To the Last Drop

by Sandra Balzo

  ‘But this hasn’t been ruled a homicide.’

  ‘Yet until we know otherwise it’s investigated as one. I told you that.’

  I sighed, still feeling like a snitch. But while I was at it: ‘Ted said William’s former practice is in trouble for billing fraud. I assume he – or Clay Tartare – told you?’

  ‘Yes.’ Pavlik said, not specifying which. ‘But there’s no criminal investigation. And when and if there is, it won’t involve Wisconsin.’

  If not criminal then the investigation was probably an internal one by the dental board. For now. ‘Though I assume it could have jeopardized William’s ability to practice here,’ I said. ‘And still could Tartare’s in Kentucky.’

  Pavlik just shrugged.

  Not reaping more than I was sowing, information-wise, I switched back to the original reason I was there. ‘Taylor is interrogating Lynne; does that mean Hallonquist is grilling Ginny?’

  ‘Detective Hallonquist had a couple more questions for Virginia,’ Pavlik said. ‘She may even be gone by now. As for Mrs Swope, don’t tell me it hasn’t occurred to you that she may have had something to do with her husband’s death. We talked about it.’

  ‘Of course it occurred to me.’ I weighed telling Pavlik that Lynne and Clay dated more than a decade ago, given the sheriff’s current mood. ‘But I suspect everybody.’

  ‘Tell me about it.’ The remark might have been teasing but there was no smile in Pavlik’s eyes. ‘And, yes. Lynne Swope filing for divorce is a pertinent fact. But it’s even more disturbing because she hid it.’

  Another twinge of guilt for landing Lynne in the hot seat. Then again, maybe that was where she belonged. ‘I suppose Lynne’s fingerprints were in William’s office?’

  ‘She’s his wife.’ Pavlik was studying me with an odd expression on his face.

  ‘What?’ I asked, swiping at my nose in case something was hanging.

  But the sheriff got up from the desk and held out his arms. ‘Give me a hug.’

  I did, relaxing into his arms. The height difference between us made it possible for me to burrow into his shoulder and for him to rest his chin on top of my head.

  ‘Listen, Maggy,’ he said into my hair. ‘I know I’m just supposed to smile and accept the fact that you get involved in things like this. You, the scrappy amateur sleuth. Me, the obliging hick sheriff.’

  I felt myself stiffen and tried to pull away. He wouldn’t let me as he continued, ‘But it’s not cute anymore.’

  I froze. ‘What are you saying?’

  ‘I’m saying that you barely know these people. Stay out of this and trust us to do our jobs.’

  I felt an ‘or else’ coming. ‘I do trust you.’

  He put his hands on my shoulders and tilted his head so we were nose tip to nose tip. ‘I believe that. And I know you don’t mean to undermine me.’

  ‘I’ve undermined you?’ I scarcely recognized my own voice, forced out of a throat that felt on fire. ‘Like with Taylor? He’s—’

  ‘I know he can be an asshole. But that’s why it’s important for me to have his respect – or fear, if necessary – to keep him and others like him in line. That’s hard to do when they’re snickering behind my back.’

  ‘About … me?’

  Pavlik pulled me toward him again. ‘Honestly, my love? Yes, about you.’

  ‘I’m so sorry,’ I said against his shoulder. ‘I didn’t mean—’

  ‘I know you didn’t. And you know that it hurts me to say this, but …’

  I felt myself duck in his arms. The ‘else’ was coming, without even the attached opportunity of an ‘or.’

  ‘… I think it would be best if we took a break.’

  TWENTY-TWO

  ‘What in the hell is your problem?’

  One, I hadn’t slept at all. And while that had made it easy to get to Uncommon Grounds at 5 a.m. in preparation for our 6 a.m. opening, the lack of sleep had also caused me to not only brew the wrong coffee of the day – Sumatran, instead of Kenyan AAA, as the sign said – but leave an empty pot on the heating element.

  Sarah had arrived, picked up the scent of hot glass and plastic and pulled the thing off the burner to put in the sink. Only problem was when the hot carafe touched the water in the sink the glass exploded, leaving Sarah with a handle and nothing attached to it.

  Hence my partner’s question.

