Milt had a hangover for the second day in a row when he got up Monday morning. It wasn’t quite as bad as the one from the day before, but he didn’t feel good, either. The fact that it was Monday at all didn’t make him feel any better.

He went out to the kitchen, got the coffeepot going – that instant coffee from the day before had been almost too lousy to drink – then went into the bathroom to do what needed to be done. On the way he noticed that Petra’s door was closed just like it had been the night before, and while he didn’t peek into the room that made him curious enough to look out the window and see that her car was still gone. She must have spent the night somewhere else, and he couldn’t blame her. In fact, the way Maxine had been the evening before, he would have rather been somewhere else himself.

This was not going to be a good day, and he knew it.

To top it off, he was going to have to report for jury duty in a couple of hours, and it would be close to an hour’s drive to the courthouse considering the traffic at this hour of the day. It might not be too bad, but it had the potential to be an enormous pain in the ass by itself.

After a quick sip of coffee to drive away the cobwebs, he tried to get dressed quietly so as to not wake Maxine. No such luck; as he was buttoning up his shirt he heard her voice, “Honey, what are you doing up?”

“I’ve got to get going early. I’ve got that damn jury duty today.”

“Do you have to go?”

“I’m afraid so,” he said quietly. “I could really be in trouble if I don’t show up. Just go back to sleep.”

“Is Petra up yet? I want to talk to her.”

“I didn’t look, but I don’t think so. Go back to sleep.”

He grabbed the rest of his stuff so he could finish getting dressed in the living room. He poured a travel mug full of coffee, and went out to his car. He could get breakfast from a drive-through somewhere along the way. At least it wouldn’t be here; jury duty seemed preferable to being home today.

Half an hour’s drive away, Royce had already been up for a while; in fact, he’d already done his workout at Josie’s, had a shower and breakfast, and was sitting at his desk with a cup of coffee.

As far as he could tell, his plan was working just fine. The six new shops had all gotten off to a great start, but this would be the day that would tell how they would really do. There was nothing he could do now but wait and see what happened, and he expected that things would go pretty well.

He couldn’t help but wonder if Milt even realized what was going on yet. There had been nothing that indicated it, but it seemed likely that he was still caught up in the backwash from the non-wedding. If he knew Maxine at all – and he thought he knew her well enough for this – she would be a real monomaniac about what had happened, and she had probably done pretty well at keeping his mind off his business. So much the better.

How Petra was doing, well, that was a different story. There was no doubt she was hurt and angry, and maybe that was all right. After all, she’d turned her back on him, and had paid the price for it. There was no telling how that was going to come out.

But in a way it was in the past; what was going to happen would happen. He was probably in a better mood because of what had happened yesterday afternoon, when he and Maria and Ramona had gone to the zoo. It was fun to watch the young girl stare at the animals, and her excitement had been infectious. It reminded him of a similar day with Petra years ago, back when she had been about Ramona’s age, visiting the zoo, delighting in the animals with childlike innocence.

It had been one of the last happy times with her that he could recall; all too soon afterwards he’d started to suspect Maxine of stepping out on him, and then he found her with Milt. Things had rapidly gone to hell from there, and he’d mostly missed delightful times with his daughter ever since.

All afternoon long the thought had never been far from his mind that perhaps Maria and Ramona gave him a chance to make up for some of what had been lost over more than a painful decade before. There was no catching up on all of it, of course; too much water had gone under the bridge, but maybe he could recover a little of his joy.

Perhaps it would be best to not put all his hopes on them; he didn’t want to get burned like that again. But at least there was the promise of hope as he made a note on his desk pad to call Paul Meyerson.

As Milt was trying to drive and eat a breakfast sandwich at the same time, Lee Hammond was just coming into his office at the edge of downtown, carrying a travel mug of coffee in his hand. It was another dreary Monday, one of all too many of them that had passed; all too many of them remained before he could hang up his job as an inspector for the health department and retire to his fishing cabin.

It was going to be another day of grubbing around in the backs of restaurants as managers and employees both looked on anxiously to see what he might find. While it was not the nicest of jobs, at least it gave him a sense of power, a sense of being in control. People had to listen to him; they might argue with him but he was the one who held the upper hand. He liked that. It was something he had missed with his ex-wife, long may she rot in hell.

