by Sandra Balzo
I touched her shoulder, the one without Davy on it, praying that she hadn’t heard me. ‘Janalee, I’m so sorry. Is there anything I can do?’
Janalee had a cloth diaper draped over the baby’s face and all I could see of him was a pair of eyes. Apparently she was trying to shield him from the smoke, though the widening wet spot on Davy’s bottom argued that the diaper might be better employed on that end.
Janalee waved me over to an area that was relatively smoke-free. Sarah didn’t follow us. Instead, she edged closer to the redhead, who, in turn, edged away. Any minute now they’d be in the bushes.
‘I can’t believe this is all happening.’ Janalee took a deep breath. ‘First the fire and now Marvin? It’s just too much, and with Amy leaving, too . . .’ Tears started to flow.
‘I’m so sorry about that,’ I said, tears welling up in my eyes, too. ‘Why don’t you just keep Amy?’ Caron was going to kill me.
But Janalee just smiled sadly. ‘You’re sweet, Maggy, but Amy’s not my property. We’ll have to let her decide what she wants to do.’
I guess we did, dammit. And now that LaRoche was gone, I wondered whether she would, indeed, stay with Janalee.
‘But there is something you can do for me,’ Janalee was saying as she patted Davy on his wet butt.
‘Of course, anything,’ I said, hoping she didn’t want me to change him. Or babysit.
‘Take over Java Ho in Marvin’s stead.’
Even worse.
‘But don’t you think we should cancel the rest of the convention?’
After all, Sunday was always the slowest day at a convention. People getting ready to leave and all. The exhibit hall would be open, of course, and there was a frothing clinic and a cupping – the coffee equivalent of a wine-tasting. Neither would pull in the kind of numbers . . .
Janalee was patting my hand now, instead of Davy’s wet bum. ‘It was Marvin’s dream, and he would want us to see it through. Would you do that for him?’ Her blue eyes were overflowing again.
No, I wouldn’t do it for him. But I’d do it for Janalee, with her soggy eyes and her equally soggy baby. Especially if it would make her stop touching me with her soggy hand. ‘Sure, I’ll do it.’
‘Thank you.’ Removing the diaper from Davy’s head, she reached in and pulled a folder out of the sling. Mercifully, it was dry. ‘Here’s the information you’ll need. The banquet is tonight.’
‘Banquet?’
‘Don’t worry. Cocktails at six thirty, dinner at seven thirty, and everything is set with the caterers. Your contact with them is named Penny and she’s a marvel. Now Marvin was supposed to speak, but I’ve asked Levitt Fredericks of EarthBean to take his place.’
Not a bad idea. EarthBean’s agenda would have equal time to LaRoche’s.
‘And one more favor, Maggy?’
This time I didn’t say ‘anything’. ‘What is it?’
She played her hands through Davy’s downy hair, focusing on him. ‘I know I should come and say something about Marvin, but I just can’t.’ She looked up at me. ‘Would you? Would you tell people what kind of man he was? I’m afraid they will just remember his rant in the keynote speech. Marvin wasn’t like that.’
The hell he wasn’t. But those eyes were pumping water again. ‘Tell you what, Janalee. I think it would be much more appropriate for Sarah Kingston to do it, instead of me. She’s known LaRo . . . Marvin, so much longer.’ And she, at least, was unlikely to become a suspect in his murder. ‘Why don’t I ask her?’
Janalee clapped in joy, nearly catching Davy up-side the head. ‘Wonderful idea, Maggy. Marvin had great respect for Sarah.’
Everyone had great respect for Sarah. Or else.
‘Perfect. Then it’s settled,’ I said, happy to see that Sarah was still sucking smoke to my right. I wouldn’t have to track her down. ‘Now you go home and rest.’
‘I will,’ she promised and started down the sidewalk. Then she turned back. ‘And Maggy, just so you know. No matter what people may say, I know you didn’t have anything to do with either the fire or Marvin’s death.’
Pulling Sarah to the side, I broke the news.
‘Me? Speak? What am I going to say?’
‘Please, like you haven’t spoken at a million events.’
‘Real estate events,’ she clarified. ‘Most everyone is either talking or dead drunk.’
