by Клео Коул
“He told me I could trust you,” Ric said.
“You can. I want to see you safe, you know?”
“Me, too, love, believe me.”
“Then tell me why all the secrecy? Why won’t you go to the police about last night? What is it you aren’t telling me?”
Ric sipped his decaf, stared into the dark liquid. “This breakthrough of mine... it’s very new.”
“I know.” Hence the term “breakthrough.”
“There are a lot of people who may want my new coffee plant to grow for themselves.”
“That goes without saying, but they can’t get it, right?”
“Yes, the farm and nursery are in a remote location, but more important, my family and I have kept the research very private.”
“Then last night, someone assaulted you. Think, Ric... do you have any enemies? Anyone who might want to see you hurt... or even killed?”
Ric laughed.
“What’s funny?”
“You Americans watch too many crime shows. I’ve been counting them up on my hotel room’s telly: true crime, fake crime, funny crime, scary crime... supernatural,mathematical, and neurotic. Twenty-four hours a day on U.S. TV, you can see someone getting killed twenty-four different ways.”
“You’re saying I’m a paranoid American?”
“I know you mean well, love. But nobody is trying to kill me. I know what the mugger wanted.”
“What?”
“The cutting. I’m sure of it. So is Matt.”
“Cutting?” I blinked. “What cutting?”
“It’s the reason Matt and I don’t want the police involved. We did something... how shall I put it? Not quite legal...”
Oh, lord. Mike was right. “What? What did you two do?”
“We smuggled a cutting of my hybrid arabica into the country.”
“You what?”
“It was quite cleverly done, actually. A few weeks ago, I shipped it to Matt overnight, hidden inside a specially lined statue of Saint Joseph, which Matt broke open.”
“He broke a religious statue?” I frowned. “That’s bad luck.”
Ric laughed. “Little Clare... you’re as adorable as I remember.”
“I thought you said I’ve changed, that I’m more ‘head-strong’ than you remember?” I made little air quotes around the word to remind him.
Ric shrugged. “You’re that, too.” He sipped his decaf. “And you still make heavenly coffee.”
And you’re still as smooth a charmer as ever.
The man was as attractive as ever, too. The rugged shadow of his beard framed a dazzling smile, dark chest hairs peeked out between the lapels of Matt’s white terrycloth bathrobe, and the man’s big, brown long-lashed eyes looked just as sleepy and bedroomy as I remembered.
But ten years was a long chunk of time. It had been enough to change things about me. I wondered what it had changed about Ric.
When I’d first met him, he’d been a laid back foreign exchange student. Although he’d been interested in his studies, he’d never appeared especially committed. I still remember him sauntering into the Blend for wake-up espressos at eleven o’clock, having missed an early lecture because of partying too late the evening before.
As far as I knew, the Gostwicks’ highly profitable coffee farm had let Ric live the life of a carioca, a Brazilian term for a guy who preferred to spend his days hanging out at the beach, looking good, eating, drinking, and making love to whatever female admirers happened by. (I’d learned the word from Matt, who probably qualified as one since Rio’s Ipanema Beach—i.e. “Carioca Central”—was pretty much his South of the Equator headquarters.)
I wondered what had changed Ric Gostwick. Obviously, something had pushed him into hunkering down and focusing on the coffee business so intensely he’d achieved a botanical breakthrough that others had been diligently striving and failing to accomplish for years. I also wanted to know why he was in such a hurry to get the cutting into the country.
“You really shouldn’t have broken the law,” I told him. “I don’t understand why—”
“Getting a live plant into this country is full of government red tape, that’s why,” Ric countered. “Any plant parts intended for growing require a phytosanitary certification in advance from your United States Department of Agriculture.”
“There’s a reason for that.”
“Yes, I know. Worries about the spread of pests and disease. But I can assure you the cutting is pristine.”
“If you’re caught, the fines are astronomical. I can’t believe you took the risk!”
“It would have been a bigger risk to do it openly. They might have turned down the application, or worse, its inspection process could have gotten it stolen.”