He hadn’t even made it to his desk yet when he heard his supervisor Sid Crandell call out angrily, “Lee! Have you seen the papers this weekend?”

“No, I haven’t,” he replied, walking over to Sid’s desk. “I was up at the cabin drowning worms.”

“Then you haven’t seen this, have you?” Crandell snorted, flipping a folded section of Friday’s page three of the News out in front of him.

Hammond picked up the paper and glanced at the story that Crandall had marked. “News to me,” he said. “I’ve checked Wilson’s right along. They’ve gotten minor violations over the years, but most of them get fixed on the spot. A couple years ago they got yellow-tagged and had to get a new refrigerator, but it’s the only time I’ve had to do a re-inspection.”

“Well, Jesus Christ, we can’t have crap like this in the News!” Crandall fumed. “What’s more, it’s all over the TV stations. All three of them, each one claiming that it’s the work of their own investigative reporters when they obviously stole it from the paper. What a crock of shit that is! I checked the complaint file. There’ve been some complaints about Wilson’s, but no one has taken a look at them. It looks like we’re falling down on the job, and it’s in your sector, Lee. That means you’re going to have to be the one to make us look like we’re doing our job.”

What a way to have to start off another lousy Monday! “Can’t do it right away,” he replied defensively. “They don’t open until ten or ten-thirty, something like that.”

“If I were you, I’d be there when they open, and we’d better have something we can tell reporters when we get call-backs.”

About that time Petra awoke at a friend’s apartment not far from her mother and Milt’s house. Francine had been one of her bridesmaids at the wedding that never happened, and she realized that Petra was upset enough to wisely not get near the topic of the wedding, Barry, or her mother. She’d even been nice enough to let her stay the night. Now, Francine was just getting set to leave for work, but said that Petra was welcome to stay if she needed to.

Leaving the house on Sunday afternoon had been the best idea Petra could think of, mostly because she didn’t want to see her mother. She had put up with enough of that stuff. She’d driven directly over to her father’s house, but he wasn’t home. In fact, she’d gone by there three different times, and he still wasn’t home. Well, he probably was out working or something, she thought. He did spend a lot of time on the job, but from what little she knew he didn’t have anything that would keep him away from home on a Sunday.

She wasn’t sure what help her father would be in figuring out what to do next, but he had been kind to her on Saturday, so there was at least the hope that he could provide some thinking outside of the perspective of Milt and her mother. He’d been far away enough from the whole mess that he might be able to think about it creatively. That was more than she could expect from anyone else, even Francine.

One thing was for sure: she wasn’t going to go back to her mother and Milt’s house until she absolutely had to, and then she’d hope her mother wasn’t there.

That left the question of what to do today. There was the option of going by her father’s office, since she was pretty sure she could catch him there. On the other hand, it might not be best to go there, since what she wanted to talk about was personal and she didn’t want to make a scene.

Maybe the best thing to do was to just sit here all day, watch a little TV, and try to put Saturday another day behind her.

Milt had to report to an office in the courthouse. It had been hard finding a place to park for the whole day, but he managed to do it, and then had problems finding the office. It may not have mattered a whole lot since he had to wait out a long line that was being dealt with by a couple of obviously bored clerks who had clearly done this all too many times before.

He had no choice but to wait out the line; when he got up to the counter one of the clerks checked his ID, and gave him a questionnaire to fill out, containing things like his name, age, address, occupation, and those sorts of routine things. However, there was one question on the form that gave him pause, and that was whether he was a caregiver to someone who would have difficulties without his presence.

He thought about answering “yes” for a moment. Right now he wasn’t sure he wanted to leave Maxine by herself very much, but as far as he knew she was able to take care of herself. After going nuts Saturday and then having to be tranquilized in order to come home, he wasn’t sure what would happen in the future if something were to set her off, like, say, Petra coming home.

On thinking about it, he realized that if he answered “yes” he was going to get questioned about it, and using her flaking out as an excuse to get out of jury duty seemed a little marginal. He had heard stories that it was difficult to get out of jury duty, and they were pretty picky about excuses. Oh, well, Maxine was a big girl and she ought to be able to take care of herself, he thought as he marked the box “no.”

He did get a couple of questions from the clerk at the counter, but they were routine things, nothing that might excuse him from jury duty. “All right, go down the hall and into the room marked ‘Circuit Court One.’”