As opposed to our convention where they were just dead.
‘You’re not getting out of this,’ I said sternly. ‘You will do five minutes on Marvin LaRoche. You will be nice, but not too nice, or people will storm the stage. They won’t have forgotten his speech from Thursday night.’
‘Don’t worry,’ Sarah said, ‘people never badmouth the dead.’
‘Only because it’s not as much fun as badmouthing the living,’ I said. ‘I can’t believe we’re going ahead with this thing.’
‘You’re telling me,’ Sarah said. ‘I wasn’t even planning on going to the banquet. What am I supposed to wear?’
I took a sniff. ‘Something that doesn’t smell like smoked fish. You didn’t stink this bad when you were smoking.’
Sarah twisted her head toward her shoulder and got a whiff. ‘Whew, she smokes some cheap-ass cigarettes, I tell you.’
‘I don’t think huffers can be choosers,’ I said. ‘Listen, I’ll meet you in the Crystal Ballroom at six. Cocktails are at six thirty, dinner seven thirty, and I’ll start the program the minute the first person sets down his or her fork.’
I got out my car keys. ‘Believe me, tonight is going to be short and sweet.’
It turned out to be neither.
When I arrived at Brookhills Community College, it was three on the dot.
BCC is a two-year college that feeds into the four-year university system. Most of the kids who go there are local, often living at home.
Eric had considered attending BCC his first two years, before transferring to a bigger school out of state. I had encouraged him to go away to school. After all, living away from home is an important developmental step.
Besides, much as I love my son, I had imagined an adult lifestyle: romantic dinners for Ted and me, without first having to clear dirty socks off the dining room table. Nights at the theater, without being summoned away during intermission by a panicky text message. Drinks on the way home from work, without worrying about cooking dinner.
Now I could do all of those things. Only, alone. Moral: be careful what you wish for.
Jerome met me at the main door of the arts building and led me to the editing suite. ‘I’ve got everything all set,’ he said as he waved me to a chair at the console. ‘I just didn’t know where you wanted to start.’
He settled into the chair next to me. A picture of LaRoche at the lectern was frozen on the screen in front of us. ‘First thing we taped was Marvin’s speech. We only had one camera, as you’ll remember, so I can’t give you any crowd reaction.’
Crowd reaction would have been nice. Perhaps someone screaming, ‘I’m going to kill you, LaRoche’ – now that would have been perfect.
‘How about after the speech?’ I asked. ‘Did you get crowd shots then?’
‘Of course.’ Jerome spun a dial and the tape fast-forwarded. LaRoche’s speech was a lot more enjoyable condensed to five seconds and without sound. Jerome slowed the image to real-time as LaRoche stepped off the stage. ‘I think I got him talking to a few people here, shaking hands.’
The tape showed LaRoche approaching the first row of attendees to glad-hand them. The pained expressions on the shakees’ faces spoke volumes about both LaRoche’s hearty grip and their feelings for him.
A blonde woman who was dragooned into shaking hands looked around, apparently wary of being seen consorting with the enemy. It was the visibly irate man behind her who caught my eye, though. Levitt Fredericks. He seemed to be speaking to someone next to him, but he was glaring at LaRoche.
‘Can you get any sound on this?’
‘I can
, but it’s mostly ‘Born in the USA’. Jerome turned on the audio.
He was right, I couldn’t hear anything above the music except for the general murmur of the crowd. ‘Can’t you take the music out? Separate the tracks or something?’
‘Maybe the FBI facility in Quantico could do that,’ he said apologetically, ‘but I’m afraid this is the best I can do in a community college.’
Dang. Why isn’t anything the way it is in the movies?
‘But I do think I have more footage with that tall gray-haired man in it, if that’s what you’re looking for.’
That was exactly what I was looking for. ‘He’s not with LaRoche, by any chance, is he?’ And perhaps has a bloody trophy in his hand?
‘In fact, he is with Marvin.’ Jerome spun the dial. ‘Last night. Friday.’
Bingo. We had found the body this morning – had it just been this morning? – and today was Saturday. That meant LaRoche died sometime between eight p.m. last night, when he and I had our little dust-up, and a little bit before ten this morning when Sarah and I discovered the body.
