Plasma Spice Latte - Chapter Two

Lu West

The next morning, Lu called a store meeting. Such events are difficult even under the best of circumstances. You push all the lobby tables together. You provide snacks (Lu stepped up her game for this one, snagging eighty dollars worth of pizza and breadsticks from Dell’s down the road). You try your best to control the room. Most shifts have two or three baristas. Maybe five for the morning rush on a friday. Getting the whole dozen together, all chosen and hired for their ability to be charismatic and gregarious with customers was like assembling a powder keg. Most your job leading these things was defending that keg from matches. Lu was socially assertive enough in your standard one on one scenario, but never mastered the leadership thing. Her father, however, could inspire a room of vegetarians to become butchers.

He also would never be having this meeting, she thought. He would have never sold the coffee shop.

Growing up, her mom had the habit of disappearing for work a lot. She’d appear for the occasional birthday party or sporting event, but mostly when Lu thought of growing up, she thought of her dad. Every Friday, they’d see a movie. Without fail, they’d sit down, popcorn and sugary soda in hand, and take in the latest blockbuster, horror romp, or romantic comedy.

Pancreatic cancer stole him when she was seventeen. It was quick

At the funeral, her mom didn’t cry. Two weeks later, she was dating a dentist named Clyde. Lu figured her mom resented her late husband’s many failed careers, but seemed to loathe that his first success was the coffee shop. She didn’t fight Lu for the deed. She and Clyde live in Kalamazoo where apparently Clyde’s practice is doing very well.

“Do we still have jobs at least?” Fat Becky asked. 

God, now I’m thinking of her as ‘Fat Becky’.

Lu wanted the words to come easier, but she couldn’t blame the shocked looks of her employees. No. Not ‘My’ employees anymore. She wished they could understand that it was hard for her too, but how could they? They were just hearing about it. She’d been wrestling with it for weeks. She attempted to keep her eyes away from Topher. When she failed she saw a man (a boy really) hunched over, head in hands, not touching the slice of pizza in front of him. How can I do this to him? He’s been through enough.

How can I do this to Dad?

Lu’s father wanted to succeed as a creative. He tried everything. When Lu was very little,  he did stand up comedy. Gone a lot of nights and weekends, she remembered that, but not much else. By the time Lu became,“More little lady than baby girl,” he turned in his road keys. He’d occasionally talk about it though. He’d get this delighted look in his eye, pop in a VHS, and talk about the time he’d opened for Tim Allen or Bobcat Goldthwait.

When Lu hit early elementary he called himself a writer. He spent long hours hunched over a keyboard, taking hits of coffee as regularly as he typed. He outlined. He plotted. They’d take long walks where he’d tell Lu what he was writing and what he was submitting. He’d laugh off the piling rejections. “Even King had a pile of failures,” he’d say. But as far as Lu knew, the acceptances never came.

“What I can guarantee is they said that initially they are planning on keeping the staff that is here,” As Lu spoke, the words weren’t as solid as she’d like.

Topher looked up from his pizza. “What does initially mean?” The words had the same slump Lu could see in his eyes. Doesn’t look like he slept much. Lu stalled, taking a deep sip of her chai latte. The sweet milk felt off taste, much like the sanguine music that backgrounded their meeting—some local acoustic singer-songwriter who’s CDs they sold at the register. 

In her tweens, Lu’s father had been the same sort of local musician. She’d go with him to gigs. He’d play guitar and sing dumb songs about superheroes and Star Wars and would get five dollars in cash here, fifteen there. “Small money, a lot less than stand up,” he’d say, “But at least I’m not up there schilling chicken wings.”

Even Joe looked betrayed, staring down at his americano. Lu watched him stir-stick swirl the black liquid as she set her own drink down, finally willing herself to speak. “I can do Q&A for about ten more minutes about the ownership transition, then the sheriff wants to ask us all a few questions about Wendy.”

The door rustled behind her. Lu turned to see a woman in a full-bodied, purple track suit try again to open the locked door.

“Who is it?” asked Fat Becky.

“It’s Large Ice Coffee with Three Equals,” Joe said.

