Lizz Lund - Mina Kitchen 01 - Kitchen Addiction! (29 page)

Appletree
led us over to his pristinely empty cube.  I looked around and was
disappointed.  Pictures of Detective Friday, Dirty Harry and Barney (the cop,
not the dinosaur) swam around in my head.  Appletree’s very organized and very
generic gray cubicle was not exactly the stuff of NYPD Blue.

Appletree
motioned for us to sit down.  Jim wagged his tail, hopped up in the chair and
complied.  I shook my head at Bauser, leaned on the edge of Jim’s chair on one
cheek and faced Appletree’s modular desk.  Bauser leaned against a counter
stacked with files.  Norman unpacked his towel, unfolded it neatly on the floor
and sat down.

Appletree
pulled out a file from his desk drawer.  “Okay, so all we need you to do is
sign this form,” he said. “It states that we caught Helena Przy… Helena
Prishnish… Proshchinsk…”

“Pryzchntchynzski,”
called out a male voice from the next cube.

“Bless
you!” another officer sang.

“Thanks,
Gus.” Appletree grimaced.  “Anyway,” he continued, “we found her with your stolen
purse.”

I
gulped.  This was definitely a lot more official than I expected.  And where
was Helena?  Did they have her in a dungeon?  I started to have very, very
guilty thoughts about wasting all that time consoling our unemployed stomachs
at PizzaNow!.

I
looked down at Norman.  He shrugged at Bauser.  Bauser looked at Jim.  Jim
smiled and pooted.

“Whoa,
whoa, whoa,” Appletree spluttered, waving the forms at Jim and digging around
in his desk drawer and pulling out a can of Air Fresh.  “I gotta work here, ya
know.” He whispered, “You have any idea what it’s like to work in a cube farm?
You can’t even have a personal phone call without the whole force knowing what
you’re supposed to pick up for dinner.”

“Yeah,
I used to,” I commiserated.  “When did you get promoted?” I figured Trixie
should at least know that much.

“Just
this morning!” Appletree beamed.  “Good things come to those who wait, right?”

“Hey,
Appletree, quit cutting the cheese over there,” a gruff male voice called over
from another cube.

“See
what I mean?” Appletree whispered.   “Here, Mina, sign these before your eyes
start to water.”

I
looked at the papers with Helena’s name all over them.  I looked down at Jim. 
Jim pooted – a silent and more deadly version this time.  My eyes watered.  Appletree
hooked his hand around his face; Norman placed his baseball cap over his mouth.

“Look,”
I said, holding my nose and covering my mouth with my hand, “I’d like to talk
with her.”

“What?”

“I
mean, how do you know she stole my bag?” I asked.

“Because
we found her holding your bag,” Appletree answered.

“Right.
But that doesn’t mean she took it from me,” I said.

“Or
konked Mina on the noggin,” Norman said.  “After all, that’s the main point,
Detective.”

“How
do you mean?” Appletree asked.

“Because
whoever actually stole Mina’s bag has to be the one who knocked her out cold,”
Bauser said, unwrapping a piece of gum and putting it in his mouth.  Huh.  No
wonder he could drink Krumpthf’s.  And didn’t mind Jim’s poots.  Bauser had no
nose-buds.

“Okay,
okay, we know all that.  And that makes sense.  And as much as I shouldn’t do
it, I’ll let you talk to her – with me present,” Appletree said.

“So
we’re thinking like detectives then, huh?” Norman asked from behind his
baseball cap.

“Maybe.
I don’t know.  I don’t care.  My cube is completely polluted – we gotta get out
of here before Jim’s fumes reach the whole department.” Appletree waved the way
toward the holding cells.    “I’ll never hear the end of it.  My first day as
detective.  Geesh.”

As
we filed out of Appletree’s stinky cube, we began to hear little spots of
verbal recognition about Jim’s freed fumes:  “Pheeew!”  “Who brought in the
Amish fertilizer?”  “Who got a nervy perp?”  “Hey, where’s that can of Air
Fresh?”

