by Holly Plum
“You’d think the police would’ve inspected this place before they started making accusations against Dad,” Alex commented. “What are they going to do when they get here and find all his important files missing?”
“They won't know what is or isn't missing,” Mari said absently. She held up a yellow spreadsheet, flipping it over as though to make sure it was real. “Here’s his delivery route.”
David came over to get a closer look at it, but Alex said, “Okay, a truck has been circling the parking lot for the last couple of minutes.”
“What was the last stop on his route, before the restaurant?” David asked, who didn’t seem to have heard Alex.
“The Lucky Noodle,” Mari answered with an air of triumph. “That’s our next stop.”
“Okay, but I really think we need to get out of here,” Alex reminded them. “I seriously can’t stress enough how sketchy this truck is being.”
David and Mari both went to the door and peeked outside. A black pickup truck made circles around the parking lot. Only one person was in the vehicle, a bearded man in his late fifties wearing a camo vest.
“Maybe I’m overreacting, but…” Alex shrugged.
“Maybe you are,” Mari responded. “But I don’t want to stick around and find out. David, grab the spreadsheet and let’s go.”
David grabbed the spreadsheet off of the top of the pile. Unbeknownst to Mari, he also grabbed Steve’s keys and hastily stuffed them into the side pockets of his cargo pants.
CHAPTER EIGHT
The next morning, Mari and her brothers stood outside the front door of the Lucky Noodle at 8:00 AM. The dining room lights were on, indicating that someone was inside. The chairs had been carefully unstacked and arranged around their respective tables. The floor looked as though it had been newly mopped, and a yellow mop bucket stood next to the podium where the hostess greeted customers. As loudly as Mari knocked, no one answered.
“You’re not pounding hard enough,” David said, pushing Mari aside and slamming his fists on the red wooden door with the faux-golden handles. “Open up! It's the police!”
“David, don’t say that,” Mari scolded him, glancing around to make sure no one had heard them. “Impersonating an officer is against the law.”
“You have no room to talk after what we just did,” Alex replied. Mari rolled her eyes. The silhouette of a curly-haired figure darted for a split-second out of the kitchen. “It looks like someone heard us.”
“Hey, I saw you," David shouted, pounding as hard as ever. "Open up!" Mari placed both hands on his arm to calm him down. “I know you’re in there, Jia. Don’t fear my good looks. Come on!
“You’re such a jerk sometimes, I swear,” Mari muttered.
“Yes, but he has a point.” Alex shrugged. “Jia’s a real--”
“Watch your language," Mari cut in.
Jia Chun was Mr. Chun’s daughter and the restaurant’s manager. She occupied roughly the same position in the business as Mari did. They had gone to school together and graduated in the same year. For years Jia had liked Evan, the boy Mari ended up dating and the boy she had briefly been engaged to once. When Mari went away to college, Jia had stayed behind to help her father. Jia saw it as her duty as his eldest daughter.
The three Ramirez siblings fell silent. A second light had turned on in the restaurant, and the curly-headed figure strutted toward them. A moment later the door had been unlocked, and Jia Chun was staring back at them, blinking back sunlight.
“My dad really can’t know we’re talking right now,” Jia stated. “But I also don’t want the whole neighborhood to hear you. Just come in."
“See," David said to Mari. "Sometimes you have to be a jerk to get what you want."
“What do you want?" Jia turned and walked back into the cool restaurant with its glowing aquariums lining the paneled walls. The three siblings followed without question. There was little expression on Jia's face.
Mari expected Jia to lead them into their office because that was where she and the rest of her family held their private meetings. But Jia paused at the edge of the dining room. Mari looked around. She’d only been inside the Lucky Noodle a few times for obvious reasons.
“Alright, make it quick," said Jia said with a slight roll of her eyes.
“We want to know about Steve Wilson,” Mari began.
“Steve Wilson?” Jia replied. “What about him?”
