Puzzling Ink Read online

  “Quite a bit of sour grapes between you and her, as well?”

  Jake shrugged. “I don’t know.”

  “And between you and all those old employees of yours?”

  He gave her another shrug in response. They stared at each other for a moment.

  “I tried calling some of them to come in, but I couldn’t get anyone to help. I even called a temp service, but they wouldn’t help.”

  “Employees are the worst part of owning a business.”

  “Ouch.”

  “You know what I mean. They always have so much baggage. So many issues. So many reasons not to do their jobs.”

  Quinn bristled at the suggestion. Is that what he thought of her? Did he consider her OCD baggage? Or maybe it was baggage that she was doing everything in her power to keep his business running.

  She was still trying to decide whether to say anything when she realized he was still talking, unaware she hadn’t even been listening.

  She interrupted him. “How’d you get the job cooking at the governor’s fundraiser?”

  “Headhunter.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Glorified temp service.”

  “Can I get employees there?”

  “Doubt it.”

  She told him about her conversation with the temp agency yesterday.

  “You can’t just go hiring people willy-nilly so you can run out and get a pedicure or something.”

  “A pedicure?” Quinn’s voice got shrill. “Is that what you think I’m doing?”

  “Well, no…” Jake dropped his head into his hands. “I don’t know why I said that. Go get a pedicure if you want. It’s none of my business.”

  “You’re making it worse. Besides, there’s no way I want people touching my feet.”

  “Have you called Chris and Kristi?” he asked.

  “Do they give pedicures?”

  Jake sighed.

  “Yes,” she said. “They’re absolutely no help.”

  Jake nodded. “They’re pretty flaky.”

  “Why do you keep them?”

  “See anyone else beating down the door to work there? Besides, they’re dependable enough. As long as I never really need them.” He pointed at the clock on the wall. “Shouldn’t you be getting to the diner?”

  Quinn sighed. “I suppose.”

  Jake’s voice took on a softer edge. “I really do appreciate everything you’re doing for me.”

  Quinn wondered if that would be true even after she ran his diner into the ground.

  * * * *

  Quinn opened the diner and watched Jethro investigate the big corner booth. It creeped her out whenever he snooped around back there, like he was searching for something, or that Emmett’s ghost had unfinished business and still hovered around the diner. You know, like ghosts do.

  She felt an overwhelming urge to make sure everything was turned to an even number, as if that would cast some sort of protective spell over her and the diner today. The air-conditioning got bumped up from 73 to 74. She waited to clock in at 6:14 even though she had to wait fifty-three seconds to do so. She nudged the volume on the radio. It was odd, but she felt better.

  She made coffee before calling the suppliers Jake had mentioned. She had a promise for cheese, eggs, bacon, bread, ground beef, and assorted produce to be delivered as a rush. She even had a tech ticket into the credit card company.

  The town’s fascination with the murder and Jake’s incarceration seemed to die down to mostly nothing, if the smaller crowd trickling into the diner was any indication. Fewer or not, they were still hungry people requiring breakfast, so Quinn quickly inventoried her supplies. She stacked two huge cans of marinara sauce in the center of the work space. She piled all the different types of bread—sourdough, whole wheat, buns, English muffins—next to them. She still had plenty of potatoes, which she sorted in rows of large, medium, and small. If those suppliers actually came through, she only needed to worry about breakfast today—maybe lunch too—depending on the nebulous definition of rush they’d given her. After studying what she had to work with, she turned the oven to 450 and placed all the small and half the medium potatoes inside to bake.

  She brought her colored markers to the dry-erase board. She cleared the board and wrote, Friday Breakfast Special—Italian Pain and Hash Browns. Below that she wrote Friday Lunch Special—Baked Potato with Butter. And below that she wrote $7 Cash Only.

  She wasn’t wild about Italian pain but hoped people knew it was the French word for bread. Italian bread wasn’t quite what she meant and it might not seem truthful. Italian pain probably was.

