Eggrolls

    They were at Jasmine, having a lunch of eggrolls and orange chicken. He was Brian, a Caucasian of stocky build and with blond hair. She was Cara, a member of the third generation of her family to live in America and not Vietnam. They worked at the same place and had been going out for about a month – against the wishes of their former boss. Against his wishes, because, in his words, “office romance just leads to awkwardness in the workplace.” Former, because he had turned up dead two days previously.
    “I’ve been thinking about Jake’s death.”
    “Oh, please, don’t mention him. I get sick just thinking about it and if I lose my appetite here I’ll have a whacked-out blood sugar level all day.”
    “Come on, gimme a break. You’ll eat anyway. You just don’t want to talk about it.”
    “Look, he committed suicide, all right? He hated his life so much that he ended it. I mean, if I were him, general manager of some stupid company, with stress at work and nobody to go home to, I would hate my life too! And he did have that manic-depressive disorder. That actually explained a lot about him. Can’t you just leave it alone?”
    “My point is, what if it wasn’t a suicide? What if…” she looked around, as if she were being overheard, and leaned close, whispering, “what if someone else killed him, and just made it look like suicide?”
    “Oh, come on. You read too many mystery novels. That kind of shit never really happens.”
    “What about Joey Cartwright?”
    Joey Cartwright had committed suicide three years prior. Recently, evidence was uncovered that proved that Cartwright had not, in fact, committed suicide, but that someone had killed him.
    “You can't be serious. One guy out of… how many murders happen in this city in three years? Hundreds.”
    “Oh, all right, whatever. I’m done. See you at work.” And she walked out the door, the little bell jingling behind her.
    It took a minute for Brian’s pulse to slow down. Cara didn’t suspect anything after all. Good. If she had, he would have had to kill her, and he really didn’t want to do that.
    He returned to his eggroll.