Flat White

  Contents

  Cover

  Also by Sandra Balzo

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Also by Sandra Balzo

  The Maggy Thorsen mysteries

  UNCOMMON GROUNDS

  GROUNDS FOR MURDER *

  BEAN THERE, DONE THAT *

  BREWED, CRUDE AND TATTOOED *

  FROM THE GROUNDS UP *

  A CUP OF JO *

  TRIPLE SHOT *

  MURDER ON THE ORIENT ESPRESSO *

  TO THE LAST DROP *

  THE IMPORTANCE OF BEING URNEST *

  MURDER A LA MOCHA *

  DEATH OF A BEAN COUNTER *

  The Main Street mystery series

  RUNNING ON EMPTY *

  DEAD ENDS *

  HIT AND RUN *

  * available from Severn House

  FLAT WHITE

  Sandra Balzo

  This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  First world edition published in Great Britain and the USA in 2021

  by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd,

  14 High Street, Edinburgh EH1 1TE.

  Trade paperback edition first published in Great Britain and the USA in 2022

  by Severn House, an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.

  This eBook edition first published in 2021 by Severn House,

  an imprint of Canongate Books Ltd.

  severnhouse.com

  Copyright © Sandra Balzo, 2021

  All rights reserved including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The right of Sandra Balzo to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988.

  British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

  A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

  ISBN-13: 978-0-7278-9057-3 (cased)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-78029-766-8 (trade paper)

  ISBN-13: 978-1-4483-0504-9 (e-book)

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Except where actual historical events and characters are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events or locales is purely coincidental.

  This eBook produced by

  Palimpsest Book Production Limited,

  Falkirk, Stirlingshire, Scotland

  ONE

  ‘Let me flatten her now. Please?’

  My business partner Sarah Kingston was watching Christy Wrigley shimmy under the condiment cart at our Brookhills, Wisconsin coffeehouse.

  ‘Absolutely not,’ I said, as Christy’s top half disappeared, leaving cable-knit knees visible. ‘We need her.’

  I could have appealed to Sarah’s common decency. You know, ‘It’s not nice to squish people’ – yada, yada, yada. But there were some days when Sarah was all about Sarah.

  ‘I’ll just kick out one of the casters,’ she pleaded. ‘It won’t hurt her. Much.’

  This was one of those days.

  ‘Our neighbor very kindly volunteered to fill in at Uncommon Grounds while Amy is in Europe,’ I reminded her. ‘Can you show a little more gratitude?’ And a lot less bloodlust.

  ‘Fill in as a barista, but have you seen the woman make a drink?’

  ‘Christy is a piano teacher,’ I reminded Sarah. ‘If you want her to make an espresso drink, you’ll need to show her how to use the espresso machine. It’s called training. Which is what I thought you were doing with her this morning.’

  ‘I assumed she knew what she was doing when she started to dismantle the machine. So sue me.’

  ‘If only I could,’ I muttered, ‘but I’d be suing myself.’

  ‘Wah, wah, wah. It’s not like you were here to put the thing back together. I did that.’ She pulled a black rubber gasket from her apron pocket and looked at it absent-mindedly. ‘Mostly.’

  The missing gasket probably explained the rivulet of water trailing from the tip of the steam wand down our service counter.

  ‘The espresso machine was filthy.’ A yellow rubber-gloved palm appeared from under the cart. ‘Brush.’

  I leaned down to pluck a scrub brush from the pile of cleaning implements on the floor and slap it into the extended hand like I was a surgical nurse. Though if Christy were a surgeon, she’d never make it out of the scrub room.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re encouraging her,’ said the same woman who allowed our neighbor to dismantle our $25,000 espresso machine three hours earlier.

  ‘She’s just cleaning the cart’s wheels.’ I shrugged. ‘What can she hurt?’

  The brush shot back out and hit the front door, making the sleigh bells on the back of it jangle against the plate glass window.

  ‘Hurt besides me, you mean?’ Sarah asked, neatly sidestepping the ricocheting brush.

  ‘If I had wanted to hit you, I would have hit you,’ Christy’s disembodied voice flatly stated.

  ‘See?’ Sarah asked. ‘The woman is clearly unhinged and now, to make matters worse, she’s marrying my jailbird step-cousin, who is as crazy as she is,’ Sarah continued. ‘They’ll have litters of little lunatics.’

  Oy vey, Sarah was on a roll. Though I did applaud the alliteration.

  ‘You do know that I can hear you,’ came the voice from down under. ‘Ronny and I will not be procreating together.’

  ‘Oh,’ seemed my safest response at this point.

  Sarah, of course, couldn’t leave this potential scab unpicked. ‘What turns you off most, Christy? Ronny’s murderous past or the fact you’d actually have to have sex to procreate?’

  ‘I’ll have you know I have no problem with sex,’ Christy said. ‘In fact, I can be quite racy.’

  I tried not to imagine the pale redhead in her yellow rubber gloves and little else.

  ‘The fact is,’ she continued, ‘Ronny and I aren’t seeing each other anymore.’

