by Jeff Shelby
“Yes, ma'am,” he said, nodding. I couldn’t tell if he was truly in agreement or if he was just trying to be his agreeable self. Ted rarely rocked the boat. Heck, most of the time he didn’t even get in if he could help it.
“Then I'll be back to see you in a little bit.” The doctor smiled as she stood up and headed for the door. “Stick to water for now if you're thirsty, and we'll hold off on food until after we do another set of labs. Press that button if you need anything and someone will come running.”
We sat there in silence for a few moments after she left. I wasn't sure what to say. Poison? That was the last thing I'd been expecting to hear.
“Well,” Ted finally said. “That was...interesting.”
“There has to be an explanation,” I said. “One that makes sense.”
“Yes, yes, I'm sure there is,” he said, quickly. “I'm sure there is.”
I could tell he was trying to convince himself of that.
Which I understood.
Because, thinking about poison and Officer Ted and wondering how it ended up in his body, I was totally trying to convince myself of the same thing.
FIVE
“Mom, is that guy dead?” Emily asked, stifling a yawn.
It was the next morning. I'd stayed with Officer Ted for a little bit longer until he assured me he'd be okay. I’d felt weird about leaving—I didn’t want to abandon him in the hospital—but he insisted I go home, that he was expecting other visitors later. I assumed he meant Elsa and satisfied that he’d have company, I’d left. I filled Jake in as soon as I got home, telling him everything I'd learned, and then spent the better part of the night laying in bed, wondering what exactly happened to Ted. I'd crawled out of bed early, knowing sleep wasn’t going to find me, and had already downed two cups of coffee when Emily stumbled out of her room.
“He's not dead,” I told her. “He's fine.”
She ran a hand through her sleep-wrecked hair. It was amazing to me how she could resemble a zombie or a supermodel, based purely on the time of day. “So, not dead?”
“Alive.”
She sat down on the couch next to me. “Is he permanently disabled?”
Flare for the dramatic, this girl. “No, he is not permanently disabled. He is not dead. When last I saw him, he was resting comfortably.”
She rubbed at her eyes. “So I might not lose my job then? Or go to jail?”
I wish I could say that she spoke those words with some sort of humor, but if I did, I'd be lying. “For Ted getting sick in the restaurant? No. You might for other things, of course.”
Her eyes widened. “Like what? What did I do?”
I patted her knee. “I'm teasing you. Trying to get you to see that there's a world outside of your own room.”
“Not funny, Mom,” she said. A frown was fighting to appear, but I could see the relief in her eyes. “But I'm glad he's alive.”
I took a long sip from my mug. “Yes, me too.”
“Because I really didn't want to go look for another job.”
“I didn't want to go to a funeral, but sure, glad you don't have to look for another job, either.”
If she heard my sarcasm, she didn't acknowledge it. “So what was wrong with him?”
“They said he was poisoned,” I told her.
“Like food poisoning?” Emily asked. She tucked her legs underneath her. “That's weird. Bjorn is like super strict about using fresh stuff. So it's not like we gave him bad milk or anything like that.”
I shook my head. “Doesn't look like that kind of poison. More like the kind where there is a skull and crossbones on a jar of something and it gets dropped into your drink.”
She folded her arms across her chest. “Serious? That's crazy.”
“I thought so, too.”
“How would that have happened?” she asked, her brow wrinkling.
I raised my eyebrows. “Maybe his waitress slipped something into his meal.”
“Not funny, Mom.”
“Kind of funny, daughter.”
She frowned. “No, it's not. People might actually start believing that around here. But seriously. How could that even happen?”
“I genuinely don't know. I really don't. And he seemed just as baffled when the doctor told him.”
She chewed on a fingernail for a moment. It was striking to me how much she'd grown up in the last year. Boyfriend, job, college right around the corner: all those things had turned her from my oldest child into something else. She was still my kid, but there was very little child left in her, and there were days when I had a hard time grasping that. As much as I enjoyed her as an almost-adult—well, when she wasn’t freaking out or being self-centered—there were days when one look at her would send me right back to her first day of preschool or to a day spent rocking her to sleep as a baby. Where on earth had the time gone?
“You're thinking about something,” I said to her. So was I, but I needed to redirect so I didn’t get lost on a walk down Memory Lane. “What is it?”
Emily stared at her ragged nail, not saying anything.
I nudged her with my elbow.
“The girl he was with,” she said.
“The woman,” I corrected.
“Yeah, whatever, her,” she said. She brought the finger back to her mouth. “They sort of weren't getting along.”
“They weren't? How do you know?”
“I could just tell,” she explained. “I can always tell. They stopped talking when I got near the table. They weren't all friendly and stuff. When I was in the kitchen, I could hear them a little bit. She was kind of mad at him.”
“You're sure we're still talking about Officer Ted here?” I asked. “Because I don't know anyone that's ever been mad at him. And that was his girlfriend he was with.”
“I think it's actually his fiancé.”
I raised my eyebrows. This was news to me. “And how do you know that?”
