Marissa gazed wistfully at a particular blouse before leaving the store. She got back into her car and headed for Columbus.
As his mother, Marissa knew that Zach had an odd sense of humor and a vivid imagination. It was possible that he’d been exaggerating or making the incident up whole-cloth, but the details he provided seemed to be too real, even for his imagination.
When Marissa pulled her VW Rabbit into the diner’s parking lot, she knew Zach had been telling the truth. While she’d never admit it to Dan, she’d given Zack a phone to use just for this visit so that she could track his location via GPS. She had been concerned that Dan wasn’t up to the task of taking proper care of his son. After all, he only saw Zach on rare occasions. But she didn’t want Dan to think she was spying on him.
She used that GPS tracker to find the diner. Rather than confess she was monitoring her son’s location, she decided she would lie if she needed to and say she was familiar with the place. That wasn’t the only thing she wouldn’t be upfront about. Marissa had spent the last thirty miles coming up with a game plan.
Back in Cincinnati, she dated Gavin Tish, a homicide detective with the Hamilton County police. Because of Gavin’s connections, Marissa had been able to protect herself and Zach when she solved crimes. Here in Franklin County, she wouldn’t have the same resources. The police here would have every reason to ignore her and no reason to listen to her suggestions.
If she was going to help Dan get out of the mess he was in, she would have to talk to the staff at the diner. With any luck, Dan and Zach could enjoy a few hours of Father’s Day quality time before she and their son had to make the long trip back to Cincinnati.
Dan’s Mercedes Benz was parked at the far end of the lot. Marissa pulled up next to his car. She tried not to calculate how much it had cost him. He was likely trying to pamper himself with new things because he wasn’t dating much since moving to Columbus.
Zach was still in the car, but she spied Dan about ten feet away talking to a uniformed police officer. She opened the door to the luxury car and unbuckled Zach, who wrapped his arms around his mother. She lived for moments like this, when he still needed and wanted her. She knew that in a few years, Mother’s Day and Father’s Day would be reduced to a store-bought card and a gift card to a local store.
Still carrying Zach, she approached her ex-husband and the officer. “What’s going on here?” she asked, trying to force a smile on her face.
Dan finally paid attention to the fact that she’d arrived, turning to stare at her. “How did you—?” he started.
Marissa was trying to form an answer when Zach saved her. “I called Mommy,” he said matter-of-factly, as if he called her whenever there was a crime to be solved.
“Is Dan free to go?” Marissa asked, not waiting for an introduction. “I’d hate for him to miss out on the time with his son.” Marissa strongly emphasized the words “his son,” trying to play on the officer’s emotions.
“That’s not how investigations work, ma’am. He has to give a statement with the homicide division,” the officer said. “Most of the other customers make a break for it, but your husband stuck around.”
“Ex-husband,” Dan and Marissa said, almost in harmony.
“I understand how investigations work,” Marissa told him with a smile. “I date a homicide detective back in Cincinnati.” She gave the man Gavin’s contact information.
Dan gave her an odd look. Marissa wasn’t sure of its meaning. Granted that she usually didn’t mention Gavin in front of Dan, but in this case, she wanted to share her credentials. She was concerned that Dan had blundered his way into a situation that he couldn’t handle. He was not exactly known for his finesse in difficult situations, and she wanted to spare him any suspicion that might fall on him.
“Let’s go through this again,” the officer said. “You ordered your meals.”
Dan nodded. “We ordered. Zach’s meal came out first. He started eating. He got to a point where he was almost done, and I still didn’t have my food. So I went to check on the waitress.”
“And where did you go?” the officer asked, taking down a few notes.
“No one was taking care of customers, so I went through the swinging doors. That’s when I saw the waitress on the floor. She was having convulsions of some sort.”
“You just barged into the kitchen of a restaurant?” The officer was still writing, but his tone sounded dubious.
“Dan has a patience problem,” Marissa chipped in, knowing her words to be the truth and the whole truth.
“Uh-huh,” the officer said as he continued to write. Marissa took that to mean that he now understood why they were no longer married.
She handed Zach off to Dan, who was grateful for the obstacle now between him and the police.
“It sounds like it could be poison,” Marissa chimed in, thinking this had to be the oddest Father’s Day outing in the history of the world. “She was young?” Marissa was only guessing on this point.
“Twenty-three, according to her license,” the uniformed policeman said. “So yeah, probably something she ate or drank.”
“Have you bagged up any of the food in the kitchen yet? I wouldn’t want anyone to be served a potentially lethal meal.” Marissa was being helpful on the surface, but actually she was hoping to be invited back to the kitchen to see for herself.
Either the woman had her own stash of food back in the kitchen area, or she had taken a nibble from someone’s plate. If the former, it would be a crime limited to the staff of the diner. If it were the latter, then the field of potential killers would be reduced to whoever touched the food, perhaps only the chef. Yet that would beg the question, had the intended victim been a customer or the waitress? The chef couldn’t have possibly known that the waitress would steal a bite off the plate. It would be her own bad luck.
