Super Meals: Part Twelve

            They had just picked up a bag of burgers from the drive-thru when Mimi’s phone rang. She checked the message coming from Jane while Walter sorted the burgers into lines on his legs – one for him and one for Mimi. He watched her take out her phone and tap the screen before putting it up to her ear to listen to the recording from Jane.

            “Isn’t that, like, illegal?” he asked her.

            “Probably,” she said. “Ask a traffic cop.”

            “What’s your beat?”

            She slowly turned her head and looked him in the eye before saying “Murder.”

            There was an uncomfortable moment between them, and then Mimi started laughing. With the tension broken, Walter laughed, too, and handed Mimi one of her burgers, saying “So what was on the message that was so important it couldn’t wait to be listened to legally?”

            “Information on a dead body we found recently. The coroner’s an…let’s say she’s an old friend.”

            Walter noticed the hesitation, but decided to let it drop. “What was the message about?”

            “Oh, some dirtbag lawyer showed up and was giving her shit about the investigation. He wanted to inspect the body or something and she told him to kick rocks until he came back with a court order. She’s probably just being paranoid. After all, why would some fast food lawyer give a shit about a dead hobo?”

            “Are you asking me or was that rhetorical?” said Walter.

            “Purely rhetorical, I assure you.” She said, unwrapping her burger. Walter did the same with his. “You know,” she continued, “This was the last meal of that very same dead guy?”

            “Like, these exact burgers?” Walter asked. He hesitated with the burger halfway to his face.

            “Oh no,” she said. “We just found a bunch of wrappers at the camp where his body was found.” Mimi showed no hesitancy as she shoved her own burger into her face.

            Walter brought his burger up to his lips again, but stopped as it reached his mouth, asking “Wait, you said a camp?”

            “Yeah,” Mimi replied between bites. “A lot of times these homeless guys set up camps for themselves. In bigger cities they’re veritable shantytowns. Small towns like ours, though, it’s usually just one-off encampments. A tent, a bucket, a tarp…”

            “Wait,” Walter said. “Where did you find this guy? I just saw an abandoned camp over by the overpass.”

            Mimi crumpled up her empty wrapper and tossed it into the back seat. “Yeah, that’s the one!” she said, reaching over and taking a burger off of Walter’s lap. “You didn’t touch anything, did you?”

            Walter was thinking about the camp and gave a half-hearted “Huh? Oh, no…”

            He stared at his burger, remembering the events of the day. His mind seemed to spotlight a handful of key moments – his super-strength, the bloody stain near the makeshift toilet at the hobo camp, his violent vomiting…

            “Hey,” said Mimi, finally noticing his silence. “You okay? I thought you were hungry.”

            Walter re-wrapped his burger and dropped it back into the bag, along with the other two he’d ordered. “Say,” he started. “That dead homeless guy – was there anything…weird about him?”

            Now Mimi was serious. “Why?” she asked. “Weird how?”

            “Like, was there anything physically wrong with him? Besides being dead?”

            “Maybe,” she said. “What do you know?”

            He sighed and put the bag on the floor. “You ever special-order anything from this fast food place?”

            “No,” she said. “They never get it right anyway and I ain’t got time for that shit. Why?”

            “I think I should tell you about my afternoon.”