Holiday Buzz

by Cleo Coyle

  “You seem to know all the celebrities, Tuck . . .” Esther said with a tone that implied she had an ulterior motive for asking. “So who’s that creepy guy over there? He was openly glaring at you the whole time you were talking to the Double Ds.”

  Tuck paled. “Oh God. That’s Big Danni’s famously jealous husband, ‘Evil Eyes’ Eddie Rayburn.”

  Eddie stood alone by the windows. His clothes were perfectly tailored and his hair professionally coiffed. What didn’t fit with this crowd was the man himself. Short and heavyset, with slightly bulging eyes and an ossified scowl, Eddie Rayburn looked more like one of the small-time hoods involved with my father’s bookie operation than a member of the high-society celebrity club.

  “Why is he ‘famously jealous’?” I asked.

  “Over the course of their thirteen episode reality show, he punched out a half a dozen guys who paid too much attention to his wife, Big Danni.” Tuck shook his head. “He put one of them in the hospital.”

  “Remember what Nancy said about ‘barking up the wrong tree’?” Esther asked. “You better hope Evil Eyes knows the kind of tree you are.”

  “Coming through!”

  Using her elbows as a wedge, a tangerine-haired woman in a two-piece metallic pantsuit pushed through a tight group of latte-sipping society wives. Then she lurched forward, until the navel ring attached to her taut belly scraped against the coffee bar.

  Our new customer was club singer Piper Penny. With a smirk, she dropped a half-filled cup of Candy Cane Latte. It splashed across the countertop.

  “Hey, Grinch Girl! I need something stronger than peppermint,” she demanded. “Now!”

  “I’m sorry?” Esther replied.

  “Don’t front me, Grinchy. Ross Puckett told me you served him an Irish coffee. Make mine a double, and make it double quick.”

  “Fine,” Esther said, responding more politely than the woman deserved.

  As she fixed the drink, Tuck wiped the mess she’d made. Catching her eye, he gave Piper a sympathetic look.

  “Tough night, girl?”

  “I’ll survive. Provided I get alcohol in a hurry.”

  “Chillax, I’m coming,” Esther said, setting the coffee cup on the counter.

  “Do you think I could have a saucer for this?” Piper’s tone was now suspiciously sweet.

  Before we could stop her, Esther gave it over. Then we all tensed when Piper failed to put it under her cup.

  “Don’t do it!” Nancy cried as she wound up.

  Too late. Piper let the saucer fly. Rotating like a Frisbee, it soared over the heads of the crowd, nailing the noggin of the tallest man in the room—ice blond hockey star Ross Puckett.

  We all gasped as Puckett turned, rubbing his head. He locked eyes with Piper, who waved at him with an acid grin. Flashing an obscene gesture, he disappeared into the crowd.

  Piper shrugged and took a loud gulp. After several swallows, she thrust the cup toward Esther. “Hit me again.”

  Esther poured another shot from the bottle.

  “You’re growing on me, Grinchy,” Piper said after draining her cup. “That num-nuts jock was right. This stuff is pretty good. Unfortunately it’s not the only Irish thing Ross flipped for tonight. So now I’m on my own.”

  “He dumped you?!” Nancy blurted.

  I could see Esther mouthing something to me. Dropped like a hot Mrs. Potato Head!

  Piper cursed. “The doofus said he just met a cute Irish club girl and needed his space.”

  Tuck patted her toned, carrot-colored arm. “Men are pigs.”

  “That one is. Oh, I’m sure he thought he was being decent. He told me I had plenty of admirers here, so I could easily find one of them to take me home.” Her gaze narrowed. “That was the first smart thing that dimwit on ice ever said to me . . .”

  Piper wore several rings made of actual copper pennies, and she clicked them impatiently on the counter as her gaze swept the crowded room. Finally, she spied Tommy Bain. Like a female raptor sizing up her prey, she studied the fading rock-and-roll legend and turned back to the bar.

  “One more taste of blarney, girlfriend.” She held out her cup to Esther. “But hold the coffee this time.”

  Esther glanced at me. I nodded and she poured another shot. Piper swallowed it in one gulp. Then she swiped the back of her hand across tangerine-glossed lips.

