A HOSTESS GREETED us at the door when we entered Joe’s Café.
“We have about a thirty-minute wait for lunch, but you can order at the bar. I think there are a couple seats open.”
She was right. We found two seats separated by one guy in a suit who looked to be drinking his lunch. He moved over so we could sit together. No sign of Dustin Peck, but Bree, the bartender Grimes and I met the other day, was working.
“What can I get you to drink?” She slid a couple menus in front of us.
“I’ll have a mimosa, please,” Leah said.
“I’ll have a water with some bubbles in it and one more of whatever my friend here is having.” I nodded to the businessman who’d switched seats. I figured he might as well get lubed before he went back to the grind.
“Thanks, buddy.” He patted me on the shoulder. I gave a half nod to close down any avenue for a conversation. The drink was more for the bar and the bartender than him. I was taking up space and wanted to pay my way. But I was on business as much as the businessman was escaping it.
Leah leaned into me. “I don’t want you to think I’m a day drinker.”
“I don’t think anything.” I drank myself into a sweaty stain on the floor for two months straight after Colleen died. I graduated to cocaine for about a year before I could get my hands back on the rudder. Everyone dealt with grief the best they could. There were no wrong ways.
Some were just more painful than others.
“I used to work in a restaurant.” Leah looked up and down the bar. “We took the last two spots and we’re not ordering lunch. I wanted to order an expensive drink to offset that.”
Some people handled grief with more class than others. A lot more.
Bree came back with our drinks.
“My friend and I have a bet,” I said to her, then smiled at Leah. “She thinks that everyone who works here has to fend for themselves when it comes to finding a parking space when they come to work. I bet that Joe’s must have a deal for their employees with the parking garages around here.”
“I wish.” She put her hands on her hips in feigned disgust, then smiled at Leah. “Your friend wins. Parking is terrible around here.”
“Then where does everyone park? East or west of State Street?”
“I think just about everyone parks that way.” She pointed to the east. The same direction Peck said he always parked. “I don’t know if that’s east or west, but that’s where everyone parks. Over in the residential area.”
I reached for my wallet to pay for the drinks, but Leah handed Bree a credit card before I could draw. “We’ll run a tab. Thanks.”
“We’re going to pass on lunch.” I gave her back the menus. “Is Dustin working today?”
“That’s how I remember you.” She smiled and tapped the bar in front of me. “You and that cop-looking guy came in to see Dustin the other day.”
“Yep. That was me.” I tried my best smile. “Is he working today?”
“No, he works tonight at six.”
“Thanks.”
Bree tended to her other customers.
“Looks like we struck out.” Leah set down her mimosa. “What now?”
“We gather information. Can you take one more for the team?” I looked at the mimosa and then at her.
She took a big gulp of her drink in answer. I did the same with my Perrier. We’d both finished our drinks by the time Bree made her next pass.
“Let’s do it again,” Leah said, a tinge of pink cresting her cheeks.
Bree set the drinks down in front of us a couple minutes later.
“You have a pretty extensive liquor assortment. How often do you have to do inventory?” I tilted my head like I was really interested. “I used to manage a restaurant and bar and I dreaded the yearly inventory. It was either stay late and ring in the New Year alone doing inventory while the world celebrated or come in early on New Year’s morning with the first and worst hangover of the year.”
Bree scanned the bar and leaned in. “Our owner is a real hard-ass about pour costs. We have to do inventory once a month.”
“Wow. Are you the one who has to do it?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Dustin usually does it, but sometimes I help him.”
“I guess it wouldn’t be too bad with two people.” I looked at the back bar. “Probably wouldn’t take you more than an hour.”
“What’s this all about?” Bree squinted one eye at me. “You seem to be pretty interested in our inventory process.”
She caught me. One question too many. I could continue the ruse or be honest for a change.
“This is Leah Landingham.” I opened my hand toward Leah. “Dustin saw her sister get killed by a hit-and-run driver last week after he got off work. She hired me to find whatever the police miss. You can help us find the truth.”
I dropped my business card on the bar in front of Bree. She scanned it and looked back at me, then at Leah.
