6 A Cup of Jo

by Sandra Balzo

  The way Jerome said it, Kate and he didn't necessarily agree on that point.

  'Sure is taking them long enough,' Sarah said. 'What can they be doing?'

  To be honest, they didn't seem to doing much of anything. Which I didn't think was a good sign.

  Jerome took a step forward. 'Best I can tell, one of them is talking on a cellphone.'

  I grabbed the back of his shirt. 'Careful. You don't want to join them down there.'

  As I said it, one of the EMTs got up from his knees. Everyone on the stage froze, all conversation halted. Anita Hampton started forward and then, changing her mind, turned and whispered something to Brewster. Probably suggesting he take the lead since we were in Brookhills, but also because both Penn-Williams and the emergency personnel were working for him and/or the county. Brewster shook his head, but then, as always, Anita seemed to get her way.

  The Brookhills county executive buttoned his suit jacket and approached the upright EMT. The two of them spoke, the EMT gesturing to JoLynne and then up to where we were. Brewster turned his gaze on us, and then flicked it back down. He nodded and went to the podium.

  Adjusting the microphone to lip level, he tapped it twice, producing that electronic thump-thump that indicates an operational sound system.

  'Ladies and gentleman –' he was unbuttoning his coat again – 'I am afraid there's been a –' he cleared his throat – 'a tragic accident.'

  'No shit,' Sarah hissed in my ear.

  I didn't pay attention. The EMTs hadn't attempted to transport JoLynne. Even assuming a neck injury, by now they'd have brought out a backboard, stabilized her spine, and carefully loaded her on to a gurney and truck for the trip to the hospital. They hadn't done any of those things.

  'Mrs JoLynne Penn-Williams,' Brewster's voice boomed into the mic, 'our county's coordinator for this event, has been badly injured. We are going to ride with her to—'

  He interrupted himself as the coroner's wagon pulled to the bottom of the boarding platform stairs.

  A collective intake of breath. Rebecca started to wail, burying her face in her partner's suit jacket, all suspected infidelity immediately forgotten. If not forgiven.

  I looked around for JoLynne's husband, Kevin, trying not to think of insurance and liability and all those nasty possibilities you can't avoid considering when someone dies on your property. Or in your property, should that be a giant coffee cup.

  'Where's Kevin?' I asked Sarah. 'He went running toward his truck and I haven't seen him since.'

  'Good question,' Sarah said. 'But I have a better one.'

  Pausing – just, I suspected, to irk me – she gestured first to the coroner's wagon and then to where JoLynne Penn-Williams lay, clearly visible to us now that everyone had moved back as an amorphous herd.

  'How'd she die, Maggy?'

  Chapter Three

  'Blunt-force trauma?' I offered.

  Sarah and I had abandoned the gallows' bird's-eye view and I now stood behind the county coroner. Although I'd seen the short, gray-haired man at a number of crime scenes, I doubted my name had ever come to his—

  'Maggy Thorsen.' The coroner didn't bother to turn around.

  So, my 'Jonah' reputation had preceded me. This did not seem a good omen.

  'Yes, sir.' I took a step back. For the life of me, I couldn't remember the guy's name.

  Sarah and I had managed to talk our way past a municipal police officer by explaining that our giant coffee cup was involved. He didn't seem to think this was as interesting as we did, but waved us on anyway.

  The coroner was squatting and now he pivoted on his Allen Edmonds brogues to face me. 'The sheriff is not going to be happy.'

  Like I didn't know that Pavlik would be less than pleased to find me at yet another death scene. Then again, this 'death' had happened on my 'scene', so I figured to merit an indulgence for that. And, on the third hand, Brookhills County – aside from the coroner – shouldn't need to be involved anyway. We were in the town of Brookhills and the local police had already arrived.

  Sarah sidled up to me. 'Hey, Lucy. Ricky's home.' She chin-gestured to a dark-gray unmarked that had just braked to a stop, off-center detachable roof-light flashing red. Sheriff Jake Pavlik climbed out of the driver's seat and scanned the area before approaching the stage. He paused to say a few words to the cop who'd let us pass and then mounted the stairs.

  Traditionally, his deputies and, apparently, the coroner himself got a kick out of keeping Pavlik informed as to my whereabouts. At first I think it ticked him off. Now, it probably served as a warning of where not to go. At least until after work hours.