I might have argued that his worries were pure paranoia, but it would have been a tough sell. Historically, the only reasons coffee had become a global cash crop were because of theft and smuggling.
Ethiopians might have been the first to discover the plant growing wild in their country, but Arabs were the ones who first exported it. For years they held the monopoly on its cultivation. Foreigners were forbidden from visiting coffee farms, and the beans would be sent to other parts of the world only after their germinating potential was destroyed through heating or boiling.
Around 1600, a Muslim pilgrim from India smuggled the first germinating seeds from Mecca to southern India. Soon after, Dutch spies smuggled coffee plants to Holland from Mocha. (Mocha being the principal port of Yemen’s capital Sana’a, hence the naming of Arabian Mocha Sanani, coffee beans world-renowned for their powerfully pungent flavor, with notes of wine, exotic spices, and cocoa.)
After the Dutch got hold of the plant, they began cultivating coffee in their colonies: Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Sumatra, Bali, Timor, Dutch Guiana (now Suriname), and eventually Java.
But the larceny didn’t end there. A coffee plant was shipped from Java to Holland for its Botanical Garden, and a number of visiting dignitaries were given cuttings as gifts. The mayor of Amsterdam made the mistake of giving Louis XIV of France the gift of a coffee cutting from this Java tree.
In Paris, King Louis put the coffee cutting under guard inside his famous Jardin des Plantes, Europe’s first greenhouse, where it was cultivated into seedlings. A French naval captain, eager to sever France’s dependence on the high-priced coffees of Dutch-controlled East India, stole a seedling and sailed it to Martinique, where its offspring allowed France to grow its own coffee.
And my former mother-in-law’s favorite legend was the one in which a coffee cutting was smuggled to Brazil in a bouquet of flowers. The flowers were given to a dashing Brazilian diplomat by the smitten wife of French Guiana’s governor. If the story is true, Brazil’s billion-dollar coffee trade apparently sprang from an extramarital love affair and that single smuggled cutting bearing fertile cherries.
Given coffee’s volatile past, I knew it wasn’t a stretch for Ric to be concerned about the theft of his cutting, so I held my tongue.
“Matt and I agreed we couldn’t take any chances,” Ric said, “not until it’s been properly patented.”
“Patented.” I blinked in confusion. “You can patent a plant? I didn’t think you could do that.”
Ric nodded. “It’s possible, according to Ellie.”
“Ellie?” It had been well over ten years, but I quickly recognized the name, especially when it was linked to Federico Gostwick. “Ellie Shaw?”
Ric sipped his decaf and nodded. “It’s Lassiter now. She agreed to help me.”
“Help you... how?”
“I never finished my BS in botany. Ellie did. She even went on to get a masters from Cornell with a focus on public garden management. In horticultural circles, she’s known and respected, and she’s familiar with the process of applying for a plant patent. One of her old professors is on the PVPO advisory board. So she agreed to help me secure it.”
“PVPO?”
“Plant Variety Protection Office.
It’s part of your Department of Agriculture.”
“But why not just apply in Brazil? Don’t you have patent lawyers there?”
“Of course, but there are...” Ric shrugged— “complicating issues. Matt and I both agreed that the U.S. patent would solve our problems.”
“Problems? I don’t follow you. What problems?”
“Really, Clare, you shouldn’t worry about this. Matt and I have made our deal. Next week we’ll announce it, along with my breakthrough, and then we can all just sit back and get rich, eh? You don’t have to—”
A tinkling melody interrupted Ric’s equivocating. The tune sounded vaguely familiar. “What’s that?”
“My cell...” Ric pulled it out of the robe pocket. “I downloaded a Sting ringtone.” He grinned. “Can you guess the song?”
The melody wasn’t on my mind, the so-called “problems” of Ric’s patent issues were.
“It’s ‘Roxanne,’ ” he announced as he hit a button and put the phone to his ear. “Hello?”
Confused as to whether Ric was referring to the Sting tune “Roxanne” or the name of the person phoning, I sipped my own cup of decaf as he took the call.
