by Sandra Balzo
‘That’s only in the movies,’ Pavlik said, standing up and tucking the notebook away for what I hoped was the last time. ‘In real life, we’re too busy with our own thoughts to pay much attention to other people, much less “presences”. The competition room is big and there are bleachers and dividers in it. The killer could have been hiding anywhere.’
It was true that I’d been so preoccupied with Kate’s accusation about the fire at Janalee’s Place, that there could have been a Tyrannosaurus rex in the room and I wouldn’t have noticed. I hadn’t noticed a body, for God’s sake. A body that must have been just inches from my feet.
I shivered. ‘It had just happened. If I interrupted the murderer, then it had just happened. That’s why.’ I was talking to myself.
‘Why what?’
Astonished at my own stupidity, I looked up at him. ‘Why I didn’t smell anything. No bowel or bladder smell, nothing.’
‘Hmm.’ Pavlik was probably remembering another body I’d stumbled across, where just the opposite was true. But that’s another story.
‘On the other hand,’ I continued, ‘I did notice something this morning. I just figured Davy had another stinky diaper from all the nuts and berries, or whatever Janalee feeds him.’
‘Maybe―’ Pavlik started to say, but I interrupted.
‘Maybe he wasn’t dead at all,’ I finished for him. I stood up and looked Pavlik in the eye. ‘Maybe LaRoche was still alive under that table.’
The sheriff shook his head. ‘Don’t beat yourself up about that, at least. His skull was crushed in. If he was alive, it wasn’t for long.’
‘If only I had looked under that table when I fixed the tablecloth,’ I said, rubbing my own forehead. ‘It would have been a natural thing to do.’
Pavlik took me by the shoulders. ‘And then maybe it would have been natural for the assailant to kill you, too.’
There was that.
‘I get it.’ I said. ‘OK.’
Pavlik let go and started putting on his jacket.
I trailed him to the door. ‘So when you saw me on that tape, did you seriously think I had murdered LaRoche?’ It seemed an important question to ask of someone you want a relationship with.
‘Tape?’ Pavlik said absently as he opened the door.
‘The tape from the camera outside the competition room,’ I said.
‘Don’t be silly.’ He kissed me hard on the lips. ‘Why would there be a camera in that hallway and nowhere else in the convention center?’ He winked at me and was gone.
Pavlik had reeled me in, just like he had Levitt Fredericks. And I hadn’t even put up much of a fight.
Maybe there were worse things than never having sex.
With the sheriff in the house, the thought of someone lurking behind the bleachers in the competition room last night was manageable.
Frank’s presence didn’t inspire quite that much confidence.
‘You would protect me, wouldn’t you boy?’ I asked, picking up what was left of my wine and slipping down on to the floor next to him.
Frank, sprawled out in front of the cold fireplace, raised his head, presumably to look at me. The look said ‘I’m here for you’ and ‘I can’t see a damn thing’ all rolled into one.
I sighed and flipped over on my back, head resting on Frank’s furry shoulder. The night was chilly damp and I thought about tossing a log on the fireplace. Finding a match to light the paper wrapper of my fake log seemed like too much work, though. ‘Go fetch a match, Frank.’
He didn’t answer.
‘Lazy,’ I chastised him. I thought about getting another glass of wine, but it would require opening a new bottle. ‘Don’t suppose you have a corkscrew under there, do you, boy?’ I asked, moving aside some fur.
I got a snore in response.
Eric should have gotten a St Bernard.
I was feeling a little batty with equal parts of wine, fear and regret. The thought that LaRoche was dying under the table while I was playing with the trophies was horrifying. Equally so was that the killer – likely someone I knew – could have been there watching me. Might still be watching me.
After all, how would he know if I’d seen anything that could incriminate him? And what would he do if he thought I had? I gave a shiver and Frank groaned.
Focus on what you know, Maggy, I told myself. Not on what you’re afraid someone else might know.
So what did I know?
I knew that LaRoche had been killed with a trophy, in the competition room by . . . Colonel Mustard.
I giggled.
No, seriously. The facts.
Presumably, LaRoche had been attacked just before I arrived just after midnight. So why was he there that late? In fact, why was he there at all?