We
picked up the pace and trotted down the hall toward an elevator.  We got into
the elevator and Appletree kneeled down to talk directly to Jim.  “Look,
elevators are very confined spaces.  So just squeeze your cheeks together until
we’re out, okay?”  Jim smiled at Appletree and schlurrped him chin to
forehead.  Appletree pressed the letter ‘D’ (for dungeon?) and down we went.

When
the elevator stopped, the doors opened onto a far less grand version of the
front desk.  It was still elevated, but instead of being covered in granite,
this reception desk was just plain old Formica, surrounded by a clear kind of
plexi-glass, which I guessed was bulletproof.  Appletree stepped up to the desk
and pressed a buzzer.  The two officers manning the desk looked up from their
monitors. Appletree took his ID and placed it in what looked like a drive-up
ATM receptacle.  One of the two officers retracted the shelf, opened it up,
peered at Appletree and returned it back through the slot.  “Who you here to
see?” the reception officer asked.

“Helena
Proz-crink…. Helena Proz-chink… Helena…” Appletree stumbled.

The
other officer rolled his eyes.  “You mean, Helena Pryzchntchynzcky. Man, I’ve
been through half a dozen labels trying to get her file straight,” he said.

“Babe
needs to buy a vowel,” the other officer grimaced.  Appletree shook his head.

“Who
you got with you?”

“Victim. 
Gal whose purse she stole,” Appletree answered.  The reception officers looked
at each other.

They
shrugged.  “It takes all kinds,” they said.

“ID
please,” the second reception officer directed me through the plexi-glass.

“ID?”
I asked.  “I’m not a cop.”

Appletree
hung his head.  “Your driver’s license, Mina,” he said, rubbing his forehead.

“Oh,”
I said, and went through my newly recovered handbag.  Which was when I noticed
how much neater my wallet was since my purse had been recovered.  And
re-organized.  Even the coupons in my wallet were folded up, not crumbled and
shoved in like I usually kept them.  It was good to know the police treated
victims nicely, too.  But I guess they had to; it’s Lancaster, after all.

I
found my driver’s license and gave it to Appletree.  Appletree put it in the
slot and the reception officer mechanically grabbed it.  He looked at it, and
then at me.  He nodded at Appletree.  “Okay, you can go in,” he said, putting
my driver’s license in some kind of a receptacle beneath the counter.  I looked
at Appletree.

“You
get it back after you come out,” Appletree explained.

I
looked over at Norman and Bauser.

“We’ll
wait here with Jim,” Norman said quietly.

I
followed Appletree around the encased reception desk.  A buzzer buzzed,
unlocking the steel door in front of us.  Appletree opened it and held it for
me.  For a lot of people, this probably seemed like pretty stringent police
security.  But it gave me a cozy feeling.  It reminded me of when Ethel and I
visited Gramma Maude and Grandpa Lester’s apartment in the Bronx.

We
walked through the door and into yet another reception area.  Instead of having
an elevated reception desk, though, there was a normal counter with a fairly
normal officer behind it.  Behind him was an open hallway with a series of
closed doors.

“Go
ahead, we’ll bring her in,” the officer informed Appletree.  “Room A2.”

We
walked down the hallway, and Appletree opened another steel door – with a
window in it – to the room labeled A2.  It was small. One table that was about
six feet long stood inside.  On one of the long sides was a single chair. 
Opposite that were two more chairs.  Appletree showed me into one of them.  He
sat in the other.  We stared at the empty chair across from us.

He
reached into his pocket.  “Gum?” he asked.

“Oh.
Okay. Thanks,” I said.

Appletree
nodded.  “PizzaNow! is pretty good.  But sometimes you wind up leaving smelling
like garlic.  Or beer.” He winked.  Great.

“It
was sympathy beer.  And it wasn’t that much,” I said.

“It’s
okay.  Sounds like you guys have had a pretty tough day.” I looked at him
blankly.  “Trixie,” he clarified.  “She called you at work, and got Lee.  And
the news.”

Oh.
Fantastic.  Not only did I get my own unemployment news secondhand; now it was
getting broadcasted to the police.   Crap.

Appletree
and I waited.  Then came the sound of the tumblers unlocking on the other door.
It swung open, and there stood a somber female police officer and a very weepy
Helena Pryzchntchynzcky.  The officer rolled her eyes, dug around in a pocket
and handed Helena a tissue.

