Flamingo Diner (6 page)

“You about ready to head back to the house?” Matt asked, keeping his tone friendly enough.

Heat flooding into his cheeks, Jeff regarded him angrily. “What’s it to you?”

“Your mom and Emma will be expecting you,” Matt said. “Are you going to let them down?”

“The whole damn town’s going to be hanging out at the house. Who needs it?” he retorted. “This whole funeral thing is a crock.”

“It’s a ritual,” Matt corrected. “It’s a way for peo
ple to say goodbye, a way they can offer comfort to those left behind. Doesn’t it feel good to know how many people loved your dad?”

“They weren’t here today because they loved him,” Jeff said scathingly. “They were here to gawk at us, to watch us bawling our eyes out.”

“You don’t really believe that,” Matt argued. “People were here because they care about all of you. Your family’s a real part of this community. Flamingo Diner isn’t just another restaurant. It’s a home away from home for a lot of people. Maybe you can’t appreciate that now, but someday you will.”

“If you think this town is so great, why’d you leave?”

Matt smiled. “For the same reason you did, I imagine. I needed to figure out who I was and how to make something of my life. Once I’d done that, I came back.”

“You came back because you’ve always had the hots for my sister,” Jeff retorted.

“If that were the case, why wouldn’t I have moved to Washington? That’s where she lives these days,” Matt reminded him mildly.

Jeff apparently had no answer for that. But it didn’t stop him from saying, “I know what I know. I’ve seen the way you look at her.”

“Your sister’s a beautiful woman. Any man who doesn’t take a second look has to be blind.”

Jeff shook his head in disgust. “And Dad always thought you were a straight shooter. You can’t even tell the truth about a little thing like this.”

“Maybe because any feelings I might have for any woman are private,” Matt replied. “That’s a lesson
you should learn, kid. Never kiss and tell. Now let’s get on over to the house.”

“I have other plans with my friends.”

“They can wait,” Matt said, his gaze unyielding.

Jeff tried to stare him down, but he was no match for a cop’s steady gaze. “Yeah, whatever,” he said finally.

He started to walk away, but Matt clapped a hand on his shoulder.

“One more thing,” he said. “If these were your real friends, they would have been here today.”

“Like I told Andy, they didn’t even know my dad.”

“But they know you, and they could have come out of respect,” Matt said pointedly. “That’s what real friends do. Maybe you ought to think about that before you get too tight with these people.”

“Lay off, okay?” he said, still defiant. “I’m not a kid and you’re not my boss.”

“Maybe not,” Matt agreed, keeping his gaze perfectly level. He knew how disconcerting that could be when someone had something to hide. “But you step out of line, and I can make you regret it. Your mom and your sister and brother don’t need that kind of grief right now, know what I mean?”

“Whatever,” Jeff said, but he looked just a little shaken.

“I’ll see you at the house, right?” Matt called after him, still not letting up.

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Jeff said with a one-fingered salute.

Matt forced himself to ignore the gesture. “It’s a ten-minute drive,” he told Jeff. “I’ll give you fifteen before I come looking for you.”

“I said I’d be there,” Jeff said.

Matt nodded slowly. “I’m trusting you to keep you word.”

“Yeah, whatever,” Jeff said, but when he climbed into his car, he turned it toward home.

R
osa should have felt gratified. There had been so many people at the funeral, so many sincere expressions of sympathy. Every word spoken to her had been filled with very real dismay over her loss. Even the mayor had come by the house to offer his condolences. Though Rosa listened skeptically, for once his remarks seemed to be genuine, rather than calculated for maximum political benefit.

“Don Killian was a tremendous asset to this community,” Owen Habersham said, clasping Rosa’s hand in his. “Whenever I had a problem, I knew I could come to him for clear thinking.”

Rosa had always felt the same way about her husband, had thought he felt the same about her. So why hadn’t Don come to her with whatever devastating problem had been on his mind at the end? She’d always believed there was nothing they couldn’t discuss, nothing they couldn’t work out.

