'COFFEE MILK'

Pollux Delos Reyes

[ Poh-looks ° De-los ° Re-yes ]

*

Lyssian Delos Reyes

[ Lee-see-ahn ° De-los ° Re-yes ]

when spoken casually: Lee-shan

Sunday

SUNNY FINCH'S FAVORITE SPOT TO WORK IS THE CAFE AROUND HARPER AND SEVENTH STREET CALLED COFFEE MILK IN THE MAIN PLAZA. The place is tightly packed into a squared room with two stories. The smell of steamed milk is hot; the grounds strong and wafting that it clings to hair and clothes. You keep them in between your fingers like evidences. As you sip morning tea, you can hear soft cartoonish jazz playing, softening with the low lighting. You can hear chatter from the patrons or from the local baristas themselves, the twins.

Pollux and Lyssian maintain the business just between them. Not even family were allowed to work. Or obtain freebies. 

Coffee Milk has always been the twins' domain.

Sunny Finch, short, pale and a green tea latte drinker, is as commonplace as the chair she sits by the door and the biggest mug waiting for the table every time the twins hear the familiar rumble of her mint blue Vespa bike.

Lyssian knows every regular's order by heart, and he especially knows that Sunny Finch likes her green tea latte not blazing hot, but merely warm. Warm enough that you can still whiff the perfumes when you dip your nose down the right way, as Sunny Finch likes to inhale her drink before sipping.

And today is no different; Sunny Finch enters the establishment with her helmet tucked in one arm and her bulging tote bag in the other, wearing parsley colored overalls and the most sunshine shirt to exist. A blinding, right happy, very yellow yellow shirt.

But there are shadows under her purple veined eyes and her mouth is turned down despite the empty expression. Yet her movements are the same, a wave to the twins and to the other patrons she's familiar with, already putting her helmet on the floor and pulling out her laptop from her tote bag, procuring the rest slowly as it piles up over the table. It is a mound by the end of it.

Lyssian nods at Pollux and they both get to work. Lyssian pulls out green tea powder and the milk for steam, while Pollux works on the Iced Americano by checking the fresh pot.

Because where there is Sunny Finch, then not soon after is Kit Pouliot; strong coffee Americano, flat ice, no milk, one teaspoonful of sugar drinker. The strength is in the pounding in your eardrums. 

And like clockwork, Kit Pouliot enters the four walled coffee shop with a shot of a grin. Unlike Sunny, Kit prefers the bus and walking to Sunny's scooter-bike. And because of his long legs and naturally good pace, he always arrives a few minutes later.

"Hey Pol, hey Lys," he greets as the twins finish up on their orders in quick succession. They know how to move around, a seamless choreographed dance behind the counter.

Kit smoothens out a ten and drops half the coins on the tip jar where Pollux tipped his own hat with a quick grin. He balances the tray with one hand. "Thanks, guys."

Pol raises an eyebrow. "Hey Kit, did you hear the news?"

Lys sighs. "Please stop asking the customers about the news."

Pol grins. "Only for today."

Lys rolls his eyes and wanders to the sturdy bookshelf, his base of comfort. Where Pollux liked people and interactions, Lyssian liked the comforts of a good book and silence. The bookshelf in Coffee Milk was Lyssian's little corner to brood and not be disturbed.

Kit smiles. "You mean Marigold Duplin? Don't look shock." He clicks a thumb behind him. Sunny is bent over the table and looks serious. But by how she moves her pencil around and the fact that is is a pencil means she's more or less doodling. "I have great intel."

Pol laughs. "True. Catch me up on fascinating stuff okay?"

"Why do people like fascinating so much? I woke up at four am for fascination." At the questioning look, Kit shakes his head and lifts half a smile. "I'll try."

"So," Sunny starts, taking the mug and closing it with her palms as soon as he settles the tray down. She raises it to her mouth and breathes in the smell. This is a spiritual routine and Lyssian makes his artisan coffee to perfection. "Marigold Duplin."

He takes the seat opposite, sipping the cold, bitter drink. "Marigold Duplin."

Sunny pushes a green journal toward him with a finger and its chipped, midnight blue nail. It's thick with bloated paper. "Check through my notes and make sure I have her spot on. We need proper background in a person of interest to really see how interesting they are."

"K."

Sunny glares and Kit swallows his chuckles unsuccessfully, flipping through the pages until he found her notes. Detectives, from Kit's experience and Sunny's family, aren't really particular with notes. Sure they jot down a few things, but from what he gathers, everything else is churned in their minds like gears, working out the problem. Only Sunny likes keeping notes of anything she finds fascinating. She keeps them in her little notebook - topics she favours or people. Her note taking were profiles and files - piles and piles of papers.

And though not as obsessive as Sunny, Kit does that too. Though he likes recording his voice more than writing them. One less problem for the dyslexic writer.

Anyway.

Sunny's notes are clean and orderly. Though they lack the feverish spazz writing most of her uncles do that poses more questions than answers, at least it's a neat profile of Marigold.

MARIGOLD DUPLIN: an introduction

SCHOOL BACKGROUND:

Honor roll, straight As, dresses impeccably well for a teenager (never in jeans, mostly in skirts and dresses???), runs often for class president, debate team president, and wears a pearl necklace that has been classified as presidential pearls during election runs.

Thought: Achiever, classically determined, most likely voted for most likely to succeed the BAR exam and become a high profile New York lawyer for company CEOS, CEO's druggie son, and mob bosses.

Referential Obtainment Notes: Had Spanish and Government with her before she disappeared. She always sat straight and always said her opinions. Her hands were practically always raised.

