There was always a good number of people there, but he never found it difficult to find a seat. He chose a table a little way from the door with two seats facing each-other, and went on his phone as he waited for Haiden, still looking for a mechanic.
He was ten minutes late, coming into the cafe at ten past one. When Xeno saw him looking in from the window, he waved him in.
"Hey, I'm glad you could make it!" Xeno said warmly.
"Thanks; it's nice to see you. I'm sorry I'm late, I didn't expect for there to be any traffic coming from my house. I mean, why were there so many cars at one in the afternoon on Saturday?"
Xeno could think of a lot of reasons for there to be a lot of traffic at one pm on a Saturday, but he chose not to voice them. He told him it was fine, and he didn't even notice his being late.
"I needed the time to look for a mechanic anyway. My car broke down today, and I had to walk here."
"Really? Did you find one?"
"No, they're charging ridiculous prices nowadays. It's a hundred pounds at least for someone to look at my car, not even fix it."
"I could take a crack at it. When I was younger, I worked in my mum's garage. I don't think I could replace anything, but I could probably tell you what's wrong."
"Really? you'd do that for me? My flat's a little out of the way, and you'd have to drive us back. Are you sure you're free?"
"Of course I would! Think of it as payback for helping me with my office yesterday." He smiled. "Besides, I don't like feeling like I'm in debt to you, think of it like you're doing me a favour."
"Thank you; it means a lot." Xeno said sincerely.
"Dont mention it. I'm not sure I could even help that much." He paused for a second. "Now, about the whole finding out who killed Steve thing.."
"Yeah? have you thought about it?"
"I've made a list of people who it could have been. I worked backwards from the list of the people in the Astronomy department, and-"
"Hold on, you still think it was someone from my department?" He asked, a little offended at the accusation. Yesterday, Haiden had been stressed out about his office. Today, he had no excuse.
"I thought that would make the most sense. Everyone from Palaeontology loved Steve, why would they destroy him?"
"Maybe to start some office drama? Or to make sure that Astronomy got cut? we have to consider both sides." He insisted.
"Well, all right. I've got a list of everyone in palaeontology from when they got me to do a survey when I was an intern. I'm the newest hire in my department, so it'll stay accurate."
Haiden pulled out a laptop with hundreds of tiny stickers on the back. They were arranged in a careful, artistic way, almost like a mosaic of dinosaurs and barbells and.. Tennis? It seemed like he'd just picked out some random stickers to pad it out.
Haiden flipped the laptop around, every name being crossed off but one.
"We can all vouch for each-other because we were at a pre-party beforehand, and Mr. Crossley keeps pretty close tabs on all of us when we're on the clock. There's no way we could have done it and had Steve not collapse before the party had started. Whoever it was, they would've had to tamper with it close to the time it actually dropped. I hate to say it, because he's like my work-dad, but Mr. Crossley is kind of the only one who could have had the time to do it beforehand."
That name sounded alarm bells in his head, flashing him back to yesterday's conversation with Dr. Aruda. He knew that name meant trouble, and he was immediately suspicious of him.
"What's his deal?" He asked, trying not to appear suspicious.
"What, Mr. Crossley?" Haiden asked. "He seems mean, but I swear, he's lovely."
"No, as in, does he have any enemies in the astronomy department?" Xeno prompted.
"I don't think he likes Dr. Aruda much, but I'm not sure. Why?" Haiden asked, raising an eyebrow.
"No reason." He'd have to get better at surreptitiously gathering information. Haiden then scrolled up on his laptop to reveal a list of names and pictures of everyone in Astronomy, as well as other related pictures of dinosaurs and asteroids.
"Wait, is this a mood-board?" he asked..
"That's how I organise everything." He paused. "Why, do you not like it?"
