by Cleo Coyle
“So how did you meet Moirin?” I asked, finishing off my salad. “At a downtown nightclub?”
He shook his head. “I travel a lot these days, visiting my daughter, friends around the country and Europe. My Park Slope house is small, but it’s also technically a two-family, and I never liked the idea of leaving the property empty, so I decided to rent the first floor as a furnished one-bedroom. Moirin was my tenant.”
“How long was she living with you?”
“Since she moved to the city? Maybe two years? She answered one of my flyer ads on a studio board, struck me as an honest girl—honest enough to mention that she could barely scrape together a security deposit, and that she had no references at all.”
“You rented to her anyway?”
Dave shrugged. “As a former musician, I like to help struggling young artists when I can, so I let her have the place without a security deposit. I never had cause to regret it.”
The “struggling young artist” line confounded me, and I wondered if maybe Moirin had played the man to get close to him. Or had David Brice really been looking for a pretty, young tenant who’d be a potential bedmate?
Though M was gregarious and quick-witted, she seemed more of a party girl than someone with artistic sensibilities. So I asked him, quite frankly, whether she had any real talent.
He blinked, surprised. “Moirin had one of the most beautiful voices I ever heard. Haunting, you know? She claimed she was untrained, but she had amazing range and control. When Moirin sang, it was like . . .”
Dave’s eyes misted and he paused. He took a sharp breath and finished his thought. “Moirin Fagan sang like the angel she was . . .”
The waiter came to clear away our salad dishes. When he left, I reached across the table to squeeze Dave’s hand.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “And I believe you about M. I do. It’s just that . . . I had no idea she was a serious musician.”
“Well, she was serious. She kept up with the music scene. Went to clubs, networked, studied trends, practiced daily—I helped her out with voice coaching, exercises, performance tips, that sort of thing. She even quit smoking twice. Tobacco and weed are hard on a voice. She fell off the wagon both times, but I know what that monkey is like, so I couldn’t fault her.”
“I have an important question for you. It might be painful.”
“Go ahead.”
“Last night, I saw Moirin speaking with a young man at the party, shortly before she was killed. He was good-looking, late twenties maybe early thirties, boyish face, brown hair. Did she know anyone like that?”
“Not that I know of.”
“You’re sure she wasn’t . . . stepping out on you? Seeing another man?”
“Excuse me?”
I locked eyes with him. “You’re not going to play games with me, are you?”
He stared for a long moment. “Wait, wait . . . you think? No! Look, Moirin rented a place in my house; we became friends. Yeah, okay, the girl had a crush on me, an obvious one, but I kept her out of my bed.”
I gave him a look—an obviously skeptical one.
“There was nearly a forty-year age gap between us,” he went on. “I saw a lot of relationships like that in the music business; and they all ended badly—or as de facto father-daughter marriages. That’s not what I wanted.”
“You’re telling me that you and Moirin never once . . . ?”
“No. And frankly, I was never tempted.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“Believe what you like! Picking up a bedmate is child’s play for me, especially in this town.”
“At your age?”
“Listen, honey, if I wanted you, we’d be making it right now. You’d have your pants off and your panties down for me faster than I could finish this sparkling water . . .”
I stilled at his words, stunned that he’d gone that far. “Let’s leave me out of this, if you don’t mind.”
“You ask me personal questions and get touchy if I get personal? Baby, I’m telling you the truth. If you can’t handle the truth, get up and call a cab.”
And that’s when I saw it—the bad boy rocker. Cocky, angry, sexually aggressive. The flame was vintage, but it still burned with vivid, dangerous heat at the core of David’s amber eyes.
Twenty-seven
I took a hit of wine—a long one—and reminded myself what Mike Quinn once said about police work in interview rooms.
“You’re trying to locate the right string to pull, the one that unravels the subject’s social clothes; and when you find it, you yank without mercy, as hard as you can . . .”
