I waved at Earl on our way out. I couldn’t resist telling him, “Melanie sends her love,” in my sweetest voice, to make sure he knew that I knew he’d dimed me out.
Parker was standing on the sidewalk, and waved as soon as we emerged. Huckleberry barked in greeting and ambled over to greet him. Parker stood next to a bicycle, but it was nothing like my aunt’s old Schwinn. It had a standard front wheel and handlebars, and a normal seat, but the back was two smaller tires instead of one, and set on a wide base that supported a wooden box set into a metal frame. The cargo box itself was maybe two feet wide and three feet long, big enough to haul a couple of toddlers or maybe a mini-fridge.
“Nice building,” he noted.
“Thanks. It’s my aunt’s.” I circled the bike. Not exactly what I was expecting. “Is it safe?”
“I’ve hauled over three hundred pounds before,” Parker said, patting the seat affectionately. “I wouldn’t recommend it on hills, but it does the job.”
“I mean is it safe for Huckleberry?” I asked.
“Are you kidding? This is as spunky as I’ve ever seen him. He’ll be fine.” Parker patted the dog’s head. Huckleberry was sitting patiently on the sidewalk, his lolling tongue and thumping tail the only signs of movement. “Although I barely recognized him. You sure this is the same dog?”
“He just needed a bath and a haircut. Give me a hand getting him in the cart?”
It took both of us pushing and pulling to lift the overweight dog up over the lip and get him settled into the cart. Parker did most of the work, but he was small for a man—only a few inches taller than me or Todd—and not much stronger than I was. Then again, waitressing was better for arm strength than a gym membership, and a lot cheaper. Once we finally got Huckleberry inside, he circled three times and curled into a ball with plenty of room to spare.
Parker brushed dog hair off his arms—shaving Huckleberry would help with the shedding, but stubborn tufts of fur clung to him still—and I noticed up close how many cuts and scrapes he had, crisscrossing from his elbows to the palms of his hands. “Don’t those hurt?” I asked, running my thumb over the underside of his arm. It felt almost like braille.
“Nah,” he said, going perfectly still for a moment. “Comes with the territory. I hardly feel it anymore.” He pulled his arm away. “I was about to swing by the shop and check on my bees anyway, and you weren’t far out of the way. When it’s hot like this, I worry about them.” He climbed onto the bike, then slid forward to the very tip of the seat. “Well, what are you waiting for? Hop on.”
“I don’t know. I haven’t ridden on the back of a bike since I was twelve.” I left my main concern unsaid. Parker had a big heart. He was an amazing cook. A genuine nice guy that I was proud to call a friend. But he wasn’t exactly The Rock, and I was no bag of bones. Between Huckleberry and me, I wasn’t sure he could manage the cargo.
“If it makes you feel better, you can ride on the handlebars,” he said with a grin. “Get on. Don’t worry. I’m a safe driver.” He flipped a switch and the bike whirred to life.
“That thing’s electric?” I asked. I hadn’t noticed any batteries or mechanical parts, but then again, I hadn’t examined it with a magnifying glass.
“Sure is. Come on, Odessa. Trust me.” I climbed onto the bike, scooting as far back onto the seat as I could manage so Parker had a little room, with my flip-flops propped up on the metal frame. “Hold on to my waist,” he instructed.
For the first few blocks, I was nervous that I was going to fall off or Huckleberry was going to freak out and jump out of the cart. But once I relaxed, I started to enjoy the ride. Too soon we arrived at the shop. Parker hopped the curb and came to a halt on the sidewalk.
I clambered off as gracefully as I could—which, considering I was in a long, billowy skirt and had to get off the bike without falling or kicking Parker, wasn’t very graceful at all—and went to check on Huckleberry. He was sitting up, his chin resting on the edge of the cargo box, ears perked as he sniffed the wind. When I went to lift him out, he whined. “Aww, you want to go for a longer ride, don’t you, boy?” I turned my attention to Parker, who was lifting the dog’s backside. “I don’t blame him. That was fun.”
