A Brew to a Kill

by Cleo Coyle

  NANCY: What-ium?

  ESTHER: Practical application. Look, Boris is an assistant baker, right? So he gets up for work at an ungodly hour. I closed here last night and got in way late. Stupid me turned on the bathroom radio without checking the volume. It blasted so loud, it woke him up—and I became so angry at myself for messing up his REM sleep that I yelled at him for leaving the volume up when he turned the thing off. He didn’t yell back. He knew better. He knew me. Just told me to come to bed so we could cuddle. That’s it. That’s love. Now do you get it?

  NANCY: You’re very odd, you know that?

  ESTHER: I take that as a compliment…

  Esther was odd. She was also clever, funny, fearless—and relatively easy to understand, if you took the time to know (or love) her.

  This hit-and-run had shaken us all up. Emotions were high and Esther was frustrated with herself, angry that she couldn’t give these cops more to go on. Those feelings were so overwhelming that they sloshed over her rim and onto anyone in the vicinity.

  Unfortunately, neither Langley nor Demetrios was her boyfriend, and I didn’t expect them to treat Esther’s personality issues as anything more than the raw anger of an uncooperative witness. (Not the best position to be in with men wearing badges and gun belts.)

  “You know what, miss?” Demetrios said. “Your attitude isn’t very helpful.”

  “My attitude? What about yours!”

  “What about mine?”

  “We’re just doing our job, you know.”

  “Don’t get pissy with me! My attitude didn’t run anyone down!”

  Langley turned to his partner. “What do you think here? Sounds like she’d rather talk at the precinct.”

  Oh, god, here it comes…

  “Yeah, five or six hours in an interview room might calm her down enough to give a simple statement—”

  “Excuse me, Officers…” I stepped up. “I think I can help.”

  An awkward silence ensued, which was better than an argument (or a de facto arrest), so at least we were heading in the right direction.

  “Do you have a statement, Ms. Cosi?” Langley asked tightly.

  “I do, but give me a minute first.”

  “You need to use the Ladies’?”

  “No.” I turned to face Esther.

  My barista stood stiffer than a cinnamon stick, her folded arms locked into place. There was no way (no way!) her memory would be of any help in this state.

  I took a deep breath, put a hand on her shoulder, and channeled my Mike—Detective Mike Quinn, probably the best interviewer in the NYPD.

  “Esther,” I said quietly, “I’d like you to close your eyes.”

  “Close my eyes!”

  “Do it for me, okay… and for Lilly Beth.”

  She sighed but closed them.

  “I want you to relax. Got that? Relax… take a deep breath. Good. Let it out. Very good…”

  Demetrios and Langley exchanged wary glances, but (thank goodness) gave me some latitude.

  “Focus on my voice, Esther. Nothing else. There’s nothing to work at here. Just relax. You’re just going to play back a few images in your head, that’s all. Can you do that for me?”

  Esther nodded. “I’ll try.”

  “You saw a van hit Lilly Beth, right?”

  “That’s right. A van with no windows…”

  “Now I want you to play back the impact in your mind, as if you were viewing a video recording. Can you see it?

  “I see it.”

  “What color was the van?”

  “White… sort of…”

  Sort of, I thought, what does that mean? I took a guess. “Was the van dirty?”

  “Yes! Definitely. The roof was more gray than white, and there was a lot of dried pigeon crap up there.”

  “Good, that’s good…” I noticed Langley and Demetrios scribbling.

  “Lots of vans on these streets are commercial vehicles,” I reminded her. “Were there any markings on the van’s side? Play back the impact. Do you see any company logos, any writing?”

  “No logos… There was something in writing… but I couldn’t read it!”

  “It’s okay, Esther, you’re doing fine… just try to tell me what color the letters were.”

  “Black. They were black and thick and ugly… but that doesn’t make sense! Why would someone put that on a commercial van?”

  “Don’t try to think about what makes sense, just play back the image, the point of impact… can you see the shape of any of the letters?”

  “I think one was a C… Hey, wait! The letters were spray painted on. The writing was graffiti!”

  When she finished describing the markings, Esther opened her eyes to find two much happier cops.

  Demetrios cleared his throat. He had one more question for her; the most important one: “Ms. Best, if you saw this van again, do you think you could identify it?”

  “Yes,” Esther said, nodding vigorously. “For sure!”

  Demetrios addressed his partner. “I’ll get a BOLO out on this description.”

  “Good,” said Langley, and Demetrios dashed off toward his squad car.

  “What about you, Ms. Cosi?” Langley asked. “Did you see the vehicle? Any part of the plate?”

  “No, I didn’t see those things. But I did witness something that I think may help.”

  “You got a glimpse of the driver?” Langley asked, hopefully.

  “No. Like said, I didn’t see anything. I heard it.”

