Spaghetti, Meatballs, & Murder

by Beth Byers

  Mattie was drinking a cup of coffee, but she looked up and said, “Jane had to get to the office. They open early.”

  I nodded and crossed to my fridge. I didn’t really want to eat, but I knew if I didn’t my body would betray me. I pulled out the blender and decided to make one of those green smoothies Jane praised me for. It wasn’t like I had them every day. I didn’t. I had them a few days a week. I ate pancakes at least once a week and had BLTs far more often than I should. I wasn’t a saint, but I wasn’t diabetic.

  I made the green smoothie and slapped it on the table in front of Mattie.

  “I want pancakes,” she said, making a sad face.

  “We’ll get diabetes. Jane will give us insulin and then not stick up for us, and we’ll get arrested,” I told Mattie. “You were there too. You could have poisoned the kid.”

  “I have to work. And Simon is mean when he gets angry. He’ll get angry if we interfere. I’m not doing that. He holds grudges.”

  “I don’t care,” I said. “You guys aren’t my only friends. Az is my friend, and he touched every plate that got served. Tara and Zee…well…”

  Mattie’s brows rose.

  “Zee is like that crazy aunt that makes your teeth hurt but you love anyway. Tara is the stupid cousin you keep trying to help.”

  Mattie laughed at that and then said, “I have an aunt like that.” She paused and then admitted, “And a cousin.”

  * * * * *

  I had to go into the diner to get everyone’s addresses. I sipped a fresh cup of coffee while I went and took my car for once. It had been quite a while since I drove it, but it started up with a purr, and I couldn’t help but enjoy the fact that it was mine. My mom had been right that I needed a new car—I’d been driving the same ancient Honda Hatchback for more than a decade. Daisy’s tail thumped against the back of the front seat and I scratched her ears while we drove.

  I pulled into the space in front of the diner. It was Monday and winter, so the town only had a few cars parked along Main Street in front of the tourist shops—most of which weren’t even open. I got out of the car and crunched into something. I glanced down and found that I was standing in a paper bag from my store that we used for leftovers and food.

  “People,” I muttered, “are littering jerks.”

  I picked up the trash and whistled for Daisy. As I stepped onto the sidewalk, I found a sandwich wrapper that still had Jenny’s printed on it. I frowned and picked that up too. As I looked up, I could see into the alleyway and found trash bags had been pulled out of the dumpster and ripped open.

  This was not something that I’d seen happen in Silver Falls, and even though I was new, I was pretty sure this wasn’t something that happened ever. Especially given that tourists were scarce this time of the year. Some latchkey, non-local teenager hadn’t done this. But who would? We weren’t a boutique that might be tossing something worth dumpster diving for, we threw away old food and paper products. Had someone been hungry?

  I shook my head. After the death…I wasn’t sure that this could be ignored. With a sigh, I pulled out my phone and called Simon.

  “Rose?” His voice had none of the friendliness I’d been accustomed to. The switch was more painful that I wanted it to be.

  “Someone dug through 2nd Chance’s trash. Was it the police?”

  He paused and then said, “We did look through the trash, but how would you know?”

  “It’s everywhere,” I snapped. “Did you really leave the diner like this? This is so rude.”

  I was done being patient and kind—not that I had been but damn it. Damn it!

  “Of course, we didn’t.”

  That gave me a much deeper, secondary chill.

  “Well someone did,” I said. I sighed and then asked, “Did you want me to leave anything for you to look at, or can I clean it up?”

  I could hear Simon cover the phone and heard someone murmuring in the background.

  “Leave it be,” he said. “I’m sending Aaron Welsh over. He’ll take a look around and look for extra evidence.”

  “Of course, if it was me or any of the staff,” I said, sourly, “The evidence will be worthless given we are the ones who touched all of this originally. Or can you date fingerprints?”

  I could hear him sigh and he said, “Just leave it please, Rose. I’ll be in touch.”

  He didn’t wait for a goodbye, but I didn’t have anything nice to say at that point anyway. I glanced around and then went into the diner to grab garbage bags. I wasn’t going to leave the trash pouring around the street. I told Daisy to lay down in the office and went out with plastic gloves to pick up the trash in front of the street and on the sidewalk.

