Importance of Being Urnest

by Sandra Balzo

  ‘I did. You and he are my second favorite girl and dog combination, after all.’

  ‘I take that as a compliment, since I know who number one is.’

  Tracey giggled.

  It seemed off, chatting like this with Pavlik lying in bed in a hospital gown, IV in one arm. He was always in control. Always doing something. Riding his Harley in his— ‘Uh-oh.’

  Pavlik squeezed my hand. ‘I was going to tell you.’

  ‘Tell Maggy what?’ Tracey’s freckled nose was wrinkled.

  I pointed. ‘Your dad’s jacket.’

  Draped over a vinyl upholstered chair was Pavlik’s buttery leather jacket. It had a hole in it. And that wasn’t the worst part.

  ‘Cool,’ Tracey breathed. ‘Is that your blood, Dad?’

  ‘Hard to tell,’ Pavlik said. ‘But probably most of it is Deputy Hartsfield’s. At least what you can see.’

  Meaning Pavlik’s own blood would be on the inside.

  ‘Ugh.’

  Apparently your own dad’s blood was cool. Somebody else’s blood not so much.

  ‘Have you heard what Pete Hartsfield’s condition is?’ Pavlik asked me.

  ‘No, only that he’d been hit in the chest, too. And that you pulled him to safety.’

  Now Tracey’s eyes were big. ‘Did you, Dad? You’re a hero, just like in the movies.’

  ‘Except those heroes never get shot themselves,’ Pavlik said.

  ‘Oh, they take bullets,’ Tracey said, waving her hand as if it were nothing. ‘You’ll be back in action in no time.’

  ‘Have they told you how long you’ll be here?’ I asked.

  ‘No, but—’ Pavlik broke off as a different doctor came in with a chart. ‘Phyllis, thanks for stopping by.’

  ‘Just don’t make a practice of getting shot on my days off.’ The doctor put her hand out to me. ‘Phyllis Goode.’

  ‘Maggy Thorsen.’

  ‘Oh, you own Uncommon Grounds, don’t you? I stop in sometimes with the gang from Goddard’s. When I have a Sunday off, that is.’

  ‘Hi, Doctor Goode,’ Tracey chirped up.

  ‘Hey, Tracey.’ The doctor shook the girl’s hand. ‘You sure made it up from Chicago fast. Or were you already here visiting your dad?’

  ‘Tracey and Susan have moved back,’ Pavlik explained.

  ‘Well, that’s good.’ The doctor flicked a curious glance toward me before continuing. ‘I’ve missed you.’

  Tracey, on the other hand, didn’t miss a thing. ‘If you’re wondering, Doctor Goode, Maggy is my dad’s fee-ahn-say.’ Confusion crossed her face. ‘Or is it fee-ahns? I looked it up the other day but now I can’t remember.’

  ‘Women are the double e,’ Dr Goode said. ‘Men are single. But they’re both pronounced the same. Fee-ahn-say.’

  ‘So, I was right,’ Tracey said. ‘Maggy is dad’s fiancée. And he’s hers.’

  Pavlik threw a sheepish smile in my direction but didn’t comment. ‘Any word on Pete Hartsfield?’

  Dr Goode shook her head. ‘Still in surgery, I’m told. The bullet apparently nicked a lung, among other things.’

  Pavlik grimaced, seeming to feel his deputy’s pain. Or maybe some of his own.

  The doctor noticed it, too. ‘I can get you something. Now that the anesthesia is wearing off we want to keep ahead of the pain.’

  Pavlik waved it off. ‘I’m fine for now. When can I go home?’

  ‘Not for a couple of days, at least,’ the doc said, setting down the chart. ‘After that, we like to get people out of the hospital as soon as possible, assuming there’s somebody at home to care for them.’

  ‘I can do that,’ Tracey said. ‘I’m a good nurse. And I can cook, too, right, Dad?’

  ‘Best toaster pizzas in the land,’ Pavlik said.

  ‘I’m sure that’s true, Trace,’ Dr Goode said. ‘But your dad is going to need somebody a little bigger to help him for a week or so. Otherwise we’ll need to send him to Brookhills Manor.’

  ‘Brookhills Manor?’ Pavlik and I asked in unison.

  ‘But that’s for old people,’ Tracey said. ‘My great grandpa was there before …’ She glanced over at her father.

  ‘Before he died,’ Pavlik continued. ‘And that’s not going to happen to me, sweetie. But you are right that Brookhills Manor is a senior facility.’

