My name is Maria Adelina Beatrice Pachetti Butler. Until a few months ago, most people called me Adeline.

I was a typical homemaker with a hard-working husband, two rambunctious, teenage boys, and aging, immigrant Italian parents to care for. I attended church every week, always sitting in the same spot, the family pew at the Catholic Mission in downtown San Luis Obispo, California.

Each day, with help from my mother, I cooked meals, washed clothes, cleaned house, and generally kept my hands busy with needle and thread. I took afternoon breaks on the front porch with neighborhood women and attended monthly meetings of the Catholic Daughters and the Order of the Eastern Star.

You may think my life was idyllic albeit small, but when the police came to my door one night, rushing me to the hospital bedside of my dying husband, all of that was about to change.

It was spring 1939, war was brewing in Europe, and I had to become the breadwinner. I had to become a hard-working, gregarious waitress with loyal customers and overflowing tips. So, I lied about my age, fixed up with a hair perm and some make-up, and became cute, flirty, but always one-step-ahead of inquisitive hands, Betty.

Welcome to my world.

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This felt like a typical day when it started. The sun was just beginning to rise and I was already walking up the small hill that led from my home to the downtown area of San Luis Obispo, California.

I left the house in good order. Fixings were laid out so my oldest boy, Jay, could cook breakfast for the family. My other son, David, would bring in the milk and make sandwiches for the boy’s lunches. A note was left for Nona, my aging mother, to remind her what was expected this day. It was Monday, so it was a busy day: visit the bakery truck for three loaves of bread and some baked sweets, let the iceman in, visit the butcher for a couple days of meat, and stop by Muzio’s, the Italian grocer, as we were getting low on dry salami and olive oil. I told her to make sure Luigi, my father, set out traps for whatever vermin were eating into our grain cupboard, and pull some vegetables and fruit from the garden.

I shuddered when I thought of the large garden because it was almost that time of year – the time when we would have to spend several weeks harvesting and putting up jars for the year ahead. How I was going to work that into my new hectic schedule I couldn’t imagine, but this I knew – I would.

I’m lucky though. I work the breakfast and lunch shifts at Snow White Creamery, a full-service diner just a few doors down Monterey Street from the Mission and only four blocks from my house. It’s a relatively new diner opened in 1938 and fashioned after the popular Disney film of 1937. Patrons loved the large, colorful murals of the beautiful princess and her seven odd-looking dwarves that decorated the walls.

The diner itself became a fast favorite of the townsfolk for three reasons. One, the owner, Brett, made delicious ice cream on site every weekday from fresh milk brought in from the dairies at Cal Poly, the local state polytechnic college. A big window in the back let you watch him as he toiled over the cold delicacy in the back workroom. Two, it was the only diner open in the evening that catered to the college crowd with hamburgers, fries, and milkshakes sold hand over fist. And three, well… me. I had a large stable of regulars that loved to start their day with good food served with a little flirt from their Betty.

As I neared the Mission, I stopped in for prayers. It had become a ritual for me to light candles at the pieta and kneel for five minutes on my way to work. I knew that Mother Mary understood my grief over losing my beloved husband to a car accident. And I knew she understood the sacrifices I had to make now to provide for the family. I depended on her grace to get me through each day.

As I neared the diner at 888 Monterey Street, I pulled the keys out of my jacket pocket. The owner’s wife, Margery, entrusted me with the opening routine. She used to do it, but soon realized I was fastidious and reliable enough to take it over leaving her to sleep in. I wouldn’t see her until the lunch shift.

Once inside I locked the door behind me and went to the back to turn on the lights, start up the appliances, and fire-up the grills.

It only took a few minutes for me to realize it was not a typical day after all. Rosa, the other waitress that worked the breakfast shift, didn’t arrive. Instead, I got a phone call informing me that she was sick. Just the day before at church I noticed she was pale and she held her tummy like it was roiling. So, her illness didn’t really surprise me so much as it annoyed me. Working the breakfast shift alone was hard to do.

So, with Rosa absent, I’d have to service both the counter, my usual place, and the booths, Rosa’s usual place. Besides that, I had only 40 minutes left to start the coffee and the bacon, halve the oranges for juicing, make the pancake batter, and all while welcoming the bakery truck, the meat truck, the dairy truck, and the newspaper delivery. All these deliveries had to be sorted, with the exception of the bread, which needed to be put in the slicer, preparing for toast, and the cream that had to be put out on the counter and tables, along with napkins and utensils. I had to cut the vegetables customers were likely to need right away, like onions, tomatoes, and potatoes, and check that the dishes were duly stocked for the breakfast crowd to arrive.

Then, and this is crucial, I had to unlock the safe and get out the cash drawer before I could open the doors. This morning, I was seven minutes late and when I did finally open for business, a line of customers had already begun to form. I greeted my regulars with usual enthusiasm and immediately poured several cups of coffee as I began preparation on the food I knew the regulars would want.

As the morning progressed, I was surprised to notice that one of my regulars was missing, Gerald Tenselle. This was odd. Gerald owned the dry goods store just up on Higuera Street and five days a week, rain or shine, he always ordered the same meal: two eggs over easy, two strips of bacon, dry white toast, and a side of fruit.

