Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Detective Park drove to the station in silence, then bustled me into an empty room with a table and a few chairs that obviously valued function over style—and their function was to keep me as uncomfortable as possible while I waited for Amir to arrive. All very familiar emotions as I sat there wondering what could possibly happen next.

“Do I need a lawyer? I think I should wait for Amir,” I told Detective Park, as I fiddled with the bottle of water he gave me, feeling the need to fill the silence as he sat there watching me.

“You can if you want, but you’re not under arrest. There’s no reason to wait for him.”

He must’ve read the skepticism in my face, because he shrugged and said, “Hey, the sooner you answer my questions, the sooner you get out.”

Remembering there was also a search at my house, I figured now would be a good time for me to get some information as well. “How’s my aunt doing? Did they find anything at our house?”

The friendly expression he’d adopted as he tried to get me to talk was quickly replaced by a somber one. The change was so quick and unsettling, my body physically reacted. The spasms in my stomach brought to mind the day I was foolish enough to think I could run a half marathon. As I’d stood there at the starting line, at an ungodly hour on Lake Shore Drive, surrounded by people who’d been training for this year-round, my stomach twisted in anxiety, fear, and nausea, wondering what the heck I’d gotten myself into. That same feeling crept over me as I watched Detective Park debate just how much information to disclose.

“We didn’t find anything in your house. Your aunt and grandmother seem to be cleared from suspicion, unless we find something in that bag of rice.”

I blinked at him. “Oh, that’s a good thing, right? Why did your expression change?”

He ran his hand up the short-shorn hair on the back of his head, the nervous gesture oddly boyish and charming on someone like him. “I just feel bad for Rosie, is all. But I’ve got a job to do.”

He got up and walked out for a minute, returning with a large cardboard box. He pulled out the half-full bag of rice they found in our restaurant kitchen, this time in a labeled evidence bag. “Could you tell me about this, Ms. Macapagal?”

My eyebrows scrunched up as I studied the bag. What was so special about it? “I don’t really know what to tell you, Detective. It’s the same brand of jasmine rice we’ve been ordering in bulk since I was a kid. We use it for most of our dishes.”

“And did you use this bag the day Derek Winter came to your restaurant?”

I laughed, then sobered up when he glared at me. “Sorry, it’s just impossible to tell, you know? All the bags look the same. Besides, we pour the rice into storage containers to keep them fresh once we open them. If that bag is still half full, we must’ve opened it recently.”

“Why do you say that?”

“My aunt is nitpicky about cleanliness and food hygiene. As soon as we open a bag, we pour the whole thing into a storage container. We don’t usually leave open bags laying around.”

“‘Usually’?”

“Well, I mean nobody’s perfect. Could be one of us started filling the container and got called away to do something and never finished the job.”

He noted this all down without further comment, which made me even more nervous. What could I possibly be saying that was important enough to write down in an official capacity?

“Sir, why all these questions about the rice? Considering it’s sitting there in an evidence bag, do you think there’s something significant about it?”

“Did you know that rice has higher levels of arsenic than other foods?”

Whoa, really? I ate rice every day for just about every meal. “I had no idea.”

“Not enough to kill, usually, but enough to make people sick. Your friend Derek had unusually high levels of arsenic in his bloodstream.” Sensing my protest, he held up his hand. “Now that could easily be explained by the fact that he seemed to frequent your restaurant quite often and maybe it built up over time. However, the police chief received an anonymous tip leading us to believe that the rice was purposely contaminated with arsenic.”

I slammed my hands on the tabletop, pushing myself out of my seat. “That’s ridiculous! Why would we purposely poison our customers? That restaurant is all we have! Plus my family eats the food there every day and we’re just fine.” Realizing my actions and tone could be misconstrued as aggressive, I quickly sat back down and folded my hands together. “Sorry. It’s just, you know. Upsetting.”

A thought occurred to me. “Are you saying that you narrowed down the substance in Derek’s system to that exact bag, Detective? I mean, you just found it, right?”

Detective Park frowned at me. “It would be impossible to narrow it down to this specific bag, and we haven’t had time to run tests on it yet.”

Oh, thank goodness.

“But we did have time to test the dishes we removed, and the ones Derek ate from had large traces of arsenic in them while Mr. Long’s did not. So how many people had access to the food and the opportunity to poison the dish?” Detective Park asked.

He had us there. But how?

“Are you positive that arsenic is what killed him? And that it was added before Derek ate our food?”

The detective raised his eyebrows. “Are you suggesting that not only was the poison added after Derek ate the food, but that it’s not what killed him? Then how did such a large amount of arsenic get in his system, and how did he die, Ms. Macapagal?”

Well of course it sounds ridiculous when you say it out loud like that, Mr. Detective.

I crossed my arms and scowled to cover up my embarrassment. “I don’t know! Mr. Long was there too, maybe he did it. Besides, it’s not my job to prove how or why, Detective. That’s your job.”

Detective Park’s nostrils flared. “I don’t need you to tell me what my job is, Ms. Macapagal. I know exactly what I need to do.”

