by Becky Clark
“Then what?”
Rico picked up his cap and stood. “I’m not at liberty to say.”
Quinn stood too. “Where is he? At the station?” She was already opening the door.
“You can’t go over there.”
“Watch me.” Quinn hurried through the door.
Rico had no choice but to follow her. His longer legs caught up to her. He grabbed her elbow but she shook him off.
“Don’t you dare try to stop me!”
“I wasn’t. I was going to ask if you wanted a ride.”
“Oh. Yes. Yes, I do want a ride. Since you offered.” She detoured to the patrol car and thrust her arms out impatiently, but Rico ignored her. He opened the back door, gently placing his hand on the top of her head and pushing her into the seat.
Quinn knew the rules. Courtesy rides from the police also came with frisks and locking of purses or backpacks in the trunk. Normally she appreciated this procedure to keep Rico safe. This morning, however, she appreciated him ignoring the frisk.
Even though everyone in town knew she and Rico were best friends, she hoped nobody was up this early to start a rumor that she was arrested.
They didn’t speak on the short ride. Quinn had a million questions, but couldn’t settle on any of them.
When Rico pulled into the parking lot, Quinn frantically searched for the door handles until she remembered there weren’t any. She had to wait like a child for him to open the patrol car door. When he did, she burst past him and flew into the police station.
Donnie Garfield, the junior cop, startled out of his pose, feet up on his desk, hat tipped forward. Clearly he’d been sleeping. “Wha—”
“I’m here to see Jake Szabo,” Quinn said.
“You can’t—I just got him processed.” Donnie looked at Rico, who followed at a slower pace. “She can’t, can she?”
Rico shrugged. “I don’t see why not.”
Donnie began to stand, but Rico waved him back down. “Finish your beauty rest. I’ll take her down.”
Rico pulled keys from his pocket and Quinn followed him through the reception area, past the desks where he and Donnie worked. Rico paused near the dark conference room and Quinn thought they’d talk with Jake in there. But Rico unlocked the door next to the conference room. Quinn had never been past it. As they stepped through, she saw Chief Chestnut’s office with its lights off. To the right she saw the break room and a couple of dark rooms farther down. Past the chief’s office, Rico stopped to unlock another door. He swung it open and she saw a staircase. He motioned her down.
When she got to the bottom, she stood in a large rectangular basement, lit up with harsh fluorescent lights. Along the right side, there was a glass-walled room with some rickety chairs scattered near an old metal table. Quinn noticed it was bolted to the floor.
A wide, open area separated the two halves of the basement, at the back of which stood a water cooler, pointy paper cups peeking from the bottom of an attached silver contraption. To Quinn it seemed like it was guarding the space.
Along the left side were two cells with a brick wall separating them. Jake sat in the first one—elbows on knees, face covered by his hands—on a metal cot attached to the wall, a thin rolled-up mattress next to him. He looked up when he heard Quinn’s intake of breath.
He stood and grabbed the metal bars with both hands. “Am I glad to see you!”
Quinn didn’t know what to say. “Then why didn’t you return any of my calls?”
“Rico, man, you’ve gotta get me out of here!”
“You’ll recall it was I who put you in here,” Rico said.
Quinn saw Jake staring at Rico. “Oh. I thought you were glad to see me,” she said. “What’s going on, Jake?”
“What else do you need to know, aside from the fact he arrested me for killing Emmett?” Jake jabbed a finger in the air directed at Rico.
“Well, first off, tell me who this Emmett is,” Quinn said.
Rico opened the door to the interview room and dragged a chair into the center of the open space that he then sat in, facing the cell.
“Emmett Dubois is a guy I used to work with in some four-star restaurants he owned. I haven’t seen him in forever, then he shows up poisoned in my diner.”
“Poisoned!” Quinn’s hand fluttered to her throat. She turned to Rico. “The redeye gravy? I told you Wilbur did something he shouldn’t have in the kitchen.”
