The stack of orders was high. I grabbed the first one, which called for a chicken-fried steak and a side of corncakes. That sounded good to me, so I made two of the steaks and two orders of cakes. I set one steak and cakes up on the order window and ate the other. Then I began filling orders as fast as I could. I grew faster as the night wore on, noticing that some of my movements—the way I breaded the catfish in cornmeal and the way I pulled biscuits from the oven—were the same movements I’d seen Miss Irene do over the years. I still wasn’t near as fast as she was, but I was improving. The trick, I realized, was to channel Miss Irene.
Three hours and dozens of orders later, Checker Cab locked the door behind the last customer, flipped the closed sign, and dimmed the lights. Instead of thanking me, he said, “Now what? I got all this mess and your mom’s not here to clean it up. What am I s’pposed to do?”
I told him to go home and go to bed. He gave me five twenty-dollar bills and left while I stayed behind and cleaned. It took me three hours—at least two hours longer than I thought it would. I wiped, swept, mopped, scraped, soaked, washed, and rinsed. It was near midnight when I locked up and left.
I was tired of cleaning and tired of thinking about Mom while I cleaned. I knew she was better at this kind of work than me. She would have laughed at the way I’d swept the floor before wiping off the tables, which meant I had to sweep twice. My one night of cleaning the restaurant taught me how hard she’d worked every night for all my life.
Even though I was beat, I didn’t feel like going home. I drove to Azura’s house, got out of Mom’s Jeep, and leaned against it. Maybe Azura wanted me, but the rest of the house wished I’d go away. As if in answer to my thoughts, the porch light clicked on and the front door opened. Azura’s father stepped into the open doorway, staring my direction. He didn’t walk toward me. He didn’t even step out onto the porch.
I was tense, standing by Mom’s old Jeep, staring at that fancy house. But as he stood on in the doorway of his million-dollar house and stared at my two thousand-dollar car, that rich man seemed at least as edgy. I slowly realized that Azura’s dad was afraid of me. I smiled. I was an unknown quantity to him. He came from a world of neckties until five o’clock and polo shirts until ten, while I walked around in sagged jeans and wifebeaters. His world was all conversations and cocktails. Mine was fistfights and forty-ouncers. Maybe that’s why Mr. Lear hadn’t come and talked to me himself. He’d sent four big guys on his behalf. Now he wouldn’t even step toward me. I wanted to lunge at this millionaire just to see if he’d flinch.
A part of me wanted to reason with Mr. Lear—to reassure him that I wasn’t going to steal his daughter from him. But what could I say that this man would care about? Should I tell him my mom died? That I was turning to Azura for a little comfort? That she might be turning to me for the same thing? He’d have no sympathy for me and just slightly more for his own daughter. The only thing that might appease Mr. Lear would be for him and me to acknowledge what we both knew—that it wouldn’t last. That it didn’t matter how much Azura and I connected. That the addresses of our neighborhoods were just too far apart. I wished it wasn’t true, then climbed into the Jeep and drove south.
A few blocks later my phone buzzed. I parked, pulled out the phone, and read a text from Azura.
Thanks for coming by.
Almost made it to the front door, I texted back.
Daddy doesn’t love you.
I got that sense.
Anyone beat you up because of me today?
Not today, I replied.
I must be losing my touch.
I wouldn’t worry about that.
Anything new about your mom?
I texted her about my conversation with Carlyle from the day before, about how Mom was almost certainly murdered—poisoned with cyanide. I told her about Carlyle’s certainty of Miss Irene as the prime suspect.
What do you think? Azura asked.
I can’t believe Miss Irene would have done it.
Why do the cops suspect her?
Because Miss Eye and Mom were fighting. And because Miss Eye has run away.
Why’d she run?
No idea.
Are you just wishing that she is innocent?
