Decaffeinated Corpse cm-5

by Клео Коул

  “Wonderful to meet you, Ms. Cosi,” said the fiftysomething man.

  Still clutching his hand, I blinked in surprise. Chef Tommy Keitel, my daughter’s new flame, had enough years on him to be her father’s older brother. Still smiling, his left hand covered mine.

  That’s when I saw it—the wedding band. I’d been able to avoid my daughter’s plunging neckline, but I could not tear my eyes away from the gold circling the third finger of Tommy Keitel’s left hand. My gaze shifted to the shy young man at Joy’s side. He shuffled his feet, smiled tentatively, and looked away again.

  Joy followed my confused stare. Noticed the young man. “Oh, god, how rude I’ve been. This is Vinny. He works at Tommy’s restaurant, too.”

  Chef Keitel’s hands released mine. I smiled wanly, extended it to the young man.

  “Vincent Buccelli, ma’am... I mean, Ms. Cosi.” His words were halting, and his eyes were downcast, but his handshake was firm.

  “I tasted that coffee you’re shilling,” Chef Keitel announced with a superior smirk. “Good stuff. I like coffee, don’t love it, mind you. My thing’s wine, but I couldn’t tell the coffee was decaffeinated, and I think I have the palate to tell. Of course, you did use a French press. That’s sort of like cheating, right? Christ, I bet tinned coffee would taste good if you made it with a French press.”

  When he ran out of gas (and I’m being kind), I watched Chef Keitel wrap his arm around my daughter’s young waist, pull her against his aging body. My reaction was similar to the one I had watching a snake devour a bunny rabbit on Animal Planet.

  “Of course, caffeine has its uses. You don’t always want to sleep, right?” He looked at my daughter and winked. “Sometimes you want to stay up all night long.”

  I decided that Chef Keitel’s lewd innuendo was reason enough to kill him right then and there, and I had to restrain myself from tightening that silver chain around his throat until he turned the color of a Japanese eggplant. Instead, I put my hands together and forced a smile.

  “May I speak to you for a minute, Joy? It’s about your father...”

  I shifted my gaze to Chef Keitel. “So nice to have met you.”

  I maintained my rigid grin throughout the exchange, but I felt the time bomb ticking inside me. I walked behind the bar, not sure if Joy would follow. I think she hesitated, but I refused to turn around and look. Then I heard Chef Keitel cry out. He’d spotted Robbie Gray, and the two chefs loudly greeted one another. Locked in animated conversation, they wandered away. Vinny Buccelli lingered for a moment, then followed his boss.

  Joy appeared at my side. “What about daddy?” she asked.

  “Your friend, Chef Keitel—”

  “Tommy?”

  I nodded. “Didn’t you notice, Joy, that he’s older than your father.”

  I expected an angry outburst—a none-too-gentle suggestion to mind my own business, though not put quite so tactfully. But Joy surprised me. She just rolled her eyes and shook her head.

  “I knew you were going to do this,” Joy said in a voice that was dead calm.

  “Do what?”

  “This. Make a scene. Humiliate yourself.”

  “I’m humiliating myself? I’m not the lovely, charming, sweet young girl who’s dating an octogenarian.”

  Joy’s lips curled into a superior smirk—an expression that unsettlingly resembled Chef Keitel’s. “Oh, mother. Now you’re being ridiculous.”

  Hands on hips, I stepped closer. “You’re young, Joy,” I quietly told her. “You haven’t accomplished much, so you’re using a smug, superior attitude as a way of elevating yourself. That’s fine. That’s what young people do. But don’t make the mistake of thinking you know it all. You have a lot to learn, and I just don’t want to see you learn it the hard way.”

  Joy stared into the distance. Since the moment I’d brought up her boyfriend’s inappropriate age, she’d refused to look me in the eye. That gave me hope that somewhere deep inside, Joy knew she was headed down the wrong path.

  “I’ve heard this before,” she declared in a bored voice. Then she sighed theatrically. “I’m leaving.”

  I held her shoulder. “He’s married, Joy. He’s wearing a wedding band. That means he has a wife—and, I assume, a family.”

