Which would’ve been a sweet and gallant show of friendship . . . if the restaurant doors hadn’t been locked. Instead, that night there would be news coverage of my best friend cracking up and being useless as our town’s tiny news team swarmed me (do three people constitute a swarm?) while I fumbled for my keys.

I shouted, “No comment!” as I dug through my purse, which was larger than a diaper bag despite me not having (nor ever wanting) children. Just as I located my keys, which had somehow inserted themselves into my reusable boba tea cup, my aunt opened the door. I rushed inside, barely squeezing through the crack she’d opened, pulling Adeena in after me. The Shady Palms news team tried to follow us in, but I slammed and locked the door behind us.

“Have you heard anything new yet?” I asked Tita Rosie as we settled in and helped ourselves to the coffee and snacks on the table. Her response was to shake her head and pile a couple more pieces of suman on my plate.

While Adeena sat at a table gossiping with my godmothers, I alternated between checking my appearance in my phone and murmuring words of comfort to my aunt as she robotically sipped another cup of coffee. My grandmother, doing what she always did in times of distress, had yet to emerge from the kitchen. She’d disappeared into it shortly after my aunt received that fateful phone call, but her absence contributed to the aura of peace in the room.

The sharp knock knock knock at the door shattered that peace, and we all turned simultaneously at the sound, like a pack of meerkats.

There in the doorway stood a man I’d never seen before—trust me, I would’ve remembered. My first thought was “silver fox” as I took in his perfectly coiffed light brown hair that was tinged with gray in a way that said “dignified and sexy” rather than “old.” My second thought, after taking in the contrast of his light hair and eyes with the rest of his features was that this dude was definitely mixed, probably Asian and White. My third and final thought was that Tita Rosie looked exceptionally happy to see him, which hit me in a way I wasn’t expecting.

“Jonathan,” my aunt exclaimed, as she hurried to unlock the door. “What a surprise! Kumain ka na ba? Have you eaten?” She gestured toward me. “Lila, this is Detective Park. Get him something to drink, will you?”

I headed to the kitchen, but stopped when he held up a hand. “I’m sorry, Rosie, but I’m afraid this isn’t a regular visit. Edwin Long stormed into the station yelling that his stepson is dead and that your restaurant killed him. Sheriff Lamb ordered me to check if his claims are substantiated.”

Tita Rosie dropped the cup she’d been holding, and the only sound you could hear throughout the entire room was the mug shattering. The long-cold coffee she’d been drinking spilled out over the linoleum, staining the floor a muddy brown. I instinctively knelt down and began picking up the broken shards.

As I dropped the larger pieces in the nearby wastebasket, I asked, “So what exactly does that mean, Detective? Are we under investigation?”

My voice remained steady even if my hands didn’t, and I ended up nicking my finger on one of the smaller pieces. The blood welled up at the same time as my tears, and I stuck my finger in my mouth to distract myself from the pain and fear.

Detective Park yanked some napkins from the holder on the table and handed them to me. “I’d give you my handkerchief, but this is probably more sanitary. You should wash that out properly, Miss . . . ?”

I grabbed the napkins, wrapping them around my finger, and stood up. “Lila Macapagal.” I nodded toward Tita Rosie. “I’m her niece.”

My aunt cleared her throat, obviously urging me to be more polite, so I added, “I’d shake your hand, Detective, but as you said, I should go wash this out. Excuse me.”

I stalked off toward the kitchen, where Lola Flor was wrapping up a tray of lumpia. As I rinsed out my cut and searched for our first aid kit, she piled a bunch of suman into a separate container and Saran-Wrapped it as well.

“What’s with all the food?” I asked as I rubbed some ointment on my finger and put on a Band-Aid.

“We’re closed for the rest of the day and there’s no point in letting this food go to waste.”

I waited for her to say more, but she continued boxing up the leftover food in silence. Typical.

I went back into the dining area in time to hear Detective Park say, “Where’s the food Mr. Long and Mr. Winter were eating?”

