“Exactly.”
“So what should I do today?” Jared persisted. “Should I get on a plane and come to Alaska or what?”
“By all means,” I told him. “I know for a fact that Jimmy is eager to meet you, and you’ll need to speak with the official homicide investigators as well. And since you’re probably not too flush for cash at the moment, you can plan on billing me for the airfare. As far as I’m concerned, your coming here is all a part of wrapping up my investigation.”
“Thank you. So I fly into Anchorage?” Jared asked.
“I know Nitz’s address information gives an Anchorage address, but right now and for probably the next several days she’ll be spending most of her time here in Homer.”
“How far is that from Anchorage?”
“A long way,” I said. “Look, once you have your flight arrangements, let me know your ETA. I’ll have someone meet you at the airport and bring you here, and I’ll book a room for you at the same hotel where I’m staying.”
It made me smile to think that Twinkle Winkleman wasn’t quite done with me yet.
“All right,” Jared said. “I’ll be in touch as soon as I call Grandma and get my flight details sorted.”
“Good enough.”
About that time the elevator door opened and Jimmy Danielson wandered into the lobby. His hair was still tousled from sleeping. He paused for a moment, looking anxiously around the lobby. When he spotted me, his face brightened and he hurried over.
“Was that my mom on the phone?” he asked.
“No,” I said, “it was your Uncle Jared. He’s checking to see how soon he can catch a flight from Seattle to Anchorage.”
“He’s coming here, really?”
“Really.”
Twink had told me that the Driftwood had a breakfast room, and somewhere it smelled as though someone was making waffles. Jimmy must have caught the same scent.
“Can we have breakfast?” he asked. “I’m starving.”
I was sure he was. It had been a very long time since he’d downed Twink’s sticky pudding and whatever goodies he’d been able to extract from the hotel’s vending machines.
But suddenly I had another idea—a very bright idea. “Yes, we can have breakfast,” I told him, “but not here. I know just the spot. It’s called Zig’s Place.”
“Really? Isn’t that where my dad was working?”
Clearly he’d been paying attention to everything I’d said. “Yes, it is,” I told him. “It’s also where he and your mom met.”
“Really?”
Jimmy’s food-starved brain seemed to be stuck on “really.”
“Yes, really,” I repeated. “So let’s get our coats and head out.”
A few minutes later, when we walked outside to my latest version of the Ford Exploder, even I could tell that it was noticeably warmer. Snow was starting to melt and drip off eaves. Not long after that, we were seated in a booth at Zig’s Place. When the waitress came to take our order, I asked if Mr. Norquist was working that day.
“He’s in the back,” she told us.
“Would you tell him that Chris Danielson’s son, Christopher James, is here and would very much like to meet him?”
“Will do,” she said. “Now, what can I get you?”
Jimmy ordered everything but the kitchen sink—OJ, ham, eggs, and hash browns with a pecan waffle on the side. I ordered bacon and eggs.
“I can’t believe my father actually worked here,” Jimmy commented once the waitress left. He looked around the room in wonder, as if taking in every detail.
“You know that framed pencil drawing of your mother?”
“The one that says ‘Would you like to hang out sometime’？” His mouth screwed up when he repeated the words, as though it was weird to have to consider his parents in those kinds of terms—as though the idea that they might have been young and in love once was somehow beyond the pale.
I nodded and held up my place mat. “This is what it was drawn on,” I told him, “a place mat from Zig’s Place. Do you draw?”
“A little,” Jimmy admitted with a self-conscious shrug, “but I’m not very good at it.”
“Your father was terrific when it comes to drawing. You’ll need to ask your Uncle Jared to show you the portrait your father did of your grandmother.”
“Your partner you mean,” Jimmy asked quietly.