by Becky Clark
“Quinn, I can’t. I gotta go.”
Rico disconnected and Quinn stared at her phone. She knew she couldn’t close the diner again, but she had questions. Maybe the fiasco with the oatmeal and the cash register refusing to open was a sign that instead of running the diner, I should help Jake by getting him out of jail. I’m sure there’s something I could help Rico with.
She dialed the police station and asked to speak with Donnie. “Hey, it’s Quinn over at the diner. Have you had lunch yet?”
“No.”
“Come to the diner, then.”
“I’ve heard you’re not a very good cook.”
“Don’t be silly. I’m a perfectly adequate cook. To prove it, it’ll be on the house.”
Apparently Donnie thought free food that wasn’t very good was an acceptable trade-off, because he said he’d be over in a bit. Quinn barely knew anything about Donnie, but if he was somehow involved in this, Rico might not be able to get at the truth. Donnie was, after all, a fellow cop and the governor’s stepson. Perhaps even a nepotism hire.
When he got to the diner, Quinn served him a burger only slightly pinker than he wanted (“people pay extra for steak tartare”), fries that were hardly burned at all (“just a good, rich brown”), and a cup of chili he agreed wasn’t terrible. Quinn didn’t tell him it came out of a can.
Between customers, she sat with him. “How come you don’t come in the diner for lunch every day like Rico does?”
“Mom said my uniform was getting tight.” He shoved French fries in his mouth. “Don’t tell her I was here, okay?”
“I don’t even know your mom.” With his mouth full, he bugged his eyes out at her so she added, “Fine. Your secret is safe with me.” Quinn fiddled with one of the place settings of silverware wrapped with a napkin. “Speaking of secrets…tell me more about that fundraiser.”
“It’s not a secret, I don’t think, but I don’t know if I should…”
“I have some ice cream in the freezer.”
“What kind?”
“Chocolate, vanilla, and pistachio.”
Donnie leaned in. “Can I have all three?”
For someone in his mid-to-late twenties, he sure acted like an eight-year-old. “Of course. Be right back.”
After clearing a table and taking payment for the last diners, Quinn slid a bowl with three heaping scoops of ice cream in front of Donnie. “So tell me about the fundraiser.” She hoped the ice cream would act as truth serum.
“Not really much to tell,” he said, digging in. “For most of it I was hanging out in the kitchen away from all the hoopla. Mom kept introducing me to people I didn’t want to talk to, so I was hiding. She made me come in uniform, can you believe it?”
“She’s just proud of you, I bet.”
A man held an empty glass in the air and Quinn jumped up to give him a refill. When she got back to the table she prodded Donnie to continue his story. “So…you were hanging out in the kitchen?”
He slurped a hunk of pistachio ice cream off his spoon. “Yeah. And one of the waiters asked if I’d do him a favor and bring a plate to one of the guests, a Mr. Dubois. Said it was a special diet request and very important. Told me the cook himself asked for it to be delivered. I was just standing around, so I did him a solid.”
“You knew Jake was the cook?”
“Of course. I’m not blind. He was standing eight feet away from me.”
“Who was the waiter?”
“Don’t know.”
“Could you identify him if you saw him again?”
“Doubt it. It was a guy, though.”
A woman with twin boys came in the diner. Quinn called out, “Sit anywhere you want. I’ll be right there.” They chose the big corner booth. She turned back to Donnie. “Didn’t you think it was weird that he asked you to deliver the plate and that those were the only mushrooms in the place?”
“I didn’t know until later that those were the only mushrooms served. And why wouldn’t he ask me to help? I was just standing around.”
“Didn’t you say you were in uniform? If I saw a cop in a kitchen at a fundraiser for the governor, I’d assume he was on duty, not an extra pair of hands for a lazy waiter.”
Donnie shrugged and shoved the last bite of chocolate ice cream in his mouth.
