up trophies toppled over even as the first-place prize began to slide.
‘Dammit, Sarah . . .’ I protested, like it really mattered at this point. I mean, stiff on the floor trumps statues on the table, right? Nonetheless, I dropped my end, too, and instinctively grabbed for the trophy. I had to lean across the table, propping myself on my left hand to catch with the right.
‘Got it,’ I said triumphantly, straightening up with the trophy. Feeling something sticky on my left hand, I looked down at the table where it had been standing.
The trophy, when it had fallen over, had left a thick ring on the tablecloth – the kind a wine glass might make if it had been overfilled. With red wine. Thick red wine.
And that wasn’t the only thing being thick. Now I finally understood what Sarah had meant.
I looked again at LaRoche on the floor and then back at the barista competition’s first-place trophy in my hand. Slut in a cup, as Sarah had called it.
The fifteen-inch bronze sculpture was an artist’s rendering of a barista rising like steam from a coffee cup. Since baristi come in both genders and all shapes and sizes, the trophy’s steamy barista was supposed to be generic. Unfortunately, the unisex steam-barista had . . . well, boobs. C-cups, if I was any judge. Since it had been too late to do anything about the mistake by the time it was discovered, I’d resigned myself to taking some flak over it.
Still, I hadn’t expected anyone to try to bury the boobs in Marvin LaRoche’s forehead.
The faintest of tinkling sounded behind me, the only noise in the stunned silence. I twisted around to see the six barista finalists huddled behind us. One was Janalee, LaRoche’s wife. She was holding their infant son, Davy, and looking dazed. Next to Janalee was LaRoche’s star barista, Amy. In contrast to Janalee’s stillness, Amy’s multiple piercings – six thin gold rings lining the rim of her right ear, three the left and two in her lips – were quivering so hard she sounded like a human wind chime.
As if on cue, the baby started to whimper and Janalee LaRoche began to scream.
The commotion was enough to make Kate McNamara, newspaper editor-cum-cable-access TV reporter, abandon lecturing her young camera operator and finally take notice of what was going on.
Galvanized, as any good former public relations practitioner would be, by the TV camera now being leveled in my direction, I looked out at the hushed crowd in the bleachers. No one had so much as pulled out a cellphone to call for help. A couple, though, were using theirs to take photos.
I sighed. Apparently, since I, Maggy Thorsen, was in charge of the barista competition, I was also the go-to gal for corpses.
‘Call 911,’ I said, a familiar chill crawling up my spine.
This was all Caron’s fault. Again.
Why – oh why – hadn’t I just said ‘no’. . .?
Chapter Two
‘No,’ I said.
‘But you would be perfect, Maggy,’ my partner Caron Egan had said four days earlier, as she scooped espresso beans into the cone grinder at our coffeehouse, Uncommon Grounds. ‘And it’s our responsibility to make sure Java Ho is a success.’
It was September, and September meant Java Ho, the specialty coffee tradeshow. The event featured items for the upcoming Christmas holidays, hence the ‘Ho’ part. Being a latecomer to specialty coffee – Uncommon Grounds having been open only about six months – I didn’t have the historical perspective to say whether the convention had once been called Java Ho Ho.
I sincerely hoped not.
Caron was still talking. ‘We are the host city, after all.’
‘No, we’re not,’ I said. ‘The convention center just happens to border on Brookhills.’
Our town chairman, Rudy Fischer, had been apoplectic when the facility was built so near our fashionable little suburb. He said it would draw ‘undesirables’. In Brookhills, that meant anyone who didn’t drive a BMW.
‘Let someone from Milwaukee manage the convention,’ I said, wanting the discussion over. ‘Besides, if you think it’s so important, you do it.’
She ignored that. ‘Someone from Milwaukee is doing most of it.’ She put the lid on the cone grinder. ‘Marvin LaRoche. He just needs someone to oversee the actual―’ I reached across and started the grinder, drowning her out. Caron switched it off and glared at me. ‘Barista competition.’
Marvin LaRoche was the owner of HotWired, a chain of coffeehouses that dominated the area. It didn’t surprise me that he was taking a very visible role in the specialty-coffee convention.
‘I’m sure LaRoche would love to let me do the work,’ I agreed. ‘Then all he has to do is show up at the finals and take the credit.’ I shook my head. ‘I’ve worked with too many grandstanders like him. You did, too, back at the bank.’
At one time, Caron had been in public relations with me at First National Bank. That was years before I, in one fell swoop, lost my son to college, my dentist husband to his twenty-four-year-old hygienist, and my job to . . .well, insanity.
In a knee-jerk reaction to Ted dumping me on the same day our son left for college, I had promptly quit my salaried PR position in order to open Uncommon Grounds with two friends and the proceeds from the sale of Ted’s boat.
That’d show him, right?
Wrong.