“The diner kitchen? Why was Wilbur back there?” Jake asked.
“Said I screwed up the burger orders. Larry wanted rare and Silas wanted well-done, so he snuck back there and made new ones.”
“Why didn’t they just switch plates?”
“That’s what I said!”
Rico shook his head. “It wasn’t the gravy, Quinn.”
“It was bad mushrooms.” Jake made a face as he spoke.
Quinn whirled from Jake to Rico. “I didn’t cook any mushrooms and Jake never has them in the diner, anyway.”
“Never.” Jake shook his head vehemently, then took a giant step to the side so he was more directly in line with where Rico sat. “Listen, Rico, pal. You’ve known me a long time. You’ve got to let me out of here. I’ve got a business to run.”
Rico stood. “I’ll do my best, Jake. You know I will. But when Chief wants something, he usually gets it. I tried to talk him into letting you go on your own recognizance—business owner, house in town, pillar of the community and all—but he wouldn’t listen to me.”
Jake took another giant step in the opposite direction to stand in front of Quinn again. “Please get me out of here. Please! You’ve got to!”
“That’s Rico’s job. I’ll do my job and yours at the diner, but I’m not a cop. We’ve got to leave this up to Rico. He’ll get you out of jail while I run the diner for you.”
“If I don’t get out of here, there won’t be a diner anymore. No offense.” Jake craned his neck to see the clock on the wall above the water cooler. “Hey. It’s after six. You’ve gotta get over there and start prep! Hungry people will be banging on the door.”
“Really? That’s what you’re worried about right now? Hungry people?” Quinn bugged out her eyes.
“I can worry about several things at once. I’m gifted like that.”
“Besides, I handled it yesterday.”
“How?”
“I found the pancake mix and created all-you-can-eat pancakes day.”
Jake stared at her. “That’s it? Pancakes?”
Quinn stared at the floor; couldn’t answer him. She knew she’d screwed up.
“How much did you charge?”
“Five dollars,” she said quietly, without looking up.
Jake threw his hands up in the air and turned his back on her. Quinn heard him mumble something about profit and loss and insolvency.
Quinn began counting the bars on the cell, starting over twice when she lost focus.
“C’mon, Quinn. Let’s go.” Rico gently held her elbow and steered her back toward the stairs. “Jake, you’re just going to have to sit tight while I figure this out. Quinn is doing a great job at the diner. It’ll be fine.”
“Sure it will.” Jake was back in his original pose: elbows on knees, face in hands.
Quinn had no words and followed Rico silently up the stairs. She knew running the diner was serious, but profit and loss and insolvency felt like bricks on her shoulders. This wasn’t just her job, or Jake’s. This was his livelihood, his life’s work. Presumably, everything he had was tied up in this business. She thought about the Retireds and all those people she had been serving. The diner was important to Chestnut Station as well.
When they got to the top of the stairs and Rico locked the door behind them, she looked up at him. “Does he have an attorney?”
Rico shook his head. “Said he doesn’
t want one.”
“That’s crazy!”
“I know. But he says he’s not guilty and doesn’t want to look like he is.”
“Getting an attorney doesn’t make you look guilty. I’m gonna go—”
Rico grabbed her arm. “I already tried, but he’s adamant. If this is still going on when the courts open after the holiday, I’ll try again. Submit the request myself if I have to.”
Quinn glanced at the door to the lockup and then at Rico.
“For now he’s fine. Completely safe.”
“Really?” She knew the answer before she even asked.
“Really.”
“You know this is all some kind of big mix-up, right? Arresting Jake is ridiculous. He wasn’t even there last night. If anyone should be in jail, it’s me, and I shouldn’t be either because I didn’t serve anyone mushrooms. That guy had a heart attack. Nobody was poisoned at the Chestnut Diner. It’s insane to even think it.”
Quinn saw Rico’s cannot-tell-a-lie face and knew she had to ask him point-blank. She made sure Chief Chestnut’s office was still dark. “What evidence do you have?”