He followed this statement with an intense glare and an even more intense silence. I squirmed in my seat as the quiet grew oppressive. I’d nearly reached the breaking point when—

Knock, knock.

Amir entered the room, breaking the tension so completely I sighed audibly with relief. He stood behind me, hands on the back of my chair. “You have no right to be questioning my client without me present, Detective.”

Detective Park grinned at him, the jig finally up. “Ah, Mr. Awan. I was wondering when you’d get here. And just so you know, your client spoke freely and of her own volition.”

My jaw dropped. “But I asked for him! I know how this works.”

“Sorry Ms. Macapagal, but you asked if you needed a lawyer. I said no, and you started talking.”

“I . . . that’s . . . Amir, can he do that? Does that count?”

Amir rubbed the space between his eyebrows. “If you never actually said, ‘I want my lawyer,’ or ‘I won’t speak without my lawyer present,’ then yeah. You chose to speak to him without me around.”

I started to protest, but he held up his hand. “Anyway, I’m here now and unless there’s something you can hold her on, we’re leaving.”

Amir motioned toward me and I started to get up, but the detective waved us to sit down. “You’re being rather hasty, Counselor. Perhaps we need to run a few more tests to connect Ms. Macapagal to Derek Winter’s murder, but I’d like to see you talk your way out of this.”

He reached into the cardboard box and pulled out the duffel bag they’d found at the restaurant, this time with an evidence tag on it. He unzipped it, exposing mounds of cash and baggies full of pills, some of them still in prescription pill bottles.

Amir glanced at me, but I shook my head, eyes locked on the kaleidoscope of drugs and money spilling out of the bag. “My client claims to have no knowledge of this bit of evidence.”

Detective Park leaned forward, elbows on the table and fingers steepled together. “Really, Ms. Macapagal? Then why was it in your locker in the restaurant office? And before you ask, yes, it was locked. Your aunt gave us the keys.”

“But that doesn’t make sense! I don’t even know what those pills are! Why would I have them?”

The detective smiled. “Oh come now, Ms. Macapagal. A young woman as worldly as you surely knows about recreational drug use. We’re in the midst of an opioid crisis, haven’t you heard?”

Amir nodded slowly, apparently catching his drift, which was nice because I had no idea where he was going with this. “That’s right, Detective. You were the one who broke up that drug ring and handled the trucker’s murder.”

“Exactly,” he said, eyes glittering like a hawk. “And it all stopped for a while and our little county found peace. But now it seems like it’s starting up again, and I absolutely will not stand for that.”

It took me a minute, but I finally caught on to what he was insinuating. “Wait a minute! I am not involved with whatever—”

“It starts with just one death, doesn’t it?” Detective Park interrupted me. “But then it spirals. One person parties a little too hard, and emergency services doesn’t get there in time. Or we’re out of Narcan, because it’s happening all too frequently and our resources are spread thin.” He shook his head. “Why’d you do it, Lila? Did Derek find out about your little side hustle and threaten to turn you in? Or were you in it together and things turned sour? A lover’s spat gone wrong?”

My mouth opened and closed soundlessly, like a goldfish. His accusations were so wild, I didn’t even know how to begin to combat them.

“Detective, this is outrageous. You’re grasping at straws trying to paint my client as some drug kingpin, but you have no proof.” Amir put his hand on my shoulder. “If you’re done insulting Ms. Macapagal and wasting our time, we’d like to leave now.”

Detective Park held up a hand. “Do I have proof that she’s one of the higher ups? No, you’re right. But I do have evidence that she’s involved and that’s more than enough to move forward.”

I stared at him, the seriousness of his last remark sinking in. “Amir? He’s not . . . I mean, he can’t, right?”

Amir’s grip on my shoulder tightened. “Are you charging my client, Detective?”

“Absolutely. Possession with intent to sell, for beginners. We need to run checks on that extremely suspicious lot of cash as well. And when the medical examiner gives us a more thorough report, we might even throw in murder. Though I’m sure we could work something out if you choose to confess now, Ms. Macapagal.”

I shook my head wildly. “I have nothing to confess. I’m innocent.”

He grunted. “Save it for court. Mr. Awan, we need to process your client now. You’ll have to come back during visitation hours tomorrow.”

I panicked, grabbing Amir’s arm as he stood up. “Wait! Are you just going to leave me here?”

Amir gently loosened my grip, trying to keep a smile on his face, though a pained expression slipped through. “Don’t worry Lila, it’s just one night. I need to talk to your family and let them know what’s going on. I’ll be back tomorrow, and we’ll figure this out.”

He squeezed my hand and leaned forward, eyes burning with conviction. “I swear to you, I will fix this. Just trust me, OK? Everything will be fine.”

And then he left. Just left me there as Detective Park had another officer take my fingerprints and photo, as well as all of my belongings. Dear Lord, I had a mug shot now. What would Tita Rosie and Lola Flor think? I hoped Amir would break it to them gently. I also hoped Lola Flor wouldn’t shoot the messenger.