  Still, here he was. 'Traffic bad, sheriff?' I asked him as Sarah made herself scarce.

  'Terrible.' Pavlik – voice and visage – was all business.

  'Did someone call you?' The fact that he'd arrived with lights flashing indicated they had.

  'Yup.' He slanted his blue-gray eyes toward the triumvirate of Anita, Brewster and Wynona Counsel. The two women were talking on cellphones, hopefully not to each other. Brewster, like a man in a fog, was staring at the coroner's back. 'My boss.'

  Of course. While both the sheriff and the county executive posts were separate, elected positions, Brewster Hampton liked to believe he was master of all things 'county'.

  Pavlik turned to the coroner. 'What do we have, doc?'

  No wonder I didn't remember the official's name.

  'The victim, JoLynne Penn-Williams, was in the inflatable. Up there.' Doc pointed at the gallows Sarah and I had just vacated. I didn't think I'd be telling either the coroner or the sheriff the nickname for that framework any time soon.

  Pavlik lifted a portion of the decidedly deflated inflatable. 'What was this thing?'

  'A nine-hundred-fifty dollar, five-thousand-gallon coffee cup,' I said glumly. I pointed to what was showing of the Uncommon Grounds logo near JoLynne's right leg.

  'Why did you . . .?' Pavlik seemed to rethink his question. 'Why was Ms Penn-Williams in there?'

  'Beats me,' I said. 'She wasn't supposed to be.'

  Pavlik looked relieved that though I might be idiot enough to spend nearly a thousand dollars on a gimmick, I wasn't stupid enough to place a woman – dead or alive – in it.

  Which begged the question. How had JoLynne gotten into the cup? The thing had sides five feet high – way too challenging to scramble over, especially if you were wearing a pencil skirt, silk blouse and heels as she was. Besides, someone at the dedication should have seen her trying.

  I opened my mouth to ask the question, but Pavlik had one of his own. 'So, she died in the fall?' He was looking at the roughly ten-foot height differential between the gallows and the train platform below.

  'Don't know,' Doc said. 'There's no apparent cause of death. We'll have to see what we find once she's on the slab.'

  I was accustomed to cop-talk, even found myself using it occasionally, so I didn't cringe. 'Blunt-force trauma, I bet,' I said, for the second time that morning.

  Both men looked at me.

  I shrugged. 'No blood in the white cup.'

  'How was that thing secured up there?' Doc asked in a grumpy tone.

  'It wasn't secured so much as weighted,' I admitted. 'From what I could tell when I was up there—'

  'Wait,' Pavlik interrupted. 'You were up there?'

  'Yes.'

  'When?'

  'As the cup and saucer fell. I tried to catch it – them. Sarah, too.'

  Pavlik looked terribly confused. 'You caught Sarah?'

  'Who's Sarah?' Doc asked.

  'My partner,' I explained. 'And no, I didn't catch Sarah. She hung on to me so I wouldn't go over with the inflatable.'

  Doc was eyeing both Pavlik and moi curiously. 'I thought you two were . . .' He cleared his throat. 'An item.'

  'We . . .' I finally got it. 'Sarah's not that kind of partner. We just own the coffee shop together.'

  'Ahh.' Our coroner seemed relieved that his county's chief law enforcement officer w
asn't into three-ways.

  Two uniformed men with a gurney had made their way to the stage and now Doc waved them over. 'So the cup was just sitting there, unsecured? Seems like a hazard to me.'

  I told you Doc was grumpy. The other five dwarfs had yet to put in an appearance.

  I held up my hands. 'Williams Props and Staging did the work, both here and at the Milwaukee celebration. They're the experts. Bonded and everything. The thing was connected to an air hose and weighted at its bottom.'

  'Evidently.' Pavlik was nodding toward JoLynne's body. Then he looked across the stage and waved to someone. 'Gotta go see the county exec. I'll talk with both of you later.'

  Doc motioned for me to move back. As I did so, Sarah joined us. I didn't bother to introduce them.

  'Is Pavlik in charge?' she asked.

  'Yup. Guess I should have known: ruined Brookhills County event, dead Brookhills County event planner.' I was watching JoLynne's remains being lifted on to the gurney. 'So the Brookhills County Sheriff is talking to the Brookhills County Exec.' All Brookhills, all the time.

