by Maisie Dean
The food at Rockburger wasn’t particularly good, but Lucky enjoyed the enchiladas. It was more of a habit than a conscious choice to go to out to Rockburger after a trying or successful day.
The stack of menus was tall on the hostess’s stand at the entrance of the restaurant, and they almost obscured the hostess from view. The petite and perky woman had dark eyes and dark curly black hair. She must have been about my age but half a head shorter. She stepped out from behind the podium and slid a menu off the top of the stack. They were either still sticky with an unknown substance or had been cleaned recently because they stuck together. I silently hoped for the latter.
“Welcome to Rockburger,” she said. “Lunch for one?”
“Yes. It’s just me,” I said.
I detected a southern drawl in the hostess’s voice. But it sounded like she was trying to cover it up. I didn’t recognize her as someone I’d seen working at Rockburger before. She had wide eyes and a beautiful face. She had an optimistic openness about her that brought me back to my early days in LA. Back when I was still determined to make it as an actress. The hostess, teetering in her black heels, led me to a table near the window and let me settle in before presenting the menu. I had to do an awkward dance with her to slide into the booth on the far side. A good investigator always has her eyes on the comings and goings.
When I scooted around the young woman and settled into my seat, I read her name tag. “Nina,” I asked. “Do you happen to know if Annie or Busty are here today? I’m a friend of theirs and I was hoping to see them.”
Nina made an interesting expression. It was half smile and half frown. “I’m real new. If they do work here, can’t say I know them yet. Sorry about that,” she said.
“No problem. Just wanted to check,” I said and smiled at her.
“Your server will be with you in a minute,” Nina said. She walked away from my table and over towards the double doors that swung into the kitchen. Next to the doors was the server’s station and the old computer they used to input the orders. I noticed a man standing there. He was looking at me. Nina walked up beside him and tapped something into the computer. Especially standing next to Nina, the man looked tall and wiry. He wore a black shirt and pants, and stood with his arms crossed. I couldn’t make out all of his details from where I sat, but it looked like he had a mop of hair the color of old straw and a rather bulbous nose. Nina’s lips moved as if she was speaking to him, but I couldn’t hear what she said. It looked like she made a motion over her shoulder in my direction but she didn’t turn around. The man nodded without taking his eyes off me and Nina returned to her place near the front door.
I picked up the menu and looked through it to give the illusion that I was simply there to eat, like a normal customer. The two-page spread obscured my view of the restaurant so I kept taking little peeks around the edges to make sure I hadn’t missed anyone coming or going from the front door. When I closed the menu I nearly jumped out of my seat. The tall, gangly man had appeared right beside me.
Up close I could see that my assessment from a distance had been pretty accurate. His dull, dirty blond hair fell across his forehead in a sheet that he kept pushing to the side. His eyes were wide and round, and bugged out slightly. He was tall, but not as tall as Harrison and Lucky. He had a slight stoop to his posture as if he wasn’t fully comfortable with his height. The end of his nose was bulbous, and it made his face look drawn.
His sudden appearance had gotten my heart beating fast in my chest.
“Oh my gosh,” I said.
“Sorry for startling you,” the man said. His voice was thin and nasal.
“It’s fine. It’s my bad. I’m jumpy today, I guess,” I said. “Are you my server?”
“Yes, my name is Neil. Are you looking for anything in particular?”
“No,” I said, a little too quickly. “I mean, I have been craving a Caesar salad.”
“You’ve come to the right place,” Neil said. He was standing right next to the booth bench I was seated on. I had to turn my neck uncomfortably to look up and speak to him.
“Great. I’ll take that and a glass of water, please,” I said.
Neil nodded. But he didn’t walk away to place my order. “Nina tells me you’re a friend of Busty and Annie. How...how do you know them?”
Busty had been right, this guy was wimpy. The way he spoke sounded like he was being coerced into saying each word. I had to come up with an answer and I decided that sticking with my original lie was the safest bet.
“I was actually kind of dropping in to thank them. I had an incident on their street the other day. I scratched my leg up pretty badly and Busty helped me out,” I said. “She spoke highly of her boss, which must be you, right?” It was a lie of course, but I was curious to see how Neil would react.
Neil’s head twitched and his brows knitted together. He crossed his arms and then uncrossed them again.
“That must be a mistake, she must have been joking around,” he said. “Busty hates me.” He said the last part more to himself than to me.
“I’m only repeating what she told me,” I said with a smile. My neck was still tight. Why wouldn’t he stand across from me like a normal person? Maybe he was keeping an eye on the front door as well...
I expected the increasingly awkward exchange to send wimpy Neil heading for the hills, but instead he stayed right where he was. Layers of a frown rippled across his face like he was trying to sort out a riddle.
“Are you sure it wasn’t Annie who said that?” he asked. His eyes opened wider and his lips twitched outward to resemble a smile. “Annie and I are essentially best friends, but Busty has never liked me.”
I opened my mouth to respond but Neil hadn’t finished. He wrung his hands together as he spoke.
“It’s too bad there’s no...you know, chemistry between Annie and me. If there was, and there isn’t, I might have asked her to marry me a year ago instead of getting involved with...well, never mind,” Neil said.