  In answer, I did what you might expect a responsible coffeehouse owner to do in the situation. Burst into tears.

  Sarah was not a toucher but she tried her best to give me a hug. Even patted me. Kind of.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ I wailed. ‘It’s just Pavlik. I didn’t get any sleep last night.’

  Sarah, who’d already moved back and away from me, looked disgusted. ‘You’re screwing up because you spent the night screwing?’

  ‘No.’ The sleigh bells on the door jangled. ‘He … we …’ And off I went again.

  Sarah’s glare could have pinned a butterfly to a mounting board. ‘Go in the back and get yourself together, do you understand me? I’ll take care of the customers.’

  Now who was the responsible one?

  I did what I was told, passing the jam-packed storeroom.

  ‘Not to worry,’ I told myself in the true spirit of self-flagellation, ‘you’ll have plenty of time to work on holiday baskets. You have no life. You may as well sleep here.’

  Pavlik had dumped me. Eric was with Ted on his way back to school. Sarah I’d nearly maimed with a coffee pot. The only one who loved me was Frank and even he’d had enough of my whimpering, finally jumping off the bed in disgust at around three a.m. this morning.

  I sank down at the office desk, head in my hands. ‘You shouldn’t be so surprised.’ I continued my monologue. ‘You’re not a nice person. Cynical, snarky. Yeah, you keep most of that inside but you’re not fooling anybody. Sarah is right – you’re passive-aggressive through and through. No wonder Ted left you. And for a criminal. And now Pavlik—’

  ‘What in the hell is wrong with you?’ Sarah was at the door rephrasing her earlier question.

  I raised my head. ‘Pavlik broke up with me.’

  To her credit, Sarah looked stricken. ‘You’re selling the business?’

  I sat up straight. ‘What? Why would I do that?’

  ‘Because it’s what you do.’ Sarah took the side chair. ‘The last time you were dumped you quit your PR job and opened a coffeehouse.’

  ‘That was subsequently destroyed in a freak snowstorm,’ I reminded Sarah.

  ‘Boo-hoo-hoo. Only to be rebuilt in this fabulous train station, owned by your equally fabulous new partner.’

  ‘Fabulous’ was not a word I’d ever heard Sarah use, much less attribute to herself, but it served to make me appropriately ashamed.

  I put a hand on her arm. ‘I’m sorry. You are fabulous and I’m very lucky to have you as a partner.’

  She shook me off. ‘Damn right. Now stop kvetching and tell me what’s going on.’

  Sarah was not any more Yiddish with her kvetching than Eric was Spanish with his cojones. America, the linguistic melting pot.

  I took a deep breath, trying to pull myself together. ‘I told you. I went to Pavlik’s office yesterday and he said we should take a break.’

  ‘For how long?’

  I closed one eye and thought. ‘I’m not sure. I don’t think he specified but I kind of blocked everything after that.’

  ‘So maybe he meant for one day,’ she said, flinging out a hand. ‘You’re there morning, noon and night.’

  ‘Just since Saturday,’ I protested. ‘And sometimes I call instead.’

  ‘Much better.’

  ‘The sarcasm is appreciated,’ I said. ‘I’ll have you know I was in his office just once yesterday and I had a good reason.’

  Sarah seemed to bite back another comment, settling for a neutral, ‘What was that?’

  ‘I’d gone with Lynne Swope to take Ginny for a follow-up interview with the detectives. When
we walked in Pavlik’s goons took Lynne in for questioning, too.’

  ‘And the sheriff objected to your calling them goons?’

  ‘But I didn’t,’ I protested. ‘Not even behind their backs.’

  ‘Until now.’

  True. ‘To be honest, I was feeling responsible for her being detained because I’d told Pavlik about Lynne filing for the divorce. Though she was about to do it herself Saturday night before Eric burst in, so I’m not sure why I—’

  ‘You don’t have to justify it to me,’ Sarah said. ‘I don’t have a horse in this race. When did you deliver this tidbit to Pavlik?’

  ‘Yesterday.’

  My partner cocked her head. ‘The same visit that he told you it was over?’

  Over. ‘No, in the morning. I called him before the christening.’

  ‘And then went to his office after it.’

  I threw up my hands. ‘Yes, yes – so, I’m a pest. But I thought I was helping.’