I glanced over at the table where they’d sat, knowing what I’d find. Yup, it was spotless. My family ran a tight ship, so someone must’ve cleaned it up while I was at the coffee shop. Cleanliness was next to godliness, and there were few people who took godliness as seriously as my aunt and grandmother.

Try explaining that to a detective investigating a possibly mysterious death, though. To say that Detective Park was put out was putting it mildly.

“Rosie, I want to help you out here. But you do realize that destroying the evidence makes you look even more suspicious, right?” He rubbed at his right temple. “Please tell me you haven’t washed the dishes yet. At least give me that.”

My aunt began apologizing. “I-I’m sorry, I had no idea . . .”

“Tita, you have nothing to apologize for.” I stepped between her and the detective. “Derek was alive when they took him away and we had no reason to believe there was a problem with our food.”

He tried to interrupt me, but I kept going. “We run a restaurant, which means we have to follow certain hygiene standards. It’s our protocol to bus a table as soon as the customer is gone so that it’s ready for our next guest. My aunt’s behavior wasn’t suspicious, it was professional.”

I was probably overreacting, but everything I’d said was true. Our family restaurant was a hole-in-the-wall in desperate need of remodeling, but my aunt and grandmother took pride in their work and I wouldn’t have their work ethic construed as something criminal. Not to be cliché, but even the floors were clean enough to eat off. Besides, my family knew how the Shady Palms Police Department worked. I wasn’t going to let them pull anything on us, not again.

Detective Park bit his lip, not in chagrin, but as if holding back a sharp response. After waiting a beat, he said, “Understood. Now, as I asked before, the table is clean, but have the dishes been washed yet?”

Tita Rosie spoke up. “Not unless my mother washed them already. I left them in the sink and brought out coffee and snacks since my guests and I were all a little rattled by the events of this morning.”

She gestured to the Calendar Crew as she said this, and indeed, there were half-empty mugs in front of them, along with small bowls sticky with leftover ginataang bilo-bilo. The detective jotted all this down on his notepad, then said, “Could you come with me into the kitchen, Rosie? And, ladies, I have some questions for you once I’m done in there.”

He had no business going into our kitchen. That was our space. I stepped forward, blocking his path. “I could bring them out to you if you want to start questioning them now.”

He raised an eyebrow. “That’s quite all right, Miss Macapagal. The fewer people in contact with the evidence, the better.”

“You mean you don’t want me tampering with it.”

“That’s not what I said.” He jotted some notes down on his tablet. “Is there some reason you don’t want me going into the kitchen?”

“No, I just . . .” I looked over at my aunt, who smiled at me with understanding. She also observed the sanctity of the kitchen.

“It’s OK, anak. It’ll only take a minute,” she said.

After they disappeared through the swinging doors, the Calendar Crew gestured for me and Adeena to come close. As we huddled together, they whispered, “This doesn’t look good, girls. Not at all.”

I exchanged looks with Adeena. “What do you mean? We haven’t done anything wrong. This is insulting, and a little scary, but the police have nothing on us.”

Adeena joined my godmothers in shooting me looks of pity. “You have no idea who Detective Park is, do you?”

I fiddled with my necklace. “Of course not. I never made it a point to hang out with Shady Palms law enforcement, especially after the whole Ronnie thing. Besides, I haven’t lived here . . .”

“In a long time,” Adeena finished. “Well, he moved here a year or two after you left. He was supposedly some big shot back in the city, but moved here to be closer to his parents. Can’t remember if he’s semiretired or whatever they call it, but the department only calls on him when something big is happening.”

“What was the last case they needed him for?”

“When that trucker was killed at the rest stop just outside of town last year.”

My jaw dropped. Even I had heard about that back in Chicago. “He was the one who caught the killers and brought down that drug-smuggling ring?”

The four women at the table all nodded. Ninang Mae added, “And if they’re bringing him in to investigate Derek’s death? Well, doesn’t it seem like they’ve already come to a conclusion about what happened to him?”