  “What do you know about anything, mom? When you were my age, you were married, too. Now you’re not. What does that tell you? That things change, that’s what.”

  “You’re making a mistake.”

  “No I’m not.” She shook off my hand. “I’m leaving.”

  “Excuse me.” The voice belonged to Esther Best. I turned to face my barista. She appeared uncomfortable about stumbling upon a mother-daughter spat.

  Who wouldn’t? I thought.

  “Sorry, boss,” she said. “We’re about out of coffee again, and nobody looks like they’re leaving anytime soon. Should I go downstairs and grind more beans? I would have asked Ric, but I don’t see him.”

  I glanced around the room. Esther was right. I didn’t see Ric by the cutting. Matt either.

  “Take the cutting down to Dante in the kitchen,” I told Esther. “Tell him to keep an eye on it, and ask him to grind more beans, but only enough for one more go round.”

  Esther nodded. I turned to face my daughter again, but Joy was gone.

  I tore off my apron and dashed for the elevator. I made it in time to see Joy enter the car and the doors close. I slammed my finger against the button and the doors opened again. Joy frowned when she saw me.

  “Joy—”

  “Don’t talk to me.”

  “But—”

  “If we’re going to fight, let’s do it in the street,” she hissed.

  There were six other people in the elevator, casting curious glances at us. I gritted my teeth, willing to wait until we got outside—but not a moment longer.

  When we reached the lobby level, Joy slipped through the art deco elevator doors before they even opened all the way. I raced to catch up. The Beekman Hotel’s lobby was small, and we were across it and out the front door in seconds. Still Joy kept walking, her heels clicking on the wet sidewalk.

  I shivered, wishing I’d brought my coat. The threatening downpour had not yet arrived. Instead, there was a misty precipitation that seemed to hover in the air, turning flesh clammy and clothes damp. The street was busy with Saturday night traffic. Headlights gleamed like halos in the haze as they raced uptown. A Gala tour bus rumbled out of the UN plaza. But the sidewalk was deserted save for a couple coming out of a brightly lit liquor store and a few teenagers across First Avenue, slamming their skateboards on a makeshift jump along the dark sidesteps of Trump World Tower.

  “Joy, wait,” I pleaded, running after her.

  She stopped dead and whirled to face me.

  “Joy, please understand. I only have your best interests—”

  “Blah, blah, blah.” She folded her arms. “I’ve heard this speech before. Try something original.”

  “Okay. I know this guy makes you feel special. I know that because I know his type—”

  “Right. You’ve exchanged, like, ten words with Tommy, but you already know he’s a ‘type’?”

  “Listen, Joy. You’re special. Special to me. Special to your father. But not to this guy. He’s an operator.”

  “You’re wrong,” she said. “Tommy does think I’m special. He’s teaching me all sorts of new things—”

  In the kitchen or the bedroom? I nearly shot back.

  “He’s an amazing man,” Joy went on. “It’s you who can’t face reality. You don’t want to let me grow up. Well, you’re going to have to face it. I am grown up. I’m gone.”

  She turned to walk away. I grabbed her arm.

  “What tales does Tommy tell you?” I asked her. “That his marriage is in trouble? That he’s going to divorce real soon.” I used air quotes on the real soon part. “Does he tell you his wife doesn’t understand him?”

  “It’s my life, Mom. Let me live it. What do you c
are if I mess up. How does that affect you?”

  “Oh, Joy,” I said, looking for strength from the heavens. “How can I make you understand—”

  That’s when I saw the free-falling body, the black silhouette blotting out the lights of the Beekman Tower like an instant eclipse.

  I grabbed my daughter, dragged her backwards with me, up against the building. She squirmed in alarm. “Mom! What are you—”

  The body hit the sidewalk with a sickening sound, like an overripe watermelon splattering on a slab of concrete. Joy turned her head, saw the blood, and screamed. I hugged her closer, shut my eyes, and bit down on my own lip so I wouldn’t. Someone in a passing car cried out. I heard the squeal of tires on wet pavement, then footsteps. A hand clutched my arm.

  “Are you okay, lady?”

  I opened one eye. A black teenager in a denim jacket with the words FREN Z CLUB emblazoned on its pocket stared at me with wide eyes. He had a red bandanna covering his head, a skateboard under his arm.