  I had the bag half full from down the street when Paige from the little dress boutique opened her shop.

  “You all right, sugar?”

  “Some prankster messed around in the trash behind 2nd Chance,” I said, standing up to stretch my back.

  “Oh no,” Paige glanced down her alleyway where her dumpster was and then admitted, “I’m glad it didn’t happen here.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It would have been awful if this had happened to everyone.”

  “You sure haven’t been having very good luck the last few days. Poor Kyle overdosing and now this.”

  I blinked, surprised that gossip hadn’t made the rounds and wondered just who knew what had happened yet? As far as I knew, this was still an attempt at killing Kyle, but Jane hadn’t seemed very hopeful about his survival. When the best that could be said was that you were young and your family was hearty, his chances didn't seem very promising.

  “Hopefully things will turn up,” I said. “Did you know Kyle well?”

  “Oh sure, since he was a kid. He was quite the handful, you know. I had hoped he and Tara would stay broken up this time. They never did. Not for long. Tara sure took it hard, but it would have been better for everyone. Those two were toxic together.”

  “Who was that girl who was with him?” I asked, grabbing another piece of trash and then letting the ocean breeze take away some of my concern. She felt horrible, of course. Being a murder suspect would do that to you. Except, she was also living her dream. That diner was her diner. This trash belonged to her dream. Even with all the bad, it was good.

  “Morgan Brown.”

  “Are they dating?” I asked Paige. She had seemed pretty tapped into the gossip. I’d certainly been grilled the moment I bought the 2nd Chance Diner and started setting up.

  “Oh I don’t think so,” Paige replied. “She’s like Tara and Kyle. Something of a…well you don’t want to say loser.” Paige coughed delicately and then admitted, “But that might be the most accurate term.”

  “Tara seems like a good kid to me,” I said softly as I grabbed another piece of trash. I didn’t want to offend Paige, but I did feel protective of my staff. They were…not family, but I’d enjoyed them. “She works hard.”

  “Always late I bet. I’m not sure that kid ever learned how to tell time.”

  “Well…a few minutes,” I hedged not wanting to admit she’d never been on time. Not once.

  “Mmm,” Paige said, not believing me for a second. “Morgan is friends with Tara and Kyle. Always seemed like the third wheel to me. Even when they were kids poking starfish with sticks.”

  “That doesn’t sound that great,” I admitted. I couldn’t really imagine a young Tara poking starfish. Was I being naive? I wasn’t sure. But I did like her.

  “So they grew up together? The three of them?”

  “Yeah,” Paige admitted. “Morgan and Tara have been hooked at the hip since toddler days. When Tara and Kyle started dating, Morgan was just…there too.”

  “Huh,” I said.

  I saw the cop car pull up behind my Forrester. The cop walked towards the trash in the alley, and I didn’t bother going over to say hello. Paige might not know I was suspected of trying to kill that stupid kid, but the cop would.

  “Tara and Kyle breakup, and t
hen Morgan tries to get them back together. It’s very soap opera-y, really.” Paige sighed and then said, “Well…gotta go.”

  Someone had walked into Paige’s, and she went darting in after her customer.

  I glanced around and made sure I got the trash and then headed to the alleyway.

  The cop looked up and glanced at me.

  “Detective Banks said that you should leave the trash alone.”

  “I got the trash off of the street. I haven’t been in the alley at all.”

  “But he told you to leave the trash alone.”

  “If you think there’s evidence in the sandwich wrappers that were rolling around the base of the Lewis & Clark statue, I apologize. But I think we both know that there wasn’t, and now Main Street doesn’t look like a ghetto.”

  The cop’s look was displeased, but I tied the bag and set it outside the alleyway. “In case you want to get your evidence,” I said. `

  I didn’t bother to wait for a reply and headed into 2nd Chance. It took me a few minutes to dig through the files to get people’s addresses. I considered for a bit and guessed that Zee would be the one to have the most accurate information.

