Chapter 13
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Main Street Café was two blocks down from the library between Peterson and St. Mary.
Originally, it had been a two-story clapboard house with a wraparound porch.
By now, it had been rehabbed enough times that it was hard to tell where the rooms had originally been.
The main section of the restaurant had a bar in the center—complete with a craggy bartender and sports playing on a television—and booths around the edges.
Opal was already sitting in one on the St. Mary’s side of the restaurant. I could tell something was wrong right off the bat. The dye was washing out of her hair and she hadn’t done a thing about it. It looked like she might be a dishwater blonde underneath, but I wouldn’t stake my life on that.
“Who cut your hair?” she asked. “It wasn’t Denny.”
“No, it was his father.”
“You should have had Denny do it.”
“Thanks. But all you said was go to Bob’s.”
She shrugged like it really didn’t matter.
“So, I guess you know Denny?”
“Everybody knows Denny.”
“And he has a little problem with—”
The waitress arrived. She was around our age, perky with pink lipstick and blonde hair.
“Hey Opal. Long time no see.”
“Hi Megan,” Opal said, though it sounded more like ‘screw you, bitch.’
“Who’s your cute friend?”
“Henry Milch. He’s Emma Cole’s grandson.”
To Opal, Megan said, “Well, aren’t you coming up in the world.”
That didn’t make a lot of sense. I mean, yes, my grandmother was related to several of the founding families, but that didn’t really mean anything, did it? Opal shifted uncomfortably and asked for an Arnold Palmer. I ordered a root beer.
When Megan walked away, I asked, “What was that about?”
“We went to school together. Megan bullied me for like a decade.”
I had some idea what that was like but decided not to share. I got back to business.
“Why did you want me to talk to Denny? Exactly?”
“Did you get to talk to him at all?” Opal asked.
The last thing I was going to do was tell Opal about my time with Denny in the pole barn. “A little. I hung around until he finished work.”
“And?”
“He confessed to everything,” I said, facetiously. “He said he killed Reverend Hessel with a bludgeon he bought on sale at Home Depot.”
She rolled her eyes. “Did you ask Denny if he knew anyone who might have broken into the church?”
Well, I hadn’t asked it like that.
“He said he didn’t know anyone one who stole. He also pointed out that if you did want to steal something there were a whole lot of empty summer homes to rob.”
“Except that it’s summer,” she pointed out weakly. Not everyone with a summer home spent the whole summer there. She looked dejected, like someone had just kicked her.
Why did it matter so much to her that Denny knew, or possibly was, the killer?
I could have asked her that, but my trip to the library was fresh in my mind, so I asked, “I need you to explain something. You said Detective Lehmann told you the murder happened between eight-fifty and nine-twenty. But that’s not the way time of death works. It’s usually a lot less specific.”
“I only know that because he told Ivy and Carl. Reverend Hessel ordered a pizza at eight-fifty. He had to have been alive—”
“What? Wait a minute, you can get a pizza delivered up here?!” This was terribly exciting information. I was desperate to have food delivered.
“No, stupid. You call your order in and then go pick it up. It’s ready when you get there.”
“Oh.”
“Anyway, they know Reverend Hessel was alive when he ordered the pizza. But then it was supposed to be picked up around nine-thirty. It’s a ten-minute drive.
Since Reverend Hessel never got in his car he had to have died sometime between when he made the call and when he should have gotten in the car. Eight-fifty to nine-twenty.”
That made sense. Except. Well, there was something not right about what she was saying. What was it?
“And so Carl was with you…”
“From seven forty-five until about eleven.”
My next question had nothing to do with Reverend Hessel’s murder. “What’s the deal with you and Carl?”
“What do you mean what’s the deal?”
“I mean, is he your boyfriend?”
“I don’t think every relationship needs to be defined.”
“Well, that’s a definite no.” Then I said, “Ivy Greene said you were boyfriend and girlfriend in high school.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“And you’re still hanging out.”