  Langley cocked his head. “You heard it…”

  “Yes, the vehicle’s engine noise was distinctive. Very loud, like drag racers sound when they gun their hot rods. I heard it when Lilly moved beyond our Muffin Muse truck to step into the street—”

  “Go on,” Langley said, taking notes.

  “I heard tires squeal, too.”

  Langley nodded. “The driver was probably trying to brake—”

  “No,” I said firmly. “The squealing tires came after the engine was gunned. That was a few seconds before I heard a thump and Esther’s scream.”

  “What happened next?”

  “That’s when I saw Lilly Beth, lying there—” I pointed to the spot on the street where I’d been kneeling.

  “So you didn’t actually see this dirty, white windowless van that Ms. Best described, or any other vehicle that seemed to be fleeing the scene?”

  “Like I said, my view was blocked, and then my attention was on Lilly Beth.”

  Demetrios was back now. “Anyone else a witness?” he called loudly.

  Across the street, more officers from the Sixth were hunting for pedestrian statements and finding few. One was speaking with a longtime Blend customer, who was shaking his head and shrugging.

  “What about you?” Langley asked, pointing his pen at Matt. “See anything?”

  Matt immediately tensed. “Our truck blocked my view of the accident, which means it did for all of our customers behind me.”

  “Okay, did you hear anything?”

  “Sorry. I was reading text messages. Wasn’t paying attention.”

  Langley noticed Madame, who’d moved to stand rigidly by her son. “Is he right, ma’am? Did the truck block your view?”

  Madame’s lips pursed. “Yes, young man. I didn’t see a thing, either. But I should have!”

  I touched Matt’s arm. “Your mother needs to calm down.”

  I could see she was upset; more than that, she was furious, spitting mad. Lilly Beth had been run down like a dog, the cowardly driver speeding away, and it had happened right in front of her. Yet there was nothing she could do to help.

  “Settle her at the coffee bar and make her a steamer, okay?” I whispered.

  Matt nodded. “Good idea…” Gently taking his mother’s arm, he tightly addressed the young cops. “Excuse us.”

  No fan of the police, I knew my ex was relieved to go. Langley let him escape; I was another story. “We’ll need you to stick around, Ms. Cosi.”
/>
  “Fine.”

  Just then, a dusky-skinned Latino patrolman, one I didn’t recognize, approached Langley from behind and gripped the officer’s shoulder.

  “Bad news,” he said. “We got some major myopia on the street tonight.”

  “C’mon, Perez, nothing?” Langley said.

  “No statements?” Demetrios pressed.

  “Nothing worth anything,” Perez replied. “And, I thought you two should know, the motor heads are here.”

  Langley frowned. “They called AIS?”

  “Yeah, and fair warning. The crash team’s Max Buckman and his guys.”

  Langley sighed, glanced up and down the street.

  Demetrios elbowed his partner. “What happened to the luck of the Irish?”

  Perez flashed a reassuring grin, one that exposed a gold tooth. “Relax, you two. Street’s closed to traffic; cars and pedestrians are rerouted and the accident scene is secured. All by the book. And as first officers on the scene, you can take the credit.”

  “And the blame, too. We’re talking Mad Max here—and his Death Race Gang.”

  “Yeah, good luck with that.”

  I tapped Langley’s shoulder. “Excuse me but what exactly is AIS?” (In my years of friendship with Mike Quinn, I’d gotten used to alphabet soup where the NYPD was concerned, but I drew a blank on those letters.)

  “AIS,” Langley repeated. “Accident Investigation Squad.”

  “Oh…” A new one for me, but then the NYPD had enough bureaus, units, and squads to police a small Balkan country. “I take it this cop, this Buckman… he’s a hard case?”

  Perez grunted a laugh.

  “Hard case,” Langley repeated. “Now that’s a polite way of putting it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Demetrios exhaled. “The guy’s an a-hole, Ms. Cosi. Excuse my French.”

  “I’ve heard worse…” I told him. (Usually from Matt, in French.) “But since I have to deal with this person, can you be a little more specific?”

  “Specific?” Langley said. “You need us to define a-hole?”

  “Give me something I can use.”

  Demetrios rubbed the back of his neck. “He’s not fond of females.”

  “In the Biblical sense?”

  “No, he’ll sleep with them. He just doesn’t like them.”

  The reek of cigar smoke hit us about then. It grew stronger and more noxious until I had a flashback to the exhaust fumes I’d inhaled at tire level while kneeling in the street.

  I looked around and finally spotted the tailpipe. The cigar-smoker was a bear of a man standing half in darkness, ironically right beside a police van towing a floodlight unit. He wore plain clothes—black slacks and a blue nylon jacket. The men gathered around him, however, were very much in uniform.

