Chapter 9: The Pantry

Marrin's Diner still had my father's name over the door, in paint that had been peeling for three years.

I had borrowed Marguerite's second car from the lake house garage.

I left it a quarter mile down the road and walked the rest in the dark.

It was ten to midnight on Friday.

A white padlock hung on the front door with a Thayer Security sticker on it.

"This way," Caleb said from the shadows.

He was crouched at the back door by the dumpsters, in a dark jacket, with a flashlight held in his teeth.

He took it out of his mouth.

"Hold this."

I took it and aimed the beam at the lock.

He worked a key in it, jiggled it hard, and the door gave with a groan.

Inside, the diner smelled like dust and cold grease and old coffee.

The stools stood in a row.

The pie case was empty and the grill was covered with a gray sheet.

My father's apron still hung on its hook by the kitchen door.

I put my hand over my mouth.

"I know," Caleb said quietly. "Come on. Office."

The office was a closet behind the walk-in, with a metal desk and a calendar from three Octobers ago.

I used the brass key from Gus.

The top drawer slid open, and I pulled out a green cloth notebook that I had last seen in my father's coat pocket.

There was no copy of a check under it, though Gus had sworn there would be.

"His order book," I said. "He wrote everything in it."

I turned the pages under the flashlight.

Beans, flour, a plumber's number, a note about my mother's birthday.

On the page dated the second Friday of October, a year before he died, my father had written in his big looped hand:

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