“I don't know it,” Emily said. “But I heard her say something about a wedding.”
“But that could've been about anything related to a wedding. Any wedding,” I emphasized.
“I'm just telling you,” she said, “I don't think they were getting along. I see it at tables all the time. You can tell when people are having fun and getting along. They were not doing either of those things.”
Her words rang a bell, because just then, I remembered noticing that Ted seemed frustrated with whatever conversation he was having at the table. It hadn't stuck with me because I didn't think there was any reason for it to stick with me. It looked like two people having dinner and not much else. The only reason I'd noticed the frustration was because he was normally so jovial. But it wasn't like it had set off warning bells or anything. Maybe he hadn’t liked his chips and salsa. Maybe it was taking a while to get his food. It could have been any number of things that had put that look on his face.
Emily, however, was now making me wonder if I should have paid closer attention.
“Anyway, I'm glad he's not dead,” Emily said, standing up and stretching.
“Me, too.”
She headed back toward her bedroom, and I wondered if she was going back to bed.
“Because I think it would be pretty hard to find another server job if I had to tell people that the last guy I waited on keeled over dead.”
SIX
Before I left for the police station, Emily asked if I could swing by the restaurant to pick up her check. In all the hubbub, she'd forgotten to grab it and she was maniacal about getting her checks in the bank. Normally, I would've told her no and told her to go get it herself, but it gave me the opportunity to stop by Big Mama's and feed my own curiosity.
The front door to the restaurant was unlocked. I wasn't sure if it would be open because they didn't serve breakfast, but the restaurant looked nearly like it had when Jake and the kids and I had left the night before. There were still dishes on the tables, wadded up napkins on the ground, and silverware scattered about. I assu
med the restaurant had closed immediately after Ted was taken away and hadn't gone through their normal closing procedures.
Bjorn Born emerged from the kitchen, his apron dirty and his eyes weary. A lean man in his fifties, he'd been the owner of Big Mama's for as long as I could remember. His blond hair was thinning on top of his head and his shoulders were broad enough so that he had to turn to the side when he came out of the kitchen to get through the doorway. The wrinkles at the corners of his eyes looked deeper and thicker than I remembered them, and it took him a moment to realize I was standing there.
“Oh, hello,” he said, setting the gray tub he was holding on the counter. “Daisy. I didn't realize anyone was here.”
“I'm sorry, Bjorn. I didn't mean to startle you.”
He shook his head. “You didn't. What can I do for you?”
“Emily asked if I could stop by and grab her check. She didn't have a chance to get it last night.”
He nodded and returned to the kitchen. He was back a moment later and handed me a white envelope. “Your daughter is a nice girl. I like having her here. She's a very good worker.”
“Thank you,” I said. Work and Emily’s name were not words I often heard together. “She likes working here. And I'm sorry if this seems a little insensitive, stopping by like this. After last night.”
His lips puckered and he shook his head. “No, no. Not at all. I understand.” He glanced around the restaurant. “I'm sorry for the way the place looks. We didn't do our usual close after...everything.”
“I saw Ted last night,” I told him. “He was doing fine.”
He picked up the tub and carried it over to the nearest table. “Is he? You're friends, yes? From working together?”
“We were actually friends before that,” I said. “But, yes, friends from working together, too. I went by the hospital last night after Emily told us what happened when she came home.”
“And he is...okay?” he asked, picking up the plates on the table and placing them in the bin.
“He was last night, and he seemed to be on the mend.”
He nodded, picking up a glass and setting it next to the plates in the bin. “Well, that is a good thing then. For him, it's a good thing.” He forced a smile onto his face. “For me, though, it is a different story, I'm afraid.”
“How so?”
He picked up the bin and moved to the next table. “This is a small town. People talk.” He smiled, and this time it was a genuine one. “I think you know this. How else would I know you work with Ted?”
I nodded. It was a good point. I'd gotten to the stage where I just assumed everyone knew everyone else's business in Moose River. I didn't ask questions anymore when people knew things about me, when they mentioned them out of the blue.
“So they will talk about what happened here last night,” he continued. “They will either say exactly what happened or it will get turned into some crazy story that couldn't possibly be true. But the thing that will be the same in both stories is that a man fell ill while eating at my restaurant.” He shook his head. “People will stay home. They will assume it was the food or that I was somehow responsible. And they will stay home.”
“Well, maybe,” I said uncertainly. “But you don't know what the cause was, right?”
He shook his head. “No, not for sure.”
I thought about telling him about the poison, but I didn't want to violate Ted's privacy. It wasn't my place to tell him what I knew. And it was still too soon to really know what had happened. But I understood his concerns. Anyway it was spun, it would look like the restaurant had played a part in putting Ted in the hospital.
“The good news is Ted is fine,” I said, trying to find a positive angle. “And I'm sure he'll let people know he's okay. That should soothe anyone worried about him or about coming here.”
Bjorn dropped a handful of silverware into the tub. They clanged against the plates. “If you say so. Me? I'm not so sure.”
