Quinn’s Diner
Chapter 06 - Quinn’s Diner
By seven the next morning, Quinn’s Diner was full of people pretending they had not read the news.
Eleanor could tell by how carefully they did not mention the gala.
Mabel Turner from the pharmacy asked for oatmeal instead of her usual bacon and eggs, then stared at Eleanor like oatmeal had personally betrayed them both. Lou Dempsey, who had been drinking coffee at counter stool three since the first Bush administration, folded and unfolded the Chicago Tribune without turning a page.
The headline was not large, but it was large enough.
CHILD EXPOSES FOUNDATION CHAIR AT ST. AGNES GALA.
There was a photo too. Not of Vivian, naturally. Wealthy people had lawyers who could frighten newspapers into choosing safer angles.
The photo showed Lily in her red dress under the chandelier, phone in hand, face too calm for a child.
Eleanor wanted to buy every copy in the city and burn them in the alley.
Instead, she poured coffee.
That was the thing about catastrophe. Dishes still needed washing. Eggs still needed flipping. Rent still came due on the first.
Lily sat in the back booth before school, wearing jeans, a hoodie, and the stubborn expression she used when Eleanor tried to brush her curls too flat. Officer Danvers had been replaced by a plainclothes woman from Detective Sloan’s office, who occupied the last booth with tea she did not drink.
Nora arrived at 7:23 with wet hair, no makeup, and a bakery box from the Polish place two blocks over.
“I brought paczki,” she said.
Eleanor eyed her. “You look like you slept in your car.”
“I slept in my apartment with one eye open and my phone in my hand, which is apparently the young professional version.”
Lily slid over to make room.
Nora sat beside her and placed the box on the table. “The hospital suspended Vivian from board duties pending investigation.”
Eleanor poured her coffee. “Suspended sounds like rich for ‘not punished yet.’”
“It is,” Nora admitted. “But donors are calling. Reporters are calling. Half the board wants distance, and the other half wants a time machine.”
Lily opened the bakery box. “Can I have the raspberry one?”
“You exposed a felony in formalwear,” Eleanor said. “You may have the raspberry one.”
For fifteen minutes they almost felt normal.
Then Eleanor’s phone rang.
UNKNOWN CALLER.
Everyone at the table froze.
Detective Sloan had said not to answer unknown numbers. Eleanor let it go.
It rang again.
Then the diner phone rang.
Mabel jumped so hard her spoon clattered into her bowl.
Eleanor walked to the counter and picked up. “Quinn’s.”
A man’s voice said, “Mrs. Quinn, my name is Daniel Pierce. I represent the Waverly Foundation.”
“No, thank you.”
“This is not a sales call.”
“I didn’t think it was. I’m still saying no.”
He paused. “You are in possession of stolen foundation property.”
Eleanor looked toward Lily.
The child was watching her over a powdered-sugar paczki, suddenly ten going on tired.
“What property?” Eleanor asked.
“The phone, for one.”
“My granddaughter’s phone?”
“The device used to unlawfully access private audiovisual systems at a foundation event.”
Eleanor barked a laugh. She couldn’t help it. “She played a video of your chairwoman stealing jewelry and hitting a child, and you’re calling about Wi-Fi?”
“This will go better for you if you cooperate.”
“There it is.”
“Excuse me?”
“The part where a man with a suit voice tells a waitress how things are going to go.”
“I am advising you to retain counsel.”
“Funny,” Eleanor said. “So was I.”
She hung up before her hands started shaking.
Lou Dempsey raised his mug from stool three. “Need somebody to walk you out later, Ellie?”
Mabel said, “My nephew’s a lawyer.”
“Your nephew handles parking tickets,” Lou said.
“A parking ticket is still the law.”
The diner came alive around Eleanor, not with pity, but with something better. People who had known her when Frank died, when Audrey got sick, when Lily lost her first tooth into a pancake. People whose checks were small but whose loyalty had no deductible.
Eleanor pressed both hands to the counter and let herself breathe.
Then the bell over the door rang.
A man in a charcoal coat stepped inside.
He was in his late fifties, tall, narrow-faced, with snow in his dark hair and an expensive sadness about him. He took off his gloves slowly, looking around the diner as if memory might be sitting in one of the booths.
The plainclothes officer straightened.
Eleanor knew before he spoke that the day had changed again.
“Mrs. Quinn?” he asked.
“Yes.”
“My name is Harold Pike.”
Nora stood so quickly she bumped the table.
Eleanor heard Margaret’s voice from the night before.
Dead.
Vermont.
The lawyer who handled the estate.
Harold Pike looked at Lily, and something like grief passed over his face.
“God forgive me,” he said. “She looks like Audrey.”
Eleanor stepped between him and the child. “You have one minute before I call Detective Sloan.”
“You should call her,” he said. “But you should hear this first.”
He reached into his coat and pulled out a sealed brown envelope.
On the front was Audrey’s handwriting.
LILY, AGE TEN.
May you like
Harold set it on the counter as if it might explode.
“Vivian Waverly doesn’t want the lake house because of the codicil,” he said. “She wants it because that is where Warren hid the recording of her confession.”