  “I think so,” I stammered. Then I looked at my daughter. Her head was still tucked into my shoulder.

  “Damn, that dude just fell out of the sky!” the kid cried. He stared at the corpse.

  I could see the victim was male. He’d landed on his side and his head was turned, so I couldn’t see his face. The dead man wore a black dinner jacket, similar to the one Matt was wearing. I stopped breathing. He had hair like Matt’s, too, thick and black.

  Joy slowly pulled away from me. Tears stained her cheeks. Her face was ghostly white. She saw the corpse and began to tremble.

  “Mom... who is it?” she whispered in a little girl’s voice.

  The teen crouched over the victim. “Dude’s dead, man.”

  His skateboarding friends rushed up to join him.

  “Dang, Z! Did you see that?!”

  “That’s messed up!”

  I heard other voices.

  “Call 911! Get an ambulance here!”

  A gray-haired gentleman rushed toward us, Burberry raincoat billowing in the wind. He’d come from the direction of the United Nations building. I held Joy by her shoulders, fixed her with my eyes.

  “Stay right here.”

  I waited until she nodded in response, then I approached the body. It seemed to take forever to walk those few steps. I circled around, moving into the street. Traffic was at a standstill, so I didn’t have to watch for cars.

  Finally I saw the dead man’s broken face. I recognized him. It wasn’t my ex-husband, thank god. The corpse was Carlos Hernandez of the Costa Gravas delegation to the United Nations—the man my ex-husband had threatened to throw out of the building a little over an hour ago, in front of one hundred and fifty witnesses.

  Twenty

  In New York City, a dead man on the sidewalk always attracts a crowd, and one was forming now. Corpses attract sirens, too. I heard them wail in the distance.

  Tearing my gaze away from the body, I hurried back to my daughter. Joy was hugging herself, shivering. I put my arm around her.

  “Who is it?” Joy asked, her voice trembling. “It’s not... Dad—”

  “No, no, honey. It’s no one you know.”

  More people arrived. Soon it would be New York’s Finest, and the questions would begin. I took Joy’s arm.

  “Come on.”

  She resisted. “Where are we going?”

  “Back upstairs, to the Top of the Tower. We’re going to find your father.”

  Joy surrendered and I took the lead. We reentered the lobby, dodging a bellboy and the desk clerk; both were scrambling to join the mob outside. One of the elevator’s doors opened. The car was filled with faces I recognized from the party. They appeared serenely decaffeinated, all of them calmly chatting among themselves.

  It was clear they hadn’t yet noticed Carlos Hernandez’s swan dive, and I wondered if the mood would be the same upstairs. If it was, I knew it wouldn’t be for much longer.

  When we arrived at the Top of the Tower, the restaurant was less crowded, but far from empty. Ric was chatting with a reporter from the London Times. Monika Van Doorn, who’d been glued to Ric’s side since she’d arrived, was now nowhere in sight. Had she left? I looked around for my ex, but I didn’t see him. The booth where he’d been making calls was empty except for a few scraps of paper.

  I noticed the heavy burgundy curtains were still drawn, blocking the view of the outside balcony. I crossed to the side of the room and stepped through a doorway. Misty rain beaded the veiled window behind me, and the winds were more tempestuous this far above the street. It was also very dark because the clouds had grown even thicker. My eyes needed a moment to adjust to the gloom. When they did, I paced the length of the narrow balcony.

  I saw no evidence of a struggle, no blood or broken glass, no sign that anything violent had happened at all. I gripped the stone railing and leaned over the edge. Fighting a wave of vertigo, I spied the body directly below.

  Presuming Carlos Hernandez fell straight down—and I didn’t see any ledges for him to strike or flagpoles to bounce off of—then he went over the side right where I was standing. That made me feel queasy, but I continued surveying the scene.

  Three police cars and an ambulance had arrived by now. Men in blue cleared the sidewalk, redirected traffic, and cordoned off the area with yellow tape. While I watched, an unmarked police car with a magnetic bubble light on its roof double-parked next to a squad car. Two plain-clothed detectives stepped out. I knew it wouldn’t be long before they arrived at the Top of the Tower.