‘I’m the one who should have been there, if anybody,’ I said out loud. ‘I was in charge of the competition.’
Frank didn’t respond, but a shiver ran down my spine. ‘No, really,’ I said, sitting up and giving Frank a little shake. ‘Maybe I was the one who was supposed to be killed?’
Frank lifted his head. He looked cynical.
‘True,’ I said, settling back down against him. ‘No one would expect me to return to the hall in the middle of the night.’ Certainly no one who knew me, at least.
That still didn’t explain why LaRoche was there.
To meet someone? Maybe Amy? I thought about the possibility. Ever since my husband Ted had drilled his dental hygienist, I was usually the first one to suspect hanky-panky. But even if something were going on between LaRoche and Amy, why would they meet in the convention center? Amy wasn’t married. They could have gone to her place.
So what other business could LaRoche have had in the competition room? What was there, after all, except for the stage and bleachers and the competitors’ supplies and equipment?
That stopped me. LaRoche was wildly competitive, fancying himself a strategist ala Sun Tzu. And, as Levitt had said, the HotWired owner believed in taking care of his own. In the context of the battle for best barista, ‘his own’ were Janalee and Amy.
Had LaRoche been in the hall trying to sabotage the other competitors?
If so, how would he have done it? The three sets of equipment had to be shared by the competitors. He would have no way of knowing which of the three set-ups Amy and Janalee would be assigned. Heck, I hadn’t even decided that.
So maybe the supplies?
Each competitor had a cart for their equipment, china and non-perishables and refrigerator space for dairy products and the like. LaRoche wouldn’t know whose was whose there either. I had a good idea, but I’d been much more intimately involved in the competition than LaRoche.
‘And what was he going to do anyway?’ I asked Frank. ‘Curdle their milk?’
Frank didn’t bother to answer.
He was right. The idea was a non-starter.
So, maybe LaRoche was lured to the competition room by someone. Someone who thought killing the guy with his own convention’s trophy was not only appropriate, but symbolic.
Someone like Levitt Fredericks.
There was certainly no love lost between Levitt and LaRoche. Levitt had made that pretty clear before he passed out at dinner. And a lovers’ triangle between Levitt, LaRoche and Amy added a whole new wrinkle.
So, Levitt had lured LaRoche there to kill him.
Or LaRoche had lured Levitt there, and Levitt had killed him in self-defense.
‘That would be my choice,’ I said out loud. ‘If that was how it played out, maybe everybody can still live happily ever after.’ Except for LaRoche, of course.
Frank gave a little whimper, then a bark, a low growl and another whimper. His legs bicycled.
‘Puppy dreams, huh?’ I gave him a little rub behind the ears. ‘Must be nice to dream about running through fields and chasing rabbits.’
Lately my dreams had been more of the ‘being chased by giant breasted baristas’ variety. That and the ‘drowning in a sea of debt’ dream. Bu
t then who doesn’t have that one?
‘Sleep, I fear, won’t come easily tonight,’ I told Frank, patting what felt like his head. With a sigh, I got up, checked my cellphone for messages, and slipped a movie in the DVD player.
In my dream, I’m in Uncommon Grounds. There’s a ‘Barista Wanted’ sign in the window and a customer sitting at the counter, sipping coffee. I’m on the other side of the counter, wiping it down with a rag.
Neither one of us seems to notice the body on the floor. It’s Marvin LaRoche, eyes fixed and staring at a mobile – the kind that hangs over a baby’s crib – on the ceiling above. Suspended from the center of the mobile is a miniature ‘Slut in a cup’, surrounded by five runner-up trophies.
The chimes on the door jangle, and a woman comes in. I look up. The woman has rainbow-colored hair. Amy.
‘I see you want a man,’ she says.
I shake my head ‘no’ and start to point to the ‘Barista Wanted’ sign in the window.
Except now it says ‘Man Wanted’.
The chimes again, and in comes Janalee. She’s wearing a black suit. In mourning. She has baby spit on one shoulder and is carrying Davy. In Davy’s mouth is a pacifier. It’s in the shape of a toy soldier.
