The Telltale Cup: A Mike Dodge Mystery

I actually could feel the quiet tension build in the room. It was what the place was made for, all best intentions aside.

Novels were being written, now faster if not better. The heart-pounding crush of late-semester reality etched the faces of scattered young people who’d imagined the clarity of stimulated isolation might somehow bring a brighter future into focus. Transactions that had begun with aspirational camaraderie were turning adversarial. At the table behind us, sisterhood was eroding rapidly into jagged shards of “sibling” rivalry and snark. The earthy, spicy, vanilla notes that had been aromatherapy on a glaring and frigid fall morning now were aggressive, cloying.

It was what the place was made for, whatever the fucking Zen mermaid on the wall was trying to sell. I’d always wondered what she was waving at us behind those dual tail-fins.

“I got hooked in college,” I replied. “My folks had been using my whole life, but they never gave me a taste. Smoked like chimneys, too — gave me a taste nearly every day K through 12 whether they or I knew or wanted.”

“So glad I asked.”

“So grateful you cared enough to ask. Back then, it was a relatively cheap high, and you could book a two-hour sitting at the Terre Haute House or Woolworth’s or Jerry’s as long as you kept moving and sipping and left a fry and two on the table to stave off the staff. Never could stand it black, so the table usually wound up looking like Domino’s New Jersey landfill with a Scarface mountain of powdered creamer. Oh, and my Freshman 15 very quickly graduated to a Sophomore 50.”

“And ultimately to the Senior 75. Coffee Mate must have one of those pis boy statues of you in the corporate atrium.”

“Nice, though in 27 years, the office breakroom never popped for the good stuff, the peel-and-pour. Staff microwave was an evolving biohazard, but no sticky counters.”

“I’m trying to recall why I’m here.”

“Because it’s a bracing way to start your day. And I’m totally on topic, if that’s what you’re getting at.”

He settled back, sipped his caramel macchiato. The two big deals at the front window table were now nearly nose-to-nose, and there was talk of injunctions and uncivil litigation. That the presumed “plaintiff” was quaffing a Unicorn Frappucino seemed to detract from the gravity of his emotional suffering. Behind me, the Sisterhood of the Soy Latte had worked through the As and Bs and appeared on the precipice of a few Cs. The writers wrote, the students soldiered through the bean sweats, and the folks in the aprons carried on amid the hissing and the decision-making and the chaos and the ongoing roll call of misheard and illegible names.

If the good folks in Seattle had thought to put a Steinway in the corner with the beans and mugs, we’d have had us a real Billy Joel ballad up in here. It was a pretty good crowd for a Thursday, and Curtis seemed willing to forget about life — and death — for a while.

“Listen, you cunt,” the girl in the pink puffy jacket behind me finally growled. La la-la di di da. I scooched up a few inches, and launched right into it.

***

Lee Drayton had never had coffee out, if that’s to be believed. He’d actually never even sampled the blessed elixir until his early ‘30s.

“Folks were Seventh Day Adventists,” Lee informed me as he gently swirled his pink-and-orange Dunkin’ cup. He’d been intrigued by the proposition to rekindle our friendship, but when I suggested the Beltway Starbuck’s or the Gloria Jean’s by the community college, he snorted as if I’d tried to pop his vegan cherry with a 48-ounce tomahawk steak.

“Mom and Pop were what you might call suggestible, and I always wondered if some door-to-door roller talked them into the move from the Lutherans. Shit, we’d only been Lutherans for four years — I was baptized Presbyterian, and Dad was born Catholic.”

I nibbled my maple bar, smiling encouragingly. He grinned back — when you reach our age, you’re either totally oblivious or acutely aware how much of everyone’s time you’re squandering.

“Sorry. Point is, the Adventists banned caffeine back in the day. At some point, I guess, folks began drifting off during the sermon, and they kinda gave up the ghost and bumped it to a misdemeanor. But the minister was old-school — there such a thing as Orthodox Adventist? — and my folks approached religion like magic, had to follow the rituals and incantations if you wanted to make the Pearly Gates.”