Maybe, I replied. Miss Irene was like a second mother to me. I wanted her back in my life. If there was one woman I’d like to talk to about Mom and about what I should do, it was Miss Eye. I wanted to think she was hurting as much as I was—and missing Mom as much. I needed Miss Irene to be innocent and available.
At ten o’clock the next morning, my phone rang. It was a man named Wayne Carter calling from Allied Allstar Drivers’ Academy, one of the businesses Mom used to clean. He said he got my number from my mom’s original job application, which listed me as an emergency contact.
“And you have an emergency?” I asked.
“Not in the usual sense,” said Wayne, “but my office is a mess and I need someone to clean it. Any chance you’d know someone?”
I lied and said that I might be interested, then lied some more and told him how much experience I had cleaning with my mom. He asked if I could come over and talk to him.
An hour later, I parked in front of the Allied Allstar Drivers’ Academy. It was on the north side of Sixth Avenue, about a half mile west of Shotgun Shack, in my favorite part of Tacoma, where restaurants, barbers, coffee shops, and small businesses filled every storefront on both sides of the street for blocks. Allied Allstar was another typical storefront, stuck between a clean tattoo parlor called House of Tattoo and an upscale tavern called Crown Bar. The driving school consisted of a couple of classrooms, a waiting area where some of the furniture actually matched, and a small office behind the reception desk. The door beeped when I stepped inside and a man’s voice from the office told me that someone would be with me in just a minute.
While I waited, I looked at a large corkboard hung on the waiting-area wall. The board was covered in photographs and pushpins. Each photo was a picture of a driver standing next to a car and holding a certificate. Most of the drivers were teenagers, looking young, well-groomed, and happy. I’m pretty sure I never looked as young as the kids in those photos.
I searched the photos on the slim chance that I might find a picture of Azura. I found one. I recognized the car first—her shiny Lexus coupe. The photo couldn’t be more than a few months old, but the girl looked different than the one I knew—smiling so wildly that I knew she’d been caught in a laugh.
Near the back of the car stood a person that had been cropped mostly out of the photo. It was a woman, but the edge of the photo stopped where her face would have begun. The half-woman was wearing a work uniform, as if she’d just stepped out of her job at a discount department store. Did Azura actually have a friend who held down a retail job? I pulled the photo from the board and slipped it into my pocket.
A few seconds later, Wayne Carter came out from the office with a stack of forms in his hands and a frazzled look on this face. “You can probably see why I called,” Wayne said. He motioned around the waiting room, where a trash container was overflowing with candy bar wrappers and crumpled Coke cans. The carpets needed vacuuming. “My customers are mostly high school kids who expect the world to pick up after them. Little slobs.”
“My mom cleaned for you every night?”
“Sunday through Thursday,” Wayne said. He was a thin man with sharp cheekbones, a messy rim of hair around a mostly bald head and a severe five o’clock shadow. He wore fingerless gloves on his hands and reminded me of Bob Cratchit from A Christmas Carol. Wayne held his stack of forms up to his chin for a few seconds. “Listen, kid. I’m really sorry about your mom. If this is too much for you to take on in your what-do-you-call-it—your moment of grief—I totally understand. It’s just that I’m a bit desperate.”
“Were you here on that last night—the last night my mom cleaned f
or you?”
“I saw her come in on my way out. We passed each other in the parking lot. Eve was a super nice person, you know? She may have just been the cleaning lady—you understand what I mean when I say that, right?—but she always had a smile on her face. And she always did a little bit extra. Sometimes she’d put fresh flowers on the desk there. And I mean fresh like she picked them from someone’s yard that same day, with a few weeds and a few bugs included. Sometimes it was just a little note to me. She ever write you notes? Last week she left me one that said, ‘Drive safe. Be sure to check your rearview mirror.’ Kinda cute. Maybe a little bit silly. But, you know, every morning, I always looked around the office for one of those notes.”
“Did anything seem weird that last night?”
