To the Last Drop

by Sandra Balzo

  She looked surprised. ‘Friday afternoon?’

  I nodded. ‘To the lawyer to try to stop the papers from being served.’

  ‘Oh, sure.’ She tapped the phone. ‘If you think it will help.’

  ‘I’m trying to put together a timeline.’

  ‘Here it is,’ she said, showing me. ‘Three fifty-eight.’

  I squinted at the screen. Sure enough, an outgoing call to a law office at 3:58 p.m. on Friday – just before our meeting.

  ‘Don’t you want to write it down?’ Lynne asked.

  ‘I’ll just type a note into my own phone,’ I said hastily. Truth was I had no use for the information, other than confirming that Lynne had tried to stop the server, as she’d said.

  I punched in the note and raised my head. ‘How about the text to Ginny saying that you were leaving the book club?’

  Lynne punched and then scrolled. ‘Nine-sixteen?’

  ‘I told you that,’ the girl said.

  ‘I know – I’m just confirming.’ I’d remember this timeline excuse for next time. Although, I reminded myself, there should be no next time.

  Now to leverage the information. ‘Amy also confirmed that you left around nine-fifteen, Lynne. But you didn’t call me until after ten.’

  Her face flamed. ‘You think I killed William, too? Thanks, both of you.’

  You’re welcome.

  ‘Oh my God, Mom. I’d think you’d be grateful I was willing to take the heat for you.’ Ginny stood and flounced out of the room.

  Lynne started to go after her but I put my hand on her arm. ‘You can deal with her later but we need to talk. Where were you?’

  ‘Where was I when?’ A door slammed somewhere in the house.

  ‘Between leaving Uncommon Grounds and calling me nearly an hour later.’

  ‘Could it have been that long?’ Lynne asked, reflecting. ‘I know that after texting Ginny I walked to my car.’

  ‘In the depot lot?’

  ‘No, I park behind my building.’

  Just as Amy had thought. ‘Did you go up to your office?’

  ‘No. I waited for a while in the car, I know, and when I still didn’t have a reply from Ginny I gave up and drove home.’

  ‘To get here you must have driven right past the 501 Building. Did you see lights?’

  ‘Just the exit signs in the lobby. The ones they have to keep on.’ Lynne had been frowning and now she brightened. ‘I remember now where all that time went. I was pulling into my driveway when I realized I’d left Gone Girl at your shop. It was a library book so I drove back to get it before somebody walked off with it.’

  ‘And?’

  ‘Uncommon Grounds was dark, too, and locked up.’

  ‘According to my timeline,’ I said, glancing down at my phone, ‘Amy left at about nine-thirty.’

  ‘It was after that, then. When I got home again I realized William’s car wasn’t in the garage so I tried his cell and office numbers, like I told you.’

  ‘Lynne, William never’ – I searched for the word and settled for a phrase – ‘came on to Ginny, did he?’

  ‘Heaven’s, no!’ Now Lynne did jump up. ‘I would never have allowed him to touch my daughter.’

  I put up my hands. ‘I’m sorry. I thought it might be one of the reasons you filed for divorce.’ And give Ginny or Lynne – or both of them – a reason for killing William. ‘Ginny said he’d been getting “creepy” – her word, not mine – strutting around in front of her friends shirtless.’

  ‘William had a hard time admitting he was getting older,’ Lynne said, sinking back onto the couch. ‘Somehow he believed that he was still twenty years old and, of course, people wanted to see his six-pack. Whatever remaining cans he had of it.’ She picked up her glass and seemed to register for the first time that a good portion was missing.

  ‘Was this new behavior on his part?’

  She shrugged. ‘More of the same, I’d say. Along with the women. I’m sure they shored up his aging ego.’

  ‘But William couldn’t have been more than in his late forties.’

  ‘He was sixty,’ she said. ‘He dyed his hair, leaving just the right amount of gray.’

  Sixty and Lynne couldn’t be more than forty herself. But then she’d been ‘the younger woman’ at one time. ‘He looked good.’

  Lynne glared at me. ‘And how is this helping Ginny and me?’

  Not for the first time, I wondered why I was helping Ginny and her.

  ‘What about Clay Tartare?’