“No, darling,” Ric cooed into the phone after a minute of listening. “I had a breakfast meeting outside the hotel, a very early one.”
He tossed me a little shrug, which I assumed was supposed to persuade me to overlook the fact that he’d just lied to the person on the other end of the line.
“Why don’t you just contact me on my cell from now on....” He listened some more and checked his wristwatch. “Of course... me, too... yes, darling... that sounds lovely, but you’d better make it later than that, all right? I’ve got an important meeting...”
Ric finished his call, and I asked who had called him.
“Oh, just a friend in the city.”
“A female friend?”
“Yes.”
The phone rang once more. It was Sting’s “Roxanne,” all right.
“Hello?”
Another vague call ensued with yet another “darling.” “Me, too,” Ric purred. “And I’m looking forward to it, darling... but I’ll have to get back to you on where... yes, soon... just be patient... me, too.”
Ric hung up, and I raised an eyebrow with (as Matt used to tell me) nunlike judgment.
“Let me guess, another female friend in the city?”
“Why, Clare...” Ric’s eyes widened in mock surprise, “you didn’t tell me you were psychic.”
“Funny. You’re too funny, Federico.”
“What can I tell you? It’s a hazard having this much charisma.”
“Not to mention humility.”
Ric laughed. “I do love women.”
“You and my ex-husband... hence the ex.”
“Men who love women this much, they shouldn’t marry.”
“You’re telling me.” I was kidding, but Ric looked suddenly serious.
“This is something of an insight then?” he asked earnestly.
“Uhm... actually, I was joking. Don’t you know why Matt married me?”
“Because he adored you, of course. Why else?”
“I was pregnant with Joy. I thought you knew?”
“No, Clare.” Ric shook his head. “Matteo never said anything like that, not once, not ever.”
Honest to God, I was stunned to hear it. For those last years of our marriage, I’d assumed Matt had told every friend and colleague that I was the ball-and-chain around his neck, that he’d been pressured down the aisle because of my expecting Joy.
Ric was one of Matt’s oldest friends. If he hadn’t told Ric the truth, then he hadn’t told anybody.
“So Matt was less of a cad than I thought,” I whispered. Not much less, but enough to surprise me.
“What do you mean?” Ric asked.
Might as well set the record straight. “Matteo’s mother pressured him into proposing. I didn’t know it at the time, but apparently she made him understand that she didn’t want her only grandchild to be illegitimate.”
Ric nodded, looked down into his cup again.
Had I said too much? I wondered. Probably. The easygoing Ric looked suddenly more uncomfortable than usual. Or was there more than simple discomfort? It probably doesn’t matter, I decided. Not only was this stuff ancient history, it was off my interrogation subject.
“So anyway...” I said, forcefully injecting some lightness to my tone, “where exactly is this illegal alien cutting you smuggled in?”
“Upstairs.” He tipped his chin toward the ceiling. “In Matteo’s room.”
“Great.”
“Matt accepted the delivery, you see? Then I borrowed it for a short time to show to Ellie, but now it’s back with Matt. We both believe it’s quite necessary to show the cutting at Friday’s little gathering at the Beekman Hotel.”
I didn’t argue. I knew there’d be international press there, trade journal writers, all in town to cover the ICGE. They’d want photos, and having the cutting there would add credibility to their stories.
“Matt says it’s important we get the word out,” Ric continued. “And I agree. Once the photo and description of my cutting is in the press, theft will be much more obvious. A patent will give me the right to sue anyone who doesn’t license from me the right to grow my hybrid arabica.”
“But why did you wait until now to announce it? Why didn’t you announce from Brazil?”
“There were some issues that needed to be... resolved. Like the patent I mentioned.”
“And is it resolved?”
“Ellie is working all that out.”
“Do you trust her?”
Ric laughed. “Of course!”
I wasn’t finished asking questions, but Ric was clearly done giving answers.
“I must get dressed now. Matteo called earlier.” He stood and made a show of tapping his wristwatch. “We’ll be meeting in less than an hour. He is checking me into a new hotel, just to be on the safe side.”