  ‘With a new rehab wing,’ the doctor corrected. ‘It’s not age-restricted and I know they have room.’

  I could read the horror in Pavlik’s face. It was bad enough to be shot and in the hospital with your fellow law enforcement officers waiting in the lobby. But having them visit you at the old folks’ home?

  And that’s how Pavlik came to live with Frank and me.

  EIGHT

  ‘If the thought of Pavlik staying at your place weirds you out,’ Sarah said back at Uncommon Grounds that afternoon, ‘why’d you invite him?’

  ‘I didn’t say it weirded me out. It’s just … well, it’s a big step. And besides, I have one bed. Where should he sleep? With me? What if I roll over on him or something?’

  ‘From what you told me, Pavlik’s condition isn’t that fragile. And it’s not like you’re some big lug like … Wait a second, are you worried about Frank?’

  ‘Frank? I don’t know what you mean.’ I was running the cash register tape to get the day’s totals so far.

  ‘I mean that sheepdog that sleeps in your bed. Please don’t tell me you’re worried about kicking him out for Pavlik.’

  ‘Don’t be silly. Pavlik has slept over before.’ I tore off the printed tape a little too aggressively, sending the remainder of the roll out of the register and across the room, unraveling as it went. ‘Shit.’

  ‘Easy, girl,’ Sarah said, retrieving it.

  ‘And, for the record, Frank sleeps on my bed, not in it.’ I took the roll from her and rewound the paper on to it before slipping the roll back into the machine.

  ‘Meaning he doesn’t sleep under the sheet and blanket?’ Sarah asked, watching me. ‘Thank God. Though that’s probably more a function of his needs than yours.’

  I folded the printed tape in sections and paper-clipped it to our journal before turning. ‘I heard the words but I have no idea what you just said.’

  ‘I’m saying that Frank wears a fur coat so he’s always warm. He’s certainly not going to crawl under the covers with you. But I’m betting if he was hairless and came snuggling, you’d let him crawl between your sheets.’

  I tried to imagine Frank as a hundred pounds of hairless. ‘I’m pretty sure not.’

  Sarah squinted, thinking about it. ‘He would kind of look like a giant rat, wouldn’t he?’

  ‘Don’t let him hear you say that.’ But yeah. With longer legs. ‘Back to Pavlik, though – I just can’t imagine him rehabbing at Brookhills Manor next to Gloria Goddard.’

  ‘And don’t let Gloria hear you say that.’ Sarah picked up a pot and poured the cold coffee in it down the drain.

  ‘You know I love Gloria. But Pavlik would hate it. Besides, Tracey was looking at me like he was going to die if he went there.’

  ‘Not your kid.’ Sarah set the pot she’d just rinsed on the warmer before swiveling to face me with a wry grin on her face. ‘At least, not yet.’

  ‘If you want to know something that does weird me out, it’s that Tracey thinks Pavlik and I are getting married. Why is that?’

  ‘Because he told her, I assume.’

  ‘Maybe he told her he was going to ask me.’ I took the pot and gave it a thorough washing before placing it back on the warmer and pressing the brew button. ‘I guess that makes sense. I mean, I’d probably run it by Eric before I asked somebody to marry me.’

  ‘Yet you haven’t told your son that Pavlik proposed.’

  ‘Because I haven’t answered.’ I was already getting pressure enough from Sarah, thank you very much.

  ‘And what about Pavlik moving in? Going to keep that a secret, too?’

  ‘No.’ At least, I thought I’d tel
l Eric. Assuming the subject came up before the week was over and the sheriff was back home. ‘I wonder if Pavlik told Tracey he was going to ask me but didn’t tell her I said no.’

  ‘You haven’t said no.’ Sarah held up her index finger. ‘You’ve said … maybe.’ She let the finger go limp.

  Enough.

  Sarah must have read it on my face because she shifted gears. ‘What happened to this Pauly guy? I wouldn’t blame Pavlik’s guys if they’d gunned him down on the spot.’

  ‘Me neither. But Pauly Andersen escaped out of the window during the confusion that followed the shooting.’

  ‘Are you telling me they weren’t covering the back?’

  ‘They were, but in the uproar …’ I shrugged. ‘We didn’t get a chance to talk about it with Tracey there but I know Pavlik’s not happy about it.’ That was putting it mildly. And I wasn’t happy about the guy that shot my guy still being out there somewhere.