“It’s not three yet, is it?” Without looking, Lu was sure Dawn asked this while sending a text with one hand and her annoyingly perfect hair with the other. Dawn was Lu’s best multitasker. In situations like this, where distraction was the enemy, it could be more than a little annoying. It did, however, make her Lu’s best barista. It rubbed a few employees the wrong way, given how young and vapid she was, but talent was talent. No one could make a string of complicated drinks during a rush like Dawn.

“No. She’s early today,” said Silas. Lu did look back at him when he spoke, still surprised he’d shown up. It’s not like she meant to purposely exclude him, but she had no idea Lanfred Christian didn’t have school today. Apparently their teachers were all off at some Bible conference. Lu turned back to see the track suited woman cup eyes to peer inside the building, then knock again.

“Can’t she read the sign? It’s not like I wrote it in Latin,” Joe said.

The first day job Lu remembered her father having was a gig teaching Latin as an adjunct at Lanfred college.  Apparently, he had a master's degree in the dead language but Lu didn’t find that out until three months after he died when she found it buried in a filing cabinet. She often wondered allowed why he didn’t still teach. He told Lu—in that candor that drove her mother crazy—he was two bad days from killing himself when he worked there. He made subs for a while, Lu remembered her dad arriving with stacks of day-old french bread that they’d turn into pizzas. Somewhere between her obsessing over Disney princesses and crushing on boy bands, he started working at the Cozy Coffee Corner. By the time Lu was in braces and Junior High, her grandma died. When the boss wanted out, her dad took all of the inheritance and bought a coffee shop.

Lu watched Large Ice Coffee with Two Equals knock one more time, say what was probably a swear word, and return to her car. “Will the new bosses give me more hours?” Silas asked, resulting in Lu emitting a deep sigh. She already missed the banter about the daily customer. It had felt like an oasis of normality. 

I’m sorry, dad. Sorry for selling. I tried.

She faked her best customer service smile and turned around to tell Silas she had no idea.

Sheriff Abraham Sing

When Betty asked, Abe retired, turned in the badge, and opened that restaurant they’d talked about. He’d tried to make his life about the business. He hired. He fired. He counted inventory. It was boring.

When sheriff opened up, he threw his name in the hat without even consulting the wife. The resulting fight when they elected him could probably be heard by their neighbor’s neighbors, but most days, when he sipped coffee and kept the town in order, it was worth it. He left Betty to deal with the restaurant monotony. She must not have been cut out for it either. She hired some kid to run it on their behalf.

But when the morning started not with coffee, but with a woman ripped open and tossed in a garbage bin, he wish he’d stuck to the restaurant.

“Listen,” he said to a group of baristas. He recognized some of them. Harker’s kid, off course, but also Topher and the girl twirling her blonde hair. Dawn? He thought her name was Dawn. Both went to Lanfred Baptist as kids. Hadn’t been in quite sometime. Seemed to be the way with all young adults these days. It’s the sort of thing that seems fun, carving God out of your life, and then you end up in a dumpster.

“Listen, I my number one priority today is to make sure that all of this stays off of Twitter or whatever you’re using now while we investigate.”

“Excuse me?” asked Lu West. 

Lu seemed to have life pretty together. He saw her in church every sunday.

“Begging your pardon, but everyone in this room is a suspect until I eliminate them from that group. That can be a messy process. If I handle it, I can make sure that the innocent are proved so with minimal frustration on their lives. If this gets out and becomes a story, they’ll bring other law in, and they won’t be delicate.”

The room mostly stared at their shoes.

“Now listen,” he said, “The back parking lot is considered a crime scene. That’s why it’s all roped off. Give me the day, maybe two, and I’ll have that opened back up and business can resume as normal. Lu, can you stay closed all day today?”

“Like she has any say anymore,” said someone Abe didn’t recognize, a tall lanky kid with glasses and feathered blonde hair.

“Yeah, where are the new owners?” Abe asked.

“I’m due to meet them here at eight PM,” Lu said.

“That’s a bit late for a business meeting.”

“Apparently they are all night owls. They insisted.”