The courtroom was half filled with other people in the jury pool, and more were coming right along. It looked like this was going to take a while, so he found a seat. He’d been warned that there was going to be a lot of “hurry up and wait,” so even though he wasn’t much of a reader he’d brought a fat technothriller paperback with him. It didn’t sound all that interesting, since it was obviously full of terrorists, nuclear weapons, and high-tech gadgets, but it might help to pass the time.

He was perhaps thirty pages into it when a judge wearing his robes came into the room. “Good morning,” he said. “I doubt that very many of you are happy to be here, but you have been selected for one of the most important things needed to keep our legal system going. Jury duty may seem onerous, but the system demands that guilt or innocence is decided by a person’s peers. We have many cases on the docket for the rest of the month. Some may seem minor, and some will not be. Some of them may determine the course of the rest of people’s lives, so it’s important that you pay attention and do your duty as citizens to make what you feel is the proper decision.”

The judge took a breath and continued, “We feel we have called a large enough jury pool that we should be able to have sufficient jurors to make it through the month. We have a ‘one and done’ policy here. That means if you sit on one jury, you will not be called for another one. However, if you are not selected for a jury, you will have to continue to report for trials at one time or another throughout the month until the month is up or you have served on a jury.”

He went on for a while about procedures, then read off a list of people who were jury candidates on a trial that was supposed to start the next day, and Milt’s name was on it. Maybe he’d get out of this one easily, he thought. This might only eat up a day, and he could get back to business. Milt and about three dozen other people were shown to another courtroom, where there was a different judge presiding. He had seen enough courtroom drama on TV to understand that this was the actual jury selection process, which involved asking people one by one about a number of different things.

It did not take long for Milt to realize that the trial coming up was going to be the Zimmerman murder case. When it was his turn to be questioned, he was asked if he had heard about the case, and of course he had to say he had; most people in the city had done so. Had he formed any opinion about it? No, he hadn’t; while he’d heard about the case he hadn’t really paid any attention to it.

After ten minutes of such questions, both of the attorneys questioning him told the judge that they found Milt acceptable as a juror. “Very well,” the judge said. “You may take a seat in the jury box.” Milt found one, then pulled his book out again as the questioning of the next potential juror started. He zoned out after that, and even the technothriller wasn’t enough to keep his mind from wandering. It had been several days since he had done anything with his business; he had warned his managers that he was going to be on jury duty, and he hoped that they would be capable of handling things while he was gone.

Mary Ann Hartley and Sylvia Longford were again on opening duty at the Peavine Street Wilson’s about that time. “I don’t know,” Mary Ann said as they got started on the prep work for the opening, which was about half an hour away. “After yesterday and all the business they had next door, maybe we’d better not do as much as we normally would do.”

“You’re probably right,” Sylvia agreed. “They sure were busy over there, and I’m sure the two-for-a-buck hot dogs had something to do with it.”

“It’ll die down after a few days and we’ll get back to normal,” Mary Ann said, although she wasn’t sure how much she meant it. Because of the wedding and it getting messed up, and then with Milt having jury duty today, she hadn’t talked with him in days. She wasn’t sure he even knew about the hot dog place. After all, late last week he’d told her it was supposed to be an espresso and bagel shop! Did he know what really happened? Since she knew he was on jury duty, there was no point in trying to call him, so about the best she could do was to continue on the best she could.

On top of that, there was a new sub shop that opened up the street yesterday! She’d seen that there was something new going in there but she hadn’t known what it was; she’d only noticed the sign for “Sandy’s Super Subs” after leaving work yesterday. No wonder business had been slow! She couldn’t help but wonder if Milt knew about that!

This could be a problem, she thought as she got started slicing tomatoes. She was fairly new at managing a shop for Milt, and she wanted to do the best job she could. It was great that he had promoted her, because it was more money, and she had plenty of expenses that the extra cash would help with.

A tapping on the front door diverted her attention. “We don’t open for half an hour,” she yelled at the man standing there. “We’ll be with you then.”

The man held up an official-looking ID card, and tapped on the door again, so insistently that Mary Ann went over to the door. Even before she opened the door, she could see that he was from the health department. “I’m sorry,” she said through the glass. “We’re not open yet.”

“Surprise inspection,” the man said. “You’ll be better off to let me in now.”

“I guess,” she replied, hitting the crash bar to open the door. What else could go wrong today?