That made her blush, which frankly clashed with the bright green of her hair. “We have a lot in common. We’re both bisexual.”
I was beginning to put this story together and guessed, “You’re still hot for him, aren’t you?”
“We’re friends.”
“But he’s seeing someone else?”
“There’s someone. But it’s not—”
“Let me get this straight, you have a crush on Carl and Cheryl Ann has a crush on you and none of you are getting laid. Is that what it means to be bisexual? Never getting what you want?”
“No, that is not—are you an idiot?”
Okay, so maybe it was a little rude. But it was logical. If you sleep with both men and women that should increase your chances of getting laid, not decrease them.
“I don’t think I’m an idiot.”
“Then don’t say idiotic things.”
“You do realize you’re not getting laid.”
“That’s so typical for a gay man. Not everything is about sex.”
Well, that was offensive. I said, “Hey. Just because I’m an idiot doesn’t mean you get to be one.”
She was wrong, of course. Everything was about sex. And not just for gay men, for everyone. Unless I’m mistaken, it’s the basis of whole schools of psychological thought. Gay men are just more honest about it. Right?
Megan was back. I felt like she’d really dragged her feet getting our drinks. After she plunked them down in front of us, she asked, “Are you ready to order?”
“I’d like a veggie burger. No sprouts. Extra mayo. On the side,” Opal ordered.
Megan frowned the whole time, then glared at me. I was tempted to ask, ‘What did I do?’ I mean, a minute ago she was calling me cute.
I asked, “Are you still serving breakfast?” I hadn’t had any.
“We serve breakfast all day.”
“Great. I’ll have an ABC omelet with cheddar.”
Megan’s glare turned to an icy stare, “What is that?”
“Avocado, bacon and cheese.”
“Oh lord,” Opal said.
“Hey, Eddie,” she called out to the bartender. “He wants an avocado in his omelet.”
Eddie turned away from the television and smirked. “We don’t have avocados. There hasn’t been an avocado in this restaurant for twenty years.”
He said it as though it were an accomplishment. Like avocados were clamoring outside desperate to be served there but he’d bravely turned them away.
I ordered a bacon and cheese omelet instead. Once Megan walked away, I looked at Opal and asked, “Why do they hate avocados?”
“It’s a California thing.”
“They hate California?”
“A lot of people do.”
“I bet they’ve never been there. I mean, yeah, the traffic is awful and everything’s super expensive, and there are earthquakes and fires and the occasional riot—but it’s absolutely the best place in the world.”
“I didn’t say I hated California, I said ‘a lot of people do.’ I’m not a lot of people.”
After a moment or two, I said, “I’m sorry I said that thing about bisexuals not getting laid.”
“Whatever,” she said.
“Why did you want me to meet Denny?”
“He’s a meth addict. You wanted to meet them.”
“Yeah, but I don’t think he tried to rob the church. He has a job, so I don’t think he’s broke.”
“That doesn’t matter if he’s addicted. Do you know how much a hit of methamphetamine costs?”
“No. Do you?”
“As a matter of fact, I do. Between ten and twenty dollars.”
I did some quick math in my head, or I tried to, I have to admit I was still foggy.
Denny and I had done four or five hits—well, he had.
I’d only done one or one and a half. So that’s how much?
Between forty and a hundred dollars. That’s as many as ten haircuts.
Provided his dad lets him keep all the money, which I seriously doubted.
Even if he just did it once a week, that’s still a lot of money. Maybe he did try to rob the church?
And then the fog cleared a little, and another thing that had been nagging at me suddenly popped into my head. “When we went to see Ivy, she said Detective Lehmann wasn’t telling her anything. But you said he told her about the pizza.”
“Okay.”
“Specifically, there was someone Reverend Hessel was going to meet that night. A parishioner. We don’t know if anyone’s come forward.”
“That’s what he wouldn’t tell them?”
“Yeah.”
Or at least that’s what Ivy said he wouldn’t tell him. Now I wasn’t so sure.