Quinn had more questions, so she didn’t want to annoy him by arguing about something that this unknown waiter did that they’d probably never know the answer to, anyway. Assuming Donnie was telling the truth, that is. To Quinn, that seemed like a gigantic assumption. “You told Rico right away about the mushrooms, and even thought to preserve the leftovers from Emmett’s plate?”
“Yeah, well, believe it or not, I’m not just another pretty face. I’m actually an officer of the law.” He plucked at his uniform. “I was still at the fundraiser, because my mother would not let me leave, when I heard the call about the dead guy—er, victim, here at the diner. I remembered his name and scooped up the plate before it got washed. Police one-oh-one.”
Quinn cut her eyes to the corner booth.
Donnie added, voice dripping with sarcasm, “Even a lowly plebe like me was able to put two and two together.”
“Lady? Can we have some root beer?” one of the twins asked.
As Quinn poured two root beers, she studied Donnie stabbing at the last vestiges in his ice cream bowl. He couldn’t identify the waiter who handed him the mushrooms, but jumped to the conclusion that they were poisonous just by hearing the chatter about Emmett Dubois at the diner? Quinn ran through the events after finding the body. She couldn’t remember Rico or the paramedics saying anything about mushrooms or poisoning. Everyone was thinking heart attack. At least she was thinking heart attack and assumed everyone else was. But she had run out of there while Rico, Chief Chestnut, and the paramedics had stayed.
Quinn delivered the root beers and took their food order. Before going into the kitchen, though, she stopped in front of Donnie. “Pretty lucky you were still at the fundraiser when that call came in.” I wonder if he has a grudge of some kind against Jake. “Who else was at the fundraiser?”
“Jake’s ex-wife. Emmett Dubois’s ex-wife. Bunch of people who used to work with him.”
“Him who?”
“The victim … Emmett Dubois.”
“How do you know they used to work with Emmett?”
“Um…because I’m investigating his murder?” Splotches of color appeared on Donnie’s face and neck. His jaw tightened. “We got a list right away of everyone working that night. Governor’s party, remember? Stuff happens fast when my stepfather, the governor”—Donnie’s face puckered like he ate a lemon—“wants it to.” He made a noise that could only be described as a harumph.
It was obvious to Quinn that Donnie had a challenging relationship with both his mother and his stepfather. She excused herself and hurried into the kitchen to scoop up a salad for the woman and place hot dogs in buns for the boys. She pointed out the condiments.
“Where are my fries?”
“Yeah. You forgot our fries!”
She stared at their petulant eight-year-old faces. “We’re out. Sorry.” She had a momentary pang when she thought how disappointed Rico would be with her if he knew she told two lies in three words. Too bad, she thought, she was in the middle of an important interrogation. “Fries aren’t good for you.”
“Neither is root beer, but you gave us that.”
“True. You want me to get you some water?” She loomed over them.
“No, ma’am,” they both stammered.
Slightly ashamed of her lack of customer service, Quinn glanced at their mother and visibly relaxed when she saw the woman stifling a smile.
Just as well, she thought, heading back to Donnie. I have more important things on my mind than French fries. Maybe a disgruntled employee of Emmett’s
poisoned him. They had to get someone else to deliver the mushrooms so they wouldn’t be recognized—either by Emmett, in case it didn’t work, or by the other waiters, in case it did. “Tell me about that anonymous call you took.”
“It was a call. And it was anonymous.” Donnie narrowed his eyes at her. “Why do you want to know all this?”
“I’m trying to help Jake—”
“Why don’t you just leave it to us.” He said it as a statement, not a question. More like a verbal head pat, which was annoying enough, but he was younger than she was, which really peeved her.
She wanted to say, Why don’t I leave it to you? Because I don’t trust you. But she didn’t. Before she could ask him anything else, Donnie suddenly pushed back from the table, grabbed his duty cap, and bolted down the hallway, and out the back door of the restaurant.
Quinn was still staring in the direction he’d gone when Rico pulled up the chair next to her and said, “Wanna go on a date with me?”