  ‘What about him?’ Lynne’s arms were folded like her daughter’s had been earlier.

  ‘Were you starting to regret dumping him for the older – and now even older – man?’

  ‘Of course not.’ She didn’t look at me.

  ‘I don’t believe you.’ I picked up my wine glass. ‘You were divorcing William. People stay in unhappy marriages for years. It’s only after they have somebody or someplace to go to that they make the leap.’ I cringed internally at the poor word choice.

  ‘William was the one cheating on me. And not just once. The man was a serial adulterer.’

  ‘So why not cheat on him? Seems only fair.’

  ‘Did I ever think about it? Damn right I did.’ Now she raised her head, lips pulled back to show teeth like a rabid dog’s. ‘But I didn’t do it. Not once.’

  I slid back on my chair, no longer cognizant of the wine. ‘OK, OK. I’m sorry.’

  When she didn’t answer me I set the glass down. ‘Listen, Ted said the police gave you permission to clean out William’s office tomorrow morning. Can I go with you?’

  Lynne stood, dismissing me like Pavlik had. ‘Ten o’clock sharp.’

  I got the message. ‘Ten it is,’ I said, going to the door.

  But Lynne was already helping herself to the rest of the gas station wine.

  THIRTY-ONE

  ‘So let’s make a list.’

  It was the next day – Tuesday – after our commuter rush and before my ten o’clock meeting with Lynne at Ted’s office.

  Uncommon Grounds was fairly quiet with only Sophie Daystrom out front, immersed in her e-reader. Likely some shade of grey or whatever had taken its place on her reading list. I’d suggest that our favorite octogenarian join the book club but I wasn’t sure it was racy enough for her.

  I filled Sarah in on my conversations with Ted and Lynne as we finished inventorying the storeroom. Amy had been working on prototype gift baskets and two sat on the shelf – one for the coffee-lover, the other for the tea aficionado. The fact the baskets looked beautiful didn’t surprise me.

  Sarah’s suggestion did. ‘You’re going to help me? Didn’t you say my getting involved was a bad idea in the first place?’

  ‘As reluctant sidekick, that’s my job. And my opinion has never stopped you before.’ She slipped into the office and returned with a pad of paper and a pen. Balancing the pad on the wire storeroom shelf, she was poised to write. ‘So what do we know?’

  I guessed I should be grateful I had a sidekick of my own – reluctant or not. ‘One: William Swope exited the tenth-floor window.’ Just because Pavlik had dumped me didn’t mean I had to abandon what I’d learned from him.

  Sarah rolled her eyes and wrote down, ‘William exited.’

  ‘Maybe you should type this into your phone,’ I suggested. ‘Then you can send it to me.’

  Not surprisingly, my partner ignored me. ‘According to the kid he was on his back, but—’

  I interrupted, excited that something, at least, made sense. ‘That’s why the back of William’s shirt was dry – it was to the ground when it started to rain around ten p.m.’

  ‘But the next morning you found him face up. Any chance he wasn’t dead?’

  ‘And rolled himself over? I doubt it, given the dent in his head and the broken neck.’

  ‘The kid didn’t check? That’s kind of cold.’

  ‘Ginny? She was already where she had no right to be. Besides, drunk on beer and pr
obably high on pot—’

  ‘What about the laughing gas?’ Sarah interrupted. ‘From what you said it was sitting right there. Wouldn’t she have thought “party!” and taken a few drags?’

  My partner was a smoker – or ex-smoker, depending on the day – not a huffer. But she had a point.

  ‘If for no other reason than to calm herself down, I suppose. But the oxygen – which Ted said should be mixed with the nitrous – was already out the window.’

  ‘But he also told you that addicts go straight nitrous despite the whole depriving the brain of oxygen thing, right? Huff those things that sound like the dogs?’

  ‘Whippets.’ Which was a breed of canines, if I remembered my Westminster Dog Show facts. ‘Which reminds me, do you think we should tell Mary about Caitlin’s stash of pot?’

  Sarah was circling and re-circling something on her pad. ‘What time did you say the rain stopped?’

  ‘Three in the morning.’ It took me a second but then it registered. ‘Whoever turned him over had to do it after three a.m. in order for his shirt to be dry.’ Or dryish.

