Unlucky 13

Chapter 85

Donna laughed maniacally. I was pretty sure that losing control of this shooting match was making her hysterical, but still. She was laughing.

I shrugged and said, “Well, I tried.”

“Am I under arrest?” Brenner asked from where he was cuffed and facedown on the scatter rug.

“Not yet,” said Conklin. “But when I hear sirens, I’m reading you your rights. That gives you, I don’t know, two minutes to play ball. Confess or don’t, I don’t really give a shit.”

I said to my partner, “I think I can still get home in time for a late dinner with my husband. That’ll be a nice change.”

“So what are you actually saying?” Timko said, squirming and pushing against the wall in an effort to sit upright in her corner. “You’re making us a real offer?”

“No promises,” I said. “You tell me who did what in these bombings. And I need to know if there are any more bombs in play. Talk to me. Get me on your side and I’ll help you with the powers that be.”

She said, “Huh. What are you, Sergeant? Size eight?”

I said, “Uh, ten. Why?”

This was prelude to girl talk, I guessed. My cue to get Timko to think I liked her. I pulled over a chair, sat so that I was looking down at the woman who couldn’t do a thing but look back.

“Fast food is all about hooking the consumer,” she said. “Making food addictive. That’s what we do. What I do. It’s like dealing drugs. We work like crazy to get the fat-salt-sugar ‘bliss point’ to a T. It’s a science. And I’ve got the degrees in chemistry to prove it. And of course, there’s this.”

She grabbed folds of belly fat through her house dress with both hands and jiggled them. Where was she going with this?

“I’m not sure I follow you, Donna. You’re not saying you set off bombs because you’re addicted to fast food?”

“Hell, no. I had nothing to do with any bombs. I’m just saying I don’t feel bad that someone’s holding Chuck’s up for a fortune. Corporations like Chuck’s are corrupt. Unconscionable.”

I said, “I thought you might tell me that you were getting screwed on the potential merger. That Walter was going to lose his job. Because that I might understand.”

“Well, that’s true, Sergeant. You think I was going to get a fair share in Chuck’s merger with Space Dogs? I was the fat girl, supposed to take whatever I was offered. How do they dare treat me that way? How do they dare after all I’ve put into Chuck’s and the zillions they’ve made off my brains and talent and my hard work?”

Conklin answered his ringing cell phone and said, “How long? Okay. We’ve got the situation under control.”

He ended the call and said to me, “The cavalry is on the way. They’re just entering El Cerrito.”