The Big Kahuna (Fox and O'Hare #6)(59)

“Want some toast on the side?” Veronica asked. She placed the cheese omelette in front of me on the counter and once again topped off my iced tea.

“No, thanks.”

“Or maybe fresh biscuits?”

“This is just fine, thanks,” I said. Then, remembering something else, I asked her, “So that big new sign outside, it went up the morning my dad died, right?”

“Right.”

“I imagine there must’ve been a lot of noise? Or some kind of disruption?”

“I guess so, yeah.”

“Was Baker upset about that?”

Veronica tilted her head, but didn’t answer one way or another, and I thought it best not to push too much. She walked away to the other end of the counter, where the sugar dispensers sat, waiting to be refilled. I picked at my food as I watched the other diners through the mirror above the counter window. There was a time when I would have known some of the Pantry’s customers or at least recognized them, but all I could see now was a roomful of strangers. Two construction workers in orange vests had finished their meals and sat with their arms hanging over the headrests, their faces turned toward the windows. A young couple pulled miniature containers of jam from the dispenser and made a pyramid out of them to amuse their toddler. A middle-aged man in a baseball cap, a toothpick hanging from his lip, was reading the newspaper. His glass was empty, but Marty hadn’t noticed. I picked up the water pitcher and went to refill it.

Afterward, the pitcher still in my hand, I cast an appraising eye on the restaurant. The counter, which had been shiny new a few years ago, bore the unmistakable dullness of too many wipe-downs. There was a crater in the vinyl flooring at the entrance. Cracks ran through the grouting on the baseboard. The paint on the far wall, once an appealing pistachio color, had yellowed over the years and was peeling in places. The descriptions on the menu—calling the eggs “farm-fresh,” the bacon “applewood smoked,” the tomatoes “vine-ripe,” the bread “Grandma’s own”—were no longer au courant. A gash cut through the backrest of the last booth by the window. The plates were gray. The water glasses were scratched. The gumball machine was empty.

But the place was busy.

Perhaps this was what Baker had begrudged my father.

I put the pitcher of water back on the counter and walked around the corner to the back office, a tiny room with a high window and barely enough space for a desk, a chair, a filing cabinet. The air smelled of forbidden cigarettes and used books, a mix that immediately brought me memories of long afternoons spent reading on the deck, my father sitting beside me, smoking, despite the advice of his doctor. My mother was at the desk now, still in widow’s white, hunched over a ledger of some sort. “Morning, Mom,” I said. “Did you find that note?”

“Not yet,” she said, taking off her reading glasses. “Look at this place, benti.”

On the desk around her were mountains of papers. Files jutted against stapled records and paper-clipped receipts, rising in peaks and hollowing in valleys, the glass top of the desk buried beneath it all.

“What’s going on here?”

“I don’t know what your father was doing. Nothing is in order.”

“That’s not like him.”

She shook her head and was quiet for a moment. Did she know why he had been so distracted lately? But nothing in her expression suggested it, and my heart ached for her. “I’m sure you’ll have this in shape in no time, Mom.”

“Maybe he threw it out.”

“I hope not.” The note in question was a handwritten piece of paper that had been taped to the door of the restaurant the day after the Land Rover incident. As soon as my mother had told me about it, I said we needed to find it and turn it over to Detective Coleman. It could serve as evidence. “Let me look for it,” I said.

“All right.”

My mother went back to her ledger, and I started sifting through the papers on the desk. There were payments for paper napkins and drinking straws, orders of Styrofoam to-go containers, two prescriptions for an antihistamine, a copy of the AARP magazine, but no note. I rummaged through the desk drawers, leafed through books of crossword puzzles, and checked the pockets of the suit jacket that was hanging over the back of the desk chair. Finally, on the windowsill, beneath a half-empty box of matches, I found the folded note. It was a piece of lined paper on which Baker had written, in an arthritic penmanship, PARK IN YOUR SPACES ONLY! A strip of clear tape lined the top of the page, and the word only was underlined twice. The note wasn’t signed, but to my eyes, it seemed incriminating. This was progress. “Here it is,” I said, my voice rising with excitement.

My mother came to look over my shoulder. “That’s good. Really good.”

“Can you think of anything else we could show the detective?”

“No,” she said after a minute. Then she went back to sit behind the desk. “But there’s something I need to tell you.”

“What is it?”

“Close the door.”

I closed the door and stood against it, puzzled by the secrecy. “What is it?”

“We want to sell the restaurant.”

“What are you talking about? Who is we?”

“Your sister and me. We want to sell.”

My mother said this with a finality that stunned me. I came closer to the desk, facing the piles of paper I had been sorting through just a moment earlier. “How long have you two been talking about this? It’s crazy you’re having these conversations and then informing me of your decisions after the fact. Shouldn’t we discuss this first?”