Page 76 of The Elf Beside Himself

It didn’t seem like Van Buren was a good starting place, given that he hadn’t done shit about Ward’s tip. I hadn’t particularly gotten a positive vibe from Smith, either, but at least he hadn’t been a total dick.

I wondered just how bad the odds were and whether or not I was willing to roll the dice on whether or not Smith was part of a coverup, was incompetent, or just happened to work with a bunch of dickbags.

Maybe it was worth a trip to the Shawano PD to find out what he’d do if I walked into his station.

15

I was kneadingdough for pretzel rolls because we—me, Taavi, and Elliot—were having dinner with my parents. It was a good sign because it meant that Elliot was getting out of the house and actually interacting with people in a way that wasn’t explicitly tied to funerals or insurance or lawyers. It also made my mother happy, which was good because I felt bad about the fact that I was supposed to be staying with my folks, but I’d spent more nights with Elliot than I had with them.

My dad had tried to talk my mother into grilling something, but my mother wanted to do something ‘nice,’ by which she meant ‘make Val’s and Elliot’s favorites.’ Mine was beer cheese soup and pretzels—hence the pretzel rolls—and Elliot’s favorite was honey mustard chicken, which was baked, not grilled.

Mom had asked first thing this morning if I would be around to make pretzel rolls, and I couldn’t tell her no, even though I’d fully intended to go visit Smith at the Shawano PD. So I was making pretzel rolls, up to my elbows in flour.

My phone rang, a number a didn’t recognize with a Shawano area code.

I wiped flour on my jeans and answered it. “Hart.”

“Mr. Hart, this is Detective Smith, Shawano Homicide.”

“Detective,” I greeted him, surprised. “What can I do for you?”

I heard him let out a breath of air and frowned, confused. I had wanted to talk to him, but I couldn’t think of a reason he’d want to talk to me.

“Mr. Hart, I… Is there somewhere we could meet to have a conversation?”

“Sure? I can come down there, if you like.”

“I’d rather not, actually,” came the response. My heartrate picked up, and I gave him my full attention. Because if he wanted to talk to me somewhere that wasn’t the precinct, that could mean that there was someone—or someones—there he didn’t trust. Which might mean that he had suspicions about Gregory Crane’s death that he didn’t feel comfortable saying at work—

I needed to not get ahead of myself.

“You know glass?”

“Do I know glass? What about glass?” What the fuck did that mean?

“No G-L-A-S. It’s a coffeehouse.”

“Oh. No, but I’m sure my phone can find it.”

“When can you meet me?”

I had to finish the bread. “An hour?” I suggested.

“I’ll see you then.” And he hung up.

“Who was that?” Taavi asked, coming back into the kitchen from where he’d been helping my mother carry boxes of Christmas decorations out of the basement. Because my mother really, really wanted to do the Christmas tree thing, and she was convinced that decorating a Christmas tree was somehow going to be good for Elliot.

I was dubious. I mean, maybe she was right, but I thought it was equally likely that it was just going to make everything worse as it reminded him that he wasn’t going to be able to spend Christmas with his dad this year.

“Detective Smith,” I answered Taavi. “He wants to meet.”

“Why?”

I shook my head. “He didn’t say.”

Taavi leaned against the counter beside me as I began shaping the individual dinner rolls so that I could toss them into the boiling water on the stove. “Is that… bad?”

“Actually,” I replied. “I would guess it’s good—well, good for us, anyway. He doesn’t want to talk at the precinct, which means he doesn’t want somebody there to overhear what he has to say.”