I was confused. “Not so sure about what?”
“That Ted will tell everyone it's okay to come here,” he said, yanking the tub and moving to the next table. “But you know him better than I do, so what do I know?”
There was something in his attitude toward Ted that I couldn’t read. I couldn't tell exactly what it was, but there was something amiss.
“I'm sure Ted will share that with people,” I said, my voice firm. “He's a good guy, and he wouldn't want people spreading tales that aren't true.”
Bjorn grunted, and it wasn't from lifting the full tub. He carried it back to the kitchen and set it down loudly on a metal table. I stood by the cash register, trying to keep my eyes off the creepy buck mounted on the wall. His glass eyes seemed to watch my every move. Bjorn reappeared soon enough, rubbing his hands dry with a small white towel.
“I don't know what will happen,” he said, continuing our conversation right where we’d left off. “I just know that I'm sorry he got sick and that it happened here. The track records for eating establishments that live on after a customer publicly got sick is not terribly good, Daisy. I will try to stay positive, but I'm not sure that will do me any good.”
I felt bad for him. He seemed so resigned, so defeated.
“Is there anything I can do?” I asked.
He thought for a moment, then tossed the towel on the counter. “Just keep sending your daughter to work. I will hope for the best.” He paused. “And please tell Officer Ted that I hope he is feeling better.”
SEVEN
I drove the remaining few blocks to the station, wishing I could help Bjorn and wondering why he had such a weird attitude toward Ted. I parked out front, gathered my things, and headed inside.
Despite my initial misgivings about taking a part-time job, I'd really gotten into the groove with my administrative position with the Moose River Police Department. I'd learned a lot, and I was enjoying what I was doing. It didn't hurt that my curiosity was regularly fed with answers so I didn't have to wonder about what was going on in town. The only drawback thus far had been the ongoing tension between Priscilla and me.
And as soon as I thought of the devil, she appeared. Detective Priscilla Hanborn was standing over my desk, thumbing through a stack of papers at the corner, when I walked through the door.
She looked up. “Good morning.” She glanced at the wall clock.
“Yes, I'm actually ten minutes early,” I said. I set my purse on the floor, just under my desk, and used my foot to nudge it a little further back. “Like always.”
She frowned. “I'm looking for that report on the Klem burglary. That I asked you to type up two days ago.”
“There's a copy in your email and a hard copy in the inbox on your desk,” I said. “It was the last thing I did before I left.”
This was a routine we'd established. She would claim to not have something that I'd already sent to her and then I would demonstrate that she did, indeed, have it. This was not because I was some super organized, Type A personality assistant; I’d just learned early on to anticipate every possible way she was going to try to stick it to me.
I pushed my chair out of the way and leaned over my desk, tapping at the keyboard and bringing up my email. I scrolled through the sent mail and then stopped on the one I'd sent her with the report. “It's right there,” I said, pointing.
Her frown deepened and she shook her head. Also standard protocol.
“Hmm. I don't think I got it.”
I used my finger as a pointer, highlighting a line of information. “It actually says you opened it two minutes after I sent it.”
Her frown faltered and a fine blush tinted her cheeks the slightest shade of pink.
“Our emails are time stamped both with delivery times and when it's viewed,” I said, smiling. “Surely you already knew that, though.”
“Of course I did,” she snapped, glowering at me. “But I didn't see the hard copy.”
I turned and walked toward her office, not giving her a chance to
stop me. I walked right to the two trays on the corner of her desk. There was one sheet of paper in the top one, which served as her inbox. I pulled it out of the tray and handed it to her. “Was probably a little hard to find,” I said. And then, because I couldn’t help it, I added, “Given it was the only thing in there...”
She snatched the paper from my hand and scanned it. Probably verifying that it was indeed the report in question. Then she set it back in the tray. “I must've just missed it.”
“Apology accepted,” I said, giving her my best fake smile. Maybe I could take her down with fake kindness.
She grunted and walked around the desk, letting her thick frame fall into the oversized chair behind it. She’d done some redecorating lately. Actually, Belinda, her sister, was the one who’d waltzed in and made the changes. They were simple things; after all, we were still working in government offices in a government building. If given the chance, Belinda, her gorgeous, always fashionable sister, would have probably used professional interior decorators to help out with the project. Instead, there were simple touches in place that softened the industrial practicality of the room: new frames for Priscilla’s family photos—almost all of which were of Belinda—painted a milky, antique white; a potted palm in the corner, leaning toward the light that filtered through the barely opened blinds; an African violet plant on the ledge, its dark purple flowers providing a much-needed splash of color; and the calendar desk pad that sat squarely in the center of her massive desk. It had purple and pink polka dots, all various sizes, dancing across the top in a whimsical design. Very un-Priscilla like.
“I hope you didn't keep Ted up all night,” she said. The tone of her voice told me she thought that was exactly what I had done.
“I left maybe twenty minutes after you did,” I told her. “Right after the doctor.”
