Chapter 4: A Conversation At The Diner
The neon sign above the door of the diner buzzed a tired, yellowed hum against the gathering dusk. Across the asphalt of the municipal lot, the brick facade of the precinct building cast long, heavy shadows. I pulled the collar of my dark jacket tight against the evening chill, pushed open the grease-smeared glass door, and stepped inside.
The smell of fried grease, stale coffee, and damp wool hit me immediately. A row of worn vinyl stools lined the counter, most of them empty except for a man in a faded windbreaker reading a torn newspaper. In the back, tucked against a faux-wood paneled wall, sat a row of red vinyl booths. Two men in dark uniforms—county deputies off shift—were leaning over a basket of fries, their voices low and sharp.
I kept my head down, letting my short brown hair shadow my face, and slid into a cracked booth near the front window where I could watch both the door and the counter.
"What can I get you, kid?"
I looked up. The waitress was middle-aged, her apron stained with coffee rings, a pencil tucked behind her ear. She looked tired, her eyes registering me only as another mouth to feed before closing time.
"Just tap water and black coffee," I said. My voice was steady, lower than it had been a week ago.
She jotted nothing down on her pad. "Coming up."
While she poured the coffee from a heavy glass decanter, I let my fingers trace the edge of the laminated table. Inside my pocket, the folded police report from the county courthouse crackled against my jeans—the same report showing a forty-minute gap in Officer Vance’s patrol logs on the night my mother was arrested. The missing forty minutes were an invisible wall, but out here, among the people who drank coffee with the deputies, cracks might show.
The waitress dropped a thick mug on the table, the black liquid sloshing over the rim. She didn't leave right away, wiping at a crumb with a gray rag.
"School's out early," she remarked, her tone flat rather than unkind.
"Got errands," I murmured, staring into the dark surface of the coffee. She nodded once and walked away toward the kitchen.
A burst of laughter from the back booth drew my attention. The two deputies were leaning back, their heavy utility belts clinking against the vinyl. One of them, a thick-necked man with a silver nameplate reading Vance, tossed a crumpled paper napkin onto the table.
"Old man Henderson’s flatbed was out by the salvage yard again last night," Vance said, his voice carrying clearly across the quiet room. "Told him three times to clear those wrecks off the county easement."
"Henderson won't listen to nobody," the other deputy replied, shaking his head. "Saw his truck parked behind the industrial storage lots past the highway around midnight. Looked like he was hauling something heavy out of the old lock-ups."
"Midnight?" Vance scoffed. "Nobody goes out to those storage units at midnight unless they're dumping something they shouldn't."
I froze, my hand hovering an inch above the coffee mug. The industrial storage lots past the highway—the same perimeter where the county evidence lockups overflowed into private rentals. It was a dead zone for cameras, flanked by overgrown scrub brush and rusted chain-link. Officer Vance didn't mention an official patrol out there. He mentioned Henderson's flatbed hauling something heavy at midnight.
A heavy clatter from the counter cut off the deputies' conversation. A man in a stained work jacket, holding a plastic tumbler of soda, had slid onto a stool two seats down from my booth. It was the local tow-truck driver, recognizable by the faded logo on his sleeve.
"Hey, Sarah," the driver called out to the waitress as she emerged from the kitchen. "You wouldn't believe the toll out on Route 9 tonight. Some unmarked cruiser was sitting dead center in the gravel turnout by the old storage units for hours. Lights off, engine running. Made me pull wide just to get past."
Vance stopped laughing. He straightened up in his booth, turning his head sharply toward the counter. "What cruiser was that, Miller?"
"How should I know?" the driver muttered, stirring a packet of sugar into his soda. "Didn't have no light bar. Just a dark sedan. Looked like one of the administrative pool cars from the precinct garage, though. Parked right where nobody's supposed to be after dark."
Vance exchanged a quick, hard look with his partner. Neither of them said another word about it, but the atmosphere in the diner shifted instantly, tightening like a pulled wire.
May you like
I didn't wait to hear more. I dropped a crumpled two-dollar bill onto the sticky tabletop next to the untouched coffee mug, sliding out of the booth with deliberate slowness. My boots made no sound against the worn linoleum as I navigated past the counter.
Pushing the heavy glass door back out into the cold night air, I let the door latch shut behind me before any of the deputies could turn around. The industrial storage lot past the highway wasn't just a rumor anymore. It was where the pieces of the frame-up were being hidden, and now I knew where to look.