  It only took her three tries to get the lettering perfectly even. When she was satisfied, she headed back to the kitchen to grate some of the large potatoes. Before she got there, Wilbur said, “What the heck is Italian pain? You trying to kill us?” Wilbur did not pronounce it like the French would.

  Quinn smiled what she hoped was her most winning smile. “Picture this, Wilbur: A delicious bread boat covered in a glorious pool of marinara sauce with a side order of crispy hash browns.”

  Wilbur considered this. “Weird, but don’t sound half bad. Make me one.”

  “Me too,” said Larry.

  “And me!” Bob nodded emphatically and Silas joined in.

  Herman shrugged and Quinn took that as tacit approval. Besides, what else was he going to eat?

  “Five Italian pains coming right up.” Quinn pronounced it like Wilbur did. “Help yourself to coffee and I’ll get busy.” She felt a tiny thrill and understood maybe a bit of what her mom felt when she created one of her recipes. Now, to make it palatable. And not painful.

  Quinn made a plate of Italian pain for herself to taste, sprinkled a bit of grated Parmesan cheese from a can on top and mentally patted herself on the back. She wolfed it down, then made five more plates for the Retireds.

  Silas peered into the plates she held and announced, “That looks good enough to eat!”

  Larry murmured his agreement, but Herman wrinkled his nose. “I’ll stick to coffee.”

  An older couple Quinn didn’t know sauntered over to the Retireds’ table. After watching Wilbur take a bite, the man asked, “Any good?”

  Wilbur shrugged. “Could be worse.”

  Quinn beamed from the faint praise. It could indeed be worse.

  The older couple placed their order.

  Soon enough everyone was enjoying—or at least eating—their Italian pain, so Quinn poured herself a cup of coffee and headed to Jake’s desk. She found the Rolodex that held tiny cards with names and contact information. The black plastic frame was dusty and stained, looking like it had been around for fifty years or more. Quinn wondered if it had once belonged to Jake’s dad or even his grandfather before him.

  She played with it, twirling it ever faster until it shot off the desk. Grabbing for it, she knocked the phone off the hook. As she struggled to replace the receiver and scoop up the contact cards, she bumped the phone base and the call history lit up. It began scrolling through all the calls she’d made to the ex-employees.

  As names flashed past, one caught her eye: Colorado Premium Employment. That wasn’t the name of the temp service she’d called. It had to be Jake’s headhunter. The call that perhaps started all of this.

  The phone continued to scroll and flash despite the buttons Quinn jabbed to make it stop. Finally she gave up and let it do its thing. She picked up her cellphone and typed in CO Premium Employment in her internet browser. No hits. She checked her spelling. She spelled out Colorado. Nothing. Sheesh. This place must be super-exclusive. Word of mouth only, probably.

  Jake’s desk phone had finally stopped scrolling through his call history, having gone all the way back to January 1.

  Quinn picked up the Rolodex and returned it to the square spot on the desk free of d
ust. She checked on her customers and got everyone squared away, twitchy to get back to the Rolodex. Those cards weren’t going to re-alphabetize themselves. When she’d organized the Rolodex, she spun it to Margosha Dubois’s card, which Jake had placed with the other M’s.

  She really didn’t want to call Margosha, though, and was much more curious about Colorado Premium Employment, partly because of Jake’s predicament, but also in case they could get her some help for the diner.

  Quinn peeked into the dining room and saw everyone happily eating their breakfast, with no new customers waiting for her. She moved back to Jake’s chair and held her finger on the call history button while it scrolled from January to June, where she began to slow it down. She pressed the button at the number she wanted.

  After a pause, a man answered brusquely, “This is Sam.”

  “Is this Colorado Premium Employment?”

  He paused again and Quinn worried that she sounded like a salesperson.

  “It is.”

  “Hi…I’m looking to hire some temporary employees for a diner in Chestnut Station.”