“What were the grounds?” I didn’t catch my own pun ‘til it left my mouth, and Lee didn’t at all.

“Kinda like the Rastafarians — no booze or stimulants, not pure or wholesome. Maybe not so much like the Rastafarians — Mom flipped out when she found a joint in my jeans on Laundry Day. Maybe more like the Mormons.”

“Mormon college buddy told me the actual law was ‘Hot drinks are not for the body or belly.’ Joseph Smith. It was the 1830s, and I guess coffee and tea were the only hot drinks at the time, cause there don’t seem to be any Latter Day rules about Mountain Dew or Red Bull, though maybe there oughtta be. Judaism and Islam don’t have any rules about coffee per se, except not during Ramadan or Yom Kippur. Weirdly enough, decaf is the concern — grain-based ethanol is used in the decaffeination process, and thus, your Passover coffee probably ain’t kosher.”

“Well, Beth’s an atheist, so none of it was a problem. She drinks a pot or two every day, and doesn’t like to drink alone. Didn’t care for the stuff at first, but I had to be into work by 7 every morning, and I found I liked the boost.”

He actually did not. Lee’d been staff photographer for a decade when I’d started at the organization in the late ‘80s, and while he spent much of his day in the darkroom (in this digital age, now a video bay), most days I arrived before 8, and we’d shoot the shit ‘til the crowd began to trickle in.

Now that I thought of it, a Diet Pepsi was usually planted next to Lee’s mousepad — ironic, as he’d topped out somewhere between Roseanne- and Conners-era Goodman. When he put in his papers at 62, it was clear early retirement was none-too-early — his interest had waned as photography became a dry-and-odorless enterprise, and he’d shed about 75 pounds the wrong way. It had taken a few to recognize the gaunt old guy groping cantaloupes at the HyVee.

Now, there was an odd expression on Lee’s Shar Pei’d face. The skin around his eyes had tightened, and his cup was poised under his nose, fogging his wire-rims.

“Your coffee taste OK?” he finally asked with a smile. I tested my cup, and shrugged approval. “Aah, guess I’m used to Folgers.”

“You know, you can get Dunkin’ or Starbucks pods at Walmart or Jewel.”

Lee’s baggy jowls waggled as he shook his head. “I suggested getting one of those Keurig things, but Beth didn’t see the expense or learning the technology.

“You know what, though, Mike?” Lee perked, raising his cup. “I like this.”

***

Apparently. It wasn’t even a week before he called. Denny’s, this time. I countered with the coffee house on campus, but Lee was in a Grand Slam state of mind.

Again, he seemed contemplative as he sipped at his first cup. I swallowed a grimace along with the muddy dishwater, and he finally rallied as his platter arrived.

“You remember Dianna — what was her name? One of the other early birds? Sweet gal.”

“Dianna French.” Dianna, one of the division AAs, left a year or so before Lee’d taken retirement, maybe four before I’d married Sarah. The office gossip was she’d started hooking up with one of the AV guys, handsome kid about five years her junior, and her middle-aged country boy insurance agent hubby had caught on.

Dianna had simply not shown up one day, and the eventual word was she now spent her days filing or reading People in a cramped Farmer’s Mutual office in a Mahomet shopping plaza. That was, shit, more than 25 years ago, and I have no idea if she’d ever packed a bag in the night or maybe, God willing and no witnesses, got herself a vehicular divorce.

“What made you think of Dianna?” I asked, scraping cold butter on my sourdough toast.

“I don’t know,” Lee murmured, seemingly surprised. “Maybe seeing old work buddies. You ever miss it?”

“Eh, maybe a few of the people — certainly not the office politics.” I sipped and feigned a satisfactory smack. “You? I still see your stuff in the paper every once in a while, and didn’t you have like a show a month or two ago?”

“Central Illinois Barns, at the Historical Museum,” he mused. “No, no regrets, no looking back.” Lee consulted his phone. “Hey, hate to cut this short, but Beth’s got a doctor’s appointment at 11. She’s already kinda tetchy about me getting my coffee out.”