“Hmm. Not sure. Like I said, I just passed her in the parking lot. She still smiled and said hello, but maybe she was a bit off. Like she was tired or something. Was she sick?”
“Not that I know of.”
He scrunched up his nose, as if he just smelled sour milk. “Do you, uhh, know what she died of?”
“She was poisoned.”
“As in?”
“As in cyanide. As in murdered.”
“Jee-zuz. Who would murder a nice lady like that?”
“That’s the question. Did you let her into the building?”
“No, she had her own key. I probably need to get that back. You wouldn’t know what happened to that key, would you?”
I shook my head no, but could feel the weight of Mom’s keychain in my pocket. “Listen,” I said, “I don’t think I can clean your office for you—”
Wayne frowned. “Oh, no. You sure?”
“—but I might be interested in taking driving classes. How much do they cost?”
The frown crept up toward smile territory. “We’re running a special right now for three hundred and forty-five dollars.”
“That much, huh?”
“I’ll make you a deal if you do some cleaning for me. We could barter. I’m desperate.”
“I—I just don’t think I’m emotionally ready to take it on. During my moment of grief.” I left, got in Mom’s Jeep, and drove away. One of these days, I probably needed to get a license.
Eleven
Thirty minutes later, Detective Carlyle called, asking if he could buy me lunch. At my suggestion, we met at Pho Bac for more noodle soup. Carlyle and I arrived at the same time. We took a table against the wall, below a brown-toned oil painting that I always assumed was a herd of stampeding horses. It was hard to be sure. The painting looked like it was accidentally abstract.
Mae, one of the tiny women who ran Pho Bac, brought two small porcelain cups and a stainless steel pot of tea to our table. “Hi Seth. How are you today?”
“I’m okay, Mae, considering. How are you?”
Mae smiled and nodded without answering. She said, “What your friend want?” I shrugged. Carlyle asked what was good and muttered along for a few seconds until I ordered for him. “Give him a small rare and a Vietnamese coffee.” Mae nodded and walked away.
“Aren’t you eating?” asked Carlyle.
“Mae knows my order.”
Carlyle studied the horse painting, then said, “When I was your age, I always thought it would be cool to become a regular at a restaurant. So that when I walked in, the waiter would say, ‘Hey, Carlyle, you want your same-old today?’ I’d nod and the waiter would bring me my food—maybe even sit down and join me for a meal every now and then. I’ve gone to the same diners and the same bars ever since, ordering the same crappy food every time I go in. I’ve been going to the Breakneck Bar and Grill on South Twelfth for at least ten years. Every time I go in, I get a mushroom burger with no mayo and a side salad with blue cheese dressing. That’s it. I’ve ordered that same mushroom burger and side salad at least a hundred times. But each time I walk in, it’s like I’ve never been there before. They still screw up the mayo at least half the time. And I don’t want ranch dressing. I want blue cheese. Now here you are—how old are you? Sixteen? And you’re already such a regular here that they don’t even ask what you want. They just bring it.” He looked at the painting again. “Not that this is much of a restaurant.”
I shrugged. “Wait until you taste the soup.”
“Okay. Okay. Fair enough.” Carlyle slowly poured out two cups of tea. “Seth, I’m getting the feeling you’re not taking my advice.”
I sipped my tea.
Carlyle continued: “I asked you not to get involved with your mom’s investigation. Against my better judgment, I even did what you requested—I went around personally to all the other businesses your mom worked at that last night, to see if there was any chance another suspect might show up—one that might somehow—in some miraculous way—look like a better suspect than Irene Dunlop. Guess what I found out?”
I took another sip of tea, because I didn’t know what else to do.
“I found out that I wasn’t the only one asking around,” Carlyle said. “Turns out another detective is on the case. One that would be better off if he went back to school.”
Between sips, I said, “You must mean either Dix or Chambers. Both of those guys could benefit from a little continuing education.”