  'No, he's not. He's with Wynona Counsel.'

  I turned to see Pavlik, not with Brewster, as I'd assumed, but with the Milwaukee county executive. This wouldn't have bothered me if Wynona was old and squat, but she was pretty. Not to mention younger than yours truly, noticeably taller and, probably, smarter.

  I mean, who was the one running the county and who was the one running the coffee shop?

  Bet I slept better, though.

  Pavlik laid his hand on Wynona's arm.

  Except maybe tonight. Damn Sarah for bringing up Ted's cheating.

  'Pretty friendly,' my business partner observed.

  The woman could read my mind. Not that I would ever admit to any of the unsavory things she might find there. 'Hey, men and women can be friends.'

  'Thank you, Meg Ryan.'

  The actress who played opposite Billy Crystal in When Harry Met Sally. The whole gist of the film was that Sally believed men and women could be friends without involving sex. Harry, of course, disagreed. And he . . . well, go rent the movie.

  But Sarah was right. I was being stupid and I was reminded of it when I looked at Rebecca, now in Michael's arms as they watched her sister being wheeled away.

  When the gurney reached Pavlik, he waved the tenders to a halt and lifted a corner of the opaque plastic sheet that covered JoLynne's body. He squinted down at her face for a count of five before dropping the cover so the coroner's people could proceed.

  Wynona Counsel said something in his ear. The sheriff nodded and they moved to join Anita and Brewster Hampton. The four spoke and seemed to reach consensus on something. Anita jotted some notes, handed them to her husband and all but Wynona stepped to the podium.

  Brewster looked down at his wife's notes, Pavlik and Anita standing slightly behind him and to the right.

  'As you may know, I'm Brewster Hampton, Brookhills County Executive. We came here this morning, along with Milwaukee County's Wynona Counsel, to dedicate the new commuter-train serving our two counties.

  'As many of you sadly witnessed, one of our ranks, event coordinator JoLynne Penn-Williams, has died in an accident. If Kevin Williams, is within the sound of my voice, please see the officer at the bottom of the stairs.

  'I should stress that we don't know how JoLynne, uh . . . came to be . . . where she was, but, uh, I expect, that is . . .'

  Sarah said, 'Aw, and Brew-boy was doing so well 'til now.'

  I could see Anita Hampton's lips forming, 'Oh, for God's sake,' before she laid her hand on Pavlik's arm and whispered earnestly into his ear.

  'Can you tell us the cause of death?' someone called out from the audience.

  'No, uh . . .' Brewster continued to stammer. 'I . . . umm, thought I just said that?'

  'Not exactly light – nor enlightening – on his feet, is he?' said Sarah.

  'Don't worry –' me still watching his wife – 'Anita'll have him whipped into shape in no time.'

  'Brewster already looks pretty whipped to me.'

  I laughed, probably too loudly, given the circumstances.

  Pavlik's head jerked toward me. Then he nodded to Anita, slipped his arm from under her hand and moved toward the podium himself.

  Our sheriff edged his mouth near the mic. 'I'd be happy to handle that question.'

  The relief on the county exec's face was palpable. Sarah had pegged him perfectly. Though he was handsome enough – tall and a good physique for suits, square jaw and a cleft chin – Brewster Hampton seemed incapable of stringing words together without a teleprompter. Or maybe he was just nervous. Take it from me, having Anita breathing down your neck could have that effect.

  Pavlik was now centered at the microphone and looking mighty handsome himself. I'd never trade my sheriff's dark hair and dangerous blue-gray eyes for Brewster's faded, Ivy-League quarterback vibe. It would be like dating Dudley Do-Right, when I aspired to do oh-so-wrong.

  'As our county executive told you, we'll have no way of knowing the cause of death until after a full autopsy and possibly some resulting lab tests.'

  'Sheriff?'

  'Yes?' Pavlik shaded his eyes. 'Where are you?'

  'Up here.' It was Jerome, on the gallows. Kate was nowhere in sight, but the videographer didn't seem to need her.

  He pushed hair out of his eyes. 'My question is actually for Mr Hampton, if I could.'