Abe hid the confusion from his face but sketched a mental note. Night owls. “I need to interview you all individually in Lu’s--I mean Lu’s old office. After that, you all can leave. Take your day off and try to forget about this mess.”

Suspect/Eyewitness Interviews

Conducted by Sheriff Abraham Sing

.

INTERVIEW SUBJECT: DAWN GRAVES

AGE: 20

DESC: BLONDE, DRESSES FASHIONABLY

SUSPECT: NOT LIKELY

A: “So were you working last night?”

D: “Hecks no. The dirty hippy poetry thing was last night.”

A: “Where were you then, Dawn?”

D: “Me and a couple of girls drove up to Central to go to a lacrosse party.”

A: “A couple of girls and I.”

D: “What?”

A: “A couple of Girls and I went to Central to illegally drink with lacrosse players.”

D: “Oh, you went up to Central too?”

INTERVIEW SUBJECT: BECKY MCCREA

AGE: 22

DESC: LONG BLACK BRAIDED HAIR, GLASSES, HEAVIER SET

SUSPECT: NOT LIKELY

B: “It had to be one of those truckers that comes through. We have a couple that get large coffees at like five in the morning. You think it was a weird sex thing?  I was watching that Taboo show on Netflix--”

A: “Ms. McCrea, I appreciate your assistance in deduction but really I just need some information. You were here for the poetry reading?”

B: “Yeah, every week.”

A: “Did you see Becky Knowles leave?”

B: “Her last name was Knowles? Like Beyonce?”

A: “Please just answer the question.”

B: “I get distracted really easily. They’ve got me on adderall.”

A: 

B: “I didn’t see her.”

A. “Did she have any boyfriends or girlfriends or anything like that?”

B: “I don’t think so. I tried asking her out once, realized really quickly I was barking up the wrong bush.”

INTERVIEW SUBJECT: LU WEST

AGE: 25

DESC: BRUNETTE, TRADITIONALLY ATTRACTIVE, GOOD SEED

SUSPECT: NOT LIKELY

L: “Saw her right before she left. We had a good talk. One of those rare moments that I thought I wasn’t terrible at this whole managing other people thing. I—”

A: “There’s nothing wrong with tears.”

L: “I’m an ugly crier.”

A: “Were I one of those old guys that carried a handkerchief, I’d totally give it to you. I’m not though. Those are about the grossest things this side of the internet.”

L: “I always figured official-police-officer you would be more, I don’t know, official.”

A: “I’ve had my whole life to be official. You know what? It didn’t keep girls out of dumpsters. Helped when I ran the restaurant though. Don’t know how you hire out here, Lu, but you seem to get decent people. Every time I cast that net out I got nothing but potheads.”

L: “I just get the decent potheads.”

A: “Touché. How’s your mom doing?”

L: “Good. Lives in Kalamazoo now. Remarried.”

A: “Your dad was one in a million. You still play guitar?”

L: “You still play the drums?”

A: “They collect dust in the garage. Grandkids beat ‘em to heck every once in awhile.”

L:

A: “This is all pretty heavy stuff. You going to be alright?”

L: “I didn’t have to see her. I can’t imagine what Topher is going through.”

A: “How about the rest of your staff?  Anything I should know?”

L: “None of them knew or treated Becky well. She was new. It’s a cycle that always happens. They won’t be able to tell you much.”

A:  “People tell me a lot.”

INTERVIEW SUBJECT: Simon “Si” Ibson

AGE: 17

DESC: TALL, LANKY, GLASSES, FEATHERED HAIR

SUSPECT: NOT LIKELY

A: “You weren't here last night?”

S: “I only work the weekends. I’m still in high school.Not Lanfred High, of course. Lanfred Christian Academy.”

A: “Why do you say of course?”

S: “Did I?”

A: “My wife taught at Lanfred High for twenty seven years.”

S: “Didn’t mean any offense.”

A: “Yes. You did. You’re a kid. I’ll give you a pass.”

S: “You’re kind of a bully.”

