Chapter 7 #2
“The best in the state. That do for you?”
One side of his mouth curved up, and it transformed his face. He was younger, his eyes brighter, as if mischief burned so strong inside of him it had to find a way out.
“Well, if all you have is the best, I’ll take a slice. And coffee. Black, please.”
I pretended to write it down and noted he was watching me fake it. It didn’t matter. An order that simple would be easy for anyone to remember.
It didn’t give away that I had already known what he was going to order. Just like I knew he was going to ask for a side of fries.
“And a side,” he said, “of fries.”
“You got it. Be right back.”
I didn’t run to the kitchen because I am not a wimpy scaredy-cat.
I took my time, adjusted a chair, and brushed imaginary dust off a table.
I scanned the room like it was a royal ball, and I was the queen checking to see if my subjects needed anything (they didn’t).
Then I hustled (in a dignified way) to the kitchen.
I pressed my back against the wall and blew out a breath.
“Nat found the good knife,” Buzz said.
“Oh, cool. Great. Real great.”
He glanced over, his eyebrows knitting. “More dead bodies out there?”
I grinned. “No. Just a customer rattling my nerves. I need a slice of cherry and a side of fries.”
“Which one?” Buzz leaned into the pass-through surveying the room. “I’ve never seen a single person shake you up. Which one actually rattled you?”
“The man. Booth by the door.”
Buzz narrowed his eyes and rocked back into the kitchen. “You want me to call the cops? Beat him up?” He wiped his hands on the towel over his shoulder. “Beat him up and then call the cops?”
That made me laugh. “With your bad back? No, I do not want you to rumble.”
“I still got plenty of pop in this rock.” He made a fist and his arm muscles bulged. He was in great shape for a guy in his fifties. But the last thing I needed was him
to get into a dustup with a customer over a couple of questions and an order of pie.
“Pop me a side of fries, will you?” I pushed my hair behind my ears.
He made finger-gun motions and turned back to the grill.
I served up the pie, grabbed the coffee pot, and took that and the fries out to the table.
“Here you go, Detective…”
“Vandre. Simon Vandre.”
“…Vandre.” I placed his food on the table. “Anything else?”
The back door opened and Aggie walked in, Shelly right behind her.
I knew the moment he spotted Aggie, because he tightened up like he was ready to run, his fingertips pressed on the table as if it were a lifeline.
Aggie took a slightly wrong step and had to throw her arms out to catch herself. Then she glared at him, glared at me, and turned with a huff to help the customers at her table.
Okay, there had to be some kind of magic going on, right? The hand on the table thing? But I still couldn’t sense any magic at all.
Maybe Aggie was acting weird because he was part of her past? A bad part, if she had been telling me the truth. It didn’t take magic for people to have bad history.
“If you need something else,” I said. “Just let me know.”
He looked away from Aggie and sat back again. “I don’t suppose I could get some…”
Tabasco sauce…
Tabasco sauce…
Tabasco sauce…
“Sure thing, hang on.” I turned and pulled the tabasco sauce off of the empty table behind me and set it next to his fries. “Anything else?”
“Nope.” This time his smile was that of a canary-catching cat: satisfied. “That’s all I need.”
I wondered why he seemed so pleased with himself. Wondered if it had something to do with me, but another group sauntered in and it took four tables to get them all seated.
I kept an eye on Vandre as I worked. He didn’t do anything unusual, just ate his food, drank his drink, and scrolled on his phone, like everyone else.
Aggie was irritated he was here. I could tell by how she was stomping around. But she ignored him like they were in the finals of the biggest ignoring contest of the century.
He paid in cash, left a good tip, and strolled out of the diner like he didn’t have a worry in the world.
Aggie’s mood didn’t seem to improve after he left. I caught her snapping at the customers more than once.
And yeah, maybe I wouldn’t be in a good mood if my nosy ex-boss (stalker?) was hanging around my new job. But the customers didn’t deserve her irritation.
“Hey,” I said as we both arrived at the coffee station. “Why don’t you take a break?”
“Why don’t you stay out of my business? I don’t need you telling me what to do.”
Wow. So much for me extending the olive branch. She was obviously still worked up over Vandre.
She stormed off and almost poured hot coffee onto one of her customer’s shoes.
Buzz somehow saw that and walked out of the kitchen to tell her in a low, calm voice that she needed to go on break now. She glared at him but finally marched out the back door.
I rolled my eyes. It was clear she didn’t like Vandre in the diner, but he hadn’t caused any trouble and hadn’t looked at her more than once.
Was that how stalkers acted?
Or was that how a detective acted?
I didn’t know. I didn’t know if Aggie was behaving like a person being stalked by a detective either.
Really, she was right. Her life was none of my business, unless Vandre tried to do something harmful.
Maybe I’d suggest she could report him to the police again, just to remind her that ignoring him wasn’t her only option.
But for the rest of the evening my thoughts returned again and again to the dead man.
Jean was a police officer, and while I had never seen her be anything but friendly, it was possible she had made enemies, or at the very least, made people angry at her.
The list of suspects who might have wanted her to take the fall was endless.
Or maybe not that endless.
The killer had been at the diner. They had to be someone who knew about the thief (if he was a thief), and someone who didn’t like Jean.
Even though I didn’t believe in coincidences, it could have been a coincidence. The killer could have intended to kill Hugo, and Jean could have been at the wrong place at the wrong time.
To prove that, I’d have to know why someone wanted Hugo dead.
Who was he, other than a thief? (If he was a thief.)
And if he was a thief, what had he stolen worth killing for?