Uncommon Grounds

by Sandra Balzo

  Putting that aside for the time being, I climbed into the van and tried to give some thought to more pressing matters.

  Patricia had been electrocuted. By the espresso machine. And someone had caused it to happen. Did that mean murder? Or some perverted practical joke that had gone awry?

  Through the front window of the store, I could see Kevin showing Pavlik the heavy wire that connected the espresso machine to the dedicated 220 circuit.

  I hadn’t liked the way Pavlik had watched me as I answered his questions. Did he seriously consider me a suspect? I shuddered. No, I didn’t want to think about that one either.

  I retrieved my tax papers from the back seat and climbed out of the van. The library was just down the block, so I might as well drop the papers off with Mary now. Then on the way home, I’d stop and talk to Caron. Or try to talk to Caron.

  If Laurel was an information pipeline, Mary was the Internet. Between her job as head librarian and part-time CPA work, she knew just about everything there was to know about the denizens of Brookhills.

  She was at the reference desk when I entered the Brookhills Public Library, a small, but exceedingly well-stocked one. Mary was small and efficient, too—a tiny woman with the sweet round face that seems to come with being a genuine blonde. In Mary’s case, that sweet face was deceptive. She ran a tight ship at the library and an even tighter one when it came to her accounting clients, the more foolish of whom she referred to as “H&R Blockheads.”

  Her deep brown eyes were crackling as I approached. I figured I was in for a tax lecture, but Mary had other things on her mind. “Oh God, Maggy, I heard about Patricia.”

  Since she had been the one who told Bernie, I knew that. What I didn’t know was how she had found out. I opened my mouth to ask, but Mary was just getting wound up.

  “Patricia was just in here on Saturday, you know? Making copies?” She gestured to the row of photocopiers across from her.

  Mary’s speech pattern turned almost every sentence into a question. I think that’s how she gets her information? People just answer her?

  Assuming she gives them the chance. “How exactly did she die, Maggy?”

  Her hand went to her mouth as a sudden thought seemed to strike. “Oh my God, she didn’t commit suicide did she? Maybe she was having money problems or David was having an affair or something?”

  Killed herself with an espresso machine? I doubted it would join pills, guns and wrist-slitting as preferred methods of suicide. I shook my head. “No, I’m sure she didn’t kill herself, and you’d certainly know if they were having money problems. Don’t you do their taxes?” Mary worked for most of the families in town, so it was a safe assumption.

  “David does his own taxes, you know? He does them on his computer, Patricia says...said,” she corrected herself with a frown.

  Tears were starting to well in Mary’s brown eyes and I figured I’d best get out while I could. “Well, you sure don’t have to worry about that with me,” I said proffering my stack of papers. “Do you think you can figure this out?”

  She glanced through, all business again. “Good, you have your deductions itemized. Is everything here on the sale of the house?”

  “Yup. I suppose I’m going to get killed on taxes,” I ventured.

  “Well, we’ll see. You know what they say, Uncle Sam wants you—and everything you’ve got.” She was still laughing, freshly buoyed by accountant humor, as I left.

  I decided to call Caron instead of stopping. It already had been a long day and I was anxious to get back home.

  The average temperature in April in Wisconsin is a lot like April in Paris. Funny how it never feels that way.

  I was chilled to the bone when I got into the house and decided to build a fire. Unfortunately, when I stepped out of the door to grab the firewood, Frank spotted someone getting out of a car across the street and took off. Naturally, I had to run the dog down, apologize to the terror-stricken man and drag Frank’s big hairy butt back into the house.

  He didn’t take off on me often; but when he did, it scared the daylights out of me. Our house was right on Poplar Creek Drive, and traffic—especially when Christ Christian had something going on—could be sporadically heavy.

  Both of us safely back in the house, I finally got to my fire. The fieldstone fireplace took up the entire north wall of the blue room. Like Frank, it was far too large for the space. But, also like Frank, it provided me great comfort.

