A Jukebox at The Diner Prequel: "Year of The Cat" Kaleidoscope - Part One
A retelling of "Kaleidoscope" from the detective series inspired by the short story "Miss Jackson"
Previously on Year of the Cat…
“Boom crash bang baby hey hey hey…” - Van Darien
Dedicated to the criminal minds of Jana Pochop and Shawnee Kilgore
“This feels strange…”
Jenny was in the driver’s seat of the MVOJ. Sinnie was in the back seat with a laptop trying to connect to the doctor’s wifi router. This was an off-the-books job. Jenny was sure there was more going on than just the good and dead young doctor having some bad luck with a dangerous pharmaceutical. They were going to be late for Sinnie’s birthday brunch.
“Sinnie, we can come back later, I’m sorry I drug you out here this morning.”
Across the street, Jake was wondering if “The Squad!” was catching on. He noticed the van earlier. He was planning on heading to Bangers in a bit with the hope of catching Shirley, but now was as good a time as any to fess up.
He knew a little bit more than he’d like to admit, and well, screw it. This might be a better plan anyway.
“Oh shit, Sinnie, get up here we got company.” Jenny noticed Jake was heading their way.
Jenny rolled down the driver’s side window.
“The famous MVOJ. Wow. You must be Jenny and Sinnie.” Jake lowered his sunglasses while pausing to smile at Sinnie who was caught mid-relocating
“Hi Jake, I’m Jenny.”
Jake heard Sinnie mumble “suckup” under her breath while she arranged herself in the passenger seat.
“I was hoping to catch the Detectives later at your brunch. Are you heading there soon? I hear it’s your birthday Sinnie, Happy Birthday.” Jake handed Jenny a piece of paper with some words and numbers.
“I believe that may be what you’re looking for. It’s a quiet neighborhood, so when a new SSID shows up I get a little curious, especially if it’s a DD-WRT router like yours plugged in the back of your van. There are instructions there on how to hide it… among some other things. Are you here on your own?”
Sinnie looked at the paper and grabbed her laptop.
“How?!” Sinnie was surprised as the router finally connected to the good doctor’s home wifi.
“I’ve been over to his place a time or two. The last time I ran into him was when Lara Price was at Augustine. The good doctor wasn’t quite as good as people thought. Do the Detectives know you’re here?”
Finally, after the second query, Jenny fessed up.
“This wasn’t an overdose. I know it.”
“Time will tell Jenny. See you at Banger’s, I have a gift for the birthday girl.”
Jake turned and returned to his house, while Jenny and Sinnie sat there momentarily. “How’d he know it was my birthday? Or about the MVOJ? Did the girls know he knew the doctor? Why didn’t they tell us, Jenny?”
“You sound like me now Sinnie. Seat belts!” Jenny strapped in and started the MVOJ. This was only the second time someone other than Sinnie drove the van.
“Wait wha…” Sinnie stopped mid-sentence remembering the time she got bit by a rattlesnake. Jenny was the one who drove then too, with the Detectives ahead of them in their cruiser with the siren and lights on full blast. That was a day she’d wished she remembered more of.
The Detectives were waiting out front for the girls as they walked up. Elaine Norberg was a cake queen. She could always come up with the best cake ideas. This one was off the charts, but nobody would get a chance to see it yet. Both the Detective’s phones went off just as Jenny and Sinnie arrived.
“Shit!” said Elaine
“With a piece of shit cherry on top!” said Shirley.
“Sinnie we’re sorry, we’ll call you as soon as we’re free.” Elaine handed Jenny the cake box and hugged Sinnie. “Happy Birthday, we’ll make it up to you”.
Shirley handed Sinnie an envelope, and as she gave her a hug said “Brunch is top shelf today, on the department dime even, Happy Birthday”.
Sinnie looked in the envelope and smiled at the crisp benjamins as the Detectives walked back to their cruiser
Jenny gave the host the cake to keep in the fridge and found a table by the stage. That was right about the time Jake walked in carrying a gift-wrapped box.
“Just the two of you? Well, maybe that’s for the best. Happy Birthday, Sinnie.”
“How do you know it’s my birthday? Yeah, the girls just left, caught a case.”
“It’s all over your Facebook page today, Sinnie. I’ve known Shirley for a few years. I helped her with something a while back. That’s when I became aware of “The Squad!”. It’s also how I know you might like your gift. Go ahead, since we’re probably going to make use of it in a few hours.”