  ‘Oh!’ I was waving my hand at Sarah like a kid waiting to be called on. ‘Remember that gray-haired man who came out with the to-go cup when we were talking Sunday morning?’

  ‘You mean the one you accused me of scaring away?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘That’s the one. And now I wish you had. Pavlik says that’s Pauly Andersen’s brother, Jack – the one who lives at the manor. A detective followed him to our place and then back to his apartment, which they were already sitting on, of course.’

  Sarah gave me the cop-speak eye-roll I deserved. ‘The guy only bought one coffee, so his brother couldn’t have been there yet.’

  It seemed like a leap. After all, maybe Pauly Andersen didn’t drink coffee. Or host Jack wasn’t considerate enough to ask whether his brother wanted a cup when he picked one up for himself.

  But as it turned out, Sarah was right. ‘According to Hallonquist, Pauly didn’t sneak in until the tour group came back from their trip to the Domes late afternoon. Though they think he was lurking in the woods before that.’

  ‘What else do we know about the brothers grim?’

  I tilted my head in appreciation. ‘Brothers Grimm – good one.’

  Sarah grinned. ‘Thanks. I think it was the name Andersen that inspired it.’

  Hans Christian Andersen. ‘Did you know he wrote his own fairy tales while the Brothers Grimm were lawyers and academics who compiled folk tales and other people’s writing? There’s some thought that the Brothers’ collection inspired Andersen. He never—’

  The eye-roll was nothing compared to the disgusted look I was getting from Sarah. ‘Are you done?’

  Obviously not, since she’d cut me off mid-sentence. But I digressed. Mightily. ‘Anyway, Pavlik said the two Andersen brothers couldn’t be more different. Pauly, the younger, has a long rap sheet of mostly violent crimes. Jack is the smart one – a charming con man who has bilked people out of millions over the years, yet managed to stay out of jail until eight years ago.’

  ‘Millions of dollars and he was in jail for less than eight years?’

  ‘Good behavior, supposedly. Told you he was charming.’

  Sarah shrugged. ‘Could have fooled me. All I saw was an old guy with a pink face.’

  ‘I’m trying to think if I’ve ever seen him in here before, maybe with the Goddard Gang?’ Though why would I remember Jack Andersen any better than the rest of our customers?

  ‘Not as far as I know.’

  ‘So maybe it was just chance that he came here. Or maybe Jack left his apartment thinking the detectives would follow him and Pauly could sneak in unseen, but it didn’t work.’

  ‘And why not get a good cuppa joe while eluding the cops.’

  ‘So the man is both charming and smart.’

  ‘Talking about me again?’

  Father Jim was on the other side of the service counter.

  ‘No, but you are both of those things,’ I told him.

  ‘And sneaky,’ Sarah added. ‘It unnerves me when people just materialize in front of us like that.’

  ‘It’s my ninja stealth,’ Jim said, striking a pose with hands held out flat. ‘And the fact your chimes on the side door are gone.’

  ‘What?’ I circled out from behind the service counter and into the side hallway that led to the train platform and parking lot. ‘Somebody stole our sleigh bells.’

  ‘Maybe they thought they were helping us. You know, taking down the Christmas decorations.’ Sarah had followed me. ‘It is March, after all.’

  ‘They’re not Christmas decorations,’ I told her for maybe the umpteenth time since I’d put them up on both doors. ‘They’re just bells.’ That happened to be round. And tied with a red ribbon.

  ‘And yet you insist on calling them sleigh bells,’ Sarah said dryly.

  ‘All I care about is that the sleigh bells ring—’

  ‘“Are you listening?”’ Jim’s tenor rang out. ‘“In the—”’

  I gave him a stern look. ‘You’re not helping, you know. You’re supposed to be on my side.’

  ‘Well, if you’ve got God on your side I’m out of here before I can be struck down.’ Sarah was undoing her apron strings.

  ‘You were leaving anyway. Your shift was over at three-thirty.’

  ‘And I’m only a priest, not God,’ Jim said. ‘Though we are confused a lot.’

  ‘It’s the eyes.’ She patted his check and handed him her apron.

  ‘She’s a trip,’ Jim said to me as the now bell-less door closed behind Sarah.

  ‘Yes, she is.’ I took the apron from him. ‘Can I get you a drink?’

  ‘Not really. I’ve probably had enough caffeine today. Besides, I really stopped by to see if you are OK.’

