Murder Most Frothy

by Cleo Coyle

  The hint of strawberry in the finish of Sipi Falls was rare and surprising; and since the Sipi was the star coffee in my Summer Porch blend, it was the perfect pairing for the fresh Long Island fruit. I sipped the coffee black and let the flavors wash over me like the warm sluicing water of a Jacuzzi.

  A coffee taster trains the tongue and the nose to detect the faintest traces of every flavor. There were hints of star-fruit, pear, and red cherry behind the Jasmine tealike flavors of the Sipi Falls. And I’d roasted it light to really bring out the strawberry flavor (a darker roast produced a sort of black tea finish to the cup). The coffee was sweet in the mouth and I’d balanced the blend to make sure the Sipi Falls shortcomings were diminished in the taste profile. The problem with this unique Ugandan coffee was that, unlike its East African neighbors, it lacked acidity.

  In the coffee world, acidity was not a bad thing. It actually referred to a brightness or pleasant sharpness in the mouth, and you definitely wanted it in your taste profile, or your coffee would come off as flat.

  Since a good blend’s three elements are acidity, aroma, and body, I remedied the low acidity of the Sipi Falls by blending it with Kenya AA beans. To boost its body, I used a Costa Rican bean. But the Sipi Falls itself was the star of this trio, providing delightful aromatic notes.

  I sipped the coffee again and sighed. As it cooled, it actually gained rather than weakened in its rustic intensity. I reached for a strawberry, took a bite, then another sip. The strawberry flavor in the coffee was now enhanced a thousand percent, practically exploding in my mouth.

  This was indeed a cheerful, uplifting coffee to wake up to—a bright country morning in a cup, a coffee to disperse bad dreams.

  “What are you up to today?” Madame asked with an amused smile at my obvious return from the dead.

  “I’m going for a swim,” I replied as she slipped a bone china saucer under my cup. “Then I’m going to check on David. After that, I’m going to help you pack and drive you to the train station.”

  “Nice try, my dear,” Madame said.

  “But—”

  “Don’t waste your breath. I’m not leaving,” Madame pronounced with a regal wave of her hand.

  “But—” I tried again.

  “Drink up, Clare. You don’t want to waste your husband’s—”

  “My ex-husband’s.”

  “Matteo’s latest find in your latest blend, because you still don’t have your wits about you if you think I’m going back to the city and leaving you to play detective all by yourself.”

  I opened my mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a series of electronic musical tones, a snippet from Vivaldi. Madame reached into the voluminous pocket of her terrycloth spa robe and found her cell phone.

  “Matteo! You’re home,” she cried upon answering.

  “Speak of the devil,” I quietly muttered and gulped more coffee.

  “Oh, no. Everything’s fine. Just fine,” Madame chirped, rather like her phone, before changing the subject. “How did things go in California, my boy?”

  Matteo’s latest trip was not to a Third World coffee plantation, but to a series of First World shopping Meccas. David Mintzer had become one of Matt’s biggest backers in a financial plan to expand the Village Blend business via coffee kiosks in high-end clothing boutiques and department stores worldwide. This last trip of Matt’s was to the West Coast, where he was overseeing Village Blend coffee kiosk installations in Marin County, Rodeo Drive, and Palm Springs.

  Madame spoke with her son for a few minutes, while I finished my first cup and poured another.

  “Yes, she’s right here,” Madame finally said, passing the phone to me.

  “Hello, Matt,” I said on a yawn.

  These days, our relationship was actually pretty good. Like it or not, we were stuck with one another as business partners in the Blend, not to mention parental partners in the raising of Joy. Parenting, as I’d often lectured Matt, was not only a full-time job, it was a lifetime appointment, sort of like a judgeship on the Supreme Court, but with far less influence.

  “What’s wrong out there?” Matt asked, his voice had gone low. “Mother sounded strained.”

  “Everything’s fine. Just fine,” I chirped, rather like Madame. I could almost see Matteo’s eyes squinting with suspicion.

  “Whatever,” he said at last. “I just phoned to tell you I’m at La Guardia waiting for a taxi. I’m heading over to the Blend to check things out.”