A: “When you get old like me you can either wither into disuse or become a bully. I try to at least bully people into becoming better people. Unless you end up on the wrong side of the law this will be the last conversation we probably have, Simon, so—”

S: “Si.”

A: “I’m sorry. Si. Let me impart some wisdom, Si. You’re seventeen. People’ve told you for seventeen trips ‘round the sun that you’re better than other people. The sooner you forget it and stop acting like you’ve a silver spoon up your rectum, the easier life will be for you.”

S: “Shouldn’t you be asking me some questions about Becky?”

A: “If this is you in The Lanfred Daily scoring twelve points for the Lanfred Christian Crusaders last night, I’d say your alibi checks out.”

S: “So why are we even doing this?”

A: “Just wanted to chat. I’m sort of a people person.”

INTERVIEW SUBJECT: JOE HARKER

AGE: 26

DESC: SHORT, RED-HEADED

SUSPECT: POSSIBLE (CONFIRM ALIBI WITH SECURITY FOOTAGE)

A: “How’s your dad, Joe?”

J: “George is good, I guess. Still at ThomsonRoseCo. Still working firsts.”

A: “You call your dad ‘George?”

J: “Bad habit.”

A: “Look, your dad and I...”

J: “I’m not a fan of the shit he did either. Never really held that night it all blew up against you. I’ve been happy enough to give you free coffee on occasion.”

A: “You guys don’t have to do that.”

J: “It’s Lu’s policy. Anyways, I’m happy enough to oblige.”

A: “And your dad?”

J: “Has been and always will be an asshole. My mom deserved better.”

A: “Maybe we should stick to the case.”

J: “Sorry. The more unstable life gets the more I tend to run at the mouth.”

A: “It’s a family trait.”

INTERVIEW SUBJECT: CHRISTOPHER “TOPHER” PERELLA

AGE: 23

DESC: BROWN HAIR AND EYES, LOOKS LIKE A DEER THAT LEARNED TO STAND UPRIGHT

SUSPECT: NOT LIKELY

A: “Mrs. Sing has been meaning for me to ask on you for quite some time, Topher. We miss seeing you in church.”

T: “Aren’t we supposed to be talking about Becky?”

A: “Yes. But I imagine you’re going through a few things after finding her like that. Church can go a long way at healing a mind. Trust me. I’ve seen a few things in my line of work and were it not for God I’d—”

T: “You ever see something like this?”

A: “Maybe we should stick to talking about the case.”

T: “I see her when I close my eyes. Who would leave someone like that?  Just lifeless, helpless?  Staring at me?”

A:

T:

A: “When I was young and still thought this badge made a difference in the world we were sent to raid this apartment where they were running an illegal poker game and strip club. Could’ve been handled during day hours by making a few quiet arrests but the bosses wanted a big front page splash. Typical stuff. Kick the door in and there’s the fattest stripper I’ve ever seen dancing on one of the tables, naked as a farmland sundown. She sees us, freaks, steps on the edge of the table, falls and busts herself wide open, I mean wide and nearly in half. We make our arrests, call for an ambulance, but mostly we watched her die in front of us. We find her kids sleeping in the next room. Cute kids. I had to explain it all to them.”

T: “Are you supposed to be telling me this?”

A: “Probably not. But I already retired once. What’re they going to do, fire me?”

T:

A: “For nearly a year I saw the eyes of those kids staring back at me whenever I closed my own. Church went a long way towards healing that.”

T:

A: “How ‘bout The Mrs. and I pick you up on Sunday?”

Lu West II

Lu checked her phone. 7:56. She adjusted her scarf, attempting to shield the cold and cease the wind from carrying the red wrapping away through the parking lot. Michigan Novembers aren’t always snowy, but usually lose-your-toes cold. The sun seems to betray you a little more each day, taking an earlier curtain call. She rubbed her hands together and spit breath in the air. It became a cloud.

All that week it fell dark as early as seven thirty. As days pressed closer together it made Lu feel like daylight became precious. Still working long after the sun had gone chewed at her soul.  She’d give the new owners a quick tour, then get home.