Royce got up from his desk and went to get another cup of coffee. Although his primary interest at the moment was what was happening with the new shops, his primary responsibility was still to the supermarkets, and there were problems demanding his attention. Besides, working on them would keep him from wondering what was happening with Milt, and how he was reacting to having competition with better quality and prices that undercut him a lot.

However, his attention was diverted when Jeremy came in, a big smile on his face. “I thought I’d let you know I got the first figures from yesterday,” he reported. “It went real well, a lot better than we expected. The Hot Dog Hut was a whole lot better than we expected, and they just about ran out of everything. We don’t have time to get what we need from the wholesalers, so I got some stuff from one of the stores to keep them going until they can have a supplier delivery.”

“That is a whole lot better than I expected,” Royce told him. “I’d say we’re off and running. I do have one comment, though. I had a little girl tell me yesterday that she really liked hot dogs with refried beans, and when I thought about it, I thought she might have something there. That would go pretty good with cheese and onions.”

“Yeah, it would,” Jeremy nodded. “I hadn’t thought about that. It sounds pretty good, in fact. I don’t know how much call for it there would be, but I suppose we could keep some in a refrigerator and microwave them if they’re called for, at least until it becomes a regular thing.”

“That’s what I was thinking, too. We knew there were going to be some ideas come up and things we would want to change, and this is just one of them.”

“Good enough. Anything else?”

“Not really. I presume you’re going to take a swing around the stores again today?”

“Yes, as soon as we get done here. I don’t suppose you want to go along, do you?”

“I would really like to, but I’ve got things I need to do here. Then, if I get a minute, I’m going to poke my nose in at Upper Avondale and Jasper Street. It’s been a few days since I’ve been there.”

After Jeremy left, Royce gave some thought to adding a quick stop at Parker’s Corners, but rejected the idea. He knew that Maria was scheduled on evenings all week, so she wouldn’t be there yet. That would do a good job of killing any idea of getting together with her and her daughter after work this week, but maybe he could drop by there in the evening and at least say hello. It was always good to let the help know that the boss didn’t always go home at five o’clock, after all.

Over at the Peavine Street Wilson’s Subs, Sylvia continued the prep work to get ready for opening, while Mary Ann followed the inspector around the store. He had a clipboard out, and he was writing on it – and writing a lot. She didn’t like what that could mean.

She had thought the store was in pretty good shape, health department-wise, but maybe things weren’t as good as she thought. She didn’t even have to wonder whether Milt would be happy about this or not.

Finally the inspector finished up his work. He looked over the clipboard, then took a red highlighter from his pocket and noted several items, then more with a yellow highlighter. “All right,” he said finally. “Miss, I’m afraid I’m going to have to red-tag you on several items. The biggest thing I see is that you have a rat infestation, and a refrigerator that isn’t at the right temperature. I see the setting is correct but it’s too warm.”

“What does red-tagging these items mean?” she asked, knowing that she didn’t want to hear the answer.

“It means that I can’t allow you to open until these items have been corrected, and then you’ll have to have a re-inspection before we can remove the red tag from the door. I’m sorry, miss, but that’s what we have to do, and past deficiencies here means that I can’t cut you any slack.”

“But I wasn’t the manager here then,” she protested.

“That doesn’t mean anything,” he shook his head. “Those are the rules. Here’s a list of things that will have to be corrected before you can re-open. I could let you stay open on the yellow-tag items until a re-inspection, but I can’t with the red tags.”

“I don’t know how quickly I’m going to be able to deal with these things,” she shook her head. “The owner, well, he’s on jury duty and there’s no way I can contact him right now.”

“Then I suggest you get hold of him this evening,” he replied. “I’m sorry, miss. That’s the way these things work. I’ll leave you my card, and you can contact me when you’re ready for re-inspection. We usually manage to get to it in a few days.”

“OK, I guess,” she replied in a deflated tone. Milt wasn’t going to like this, not one bit.

As he stuck a big red tag that read, “Closed by Health Department” on the front door, Sylvia asked Mary Ann, “What do we do now?”

“I don’t know,” she shook her head. “I don’t know. I guess we trash all the stuff we’ve prepped and get the rest back into the refrigerator, and not the one he marked down. Then I guess we lock up until I can get hold of Milt.” She let out a long breath, then went on, “But I’ll tell you what, it might be a good idea to spend the afternoon looking for another job.”

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