“Uh-huh,” he grunted. Together we lifted Huckleberry up and out of the cart and deposited him on the sidewalk. He stood on his back legs and propped his forelegs on the cart, as if begging to be let back inside. “Told ya.”
Parker opened the front door and gestured me to go first. Andre looked up from the stool behind the cash register. Unlike Todd, when Andre was managing the store, he actually worked, whether it was serving, checking out customers, or doing grunt work like stock and inventory. He even ran the kitchen when necessary. His culinary imagination was limited to peanut butter and jelly, but he could follow a recipe with the best of ’em.
“Whoa, hold up. You can’t bring a dog in here,” he told me with a frown. “Odessa, you know better.”
I unclipped Huckleberry’s leash and he flopped down in his usual spot, right in the middle of the main walkway so that anyone entering or leaving Untapped Books & Café would have to step over or around him. I liked to think it was his passive-aggressive plea for attention. “Seriously?”
“Shoot, is that Huckleberry?” Andre came around the desk and squatted down next to him, running a hand along his flank. “What the what did you do to him?”
“Duh. It’s called a bath and a haircut.” I grinned. “Maybe you should try it sometime.” I was joking, and he knew it. Andre kept his hair clipped close to his head, arranged in neat waves. He shaved religiously, leaving only a neatly trimmed goatee. Even his nails were manicured, something I had to admit I sometimes neglected. And by sometimes, I mean always.
“You should talk, girlfriend. No offense, but you’re a little . . . ripe.” He waved his hand delicately in front of his nose as if he were a turn-of-the-century royal lady with a lace handkerchief instead of a turn-of-the-millennium broad-shouldered black man with an exercise tracker on his arm.
I sniffed myself and caught a faint odor of garbage. I guess my shower hadn’t been quite as successful as I thought it was. “Yeah, well, it’s been one of those days.”
“Tell me about it.” He paused. “No, seriously. Tell me about it. I’m all ears.”
I shook my head, “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
“’Scuse me, I need to go check on the hives,” Parker said, squeezing past me.
“Question,” I said, moving to the side so he could pass. “Aren’t you worried that the bees are gonna bother people?” They’d been right over my head the whole time I worked at Untapped Books & Café, and they’d never buzzed at me, but if they stung someone, they would certainly complain.
“Are you kidding? The neighbors love them. My bees pollinate every flowerbed and community garden within two miles. That’s like most of Williamsburg. If it weren’t for my bees, all of the beer and veggies we serve in the café would come from Jersey or something instead of right here in Brooklyn. Take our most popular beer, Pour Williamsburg. They use coriander, grown on the rooftop garden next door and pollinated by my bees, to give it that little extra flavor. Then they bottle it right here and deliver it out of the back of a minivan. That’s what makes eating local so special. The whole of Brooklyn can get involved.”
“I hadn’t thought about it that way,” I admitted.
“Plus, I sell my excess comb to candle makers and soap makers and other artisans in Williamsburg willing to pay top dollar for local beeswax. They actually pay more for the raw honeycomb they render themselves, which is great for me. Along with the raw honey, which is awesome for combating allergies, I can make a tidy profit,” Parker added.
I was curious to know how honey was connected to allergies, but something else he said caught my attention more. “You ever sell beeswax to Bethany?”
“Sure. All t
he time. She is . . . was one of my best customers. I gave her a break because she was a friend and always bought in bulk. She mentioned me on her YouTube channel once and I was flooded with orders for months. Couldn’t hardly keep up with demand.”
I must not have watched that episode yet, but it was nice to see the two of them scratching each other’s backs. He supplied cheap wax and she gave him free advertising. If that didn’t say everything about the new world economy, I didn’t know what did. I liked to imagine a world where every transaction worked that way. Then a thought sparked. “You ever sell beeswax to a woman named Jenny Green?”
He smiled. “Jenny. Talk about a character. She’s as abrasive as sandpaper on the outside and gooey as honey on the inside.”
“Yeah, that’s her,” I agreed. “How’d you meet her?”
“Bethany introduced us, I think. Bought from me a couple of times, not as often or in as big of quantities as Bethany, though.” He frowned. “Guess I’ll have more stock for the farmers market now. Hey, I could talk about bees all day, but I’m losing light.”