  For a minute, I considered the possibility that Matt actually was responsible for what happened. If Carlos Hernandez had decided to confront Matt while they were alone out here, well... that would have been a mistake for Carlos. Tonight, Matt was as harried as I’d ever seen him. On top of that, I knew my ex could throw a punch because I’d seen him do it.

  Did he kill Carlos Hernandez, perhaps accidentally, in a fit of fury, and then flee? It didn’t seem possible, yet I was sure there were many dead spouses who’d never imagined the person they shared their life with was capable of violence.

  Just then, I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  “Ahh!” I cried, jumping and turning.

  “Mom, it’s me,” Joy said. “Calm down.”

  “I’m calm. I’m calm. Just don’t sneak up on me like that again,” I said. “Did you find your father yet?”

  Joy shook her head. “I didn’t see him. But what’s with Grandma tonight? She’s in a mood.”

  “Forget your grandmother for now. We’ve got to find your father fast. The police will be here any minute. We’ve got to establish an alibi.”

  “What?” Joy blinked. “Did you say alibi?”

  “Before you arrived, your father threatened the man lying on the sidewalk down there.”

  “Threatened how?”

  “Your dad announced, quite loudly, that he wanted to throw the man out of the building.”

  Joy glanced at the street below. “C’mon, Mom. You can’t think Dad had anything to do with that?”

  “It doesn’t matter what I think. It matters what the police think. Let’s go.”

  Joy in tow, I reentered the building. No one in the room even glanced my way. They hadn’t noticed me go out, or come back in. It was easy to see how they might have missed Carlos Hernandez’s fatal swan dive. Whatever happened on that balcony had been masked by the heavy curtains.

  But if the victim had screamed, wouldn’t someone have heard it? The noise in the room was relatively loud— laughter, boisterous conversations, and Gardner’s lively jazz piano. Still... I couldn’t see how a loud scream would not have been heard by someone.

  Could Hernandez have jumped on his own? I wondered. Committed suicide for some reason? Or was he dead or unconscious before he went over the edge?

  I massaged my temples to keep my headache at bay. It wasn’t working.

  “You go that way, I’ll go this way,” I told Joy. “If you find Matt, bring him to me.” />
  I circled the room, scanning the faces in the crowd. I found Madame at a table with Dr. McTavish.

  “Have you seen Matt?”

  “Joy asked me the same question,” Madame replied. “What’s he done now?”

  “Never mind.”

  “Gonna make a bundle, Blanche,” Dr. McTavish muttered, draining a wine glass. That’s when I noticed the empty bottle on the table. He’d obviously snatched it off someone’s tray earlier in the evening when we were serving alcohol.

  “That son of yours will be able to retire before he’s fifty. Move someplace where the weather’s always nice. Golf all day. Soak up the rays. Here’s to fun in the sun.” He put the glass to his lips before he realized it was empty.

  My jaw dropped. The good doctor was sloshed.

  Madame rolled her eyes. “Put the glass down, Gary, and Clare will get you a cup of black coffee. A very large cup. With caffeine...”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” I replied.

  Madame faced her date. “And after that, you’d better call a car. I feel a headache coming on...”

  Before the moment became a scene, I moved along.

  I spied Breanne, sitting on a loveseat beside Roman Brio, the flamboyantly acerbic food writer for New York Scene magazine. A heavyset man with a broad, round face and large bright eyes, his features resembled the young Or-son Welles—the Citizen Kane filmmaker years. His formidable girth, however, had more in common with the older Welles, the one selling “no wine before its time” during situation comedy network breaks.

  “Excuse me, Breanne, I’m sorry to interrupt. But do you happen to know where Matt is right now?”

  “Haven’t a clue,” she replied, without bothering to look at me. “Perhaps he’s in the kitchen. I’m sure you know how to find the kitchen.”

  As rude as she was, Breanne did have a point. I did know how to find the kitchen, and it was possible Matt was there, so I headed for the stairs—but I didn’t get there, at least not right away. As I moved by the elevators, the doors opened and a friend walked out—Detective Mike Quinn, flanked by a pair of uniformed officers young enough to be one week out of the police academy.