  ‘I suppose the Swope girls alibi each other for the entire night.’

  ‘No time like the present to find out.’ I punched up Lynne’s cell number and put the phone on speaker. ‘Lynne? Sorry to bother you when you’re probably getting ready to go to William’s office, but I had a quick question. Did you or Ginny get up Friday night? Maybe notice when the rain stopped?’

  There was a thud and Lynne sounded distant, which was to be expected given our conversation of the night before. ‘I was worried about William, as you can imagine, so I didn’t fall asleep until very late. In fact, I remember waking up around four or so, surprised that I’d even been able to nod off. It didn’t seem to be raining then, though I didn’t stick my head out.’

  ‘And Ginny?’

  ‘The girl sleeps like a log. Why?’

  ‘Just wanted to get it into the timeline before I met you.’ I held up a finger to Sarah. ‘See you at the office in about half an hour.’

  ‘You have a timeline?’ Sarah asked when I ended the call.

  ‘No, but I’m sure going to get one. They’re very useful, I’ve found.’

  My partner seemed about to inquire further and then think better of it. ‘So the Swope women deny leaving the house. For what that’s worth.’

  ‘Yup. I know Ginny got home about ten fifteen because I was on the phone with Lynne. And she … Hang on a second.’

  Leaving Sarah in the storeroom, I went out to our bookcase and returned waving a novel.

  ‘You’ve had a sudden urge to read?’ Sarah guessed.

  ‘This must have been Lynne’s copy of Gone Girl. It has the Brookhills County Library stamp inside it.’

  ‘The library only has a single copy of a book that popular? Even if it is kind of yesterday.’

  ‘They probably do have multiples,’ I admitted. ‘But the presence of this one backs Lynne’s version of what happened Friday night. She told me she left it behind and when she came back to retrieve it Amy was already gone. I thought Lynne might be making it up to account for the time when William was killed, but here it is. I shelved it myself the next day but had completely forgotten about it.’

  Sarah remained unimpressed. ‘Maybe she left it here to give herself an alibi. Who knows if she even came back?’

  ‘She’s a reader. You’d think she’d be able to distinguish between fact and fiction.’ I laid the book on the shelf between two gift baskets.

  ‘I’m sure she knows the difference,’ Sarah said. ‘She just doesn’t want to let us in on it. Her and her kid.’

  ‘Lynne said she isn’t having an affair with Tartare and he corroborates it,’ I said.

  ‘So it’s the one truth to throw us off. Personally I think it’s Lynne and Ginny who are in cahoots. Step-daddy is gone and they get to live happily ever after with their new cost basis.’

  ‘Do you honestly think that would be worth killing somebody?’

  ‘Added to the other bennies of death versus divorce. Normal people like you and me don’t think anything is worth killing another human being for, Maggy, but—’

  ‘I’d kill for Eric,’ I admitted.

  ‘Good for you, mama bear.’

  ‘Mama lion,’ I corrected her. ‘Mama bear is the one in Goldilocks.’

  ‘Oh, that’s right,’ Sarah said. ‘And as I recall, she didn’t kill Goldilocks for trespassing. Though in places with castle laws she’d have been within her rights.’

  I was very glad Sam and Courtney had come to live with Sarah as teenagers, not toddlers. Something told me story time in the Kingston house wouldn’t have been pretty.

  ‘Anyway,’ I said, removing my apron, ‘I’d best go meet Lynne.’

  ‘Make sure you ask whether her husband and daughter are both addicts.’

  ‘I will,’ I said, shrugging into my jacket. ‘But I’d also like to know why, six months after moving here, the family has barely unpacked.’

  THIRTY-TWO

  It was a gray Tuesday morning but Thorsen Dental’s lights were on and Diane was behind the reception counter.

  ‘Morning,’ I said to her back.

  ‘Oh, Maggy,’ she said, turning a framed photo in hand. ‘Sorry I didn’t hear you come in. The police must have been in here overnight and knocked over my pictures.’

  I held up a hand. ‘I’m afraid that might have been us.’

  ‘You?’ A frown line appeared on her forehead.

  ‘Mostly Ted,’ I said, lest she think I was nosing around myself for the drug cabinet key. ‘He closed the drawer kind of … hard.’