  Wheel emblems on their shoulder patches told me they were highway patrol, and they were likely good officers. But at this time of night, their belted leather jackets, motorcycle boots, and military-esque riding breeches gave me the distinct feeling they were plotting to invade Poland.

  I turned to Demetrios. “Cigar Guy over there. Is that Buckman?”

  “That’s him.”

  Almost immediately, Buckman noticed my gaze on him. He replied in kind, drawing on his stogie as he looked me over. A few moments later, he strode toward us. I firmed up my stance in the shadows of the sidewalk, bracing for the almost palpable force of such a sizeable figure coming at me.

  Clearly, this AIS detective was about to become this case’s lead investigator. That much I understood. What I didn’t yet realize was how quickly “Mad Max” Buckman would become my biggest annoyance—and my best ally.

  SIX

  “OKAY, what do you have for me?” Buckman asked, smoldering cigar wagging in his mouth.

  Blinking against the tobacco haze, I waited for Langley or Demetrios to answer. Buckman waited, too.

  “Ladies!” he finally bellowed. “I asked you a question!”

  As I literally flinched, the two young officers exchanged anxious glances. Each had been assuming the other would reply. Now they both blurted out—

  “Hit-and-run!”

  “That much I know, morons. What else?”

  Langley cleared his throat. “A white van, Detective. Possibly the result of a drag race.”

  Buckman’s eyebrow rose at that. So did mine.

  Where was Langley getting the result of a drag race, for goodness’ sake? I hadn’t said that! Ready to complain, I opened my mouth, but held my tongue instead. Buckman would get around to me soon enough. No need to embarrass a loyal customer in front of his superior.

  “Is that the traffic template under your arm?” Buckman asked, thrusting his hand at Langley. “Give it here.”

  As Buckman rifled through the template and accident report, I tried to get a handle on him. I gauged his age as fifty, maybe older. He had a hawkish nose, pronounced chin, and smoke gray eyes that stared so intently they appeared to bulge. His dark brows were heavy, his skin craggy from wear, and his hair chopped down to a crew cut.

  His was not the fashionable kind of flattop that actors in my neighborhood gel molded into trendy spikes. Buckman’s bristles had marine boot camp written all over them, that or the police academy barber. In fact, after one minute in the man’s presence, I got the distinct impression that he’d received this cut at the age of twenty and, in thirty years, saw no point in changing it.

  His hair color had changed, however. Though his eyebrows were black, Buckman’s head had gone salt-and-pepper, save the temple patches, which were completely white. The resulting pattern on both sides of his skull reminded me of a hot rod’s detailing.

  Maybe cars were too much on my mind that night—or maybe the guy had swapped out his cardiovascular system for internal combustion and that stinky cigar really was a tailpipe.

  “A van?” he barked at last, stabbing the clipboard where Langley had written the offending word. “What kind of van are we talking about here? A BMW? Some sort of pricey sport-utility vehicle? Got to be, if it was drag racing. This white van crap doesn’t make sense.”

  “But it wasn’t an SUV!” Esther insisted, stepping forward. “It was an ordinary van. The kind you see on the street every day. Like the vans that deliver groceries or service food trucks.”

  Buckman’s head swung. “You’re talking about an express cargo van?”

  Esther shrugged. “If that’s what you call it, yes.”

  Buckman squinted. “Who the hell drag races in an express cargo van?”

  “I only wrote down what the witness reported,” Langley replied. “It was Ms. Cosi here who said it was a drag race.”

  Here we go. “I’m sorry,” I said as gently as I could, “but I didn’t claim there was a drag race. I heard one vehicle and the sound of the engine was distinctive, like a hot rod drag racing.”

  For an endless moment, Buckman’s gaze looked me up and down. This was a cop evaluation I knew well. The man was assessing my age, race, socioeconomic level, and my use (and value) as a witness, but most of all, my veracity.

  Folding my arms, I stared back.

  “So you heard a hot rod?” he finally asked.

  “I grew up in a factory town. Motor heads on my block were under their hoods daily, and the muscle car engines echoed up through the valleys nightly.”

  “Okay, Ms. Cosi, tell me more about what you think you heard. Take your time and be as specific as humanly possible.”

  “The sound was rumbling and very loud,” I said. “Much noisier than a normal van. The driver gunned the motor, too, and made the tires squeal just a few seconds before he struck my friend.”

  At the words “my friend,” Buckman blinked. He glanced at the report again then back at me, and I got the distinct impression he was digesting an important fact: The victim in this case was not some anonymous pedestrian to me, but someone I knew well; a woman I cared about.

  My ponytail had come loose and, in that moment, my hair scrunchy sli
pped off my shoulder and fell to the pavement. Stooping to pick it up, I noticed my jeans were streaked with road dirt, my polenta-yellow blouse stained. Tears had dried on my cheeks, and (embarrassingly) my nose was running. As I straightened up, I swiped my face with the tail of my shirt.