I nodded. I hadn’t expected him to talk so openly. In that moment he reminded me of one of those bulk bin dispensers when you don’t use it properly and a million cashews you can’t afford suddenly stream into your bag.
Neil’s cheeks suddenly reddened. He must have realized that discussing proposal plans to co-workers with a complete stranger wasn’t exactly on the Rockburger menu.
Neil cleared his throat. “What can I get for you again?”
I repeated my order of a Caesar salad and glass of water and then Neil skittered away back into the kitchen.
He was an odd man, that’s for sure. But he seemed too meek to be nefarious. Still, I wouldn’t be a very good detective if I judged a book on his cover.
My hands were sticky from the menu I’d been reading so I decided to head to the washroom and use the opportunity to look around with fresh eyes. I’d been to Rockburger lots of times, but it wasn’t a particularly memorable place. All of the booths looked the same, set against the deep burgundy red of the walls. Near the small hallway to the women’s washroom the seats of a few booths were joined by built-in planters. Robust tropical plants covered in a thin layer of dust cascaded from their enclosure as if they were trying to escape their dried-out dirt bed.
After giving my hands a good wash in the shallow bathroom sink, I caught sight of a corkboard on the wall that I presumed headed towards the kitchen and maybe a staff area. The board was full of outdated fliers, announcements, and an unclaimed, tortoiseshell hair clip pinned to the board. Next the to clip there was a photo. Against the burgundy backdrop of one of the Rockburger walls, stood Neil wearing a blue, pink, and yellow birthday hat. On either side of him stood Busty and Annie! I had to stop myself from groaning out loud. I had been so convinced I was right about Busty and Annie being the same person. But there they were, clear as day, both standing by Neil’s side. Busty was wearing fishnet tights with a ripped black skirt, and a black shirt that only went across one shoulder. She had her long black hair in
a messy braid over her right shoulder, and her dark eyeliner made her eyes pop. Busty wasn’t smiling, and her posture made the photo look awkward because she was leaning away from the other two. Annie, on Neil’s other side, smiled brightly and had her head leaning in towards her boss. She wore a pair of khaki pants and a conservative white blouse with light pink polka dots. Her features here plain, straight, and small. The middle part of her mousy brown hair was centered on the crown of her head.
I stared at the photo. Did this mean there was a real Busty? There would have to be. I quickly looked over my shoulder and around the corner into the restaurant. Neil was standing next to my table again with his back to me. In the far corner there was an older man opening a package of crackers for his soup, but that process was taking all of his attention. As quick as I could, I pulled out the push pin and shoved the photo into my purse.
When I got back to my table Neil gestured to the food he’d already placed there.
“Thanks,” I said.
Once again, he didn’t leave my side. Neil had developed two stains beneath his underarms that made the patches a few tones darker than the blue cotton dress shirt. His brow was also moist.
“Tell me again how you know Busty and Annie?” Neil said.
I took a sip of my water. I wasn’t sure if it was Neil’s proximity or the disappointment from being wrong about my theory, but I wasn’t feeling too well. My armpits prickled uncomfortably and my stomach clenched.
“I fell on their street last week. Busty brought me in…” I said.
Neil paced along the edge of the table mumbling to himself. The manager’s strange behavior made me instinctively look around the restaurant for witnesses and potential exits. The older man with the soup still sat over in the far corner of the room, but something told me he wouldn’t notice if Neil suddenly stabbed me with a fork or dragged me into the back.
I motioned to the mostly empty room. “How’s business been? Are you having a dry spell?”
Suddenly Neil slid in across from me at my booth.
His tone was urgent, and he spoke at a low volume like he was trying to prevent the entire restaurant from overhearing him. “I know you work for that...that detective agency,” Neil said. “If you’re going to go about it like this, we should work together. You shouldn’t keep secrets from me.”
I froze up and stared back at him. Keep secrets from him? Then something clicked.
“Were you the one who called me this morning?” I asked.
Neil looked away quickly, he was wringing his hands again. “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he said. He got up from the table and, finally, walked away. He disappeared around the corner at the back and I didn’t see him again. I took a few minutes to drink my water and pick at the edges of my salad, but it was no use. My theory was ruined and so was my appetite.
CHAPTER 15
I arrived back at the office at about one in the afternoon.
My exchange with Neil had left me with a gnawing feeling inside. It was half from the uncertainty around the case and half because I was still hungry for lunch. I’d left most of the Caesar salad behind in order to get out of Rockburger as soon as I could.
I pushed through the glass door into the foyer that Doyle’s Diner and the Bookers shared. The warm, greasy smell unwound some of the tension in my stomach and I found myself heading into the restaurant instead of back up to the office.
I was surprised to see Harrison standing at the cash register handing over a few bills to Doyle. Doyle was wearing a white tee shirt with the restaurant’s fifties-inspired logo. There were a couple of old scorch marks and some fresh mustard stains.
“Kacey,” Harrison said, by way of a greeting.
“Hi, Kacey, it’s been a while since I’ve seen you down here. Working hard lately?”