  “Chestnut Station?”

  “Yes, it’s east of Denver—”

  “I know where it is. Not possible.” The man got even more brusque, if that was possible, as if just hearing the phrase east of Denver gave him indigestion.

  “Yes, it’s absolutely possible to have a town east of Denver. There’s an interstate and everything.” Quinn smiled, hoping her wisecrack would cure his indigestion and deliver him to a pleasant disposition.

  It didn’t.

  “Wrong,” he said.

  “Wrong? What’s wr—”

  “It’s not possible to work with anyone out of the Denver metro area, not in the wasteland that is Chestnut Station, and certainly not for a diner.” The way he said it made Quinn think he would run for the shower as soon as he hung up. And hang up he did. Immediately and abruptly. The shower probably followed.

  Quinn looked at the receiver long enough for the recording to come on asking if she wanted to make a call or not. The conversation, brief though it was, didn’t make much sense to her. After all, this guy got jobs for Jake and he was way out in the boonies and at a diner. The difference was probably just that he was getting high-end jobs for Jake, not trying to staff a diner. The challenge of working at a diner was surely the same as working at a high-end place. The only difference would be the snooty customers they catered to who didn’t think twice about overpaying for their dinner. There was also something about what he said that she was having trouble processing, but couldn’t quite put her finger on it. Quinn didn’t get a chance to become too indignant about the discrimination in this guy’s twisted head, because Wilbur stuck his head in the office.

  “Need more coffee.” His eighty-year-old legs wouldn’t turn as quickly as he’d like so, to punctuate his statement, a three-point turn in the doorway had to suffice.

  Quinn rolled her eyes at his back. “Not even a please or a would you be so kind as to, Wilbur?”

  He didn’t break stride, just acknowledged her with a wave over his head.

  * * * *

  After the next breakfast rush died down and the Retireds had their own pot of coffee on their table—their third—Quinn settled back into Jake’s office chair.

  She hadn’t figured out what was bothering her about the brief conversation she’d had with Jake’s headhunter, aside from his urban hatred of anything out of a Denver zip code. Maybe it was just his crappy demeanor.

  She flipped through the Rolodex again until she found a card that had a scribbled name with attorney underneath. Quinn called and got his voice mail saying he was out of the country on an extended vacation and to call another law office in case of an emergency. Quinn called that number and spoke with an attorney who sounded like he’d rather be on an extended vacation too. After Quinn explained the situation he said, “If this guy doesn’t want an attorney, there’s not much I can do for him.”

  “Not much?”

  “Well, anything.”

  “You can’t do anything for him.”

  “Not unless he agrees to retain me.”

  Quinn sighed and said she’d be in touch if things changed.

  After checking on the customers, once again she plucked the Rolodex from its dust-free spot and stared at Margosha’s card.

  She screwed up her courage and dialed. A woman answered on the second ring. “Is this Margosha…Dubois? Emmett’s ex-wife?”

  “Who may I ask is callink?”

  “My name is Quinn Carr and I—”

  “I do not this name recognize. Goodbye.”

  Yet again Quinn stared at the receiver and listened to the dial tone after someone had hung up on her. What was it with people, anyway? She wasn’t even sure if she’d been speaking with Margosha or just someone else with an Eastern European accent. A relative, maybe? Where did Kelli say Margosha was from? Belarus? Bosnia? Bulgaria? Was it a cultural thing to answer the phone and always expect to know who was on the other line?

  Rico rushed into Jake’s office.

  Quinn hung up the phone, saying to him, “There’s so much about the world I’ll never understand. I should travel more. Have you talked to Margosha yet? Or that headhunter who hired Jake to cook at the governor’s fundraiser?” While she spoke she was squaring up the corners of the Rolodex contact cards.

  “I need to ask you something.”

  The seriousness in Rico’s voice made Quinn’s head snap up. “What?”