“No argument. But Seth, you need to stay out of this thing. This is serious business. Your mom was murdered. Whoever did that has already proved they’re capable of taking a life. They’re going to be desperate. And they’re going to be dangerous.”
“I can take care of myself.”
“No doubt you think you can. But this isn’t some dust-up on the playground. This is homicide.”
“I get it. So what’d you find?”
Carlyle frowned. “I found that your mom cleaned the church as scheduled, then went to the driving school, then Shotgun Shack, then on to Nadel’s clock shop, all as scheduled. Then she was seen leaving Nadel’s clock shop, as witnessed by the bartender at the tavern across the street. I found that she was seen earlier in the evening having a heated argument with Irene Dunlop at Shotgun Shack. I found that she’d had numerous arguments with Irene Dunlop over recent months, some of them described as, and this is a quote, ‘vicious as two alley cats.’ I found that Irene Dunlop has still not been seen since the day following the murder—that she insomuch as abandoned the restaurant she worked at nearly every day without fail for more than a dozen years.”
My cell phone rang. I ignored it. “She’ll show up.”
“I hope you’re right. Because when she does, we’ll arrest her. We’ve issued an APB for her arrest. She’s our suspect, Seth. All signs point to her. Sorry if that’s hard for you to hear, but that’s simply the way this one is going. I’ve been a cop for almost twenty years and this is as clear-cut a case as I’ve seen. Irene Dunlop killed your mom.”
“No, she didn’t.”
“You are a young man of great faith. I can appreciate that. But I’ve got a nose for this kind of thing and my nose is certain about this one.”
Mae came over to the table with two steaming bowls of soup, but I’d suddenly lost my appetite.
“So that’s that,” said Carlyle. “And it also means you get possession of your mother’s remains.”
I left the restaurant, wondering whether or not Miss Irene was guilty and wondering what the hell I was supposed to do with the remains of my mother—the hundred-or-so pounds of flesh and bones—all that was left behind of her complicated life.
Twelve
In Mom’s Jeep, I checked the message on my cell phone. It was from Pastor Vandegrift, saying he was available to talk. I drove to the church. Diane Niebauer was wearing a black turtleneck sweater that made her look like a cross between a chubby soccer mom and a commando. “Seth, right?” I nodded. “How are you doing, honey? Stupid question, huh? Pastor V said you might be coming by. Hold on a sec.” She spoke briefly into the phone, then smiled
toward the pastor’s office door.
Pastor Vandegrift stood up from behind an old metal desk when I entered. He was a few inches taller than me and fifty pounds heavier. His hair was black on top and gray on the sides, as if he’d run out of hair dye halfway through the job. His face was red and fleshy. He smiled when I came in. His smile calmed my nerves so much I think I might have sighed out loud.
We exchanged greetings. I told him that I was investigating my mom’s death.
“Seems like a good idea.” He sat down in his chair and laid both hands flat on his desk, as if he were preparing for me to inspect his fingernails.
“What seems good about it?” I said.
“You’re looking for answers. I’m a big fan of looking for answers. That’s what I do for a living.”
“You found any?”
“I have. Yes. But only a few. Because there are only a few. Everything else is just more speculation and more questions. So you’ll have a hard job—this trying to find answers. Needles. Haystacks. All that. But it’s still a worthwhile endeavor. And, hey, Seth, even if you don’t find anything, I think it will help you come to terms.”
“That’s not why I’m doing it.”
“You may not think so, but it’s part of it. Your mom died. She left you alone. You’re trying to make sense of the whole thing. Some people go to the family cabin to think about the good old days, some visit monasteries to contemplate God and the universe, some thumb through old photo albums. You investigate your mother’s murder. It’s really not all that different.”
I wanted to shift the conversation. “Did you see her? On her last night?”
“I did, actually. We had an elders’ meeting here that evening. It ran late. I was just leaving when I heard Eve’s keys in the lock. I opened the door and made her jump. I didn’t mean to. Then she came in and I left.”
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