  What I found stopped me in my tracks.

  Chapter 8

  My office had been something that I hadn’t explored much. Jenny had owned her diner for years, and the office showed it with boxes and shelves and dark corners that probably hadn’t been updated, sorted, or cleaned out in years. Maybe even decades. One entire wall was a covered with hefty filing cabinets and every time I looked at them I flinched and bet myself about them containing things like bank statements dating back to my childhood, possibly documents to be used in a future National Treasure movie, an ancient pirate map, perhaps. I’d had to shove a bookshelf in front of another shelf in order to make room for Daisy’s dog crate and food bowls. Other than that all I’d added to the office was hooks on the back of my door for my coat, scarf, and bag.

  Who wanted to take that on when there was the chance to pursue the more apparent and fun parts of their dreams? I’d focused instead on updating the look of the diner and to learn how to cook the existing menu and decide what I wanted to update with the things that I’d been working on. I spent much of my time shadowing Az, the cook or Zee, the waitress. Jenny had taken a few hours to update me on her process for paying people, ordering food, and keeping records. I fully expected to stumble but hoped with Az and Zee’s help, I’d be able to keep things going. I didn’t expect anything from Tara but her working hard after she showed up late.

  It took me a while to find them, but Jenny had kept files on the employees. While I searched for them though I found box upon box of notebooks and files. At first, I thought it was old employee files, but there were too many for that. They were also—far, far more organized than I expected given the state of the office. The boxes weren’t the details an employer needed with things like the social security number or record of a food handler’s card. She had almost kept a journal. I found one for Tara right off, on the top of the pile. Given how it was stuffed with so many “write-ups” for being tardy, I assumed Jenny was in this file daily. I flipped quickly through and then grabbed one of our take out bags and placed the files inside.

  A few minutes flipping, and I hadn’t just found the file for Zee, I’d found one for Jane and Mattie and Simon and Paige and the bookstore owner. There were more beyond that. Whole boxes of names and dirt on the people of the town. My eyes were wide with the shock of what I was finding. I grabbed Paige from the boutique’s file and found that Jenny had documented Paige shorting Tara when payment had been made by leaving cash on the table. Paige had an affair with Henry from the bookshop even though she’d been married for 22 years. Paige had put some of her trash in the pizza shops garbage when she had been full and stiffed that guy with the larger trash bill since it had overfilled for him. It was petty stuff and things that ended marriages—maybe even lives.

  Kyle’s file was all documented breakups and drug usage. Some thievery. Crimes. The kind that you did to buy drugs not necessarily the kind of thing that was truly dangerous.

  The random things I found, though—they were weird and petty. Not things that people would actually kill over. That the record existed, however, was horrifying. But it made me realize as I read through it that Jenny, through the diner, had seen so much. She’d hadn’t just seen though, she’d pried into things and made nasty guesses and documented people’s worst moments.

  There was a file about some woman named Roberta who ran on the beach every morning. According to Jenny’s calculations—it should have taken Roberts 45 minutes to do her normal run, but she took an hour and half each day. I frowned—the woman was running on the beach, maybe she just slowed down to walk along the water or grab a few shells? It didn’t make sense to even take note of this, but it had to Jenny. What a nosy old biddy, I thought to myself. Jenny hadn’t put conclusions, I assumed because she hadn’t decided just what Roberta was up to, but I had no doubt that Jenny had guessed.

  I had liked Jenny, but I was shocked by what I was finding. I wouldn’t have expected this…nosiness…of the woman who had made me swear on my mother’s grave to not to fire her staff—not even Tara. I found that my judgement of Jenny was faltering, and I was upset I’d been so off. I had wanted to like her. I still wanted to. She’d been so protective of her staff. She’d made me repeat, “None of them. Not even Tara.”

  I grabbed Tara’s file again and leaned back to read in more detail. There were near daily notes on Tara and Kyle. Tara and Kyle broke up again. She’s already softening on taking him back. Or, Tara was late again. I wasn’t surprised when I saw Morgan lingering outside. Never did like that kid. Or, Tara spent the evening with Nathaniel Blake, if only she’d give that kid a chance. I was suddenly desperate to know who Nathaniel Blake was, and I was super curious about Roberta as well.