  ‘I guess he did,’ she said, holding up the photo. ‘Knocked my babies right off their feet. This is my Jamie now,’ she said proudly, exchanging the photo for another one.

  ‘Big guy. Did he play football in school?’

  ‘He did,’ she said, taking the photo back. ‘Defensive line.’

  ‘All my pictures of Eric are digital.’ I pulled my phone out intending to show her a few but noticed it was after ten. ‘Lynne Swope was supposed to meet me at ten. I probably should call—’

  ‘Oh, she’s here,’ Diane said brightly and then lowered her voice. ‘Seems to be in an awful hurry, I must say. The deputy barely had time to take the tape down before she hustled in there.’

  I had to wonder if Lynne purposely told me to come late. Thanking Diane, I started down the corridor toward William’s office.

  In one exam room, Ted’s back was hunkered over a patient and across the hall his hygienist was supervising some rinsing and spitting. She looked up and waved as I passed by. I found Lynne in the last office, hefting one box off the top of a mahogany desk and replacing it with an empty one.

  The room itself was a mirror image of Ted’s office at the opposite end of the hall but the furniture was noticeably more expensive and a plush Oriental rug covered the floor. One expanse of floor-to-ceiling window was boarded over with plywood, though, dimming the morning light and blocking the view of the city in the distance.

  ‘Am I late?’ I wasn’t but it sure seemed that Lynne was finishing up.

  ‘No. I couldn’t sleep so I got here a little early.’ She opened a desk drawer. ‘The sheriff’s deputies were just unsealing the room.’

  I wondered if she’d already been here working when she’d answered my call to her cell phone. ‘Did they tell you anything?’

  ‘Oh, it wasn’t anybody I knew so I just stayed in the background until they were gone. Seems like every time I see one of the detectives something bad happens.’ Pulling out a stack of manila folders, she stuffed them into the new box without bothering to look at the tabs.

  But I did. Mostly new folders and some apparently empty, but a few were dog-eared, as if they’d come from his old practice. No ‘Pahlke,’ though, from what I could see. ‘Aren’t you going to look through these?’

  ‘Why?’ She pulled out another stack. ‘No matter what led up to it the end result is the sam
e. William is dead. Oh, by the way.’ She slid a thin black notebook across the desk to me. ‘Here’s this year’s calendar. Maybe it’ll help with your timeline.’

  Bless my non-existent timeline. I flipped open the calendar and turned a few pages, my enthusiasm waning. ‘This is empty.’

  ‘I guess that makes sense. William wanted a fresh start here. He must have bought a new planner.’

  ‘Have you come across the old ones?’ I asked, peeking over her shoulder.

  ‘No.’

  Would she tell me if she had? Or anything that really mattered? ‘Lynne, was William stealing patients’ drugs and sending out fraudulent bills?’

  She turned to face me, her hands balled into fists resting on her hips. ‘You can’t honestly believe that woman. I told you she’s crazy. And a blackmailer.’

  Actually she’d said extortionist, though blackmail was a form of extortion.

  ‘The Louisville practice is being investigated. Do you deny the allegations?’

  The word ‘allegations’ seemed to calm her some. ‘I don’t give them any credence. And I certainly wouldn’t repeat them.’

  The last was said in an accusatory tone.

  ‘It can’t hurt William’s practice now,’ I pointed out.

  ‘That’s a low blow, Maggy. And from someone I’ve come to consider a friend.’

  ‘But true, all the same.’ I held up the front page of the calendar, which showed the entire year, each month in its own little square. ‘You said you moved here just after tax time, right?’

  She seemed thrown off balance by the change of subject. ‘Yes. Why?’

  ‘So the end of April?’

  ‘May the first. Again, why do you ask?’

  The woman routinely didn’t answer my questions; she had a lot of nerve demanding I answer hers. ‘That’s one, two, three, four, five.’ I touched each month as I counted. ‘November the first was six months.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘So you filed for divorce a little more than six months after the move.’

  Now she saw where I was going, though it didn’t seem to bother her. ‘Wisconsin law says you have to be a resident of the state for six months in order to file here.’

  ‘And you said the divorce laws were more advantageous in this state.’