“Not yet. Mr. Scott, would you mind coming back to the kitchen with us and showing us where everyone was standing when you walked in? The body’s been moved, so there’s nothing there that could upset you,” the officer said as if the body had been the only upsetting thing he’d seen.
Marissa watched Dan trying to steel himself for the ordeal. He passed Zach back to her. The whole concept of a young woman dying was upsetting. Marissa knew that Dan would comply. He tended to follow directions, but he was also likely to lose it once there. Marissa opted to follow along behind the two men as they headed to the kitchen. Zach was on her hip as they made their way through crime tape and various crime techs.
Marissa was surprised at how small the prep area was. There was barely enough room for the three of them. The counters took up a great deal of space on one side. On the other side were the refrigerators and storage. Behind the counters were the stoves and cooktops.
Marissa looked back into the kitchen area, but she couldn’t see anything that appeared to be unusual or out of place. The kitchen looked like so many others at so many other restaurants.
She’d worked at a sit-down restaurant for about three weeks during college. The hours and the demands of the customers had made her switch to retail as fast as she could find a position. The experience had helped prepare her for her career at Kantor’s Department Store, where she now worked as a manager in the cosmetics department. Looking around the space, she didn’t regret her choices for a minute.
Several orders sat on the counter, ready for pick-up. She looked at each plate one at a time, staring at it from every side, but not touching anything. The food was not marked by waitress or order, so the chances of one of the three hamburgers being chosen to poison a customer seemed small unless the plan had been to poison a random person. The more likely delivery method for murder would have been something in the foods that Carrie had either brought or set aside for herself.
Marissa’s stomach growled, reminding her that she’d missed out on lunch. She’d rushed to get Zach, skipping the peaceful sit-down meal she’d planned for herself. She wondered how long it would be before Dan wo
uld be allowed to leave.
Her ex-husband took his time, pointing to each spot and telling the officer whom he’d seen back here. There had been two cooks behind the counter, both staring at the woman on the floor. There had been a male manager, two waitresses, and another woman together in the small walkway, one of them bending down to help Carrie.
So it boiled down to one of six people, unless Carrie had done harm to herself. Marissa was sure that the police would be able to establish motive and means soon enough and find the guilty party. Her assistance was not particularly needed here, especially since she wanted to get home.
The officer finally escorted them to the seating area. “Thanks, you’re free to go. We have your number if we have any other questions.”
Marissa knew that the man must have come to the same conclusions that she had. The murder had been an internal affair, although it had been witnessed by outsiders. She wondered what the story would have been if Dan hadn’t seen the death throes of the woman. Did they all know who was responsible or were they as much in the dark as she was?
Out in the parking lot, Dan stood next to his sports car. “Hey, do you want to get something to eat? Zach had his meal, but I haven’t eaten, and I’m sure you haven’t either.” Marissa gave him points for not mentioning that everyone had heard her stomach earlier.
Zach seemed fine with the situation.
“Sure,” she said.
“Not a diner though,” Dan said.
~*~
They found a chain restaurant about three exits closer to Columbus. Marissa had driven all of them since Dan’s new car couldn’t seat three comfortably. They pulled into the parking lot, and the Rabbit shuddered as she turned it off.
The clatter of dishes and the mindless chatter of the TV sets didn’t bother Marissa in the slightest. After the overwhelming silence of the diner, it felt good to be assaulted with the white noise of daily life. She ordered a steak and potato, assuming that Dan would pay the bill. After all, he had invited her to dinner.
Once they’d ordered, Dan brought up the murder again. “So who do you think did it?”
Her mouth dropped open at the question. She wasn’t a fictional detective who could come up with a solution to the crime based on the tilt of the top of the hamburger bun.
“No idea,” she said quietly. “I only was there for a few minutes.”
“But you have some ideas,” he said.
Sometimes she hated being around Dan. He knew her that well, but they weren’t involved with each other. It’s like giving a stranger a key to your home where they can become familiar with your life.
“Of course,” she said. She stole a glance at Zach, who seemed content to draw on the placemat. Marissa had kept her interactions with the police away from Zach as much as possible. She didn’t want him to grow up thinking life was like an episode of Murder She Wrote.
Dan looked at Zach and then at her. “He’s not listening. Trust me, he hasn’t listened all day.”
“You’d be surprised what he hears. He doesn’t always comment, but he’s observant. And at this age, he will tell you everything he knows at the drop of a hat.”
“Okay, so we were eating lunch there. I thought it would be fun to try something different.”
In reality, Marissa took that as evidence that he hadn’t made any reservations or prep work for the afternoon. Typical, but not unexpected. “So who all was there?” She took her own placemat, turned it over and grabbed an orange crayon, knowing that it was Zach’s least favorite color. “What did the customers look like at the diner? Describe them in detail. Nothing is too small.” Even though she suspected the staff, it was conceivable that one of the customers could be involved. Marissa knew from experience that Dan could describe a woman’s apparel as “blue” so she couldn’t stress the details enough.
She sketched out the tables as best she could from Dan’s descriptions. Dan and Zach had been at the third booth with the two closest to the door being filled by a couple with children and an older woman by herself, respectively.