  ‘Seeing each other’ had been restricted to four hours per month anyway. Christy had only become interested in Ronny Eisvogel after he had been arrested and subsequently sentenced to state prison. My theory was that the little germaphobe needed to be needed and Ronny was safe, if only for the next twenty to life. If Christy ever had to live with the man and wash his socks, it would be all over.

  Still, I felt badly for her. ‘I’m sorry, Christy.’

  ‘I’m not.’ Her gloved palm flashed back out again. ‘Toothbrush.’

  If Christy didn’t want to talk about something, she simply … didn’t.

  Sarah glanced at me, then asked, ‘Ronny dumped you?’

  ‘Toot
hbrush.’

  I grinned at Sarah and then went to scan the other assorted items Christy had gathered from our utility room before she slid under the condiment cart. Sponge, pile of rags, bent table knife, used bar of soap, rusted razor blade. ‘I don’t see a toothbrush.’

  ‘Impossible.’

  I picked through the rags. Nothing. ‘Are you sure you saw a toothbrush amongst this stuff when you brought it out?’

  ‘No. But I assumed you both kept one here.’

  ‘To brush my teeth,’ Sarah said. ‘Why in the hell would I give you my toothbrush to clean the condiment cart’s wheels with?’

  ‘You have a toothbrush here?’ I asked her.

  ‘Of course not. It was a rhetorical question.’

  I sighed. ‘No toothbrush, Christy.’

  ‘My purse.’

  Of course, she’d keep one in her purse. She probably had two toothbrushes, in fact. One for cleaning teeth and the other for the odd job. ‘Where’s your purse?’

  ‘Under my coat on the rack by the door.’

  I went to the coat-rack, removing first a stocking cap and then a plaid wool scarf from the hook before getting to the bulky full-length wool coat. ‘My God, this is heavy,’ I said, hefting it.

  ‘It’s January in Wisconsin and there’s two feet of snow on the ground.’

  Which was why Christy had also worn rubber hip-waders this morning. I had made her leave the tall boots outside on the porch, the pair of them forming a yellow lean-to next to the door.

  ‘You live directly across the street,’ Sarah pointed out. ‘That’s what? A twenty-five-foot journey door to door?’

  ‘Sooo?’ Christy’s voice had gone up an octave. ‘What if I got hit by a car as I crossed?’

  ‘You honestly care whether your corpse is nice and toasty or not while it’s waiting for the meat wagon to arrive?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘You can’t be sure that I would die instantly,’ Christy rebutted. ‘I might linger.’

  ‘You should be so—’

  ‘Will you two stop?’ I draped the heavy coat over the nearest chair and slipped an enormous robin’s egg blue tote off the hook. Everything about Christy was oversized, except the woman herself.

  Undoing the bag’s drawstring, I peered inside. A mobile phone was peeking out of a pocket, but the contents below were a jumble. I could make out the handle of a pair of scissors, a can of something – likely spray disinfectant, knowing Christy – a single torn yellow rubber glove, an unlabeled bottle of brown liquid and, yes, a toothbrush.

  I went to retrieve it and pulled my hand back quickly. ‘Ouch!’

  ‘What?’ Sarah asked. ‘Something in that rat’s nest bite you?’

  ‘No, something stabbed me.’ I grasped the toothbrush by the brush end this time and held it up. ‘Christy, why do you have a shiv in your purse?’

  Sarah took it and ran her finger over the end that had been filed to a point.

  Christy stuck her head out from under the cart to see. ‘Oh, that was for Ronny. Give it here.’

  ‘You planned on smuggling a weapon into the prison?’ I asked. ‘Have you lost your mind?’

  Now that was a rhetorical question.

  ‘Oh, I wasn’t going to actually give it to him,’ she said, still holding out her hand. ‘It was just a craft project. You know, something to show him I cared.’

  ‘Until you didn’t,’ Sarah said, slapping the weaponized toothbrush into Christy’s hand a little harder than necessary.

  ‘Exactly right.’ Christy took the brush and slid back under. ‘Dammit.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘This is the soft-bristled brush. I need the other one.’

  I was not about to stick my hand back in that bag. Next, I’d likely come up with a file just waiting to be baked into a cake. ‘Come out and get it.’

  ‘Oh, for God’s sake.’ The hand shot back out. ‘Give me my purse.’

  I held up the bag and squinted at it and the space between cart and floor, trying to gauge the space. ‘I don’t think it will fit under there. I guess I could dump it out and—’

  ‘Just give it to me!’

  ‘With pleasure.’ Sarah pulled the bag from my grasp and dropped it unceremoniously on the outstretched hand. Clunk.

  ‘Ouch.’ Christy scrabbled for the drawstring and used it to reel the bag in. Or at least she tried to reel it in. ‘Damn. It’s stuck.’

  ‘No shit, Sherlock,’ Sarah said. ‘If you want your toothbrush, crawl out from under your rock and find it yourself.’

  ‘Honestly!’ The legs bent at the knee as she scrambled for purchase and the little redhead slid out, one hand still holding the drawstring.