“I heard about that. I’m sorry for your loss.” Back at me. “Dustin told me about it, and I saw something online. You don’t think he had anything to do with it, do you?”
“No. What did he tell you he saw?”
“Why don’t you ask him?”
“I did. Memories can change as time passes. I want to know what he told you when it was still fresh in his mind.”
Bree rubbed the tattoo of a lotus blossom on her arm but didn’t say anything.
“Please.” Leah reached over the bar and gently squeezed Bree’s hand. “Whatever you tell us won’t get Dustin in trouble. I’m grateful to him for reporting it and talking to the police. We just want to get as much information as possible so we can help the police catch the person who killed my sister.”
Bree patted Leah’s hand then looked at the railed waitress station at the other end of a bar where a waitress stood with her hands on her hips eyeing Bree.
“I have to pour some drinks and check on my other customers. I’ll be back in a few minutes.” She hustled down to the other end of the bar.
My phone buzzed in my pocket while we waited for Bree’s return. I pulled it out and checked the screen. Grimes. Shit. He’d ask me what I was doing, and I’d either lie to him or have to listen to him tell me he was running the investigation for the tenth time. I answered anyway.
“Cahill.” A hoarse wolf. “Meet me at Figueroa headquarters forthwith.”
“Did they give you your badge back? Because I’m not wearing a uniform, and I’m not going anywhere forthwith.” I raised my eyebrows to Leah. “I can be there in about thirty minutes. What’s so forthwith worthy?”
“Just get your ass down here and ask the desk sergeant for Detective Mitchell.”
“Roger. In thirty minutes.” I hung up.
“What was that all about?” Leah’s cheeks were a brighter pink and her second mimosa was half finished.
“Grimes wants me to meet him and Detective Mitchell over at the station.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know, but he made it sound urgent.”
“Do you think the police found Krista’s killer?”
“No, he would have called you not me. He sounded even less chipper than usual. My guess is that SBPD has some kind of beef with me.”
“I’m going with you.”
“That’s not a good idea. Guilt by association. Every law enforcement agency’s default. SBPD is on your side right now. Let’s keep it that way.”
“I’m going with you.”
Bree returned before I could come up with a more convincing argument.
“Dustin told me the same thing he told the police and that he probably told you. He’d just left work and looked down State Street and saw …” She looked at Leah and frowned. “… the accident.”
“Did he tell you what time that was?” I asked.
“After work that night.”
“Yeah, but what time?”
“It was probably around twelve thirty or one, I guess.” Her eyes looked up to the left, searching her memory.
Leah and I exchanged a glance.
“He called the police at 2:17 a.m.,” I said.
“Oh.” Something clicked in Bree’s mind. “What day was that again?”
“Late March thirty-first into the morning of April first.”
“That was a Sunday night, right?”
“Yes.” I stared at her, waiting for the significance. Instead, she turned and went to her register and came back with our bill and Leah’s credit card.
“It’s on the house.” She put the credit card down in front of Leah. “I really have to get back to my customers.”
“Wait,” Leah said. “Why is Sunday important, Bree? What happened that night?”
“Nothing. I need this job. I don’t want to get in trouble for ignoring my other customers. Sorry.” She strode down to the other end of the bar.
“What was that all about?” Leah looked at me with a look as confused as the one I felt on my face.
“I don’t know but I intend to find out.”
“How?”
“I’m going to sit here and ask Bree over and over again until she answers me or I get kicked out of the bar.”
“No. You can’t do that.” Leah furrowed her brow. “This is her livelihood. I don’t want you to get her in trouble.”
Leah’s quest for the truth had boundaries. Decency. Mine didn’t. And for an instant, I felt badly about that. For an instant.
“She knows something that might lead us to who killed Krista.” And Colleen. “And I’m going to get it out of her.”
“Not here where she works. We’ll find another way.” She took her wallet out of her purse and returned her card then pulled out a twenty and laid it on the bar. “Let’s go to police headquarters and listen to what they have to say.”
Leah was paying me. She was the boss. While we were together. Alone, I’d resort to the tactics that had always led me to the truth. No matter the damage.