Rico sighed. “Emmett Dubois was poisoned by mushrooms that Jake cooked.”
“Again,” Quinn said impatiently. “Jake wasn’t cooking and I know for a fact I didn’t serve anyone mushrooms.”
“Jake was cooking at a fundraiser that day in Denver. Donnie had the foresight to collect the leftovers and we tested them.”
“Already?”
“It was a fundraiser for the governor. Wheels of justice turn faster for some people than for others.”
Quinn’s head swam. None of this was making sense. “Why was Donnie there?”
“The governor is his stepfather.”
“Who else got sick?”
“Nobody.”
“Then why do you think it was the mushrooms?”
“Emmett was the only one who was served them.”
“Says who?”
“Says Donnie.”
Quinn hadn’t worked for Jake for very long, but had already seen Jake’s disgusted face many times whenever somebody tried to order mushrooms. Rico saw it just yesterday. “You know Jake hates mushrooms. Why would he cook some at this fundraiser and why only for Emmett?”
Rico raised his palms.
“And isn’t it more than convenient that Donnie happened to be at this fundraiser and just happened to save the leftovers? You told me yourself that Donnie isn’t the sharpest knife in the drawer. Never going to be detective material, I think is how you put it.”
“I don’t know what you want me to say. We have some facts. Not all of them—”
“Then you shouldn’t have arrested him.”
“—because it’s early days. But the facts we have aren’t looking that great for Jake. Maybe things will change Chief’s mind. But right now, this is what I have to work with.”
Quinn studied Rico’s face. When he wouldn’t meet her gaze, she narrowed her eyes. “You have something else. What is it?”
Rico’s nose twitched and he pinched the bridge of it, squeezing his eyes shut.
“Tell me.”
He opened his eyes and looked directly at her. “We got an anonymous tip. The caller said Jake was seen carrying the bag of mushrooms into the governor’s mansion.”
“Seen by who?”
“That’s all we know. The caller’s voice sounded male to Donnie, but that doesn’t mean anything. Could have been a woman with a deep voice, or a man calling on her behalf, or it could have actually been a man. We have no way of knowing.”
“Can’t you trace the call?”
“This isn’t TV, Quinn.”
“Have you talked to the murder mystery guy who came in with Emmett Dubois?”
Rico shook his head.
“What about those two couples in the diner, the lovey-dovey ones and the ones arguing?”
“We found them, but they didn’t see anything other than the two of them coming in the diner and sitting down. They didn’t even notice the costumes you reported.”
“I reported? Don’t you believe me?”
“Of course I believe you. The bottom line, though, is that right now nobody knows who the man is who came in the diner with Emmett Dubois.”
It was too much for Quinn to process. “I’ve got to get to the diner. Gotta keep it running while Jake’s in here, even though he clearly doesn’t think I can.”
“I’ll walk you over.”
“No. You stay here and figure out how to get Jake off the hook.” She locked eyes with Rico. “You know this is insane.”
Rico opened the door to the lobby. “I’ll see you later for lunch.”
Quinn walked through the police department lobby with her eyes on Donnie. If he was somehow involved in this, could the cops, even Rico, investigate fairly?
Chapter 6
The short walk back to the diner felt like a forced march. Quinn expected to hear “Dead man walking!” with every step. She began counting her footsteps out loud, but in a whisper. Quinn had compulsively counted many things in her life, but counting her steps was new. She found it soothing.
As she neared the diner she saw a small crowd had congregated, the Retireds in front of the pack. Their chatter stopped abruptly when they noticed her. News about Jake’s arrest had clearly arrived already.
Vera Greenberg pulled off her slouch hat and ran a hand through her choppy hair, mussing it more than the hat had. She stepped aside to let Quinn unlock the door. After Quinn waved Jethro in to make his rounds, she let the crowd of humans surge after him.