  Fire started, and Frank ensconced on the hearth, I repaired to the kitchen, where I poured myself a glass of fine red wine and opted for a sleeve of Ritz crackers and a can of spray cheese to go with it. Major food groups accounted for (fat and salt, alcohol and aerosol), I settled on the couch to call Caron. The phone rang four or five times before she finally answered.

  “Hello?” Cautious.

  “Caron, it’s me, Maggy. Are you okay?”

  A sigh came from the other end of the line. “I’m sorry for being so useless this morning.”

  Thank God she was sounding more like herself. “I think you can be excused. You had just found Patricia, after all.”

  “Can you believe it? She’s dead. What should we do? Close?”

  My stomach did a flip-flop. What would I do if Caron wanted to bail out of the store?

  “No, of course not,” I assured her. “Patricia would have wanted us to move ahead.” In truth, I had no idea what Patricia would have wanted. I just knew what I wanted. “I’ll call Gary tomorrow and ask him when we can get back into the store, okay?”

  Caron agreed and I hesitated, not knowing if Bernie had told her what I’d said out on the driveway. “There is something else. It looks like Patricia was electrocuted. On purpose.”

  “That’s ridiculous.”

  I didn’t know if she meant it was ridiculous that Patricia had been electrocuted, or that it had been on purpose. I chose to answer the latter. “The espresso machine was re-wired. It was fine on Friday, so somebody must have messed with it over the weekend.”

  The other end of the line was silent, but I kept talking. Pavlik’s questions about who was where, and when, hadn’t been lost on me and I needed to unload. “I was the last one in there on Friday, Caron. I’m afraid they suspect me of tampering with the machine.”

  “You kill Patricia? Whatever for?”

  “Who knows? But the fact remains that I had opportunity, if not motive. You left with Patricia and the only other person who was there alone was Roger.” I tailed off speculatively.

  “Don’t be silly, Maggy,” Caron said crisply. “You’ve been watching too many TV shows. Patricia’s death was an accident, pure and simple. Now I have to go.” She hung up.

  Hello? Had she been listening to anything I said? I sat for a second, then drained my wine glass and got up to go to the kitchen. Time to pull out the Chips Ahoy.

  That night I dreamed about Bruno Hauptmann, the man who died in the electric chair for the murder of the Lindbergh baby—a murder he claimed he didn’t commit. Tidy how my subconscious had managed to tie Patricia’s method of death, and my own fear of being blamed for it, into one neat nightmarish little package.

  Contrary to popular belief, things didn’t look better in the morning. At least, though, I woke up. And with a plan of sorts.

  First, I needed to talk to Gary to see when we could open. Even though Caron and Patricia hadn’t needed to take out loans to kick in their shares, I had. To add insult to usury, I’d had to obtain Ted’s permission to do so. I wasn’t sure which would be more painful, going bankrupt or being humiliated in front of Ted and his hygienist. Not that I’d have to worry about choosing—I’d likely do both.

  But money woes aside, maybe Gary could give me an idea of what was going on in Pavlik’s twisted little mind. After spending the night trying to convince myself that I couldn’t possibly be a serious suspect, I’d given up. Instead of thinking about all the reasons I couldn’t have killed Patricia, I needed to figure out who could have. It wouldn’t be
easy. Patricia could be irritating and someone might have wanted to knock her down a few pegs. But kill her?

  I thought over what I knew about her. It was all pretty superficial: She and David had been married three or four years now. It was David’s first marriage and Patricia’s second. Pa-tricia’s kids from her first marriage, Courtney and Sam, lived with them in one of the newer subdivisions in town, Brookhills Estates. From what I’d seen, Patricia was devoted to her kids. She also was very involved in her church, Christ Christian, and, increasingly, in town politics.

  Could her death have something to do with her bid to become town chairman? The election had centered on the battle between Rudy’s old coots, as Patricia called them, and the newcomers, represented by Patricia. Surprisingly, it wasn’t a question of the older folks wanting to slow down development. It was just the opposite. Rudy and his gang wanted to keep taxes down, so they were encouraging further commercial development along Brookhill Road, the main drag.