“Oh! I’m sorry.” I hadn’t considered that my questions were keeping him from doing his job. “Some other time?”
“If you stick around, I can give you a lift home and you can ask me all the questions you can think of,” Parker offered.
I didn’t know a polite way of telling him I’d gotten the information I needed already. “Thanks, but it’s a nice night for a walk.”
“Then I’ll see you later.”
“Later,” I agreed. He made his way toward the front and I ducked into the kitchen. Despite it being a Wednesday night, the café was packed. Between overpopulation and the fact that few people under forty worked Monday through Friday, nine to five anymore, there wasn’t a lot of fluctuation between the crowd on Saturday night versus the crowd on a Tuesday night.
“You workin’ tonight?” Silvia, the night shift cook, asked as soon as she saw me lurking in the doorway. Her dark hair was tucked up in a hairnet, and her apron was covered in unidentifiable splatters and stains. The grill was sizzling, the fry oil was popping, and the toaster dinged. The music piped in over the speakers, which was just background noise during the day, was cranked up to compete with the dozens of conversations happening at the tables right now.
The vibe at night was more friendly neighborhood bar than the daytime lunch-counter feel. It was more exciting and the tips were better, but I was satisfied on the day shift, because I knew all of the customers and most of them were sober. “Just popping in to grab my bag,” I replied.
I could survive without my wallet for a few hours, if I had to, but I was already starting to feel itchy without it. What if I wanted to stop and get an iced coffee on the way home? Sure, I could use the app on my phone, but what if the network was down or I decided to order something at one of the food trucks that only took cash? What would I do then?
I waited until Silvia moved over to the small walk-in refrigerator before ducking under the counter and opening the employee cabinet so I wouldn’t be in her way. Like most of the employees at Untapped, Silvia was incredibly nice, but if I got between her and her food prep, she was likely to donkey kick me without so much as an “excuse me.”
The cabinet was stuffed so full the door barely closed. That was my fault. I shouldn’t have left my bulky messenger bag here when I left earlier. I removed a couple of purses and a backpack before I could reach my bag. As I dragged it toward me, I noticed something behind it—a waitress’s apron.
That was weird.
We were supposed to hang our aprons on the hooks in the hall. We didn’t have assigned hooks exactly, but there were always enough hooks that we didn’t have to fight for space, so I’d pretty much used the same hook every day since I’d started here. So why was an apron shoved into the back of the employee cabinet?
I grabbed it and pulled it out, but even without reading the name tag I knew whose apron this was. Bethany’s. When she skipped out of her shift, she’d tossed me her apron. I had my hands full, so I’d stuffed it back in the cabinet instead of hanging it up like I should have, and then promptly forgot about it.
I felt something hard in the pocket. Her cell phone.
I smacked my forehead. I’d spent the morning going through how many bags of garbage when her cell phone was here the whole time. And worse yet, I’d been the one to put it here. Sure, her bracelet was still missing, but her cell phone could tell me more than a bracelet she’d bought at a thrift store ages ago ever could.
“¿Como?” Silvia asked. In my limited understanding of Spanish, “como” meant “how” or sometimes “why,” but Silvia seemed to use it as a catch-all when she was busy. She nudged the pile of purses on the floor with her foot. “Either vámonos or grab a hairnet and get to work.”
“Sorry,” I said, wrapping up Bethany’s apron so the contents of her pockets wouldn’t fall out and make even more of a mess. I dropped it into my messenger bag, then shoved all of the purses and the backpack into the cabinet. “I’m getting out of your way right now.”
I scooted out of the kitchen as quick as I could before Silvia could press me into service.
I waved at Andre on my way out, but he was ringing up customers and didn’t notice me. Huckleberry did, though, and lifted his head to lick my palm when I bent over to give him ear scratches. He whined when I stood up and stepped over him. “Sorry, boy. I’d love to take you home with me, but Rufus would probably kill both of us. You’re safer here.” As if understanding me, he sighed and plopped his head back onto the floor.