  “I need to know about that online review you gave the Crazy Mule.”

  “Online review? I never—”

  Rico handed her a piece of paper. Quinn studied it with a frown. It was a printout showing photos of food and the particulars of the restaurant at the top. Below that was a one-star review from a Quinn C of Denver. She read the review. With each sentence her eyes got wider and her cheeks got pinker. When she was done, she handed the paper back to Rico.

  He read from the piece of paper. “The Crazy Mule makes people Crazy Sick. Someone should tie up the cook and force-feed him his own fettuccine Alfredo until he explodes. One less bad chef in the world.” Rico glared at her. “Did you write this?”

  “That’s why the place seemed familiar,” she murmured.

  “Familiar? What are you talking about?”

  “I went over there to get some information about Emmett. Had a nice chat with one of his waitresses.”

  “You didn’t answer me. Did you write this?”

  Quinn nodded. “A thousand years ago. But I didn’t mean any of it. I was just pissed off. I went there on a date with a guy I really liked”—Quinn glanced away from Rico—“and got food poisoning. Barfed all over his car and never heard from him again.” She looked at Rico. His lips were flat and tight against his teeth. “But so what? There’s no law against writing one-star reviews.”

  “But there is a law against threatening people who wind up dead.”

  “I didn’t threaten anyone!” Quinn blanched at Rico’s narrowed eyes and the way he twisted the fabric of his duty cap. “Does this make me a suspect? That’s ridiculous. I didn’t do anything!” Quinn began touching each finger to her thumb, beginning with her pinkies. She moved her hands behind her back so Rico wouldn’t see. “Besides, I thought Chief Chestnut was convinced Jake did it.”

  “He was, until he saw your incriminating review.”

  Quinn stopped touching fingers. “And how exactly did he see that?” She already knew the answer and her eyes flashed with anger.

  “It was on my desk.”

  “And?”

  “And he asked me who wrote it.”

  “And?”

  “And I told him it was you.”

  Quinn exploded. “You couldn’t tell him it was nothing or you didn’t know who wrote it?”

  “But I did
know.”

  “Get out of here before I say something I’ll regret.”

  Rico pulled his duty cap from under his arm and wedged it on his head. “Quinn, I’m—”

  “Just go. We’ll have to talk about it later.”

  After Rico left, Quinn had to clear some tables, deal with the cash people had left, and make more coffee for the Retireds. How they didn’t float right out the door was a question for the ages. Back in the kitchen, she began slamming things around as she loaded the dishwasher and scrubbed the stainless steel countertops. She was winded and finally sat down to catch her breath. “So, now I’m a suspect too,” she said to the dishcloth in her hand. “That’s just great.” The very idea that Rico would suspect her of killing Emmett Dubois enraged her. But wait. It wasn’t Rico. Surely he had argued with the chief about this. But that’s how much Chief Chestnut hated her. How could she convince him she was not at all involved in this, and neither was Jake?

  Quinn tapped one fingernail on the metal counter in a soothing rhythm. She needed to finish that crossword to convince Chief Chestnut to expand his investigation, pointing it away from Jake and now from her too. But not only didn’t she know in which direction to point him, she was always so exhausted when she got home she could barely focus on anything. Constructing crosswords took more brain cells than she came home with every night.

  She continued to tap her fingernail against the metal, counting each click. When she reached twenty-two, an explosion rattled the pots and pans on the sink. She leaped away, eyes darting in all corners.

  She crept around the kitchen like she was a member of a SWAT team clearing a building.

  Was it the gas line? Sabotage?

  Suddenly the pungent odor of burning filled the kitchen. Smoke poured from the oven. She grabbed oven mitts and carefully opened the door.

  Sabotage? No. Baked potatoes.

  Silas poked his head into the pass-through. “Everything okay, Quinn?”

  She stepped aside and showed him the inside of the detonation zone, covered in exploded potato bits, all in varying states of incineration.