THE DEADLINE CAFÉ EPISODE #7

“He’s a real nice guy, Hank,” Lissa said as she placed the mugs in the dishwasher.  “You’d like him. He’s just trying to help us figure out what’s going on.”

 “I’ll bet he is.” Hank said.  And I’ll also bet he’s trying to figure out how to make the moves on you, he thought.  It was too much: first the daily countdown and now this expert in urban legends or whatever it was.

The door swung open suddenly and a beefy man of 40-plus entered the café.   He walked with a purpose to an empty table and signaled for Hank to join him.

“April 18,” said Lt. James Irving Monahan, of the Northwestern University Police, aka “Jimmy the Campus Cop” aka “Jimmy Donut.”

“What about April 18?” Hank said, pulling up a chair.

“Well, I did the math and that’s when this ninety day deadline of yours reaches the end.  Does the day mean anything to you?  Birthday? Anniversary?”

Hank thought for a moment.  “Nothing stands out.  I’ll ask Lissa.”

“Good.” Jimmy scanned the café.  “In the meantime, I’ll do a little background check on some of your regulars.  What kind of donuts you got today?”

Hank’s cell phone rang—The “Ring of Fire” by the Man in Black.

“Jelly,” he whispered to Jimmy, his hand over the receiver and pointing with his head in the direction of the glass display as if Jimmy hadn’t already worn a path to it years ago.

“Henry?  Elwood here.”

Elwood Prince owned an apple orchard in Maine where Hank had worked summers.  A longtime family friend, Elwood had been a pallbearer at Hank’s father’s funeral a year ago.

“Wanted to let you know that the cat’s on his way. Ayuh, put him on a plane in Portland. Supposed to get into Chicago tomorrow morning, early.”

“What cat?”

“What cat? What do you mean?  You forgot what you told me right after your father’s ceremony?”

Now it all came back to Hank.  He’d said to Elwood that if he ever came across an old Maine coon cat…

“You still listening, there, Hank?”

Hank’s mind was racing.  How was he going to get to O’Hare and back to open up the Café on time?  More to the point: What would he do with a cat?

“Well, write this down now: his name is ‘Big Foot.’ Real nice fella, he is. Weighs 30 pounds if he weighs an ounce.”

“What flight, Elwood? I need the numbers….”

As soon as Hank put the phone down, he looked up to see Lissa standing over at the counter with Jimmy, who seemed to be mulling over his donut selection.

“This FedEx package just arrived,” Lissa said.  “Found this note inside.”

Hank looked down at the piece of cardboard and a bunch of coffee beans spelling out: “YOU’RE BIG DAY IS 77 DAY’S AWAY!”

He let the note drop and Jimmy picked it up. He’d already put on a pair of white cotton evidence gloves. His ambition in life was to join the Evanston Police and work up to Detective or Evidence Technician and he was always talking about taking a course in the city so he could learn about blood spatter and fingerprint dusting. For now, most of his policing techniques came from cop shows on television, but he’d long ago come to the conclusion that a good cop’s animal intuition was at least as accurate a tool as interrogation or even evidence analysis.

Jimmy held the note up to the light and looked at it from both sides. “What kind of beans are these?” he asked quietly.

“What kind of beans? They’re coffee beans, Jimmy!” Hank snapped.

Jimmy looked Hank in the eyes, summoning up his positive animal instinct intuition.  “What I mean, Hank,” he said in measured beats, for effect, “was what kind of coffee beans are they?”

Hank looked at them, then picked up the note and sniffed them. “Sumatra, I think, but it’s hard to tell with all that glue.”

“Don’t get lightheaded now,” Lissa giggled.

Hank gave her a look. Maybe it was his imagination, but Lissa seemed to be giggling a lot more since this grad student started hanging around the café.

“So all you have to do now is find a guy with a glue gun from Sumatra,” the Whittler chimed in.

“One who can’t spell,” added the Professor, looking over Jimmy’s shoulder.  “And doesn’t know squat about apostrophes. Your guy probably went to Northwestern.”

Hank sighed.  77 days ‘til who knew what and now less than 24 hours until Big Foot arrived.