  Good, I thought, Tucker can use the extra pair of helping hands.

  “After that, I’m hitting the sack in the duplex, catching a few hours sleep. I’m wasted. Totally jet lagged.”

  So much for the extra helping hands.

  Tucker Burton was my assistant manager, an actor playwright whom I could always rely on to handle the Blend when I was absent. Tucker certainly wouldn’t require Matt’s help to keep things running, but it would have been nice.

  “How’s my pride named Joy?” asked Matt, the smile evident in his voice, as it always was when it came to his little girl.

  I glanced at the digital clock on the microwave: 7:02 A.M. “Still sleeping, I suspect.”

  “Don’t wake her. I’ll try to see you both before I leave for Central America. Give Joy my love, tell her I’ll see her soon. Oh, and I bought her a present. Damn, my ride’s here. Gotta go.”

  The line went dead. I handed Madame her phone and cradled the warm mug of coffee in my hands.

  “Do you think Matteo suspects?” Madame asked.

  “Suspects? Whatever is there for him to suspect?”

  “That the game is afoot, of course.”

  “Madame, for heaven’s sake, it’s not a game. I’m not getting involved in this murder investigation beyond what I helped to discover last night. I’m going to let the police handle it. And stop channeling Arthur Conan Doyle. I think maybe you’ve been spending too much time with Dr. MacTavish.” (Madame had been dating the distinguished St. Vincent’s oncologist for some time now, a Scottish stud on a par with Sean Connery.)

  “I assure you, Clare, Gary and I are not reading Sherlock Holmes stories to one another,” she sniffed, “and don’t change the subject.”

  I sighed. “Look, even if I do stick my nose in, it’ll only be to see that David gets some proper security in place around here.”

  “Of course,” said Madame in a tone that sounded more like “of course not.”

  “Besides,” I went on, “you’ve had your turn at playing detective. Don’t forget, you helped me clear Tucker of murder.”

  “Pooh!” Madame replied. “I was so worried about our dear Tucker, I hardly enjoyed the experience. This time it’s different. I’m terribly sorry about what happened to that young man, but I hardly knew Mr. Treat Mazarrati—”

  “Mazzelli. Treat Mazzelli.”

  “There you are! I didn’t even know the victim’s proper name. Without a personal stake in the crime, I am free to be objective about the hunt. I’ll just put on my figurative deerstalker’s cap and—”

  “Except,” I interrupted, “I don’t think Treat Mazzelli was the intended target. I believe the killer was after David.”

  Madame paused, considering this. “Mistaken identity?”

  I nodded. “The shooting occurred in David’s private bathroom.”

  “But the men are twenty years apart. How could you mistake one for the other?”

  “From a distance, do you really think that would be apparent?”

  Madame tapped her chin. “Yes…yes, I see what you mean. And the two are about the same height…with the same color hair…”

  “And clothing.”

  Madame shook her head. “There I have to disagree with you. While they were both in khaki pants, David’s shirt was a linen Ralph Lauren. How can you compare that quality to Treat’s Cuppa J Polo?”

  “No comparison for a fashion layout, I grant you. But both shirts had short sleeves and the same loose, untucked shape. And they were very close to the same
color.”

  “Yes, my dear, of course, you’re right. And you’re very good at this—”

  “Thank you.”

  “All the more reason for you to continue investigating and me to help,” Madame replied resolutely.

  “Madame—”

  “I may just learn a thing or two from you, and, besides, if the true target was David, the least I can do is aid our host in his time of need. I’m not the sort of person who deserts a vessel when the captain’s in need of hands!”

  “You win.” I took a sip from my china cup and set it down on its matching saucer. “Stick around if you want. But in an hour or so I’m going to talk to—”

  “Joy?” Madame finished for me.

  “What? Are you reading my mind now?”

  “She’s already gone for the day,” Madame warned. “She left exceedingly early. To catch the sunrise wind.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Joy went kite surfing with that waiter from last night. Graydon is his name, I believe.”

  “Graydon Faas?”

  Madame nodded.

  “Joy went off with Graydon this morning?” I had some trouble wrapping my mind around this development.