That’s what I’d just done, I realized. I’d mentally stripped the guy down. And despite the ugly turn of our conversation—actually, because of it—I knew that I was making progress, getting good information behind this particular firewall in M’s private life.
On the other hand, Dave and I weren’t sitting in a police precinct; and I didn’t have a badge, a gun, or any sort of backup. Pushing “Wildman” Brice any further on the question of whether he and Moirin were more than platonic friends would have been a very bad idea.
Time to change the subject. “How about we talk about something else?”
Dave continued to glare, and I half expected him to get up and storm off. But he didn’t.
In a gesture of peacemaking, I reached for his bottle of sparkling water, refilled his glass, and then (thank goodness) our pizza arrived.
In my experience, any “truth” in the drinking of vino couldn’t hold a candle to the honest sharing that often came when eating good food. Or as my nonna put it: “Il pane apre tutte le bocche.” Bread opens all mouths.
And Dave and I both opened wide for this.
New York City possessed the best water in the nation for making pizza crust; so perfect, in fact, that pizza-makers all over the country famously imported it to mix up their dough.
This crust had the hallmarks of the best in the city. Thin but not too thin. Chewy but not before the slightest snap of crispness—like that slender crust of ice that had formed on the snow outside. Biting down gave you the satisfaction of al dente crunchiness; then almost immediately came the softness, that chewy goodness of fresh-baked, hand-thrown dough.
The fresh tomato sauce had the aromatics of local pizza-makers: oregano, rosemary, basil, and garlic. Its sweet, smooth flavor carried only a hint of bright tanginess, which meant the acidity had been tamed by the kind of long, slow cooking my nonna used to do for her customers—with pride and love.
The sausage and mushrooms had been chopped finely and sautéed in olive oil before being sprinkled in all their caramelized glory over a sweet white blanket of shredded cheeses—fresh mozzarella, young provolone, and aged Asiago—melted to a bubbly, warm pond of gooey, creamy, slightly salty goodness.
“How do you like it?” I asked, midchew.
He nodded, mouth just as busy. “Not bad, Cosi.”
Okay, progress, I thought. A few bites of Nunzio’s famous pie and I’ve gone from “honey” and “baby” to “Cosi.” Now let’s get me back to “Clare” . . .
“Can you tell me more about the Evergreen Recreation Center? How did M come to work there?”
“We were short on help last year,” he began, pausing to wipe sauce from his mouth. “I offered her a hundred bucks out of my own pocket if she’d ‘volunteer’ to lend a hand at Evergreen on Thanksgiving Day. She did.”
Dave sat back, and I was relieved to see him relaxing again. “Turned out M missed being around family. She liked the old folks; she made them laugh and they made her feel like she belonged, so I got her a part-time paying position.”
“And when did that start?”
“Last January. She started this whole off-the-wall program to bring modern music to the residents.”
“You mean club music?”
“All kinds of music. I thought the whole thing was brilliant, and a lot of the residents loved it, especially the i-Grannies.”
“The what?”
“The Internet Grannies—that’s our in-house computer group. They talk to their grandchildren through social networks, and a few months back Moirin had a brilliant idea about helping them connect to their grandkids through music.”
“How?”
“She’d start with an artist or group that the kids today are into and she’d play it for the folks here, and then ‘take it back’—that’s what she called her sessions. She’d show them where the artist’s influence started so they’d have a more personal connection to it, you know? Feel better equipped to listen and talk about it. Adele, for instance.”
“Adele who?”
“She just goes by Adele. She won a boatload of Grammys and young people love her. M showed the i-Grannies how her style dates back to Aretha Franklin and back even further to Billie Holiday. She did the same thing with Maroon 5, a pop band out of LA, and One Direction—a British-Irish boy band. She played sample songs and then connected them back to the Jackson 5 and back even further to Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.”
“Did she introduce them to that Long Island group she followed? Purple Lattice?”
“Purple Lettuce.” He arched an eyebrow. “They’re like the Dawes, Clare.”