  Where were the files for the others? I dug through the entirety of the office until my legs were aching with standing and squatting, but I did not find a file for Az. That concerned me more than I wanted it to. Az was my favorite of the diner crew. There had to have been a file which meant…it meant…he either knew about the files and removed his or that Jenny—who protected no one else’s secrets protected Az’s. I didn’t even have his necessary information—his social security card, his food handler’s card, his address…nothing.

  And Tara…if the notes could be trusted…her relationship with Kyle was as rocky as I’d been told Should I use that as some sort of proof that the rest of this stuff could be trusted? Maybe I should read the files on Simon, Jane, and Mattie to see what they said. If those files were right…but…I would be furious if someone had read a file on me, even one of the three of them. I wanted to go find Zee, Az, and Tara, but I felt like I needed to know just how trustworthy this information was.

  I debated for a few minutes, temptation that alluring beast, calling to me to read just Simon’s file. No, I told myself. No, Rose. Don’t do it. Don’t ruin things. I felt as though I needed to have a cat on my lap instead of my Daisy. Curiosity and cats right?

  I finally slammed everything into my bag, texted Mattie to ask her to lunch—I needed someone else’s perspective on this stuff, and then, I headed out the door. As I locked up, I found Simon standing by my car. I tried to be casual as I walked forward with my bag full of…what? Potential evidence? I popped the back of my car, set my bags casually inside, and closed it. How I hoped that I’d been casual enough.

  He was leaning against the car and hadn’t moved as I’d put my things in…including those red flag files of gossip and meanness. I tried to smile, but I was so stressed out and he was here…why? Because we were friends or for some other reason? His arms were folded over his chest, and he said, “Kyle died.”

  Oh. Anger fled at that. I had expected Kyle’s death, but I guess hope had been stronger than I’d realized. I wasn’t sure what to do. Tell him what I’d found? But, no. I couldn’t. I couldn’t tell him about those f
iles of gossip if it would get my team in trouble. Maybe if I actually found something. Of course, I’d tell him about a murderer, but I wasn’t going to tell him about Paige or Tara or Az not having a file. Not unless I couldn’t help it. I wouldn’t help him mess up their lives unless I had good reason to believe they were killers.

  “I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. I felt like I should add, He was a good kid. Or, We’ll miss him. But we both knew that those things would be hypocritical of me. Finally, I found something, “I’m sure he’ll be missed. His poor family.”

  Simon nodded once, his jaw tight, and I suddenly realized that because the town was so small and given his role in it….as a cop, he must have known Kyle well. Simon must have known just how many times Kyle had been arrested. Maybe Simon had driven him home to talk to his parents? Maybe Simon had found Kyle in the park too late or partying on the beach or at some late-night party drunk and needing his parents to try to stop that stuff.

  “You knew him pretty well?”

  Maybe I was just reading into his relationship with the kid. But then Simon nodded once again, and I realized that he was having a hard time containing his emotions. And with that, I realized that I didn’t know him very well. He was my friend, but we were new friends—this was the first time I’d seen him struggle. Let alone seen him mourn.

  “Was he in trouble a lot?”

  Simon sighed, nodded, and then added, “We tried hard to turn him around. He was just so determined to be in trouble.”

  “It’s not fair he didn’t have time to grow up, to turn it around,” I said. Suddenly the tragedy of Kyle’s death was hitting me personally. Kyle had nearly hurt me, but he had been young. He didn’t have the chance to mature, to fall in love, to find a life passion. He never found something that was worth changing for, maybe a reason to be something more than a deadbeat. Maybe he would have found something to reward the faith, work, and love that people had put into him.

  “I’m sorry,” I said, hearing the truth in my voice. I was surprised by it but not really. I was surprised that Simon’s regret over Kyle was making my heart ache in a way that I wouldn’t have expected. That morning I’d been offended that I was a being investigated. Being a murder suspect made me angry. That Kyle was dead made me regret him in the most clichéd ways.