She jumped and spewed some choice words strung together in a way her grandmother had probably never heard before. “Jeez, you scared me!”
“Sorry.”
“Did you see Donnie? He ran out of here just now like he was on fire.”
“Nope.” He glanced at the remains of Donnie’s lunch. “Maybe it was something he ate.”
“Very funny.” Quinn’s smile vanished when she saw Rico’s truth-telling face. “His lunch was perfectly fine. Aren’t you here to eat?” She stood and reached to clear Donnie’s place, perhaps with a bit more force than was necessary because Rico placed his hand on her forearm.
“No, I don’t have time. Sit down for a minute.” Rico glanced around the tables. “It doesn’t look too busy. You’ve probably been at it all morning.”
Quinn sighed and returned the plate to the table. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“How are you doing?”
“I’ve been better.” She ran her fingers through her hair, then re-clipped her messy bun. “How’s Jake? How’s the investigation going?”
“Chief still thinks Jake killed Emmett.”
“You’ll just have to prove otherwise.”
“It’s not that easy, Quinn.”
The thirsty man again waved at her from across the restaurant. When he caught her eye, he raised his empty glass.
She nodded at the man as she stood, then asked Rico, “Why not?”
“I can’t talk to you about this.”
One of the twins called to her, “Hey, lady. Can we just get our own refills? You’re too slow.”
“Sure. Go ahead. If it’s okay with your mom.”
The woman shrugged. “Knock yourself out. The lady’s clearly got better things to do.” As the boys jumped up, she grabbed one of them by the arm. Dipping the corner of her napkin in her water glass, she wiped a smear of mustard from his face.
Quinn hoped this wouldn’t get back to Jake. She whispered in Rico’s ear. “Why can’t you talk to me?”
He whispered back, “It’s unethical. And even if I wanted to, this isn’t the time or place.”
“Was it unethical when I helped you solved that bicycle theft?”
“Well…no. That was just friendly conversation.”
She felt anger and frustration bubbling up, at Rico, at the twins, at customers in general. Before she made anything worse, she refilled the man’s iced tea and placed Donnie’s dirty dishes in the plastic busing tub. She calmed herself further by adjusting everything on the table into its proper place. She was aware of Rico’s eyes on her. Square container of single-serve jellies in the center of the table, grape packets on the left side, strawberry on the right. She plucked out a container of grape and dropped it into her apron pocket so each side had the same amount. Salt and pepper centered against the right side of the jelly container. Tabasco centered on the left. Fake flower in a short vase in the back. Napkin dispenser at the front. She pushed on the napkins, alarmed at the amount of play in the mechanized spring. She’d have to deal with filling it later. She’d have to deal with everything later. But right now, without looking at Rico, she grabbed the tub and carried it into the kitchen.
He followed her. “Have you been sleeping?”
She flung the dishes into the dishwashing tray. “Not really.”
“Taking your meds?”
She stopped and glared at him.
“Quinn, I just—”
Leaning against the sink, she sighed. “I know. I’m fine. It’s just that…I really want to help Jake.”
“You are. You’re running the diner for him.”
“I want him to be running the diner.”
“So do I.”
Quinn heard the customers talking to each other. The woman said, “Do you think we can just leave the money here? I promised these boys I’d take them to a movie.”
“That’s what I’m going to do,” the man said. “But I wanted some pie first.”
Quinn called through the pass-through, “Be right there!” She looked at Rico, then back toward the pass-through. Rico was absolutely right. This is not the time or place to have a real conversation. If I’m going to learn anything about the investigation, we’ll need to be away from the diner and away from the police station.
“Wait here,” she told Rico.
