“We were,” I said, “but something has come up.”
“Oh, do you need to reschedule? That could have easily been done with the operator downstairs. You didn’t need to come all the way in,” he began. Mason cut him off by tossing the paper bag onto the desk. Detective Samburg blinked as he looked at it and then moved his gaze back to me. “What the hell is this?”
“Open it,” I said. “It’s evidence. Your officers missed it.”
Detective Samburg opened the bag and peered inside.
“It looks like a piece of a flannel shirt,” he said.
“Correct,” I said. “We handled it with gloves the entire time, so if you needed to try to get DNA or prints off it, it hasn’t been contaminated by us.”
Detective Samburg’s eyes narrowed, and then one eyebrow went up. He reached inside his desk and pulled out a box of latex gloves, slipping one on his left hand and then using it to pull the shirt piece out.
“So you boys thinking of getting into detective work, or…”
“I hired a PI,” I said. As soon as the words were out of my mouth, the detective’s face dropped.
“You did what?”
“We,” Jordan interrupted, “hired a PI. Because you guys aren’t doing shit. You haven’t taken our case seriously from day one, treated us like we were annoying you because we dared to want to know how our place burned down, and then actively ignored us when we said we thought we knew who it was. And now you have proof.”
“A flannel shirt?” he asked.
“Danny wears them all the time,” Tyler said.
“Who’s Danny?” the detective asked.
“Christ,” Tyler said, shaking his head.
“The other bar owner, down the street,” Mason said. “The one who had a competitor’s bar burn once before already. The one who hated us for being more successful. The one who is suddenly booming with business now that we aren’t around. That one.”
Detective Samburg opened up his drawer again, pulling out a plastic zip bag, and put the shirt piece inside. Then he took off the glove and tossed it away, folding his hands together in the center of the desk.
“Look, I know you guys are very frustrated, but you have to understand, there could be a million reasons why a piece of a flannel shirt was near your bar. And better yet, you have no idea whose flannel shirt piece that is. It could be anyone’s,” he said.
“It could be,” I said. “But we believe it’s Danny’s. You should check into him. We’ll call back tomorrow.”* * *I opened the door of the hotel room, trying to juggle two large paper bags filled to the brim without dropping them. Once it was open, I stuck my foot out to hold it and saw Amanda’s surprised face over the top.
“What in the world?” she asked, hurrying over to help me. “This smells amazing. Did you get Chinese?”
“I did,” I said, setting one bag down on the table by the couch. Amanda set the other next to it, and we started emptying them both. “So, I didn’t know what you liked, and I figured we have this fridge here, why not get a little bit of everything?”
“Did you order the entire menu?” Amanda asked as the seemingly endless bags were emptied. A stack of dishes on one side was starting to lean.
“Almost,” I laughed. “I claim the chicken curry, though.”
We each grabbed a paper plate I had thought to stuff into the sides of the bag and made plates of our favorites, moving to the couch to sit down. Amanda turned on the television, putting on a sitcom but keeping the volume low so we could talk while we ate.
“This is delicious,” she said after a few minutes of muffled silence as we dug into our food. “So, how is the investigation going?”
“Dallas, the PI, found a piece of a flannel shirt the cops missed. Danny wears almost nothing but flannels, so we took it to the detective working the case. Not sure yet how seriously he’s taking it, but he at least admitted it as evidence,” I said.
“That’s exciting,” she said, picking at her lo mein. “Have you guys talked about rebuilding at all?”
“Not yet,” I said, finishing an egg roll in embarrassingly few bites. “We just aren’t at that point yet.”
“Well, the reason I was asking,” Amanda said, looking up at me and then back down to her plate, “is that I think I found a spot that might be better than where you were.”
“Really?” I asked.
“Yeah,” she said, poking at the noodles as she spoke, seeming to judge my reaction. “It’s just on the outskirts of town, but it’s much larger, and the neighborhood is busier than where you were. All the new building going on down there means that people are flocking there all the time.”
“Show me,” I said, and she smiled brightly. Jumping up off the couch, she grabbed her tablet and brought it back to sit close to me. I set my plate off to the side and let her cozy up to me. She smelled like a flowery shampoo and fresh soap, and I wondered how she would react if I had just pulled her into my lap.