  Sarah didn’t say anything.

  ‘And Pavlik seemed to think so, too,’ I went on, more for my own benefit than my partner’s. ‘I even remembered the name of the company that served the notice and he thanked me.’

  ‘So what changed?’

  I thought about that. ‘I’m not sure. He had a stack of folders on his desk and seemed out of sorts.’

  ‘So you made him feel better by demanding to know why the woman you ratted on was being questioned by his goons?’

  ‘I just asked him why. And I told you, not in those words.’

  ‘Yet he didn’t seem to appreciate it anyway?’

  I frowned. ‘At first he didn’t seem to mind, or at least not that I picked up on. But then he gave me this big hug and told me the amateur detective thing wasn’t cute anymore. That his deputies don’t respect him and it’s my fault.’

  Now Sarah looked shocked. ‘He said that?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said, hands outstretched in disbelief. ‘Can you believe it?’

  ‘Of course. I’m just surprised he’d admit it.’

  ‘So you think he’s right?’

  ‘If he feels that way it doesn’t matter what I think.’

  Lovely. This week’s homework assignment from the shrink must be ‘validating feelings.’

  ‘It’s that damn Taylor,’ I said.

  ‘The homicide detective?’

  ‘He’s a jerk, but I think what it boils down to is that Pavlik is getting tired of the eye-rolling and knowing looks whenever I’m around.’ I sighed. ‘I guess I can’t blame him. I’m tired of it, too, and I don’t have to be around these people every day.’

  ‘And Pavlik is their boss. Isn’t there an election coming up?’

  ‘An election?’

  ‘County sheriff is an elected position with a four-year term, remember? Pavlik is, what? Two or three years into it?’

  ‘About,’ I said. ‘Are you saying he dumped me because I make him unelectable?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that, mostly because I’m not sure it’s a real word.’ The gentle ribbing seemed like an effort to get me to lighten up.

  It didn’t work. ‘It is, too. Check your dictionary.’

  ‘Nobody has dictionaries anymore. They just do what I do – Google each spelling and use the one that gets the most hits.’

  I grimaced. ‘OK, you win. I’ll stop feeling sorry for myself.’

  ‘No, please. Keep it up. You usually don’t allow me to pick on you like this.’

  ‘You pick on me plenty,’ I said, standing up.

  Sarah remained in her chair. ‘So what are you going to do?’

  ‘About Pavlik? I’m not sure.’ I retied the strings of my Uncommon Grounds apron as the bells on the door signaled a new customer. ‘One thing I do know is I’m staying as far away as I can from the Swopes. I wish I’d never—’

  ‘Mom?’ Eric’s voice called from the store.

  Before I could ask what he was doing in Brookhills rather than on Interstate 94 halfway to Minneapolis, my son continued, ‘Ginny and I need your help.’

  TWENTY-THREE

  ‘I just don’t see what I can do,’ I said for the third time.

  My normally level-headed son had dug in his heels and refused to let his father take him back up to school. Now Eric and Ginny were across the table from me. Sarah had brought lattes all around and left us to talk privately.

  It was uncommonly thoughtful of my partner so I wasn’t surprised to hear her puttering just the other side of the service windows.

  ‘What’s wrong with you, Mom?’ Eric demanded. ‘Do you want to see Ginny’s mom arrested for her stepfather’s murder?’

  Right at that moment I couldn’t have cared less. But I’d spent nearly twenty years trying to be a better person – or at least appear to be – for my son. Why stop now? ‘No, of course not. But has Lynne been arrested? My understanding was the investigators were just asking her some questions.’

  ‘They asked me questions, too,’ Ginny said. ‘For, like, hours.’

  I was at the end of my patience. Lynne and Ginny had asked for my help yet they gave me – and the detectives – only the information that suited them. ‘Maybe it wouldn’t have been “hours” if you’d answered them. What are you hiding?’

  The girl didn’t flinch. I did notice, though, that the hands on her lap were clenching and unclenching. ‘Nothing. I just know from TV you shouldn’t answer questions without a lawyer present.’

  ‘But you still refused to talk to them once Ms Spinelli was there,’ I pointed out. ‘And you didn’t answer her questions, either. Or your mother’s.’

