A waitress meets her in the doorway, carrying an apron and wearing a pink camouflage fleece jacket.

“Oh, Officer,” she says, noticing Kateri’s badge, her belt. “We’re closed already.”

“I’m not here to eat,” Kateri says. “I need to ask a few questions. Is Shannon Jenkins still here?”

The waitress shakes her head and comes on more direct than Kateri expected. “Look,” she says. “Whatever it is, he didn’t do it, okay? What are you, new? Did they send you down here to badger the poor kid?”

“Pardon me?” Kateri says. She takes a step back from the woman and rests her hand on her belt, exposing her weapon.

“They’re always out here looking for Shannon,” she says. The waitress isn’t much older than Kateri but looks it. She’s big around the middle, mature in her mannerisms. Kateri would guess she’s about forty, with grown kids.

The waitress steps out from under the yellow corrugated-plastic awning and lights a cigarette.

“Is he still here?” Kateri asks, curt.

“No.”

“How about the owner?”

The waitress looks at her for a minute, deciding, then makes a frown and shrugs. “Go ahead,” she says. “He ain’t friendly,” she adds. “Especially toward cops.”

Inside, the Hub’s owner, Junior Savage, has an open bottle of bleach in his hand that he sloshes along the tile kitchen floor.

“Sir,” Kateri calls.

“No,” Junior answers. He picks up a wet mop and moves the bleach around.

Kateri shows her badge. “Sir, I just need a moment.”

He seems small from far away, and she thinks it’s a trick of the size of the room, the tile, or the lighting, until he gets closer, and she realizes he’s less than five feet tall.

“I just need to get the fuck out of here,” he says. He comes up to Kateri’s chest and wears a knit fisherman’s cap and a white chef’s jacket that’s filthy with blood. “What’d you find?” he asks. “Break-in? Dead cat?” He pours out more bleach. “I don’t know what to tell you.” He turns his back again and mops farther away, calling out over his shoulder, “When he’s here, he works clean. I don’t talk to him. I’ve never heard him raise his voice. I don’t know why your department has such a fucking hard-on for him. Because of Park?” he says. “That guy’s a psycho. This kid’s all right.”

Kateri waits while he ties up the trash bag and pushes the can closer to the door.

“His mother is dead,” she says.

Junior lets the bag deflate in the can, his hand still on the knot, and he looks up at the ceiling. Up close, Kateri notices that he has gray-blue eyes, and a roundness to his face she wouldn’t have expected.

“Son of a bitch,” Junior says. “Drugs?”

“I need to speak with him,” Kateri says. The bleach smell is overpowering, burning her nose.

“Do you know where I can find Shannon Jenkins?” Kateri asks.

He shakes his head and leans on the garbage can. His hands are small and stubby, and he’s missing a finger. “He hasn’t been in,” Junior says.