Checked her phone again. 8:02. No new texts. Joe hadn’t really said anything since she told him she was selling. Since when did she need Joe’s approval? They’d had a big argument like this when she stopped participating in open mic nights. Until recently, she wrote really dumb, silly songs and performed them on guitar. Her first hit, winner of the Lanfred High talent show in 2006, was “The Day Superman Had Gas,” a multi-movement, post-apocalyptic epic. They’d first bonded over this, but Joe always pushed it as destiny and Lu never found it a good fit. She wasn’t an artist. She had too much of her mother in her. Saw more nobility in just earning a living traditionally but having an interesting hobby.

“Lu West, I presume?”

She didn’t know how they snuck up in front of her, but there they were. They stood side by side, man and woman, her hipster chic and he conventionally attractive. He had spoken, his breath leaving only the faintest cloud in the cold air. 

“Yes, and you are?” Lu asked.

“Forgive me,” he said, offering a gloved hand, “Benjamin Barlow. We talked on the phone.”

Lu shook his hand, trying best to withstand admittedly intoxicating eyes. This is my boss. My new boss. She concentrated on making her handshake firm.

“This is Mildred Shoe. She’s going to be the one running your store.”

“Pleasure’s mine. I’m sure of it.” Mildred didn’t offer a hand.

“Well, I don’t have any staff for you guys to meet. I don’t know if you heard but we had a bit of a unfortunate—”

“If you are speaking of the death of the young girl, I’m unfortunately aware,” Benjamin said. He looked to Mildred, “I’m afraid some people in this town are...reckless.”

“That sort of thing doesn’t usually happen,” Lu offered quickly. “Lanfred’s pretty quiet. Not business quiet, I mean, just quaint.”

“An apt adjective,” Mildred said.

“Well can we see our investment?” Ben asked.

“Oh, yeah, come on in!”  Lu produced keys and unlocked the door.

“Love the scarf by the way,” Mildred said, crossing her arms. “Very foreshadowing.”

“Thank you?  I don’t know that fashion term. Does it mean it looks nice?”

Mildred chuckled. Benjamin squeezed her arm; her chuckle turned to a reaction to pain. “It looks very nice. Don’t mind Mildred. She’s used to keeping two yes men around so she forgets decency.”

“I said I loved it. You don’t need to defend this one, Barlow,” Mildred said as she walked passed both of them and into the coffee shop. “She’s a big girl.”

“You two are big on the repartee, huh?” Lu said, leading Benjamin in.

“It helps the night pass,” Benjamin said and smiled. 

He’s. Your. Boss. Stop swooning.

“So, um, this is the new Barlow’s Coffee and Cafe,” Lu said, gesturing.

“There’s a basement, yes?” Mildred asked.

“Uh...yeah, I mean...it’s an old Michigan basement, just good for storage of non food items.”

Before Lu could finish, Mildred darted with a squee to the downstairs stairwell. Lu looked to Benjamin.

“She...uh...has a thing for basements.”

“I see.”

“Someone is coming tomorrow to switch the signs around. Can you run a transition meeting for the staff in the morning?”

“Yeah, of course. Do you or Mildred want to come so I can introduce you?”

“We aren’t really morning people.”

“You own coffee shops.”

“My family owns, I’m just a peon,” he said with a smile, “And we own twenty-four hour coffee shops. The management staff mostly burns the midnight oil.”

“I’m not sure Lanfred can support a twenty-four hour coffee shop. Even our Walmart closes at ten.”

“Don’t worry, Ms. West,” Benjamin said, “We have faith in our business model. We’ve been doing this for a long time.”

Benjamin Barlow

“I like her,” Mildred said. She sat cross-legged on checkout counter after Lu had left. She held a phone, using an index finger to fling birds at pigs, unconsciously smiling at every collision. “Also, she wants to fuck you.”

Benjamin stood at the community board reading about concerts, guitar lessons, and how someone at Lanfred College needed a roommate. He pulled his long hair back, cursing the universe that would not let him cut it. “She doesn’t want to fuck me. The evolutionary predatory advantage I have makes her think she wants to fuck me. It’s why those books are so stupid.”

“Which books?  Twilight or the freaky sex version.”