Force to be reckoned with?

Probably.

FAMILIAL BACKGROUND:

French father who is still in France and people more or less don't know what he works as. (Check out?)

Mother with Mexican background who owns and runs one of the only expensive restaurants in town. (Bon, out on the corner in Dale and Thorton). (She brought a michelin chef from France). (We think he's michelin, no one really checks). (... Should I check?)

No siblings.

RELATIONSHIP BACKGROUND:

I don't know her enough to know her close friends. I'm pretty sure she has a lot, considering she does a lot of school stuff.

Was friends with Kit Pouliot when he came back. Both were new to the town and stuck close and spoke French.

(For what reason? Ask Kit).

ASSESMENT CONCLUSION:

I don't know her well enough because we don't walk around the same social circles. But she seems driven. Girl with a goal.

Ask Kit for opinions.

Kit closes the notebook. Sunny looks up, hopeful.

"So?"

Kit sits up straight. "That was actually really good, spot on the girl with the goal tag. Marigold was very driven. I think she has a planner just... filled to the brim with neat notes. She plans her life per five years to ten to fifteen." Kit purses his lips, trying to remember the flashes of Marigold in his head. They don't talk much anymore except for inevitable polite conversations. "She might also be OCD, definitely neurotic. She keeps things orderly and neat. I also remember one time at lunch, I saw her tray and it was cohesive food. Like food that made sense to eat. The type of tray your parents expect you to eat."

He raise his hand and starts flicking one finger per memory. "There was salad, a sandwich - bought from the vending machine, not the cafeteria, smart - and a bag of sliced apples in a Ziploc. Either she ate with a book or a couple of people. But she was never alone, although when she did, she was busy doing something."

Sunny took back her notebook and began writing more notes as Kit talked. After capping the pen back, she sighs. "How many times do I tell you that you're better at this deducing thing than me?"

"A lot." Kit sips at his drink, shaking the ice and sliding his ice-cold, sloppy hand on his shorts. "But being mildly observant isn't a big deal."

"Being a good detective is literally all about noticing and observing, Kit. It's deductions. It's Sherlock Holmes stuff."

"I also said I am only mildly good at it. And you also need the sense of determination and want, and no one wants to become a detective more than you. And you're also really good at being observant. And, to cherry the cake of my beautiful conclusions, there's also the fact that I'm dyslexic and bad with people, and I really think that doesn't bode well for detectives."

"Why are you so sweet?"

Kit sputters a coughy laugh, stuffing it out with the back of his hand. He smirks lightly.  "I'm a kit kat remember?"

"Okay." Sunny straightens in her chair, eyebrows drawing in together. She sips. "So where do we go from here?"

Kit clicks his tongue, leaning back on his seat. "Well, we could always visit Marigold. Tell her parents we're concerned school friends. How'd you find out about her by the way? Did you know Pollux knows it too?"

"He would." Sunny rolls her eyes. "The big gossip. But also because his mom called my mom while she was making breakfast, and you know my mom doesn't sleep and if things go her way, she might be a bat. There wasn't much. Mom said they're not sure what happened to her because news only got from the fact that she was at the hospital and the doctors said she had amnesia. No one knows what she looked like when she was brought in because the gossip ladies only got to her on a hospital gown. Apparently she's home now. Her mother is keeping everything under wraps after someone got it out that she had amnesia. But it's still everywhere. No one in this town hasn't at least heard something about it."

Kit nods. "That's a lot. If Mrs. Duplin doesn't want leaked news, she might not allow us to see her. Especially with amnesia. Patients are probably sensitive to overload of information. She might not even want to go to school right now."

Sunny points a pen at him. "If she is telling the truth. We cannot cast votes on not one hundred percent suspicions."

A minute, then the rolling thought in Kit's head finally escapes.

"Hey Sunny?"

"Yes, Kit?"

He shifts from his seat. "Do you think this is connected to that murder two months ago?"

"I don't know but at the same time I don't want to and again, I do. This could be a chance. But only if we could talk to Marigold."

"She has amnesia."

"Not unless she's lying."

"Why do you think she's lying so much?"

"Again. We cannot raise a still fitting thought unless we're disproved of it. Dad says that. Almost everyone in my family says it."

Kit snorts. "Most of your family are investigators, Sunny."

"But what do we do? This could be something incredibly unrelated. An innocent account or something else but also something more - or, the most damning option - related to the murder up in Major Hill." Sunny makes a face, her hope dwindling to a piece of thin stick. Her green tea, cold to the touch. "That's all the variables."

Kit shrugs. "Well, what we can do instead of interviewing a possible amnesiac, check the first murder case - notes, scrapped newspaper clippings, videos and everything else, not think too much about Marigold Duplin but keep her in the picture, and go to school tomorrow as normally as possible?"

"And you'll record important conversations relevant to any of the two?"

"That's illegal but I'll try."

Sunny smiles. "That's fine. We'll only use it for data anyway. Thanks, Kit."

"I know, I'm so amazing."

"Good. Self confidence is everything." She tucks both sides of her frizzy waves and feels the familiar warm anticipation inside of her, coiled inside her ribs. Sunny wants to say it's inherent, that it's her family's deducing DNA kicking in. It could be. Even if it skipped her the detective skills that comes with it.

It's the fact there's that feeling, and there's her determination, and she has a Kit. Who is reliant and warm and a good person. Armed with only his phone that has a camera and a recording app, Kit is unstoppable.

Sunny Finch can take over the world with just the three.

Awkward dialogue that goes through thoughts is intentional.

Eloquent dialogue isn't real.

There are only trying hard sleuths.