  “Oh, Tommy! Wait up,” she cried, waving her throwing arm.

  “She should have brought Tommy Bain down with another hurled demitasse,” Esther cracked. “That might have been more subtle.”

  Just then, I felt a tap on my shoulder. I turned to face the nanny I’d met outside. Her bun was a bit more disheveled, and her sweater had a few more stains.

  “Sorry to bother you, but do you know who’s working the display over there?”

  I followed her pointing finger and realized she was talking about Janelle Babcock’s table. Several guests were milling around it, but neither Janelle nor Moirin was behind it.

  “That Irish girl promised she’d box up some cookies for me, but now I can’t find her.”

  I didn’t get a chance to reply. Janelle Babcock rushed up to me.

  “Clare! Have you seen Moirin?” She looked a little frantic when she saw the growing crowd around her table. “She never came back from her cigarette break. I checked out front, but she’s not there!”

  “She’ll turn up,” I insisted and sent Nancy to lend Janelle a hand for the rest of the night.

  * * *

  “THANK you, Clare . . .” Lori finished scribbling in her notebook. Then she brushed away the snow that had accumulated on her shoulders. “Given the color of the hairs we found with the murder weapon, Piper Penny is a very promising lead.”

  “I agree,” Endicott said. “Mitochondrial DNA analysis will soon confirm the perpetrator’s identity. The case is as good as solved.”

  “I know what it looks like,” I conceded. “The hairs do implicate Ms. Penny, and she does have a pattern of erratic, even violent behavior. But the motive seems awfully weak. Shouldn’t you also be focusing on—”

  “Welcome to the twenty-first century,” Endicott snapped. “I have millions of unique DNA markers that will definitively establish guilt, and that’s where my primary focus should be.”

  Endicott shook his head. “I know this might come as a surprise to a glorified waitress, but Victorian-era theorizing over clues and motives is a waste of cogitation in the face of modern forensics.”

  With an expression close to glee, Endicott rocked on his heels. “I have three words for you, Ms. Cosi: Sherlock is schlock! As sure as I’m standing in front of you, we’ll have the killer in custody in a matter of—”

  A harsh mechanical roar drowned out Endicott’s words. On a blast of carnival music, the dark carousel suddenly exploded with light.

  As Lori and I watched from the footpath, the carousel’s platform lurched and began to move. Then a startled Detective Fletcher Stanton Endicott was whisked around the circle and out of sight.

  Eight

  UNTIL I ducked into a warm taxi, I hadn’t realized how insidiously the cold had crept into me. My cheeks were chilled, my fingers numb, and the mounting snow that had slipped into my work loafers made my toes feel stiffer than Popsicle sticks.

  “Put a frog in hot water,” my pop used to say, “and he’ll jump out. Turn up the heat slowly, and the greenie won’t know he’s cooked until he’s soup.”

  Well, tonight, I’d become frozen soup; and on the slow, slushy drive from midtown to the West Village, I couldn’t stop shivering—and my basal body temperature was only partly to blame.

  On top of being grief stricken and incensed over what some cold-blooded monster had done to M, I couldn’t help feeling frustrated with Fletcher Stanton Endicott.

  The “crime-writing detective” was a smug, shortsighted, and (frankly) silly excuse for a police officer. I felt sorry that a good cop like Lori Soles was saddled with him.

  I was shivering
for another reason, too. My staff had no idea that Moirin had been violently murdered, and I was the one who would have to tell them.

  In the NYPD, they called this “notification.” Mike Quinn had done it countless times. He loved police work, but there was no worse job, he once told me, than explaining to good people how someone they loved was taken from them because of one brutal, selfish act.

  First I’ll knock back a double espresso, I decided. Then I’ll sit ten minutes by our fireplace. If that little bit of prayer (and caffeine) time didn’t give me the strength to address my staff, then it would at least warm me up.

  As the cab moved south, I pulled out my cell and gave Janelle a call.

  Lori Soles would be questioning her this evening, and I didn’t want to get in the way of that—but I did want to reach out to my friend.