Maybe just as well, I thought, snatching the bill. Sarah’d already remarked cheerfully on the perils of feeding stray dogs.

“Box that up for you?” the server asked a few minutes later. I regarded Lee’s nearly untouched breakfast.

“Nah,” I drawled, drawing the chipped china across the formica. I had paid for it, after all.

**

It went on like that for a couple more weeks. McCafe at the Arches, the bakery off the City Complex where the lawyers prepped over lemon bars and croissants, the Campus Coffee Co-op with its vegan breakfast selection and grim undergrad baristas.

“Doesn’t this guy have any other friends?” Sarah finally demanded as I ignored the ringtone I’d assigned Lee about halfway though the Millington Java Tour.

“He doesn’t mention anybody but his wife,” I told her as the Maxwell House jingle broke in mid-perk. Just because I’m annoyed doesn’t mean I can’t amuse myself. “Well, I mean he’s talked about old coworkers. You remember Dianna French, the one with the asshole husband?”

“The one who was screwing the young stud in the video department?”

I’d forgotten where she came down on adultery, courtesy of the ex. “Well, they never really established that. Anyway, Lee was waxing nostalgic. You know, he’s been through liver failure and a couple rounds of various treatments over the years, so if that wouldn’t make you reexamine things…”

“What? He’s a drinker?”

“Naw. Part of one of his religious upbringings. Far as I know, coffee’s his only addiction. At least now. I may have released the monkey…”

“Monkey?”

“The one on Lee’s back. The java jones. He seems obsessed with trying every brew in town, doesn’t even touch his food. Lee told me he never even drank coffee until he married Beth.”

Sarah peeked over the rim of the D.C. Holiday Inn mug I’d lifted about the time Ed Madigan was ag secretary, and cleared it and our Wheaties bowls. “Maybe what he was getting at home just wasn’t cutting it. Like your little friend Dianna.”

“She wasn’t my friend—“ I protested. “She was just one of the AAs.”

“My guess is it didn’t stand for ‘age-appropriate.’ And ‘just’ an AA?” the former AA growled. “I hope she wasn’t grinding your beans. That all you two talk about?”

“Not even that, really,” I conceded, skipping over the multiple holes I’d just dug. “Most of the time, Lee just complains about his health and his home life. And he’s getting worse – snappish, defensive, even yelled at the scone lady downtown. I think the caffeine’s getting to him. I don’t even know why I’m doing this.”

“Then quit doing it.”

And that’s what I set out to do. But we Dodges are slow-tuggers rather than bandaid rippers, and 10 minutes later, we were on for 11:30 Thursday.

***

“How’d you finally get rid of the guy?”

The “girls” had just parted ways — Pink Puffer had skipped right through the D and E, wisely saving F for a dramatic exit. Fortunately, histrionic drink-dashing had largely gone out with ‘80s nighttime soaps, and the hydraulic door closer blunted PP’s last attempt at a grand departure. As Harry Styles crooned the shit out of the whole situation, The surviving Sisterhood fed noisily and profanely on her shredded dignity.

Curtis’ own cut-to-the-chase needle-rip brought me up short, and I slurped the last of my diluted pumpkin cold brew. “I didn’t.”

“Well, it’s been a real caramel dream, but..”

“Because, because I finally realized why Lee was trying to drink Millington dry, and I need your advice.”

Det. Mead peered into his mermaid cup, frowned, and looked expectantly at me.

“Sarah suggested Lee’s latched onto me because he isn’t getting what he wants at home.” Curtis’ brow arched. “C’mon, grow up. He’s an old retiree whose closest friends have probably been dying in droves or fleeing to Phoenix or, God forfend, Florida. He jumps at the opportunity to revisit better days.”

“I’m thinking of those right now,” Curtis said.

“But then Lee takes a single sip of coffee, and the whole dynamic seems to change. The guy who’s only ever had Folgers through a vintage Mr. Coffee is now a junkie getting his fix wherever he can.