  'Certainly, but can you speak up? We have quite a bit of background noise.' Pavlik stepped away from the microphone, Brewster moved – reluctantly – back to it.

  Somebody must have left the depot door open because I could hear the compressor – Pavlik's 'background noise' – chugging away.

  'Mr Hampton.' Jerome ratcheted up his volume. 'You said you're looking for Kevin Williams.'

  'That's not a question,' I heard Anita Hampton snap.

  Brewster threw a sideways glance at Pavlik, like he was hoping for a lifeline. I didn't quite understand why, and I wasn't sure Brewster did either. He just sensed that his mate was displeased enough to bite her mate's head off like he was a copulating praying mantis. And poor Brewster probably hadn't even gotten any.

  The sheriff's expression didn't change, meaning no help from that quarter. I knew from experience that Pavlik was of the 'you-got yourself-into-this' persuasion.

  'Yesss,' Brewster said slowly.

  'Why? Is he a person of interest?' Jerome spoke the last phrase as though the words were bracketed by quotation marks.

  Brewster was in a bind. Calling on Pavlik to answer the question would mean that the sheriff's department was the entity wanting to talk with Kevin. Pavlik, looking straight ahead, continued to stay out of it.

  You could almost see a bulb come on over Brewster's head as an idea struck him. Or maybe it was just the glare from Jerome's strong camera light on high. 'That air-pump's making so much noise,' Brewster said, raising his voice to make the point. 'I was hoping Mr Williams could turn it off, spare all your microphones.'

  OK. You had to hand it to Brewster: He did have his moments, though rivulets of perspiration were running down his face during this one.

  And, as he lifted a hand to swipe at a drop, the offending compressor went silent.

  Chapter Four

  Silence, squared.

  Finally, an over-hearty, 'Thanks, Kevin.'

  A weak grin pasted on Brewster Hampton's face, he gave a wave toward the off-stage props man. Then, maybe remembering that, as county exec, he was supposed to be presiding over an event that had gone from dedication to debacle, he said, 'Sheriff, if you would like the micro . . .'

  Brewster looked around as a cloud seemed to pass over, but his potential savior had disappeared. I turned to check the gallows.

  Sure enough, Jerome was clattering down its steps, light and camera no longer fixed on the stage.

  In the meantime, Pavlik had signaled the officer at the steps with a head-jerk that presumably meant 'cover the front of the building', and was
making for the depot's open door.

  I followed, arriving there the same time as Jerome.

  'Oops,' I said, holding my hands up to stave off getting smacked by the gear bag swinging from Jerome's left shoulder.

  He caught it just in time. 'Sorry, Maggy.' Jerome started into the depot.

  'Whatever happened to ladies first?' And what had happened to the polite young intern I'd met a year ago?

  Answer: Kate McNamara had turned him into a newsman, confirmed by Jerome's 'Gotta get the shot.'

  The door had started to close behind him, so I shoved it open. Damn it, this was my depot. Or at least Sarah's.

  The scene before me was less than climactic.

  Pavlik and Jerome stood staring at the compressor. With a yell, county sheriff brought city cop running from the front.

  'No one got past me, sir,' the formerly bored officer said, a little short of breath. You could tell he was happy to being doing something, anything other than keeping officious suburbanites and politicians in order.

  'Figures. There was no one here in the first place.'

  'But how . . .?' Then I forced myself to concentrate. 'It's a machine powered by gasoline, not electricity. The thing just ran out of fuel.'

  To prove my point, Pavlik yanked at the black-handled pull cord. The compressor gave a weak cough and died.

  'I thought you weren't supposed to use gasoline engines indoors,' Jerome said.

  I had a sinking feeling he was right. Kevin Williams had put the compressor, probably meant for outdoor festivals where electrical power wasn't readily available, indoors because of sensitivity to the noise issue. Or maybe he'd brought the wrong compressor and was trying to compromise. Whatever, he'd likely broken some kind of code by having the gasoline-powered beast inside.

  That certainly wouldn't be appreciated by OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. A thought struck me.

  'Wait. Could the compressor have been pumping carbon monoxide into the cup?' I asked.

  'And killed Ms Penn-Williams?' Pavlik said, closing the circle on my theory. 'Well, if she died of carbon monoxide poisoning, the autopsy results will show signs of it.'