“But, Ric, who do you think is after the cutting?” I called as he headed out the kitchen door. “Who attacked you last night?”
“I’m sorry, love,” he cooed with a shrug, “but I haven’t got a clue.”
“Would you mind if I talked to Ellie then?” I called after him. “Ric?”
There was no answer. I left the kitchen and went to the bottom of the short set of stairs, leading up to the bedrooms and bath. Ric had just crested the top. I could see the back of Matt’s white terrycloth bathrobe.
“Ric!” I called again, rapidly climbing the stairs. “How do I get in touch with Ellie?”
“You worry too much, love!” was Ric’s reply. “But thank you for the breakfast!” Then the door to Matt’s bedroom was firmly shut to me.
Nine
I wanted to strangle Matt.
I also wanted to strangle Ric. That was a given. But I’d read Miss Manners years ago, and I was pretty sure subjecting guests in your home to death by choking was poor hospitality etiquette, no matter how infuriating they were.
Ex-husbands, however, were another matter.
Matt had made a deal with me. He’d promised to convince Ric to tell me everything in exchange for my keeping Quinn in the dark.
True, I’d broken my part of the bargain, but Matt clearly had, too. Instead of instructing Ric to open up, he’d obviously warned the man about his “nose-hound” ex-wife.
There was no doubt in my mind that I’d just been “handled,” given the big brush-off with the smallest amount of information. Ric’s indulgent smiles and lack of any real cooperation made me wonder how Mike Quinn got through his days without punching something. Not only had my talk with the man cleared up absolutely nothing, it left me with more questions.
While Ric might see the details of his botanical breakthrough as his own private business, I didn’t. Matt was about to publicly link us with Ric as his exclusive distributor. My ex might trust the man because of their lifelong friendship, but I wa
s determined to find out who had attacked Ric, what “problems” were being resolved with his product, and why exactly my ex-husband was eager to shut down my snooping.
While Ric was dressing in Matt’s room, I followed the only real lead he’d given me. Leaving the apartment, I descended the stairwell to the Village Blend’s second floor, a genial space with a working fireplace, walls of exposed brick, and a bounty of overstuffed armchairs and sofas.
As an extension of the ground floor coffee bar, this floor was essentially a living room for customers, as well as a rentable space for small community gatherings. (We’d hosted everything from book clubs, singles mixers, and string quartet jam sessions, to theatrical script read-throughs, and “brag ’n’ bitch” evenings for a group of professional illustrators.)
This floor also held my private office. With a battered wooden desk, utilitarian chair, files, and a coat stand where I hung my apron, the tiny windowless cell wasn’t exactly Trump headquarters international. I didn’t care. My real office was downstairs, anyway, behind the espresso machine with my baristas, waiting on the eclectic community I loved.
I sat at the desk and fired up my PC. Inside were Excel spreadsheets tracking inventory; daily, weekly, and monthly sales; and employee schedules. But I wasn’t interested in any of that. To follow my lead, I logged onto the Internet, went to a search engine, and typed in the name “Ellie Lassiter.”
Three seconds later, the screen filled with hundreds of search results, and I began combing through the listings. The first dozen or so were a bust—Ellie Lassiter wasn’t a twelve year old Mighty Marigolds soccer player living in Indiana; a seventy-five year old nurse from New Zealand, traveling the world on a Norwegian cruise ship; or a twenty-two year old exotic dancer who made virtual house calls with her “easy-to-use Paypal account.” I scrolled down more Lassiters—Ralph, Jonah, Lassiter Electronics in Kentucky, and Lassiter Footwear in Toronto, Canada.
Then I came to a blue hyperlink headlined “Curator’s Corner.” I hit the phrase. The screen dissolved and reformed with photos and text...
BBG is truly a living museum where plants come to life. Each of the distinct gardens within the larger Garden is carefully and artfully maintained by a BBG curator. The curator is responsible for the distinctive look and presentation of each plant collection, helping to enhance the natural beauty, horticultural significance, and educational experience of the overall Garden.