The night was warm, but not skin-searingly hot like it had been all day. A cool breeze off the river blew down the street, and I was glad my hair was up in a ponytail, or it would be blowing everywhere. Sidewalk cafés overflowed into the street. I passed a noisy crowd stumbling between bars, a pair of blissful lovers holding hands, and a lady trying in vain to convince her labradoodle to finish up their business so they could go inside and watch television. It was a perfect evening, but I wasn’t paying attention to any of that.
I must have checked inside my messenger bag half a dozen times between Untapped and my aunt’s apartment, to assure myself that Bethany’s apron was still inside. I was debating between turning her cell phone in at the police station or taking it home, charging it, and checking out the recent activity myself.
What would the police do with it? Drop it in an evidence box and let it rot? Did they even have an evidence box for Bethany? Detective Castillo had said they weren’t opening a case. So what did they do with her effects? According to her roommate Cherise, Bethany didn’t have any family. So who was listed as her next of kin?
Then it hit me. I wouldn’t know who her next of kin was unless I looked through her phone contacts. I wasn’t being nosy. I was being helpful. If I thought about it that way, it was the least I could do. As the person who found her phone, I was practically obligated to go through it, right?
Right.
I had a responsibility to Bethany to snoop through her phone.
Yeah, sure.
As hard as I tried to justify it, I had a nagging feeling in the back of my head that it was the wrong thing to do. So I compromised. I’d take it home and charge it, and maybe glance through it to see if anything popped out before taking it to the station tomorrow. That was only fair.
Satisfied with my decision, I let myself into the lobby of the apartment building. Good thing Earl had gone home for the evening. The last thing I needed was him deflating my buoyant mood. Today hadn’t exactly been a total success, but I’d found Bethany’s cell phone, hadn’t I?
“Ms. Dean?” The now-familiar voice stopped me in my tracks, and I looked around to see Detective Vincent Castillo lounging on one of the lobby’s wingback chairs. He uncrossed his legs and stood to greet me.
After his last visit, when he’d announced in no uncertain terms that Bethany’s death wa
s officially an accident, I figured I’d never see him again. But his presence here meant maybe he’d changed his mind. Maybe he was here to give me some good news, or at least tell me that he’d formally reopened the investigation.
I was never a big believer in fate. I didn’t check my horoscope. I thought signs and déjà vu and alien abductions were a bunch of malarkey. But even I had to admit there had to be some higher power at work here. I’d spent the last eleven blocks waffling between turning Bethany’s phone in to the police or trying to crack it open myself, only to get home and find one of NYPD’s officers waiting for me.
I flipped open the top of my messenger bag and laid a hand on Bethany’s stained apron. “Detective Castillo, just the person I wanted to see.”
Then the elevator dinged and Izzy strode into the lobby. She was wearing a skirt that stopped a good six inches above her knees, high-heeled sandals, and a crop-top that showed off an awful lot of smooth, tan skin. Her orange hair was combed over to one side, and she wore a bright red lipstick that screamed for attention. Her gaze landed on the detective, and her eyes positively sparkled. “Vince! Hope I haven’t kept you waiting long.”
He grinned at her as his eyes flicked up and down, taking in her outfit. Compared to my long hippy skirt, oversized T-shirt, and borrowed flip-flops, she was a knockout. “Not at all.”
Her attention drifted to me. “Odessa, glad you’re home. I left you a note. Salad and pizza in the fridge. Help yourself. And don’t wait up.” She winked at me.
“Ms. Dean,” Detective Castillo said, nodding at me.
“Detective,” I said, returning the nod. He held the front door for Izzy, and together they disappeared out into the night.
I closed my eyes and counted back from ten, concentrating on my breathing. It wasn’t like I was dating Castillo or anything. I mean, I knew he was out of my league. I just hadn’t realized that Izzy might be into him. Then again, I hadn’t said anything to her, either.
I was just surprised, I told myself. Not disappointed. Happy for Izzy, even. And, on the bright side, now I had the apartment all to myself tonight. I could finish up my new silver sundress and then start a new true crime podcast. Sounded like a perfect evening.
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