  A point of contention in the campaign had been Summit Lawn School, a now-vacant building on Brookhill Road that Rudy wanted torn down to make room for yet another strip mall.

  Patricia, on the other hand, wanted to deed the property back to the school district, to allow it to re-open Summit Lawn to alleviate the crowding at Brookhills Elementary. The conditions at Brookhills El had been a subject of debate and referendum for years. Was it really that bad? Could we add on? Should we add on? How about building a new school? Andon, and on,and on...

  While people felt passionate on both sides of the issue—or should I say all sides, because believe me there were more than two—I hardly thought they would kill a person over it. Especially the loser in the election.

  I decided to stop over at Town Hall before I saw Gary about re-opening the store. I’d forgotten to call Laurel, anyway, and she was probably champing at the bit for information. Maybe I could get some in return.

  I found Laurel behind the “Information” counter, appropriately. I pointed at the door to the boardroom. It was closed, but I could hear raised voices from beyond. “What’s going on? Sounds like you should be refereeing.”

  “I had to come out for air, all those over-inflated egos are sucking up the oxygen.”

  In spite of the circumstances, I laughed. “Who’s in there?”

  “Well, let’s see. Rudy, the rest of the board, Sarah—you know, Patricia’s campaign manager?—and the town attorney. They’re hashing out the details of the recount.”

  “But Patricia’s dead. Why bother with a recount?”

  Laurel snorted. “That’s what Rudy said. But the bylaws say there has to be a recount. If Patricia actually won instead of Rudy, and can’t take office, there will be a special election.”

  “But Rudy thinks it would be a lot less trouble, if...”

  “If we forget the recount, and he stays in office. Then, of course, there’s the ballot.”

  “What ballot?”

  Laurel stuck her nose in the air. “One of my poll-workers invalidated a ballot, as she should have, because the voter had marked five supervisors instead of four.” We still used paper ballots in Brookhills.

  “So...”I prodded.

  “So, the question is, should the whole ballot have been invalidated or only the supervisor section? In other words, does the rest of the ballot, including the chairman section, count?”

  Shades of Florida and Gore vs. Bush. I wondered whether anyone would ever name another kid “Chad.” “Who’s the vote for?” I asked.

  “We don’t know. Sophie Daystrom was the poll-worker and she sealed it in an envelope and swears she didn’t notice the chairman portion. It’s possible the person just skipped that part and instead voted for the extra supervisor. We just don’t know.”

  “So, if the ballot is valid, and if the person voted for a chairman, the results of the election could be affected.”

  “Right. The ballot will be opened during the recount, which has been rescheduled for tomorrow. It was supposed to be today, but...”She let it go.

  After a moment of awkward silence, she cleared her throat. “I have to get back in there. I’m supposed to be taking notes.” She hesitated again.

  It wasn’t like Laurel to mince words.

  “What?” I demanded.

  She cleared her throat again and then blurted. “Did you see this morning’s CitySentinel? It says that Patricia’s death is suspicious, and you were the last person in the shop.”

  My heart jumped and crammed itself into my throat. While I had considered the possibility of being a suspect, I hoped I was just being paranoid. Now here I was in the morning paper. I grabbed Laurel’s arm. “Does it actually say that I’m a suspect?” I croaked.

  Having thrown me into a full-blown panic, Laurel reverted to reassuring. “No, no, of course not. There’s just a quote from the sheriff saying they had interviewed you since you were the last one ‘on the premises.’ Listen, don’t worry.

  Gary will make sure they don’t arrest the wrong person.”

  She disengaged my hand. “I have to go, but I’ll talk to you later. Don’t worry.” She opened the door to the boardroom and dove back into the fray.

  As the door closed, I heard Rudy’s voice. “I don’t understand how we in good conscience can spend taxpayer money—” The door closed, letting out a little whoosh of hot air.

  I stood still, letting panic wash over me. I thought about Ted—good, solid Ted. I actually missed him for a second. Then I shook myself. Please. Ted and his skills as either a lousy dentist or a philandering husband would have been absolutely no help in this situation.