“We know he came to your restaurant just before he was killed." Mari paused for a moment.
“And, might I add, he was killed in your restaurant.” Jia folded her arms. "You should go looking for answers there and leave the Lucky Noodle out of it."
David stepped forward. "Now wait just a minute."
“Let me handle this, okay?” Mari said to her brother. Mari turned to Jia. “The more you cooperate, the sooner we’ll be out of here. Like you said, you wouldn't want your dad to find out we've been talking. Does that sound fair?”
Jia sighed and pulled a cigarette out of her shirt pocket. Mari’s eyes went wide. But Jia didn't light her cigarette. Instead, she put it in her mouth and let it dangle there while she talked as if it made the stress of being interrogated by a Ramirez more manageable.
“I don’t know what to tell you,” Jia responded. “Steve came in yesterday morning and stocked the freezers like he always does on Mondays. I guess he looked more nervous than usual, but that could be because he was sweating. It was hot outside. Nothing new.”
“I remember." Mari nodded.
“Steve said hi to my dad, and he was in a good mood. Which I actually did find odd. Steve is never in a good mood." Jia shrugged. "I don't know. I just figured he'd gotten lucky the night before or something."
“Yeah, I guess that is a little strange,” Mari replied.
"What," David interrupted. "That Steve got lucky?" His brother Alex chuckled.
"No, that he wasn't his usual depressing self," Jia said without so much a half-smile. "I don't know why you're all so surprised. I've sensed this misfortune for years. He always ordered the number four special, and Dad always says that number four is an unlucky number."
Mari told Jia what she knew about the bank wanting to foreclose on Steve's business, though she was careful to omit how she had found this out. Jia narrowed her eyes, as though wondering how Mari had acquired this vital piece of information.
“Well, there you go,” Jia said. “That pretty much settles it. Bankruptcy is like a death sentence. It’s not something you can run from. When it happens, it destroys you. I guess Steve saw it coming and decided to take matters into his own hands.”
“That doesn’t explain how he was found with a knife in his back,” Mari replied. “I don’t know if you’ve ever tried to stab yourself in the back but I can't imagine that it's easy.”
“He could've hired someone?" Jia suggested. "It could happen. People do really weird things sometimes."
“You think Steve hired someone to murder him because he was going bankrupt?” Mari said. "That's ridiculous." At that moment a young man with a thin goatee came barreling out of the kitchen at top speed and nearly ran her over. He carried a plastic container filled with silverware that clinked and rattled as he walked.
“Excuse me.” Mari rubbed her arm where he had bumped into it. “I don’t think we’ve met.”
The young man rolled his eyes just as Jia had done earlier. He gave Mari a bold look as if blaming her for being in his way. He then mumbled a few words in Chinese and trotted off.
“My cousin,” Jia explained. “He’s here from China helping us out during the summer, but he hardly does anything. Of course, my dad won’t hear any arguments. To him he’s family, and that’s all that matters.”
"I get it," Mari confessed, glancing at her brothers as they whispered to one another.
Jia escorted them all to the exit. “Time's up."
"Yeah." Mari sighed and followed her brothers into the parking lot. She shook her head at Alex and David. "Did you tw
o really have to have a side conversation while I was trying to talk to Jia?"
“Mari, I’ve seen Jia's cousin before,” David responded. "His name is Desh."
"Where have you seen him?" Mari asked.
"Street racing," David answered.
CHAPTER NINE
When they were safely seated again in a corner booth of their own restaurant, Mari, Alex, and David discussed what they had learned over sopapillas and vanilla ice cream.
“I think Jia did it," Alex joked. “She has a pretty dry personality.”
“Alex, be serious,” Mari responded. “Jia didn't hate Steve. She hardly knew him."
“She does hate you, though,” David said. “Maybe she killed him to get back at you.”
“That makes absolutely no sense, David.” Mari wrinkled her nose.
