Grounds for Murder (7 page)

Pavlik surveyed me. ‘If you weren’t covered in dog slime, it might make me hot, too.’

Hmm. But maybe this evening could still be salvaged. I leaned down to pick up the Schultz’s Market bag from where I’d dropped it when Frank tackled me.

‘I think a shower is in order, don’t you?’ I said lightly. I was half-hoping Pavlik might suggest joining me.

But Frank already had fetched his tennis ball.

‘Go get it Frank, go get it,’ Pavlik yelled, pretending to throw the ball and then palming it. It was a game they both loved – the fuzz as much the furball. Hunk of Burning Trust that Frank was, he would race around the yard eagerly looking for the ball before bounding back to Pavlik to be tricked again.

‘Great,’ Pavlik said, tossing the ball over Frank’s head when he wasn’t looking. ‘Call me when dinner’s ready.’

I could only hope that when the tennis ball got as slimy as I was, Pavlik would lose interest in that, too.

The broiler was preheating and things were warming up between Pavlik and me, too, when his cellphone rang. He picked up.

‘Where?’ He glanced over at me and then away. I got a little chill. Not the good kind.

‘Right, the coffee place – I know it. I’ll be right over.’ Pavlik flipped the phone closed and slid it into his pocket before he turned to me. ‘I have to go.’

‘What happened? And at what coffeehouse?’

We were both standing up now and he slipped his arms around me. ‘It’s a fire, but don’t worry. It’s not at Uncommon Grounds.’

I nodded, feeling relieved and then feeling ashamed at feeling relieved. Catholic Guilt has nothing on Lutheran Self-loathing. ‘Then where?’

‘Janalee’s Place. And apparently their manager was hurt.’ He kissed me and started out the door. I grabbed my jacket and followed.

Since Pavlik had his Harley, and I wasn’t really dressed for riding a hog, we took separate vehicles. Good thing, because halfway there I realized I hadn’t turned off the broiler and had to turn around. By the time I finally arrived at Janalee’s Place, the firefighters were winding up hoses and taking off their helmets. Pavlik was deep in conversation with one of his deputies, so I looked around.

Janalee’s Place was built of cream city brick, a light yellow brick made during the 1800s from the clay indigenous to the western shore of Lake Michigan. The charming shop had a center door, with a cheerful white-curtained window to each side of it.

Now, though, the facade looked like a pathetic dying creature. The soot from the fire formed ghastly black eyes around the openings where the windows had been, and what was left of the white ruffled curtains flapped listlessly, the only sign of lingering life. The doorway gaped open like a mouth gasping for air.

The sight reminded me of Amy’s smudged eyes when I’d seen her at the grocery store. I hunted around and found her sitting just inside the ambulance, her right hand swathed in gauze.

Seeing no one who could tell me not to, I climbed in and sat next to her. ‘Amy, are you OK?’

She had been staring off toward the far side of the ambulance – a mere four or five feet, but it could have been a thousand miles away, by the look in her eyes. She jumped.

I put my hand out to steady her. ‘I’m so sorry. I didn’t mean to startle you.’

‘Oh, Maggy. I didn’t expect to see anyone, I was just . . . just . . . just . . .’ Tears welled up and spilled over, leaving clean streaks down her sooty face.

I pulled a tissue out of my purse and handed it to her. ‘You’re hurt. Were you alone in the store?’

She nodded. ‘This area is mostly commercial so we close at six when the office crowd leaves. I was just dropping off the things I bought at Schultz’s.’ Her lip quivered. ‘I smelled smoke.’

‘You didn’t go in, did you?’ I asked, gesturing toward her bandaged hand.

‘I tried.’ She shook her head sadly, apparently filled with regret for not having been barbecued. ‘But when I grabbed the doorknob . . .’

‘I’m sorry you burned your hand,’ I said, ever the mother. ‘But that hot door knob may have saved your life.’ I looked back at the remains of the building. ‘If you had gone in―’

‘Amy? Amy? I came as soon as I heard. Are you hurt?’ Janalee – five foot ten and organically grown – climbed into the ambulance, baby on board. It was getting mighty crowded in there.

Amy leapt up. ‘I am so sorry, Janalee. I was too late to do anything.’

Janalee took her by the shoulders. ‘You have nothing to be sorry about. I’m just glad you’re all right.’

A paramedic stuck his head in. ‘Hate to break up the party, ladies, but we have to get Ms Caprese to the hospital.’