  My skills, though, might be. Hmm. False media allegations. If something like this had happened to one of my events instead of to me, personally, what would I be doing? Simple. First off, I’d get a copy of the story and see for myself what I was dealing with before I went off half-cocked. Maybe Laurel had gotten it wrong.

  I barreled out the door heading for the paper box and almost collided with Way Benson, a local developer and our landlord at Uncommon Grounds.

  “Hello Maggy,” he said, a grin on his handsome, weathered face. If Gary was Brookhills’ Jay Leno, Way was our Clint Eastwood. “Had some trouble at your place, I hear.”

  Anxious to see the CitySentinel, I just nodded and ducked under the arm holding open the door. Way was tall, about six-foot four inches, with the muscular build and complexion of a man who had spent a lot of his life working outside. He had been a contractor before he moved into development and had been extremely successful at both. Much as I tried, especially now that we were leasing from him, I had never quite trusted Way. There was a hard edge to him.

  He was still talking. “Too bad about Patricia Harper. You and Caron still going to try to make a go of it?”

  I turned to face him and he let the door close. “Of course. I’m going to see Gary now to find out when we can open.”

  Way nodded. “I just came from Donovan’s office myself. Had to correct some misinformation I read in the paper.” He patted me on the shoulder and ducked into the building.

  Misinformation, huh? I had to see that paper. There was one copy left in the CitySentinel paper box. I fought to pull it out of the front window of the box and—ignoring the first-page headlines shouting “Cuts in public schools,” “STDs, pregnancy rates up in suburban youth” and “Violent tax day protests possible in Chicago”—turned to the suburban news page:

  “Brookhills woman electrocuted by coffeepot.” The subhead, “Foul play suspected.” Patricia would hate that. No class at all.

  But at least the story was buried inside, not on the front page, and it really didn’t say much more than Laurel had already told me. On the other hand, Brookhills’ weekly newspaper, The Observer, would undoubtedly lead with the story and be looking for more information. The Observer came out on Thursdays and today was Tuesday. That meant the deadline was tonight. I’d have to stay out of Editor Kate McNamara’s way until then.

  I crossed the gravel p
arking lot to the Police Department. Town Hall shared space with the Fire Department in a new building that had been erected after the old Fire Department had burned down. Don’t ask.

  The new Town Hall/Fire Department made the single-story concrete block Police Department across the way look like a squatter in contrast. Two of the town’s four black-and-red squad cars were parked in the drive out front. No one was at the counter when I walked in, but Gary popped his head out of his office in response to the jangle of the bell and waved me in.

  I settled into his side chair, one of those vinyl jobs that lets out a whoosh when you sit down. I always felt like I was in Mayberry when I sat in Gary’s office. Any second, Opie would trot in with his fishin’ pole.

  Gary studied my face. “You okay?”

  I waved the paper at him. “I’m not sure. Does Pavlik seriously think I had something to do with Patricia’s death?”

  Gary leaned back in his chair, a worn, wheeled version of mine, and stretched. “I don’t know, Maggy. He’s leaving me pretty much out of this—having me do more housekeeping than investigating. Speaking of housekeeping, they’ve taken the espresso machine for evidence, but should be done with your shop this afternoon. You can open tomorrow if you want.”

  “Wanting has nothing to do with it, I’m afraid. We have to open. We have rent due at the end of the month, and I have a loan to pay.” I pulled out my calendar and made a note. “I’ll call and see if we can lease a machine for a while. Do you have any idea how long ours will be gone?”

  Gary shrugged. “Could be months. Would it be cheaper to buy a new one rather than rent?”

  “A new one? Do you have any idea how much those puppies go for?” I tapped my pen on the calendar. “I wonder if we can get an extension on our rent in a pinch.” That reminded me. “Way said he was just in here ‘correcting some misinformation.’ What did he want?”

  “Now, Maggy,” Gary said, his wide face reddening, “you know I can’t talk to you about that.”

  “Gary, there are people out there wondering if I electrocuted my business partner. You can’t blame me for wanting to know what’s going on.”