Free Fry Me a Liver by Delia Rosen Page A

fusion.”
    She noted that in her file and added to that a photo she had taken of the couple sitting off to the side. Bean was probably just a few years younger than her predecessor, but there was a big generational gap in the way they handled technology. Grant was still a notepad-and-pen kinda guy.
    â€œAny other thoughts?” Bean asked. “Random impressions—anything while it’s still fresh?”
    I thought for a moment, replayed the experience. “Candy said something about her cell phone being in the diner.”
    â€œWe found her phone and checked for video,” Bean said. “Nada.”
    â€œBenjamin took cell phone video downstairs—”
    â€œHe told us,” Bean said. “We saw it. Some sensational images but nothing that helps us.”
    â€œAll this technology and an explosion in a major American metropolis can still go uncovered?”
    â€œThat’s the big dirty secret about surveillance,” Bean said. “Not about this situation necessarily, but anyone who is smart and does due diligence can find ways not to be photographed committing a crime.” She paused thoughtfully. “I think that’s it for now.”
    â€œWhat do you think happened?” I asked. “Any impressions?”
    â€œNot yet, and I can’t really talk about an ongoing investigation,” Bean said. She added, “You may not know this, but your former boyfriend was disciplined for talking out of turn about cases.”
    â€œYou mean discussing them with me?”
    Bean nodded.
    I felt a little bad for Grant; he probably did that more to involve me in his work, to help the relationship, than to solicit my opinions, however helpful they sometimes were. When I worked on Wall Street, I always thought rules and regulations were probably a good idea. Now, I wasn’t so sure.
    Detective Bean folded away her iPad. “If you want anything, water, coffee, a sandwich, there’s a catering truck—”
    â€œDetective, I have my own—”
    I stopped myself. I looked away from the trucks and the crowd, back in the direction of the deli. No , I told myself. I didn’t . I didn’t have my own coffee machine making premium coffee ordered from my special supplier in New York City. I had a dust-filled diner that was dark and colorless, just like the basement had been. Only it seemed darker because it was so bright and sun-colored outside.
    My brain was at war with itself again. Part of it wanted to grab my remaining staff, have them salvage what they could, and set up a card table on the street to get back in business. Busyness was the best thing to stave off depression and I worried that I was about to get very depressed. But the other part of my mind told me not to do that, not to subject Luke, Newt, Dani, and Raylene to that. They would probably go along with it because I asked, because it was what I needed. It was not what they needed. They needed to tend to their own, to settle their individual souls.
    â€œDo you have a bottle of water?” I asked Bean.
    â€œSure,” she said.
    She walked to a squad car and took a plastic bottle from a compartment inside the door. When she returned, I cracked the cap and poured the contents over my head, washing my face with the other hand. Bean couldn’t see the tears I let flow again but they were there, mingled with the warm water. I did not blame myself for what happened to A.J. or Thomasina. No one could have foreseen it. But for as long as I had been down here, things just went wrong at the deli. I didn’t think the universe was trying to tell me something. God had to have better things to do. Still, there had been way too much pain.
    He managed to make time for Job, and there was a really good man , I thought.
    But Satan had been involved in that mishugas . I don’t think that was the case here, just terrible, terrible fortune. Shlimazel , as my grandmother used to call it, but on a