“Both I guess. Never read the ladder.”

“Boring old you?”  Birds hit pigs with a bowling alley crash. “Color me surprised.”

Benjamin burst across the room and ripped the phone out of her hands, ignoring the “Hey!” she offered. He scrolled through her phone to confirm the worst. He showed her an incriminating photo.

“Really?” he said, “You recklessly kill an employee of the coffee shop and then you use her phone to play games?”

“It gets better. Scroll through the pictures.”

Benjamin did, revealing a series of incriminating photos that Mildred took of the carnage of the dead body.

“Dude, I tore that bitch nearly in half.”

“THIS IS NOT A GAME!” Benjamin yelled, slamming the phone on the counter beside her, the shattered debris launching in every direction. “I am not your friend. I am not your buddy. This town is not a playground. We will not trade long term results for silly short-term thinking.”

Mildred stood up. She adjusted her designer dress. She pulled phone debris out of her arm, then brushed off Benjamin’s suit coat, “Oh, is the big bad district manager upset because a woman under his thumb decided to act as her own authority.”

“This has nothing to do with sex.”

“Catch up on your Freud, Benny.”

A woman stood in a full bodied purple track suit knocked on the door. When she recieved no answer, she knocked again.

“Did you order delivery?” Mildred asked.

Sheriff Abraham Sing II

Abe had a rule with his wife that he wasn’t to work at home. Another rule: they went to bed together every night. After the long day of dealing with the fallout of a brutal murder, Betty Sing lay sleeping next to him, snoring louder than a screw in a garbage disposal, a weathered paperback tented on her breasts that risked falling with every inhale. Abe stared at the ceiling. It was nine twenty seven.

Abe gave it ten minutes, then carefully climbed out of bed and snuck down the hall to the room they called an office. They’d stuck the computer in there, sure, but it mostly served as overflow for all the crap they couldn’t put anywhere else. The space contained an uncomfortable futon that became an uncomfortable bed whenever someone visited. Also, one corner sported a large, sprawling, unorganized stack of what Betty colloquially called the “used needles” of her paperback addiction, mostly fantasy novels, picked up at used bookstores for half price or Goodwill for pennies. Abe had tried several times to convert her to reading digitally. He’d sooner find Jimmy Hoffa.

He hoped the security company had finally done their job and the footage from the back parking lot would be available. Abe used internet to log into the work computer and flirted with the notion of making coffee. He decided against it. The burbling coo of a brewing pot and the smell would probably stop the snores and she’d be demanding him back to bed. He checked his email, and sure enough, J and J security had sent him an email with an attachment.

He fumbled around for headphones. A pair rested beneath the computer itself, earbuds, coiled together and tangled like they’d been used to play cat’s cradle. He untangled them, plugged them in, and sat back in the chair. His finger hesitated to click the mouse. The reality of what he was about to watch…

An empty parking lot. 

He scrubbed forward.

Becky Knowles standing in an empty parking lot by herself, seeming to talking to the trunk of a car. 

He rubbed his temple in confusion, then rewound the vid. 

Becky walks into the back parking lot, something gets her attention and she turns and talks towards the back of a vehicle like it’s a perfectly normal thing to do.

Abe face fell to his palms. Juries like what’s simple and easy to understand. Becky’s lingering and erratic behavior could easily mean the killer could go free.

Her arms and body writhe backward and stay. She fights against her imaginary friends, wriggling as if trying to break free. 

“Crazy,” Abe said aloud. “Why’d you have to be crazy. This town can’t handle you being off your rock—”

She levitates into the air. She resists, pawing at her neck like something is holding her, dancing with legs like a snake when you hold it by the head.

“What the…”

Becky hunches forward in the air. There’s a smile on her face and a blissful look in her eyes as the neck breaks open like a pulled apart biscuit and she doesn’t bleed, the open neck just ripping more and more wide as the eyes close for the final time. She then falls to the ground, only to levitate again and ride the wind horizontally till she travels off frame to be discovered in a dumpster and erode normal life in Lanfred probably forever.

ON TO CHAPTER THREE