So when was he killed – late last night or early this morning? Maybe his clothes would tell me.
I thought of LaRoche lying there, eyes staring out from under his bloody forehead. But what had he been wearing? A suit, of course. A dark one. But since he always wore dark suits that wouldn’t help me much. What else?
Some people are born observers. And rememberers. Me? I’m a natural forgetter. I can’t remember what I was wearing yesterday, much less anyone else. I introduced and re-introduced myself to people I’d already met.
Still, shouldn’t I remember what the dead body I’d stumbled across this morning looked like? Most people would see it in their dreams. Or their nightmares.
Jerome had found the right place on the tape. ‘I was shooting the exhibitors closing down their booths for the evening. It seemed like it would make good B-roll.’
The exhibit hall closed to the public at eight p.m. and not a moment earlier, with Sarah at the helm. That meant the tape was shot after I’d seen LaRoche just before eight.
The monitor showed a vendor smoothing a giant dust cover over a counter filled with espresso machines. As he did, LaRoche walked into the picture on one side and then out the other. He was wearing his signature dark suit, but I couldn’t see either the shirt or the tie as Jerome’s camera swiveled to follow.
I tried to figure out which way the camera was pointing. Since most of the exhibitors already were shut down, I couldn’t find a landmark. ‘Do you remember what direction he was going?’
Jerome froze the image and sat back in his swivel chair. ‘Let’s see. I was in the center aisle and this was L’Café’s booth. I know that because I had the guy sign a release.’
‘Good.’ I leaned forward to get a better look at the screen. ‘The center aisle runs north and south, so LaRoche is either going north, towards the competition room, or south toward the Grand Foyer and the front door.’ Please God, let it be north.
‘North.’
Yes!
Jerome pointed. ‘See the restroom signs? They’re on the back wall of the exhibit hall.’
‘The north wall.’ How could I have missed that? Others may scope out the emergency exits when they enter a building. Me? I always know where the restrooms are.
Jerome started the tape moving again. As LaRoche got closer to the restrooms, a man stepped out of a side aisle and stopped him. It was Levitt Fredericks.
‘I suppose we’re too far away to hear anything,’ I said tentatively, not wanting to ask another – or perhaps the same – stupid question.
‘Yup.’ Jerome turned toward me and gave me a big grin. ‘Until they start yelling.’
‘They yell?’
‘They yell.’
He turned up the volume. Generic convention noises, and then: ‘. . .not my problem. My responsibility is to my customers and, when we go public, to my shareholders,’ LaRoche was saying.
Levitt grabbed his arm. ‘What about the world, the environment?’ he asked. ‘The families in Mexico and Central America? The men, women and children who harvest the beans, allowing you to reap the profits. Do they mean nothing to you? These people are living in poverty.’
LaRoche shook him off and as he did, I caught sight of his tie. Burgundy. And the shirt was white. ‘I am concerned about families,’ LaRoche said. ‘My family, first and foremost.’
‘So that’s your only concern. Your family.’
‘Yes, however you want to define it.’ For the first time, LaRoche looked truly angry. ‘If more people took care of their own flesh and blood, we wouldn’t need groups like yours handing out charity.’
‘You, sir, are well aware that EarthBean doesn’t supply handouts,’ Levitt said as LaRoche walked away from him, nearly colliding with a dark-haired man trying to get around them.
Levitt dodged after LaRoche and continued: ‘We provide tools for the poor to help themselves . . .’ The rest was lost as the two turned the corner, either to the men’s room or, beyond that, the entrance to the competition room.
Jerome sat back again in his chair and steepled his chair. ‘Not bad, huh?’
Not bad? It was all a girl wanting to divert suspicion away from herself could ask for. ‘I could kiss you, Jerome,’ I said. ‘But I won’t,’ I added hastily, ‘lest people talk.’
Jerome looked skyward and spread his hands in a helpless gesture. ‘Just my luck.’
‘Yeah, right.’ I looked at the clock on the console. It was almost four. I had to meet Sarah at six and, now that I was feeling better, I wanted to make a stop on my way home. ‘I probably should run, but is there anything else I should see?’