“The couple looked unhappy,” Dan said, but when pushed he couldn’t come up with a better term for it. Like us? she’d wanted to ask, but since he was helping, she tried to be gracious. Mid-30s, the woman was attractive. Dan repeated that three times, so she must have caught his eye. The man wore a button-down and khakis, which Dan had called Dockers. Marissa was pretty sure that nobody much wore those anymore, but Dan was trying to be precise.
The two kids had been a boy and a girl, who both looked to be under ten but school aged. This, Marissa knew, was a questionable assertion. Dan’s friends now were mostly childless, and he had no dealings with children except for Zach and his friends.
Dan had taken his time describing the older woman. She was exotic looking, but sick—very sick. “She was wearing a track suit or something like that. A scarf around her head. Definitely dressed for comfort. She barely spoke. She ate and left before the action started.”
Past them, only the one booth was filled. A younger man had come in and sat down, without waiting for the hostess to seat him. Dan said that he looked comfortable, which Marissa thought meant his attitude and not his clothing. Dan had described his outfit as jeans and a Henley. Marissa gave him props for actually knowing what the shirt was called.
“Now the kitchen,” Marissa said.
Dan described the kitchen and prep area, down to the placement of the plates as they became ready to serve, and the various refrigerators and accessories. Marissa sketched all that out as well and slid it across the table. “Is this what you saw?” she asked. Who knew that her college sketching classes would come in so handy?
Dan made a couple of minor changes to the layout of the kitchen area and nodded. “That’s about right.”
Marissa took a red crayon and made a check next to the booth where Dan and Zach had sat. “You stayed around afterwards,” she said. “And who else?”
“The family with the kids and the older woman were both gone by the time I came back out of the kitchen area. She left first, before I went back to the kitchen. The family must have left while I was back there. I think they heard one of the waitresses say something to me, and they left before the police arrived. They didn’t want to wait around for questions.”
“Or they didn’t have to wait around to be accused of murder,” Marissa stated as she thought about the layout. “There were swinging doors behind the register that led to the kitchen area. Did you see anyone go back there – besides the staff?”
Dan shook his head. “Not a soul, but then again, I was trying to focus more on Zach than the waitresses.”
Marissa nodded. She was always astounded when fathers thought that watching the kids deserved a ribbon. Most mothers did that and a million things at once. Even so, it was a step in the right direction, given that last year Dan had made plans with his friends on Father’s Day.
“Those doors are loud and noticeable. So I’m thinking the customers didn’t go back to kitchen area. If a customer had killed her, they would have had to do it out in the restaurant section rather than the kitchen. That’s a long shot. Waitresses don’t eat on the floor, and they’re not likely to take food from a stranger.”
“So you’re thinking it was a member of the staff?” Dan kept watching Zach to see if the boy was paying attention, but he was too busy tracing his way through a maze on the placemat to be bothered with their conversation.
“Well, it would have to be, right? Besides, it could be a workplace disagreement or a romance gone wrong or one of a million things.” Marissa thought of the squabbles at work that varied from stealing sales to cliques. None of those things were worthy of killing another person, but she’d long since given up trying to understand why some people feel that the best way to solve a problem was the elimination of another person.
Dan shrugged. “No worries, I’m sure. The police will have this solved in a few days.”
~*~
However, nearly three weeks passed be
fore Marissa heard about the case again. She’d gone out to dinner with Gavin. She was a little shocked when he broached the subject, given that he had no jurisdiction in the matter.
“They arrested the mother who was with the family group,” Gavin said without preamble. Marissa always found it remarkable that she could pick up a conversation in mid-stream with this man, even though he only gave her the smallest of hints sometimes. They’d been discussing a possible movie for the weekend when he’d thrown out that comment.
“They’re wrong,” Marissa said plainly. “Could we take Zach with us? I’m not sure about getting another sitter, and I want to spend time with him this weekend.”
“Sure, there’s a Disney film at the multiplex, and why are they wrong?” he replied as he filled his mouth with baked potato.
“How were they supposed to have done it?” Marissa asked.
“The ME found signs of cyanide. The police bagged up most of the items in the kitchen area, and they’re all being tested, but nothing has come up positive yet.”
Marissa was surprised to hear that cyanide had been used. It seemed more like an old-fashioned mystery where the Victorian heroine was made ill with the poison. In all fairness, the crime had happened in a diner, so perhaps time had stood still for them.
She had read about women who had used arsenic as a beauty treatment, a way to improve their skin and tone. The thought of that made her cringe, knowing what they did about arsenic today.
“It just doesn’t make sense,” she said. “Dan said that no one went back behind the counter into the kitchen. So how would a customer get a waitress to eat something?” Marissa didn’t like to bring up her ex’s name in front of Gavin, especially when it involved her believing something that he’d said. The man had not proven to be reliable with his word over the years, and both of them knew it.
Gavin shrugged, and his expression said that he wished he’d never mentioned the case over dinner. He was more focused on the protocol and her interference as a hindrance to his career than he was about Marissa’s ideas regarding a crime. She’d tried to keep her sleuthing to a minimum since they’d begun dating, but some cases were just over the top.
Happy Homicides 4: Fall Into Crime: Includes Happy Homicides 3: Summertime Crimes Page 92