About an hour into my shift, I was already overwhelmed, when my favorite regular, Sam Booker, walked in. He wasn’t his usual upbeat self, more down-in-the-mouth. When I greeted him with my own fatigued demeanor, he merely smirked and told me he wasn’t up for his usual eggs and pancakes, he’d just have coffee and a sweet roll and leave it at that.

I brought him his coffee as soon as I could, which was not soon enough by my reckoning, and I took the opportunity to stop for a few moments and ask him what was up.

“I’m still smarting from the fight with Gerald yesterday. My ribs hurt.” He answered.

“What fight?” I inquired.

“Oh, you know the issue, the problems in Europe. After mass yesterday Gerald was spouting his usual rhetoric about supporting the thugs in Germany and I finally had just about enough of his hawkish threats.” He swigged down the last of his first coffee and set the cup in front of me for a fill-up. “I planted a big one right on his kisser and that started a brawl.”

“In the Mission?”

“Yes… in church. God, I feel like a heel, but a guy can only take so much!”

I filled his cup and looked over his face. It was a handsome face and if anyone in this town could ever again interest me in a romantic whirl, it was Sam. But he was a CPA, a numbers man, not a ruffian. “Anyone else hurt?”

“Yeah, Gerald has some serious bruises and unfortunately, so does Father Francis.”

“Father Francis?” I said with surprise.

“Yeah, the Father was trying to stop the fight when Gerald caught him in the eye with a hefty swing that was meant for me.” He glanced up and caught me square in the eye. “Thanks Betty, for the coffee, and the ear.”

I turned quickly and readied his sweet roll, so he wouldn’t see the blush that passed over me when our eyes met. I still missed my husband terribly, but boy was Sam a looker. “No problem. I hope you feel better soon.” I gave him the roll and moved on to the next customer.

It wouldn’t be until later over lunch that I learned more.
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It was only eleven o’clock and my feet hurt, my arms were tired, and if I never saw another egg again I’d be a happy woman, but as the saying goes, there’s no rest for the weary. Lunch began.

Margery showed up a few minutes later, put an apron on, and dove in.
Margery was a good server and we worked well together. Lunch proceeded like clockwork. Then along about twelve forty-five, I think, Father Francis came in for lunch and true to Sam’s description, he had a huge bruise around his left eye. I motioned for him to sit at the counter so I could get some dirt.

“Sam was here earlier.” I said, “Told me about how you got that shiner.” I was familiar with blackened eyes. Both my late husband and my eldest boy were prone to periodic fisticuffs.

The Father smirked and touched his pinky to the corner of his eye, grimacing from the pain. “Yeah, I can almost forget about it until I touch it.” He laughed, “Seems even a peaceful man of God can get caught in the crossfire.”

“We need only take the Savior’s life as confirmation of that!” I remarked as we both laughed.

“You should’ve seen it, Adeline,” the Father had known me for years and wasn’t going to change what he called me. I was still just Adeline to him, not Betty, “you’d have thought they were youngsters again what with the way they were punching at each other.” He chuckled, shaking his head from side to side, “I shouldn’t have tried to get between them.”

As I continued conversing with the father, Sam came in and sat at a booth near the back. He looked tense. It piqued my curiosity.

“Sam’s here.” Father Francis turned to look in Sam’s direction, but Sam didn’t seem to notice, he was distracted by something. I scooted back to food preparations.

As new patrons came in, the room began to buzz in a way that made me think I was missing something important. That’s when Orsina, my best friend, came scuffling into the diner. She plopped down at the counter next to the Father with a look on her face that begged me to ask her what was up. I didn’t have time to ask though as I turned my attention back to a cheese sandwich on the grill.

Two police officers came in and walked to Sam’s booth. I turned to see what was happening.

“Sam Booker?” One of the officers said.

“Yes, that’s me.”

“Please stand, Sir.” Sam didn’t stand. “Sir, I need you to stand up.” Again, Sam didn’t budge. The second officer grabbed Sam by the arm and urged him to his feet. “I have to arrest you for the murder of Gerald Tenselle.” He twirled Sam around and cuffed his hands behind his back.

Everyone in the room was silent, watching Sam marched from the diner like a common criminal. Then it hit me – the murder of Gerald Tenselle? What in God’s name was going on? I knew in my heart that the man I talked with this morning right here at the counter was remorseful of the dust-up the night before. No way had he murdered the man. Though at least now I knew why Gerald didn’t show up for breakfast.

I looked at the Father; he seemed as shocked by this as I was.

Then I heard one of the men in the booth closest to the front door say, “I thought they’d arrest him for it.”

“And I hope they throw away the key!” the man across from him said, “Shameful way for a man to die… in his own office. And what for? Politics half a world away?”

I then remembered the grilled cheese sandwich and whirled around to grab it off the grill just in time before it burned. But I was bothered by all this. It didn’t sit well in me. I couldn’t reconcile what I knew of Sam’s demeanor earlier with murder. No, I would have to look into this further.

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