‘That’s the last of what I taped yesterday, and I went through the footage of the barista competition. Marvin was sitting next to the judges the whole time. Then this morning . . .’
He let it trail off. This morning, of course, Marvin LaRoche wasn’t sitting anywhere.
I wondered what we should do with the tape. I could take it along and give it to Pavlik, but wouldn’t that break some kind of chain of evidence? No, better to keep it in Jerome’s possession.
‘Take good care of that tape,’ I said as I stood up. ‘The police are going to come looking for it.’
He was puzzled. ‘How do you know that?’
‘Because I’m going to tell them to.’ I smiled. ‘So you’ll be at the banquet, right?’
‘Well, I was going to ask Kate that before she took off so abruptly. Do you still want us to cover it, despite the fact the barista competition is –’ he spread his hands out wide – ‘no more?’
Good question. But I liked having Jerome and his camera around. Sort of a videotape safety net. ‘Sure,’ I said. ‘Maybe you can turn this into something useful. A class project of some kind.’
Jerome stood up to escort me to the door. He was thinking. ‘Interesting idea. Not a feature film, of course, but maybe a short. Or a documentary.’
‘After all, how many college students are ever involved in a homicide investigation? And who knows, maybe you can enter it in a film festival or something.’
I left Jerome with visions of documentaries Sundancing in his head.
Me, I was thinking of burgundy ties.
Specifically, LaRoche’s burgundy tie flipped over his shoulder as he lay dead. Some things you just don’t forget. At least not for long.
Chapter Sixteen
There’s nothing like narrowing down a time of death and finding an alternative murder suspect to raise a woman’s spirits.
Not that I wished Levitt ill, but it was pretty clear from the tape that he had an argument with LaRoche after my argument. And the burgundy tie proved that LaRoche had been killed in the same clothes he had been wearing Friday. That meant he was killed Friday night, not Saturday morning. That was Friday night – after his argument with Levitt.
In my relief and haste, I hadn’t noticed if there was a time stamp on the tape that would prove e
xactly when it was recorded and cement my alibi. I’d met Kate and Jerome for drinks after seeing LaRoche, so the timeline seemed pretty clear. First my fight, then Levitt’s.
So why was LaRoche going back to the competition room when he had encountered Levitt? Or wasn’t he? Maybe I was jumping to conclusions and LaRoche was simply aiming for the men’s room. Life would have been so much simpler for me if he had been found dead under the urinal, instead of the trophy table. Chances were pretty good I wouldn’t have found him there.
But no. LaRoche had ended up in the competition room. Why? I didn’t have an answer to that one yet. But I did have a banquet to run.
On the way home, my minivan made a stop at my favorite dress shop. Or what used to be my favorite dress shop. Since my divorce, money and the occasion to wear a nice dress had definitely been limited.
Still, I’d missed Bruce Paul Goodman – both the store and the person. BPG was Brookhills’ premier women’s clothing store. Bruce carried more than designer dresses, of course. He had designer handbags and sweaters and shoes – oh my! He even had a designer dog named Toto.
Bruce greeted me when I stepped in the door. ‘Maggy,’ he said, giving me a hug, ‘it’s been far too long.’
‘You’re telling me,’ I said, gazing around. ‘And how I’ve missed you all: you and Nicole, and Vera and Kate.’
‘And me and Toto, too?’ Jacqueline, my favorite saleswoman called from the dressing area.
‘That goes without saying.’ I gave her a wave, Toto an ear-scratch, and looked around.
Pre-divorce, a trip to Bruce’s would have been an all-afternoon affair. Me, trapped in the dressing room, and Bruce and Jacqueline bringing armload after armload of fabulous clothes I ‘just had to see’.
I know, I had been badmouthing Caron’s designer-barista aspirations, and here I was lusting after the textile equivalent. Luckily, post-divorce poverty had pretty much broken me of that habit.
‘I should never have walked in the door,’ I moaned, shaking my head at the racks laden with beautiful things. ‘I have about ten minutes to find a dress that I can afford.’ I held up a finger. ‘Key word, Bruce: afford.’