The early years of their marriage had been filled with trials—business struggles, a miscarriage, the loss of his parents, then hers—but they had met each test together. Even before they’d married, there had been a few serious ups and downs. One rift had almost broken them up permanently, but they’d mended it and been stronger than ever.

She sighed at the irony in the mayor’s comment. If her husband had been thinking clearly, would he have killed himself? She was ashamed of his actions, even more ashamed that she hated him for them. One act, one instance of craziness, had destroyed everything she’d felt for him, all the love in her heart. It had turned her into a liar and a hypocrite. She was keeping her suspicions—her certainty—that Don had purposely driven into that lake from the police and, more important, from her family. She simply couldn’t bring herself to add to the devastation that Emma, Jeff and Andy were already feeling. And even now she felt a tremendous sense of loyalty to Don. She wanted to protect his reputation, which was more than he’d seen fit to do when he’d decided to drive into the lake.

Hearing so many people say such nice things should have been gratifying, but it wasn’t. She felt like a fraud, as if she didn’t deserve their sympathy because she was so horribly angry with the man they were bent on praising. Worse, she felt she didn’t deserve any compassion because it was plain to her, at least, that she had let Don down in some real, meaningful way. Why else would her husband take his own life?

“Excuse me,” she said to the mayor, when she could take it no longer. Hurrying from the room, ignoring those who spoke, she made her way to the comparative quiet of the kitchen.

Helen, who’d rarely let Rosa out of her sight, rushed after her. “How are you holding up?” she asked.

“Can you get these people out of here?” Rosa pleaded. “I’m not sure I can handle it if one more person tells me how wonderful Don was.”

“He was wonderful,” Helen replied, her tone chiding Rosa for thinking otherwise even under the current circumstances.

“I always thought so,” Rosa said, feeling the rage once again begin to build in her chest. “But wonderful people do not suddenly decide to kill themselves one day. They do not abandon their families and leave them with a million questions.”

Helen gasped. “Rosa, what on earth are you saying? Don’s death was an accident. No one’s said otherwise.”

“I know better,” Rosa said. “He drove into that lake on purpose. Nothing else makes sense.”

“Stop that. Stop it right now!” Helen said. “You can’t be saying such a thing. You can’t even think it.”

“I don’t think it. I
know
it,” Rosa insisted, then sighed. “But you’re right, I can’t say anything to another living soul.” She gazed at her friend. “But I have to talk to someone, Helen, or I’ll go crazy.”

“Then you can talk to me,” Helen said decisively. “If you need to work through this, then you can say whatever you want to me and it will go no further.”

Rosa nodded. “You knew Don. How could he do such a thing?”

“If—and I’m not saying I believe it for a minute—if he committed suicide, then something terrible obviously drove him to it. Anyone can reach a breaking point.”

“Of course they can,” Rosa agreed. “But what was Don’s breaking point? Can you tell me that? Was he having an affair? Did some other woman dump him or threaten to tell me what was going on? Was he sick? Was he trying to spare us months of suffer
ing? Or was he just tired of everyday life with me and the children?”

“I don’t know,” Helen said, looking utterly helpless. “I wish I could give you answers, but I can’t. I can’t even accept the possibility that you might be right. You may have to resign yourself to not knowing.”

“I can’t live with that,” Rosa said angrily. She searched her friend’s face and voiced just one of her fears. “Helen, do you think he was involved with another woman? Someone at the diner, maybe?”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Helen scolded. “Don would never have an affair right under your nose. He would never have an affair, period. He loved you. If there’s one thing I do know, it’s that.”

“How do you know that?” Rosa scoffed. “I never thought he’d kill himself, either.”

Helen obviously had no answer for that. She merely returned Rosa’s gaze, her expression distraught.

“I know one thing,” Rosa declared. “I am not setting foot in that diner ever again, not when there could be someone there who was sleeping with my husband.”