“And Lee grows more morose and agitated with every cup. He reminisces about old coworkers, especially one — one who was forced to quit after her husband caught wind she was eating from the corporate trough.”

“That is not the proper metaphor.”

“Dianna was what Lee called an early bird, like us — in before the rest every morning. How early Dianna got in, I didn’t know. Lee, I know, was in by 7 sharp, like clockwork. And why? To guzzle Mountain Dew and sort through old negatives?

“When Dianna left, the everybody assumed the hunky AV guy who was constantly haunting her cubicle was the other guy. It never made much sense to me, given Dianna’s no-bullshit sensibility — if she was unhappy with her husband, she’d choose a supportive, empathetic, more age-appropriate guy, not some silly young horn-dog. Instead of reviving great old memories, I think I coaxed a lot of guilt and regret to the surface. And a realization.

“I’d always assumed Lee took early retirement for health reasons. But as I think about it, his illnesses, his weight loss, his treatments and hospitalization — they all started after Dianna left. If Lee was slowly rotting from internal loss and guilt, he hid it well.”

A shot rang out. Curtis knocked his chair back, and his hand twitched toward his jacket. The remaining members of the Indie Lit Society emerged from keyboards, their blase blown.

The contractor was pressed back against the front window, not so much in shock as trying to avoid the lake of spilled latte advancing toward him. The client/partner/subcontractor stared in mortification at the reddened open palm he’d slammed on the formica, then turned to Curtis across the room.

Curtis was breathing hard. His eyes narrowed, and he waggled a stiff index finger at the pair, mouthing something I couldn’t quite make out. It must have been effective, because they gathered their things and vacated silently. A petite server rushed to swipe up the mess, as the student next door glumly scrubbed splatter from his legal pad and textbooks.

“Fucking Wild West,” Curtis muttered.

“I need to hit the john,” I squeaked. The alpha of the Sisterhood glared at us as I stood, and I shot her my ugliest and coincidentally funniest look.

When I returned smelling of nutmeg and shame, Curtis was on his phone. He glanced up.

“So where you think you’re going with this?”

“I realized Lee wasn’t that interested in rekindling old relationships or feeding his java jones. Something hit him like a brick wall when he took that first sip of Dunkin’. It wasn’t what he was getting at home. So he started searching for that familiar taste of home-brew, at Denny’s, at Mickey D’s, at the fair trade campus coffeehouse. And it dawned on him. 

“Beth must have known about Dianna. And did something about it. Lee probably didn’t realize his morning cup was a little off, then maybe a lot off, and like the rest if us, chalked his decline up to old age. I helped him realize his wife was slowly poisoning him.”

Curtis clasped his hands, as if in prayer— or in this case, not-a-prayer. “Shit gets misdiagnosed all the time, and nobody had any reason to believe the sweet housefrau was doctoring Hubby’s coffee with rat poison. Trying to prove the act, much less intent, is going to be tough. And questionably worth the effort.”

I gaped at Curtis. “I’m worried about a lot more than convicting Beth. Lee now knows his wife’s tried to kill him, slowly, for years. Like I said, his whole tone’s changed over the last two weeks. If I had to say, Lee’s shifted from guilt to anger. Maybe you don’t think attempted murder is ‘worth the effort,’ but how about real, acute murder?”

Curtis smiled, and my caffeine-fueled indignation burbled to the surface. He waved my fat ass down, and slid his phone across the table. “Gonna get me one of those turkey wraps to go.”

The website banner featured a garland of roses and angels and a stately, OG serif font, prolly Book Antiqua, a favorite among the casket-and-urn set.

The date of the obit was October 17, 2005, and without consulting the 9-point text, I knew I was looking down on Beth Drayton’s smiling face. When I looked up, Lee Drayton was coming down the aisle.

“Looks like your 11:30’s here,” Curtis said, scooping up his phone and waving his mermaid bag. “Got to do this again.”