"Yeah, David," Alex added with a chuckle.
“I still think it was Jia,” David said, dipping one corner of his sopapilla into a bowl of half-melted ice cream. “She's the sneaky type. She could have been in here and out without anyone noticing. I mean, she does work right across the street.”
“No one cares about your bogus theories,” Alex chimed in.
“Sure they do,” David argued. “Besides, I haven't heard any better ones from you two.” David grabbed one of Mari's sopapillas. "Think about it. What better way to get even with your number one nemesis than to frame her for murder? I wouldn't put it past the Chuns."
“Win, win, win,” Alex responded.
David waved a fork at him. “Exactly.”
“No offense, but that seems a little far-fetched. Jia’s petty, but she doesn’t strike me as murderous. And if she wanted to get revenge or whatever, there are better ways to do it than by randomly killing someone and hoping the murder gets pinned on a Ramirez.” Mari sighed.
“I’m not saying this was planned,” David went on. “I'm saying that Jia saw the opportunity and she took it. No one would suspect her."
“Sorry, I’m still not buying it,” Mari argued. “You’re forgetting a huge piece of the puzzle. Steve’s business was failing. Who stood to gain by Steve being gone? Or who would have also been affected by a bankruptcy? That’s what we’ve got to look out for.”
“Or maybe Steve borrowed money from the wrong people to keep himself afloat?” David answered. “Maybe someone came collecting, and Steve couldn't pay up?”
“Yeah,” Alex added, “like the mafia.”
Mari rubbed her forehead. “Here’s what we’re going to do tonight. I want you to talk to everyone who comes in tonight. Ask them questions, but don’t be weird about it. Just keep the conversation focused on Steve, and watch how people react.”
"So, you think I'm onto to something?" Alex asked. "Do you think there's a mob boss in town?"
Mari couldn't believe that Alex's theory was the best one she'd heard all day. Steve definitely needed the money and judging from the papers on his desk, he wasn't the sort of person a bank would have taken a chance on.
"Maybe." Mari took a deep breath and braced herself for the rush of customers that would soon be filling the restaurant.
***
Mari waited tables along with her two brothers because business was still booming and the restaurant was under-staffed. Two hundred people showed up when Lito Bueno’s Mexican Restaurant had opened for dinner, and Mari had to turn away fifty. She'd handed out vouchers for a complimentary dessert to the disappointed bunch.
But a portion of customers, sour about being turned away, walked across the street to the Lucky Noodle. Mari decided to keep this information to herself for the time being. Her father was stressed enough with the police breathing down his back.
Mari tried not to let the occasional complaint get to her. She had been in the restaurant business long enough to know that getting criticized was a job hazard. She took her mind off of it by concentrating on the remaining customers and subtly grilling them about Steve Wilson. Although she had been disgusted by their fascination with the crime, now Mari exploited it with the air of a showman.
“This is the chair where it happened,” Mari said, motioning to a random chair about fifty feet away from where it had happened. “It took us hours to clean everything.”
“Can I touch it?” asked a small tousle-headed boy.
“No, Brian,” his mother said, hitting him lightly on the arm. She eagerly looked at Mari. “Can I touch it?”
Mari allowed the woman to touch it since it wasn’t the actual chair where the murder had taken place. Soon a crowd of people flocked toward Mari's side of the room to hear Mari tell the story of how she had found the body.
“And when I heard the dog’s barking,” Mari said quietly, “I came running as quick as I could, but it was too late. Steve was dead, and I had been helpless to save him." A single gleaming tear trickled down her cheek. It had started out as a way to draw in the guilty party if the killer had dared set foot in her family's restaurant again. But it had ended with Mari feeling desperate, more than ever, to figure out what had really happened to Steve.
“You poor soul,” said an old woman. “You deserve the week off.”