  Madame nodded again. “She and I have connecting rooms, you know. So I heard her rising and speaking to him on her cell phone. I made her coffee before the boy beeped his horn out front. What is this world coming to when a young man simply beeps for his date?”

  “It’s a date, is it? And to do what, did you say? Kite surfing? How are we supposed to know what kite surfing is?”

  “Actually, Clare, it’s more defined by what it isn’t,” Madame levelly informed me. “It’s not wave surfing, you see. Nor wind surfing. And it’s not kite flying, either. It’s really a fusion of these sports. The surfer catches the wind with a kite and uses it to race across the ocean’s waves.” Madame sighed. “It sounds absolutely marvelous.”

  I shook my head. “Where do you pick up this stuff?”

  “Oh, I keep my mouth closed and my ears open. You can learn a lot from the leisure class—a lot about leisure, anyway. And to be perfectly frank, a percentage of them aren’t much good for anything else.”

  I stood and drained my cup. “On that note, I’m heading for my swim. Now I really need it.”

  Outside, the wind had dried up most of the night’s rainfall, but the air was still damp and salty. I flip-flopped down the lawn, across the white pebbles and onto the beach, then I kicked off the rubber thongs and let the wet white sand squish between my toes.

  Sunlight sparkled on the green-blue water. I reached the edge of the surf, dropped the flip-flops and the towel I’d draped around my neck, slipped out of my robe, and waded into the surf.

  The chilly water was a shock, but I soon got acclimated. I swam around a bit to stretch my limbs. Then I turned over on my back and floated, letting the lapping Atlantic sooth the edges of my dulled but still throbbing headache.

  The cool waves and the warm sun worked their magic, and I imagined myself tethered to a kite, racing across the rocky surf as swift as the jetstream. I wondered what Mike Quinn was doing at the moment and tried to imagine what the lanky, broad-shouldered detective would look like stripped to the waist on the back of a surfboard, his sandy hair slicked back, his pasty skin tanned golden, his perpetually weary, wrungout expression rejuvenated by the ocean wind.

  This pleasant image had barely formed in my head before it was interrupted by a booming declaration, echoing across the waves. “This is the Suffolk County police,” announced the amplified voice. “Please come out of the water now. We need to speak with you.”

  Startled out of my wits, I splashed out of my floating position and abruptly sank. My mouth gaped like a fish and I swallowed salt water as I flailed downwards. My arms thrashed and I surfaced once again, gasping and spitting. I spied three police officers pacing along a stretch of David’s private beach. A fourth man—the heaviest of them—wore a suit and tie, not a uniform. He stood with a bullhorn clutched in his fist.

  “I’m coming!” I called.

  Doubting the man had heard me, I swam toward the shoreline, cognizant of the fact that my robe, towel and flip-flops were at least twenty-five yards from the knot of policemen. I emerged a few moments later, sopping wet. As I moved across the sand, a cold gust breezed by, raising goose bumps on my arms and legs. Suppressing a shiver, I faced the heavyset man with the loudspeaker.

  “Are you Mrs. Cosi?” he asked, this time without the bullhorn.

  I nodded. “Ms. Cosi.”

  “I’m Sergeant Roy O’Rourke, here to investigate last night’s shooting death. You were the one who found the shell casings? That’s what the old lady inside the house said.”

  The voice was surprisingly high, almost reedy for such a big, wide man. Sergeant O’Rourke regarded me through fading gray eyes that matched the thinning hair on his head. His complexion, too, seemed faded and gray—astonishingly tan-resistant despite sun and surf.

  “Yes, I found them,” I stammered, certain my lips were turning blue.

  “Here you go, ma’am.”

  A young policeman—barely older than my daughter—had retrieved my robe. I accepted it with a nod of thanks, slipping the thick terrycloth over my wet body. O’Rourke waited impassively. Behind him, another man crossed the beach. He was not in uniform, either, wearing a gray suit and blue striped tie almost identical to O’Rourke’s.

  “This is my partner, Detective Melchior. He’s going to interview any witnesses, put together a timeline while I examine the physical evidence.”

  “The local police bagged the shells last night—” I began.

  “I know, Ms. Cosi,” said O’Rourke, cutting me off. “I’d like to see the spot where you found them.”