Ms Caprese? Nice. I hadn’t even known Amy’s last name, despite the fact that I had known her for three or four years and had been plotting to steal her from HotWired. Yes, and don’t think it hadn’t crossed my mind that with Janalee’s Place gone, Amy might be looking for a job. Good thing I was sensitive enough to let the thought pass right through without trying to entertain it for long.

Speaking of entertaining, I should find out if Pavlik still wanted dinner. I tried to stand up to leave, but with Amy, Janalee and Davy taking up the center of the ambulance, the best I could manage was to slide down the bench and slip sideways out the door.

‘Glad you’re OK, Amy,’ I called back in. ‘I’m so sorry about the fire, Janalee.’

The paramedic gave me a sour look as I passed, so I decided to take the low road. ‘Could you tell me where to find Sheriff Pavlik?’

He gestured somewhere in the vicinity of Lake Michigan twenty miles away, presumably because he wanted me and my name-dropping to jump into it. Apparently sleeping with rank – or aspiring to sleep with rank – did not have its privileges.

The paramedic climbed into the ambulance and I went off in search of Pavlik. I found him talking to a man next to a car marked ‘Inspector’. Since the car was red, I assumed it was the fire inspector.

When Pavlik saw me, he held up one finger. Either that meant I was to wait, or that I was Number One. I liked to think both.

Pavlik finished up and came over to me. ‘This is going to take a while. Can I have a rain check?’

‘You’re invited for dinner anytime,’ I said, my heart sinking just a bit. This despite the fact that Pavlik had about as good a reason for missing dinner as anyone I knew. I looked back at the burned remnants of Janalee’s Place.

‘That’s not what I want the rain check for,’ he murmured in my ear.

‘Good thing,’ I said, turning back to him. ‘I’m a crappy cook.’

‘Happily,’ said Pavlik, ‘I’m not. Next time dinner’s at my house.’

Was this man perfect, or what? Dinner at his house. That meant no cooking, no cleaning and – most importantly – no competition from Frank.

I started up on my tiptoes to give Pavlik a quick kiss and then thought better of it. ‘I suppose it’s not proper to kiss the sheriff at a crime scene,’ I said. ‘Though I suppose this is really a fire scene not a cr―’

He leaned down to kiss me, maybe because he liked me or maybe because he wanted to shut me up. Either way, it worked for me. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow.’

‘Perfect.’ I started to walk away and then turned back. Often what Pavlik didn’t say was more telling than what he did say. ‘This isn’t a crime scene right? I mean, the fire was an accident.’

For the first time, I wondered why Pavlik had been called there. Fires weren’t normally in his purview.

‘I’ll call you tomorrow,’ was all he said.

Chapter Eight

When I got home, I nobly ignored Ingmar Bergman’s Through a Glass Darkly, beckoning me from its DVD case on the coffee table. Instead, I did penance for my evil now-Amy-needs-a-job thoughts by settling on to the couch to go over Janalee’s folders.

Disappointingly, the one entitled ‘Competitive Strategies’ was not LaRoche’s masterplan for conquering the coffee universe, but an old folder Janalee had stuffed full of every imaginable fact about Davy, including chronicling what appeared to be each bowel movement the colicky baby had ever had, when he held up his head the first time, the month, day and time he sat up, and the day he stood.

I had carefully preserved a box of growth charts, artwork and assembled memorabilia from Eric’s childhood. The way Janalee was going, though, she would need a semi-trailer by the time Davy was grown. Setting aside the file to return to Janalee as quickly as humanly possible, I moved on to the other folders.

Happily, Janalee had paid the same attention to detail in planning the barista competition that she did to the care and feeding of Davy. Java Ho’s event was designed to be a ‘starter’ competition and, much like a starter bra, the basics were there, but so was an expectation of further development.

The idea was to get our local baristi accustomed to competition, so they could go on to participate in sanctioned events put on by the Specialty Coffee Association of America and the United States Barista Competition. Lawyers and accountants have nothing on us so far as associations go.

Janalee had lined up the prescribed six judges – four of them sensory judges and two of them technical – and asked that they meet me at the convention center on Thursday morning. Her husband Marvin, her notes said chirpily – assuming it was possible for ink to chirp – would be the head judge. That left me as master of ceremonies, which suited me just fine.