  Ginny kept the string alive, saying nothing. But the hands kept going.

  ‘Your fingerprints were in your father’s office,’ I said. ‘You had to have been there.’

  Now she did flush. ‘OK, so I was.’

  Finally.

  ‘But my dad wasn’t in the office, so technically I didn’t see him at his office.’

  I wanted to slap her smug little face. ‘If you’re practicing your statement to the detectives, don’t forget that “technically” he also wasn’t your father.’

  ‘Mom,’ Eric protested. ‘Be nice. Ginny’s going to tell the truth from now on.’

  Sure she would.

  ‘What time did you stop at the dental office?’ I was trying to phrase the question precisely so she couldn’t weasel her answers.

  ‘Maybe nine forty-five?’

  ‘Are you asking me or telling me?’ I knew Eric would think I was bullying his friend but I’d had enough of being manipulated.

  And Ginny seemed to sense it. ‘I left Caitlin’s house at nine-forty.’

  ‘You told the detectives you left around ten and the building was dark.’

  She glanced at Eric and then away. ‘It was. But I stopped in anyway.’

  I frowned. ‘Why, when no one was there?’

  ‘Did you see your dad’s car, maybe?’ Eric asked.

  Ginny brightened. ‘That’s right. I noticed it when I drove by.’

  Not likely. Diane had said William’s car was in the parking lot when she’d arrived Saturday morning. Not only was that lot not lighted but the arbor vitae blocked it from the road. Why was Ginny lying? Or still lying.

  ‘But you must have known they would confirm your story with Caitlin. Did you ask her to lie for you, too?’

  ‘She was messed up enough that I knew she’d have no idea what time I left.’

  ‘Messed up, how?’ I asked.

  A look of dismay. ‘You’re not going to tell Aunt Mary, are you?’

  ‘You are way beyond worrying about my tattling to your aunt.’ I stopped short of adding, young lady.

  ‘Just pot. And beer.’

  Lovely. ‘Continue.’

  ‘So, like I said, when I saw Dad’s car I figured I might as well get it over with.’

  ‘Get what over?’

  ‘Our “talk.”’ Ginny made a face. ‘He’d convinced himself I was like this genius and then I got kicked out of
Quorum before the end of my first semester.’

  ‘But you said your dad already knew, right?’ Eric seemed puzzled.

  ‘Yeah, right,’ Ginny said, nodding. ‘I’d texted when it happened so he’d hear it from me first and not the school.’

  I shot Eric a look that said, I hoped, please don’t break that kind of news to me in a text. I got a little grin in return.

  Back to Ginny. ‘But you and your father hadn’t talked about it by phone or in person?’

  Ginny shook her head. ‘Uh huh. He just texted me to come home this weekend and bring the car.’

  Which is why she’d made the sudden offer to Eric and surprised Lynne with the visit.

  ‘Did he tell your mom you’d been expelled?’ I knew Lynne said she hadn’t known but I was taking nothing for granted at this point.

  ‘No. He said before we broke the news to Mom he wanted to talk to me and then to the school. See if we could work something out.’

  ‘He thought he might get you reinstated?’

  ‘I suppose so. Maybe make some big contribution or at least find somebody to blame for me getting bounced.’

  ‘Somebody besides you?’ I asked.

  ‘Of course,’ Ginny said. ‘It couldn’t be my fault since I’m just a reflection of him.’

  ‘Of your stepdad?’ Eric asked.

  ‘Sure,’ Ginny said sulkily. ‘He’d adopted badly.’

  Sarah had referred sarcastically to the Swopes as a ‘happy family.’ I was thinking more ‘dysfunctional family.’

  Though let he who is without one, cast the first stoned sibling.

  ‘What about the Lexus?’ I asked. ‘Was your father planning on taking it away?’

  ‘Probably, though he liked seeing people’s reactions when they realized it was my graduation present.’ Ginny shrugged. ‘I’m not sure what the big deal was. He bought it used.’

  Now it was Eric who had the I-wanna-smack-her look on his face. He’d gotten my cast-off Dodge Caravan with genuine fake wood panels. But I’d thrown in a full tank of gas.

  ‘I know you were very young when your mom married William,’ I said. ‘Did you two get along OK?’