  Pushing herself up to sit cross-legged on the tile floor, back against the condiment cart, Christy opened the bag and started to remove items one by one and set them on the floor next to her. The disinfectant, the scissors, a sponge, a wrapper from—

  ‘You carry your own disposable …’ Sarah picked up the wrapper and read, ‘“Prophylactic toilet seat cover”?’

  ‘Of course,’ Christy said. ‘I certainly hope you don’t sit on public toilet seats unprotected.’

  ‘Of course not. I hover.’

  ‘Oh.’ Christy’s lips had twisted in distaste. ‘You’re one of those.’

  ‘I’m one of whats?’ Sarah asked.

  ‘Toilet hoverers.’ Christy’s phone vibrated in the depths of the bag, but she ignored it. ‘I’m just saying that people like you who—’

  I held up my hands. ‘Could we please focus? The first afternoon train from downtown Milwaukee will be here in a little over an hour, and not only is the espresso machine leaking, but our cleaning supplies and half the contents of Christy’s bag are all over the—’ I interrupted myself. ‘Do you need to get that, Christy?’

  Her phone had stopped ringing and then started up again, either with another call or the original caller trying again.

  ‘Excuse me?’ She acted like she hadn’t noticed.

  ‘Your phone.’ I nudged Christy’s bag with my toe and the mobile in question slipped out. ‘Oh, I’m sorry,’ I said, leaning down to pick it up. ‘I—’

  ‘Give me that!’ Christy jumped up.

  But Sarah was quicker. She had the phone in her hand before Christy could make a grab for it. ‘Something you don’t want us to see?’

  ‘No, I—’

  But my partner was dancing away with the cell phone. So far, Sarah had been hazing Christy for fun, but now my partner seemed intent on turning up the heat. ‘Whoever do you think is calling? Must be an emergency if they are so persistent that—’

  ‘Give me my phone.’ Christy seemed to be trying to hide her irritation, but her foot was tapping, her arms crossed. ‘Please.’

  ‘Barry Margraves,’ Sarah read and then held the phone out for me to see. The photo of a good-looking man beamed back at us. ‘Now who could that be?’

  ‘None of your business.’ Christy reached out and snatched the phone away, holding Barry Margraves to her bosom. ‘That’s who he is.’

  ‘He’s none of my business?’ Sarah was grinning, like a gleeful lion circling the wounded wildebeest. ‘You dumped my poor incarcerated cousin for this guy and it’s none of my business?’

  But then Christy wasn’t all that wounded. ‘I did not dump Ronny for Barry. In fact, I went on the dating site because I had already ended things with Ronny, and I was lonely. Rebecca suggested it.’

  ‘Rebecca Penn?’ I asked, a little surprised.

  ‘Yes, of course,’ Christy said. ‘You know she’s moved back, right? She’s living above the studio.’

  Rebecca Penn and Michael Inkel had owned Penn and Ink, a graphic arts studio and marketing company two doors down from Christy. Michael handled the writing and marketing side, while Rebecca had been the artist. When the two called off their engagement, Rebecca had moved to New York. Michael, on the other hand, had returned to Brookhills after a short trip back to his native Toronto to lick his emotional wounds. ‘No, I
didn’t know. When was this?’

  ‘Like a month ago,’ Sarah said. ‘You should try to keep up.’

  The Penn and Ink building was a converted one-and-a-half-story bungalow with a small apartment above the retail studio space on the ground floor. The studio had been rented out since Penn and Ink had closed, its retail tenants seeming to change every few months. I tried to keep up, as Sarah said, but it was hard. ‘That Rowena, the one with the stationery store, she moved out?’

  ‘Rochelle,’ Christy corrected. ‘And it was a fabric store. She’s been gone for six months.’

  You see why I don’t bother. ‘Rebecca and Michael aren’t back together again, are they?’

  ‘On and off, still,’ Christy said. ‘I told Rebecca that she’d be far better off making a clean break with him, like I did with Ronny.’

  But then Christy was not going to run into Ronny on the street. Or in the building.

  As I recalled, Rebecca and Michael had purchased the bungalow together, and I thought Michael still kept a workspace at the back of the studio. And now, according to Christy, Rebecca was living on the floor above.

  ‘Damn shame Penn and Ink busted up,’ Sarah said, pulling a chair out from a table and flipping it around so she could sit facing us over the chair back.

  ‘Damn shame for the people or for the business?’ I asked.

  Sarah rolled her eyes. ‘Like I care about their personal lives. But Michael was a damn good writer and Rebecca a passable designer. Did I ever tell you they did our ads and website?’

  I assumed she meant for Kingston Realty, which Sarah had recently shelved after unsuccessfully trying to split her time between it and Uncommon Grounds. And by ‘shelved’, I mean sold the agency for a good sum.

  ‘… says Michael is driving ride-share to supplement his freelance writing,’ Christy was saying with a pout. ‘Serves him right for trying to make Rebecca into something she wasn’t.’

  ‘A nice person?’ I guessed.

  ‘That’s a little uncharitable of you, Maggy.’ Christy had leaned down to retrieve items from the floor to return to her purse and now swiveled her head toward me. ‘Just because Rebecca accused Sheriff Pavlik of having an affair with her sister.’