“You
stole a handbag; you didn’t kill someone.  Get over it,” she said kindly.  Helena wailed a bit and nodded and gulped and blew her nose.  The officer rolled her eyes
again and rummaged for another tissue.  “You keep on like this and they’re
gonna accuse me of dehydration abuse. Hold on.” She darted away from the
doorframe and returned with an economy size box of tissues, which she thrust at
Helena. “Here. I’m not planning on having a cold or a boyfriend anytime
soon.”

Helena
Pryzchntchynzcky stood weepy and fragile with her newly bestowed box of tissues
cradled in her right arm and several drippy used tissues clutched in her left
hand.   I looked her up and down and was grateful – for her sake – that she
didn’t look a thing like her Uncle Vladimir.  Vito.  Whoever.  Helena
Pryzchntchynzcky looked like a porcelain doll:  she was about five feet tall,
probably weighed about 90 lbs. soaking wet and had wavy, platinum blonde hair
that hung down past her shoulders and incredibly huge, jade green eyes.  If it
weren’t for the fact I’d come to help her and her estranged uncle, I would have
hated her.  Nothing personal: just on principle.  Helena was an exception to my
usual rule of thumb of hating females who look perfect without even trying. 
That was because her huge jade green eyes were red rimmed and puffy from
crying.

Appletree
stood up.  “Ms. Prochin… Ms. Prayzyn… Preztal…”

“Bless
you,” Helena snuffled.

“Helena, please, sit down,” Appletree finally got out. He motioned to the chair opposite us.

Helena
crept forward and slunk into the
chair, hugging her box of tissues.  I looked at her.  She stared back and her
face crumpled again.  “I didn’t do it,” she wailed.  “I just found the stupid
handbag.  I was just going through it to find some tissues,” she cried.

“Well,
that’s understandable,” I said, grateful that Vito’s – Vladmir’s – niece came
with a ready-made excuse because I had yet to concoct one on my own.  Appletree
kicked me under the table.  “Ow!” I replied.

“Sorry,”
he lied.

“Look,
Ms…Helena,” I said, “why don’t you tell us what really happened?”

Helena
sighed and blew.  “I don’t know
why. I’ve told these morons about a zillion times, to a zillion different
people.”

“Erm…
sorry.  But at least we’re new morons to tell,” I said, and kicked Appletree
back.

And
that was when Helena Pryzchntchynzcky launched into the Bumville version of Alice’s Restaurant, complete with the 8 x 10 color glossies with notes on the back and
having to be put in the holding cell with the mother lovers and litterbugs. 
“So you see, I just came across this handbag.  I figured someone must have
dropped it.  Which I thought was lucky, because I was having a real allergy
attack.  I saw some tissues on the top, and helped myself.  I was about to call
the police, when I got surrounded and yelled at and thought I was gonna get
shot,” she sniffed.  “I was just trying to do the right thing.”

Lie
or not, this rationale seemed reasonable enough to me.  Besides which, if I
didn’t get Helena out of jail, Vito might get sent on a one way ticket to Tampa.  Or worse.

“Well,
that’s good enough for me,” I said, getting up.

“Wait
a minute, wait a minute,” Appletree said.  “We caught her with your purse.”

“And
I believe she was honestly trying to return it to me, and was interrupted by
very, very diligent police officers.” I smiled politely.  “Besides which, look
at her.  She’s tiny.  She couldn’t knock me out.  She couldn’t be strong enough
to lift anything that could knock me out,” I said.

“You
got knocked out?” Helena asked.

“Yeah,”
I said.

“With
your own purse?” she asked.

I
shrugged.  “Not sure.”

“Well,
it is kind of heavy.  You have a lot of stuff in there.”

Appletree
looked at both of us like he was visiting inmates from the asylum.  He shook
his head.

“Okay,
let me get this straight,” Appletree said, rubbing the back of his neck at what
I guessed was going to be a whopper of migraine by the time his shift was
over.  “The victim is not going to press charges?”

“Right,”
I said.

Appletree
looked crestfallen.  “This is going to be a long first day,” he said.