As I should have guessed, with Miss Rinse-and-Spit to occupy his time, Ted barely noticed the loss of either me or his 425-horsepower phallic symbol. But if one good thing came out of all this, it was the realization that I didn’t miss Ted, either. No, it was my salary I missed.
You see, I’d morphed into a small-business owner and, as anyone could have told me had I surfaced from my entre
preneurial delusions long enough to listen, small-business owners endure low pay, high pressure and long, long hours. Especially when you’re one small coffeehouse fighting to stay afloat amidst a sea of chain operations like the one Marvin LaRoche oversaw. And when you’re one partner light – that partner having been found dead in a pool of skim milk the morning we opened.
Guess you could add a partner and a friend to that list of things I’d managed to lose over the last year.
A walking, talking Bermuda Triangle, that’s what I was.
Caron was giving me the eye, and it took me a second to realize we were still on the subject of LaRoche. ‘It’s pronounced La-Ro-Shay,’ she said.
‘Tell that to his sister Patti.’
I’d gone to high school with Marvin LaRoche’s younger sister, and she and the rest of the family pronounced their last name La-Roach. Like the bug. Which I thought was appropriate for Marvin, if not for poor Patti. In fact, given Brother Marvin’s modus operandi of attaching himself to a person and then sucking the lifeblood out of her, La-Leech would have suited him even better.
The doorbell on our service entrance rang and, happy for an excuse to end the conversation, I started back to answer it. I just hoped it wasn’t anyone who expected to be paid.
Caron called after me. ‘Most of the planning has been done.’
Sure. The bell chimed again before I could reach it. ‘I’m coming!’ I said as I pulled open the heavy door. Waiting on the other side was Antonio Silva, owner of The Milkman, the local dairy.
‘The Milkman always rings twice,’ I said, stepping aside to let him in.
‘Ronnie, he rings the bell too much?’ Antonio asked with a polite smile. Ronnie was our regular delivery man. ‘You prefer, perhaps, that he knock?’
‘No, no, not at all,’ I hastened to assure him. ‘It was just a joke. A pun really.’
Antonio still looked confused.
‘The Postman Always Rings Twice is a classic American movie,’ I explained. ‘I can understand why you, being born in Italy, wouldn’t have heard of it. It hasn’t even been re-made in more than twenty-five years.’
‘And there is a milkman, too, in this movie?’ Antonio asked as he thud-thudded the cart laden with milk crates over the wooden threshold. ‘In addition to the postman?’
‘Yes. I mean, no.’ Now I was confusing even myself. ‘I just changed the postman to a milkman because I thought it would be funny.’ Thought. As in the past tense.
‘Of course. I understand now.’ Antonio gave a well-mannered laugh. The kind you save for small children who tell knock-knock jokes.
‘Perhaps I should see this movie you are talking about,’ he continued. ‘Maybe I could make a commercial, using this postman/milkman. Like in the advertisements where the dead movie star dances with the vacuum cleaner?’
‘Fred Astaire,’ I said automatically. ‘But in this case, there really is no postman―’
‘There is no postman in The Postman Always Rings Twice?’ Antonio interrupted.
‘No. See the postman in the movie is really a metaphor for justice. Or God. Or fate.’ Circle one. ‘The allusion is that the bad guys will pay. Even if not right away.’
‘On the first ring,’ Antonio said, understanding. ‘This movie, you are sure it is not Swedish?’
‘It is of the life-sucks-and-then-you-die variety,’ I admitted. ‘But it’s a great one.’
‘I will rent the DVD,’ Antonio promised. ‘And I will tell Ronnie to ring the buzzer twice from now on. It will be our . . . how you say it, shtick?’
‘Perfect,’ I said, with a grin. The man was not only gorgeous, but he was smart and funny in three languages.
‘Where is Ronnie?’ I asked.
‘On his vacation,’ Antonio said. ‘I thought I would deliver myself. So I could catch-up with everyone before the coffee convention.’
‘Are you going to Java Ho, Antonio?’ Caron asked, sticking her head around the corner. ‘Marvin LaRoche wants Maggy to oversee the barista competition.’
‘Only so he can torture me, up-close and personal.’ Marvin LaRoche and I had a love/hate relationship. I hated him, and he loved that. Why was Caron pushing this?
‘The barista competition is the highlight of the convention,’ Antonio said as he squeezed by me in the narrow hall. The refrigerator is wedged next to the desk in the corner of our office, which also doubled as a storeroom. ‘The Milkman will donate all of the milk for it.’
Because we used ‘Antonio’ and ‘The Milkman’ interchangeably to refer to the man, it always sounded like Antonio was talking about himself in charming, accented third-person when he referred to his dairy. Combine that with the wavy dark hair, brown eyes and muscular build and he could slide his carton into my fridge any time he wanted.
‘It will be excellent visibility, I believe, for anyone involved,’ Antonio said.
There he had a point.