She shrugged. “It makes sense that he wouldn’t. I mean, if someone did come forward you don’t want everyone to know who the last person to see Reverend Hessel was. Especially if that person’s innocent. It could ruin their reputation. You can’t ruin a pizza’s reputation.”
“Of course you can ruin a pizza’s reputation,” I said. Obviously, she knew nothing about branding.
“You know what I mean,” she said. “Maybe Detective Lehmann is wrong. Maybe it’s not a drug addict. Who else might have killed him?”
“Well, Reverend Wilkie or Sue Langtree. He’d done them both out of jobs.”
“Someone from his past,” Opal suggested. “Maybe it’s someone from Chicago. Maybe he had mob connections.”
“Now you sound like my grandmother.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
Just then, Megan arrived with our lunches. My omelet was more of a scramble. I was tempted to send it back but suspected that Megan would refuse.
“I heard a rumor your friend, Carl, killed his stepfather,” she said, instead of offering us catsup.
“He was with me when the murder happened,” Opal said between gritted teeth.
“And, of course, you would never lie,” Megan said, then spun around and walked away.
“Hmmm,” I said. “In California waitresses say crazy things like, ‘Enjoy your lunch.’”
“She’s just jealous.”
“Because she’s just a waitress and you’re—I never asked, what do you do for a living?”
“I work at Pastiche. It’s a boutique in Masons Bay. Which you know.”
All right, so it sounded vaguely familiar.
“As I was saying, she’s just a waitress while you’re a retail slut.”
She stared me down while chewing on her veggie burger. I took a bite of my scrambled omelet. Meh.
Finally, she swallowed and said, “I have a little money. My dad’s family owned a furniture company. I don’t really need to work. I just do.”
“You’re a trust fund baby?” I said, completely shocked.
“Yeah, I guess.”
Maybe I should have figured that out. She drives around in a relatively new VW Bug, and she certainly spends a lot of money getting her hair dyed. But on the other hand, she doesn’t act like any of the rich people I knew in L.A.
“Why are you still here? You could live anywhere. You could live in L.A.”
“It’s nice here.”
“Oh yeah, the people are great. They’re either saying shitty things to you or killing each other.”
“You have a very warped view of Masons Bay.”
“One of us does, that’s for sure.”
We ate for a moment. I continued to wonder why she stayed and then I realized the answer was right smack in front of me. So I said, “Tell me more about Carl.”
“We’ve just always been friends. We’re both losers. I mean, that’s what Megan would call us. I don’t think we’re losers.”
I could tell she was being careful about what she said. She didn’t seem to want to give everything away, which meant there was more.
“We play D&D.”
“D&D?”
“Dungeons & Dragons.”
“Isn’t that, like, ancient?” I swear my mother talks about playing it when she was a teenager.
“It’s a classic. Anyway, Carl would do anything for me.”
“And you’d do anything for him.”
“Except lie. If Carl killed his stepfather, I wouldn’t lie for him. And he wouldn’t ask me to.”
Which is exactly what she would say if she would lie for him, right? I wondered for a second how I could verify the things she was saying?
“You were together, where?”
“He came over to my house.”
“Do you live alone?”
“In the summer. I live with my mother, but she spends the summer at our cabin in the UP.”
“So it was just the two of you. Did you get any phone calls?”
“Detective Lehmann asked all these same questions.”
I was impressed with myself. I guess watching cop shows is the same as going to a police academy.
Megan was back. She snatched up the plates even though I wasn’t exactly finished with my omelet.
“Can I get you anything else?” she asked, though her face said we shouldn’t dare ask.
“No, just the check,” Opal said.
Once Megan walked away, I asked, “Can I ask you a question?”
“Can you ask me a question? What do you think you’ve been doing for the last half hour?”
“This is a personal question.”
“You asked questions about my sex life. Very judgy questions.”
“Could you shut up and let me ask the question?”
“Fine.”
“Megan is really awful. Why did you want to come here?”
“She has to wait on me. She hates that. I’m not proud of it, but it does make me happy.”