Vera stopped Quinn from following by placing a hand on her forearm. “I hate to do this, but—” Vera pulled out her reporter’s notebook. “Can I ask you some questions about Jake for the Chronicle?”
Quinn paled and staggered a bit on the sidewalk. “Vera, I know you’re my boss and have been for a long time, but—”
Vera waved away Quinn’s words. “This has nothing to do with crossword puzzles.”
“It’s not that I don’t want to say anything about Jake…” Quinn blinked twice. “No, actually, it’s exactly like that. I don’t want to say anything about Jake or that poor man who died.”
They stared at each other for a few moments, then Vera nodded slightly.
“Maybe after the breakfast rush.” Quinn’s voice was weak, knowing that was undoubtedly not going to be the case.
“Whenever you’re ready.” Vera jammed her hat back on her head.
Quinn held the door for her. “You hungry? I think I’ve figured out pancakes.”
“Not today. I’ve got a story to investigate.” Vera trotted off the direction Quinn had just come, probably off to the police station.
Quinn watched Vera until she turned the corner, then moved her concrete feet into the diner. Again, all chatter stopped when she walked in. She counted her steps across the dining room. She was dismayed to see Jethro once again sniffing around the big corner booth where Emmett Dubois had died. She called to him several times, but he was hypnotized by some odor, only padding toward her when his nose was satisfied. She expected him to follow her into the kitchen for his bacon paycheck, but he veered into Jake’s office, where he circled the desk, nose to the floor.
She dropped to one knee and intercepted him. “Oh, buddy. He’s not here. He won’t be back for a few days.”
Jethro’s sad, droopy eyes looked like they got sadder and droopier, if that was even possible.
“Lie down with dogs and you’ll get up with fleas my foot. What was Wilbur talking about, anyway?” she muttered.
Quinn hugged Jethro around his neck and he plopped his big head on her shoulder. They had a moment. When they pulled away, Quinn felt the slobber soaking into the back of her shirt. She didn’t care. Remaining on one knee, facing the big dog, she took
his head in both her hands. “Don’t you worry. Rico will figure this out and get Jake out of jail soon.” Jethro lifted his eyes, but not his head. “Very soon. I promise.” Quinn straightened up. “Let’s get you that bacon.”
She fired up the griddle. By the time she fished out two slices and dropped them on it, they sizzled. She looked at Jethro, sitting in the doorway. A long string slid from his mouth and made its way to the floor.
She barely cooked one strip and left the other to get crispy because she didn’t know which he preferred. She plated each one and let him choose. He gobbled down the crispy one, then sniffed suspiciously at the other. Quinn took the hint and threw it back on the grill.
Once Jethro was satisfied and left the diner, Quinn knew she had to focus on all those people waiting in the dining room. She couldn’t avoid them any longer. She’d heard the door chime several times while she was with Jethro, so she knew it was even more crowded now.
What to say? What to do?
She took a deep breath before stepping into the dining room. She saw familiar faces from breakfast yesterday. “I’m not very good at this, as some of you found out yesterday, but I think I’ve figured out how to make pancakes. And bacon. So if you want—”
“We don’t care about breakfast,” a voice in the back said.
“Speak for yourself!” The portly Mr. O’Shea already had a paper napkin tucked into his shirt collar.
The crowd laughed.
The voice said, “Okay, fine, we care about breakfast, but we were also hoping for some news.”
Quinn recognized him as a friend of her dad’s. She shook her head and held her palms to the ceiling just like Rico had done with her. “I don’t know what to tell you.”
“Is it true Jake’s been arrested for that guy’s murder?” he asked.
Quinn’s face answered the question and everyone began speaking at once. When she realized they weren’t actually speaking to her, she tuned out the noise and began counting chair legs. It soothed her enough that she could process what had happened at the jail. Her earlier idea that Rico couldn’t or wouldn’t investigate Jake’s case thoroughly or properly seemed ludicrous now. He was a good, honest cop who would do his job, even if Donnie was involved, even if Chief Chestnut pressured him somehow.