  ‘You heard about the shooting.’ It wasn’t a question, since everybody in Brookhills would know by now what had happened. ‘And Pavlik.’

  I heard my voice shake at the end and Jim must have, too, because he wrapped his arms around me. ‘I’m sorry, sweetheart. Is there anything I can do?’

  ‘No,’ I said into his chest. Tears were suddenly streaming down my cheeks and I couldn’t quite figure out why. ‘I know Pavlik is going to be fine. I’m just being silly.’

  ‘You’re being human. It’s only now hitting you that you might have lost him. Just thank God,’ he let go of me to make the sign of the cross, ‘you didn’t.’

  ‘Yes.’ I dug into my apron pocket and came up with an Uncommon Grounds napkin to mop my face. ‘Well, anyway, like I said,’ a sniffle escaped, ‘I saw Pavlik at the hospital and we should be able to bring him home in a couple of days.’

  Jim didn’t raise an eyebrow at the ‘we,’ meaning Frank and me. The priest knew the sheepdog and I were a couple and didn’t judge. ‘I’m glad to hear it. I stopped by his room at the hospital but the bed was empty.’

  My heart gave a twist and I tamped it back down. What was with me all of a sudden?

  Jim was watching me. ‘I meant he was out of the room having tests. You sure you’re OK?’

  ‘Other than having watched too many bad movies with the “empty hospital bed means dead” cliché? Sure, I’m fine.’ I made myself grin. ‘Thanks for stopping by to see Pavlik. He’s not even Catholic.’

  ‘But he is a friend,’ Jim said. ‘Or at the very least, the friend of a friend. Besides, I was already there for Pete Hartsfield.’

  Like Celeste and Nancy, I thought of last rites when a visit from a priest was mentioned. Talk about clichés. ‘How is Pete doing?’

  ‘Out of surgery but in the intensive care unit. Prayers are needed.’

  ‘Done,’ I said. ‘You sure I can’t get you a cup of coffee?’

  ‘Thanks, but I need to go.’ He checked his watch. ‘I was due at the mortuary five minutes ago to discuss Celeste Bouchard’s arrangements.’

  ‘Has the day and time been set?’ I asked.

  ‘Not yet, but the cremation won’t take place until tomorrow, so the funeral will probably be Thursday.’ Jim was halfway out the door.

  ‘But she was being cremated this morning
. Or at least I thought that’s what Christy said.’

  ‘She must have confused the intake of the body with the actual cremation. That can’t be done for forty-eight hours. Add that time to the actual procedure, cooling and packaging and—’

  ‘Please.’ I held up my hands palms out. ‘I’ve heard enough from Christy on the subject to last me a lifetime.’

  Or an afterlife-time.

  NINE

  It had been a busy day, both death and injury-wise, and it wasn’t over yet. The day itself, I mean. Hopefully the deaths and injuries were done, but one can never tell in Brookhills.

  It was after nine when I got home, after stopping by the hospital to see Pavlik, who’d been downright ornery in comparison with earlier. I figured that was at least partially because whatever meds he’d been on after the surgery had worn off, only to be replaced by the regular painkillers. Which, of course, he’d delayed taking as long as possible, despite the doctor’s advice to ‘stay ahead of the pain.’

  I also knew that he’d wanted to reassure Tracey after the shooting. With me, he could be himself. And growl. ‘A prisoner escapes thanks to Taylor losing his gun? Another deputy is so rattled by the sound of gunfire and the call, “Officer down,” that he deserts his post and lets Andersen get away for a second time? Talk about amateur time.’

  ‘It’s not like the Brookhills County Sheriff’s Department has a lot of experience with shootings,’ I said. ‘Law enforcement here is different than in Chic—’

  But Pavlik wasn’t listening. He was too busy punching an email into his phone. ‘This is my own damn fault, you know. I’ve been too easy on these guys.’

  ‘What’s going to happen to the brother – Jack Andersen?’ I was trying to get him to focus on a subject that would require less self-flagellation than the second escape of Pauly.

  ‘What’s going to happen? Nothing. He claims he was a hostage and we can’t prove otherwise. Another failure.’

  Blessedly, visiting hours ended before he could take the blame for global warming and cancer.

  ‘What do you think?’ I asked Frank as he watched me pull the meat off a rotisserie chicken carcass I’d picked up at the grocery store. ‘You OK with Pavlik coming to stay for a while?’