As Quinn handled the customers, she assessed Rico. That unfortunate hair, but at least he kept it short. Tall, lanky, no bulging muscles, but he could probably carry most people out of a burning building. What would she say to someone to sell them on a blind date with Rico? He’s funny. He’s gentle and kind. He would absolutely never lie to you, guaranteed. He was nice to old people and animals, and she’d seen him go out of his way to calm a red-faced, squalling baby by speaking soothingly and letting it latch on to his finger with a tiny fist. Quite endearing, actually. A person could do worse. Way worse.
He even deflected praise at the police station, despite the fact he did all the work over there.
Dating her best friend still seemed like a stupid idea. Dating her best friend to get information about a police investigation seemed ridiculously stupid. But she couldn’t shake the niggling thought that Donnie was somehow involved in this and that Rico and Chief Chestnut were rallying behind him as one of their brothers in blue. She couldn’t really see Rico covering up a crime or even bending the rules for a fellow officer, but she had been extolling the virtues of a well-placed white lie for quite some time now. She’d argued that there were many circumstances where telling the truth was not a very good idea, and in fact, even dangerous. Lies could be necessary. Like when a woman said she had a gun to scare away a burglar. Or a Beware of Dog sign with no dog on the premises. Maybe Rico finally learned the lesson.
At any rate, Rico was absolutely right that the diner wasn’t a good place to have a meaningful conversation, since she was jumping up every three seconds to refill sodas or take orders. A quiet place to talk was exactly what they needed.
Quinn returned to the kitchen to find Rico with his face above the pot of chili and a Styrofoam container in his hand.
“Changed my mind about lunch. Think I’ll take some of this chili to go.”
“Oh, you won’t want that.”
Rico cocked an eyebrow. “Because…”
“Because it may prove embarrassing on our date tonight.”
He grinned wide and handed the to-go container to her. “Bring me the blandest thing you can find. Do you have any oatmeal? And make it snappy—I need to get a haircut.”
Yep. Way worse.
* * * *
Rico sat in Mrs. Olansky’s chair while she gave him a trim. He let the drone of hair dryers, clippers, and voices wash over him. He closed his eyes.
He knew going on a date with Quinn was probably stupid, but he couldn’t help it. Ever since she got back to Chestnut Station he couldn’t stop thi
nking that it might be their destiny to be together. They had all that history and neither one of them had many prospects here in town.
Apprehension nipped at him, though. He knew Quinn was going through a rough patch, rougher than anything he’d seen before. He felt honored that she trusted her diagnosis with him. The way she described her OCD was vivid and compelling, but completely unlike anything he’d ever experienced. She told him that it felt like she constantly carried a fully charged battery pack in the back of her head. She explained that if she didn’t aim it at something—whether it was at her counting or organizing or solving crosswords—or something else, she’d burst. After her interview with the Denver police, she told him all that anxiety and obsessive thinking got pointed back at her and that’s why she couldn’t function. She told him the resulting depression was like wearing one of those weighted x-ray vests their dentist made them wear.
Watching Quinn today, he’d noticed her counting and organizing, but he also noticed when she was talking to those twins she was doing something with her fingers he’d never seen her do before, touching each finger to her thumb. He wondered if she was even conscious of it. Was it just something to do with her hands or was it another compulsive ritual?
He’d ask her about it on their date tonight.
“What are you grinning about, Rico?” Mrs. Olansky brushed the hair off the back of his neck.
“My date tonight.”
She unsnapped the cape draped around him and handed him a mirror. “I’m not going to ask how you like it because I’m never sure I want to know.”
Rico held the mirror up to catch his reflection in the large mirror over her station. “It’s perfect, Mrs. O.”
And it was.
* * * *
The rest of the afternoon passed without too much kitchen drama, but Quinn was wrung out by 4:00 when she looked up at the sound of the door jingling and saw Chief Chestnut’s bony frame striding into the diner.
He held the newspaper folded to the page with the crossword puzzle.
“Coffee,” he barked at her.
What is his problem? Quinn grabbed a mug and briefly considered making a fresh pot before deciding he wasn’t worth the effort. She placed the mug next to the puzzle and filled it, sloshing a bit out.