“Rosa, you’re talking crazy now,” Helen said impatiently. “Listen to me. There was no other woman. I am as sure of that as I am that the sun will rise tomorrow morning. You love that diner. You’re its heart and soul. People come there for a kind word from you. They can get a decent omelette or pancakes anyplace, but they can’t see their friends or be welcomed like one of the family anyplace else in Winter Cove. Besides that, it’s your livelihood. Who’ll run it, if you don’t?”

Rosa faltered at that. Don had always taken care of the finances. She had no idea what sort of money they had, but she doubted it was much, not with Jeff in college and Emma out only a few years. Don had believed in building up the equity they had in Flamingo Diner. Every spare penny had been put back into the business. That equity ought to be worth something. And it was on a prime piece of real estate now that downtown Winter Cove was turning trendy.

“I could sell it,” she said slowly.

“You wouldn’t,” Helen replied with shock.

“Why wouldn’t I?” Rosa challenged. “Emma and Jeff aren’t interested. That leaves Andy, but why should I tie him down to a business he might not even want? Why not sell it and invest the money?” She was already warming to the idea. In fact, she could move back to Miami to be closer to her sisters. No one there would stare at her with pity the way so many of her friends had today. Of course, she wasn’t as close to her sisters as she was to Helen, Sylvia and Jolie, her three best friends.

“And do what?” Helen asked. “How would you spend your days?”

Right now the only thing that appealed to Rosa was sleeping through them. “I’d find plenty to do,” she said confidently. “Especially if I went back to Miami. I could work in my uncle’s restaurant. I could have Sunday dinners with my family, go to Mass at the church where I had my First Communion.”

And best of all, there were few memories of Don in Miami. They had met there, but the courtship had been brief and tumultuous. Then, immediately after the wedding, they’d moved to Winter Cove and
opened Flamingo Diner, using every penny of both their savings to invest in their future.

Helen was staring at her as if she didn’t even know her. “Would you honestly rip Andy out of school here, just before his senior year? Would you be that selfish?”

Rosa felt Helen’s jab hit its target. She couldn’t do that to Andy. It would destroy his chances of getting into a good university with the football scholarship they were counting on. She sighed heavily, filled with regret.

“You’re right,” Rosa admitted reluctantly. “I’d have to wait.” She met Helen’s gaze and added defiantly, “But it’s still something to consider.”

“If I learned nothing else when Harrison died, I learned that it is not wise to make any sort of major decision when you’re grieving,” Helen told her. “Whatever you do, don’t make any hasty decisions. Promise me.”

Since Rosa didn’t feel capable of deciding what clothes to put on, much less what to do about the future, she nodded. “I promise.”

“That’s good, then,” Helen said, linking her arm through Rosa’s. “Now let’s get back out there. This will be over soon.”

“Not nearly soon enough,” Rosa said grimly.

Matt hovered in the background as the gathering at the Killians’ finally began to wind down. People had been coming and going for a couple of hours now, sharing stories about Don, reminding Emma and her mother of how much Flamingo Diner meant to them. He could see from the weariness in Emma’s eyes and the distance in Rosa’s that the words weren’t really
registering. As for Jeff and Andy, they had disappeared back into the tree house. Matt had reassured himself on that point the second he’d realized they were gone. As long as Jeff focused on getting Andy through his grief, he couldn’t be somewhere else getting into the sort of mischief that could ruin his life.

Matt glanced around at the few remaining guests, most of whom were longtime friends. He wondered if any of them had any inkling of what had gone wrong in Don’s life. If they knew, would they eventually share what they knew with the family, stirring up the doubts about Don’s death that were already plaguing Emma?

If it was a suicide, then finding a motive wasn’t really his job, but Matt felt compelled to investigate, because Emma wouldn’t be at peace until they had one. She was going to push this, no matter where it led.