“The who?”
“The Who is another genre.”
“You’re kidding with me, right?”
He smiled. “I’m talking neo-folk rock—M showed how the current movement can be traced back to Crosby, Stills and Nash.”
Finally! “I’ve heard of them.”
“Well, M would have given you one of her psychedelic star stickers—and showed you how they’re related to the Byrds, the Kingston Trio, and Woody Guthrie.”
“I wonder why, with that kind of passion for music, she worked as a baker’s assistant.”
“Easy money. She could do the work in her sleep.” Off my look, he explained, “Her family owned a bakery in Ireland.”
That brought another fact to light. “M never told me much about her Irish life. From the few remarks she made, I assumed she grew up in a rural area and moved to a more populated city, where she worked in a pub. She said something about a whacker of a manager, making all the girls on the waitstaff wear short skirts.”
Dave smiled, but it was a sad smile. “I heard that story, too.”
He sipped his water again, then knocked back the rest of the glass. “Lately, Moirin started hosting karaoke shows. She even uncovered surprising talent among our own residents. Thanks to her, we have an in-house Elvis—his real name’s Ben Finkelstein. We’ve got a married couple that do Sonny and Cher. We’ve even got our own Rat Pack.”
“The Rat Pack doesn’t surprise me. My former mother-in-law met ‘Frank’ when he stopped to admire her koo-koo carriage.”
“Guy with a fedora?”
I nodded, and Dave chuckled. “Yeah, that’s Tony. Our karaoke Sinatra. He’s pretty frisky.”
“What did Moirin earn for this work?”
“Very little. With this economy, our funding is drying up fast. Now that Moirin’s gone, we’ll probably have to suspend the extra programs, which will break a lot of old hearts at Evergreen.”
“You say you didn’t check Moirin’s references. How did she sign the lease? Did she put a previous address down?”
Dave shook his head. “I don’t do leases. I rent on a handshake.”
I sat back and my chair creaked. “Did you ever see or hear anything that seemed odd? Anything that distressed Moirin, upset her? Really think, okay?”
“Well . . . there was something that always bothered me . . . about this time last year. It was around midnight, and I was hauling my garbage to the street. When I passed her door, I heard Moirin crying—”
“Crying?”
“Absolutely sobbing, you know. I knocked on the door, but she wouldn’t talk to me.”
“She didn’t say anything about why she was crying?”
“No. And I respected her privacy.”
“Well, a girl crying is fairly normal.”
“Yeah, but here’s what was odd about it: The next morning, she’s at my door, bright and early, asking if she can borrow two hundred bucks. She says she needs money to buy a little black dress to impress some date. I figured her crying was about a boyfriend breaking up with her. Maybe she was looking to win him back with a sexy dress. Or she was thinking, ‘screw him,’ and wanted to get dolled up and find a new man.”
“She paid you back?”
“Hell, I just gave her the money. I didn’t regret it, even though I found out later she was lying.”
“Lying about what?”
“M lied about a lot of things, Clare. Okay, maybe lying is too strong a word. Let’s say she was full of contradictions.”
I leaned forward. “Name one.”
“I’ll name two.” He smoothed his beard and leaned forward. “Look, I don’t expect you to believe me, but M had too many beers at some club one night, and she came knocking at my door. I answered and she threw her arms around my neck. I sent her back down to her room, told her I didn’t think of her that way, and it would just mess up both our lives. She said it was just as well, something had happened in Ireland that had put her off romance.”
“What? Like a bad breakup?”
“Worse than that, she said, but she refused to tell me anything more. And then there was that dress. The little black dress I gave her two hundred bucks to buy wasn’t bought to impress any date. I saw it hanging inside a dry cleaner’s bag. It was black, but the dress had long sleeves, a longish skirt, and a high collar. It even had a lace veil. It wasn’t a party dress. It was the kind you wear to a funeral.”
“And she never mentioned anyone dying?”