“Tell that to my dad,” Mari joked, wiping her cheeks. The rest of the room erupted in laughter.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the room, Alex and David were gathered around a table singing Feliz Cumpleanos for a family of five. They wore ponchos and sombreros, and the noise they created as they sang made the birthday boy burst into tears. The boy was turning four years old.
Mari met with her brothers as soon as their shift had ended and the last customer had been ushered through the door.
“Did you see that?” Mari said. “Tell me I’m not the only one who saw that. I can't believe he did that.”
“Some of us were preoccupied, Mari,” David responded. “What did you see?”
“Mateo left work early again. He comes in early, and he leaves early. He’s not adhering to his schedule at all. I’m going to have to chat with him about it.”
“So our next mission,” Alex began, who didn’t seem overly concerned about Mateo, “is to search the inside of Steve Wilson’s house.”
Mari bristled with suspicion. “How are we supposed to do that?”
David held up a jingling pair of keys. “The same way we searched his office."
“David Ramirez, where did you get those?” Mari scolded him, with a look that might have shamed a dragon. “Did you swipe them off of Steve's desk? For the love of carnitas, why did you do that? If the police find out, it'll make our family look even worse."
“Chill out, girl.” David raised his eyebrows. “No one is going to find out. Besides, you can't just ask us for help and then criticize our methods.”
"Yeah, Mari," Alex added. "You know how we roll."
“What am I doing?” Mari muttered to herself. "Alex and David, I want the two of you to put those keys back. We might be investigating a murder, but we are certainly not thieves."
CHAPTER TEN
Just as Mari, Alex, and David were getting ready to leave, their dad appeared and demanded that the two boys stay behind to help him with bookkeeping. As usual, Alex and David put up a fight.
“Dad, we had plans tonight,” Alex argued.
“You had plans,” Mr. Ramirez corrected him. “I had plans this week too. Let me tell you about my plans. I had plans to run a business without a nosey detective hovering over my shoulder, but that didn’t happen. You two were late the morning of the murder, so you have some time to make up.”
“Dad--” Mari interrupted feebly.
“Don't you dad me, Marisol. I am sick of people telling me what to do in my own restaurant. Come on, boys." José walked briskly into his office and slammed the door, sending a framed picture falling off of the wall.
“I think we’d better stay,” David said with a heavy sigh. “Sorry, Mari.”
“It’s okay. I'd hate to see what dad would do if the two of you snuck out anyway.” Mari waved goodbye to her brothers and left the
restaurant through the back door as she usually did.
Mari understood her father’s point of view, even if she thought he'd handled things poorly. She had always been the brightest and hardest-working child in the Ramirez family. José liked to say that Mari had inherited his genes. This is why he'd always pushed her to be the best. David and Alex were a different story, but they were still young. Granted, they were brilliant at other things like street racing and breaking and entering.
José Ramirez would have killed Alex and David if he knew they were street-racing. He saw it as a frivolous waste of time. Anything they had ever shown interest in was a waste of time. It never showed on their faces, but Mari knew her brothers were both hurt by it. And in a weird way, Mari was a little hurt too because she had given up so many of her own interests to help run the restaurant. Mari's one goal in life had been to make her father proud of her. But Mari was never entirely sure how well she had succeeded.
Maybe that was why Mari was so determined to catch the killer. To save the family business, yes, and to exonerate her father’s good name. But more than that, Mari wanted her dad to say the words I'm proud of you for once. If catching a murderer couldn’t get him to do it then maybe nothing ever would.
Mari pulled into the parking lot of the abandoned strip mall she and her brothers had visited. Only a single street lamp cast a thin light over the empty lot, and in some places, there was no light at all. Mari parked directly in front of Steve's old office and, after a quick scan of the area to make sure she was alone in the shopping center, she crept out of the car.
The only way Mari knew how to get inside was to try the credit card trick David had shown her. She pulled out her debit card and thrust it through the door frame where she assumed the lock was. It opened easily but not because Mari was now a lock-picking expert. The door had already been unlocked.