He spotted Gabe Jenkins and Harley Watson huddled together in a corner and wondered if they knew anything about what had tormented Don in his last weeks. Gabe was a cranky old geezer on his good days, but he and Harley somehow managed to get along, and Don had always found a few minutes to sit with them once the breakfast rush had died down at the diner. Matt doubted they’d exchanged any deep, dark secrets, but after knowing each other for a lot of years, there was no telling what they talked about. Matt wandered over, hoping to pick up some tidbit of information on the sly, but they were on to him at once.

“Might’s well come all the way over here, if you expect to hear what we’re saying,” Gabe told him irritably.

Matt grinned at having been caught. “I thought I’d wait to see if you were talking about anything interesting. I don’t want to be bored to death listening to you two moan about your prostates.”

Harley gave him a dark look. “We’re talking about life and death, if you must know. Can’t figure out how Don missed that curve. He drove along the lake twice a day at least, sometimes more. He knew the road. Was there any evidence that he was hit by another car?”

“None,” Matt admitted.

“He was smart, too,” Harley added. “I’d bet there was one of those gizmos in the car that can crack a windshield in an emergency. Why do you suppose he didn’t use it?”

Nothing in the report Matt had gotten just that morning indicated that there was a tool to shatter glass inside the car, but he agreed with Harley that it was the kind of thing Don would have, given the number of canals around Central Florida. He needed to check on that.

He tuned back in to what Gabe was saying.

“I just don’t get it. He had a great business, a terrific family—what more is there?”

“Nothing I can think of,” Matt agreed.

“You think the mob was after him?” Gabe asked with more enthusiasm than usual. “Maybe they ran him off the road.”

“Are you crazy?” Harley retorted. “What’s the matter with you, old man? Have you been watching
The Sopranos
again?”

“Only sopranos I know sing in the choir at church,” Gabe responded. “But everybody knows the mob likes to pokes its nose into all sorts of places
asking for protection money. Maybe Don wouldn’t pay up.”

“Protection from what?” Harley demanded. “What kind of crime do we have in Winter Cove? Matt here sees to it that we don’t have a lot of criminals on the loose.”

“He does his part,” Gabe agreed with a nod in Matt’s direction. “Doesn’t mean he doesn’t have a little help. You never know.”

“I know,” Harley retorted, scowling fiercely.

“You don’t know everything.”

Matt decided it was time to step in before the two men came to blows. “I think we can safely assume that there was no mob involvement in this. I know a little bit about organized crime.”

Gabe nodded enthusiastically. “It’s rampant in the big cities, am I right?”

“I wouldn’t say rampant,” Matt countered. “But it does exist. I just don’t happen to think it’s made its way to Winter Cove, certainly not to the point where our residents are likely to be the target of a hit that’s made to look like an accident.”

“Maybe it wasn’t an accident at all,” Gabe suggested. “Maybe he killed himself because they were after him.”

“Oh, give it a rest, you old coot,” Harley said, regarding him with disgust.

“You got any better ideas about why a good driver like Don would wind up in the lake?” Gabe asked, clearly annoyed that his theory hadn’t been taken seriously. He turned to Matt. “You think there’s something funny about the way he died, too, don’t you?”

Matt refused to answer. He didn’t want to send
their already wild imaginations into a frenzy. Who knew where that could lead?

Gabe regarded him with disgust. “Okay, don’t say it, Matthew. I can see the truth written all over your face. That’s what brought you sneaking over here to listen in on our conversation. You don’t think it was an accident any more than we do.” Before Matt could respond, Gabe turned to Harley. “I suppose you’ve got a theory.”

“A woman,” Harley said without hesitation. “When a man goes off his rocker, there’s always a woman involved, believe you me.”

“And you would know, wouldn’t you?” Gabe retorted. “What’s it been? Three marriages? Four?”

Harley frowned. “Five, if you must know, so yes, I think I know a thing or two about what a woman can drive a man to do.”

“Don had Rosa,” Gabe reminded him. “You ever seen two people more in love?”