‘Looking for a job?’ I ask Amy, as I toss Janalee the rag to wipe the spit off her shoulder.
‘No, a man.’ She shrugs. ‘I never like any I’ve ever had. Maybe the next one is the one I’ve always been looking for.’
Another bell, this time at the back door. Before I can get there, it rings again.
‘It’s The Milkman,’ the customer at the counter says, without turning around. ‘He always rings twice.’
Davy starts to cry. His pacifier drops out of his mouth, hits the floor and starts to roll.
Jerome is there now, and his camera follows the pacifier across the floor, past LaRoche’s vacant, pale eyes. It comes to a stop in front of a pair of European loafers.
The camera pans up. Lean thighs. Narrow waist. Sculpted biceps. Dark Italian eyes. Antonio.
Janalee sighs and sets Davy down. Still wailing, he crawls across the floor toward his pacifier. Antonio leans down and gives it to him. Davy smiles at him and begins to play soldiers on his father’s bloodied head.
‘Davy wants to play with his daddy,’ Amy says plaintively. She’s crying, too, and holding a cellphone.
‘He’s playing on his daddy,’ I point out.
Davy begins to giggle, and giggle, and giggle . . .
I was bolt upright in bed.
My radio alarm was on, and the remnants of Davy’s maniacal giggling had morphed into the happy talk of the local morning team. I wasn’t sure which was worse. In response to my movement, Frank jumped up on the bed. For once, I didn’t try to push him off.
Instead, I settled back on to the pillow and scratched his head, which he had accommodatingly plopped on to my stomach. It was obvious the dream had been sparked by my viewing of The Postman Always Rings Twice last night. Instead of the black and white of the original 1946 noir classic, though, the dream had been in vivid color. So vivid that it had almost hurt to watch it. The details, the colors – all overwhelming.
I had been able to see individual tears run down Davy’s face, practically count Antonio’s eyelashes. The three earrings in Amy’s left ear were all pink gold. One of them had a tiny turquoise stone. Janalee had been wearing blue eyeshadow and her mascara was smudged. La Roche’s already pale blue eyes were starting to cloud over, like a bad case of post-mortem cataracts.
Wait a second. I rewound the scene in my mind. Janalee’s tears. LaRoche’s staring eyes. Janalee had – both in the dream and in real life – blue eyes. LaRoche, the same. But Davy . . .
I thought about the times I’d seen the baby. Davy’s eyes were brown, I was certain of that. Could two blue-eyed parents have a brown-eyed baby?
‘No!’ I said, with all the conviction a single biology class could give you. But I also knew that Davy wasn’t adopted, because I’d seen Janalee pregnant. Could his birth have been the result of in vitro fertilization? A possibility, of course.
But Davy’s dark eyes were very much like the eyes of someone else I knew, and while the surrealistic quality of the dream might have magnified the resemblance, it certainly hadn’t manufactured it.
‘That’s why I keep feeling like Davy has adult eyes,’ I said. ‘Because I’ve seen them in an adult.’
When Frank didn’t respond, I gently knock-knocked on the top of his head. He raised it.
‘Guess what?’ I asked, moving aside a lock of hair so I could see his still closed eyes.
Frank yawned and opened one of them.
‘Davy,’ I said triumphantly, ‘looks like The Milkman.’
Chapter Twenty
‘The more I thought about it, the more sense it made,’ I told Sarah in the exhibit hall later that morning.
She was busy trying to keep the exhibitors from breaking down their booths early. It being Sunday and the last day of the convention, the crowd was light. Those who weren’t in their hotel rooms packing to leave were either at the cupping or the frothing exhibition.
Nonetheless, the exhibit hall was billed as being open until noon, and it wasn’t going to close early under Sarah’s watch, come hell or homicide.
‘Antonio has brown eyes,’ I continued, as I trailed after her. ‘And Davy has brown eyes. Davy is also colicky. A milk allergy perhaps?’ I raised my eyebrows at Sarah.
‘You do remember I never had kids, right? That I inherited the two that live with me?’
Oh, yeah. ‘A milk allergy can contribute to colic and Antonio told me just this week that he can’t drink dairy.’
‘The Milkman doesn’t drink milk?’ Sarah asked.