I’d attended my first Java Ho last year, when my partners and I began toying with the idea of opening a coffeehouse. Intent on learning the trade and networking, I’d visited all the booths, OD’d on free lattes and smoothies and completely ignored the hoots and hollers coming from the barista competition in the next hall.
Ignored, that is, until the last day, when I wandered into the finals and promptly got hooked on the caffeine-hyped atmosphere. It was like the World Series, except with frothing wands instead of bats.
While making specialty coffee drinks might seem simple – throw some ground beans in a filter, push a button, steam some milk – it really can be an art in the right hands. Mine, sadly, are the wrong ones.
A good espresso starts with the proper grind: not too fine and not too coarse. Then just the right amount of pressure applied when tamping, or pressing down the espresso. And a properly timed shot, with the hot water passing through the fine grounds at exactly the right pace and temperature.
Then there was Antonio’s department: the dairy products. Whole milk, skim or two-percent. Cream, half and half, soymilk, even eggnog for the holidays. All of them are steamed to varying degrees of both heat and frothiness and combined with espresso to make cappuccinos, lattes and other specialty drinks.
The froth itself is important, too. Good froth is almost silky and creative baristas use it and the crema – that’s the brown foam that comes from brewing espresso – to make intricate, two-tone ‘latte art’ on top of the drinks.
The key word, of course, being creative. The best I’d ever been able to summon up was something that looked like a half-baked version of Princess Leia’s hologram in the first Star Wars movie. Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi . . .
‘It’s really nice of you to donate, Antonio,’ Caron was saying, having abandoned the cone grinder to watch him heft six gallons of skim milk, four of whole, and six quarts of half and half into our refrigerator.
‘There is nothing nice about it,’ The Milkman said, straightening up and flashing Caron a smile. ‘Specialty coffee is of importance to the dairy industry.’
Caron giggled, the trollop.
As Antonio backed into the hall, I dodged out of the way before he could flatten me against the opposite wall. Guys as ripped as Antonio should come equipped with back-up beepers and warning lights.
‘Can you imagine how much milk a national chain such as Starbucks purchases each year?’ Antonio continued.
I couldn’t, but it had to be significant. Uncommon Grounds used a lot of milk and we sure weren’t Starbucks, or even LaRoche’s HotWired. What Antonio had just loaded into our refrigerator would last us three or four days. We didn’t have enough room to stock a full week’s supply, so The Milkman delivered on Tuesdays and again Fridays.
‘So, what you’re saying,’ Caron said, wrinkling her pert little nose at Antonio, while simultaneously quirking an eyebrow at me, ‘is that you value the exposure.’
The wrinkling-nose/quirking-eyebrow thing seemed physically impossible to me, but then Caron could also touch her nose with her tongue. Eat crackers and wh
istle. Wiggle her ears. She was a facial Harry Houdini.
‘The Java Ho attendees might be potential customers for Antonio,’ I pointed out to Caron, ‘but they’re our competitors. Other coffeehouse owners. Why do we need exposure to them?’
‘Two thousand coffeehouse owners.’ Antonio was obviously delighted at the thought. ‘To know who is who and to work into the . . . how they say it? Rotation of suppliers? Three years to learn this. It will be worth it, though, if I have one more chain like HotWired as my customer.’
‘Marvin LaRoche buys milk from you?’ I asked. Five years ago, LaRoche had been a barista at Janalee’s Place, a small coffeehouse on the northern fringe of Brookhills. Since LaRoche and Janalee had married, the operation had grown to twenty stores.
In fact, the newest HotWired had just opened a bare half-mile from Uncommon Grounds. Of all the joe joints in all the towns, in all the world . . .
‘He does,’ Antonio was saying. ‘And the larger HotWired grows, the more . . .’ He stopped, catching sight of the look on my face.
Caron jumped in. ‘Would you like a latte or cappuccino to take along, Antonio?’
‘I cannot drink lattes or cappuccinos – thank you.’
‘No? Why?’ Caron seemed determined to move the subject off HotWired and on to anything else, including Antonio’s beverage of choice, apparently.
The Milkman put his hand on his rock-hard abs. Or so I imagined them to be. ‘I do not drink the dairy.’
‘Wait a second,’ I said, being drawn in against my will. ‘The Milkman doesn’t drink milk?’
Antonio got an embarrassed grin on his face. ‘It gives me the stomach ache.’
This was just too good.
Leave it to Caron to ruin it for me. ‘I understand L’Café is lending the competition three new espresso machines,’ she said, back on the attack. ‘Everyone sees the potential, Maggy. Even Sarah. She’s been coordinating the exhibit hall.’
Sarah Kingston was Brookhills’ top real estate agent, and about as unBrookhillian as one could get. She wore baggy jackets on her lean frame, sensible shoes on her oversized feet, and a Virginia Slims Menthol between her tobacco-stained fingers.