  When I got Janelle’s voice mail, I hesitated. Certainly, I couldn’t leave news as upsetting as Moirin’s murder on a recorded message. Instead, I simply told her to call me if she needed to talk.

  “First thing in the morning,” I promised her, “I’m going to drop by your bakery to see you, okay? And I mean it: call me anytime if you need to talk . . .”

  When the taxi finally pulled up to my coffeehouse, I was feeling steadier—an adjective that failed to describe the heavyset businessman teetering toward me.

  “Hey, honey, hold that cab!”

  Topcoat flapping in the wind, the drunk’s expensive suit was disheveled, and his maroon tie appeared to be deconstructing at the same rate as his dignity. I couldn’t see how he was able to stand on his own, let alone walk, until I spied the brown felt antlers bobbing up and down behind his wide body.

  The soft, fleecy horns crowned the shaved head of Dante Silva, fine arts painter by day, espresso jockey by moonlight. With sleeves rolled up, he’d wrapped both tattooed arms around the inebriated businessman.

  “I’m going to Tiffany,” the drunk declared. “It’s important!”

  “Why?” asked a second man. This guy, also in a rumpled suit, was half as wide but nearly as drunk as his heavyset pal.

  Drunk Man shook his head. “Got to buy the wife’s Christmas gift before she grabs the bonus!”

  “Tiffany shmiffany,” replied the friend between hiccups. “Those few pathetic shekels our company calls a bonus wouldn’t buy a shopping bag in that joint.”

  The drunk broke away from Dante, and I jumped out of the way as he lunged through the taxi door and rolled across the backseat.

  “Tiffany, cabbie!” he declared.

  “Forget the jewelry shop,” the friend told the driver. “We’re going straight to Jersey—by way of an all-night drugstore.”

  “Drugstore?!” cried the drunk. “Why, Fred?”

  “Because when it comes to hangovers, diamonds got nothing on extra-strength aspirin—and our two bonus checks together might just cover a bottle.”

  Before sliding into the cab, the friend shoved a twenty into Dante’s apron. “Thanks for helping, kid. Buy yourself a ticket to Santa’s reindeer games!”

  As the cab pulled away, Dante smiled down at me. “You’re back late. I thought a kiddie party would end a lot earlier. How did it go?”

  “I’ll tell you about it later,” I said as we crossed the freshly cleared sidewalk. “I see you’ve been busy shoveling. Thanks.”

  “I don’t mind.” He righted his antler hat. “In New England, you grow up doing it. On the other hand, Fred’s pal was the third drunk I poured into a cab tonight, and I’m not done.”

  He paused at the Village Blend’s front door, resting his palm on the handle. “Brace yourself, boss. It’s like a Bavarian beer hall in there.”

  Then he swung open the door, and a wall of noise struck us.

  Typically, our business would be winding down at this time of night, and the few customers occupying tables would be NYU students or older neighborhood residents, casually dressed.

  Not tonight.

  It was close to midnight, but every one of our marble-topped tables was occupied by men and women in office garb. A line of customers flowed back from our register like a crooked human river, and behind our counter part-timer Vicki Glockner processed orders while Gardner Evans pulled one espresso shot after another with machine shop precision.

  Here we go, I thought, my gaze scanning the mostly middle-aged crowd, the Great Manhattan Sober-Fest.

  The annual tradition spanned Thanksgiving weekend to New Year’s Day. Simple geography was the reason. The Blend sat within spitting distance of a dozen trendy restaurants that hosted holiday parties for private companies all over the city. Every few nights, we found ourselves the pit stop for inebriated office workers before they returned home to their families.

  As Dante and I negotiated the crowded tables, conversations ranged from animated, to angry, to post-party confessional: “Did I really say that?! Did I actually do that? Oh God!”

  The intensity of the fussing reminded me of Phyllis Diller’s old joke: “What I don’t like about office Christmas parties is looking for a job the next day.”

  Dante shook his head. “It’s amazing how the myth persists.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one that claims strong black coffee is supposed to sober you up.”

  “True . . .” I said, although there was some validity in the idea.