‘Weird, huh?’ I said. ‘But maybe it makes it easier. You know, like candy-makers who don’t eat chocolate. They don’t have to worry about being tempted to eat the profits.’
‘I doubt that two-percent and skim have exactly the siren call of truffles and peanut butter cups,’ Sarah said dryly. She started after a booth-holder who was surreptitiously sliding a cardboard packing box out from under his table.
When he saw her, he raised his hands in surrender and kicked the box back under the table. Sarah backed off.
‘According to my biology class,’ I continued, uncowed, ‘lactose intolerance is quite common amongst people of middle European and Mediterranean descent.’
‘God knows I don’t want to badmouth your biology teacher from the ninth grade,’ Sarah said, checking her clipboard, ‘but I don’t think either the “blue or brown”, “burp or don’t burp” thing is scientific proof.’
‘Perhaps not,’ I said. ‘I did a little Internet research this morning and I did find some . . . caveats.’
She looked sideways at me. ‘Like what kind of caveats?’
‘They say it’s “rare” for two blue-eyed parents to have a brown-eyed child. Rare,’ I repeated disgustedly. ‘Whatever happened to downright impossible?’
Sarah patted me on the shoulder. ‘I think I speak for the rest of the free world when I say I’m sorry we all can’t be as black and white as you are.’
‘Apology accepted,’ I said, sadly shaking my head. ‘But where does this leave us?’
‘Leave us?’ she asked. ‘It leaves me patrolling these yahoos until noon. Then it leaves me making sure they use union workers to transport their stuff, or all hell is going to break loose.’ She took a hit of her puffer. ‘Who knew that coffee vendors were such loose cannons?’
‘Hey, speaking of loose cannons,’ I said, glancing around, ‘have you seen Levitt this morning?’
‘I did,’ Sarah said, ‘and he’s looking a little banged up. Apparently, black and blue is the new green.’
‘Poor Levitt. I should probably check on him to make sure he’s all right.’
Sarah snorted. ‘Don’t give me that. You’re just feeling guilty because you were glad he fell over.’
‘I was not glad.’ Relieved may
be, but not glad.
‘Right.’ Sarah didn’t look convinced, but since she was busy patrolling for vendors trying to make a break for it, she let me off the hook. ‘The last I saw of Levitt, Penny was trying to get him to sign a release so he wouldn’t sue the joint.’
‘What in the world got into him, do you suppose?’ I asked.
‘I’d say nearly a bottle of wine,’ Sarah said dryly.
Given my friend’s mood this morning, I didn’t bother to ask what had gotten into her to offer the obviously inebriated Levitt the stage and an open mic. Asking Sarah to explain herself was like asking the wind why it blew dirt in your eyes. It just did.
‘True,’ I said, instead. ‘I know he drank it down fast, but should a man his size get falling-down drunk on three glasses of wine?’
‘Maybe he’s not as used to it as you are.’
I ignored the besmirching of my character. ‘He did turn the wine down, the first time around,’ I said, more to myself than to her. ‘It was only when Pavlik started questioning him that he began to drink.’
‘While we’re on the subject of Pavlik, did you get any last night?’ Sarah showed her teeth.
‘No,’ I said shortly.
Pavlik’s game with the phantom camera in the corridor wasn’t sitting well with me. What did he think I was going to do? Break down and confess? I didn’t think so. He hadn’t seemed to take me seriously as a suspect. I did think, though, that he took me seriously as an informant.
My best guess was that he wanted to squeeze as much information as he could from me. And he sure knew how to do it. I had volunteered far more than I would have, if I hadn’t thought he had me on tape. Despite my attraction to him, Pavlik still made me a little nervous.
Sarah and I had lapped the floor three times now. She stopped at the door. ‘Touched a nerve, did I?’
‘No, you did not,’ I grumbled. ‘And it’s crass of you to ask anyway.’
‘I just know the benefits of having a professional check under your hood,’ she said. The dirty grin on her face told me that she, at least, had ‘gotten some’ last night.
‘And you have the nerve to call the trophy “Slut in a cup”,’ I said, and Sarah’s grin got even bigger. ‘The engineer, I presume?’