As far as I could tell, the competition should be fairly easy to manage. A piece of cake compared with the big events I’d been responsible for at First National. But then, as an exasperated co-worker once told me, I obsessed more over a dinner party for half a dozen than a fireworks show for half a million. Made sense to me: five friends were more likely to complain than 500,000 strangers. It was just a fact of life. Besides, I was a lot more confident of my management skills than my cooking abilities . . .

‘Uh-oh,’ I said out loud, getting up off the couch. Frank, playing dead in front of the fireplace, raised his head a half inch off the floor to watch me run into the kitchen.

The bag from Schultz’s was sitting on the counter where I’d left it while I preheated the broiler. I reached in and pulled out the bag o’halibut.

The fish was floating.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be on your backs?’ I asked the fillets. I was recalling my earlier conversation with Amy.

To think we’d been standing in front of the seafood counter at Schultz’s less than three hours ago, chatting about goldfish. And now the store Amy managed was gone, along with her job, perhaps. I assumed that Janalee would offer Amy something at a HotWired store, but would the rock barista take it?

With the exception of Amy at Janalee’s Place, the HotWired staff members were as interchangeable as their surroundings. Not their fault, really. It was the way LaRoche wanted them. Uniform, efficient and faceless. Amy was anything but faceless, and I wasn’t sure she would fit in anywhere but Janalee’s.

Except Uncommon Grounds, of course.

I tossed the fish in the garbage and walked back into the living room, thinking about what made a place special. The point of differentiation. The people, right? In a coffeehouse, that would be the owners and employees who greeted you by name and knew what you drank. Made you feel at home. Or better than at home.

If we were going to beat HotWired, I thought as I stacked up Janalee’s files, we needed to appeal to people’s hearts, not their wallets. Our pockets just weren’t deep enough to compete with LaRoche’s free drink coupons. ‘We do have big hearts, though,’ I said out loud.

Frank snorted, giving me a momentary glimpse of one eye, and then went back to sleep. Cynic.

I would get an early start tomorrow. First I would check out the convention center so there wouldn’t be any surprises on Thursday morning when I met with the judges. Then I would spend some time at Uncommon Grounds spreading good will. And force Caron to do likewise.

The remains of the Pinot Noir Pavlik had brought was sitting on the coffee table next to the DVD of Through a Glass Darkly. I had been about to pour us more wine when the call about the fire came in.

I picked up the bottle. Just enough left for a glass or two. I glanced over at the clock on the mantle. And just enough time. I poured the wine and slipped the DVD into the player.

Despite the fact I’d paired the wine with a sleeve of crackers and a can of spray cheese, I awoke famished the next morning. Go figure.

I decided to flip my itinerary and go to Uncommon Grounds first, before moving on to the convention center. The reason being free food, of course.

It was nearly eight thirty by the time I walked in the door, so I was surprised to see seven customers in line at the counter. Mindful of my resolution, I made sure to greet each person before I went behind the counter and dug out an almond poppy seed muffin.

‘You are going to help, aren’t you?’ Caron demanded, as she poured a cup of coffee for a customer. ‘I mean, someone besides yourself?’

‘Of course,’ I said, stuffing a piece of muffin in my mouth. ‘Just needed a little nourishment first. A cup of coffee would help,’ I said, eying the mug in Caron’s hand.

‘Don’t even think about it,’ the woman at the front of the line said. ‘And don’t you be putting any of your dirty pictures on it either.’ She snatched the cup from Caron and scuttled away to a corner table.

Mrs Doherty. The recipient of my one and only attempt at latte art. The woman had no imagination. Or, perhaps, too much of one. Either way, I wouldn’t be winning her heart anytime soon. Best leave that one to Caron.

I turned to the next customer in line, a woman wearing a jacket over tennis whites. ‘Dorothy – it’s good to see you. Your usual, I presume?’

‘I’d prefer Alice’s usual,’ the woman said, shaking her dark hair. It didn’t move. Too much product.

‘Alice’s usual?’ I asked, confused. ‘I’m afraid I don’t know—’

‘Her name is Alice,’ Caron hissed in my ear as she elbowed me out of the way. ‘Not Dorothy.’

‘But Dorothy is the one who wears tennis outfits,’ I said, puzzled.

Caron rolled her eyes and started an espresso shot. ‘Leagues started this week. Everyone is wearing tennis clothes.’

And this was my problem apparently. If they were all going to dress alike, they should have their names on their jerseys.