“We’re?” Jenny wasn’t sure what Jake was up to yet but it seemed “fishy”.
“Well, that’s entirely up to…” Sinnie’s yelp of excitement cut off Jake.
“A Pinebook! I’ve read about these!”
“Well, it’s what I used to help the good and dead young doctor with his… let’s call it research.” Jenny started at Jake pretty hard so he let it hang for a moment. “Listen, I couldn’t tell the Detectives everything I knew, but I can tell you. I hope. Here’s what you need to know right now. That Pinebook is what I used to program the doctor’s watch. It’s probably broken, but not useless. It was a Pine Time watch, Sinnie. It connected to the Pinebook to upload the readings it took from the doctor during his research. He needed a way to track data without the fear it would be somehow uploaded online, like a Fitbit or Apple watch. I doubt anyone in the investigation has checked the watch. If they had, I doubt this would be ruled an accidental death.”
“Do you know what happened?”, what’s going on here Jake?” Sinnie was the concerned one now. She could tell Jenny was thinking “Nemesis” again. That would lead to trouble for sure.
“I know some of it, but at this point, it’s too dangerous for me to reach out to the Detectives, so I thought, why not let the other half of “The Squad!” find the pieces that will lead you all to the answers. Get the router data, ask the Detectives about the watch, and ask them one question.”
“What question?” Both Sinnie and Jenny said that at the same time.
“What is Kaleidoscope?”.
Jake got up, took a card out of his pocket, and handed it to Jenny. “I’ll be in touch, please, don’t let the Detectives know I’m assisting. You got that laptop off eBay Sinnie. A present to yourself. Oh yeah. The password. It’s JFK’s Death Day.”
Jake made a phone call as he walked to his truck. “I’ll have everything for you tonight. I’ll text you the location an hour before the drop.”
Jake tossed the phone in a trash can.
On the way to Sinnie’s after grabbing the cake, the civilian half of “The Squad!” stopped by the good and dead young doctor’s house and grabbed the router logs. It was too easy but they didn’t register that in their excitement. There were entries for the watch and Pinebook, and that’s when Sinnie figured it out. The data was stored on an SD card. Didn’t the Pinebook have a… it was empty. There must be an SD card somewhere with the data.
“Ok, let’s go get ready for your birthday party Sinnie." Jenny drove again because Sinnie was deep in the scripts Jake had left in the root directory. All of it was available online. Sinnie could have found all this on her own. Jake was giving her a huge win and she wasn’t sure why yet, but unlike Jenny, she was distracted by the gifts. There was a Pine Time dev kit with the laptop. This is how Jenny could explain she knew about the watch.
“Are you’re spidey senses going off Jenny?”
“Sinnie, we don’t know Jake, and he’s involved. Is he just someone who got caught up in something helping the doctor or is he a part of it? We’re going to have to tell them the truth.” Jenny hoped that whatever the Detectives were working on would hurry up and get done with.
That’s when Jenny’s phone rang. Sinnie always drove. That’s why the Detectives always called Jenny. Sinnie answered.
“Shirley, what’s your eta? We’re almost to my house.”
“Oh, hi Sinnie, yeah this is going to be a minute, there’s a big case that everyone’s being brought up to speed on. We’ll call you in a couple of hours, hopefully, we’ll be wrapping up by then. Happy Birthday, Sinnie, see you tonight!”
Sinnie hung up the phone and was silent for a moment. Hey, everybody loves caesuras.
“I think the Detectives know what Kaleidoscope is.”
Jake tailed the MVOJ to his neighborhood and waited for them to leave before coming home.
Miss Shirley Jackson was in the armchair where he left her. Before he turned up the volume on the Van Darien CD he was about to listen to, he looked at Miss Jackson.
“It’s gonna be a busy night, Miss Jackson. I’ll leave the backdoor open for you just in case I’m not back in the morning.”
He turned up the stereo. He thought about how Van Darien probably wouldn’t appreciate that the work he helped the doctor with was named after one of her songs.
It’s just, those lyrics were perfect.
“You’re addicted to my drug, I’m the fix you just can’t quit…”
Back at the precinct, the Detectives were getting a crash course on a shiny new toy of Austin’s rich and famous.