My gaze flicked over to Harrison’s face. I had been working hard. Maybe too hard. I seemed to be making everything worse.
“We’ve got a rather confusing case,” Harrison offered in my silence. He raised his eyebrows at me as if to ask me what was wrong.
I nodded. “Just one of those weeks,” I told him. It was vague, kind of like the way I felt about the case.“Could I get a BLT to take upstairs, please?”
Doyle scratched the order down on a yellow slip and slid it into the busy kitchen. The restaurant was hopping. Harrison and I had to step aside for two people to come pick up take out orders. They both looked incredibly fit and were wearing bike shorts.
“Isn’t it great?” Doyle asked after the bike shorts had gone. “I signed up for one of those apps that deliver food. It’s bringing in serious business.” Doyle beamed. There wasn’t much that made him as ecstatic as solid business. His expressive face and comically curled moustache always made me feel better. A bell dinged and my sandwich appeared on the stainless steel shelf. Doyle passed it over.
“Two pickles?” I asked. I took off the top piece of rye bread to peek inside.
Doyle’s brows pulled together and he crossed his arms. “Of course, Kacey,” he said. “As if I don’t know your pickle preference by now.” Doyle’s feigned irritation faded quickly and he smiled again.
“Thanks, Doyle,” I said.
“Enjoy! Go get back to stopping those bad guys, both of you,” Doyle said.
Harrison held open the door to the foyer and followed me up the stairs and back into the office. When I’d had the chance to take a few bites of my sandwich, Harrison swiveled his desk chair to face my desk.
“How did it go at Rockburger?” he said.
I swallowed a particularly dry section and had to hold up my finger while I fished my water bottle from my purse. I also pulled out the photograph I’d stolen from the restaurant’s bulletin board and walked it over to Harrison.
“Not great,” I said. “It looks like I was wrong about Busty being Annie.”
I placed the photo in front of Harrison. He scratched his chin. “It was a crazy idea, anyway. This is an insurance dispute. They’re much more cut and dried. Less Hollywood.”
Harrison’s tone was neutral, but his words stung. It had been my foolish, dramatic idea. And now we were farther from the truth instead of closer to it.
I cleared my throat. “There’s something strange going on with that manager, Neil,” I said.
“That’s not unusual. He and the restaurant will be the ones to lose if this claim goes in Annie’s favor,” Harrison said.
I squeezed my eyes shut to try and get my thoughts in order. “I know, but it seems like something more than that. What he’s saying doesn’t add up,” I said.
I told Harrison about the weird phone call I’d received and the way Neil had clammed up and left when I asked him about it. We decided to keep a closer eye on the way Neil was dealing with the claim, and Harrison asked me to be sure to tell him if the office received any more disguised phone calls.
The two of us spent the rest of the afternoon making our way through all the administrative business that needed tending to. Harrison wasn’t as entertaining or as silly an office partner as Owen or Lucky, but he had a calm and determined energy about him that made the work move quickly and efficiently.
***
Our serene working environment was disrupted by a loud ring on the office phone line at the end of the work day.
Harrison picked up. “Booker Brothers...Oh, hi Lucky,” he said. He reached over the black phone based and pressed a button. Lucky’s voice suddenly filled the room.
He was putting on an old film noir detective–style accent. “I’m still in front of the claimant’s house, nothing to report there, but we do have a situation,” Lucky’s disembodied voice said. He dropped the accent and continued. “A next door neighbor slipped a note onto our car. It requests that we meet at her house at six. I still haven’t seen Annie-Busty or Busty-Annie, so I can’t leave my post.”
“That theory’s been laid to rest, actually. Busty is her own person,” I said, loud enough for the phone to pick out my voice.”
Harrison checked his watch. “I should be able to make it if I leave now,” he said.
“Okay, go. I’ll talk to you later. Bye, Kacey!” Lucky said.
The line went dead before I could respond. Harrison began organizing his desk and slipping his suit jacket off the back of the chair.
“We’re done for the day now, you’re welcome to head home now,” Harrison said.
I picked up my purse and shut down the computer at my desk. “I’m happy to come along,” I offered.
Harrison hesitated and then spoke. “I...can’t pay you any overtime. It’s not in the budget, even for me—”
“Don’t worry about it,” I told him. “If I can help make up for nearly derailing the case with my wacky alter-ego theory, I owe it to you anyway,” I said. “Plus this case has gotten under my skin. I want to see it through.”
“Okay, suit yourself,” Harrison said. The two of us did a quick sweep around the office, turning off the lights and pushing in our desk chairs. There seemed to be a lightness, a bounce to Harrison’s step that wasn’t usually there.
“Unless you’d rather go alone…” I said.
Harrison was flicking off his desk lamp and he turned around quickly to face me.
“No, no. It’ll be a nice change of pace to have the company,” Harrison said.
“Do you not usually have company at this time of day?” I said coyly. For some reason I held my breath. There wasn’t anything wrong with my remark. It was after work hours, after all.
Harrison paused and seemed to be searching for something to say, but then he flashed me a wide Booker smile and gave a small laugh.
I let out my breath.