  Caffeine was an effective stimulant, and a good dose could make an inebriated person a bit more alert. On the other hand, in the words of my ex-husband (the PhD of Partying on a Global Scale): “If you pump a drunk full of coffee, all you end up with is a wide-awake drunk.”

  Right now, my coffeehouse was full of drunks buzzed on caffeine and half shouting to be heard.

  That’s when it struck me, as deeply and sharply as a chef’s knife through a plate of Christmas cookies—

  These people and I had something in common. Their day had started out happy, hopeful. It had turned into something else. Just like me, they were upset about something that had happened, something they felt responsible for—even if the consequences were out of their control. Like holiday cookies, we all appeared festive on the outside, but any more pressure and some of us were going to crumble.

  Dante called to me over the din. “You need a shot, boss?”

  “Make it a triple, thanks. And listen—” I touched his tattooed forearm. “I’m calling a staff meeting tonight, after closing.”

  Dante cupped his ear. “Did you say staff meeting?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “So that’s why he’s here.”

  “Who’s here?”

  I followed Dante’s pointing finger, and there he was, my ex-husband, Matteo Allegro, warming the very last stool at the end of our blue marble coffee bar—Detective Quinn’s usual seat.

  The incongruity of it made me blink.

  Initially, Mike Quinn had claimed that perch as my customer. Over time, he occupied it as my friend, my confidant, and finally my lover. With all that had happened tonight, I veritably ached to see him. But tonight he was missing from his usual seat, and I moved to speak with the man now warming it.

  Nine

  IN an ironic twist (ironic for a recovered addict, anyway), my ex-husband appeared sober as a judge tonight amid our half-drunken customers. In his Armani formal wear, he was dressed just as grimly, too. Or maybe black just seemed an ominous color to me, after the disturbing matter in Bryant Park.

  On the other hand, not everyone thought Matt looked grim. A table of young urban professionals, three women and one gay man, appeared convinced that James Bond had dropped by to warm up with an espresso. Although their interest in my ex was obvious, Matt thumbed through the overseas market news on his smartphone, completely oblivious to their whispering stares.

  Despite my ups and downs with the man, I completely respected Matt’s expertise. He was one of the most astute coffee brokers in the country, and the Village Blend was lucky to have him as its coffee buyer. The beans he sourced made us one of the top shops in an insan
ely competitive market.

  Of course, Matt had good reason to work for us—this century-old concern had been started by his great-grandfather and was now owned by his mother. She planned on leaving the business (and the landmark Federal town house it occupied) to us both. And since we intended to bequeath it to our only daughter, he and I had plenty of incentive to keep our relationship civil and our coffeehouse thriving.

  I approached the coffee bar and patted his muscular shoulder, draped in expensive fabric. “If you’re here to help Dante eject holiday drunks, you’re overdressed.”

  He smiled. “While that sounds like loads of fun, I’m actually here for a midnight snack.”

  At my questioning look, he set aside his smartphone and opened a brown bag on the counter. Savory aromas wafted over me: grilled beef, caramelized onions, and pomme frites fresh from the fryer.

  A little gurgle of yearning taunted my stomach. Ignoring it, I took over the stool next to him and made a not-so-wild guess: “Given your designer monkey suit, I assume you came straight from a Christmas party?”

  “An entire round of Christmas parties. I told Breanne I needed real food, and she let me loose for a take-out run. We’re hooking up at one o’clock. Some music executive’s throwing a Jingle Bell-a-Palooza at Daddy-O.”

  Letting Matt “loose” was the perfect explanation for the health of his second marriage.

  During the better part of his year, he trekked the unglamorous Third World, sourcing coffee via small farms and community cooperatives. When he was away, he played. He’d done it when he was married to me—and after he was divorced from me. Wedding Breanne hadn’t put a crimp in his style, which (to most women) came off smoother and cooler than my barista Gardner’s jazzy Christmas playlists.

  It was no mystery to me why Matt’s matrimonial calculus had a better result with Breanne. The willowy blonde was not some poor, young wife trying to run a small business while raising a baby, virtually alone (i.e., me). She was the high-powered editor in chief of Trend magazine and an international, jet-setting fashionista who took first-class tours of European cities, entourage in tow.