“I asked if everything was okay, and she sang me a verse of ‘Don’t Worry, Be Happy’ . . .”
We finished our pizza and continued talking over cappuccinos, but I didn’t learn much more. As I crunched a hazelnut biscotti, I wondered about the people M met in the music business—especially the men.
“Dave, those studio jobs you mentioned, the backup singing Moirin did? Did she have any of those jobs recently?”
“Her last job was about six weeks ago. She was making so much cash during the holidays, working for Janelle and you, she said it was worth the time off singing. She planned to start looking to audition again in January.”
That’s when I remembered what Janelle had said. “Are you sure she didn’t mention two male friends? Janelle said she overheard calls from men named Tony and Benny.”
“Tony and Benny?” Dave laughed. “Weren’t you listening?”
I closed my eyes. Of course, that’s right . . .
“Tony’s our karaoke Sinatra,” Dave reminded me. “And Ben is Elvis.”
“So M was taking calls from eighty-year-old men?”
“They liked to kid around with her,” he explained, “run new karaoke ideas by her. On the other hand, it could have been more serious, which should finally convince you why Moirin and I were never lovers.”
“Why?”
“Isn’t it obvious? I was too young for her.”
Twenty-eight
DAVE drove me to Manhattan, dropping me off a few blocks from my coffeehouse, just in case the Channel Six van was staking it out. They weren’t, thank goodness. Belcher had moved on to his next “breaking news” target.
By now, it was very late in the afternoon. With December days so short, shadows were already gathering in the snowy canyons of Manhattan. A winter-night cold had descended, making my shop’s shining windows feel like a welcoming beacon of warmth and cheer.
I pushed through the beveled glass door to find my coffeehouse absolutely packed with holiday shoppers. Bags and boxes covered nearly every table and half the floor. This was nothing new, of course; every year, they flowed into our neighborhood from Jersey, Long Island, and Westchester, jamming the Village streets. I was very happy to catch the business.
With care, I maneuvered my way throug
h the crowded café tables, smiling and nodding hellos, and finally moved around the counter.
Jingling bells greeted me. “Ho, ho, ho, Mrs. Boss. Happy Crazy Saturday!” Nancy said as she adjusted her jester-elf cap.
“It’s been this busy all day?”
“Not so bad now,” she replied. “You should have seen it three hours ago; it was standing room only, with a line out the door—and baby it’s cold outside!”
I moved to our coat hooks and hung up Dave’s sport jacket, making a mental note to return it soon. He’d chivalrously insisted I keep it around me for the few blocks I had to walk, and I didn’t argue. Now I slipped a blue Village Blend apron over my sweater and dress slacks.
This was my day off, but clearly my staff could use an extra pair of hands. “So, what needs to be done?”
“Before anything else, you need to talk to the lady cop,” Nancy said, waggling her eyebrows.
I followed my barista’s jerking thumb and spied Lori Soles with one of our Fa-la-la-la-latte cups in her hand. “Okay, it shouldn’t take long. Then I’ll start spelling you guys for breaks. You’ve been working so hard, I’m sure you can use them.”
“Thanks,” Nancy said. “Much appreciated!”
I pulled an Americano for myself and arrived at Lori’s table in time to see her tear the head off a helpless gingerbread man. Three more crispy little cookie men lay on her plate, all of them beheaded in the same grisly fashion.
“Are you reenacting the Reign of Terror? Or are these decapitated cookies stand-ins?”
“They’re gingerbread men, Cosi. The only thing suffering here is my waistline.”
I sat across from her. “Were you waiting long?”
“Ten minutes. Long enough to regret coming.”
Impatient much? “So, how was your day otherwise?”
“Brutal,” Lori replied. “Yours?”
“Chock-full of fun surprises. For instance, I started the morning with an ambush by newsman Dick Belcher. Any clue how that might have happened?”
Lori cursed.
I smirked. “You know something about that leak in your boat, do you?”