  “Of course.”

  We crossed the flat sands and entered the dunes, where I told Sergeant O’Rourke about the tracks I’d discovered and how I could not locate them again last night in the storm, after the local police had arrived.

  “Don’t worry, if there are tracks, we’ll find them.”

  I’m sure Roy O’Rourke meant to sound competent and reassuring, but to me he sounded tired and dulled by routine. I wondered where he’d gained his world-weary manner. Thinking of Quinn, I took a guess.

  “Were you, by any chance, an officer in the NYPD, Sergeant O’Rourke?”

  The man’s head dipped slightly. “Twenty years,” he replied. “I worked homicides in South Brooklyn, Washington Heights, the Bronx. Gang and drug violence, mostly.”

  “Those are tough areas.”

  “I’ve solved more than a few murders, ma’am, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “I’m just wondering…aren’t the cases out here different? Different than the crimes in the city, I mean?”

  “Every case has its own rhythm, but the work’s the same. Find the weapon and you’ll find the killer.”

  I blinked. “It’s that simple?”

  O’Rourke sighed. “Finding the weapon isn’t so simple, Ms. Cosi, believe me. But when you find it, the DA’s office usually has what it needs for a conviction. You follow, don’t you?”

  “Yes, Sergeant. I follow.”

  I halted just then. We had come to the spot. There was no longer any crime-scene rope around the scrub grass. The storm had blown it down, which wasn’t surprising.

  “I found the shells right here,” I told the Sergeant, pointing to the spot. With a gesture, O’Rourke’s men fanned out, no doubt to seek out more clues.

  “No sign of tracks here,” the man noted, looking around the dune.

  “They weren’t here,” I corrected. “They were twenty yards down. But I’m sure the storm and the tide washed them away.”

  “Maybe. Let’s see what the others find,” he replied. Ten minutes later, Detective Melchior sidled up to his partner. He was a foot taller and a decade younger than O’Rourke. Thin to the point of consumption, Melchior possessed a prominent cleft chin which jutted from a head seemingly too lar
ge for his scarecrow frame.

  “Good line of fire from these dunes,” the detective observed, pointing to David’s bathroom window, clearly visible almost forty yards away.

  O’Rourke squinted against the glare. “You said you saw tracks, Mrs. Cosi? Big shoe prints or little ones? Or were they bare feet?”

  “Well, actually, Sergeant,” I replied. “I believe they were made by webbed feet.”

  “Webbed feet?” O’Rourke repeated, a bit taken aback.

  I nodded.

  “What do you mean?” he said. “Like a duck’s?”

  I instantly regretted my choice of words. “Like scuba diving gear,” I corrected. “You know, the webbed flipper fins divers’ use?”

  O’Rourke exchanged an unreadable glance with his partner.

  “Maybe I should draw you an example,” I quickly suggested. “You know, in the sand?”

  “Good idea,” said O’Rourke.

  I set to work, crouching down and using my finger to recreate the tracks I’d found. Soon all the officers gathered around to watch. I was lost in concentration, searching my mind in an effort to recall the image. Were there three toes, or four? How big were they exactly? And how far apart? I made a few marks in the sand, erased them and started again. Halfway through the exercise, I looked up to find the policemen clearly suppressing laughter.

  “Looks like we’ve found our culprit,” Sergeant O’Rourke quipped, folding big arms over his barrel chest. “The Creature from the Black Lagoon.”

  Everyone laughed. Even the polite young policeman who’d brought me my robe couldn’t suppress a chuckle. I rose to my full (albeit rather puny) height.

  “A decent clue is no laughing matter,” I snapped.

  “No it isn’t, ma’am,” Detective Melchior said, obviously stepping in quickly to sooth my ruffled duck feathers. “So why don’t you take me back to the house. You can help me put together a list of everyone Mr. Mazzelli worked with and who you saw him conversing with last night. Let’s see if we can’t narrow down some clues the old-fashioned way and find out who may have had a beef with the victim.”

  “But that’s just it,” I said, hands on hips. “Treat Mazzelli wasn’t the intended victim. I believe that the shooter was after David Mintzer.”