Murder Most Frothy

by Cleo Coyle

  Cuppa J offered eclectic, upscale bistro fare, with the flavor of coffee infused into many of the main dishes (coffee can be used to great effect in meat dishes as a subtle flavoring agent, tenderizer, or marinade). The restaurant served wine and cocktails, but the star of the culinary show was the array of expensive after-dinner coffees and dessert pairings. Consequently, this season we’d become the place to book an after-dinner, pre-clubbing table. While most restaurants wound down by ten in the evening, our place was still hopping with many tables booked right up until midnight.

  The two-story restaurant, with its red brick exterior, had been a Chinese restaurant before falling into foreclosure a year ago. This past spring David redid the surrounding grounds with topiaries, flowerbeds, and shade trees. He’d cleaned the brick, repainted the peeling white trim, and replaced the first floor windows with white french doors.

  I drove through the customer parking area, framed with ivy-colored trellises, and around to the back of the restaurant where the employees parked. It was just past noon when I walked through the kitchen door. The waitstaff would be arriving in a few hours to prepare for dinner service from four until midnight—and I expected finally to see Joy, who I hadn’t heard from the entire day. Clearly, she was ignoring the five messages I’d already left on her cell phone’s voicemail.

  “Hi, Carlos.” I waved at the restaurant’s reliable sous chef, Carlos Comacho. He was busy, cutting up onions and carrots, preparing for Executive Chef Victor Vogel’s arrival. He gave a quick smile and went back to his work.

  The next person I encountered was Jacques Papas, who stuck his head out of his office at the sound of my voice. Papas acted as the restaurant’s manager, maitre d’, and sommelier. Half-French and half-Greek, Papas was in his early forties, swarthy, with dark eyes and ink-black hair (which I assumed he had dyed, because the only thing that occurred in nature that dark was a celestial black hole). We stood nearly eye to eye, but what the man lacked in size he made up for in belligerent energy. I had yet to see him smile. His usual demeanor was one of mild disdain mingled with boredom—either that or a sneer.

  “Good afternoon,” I said.

  The manager offered me a sour look, then crisply turned and disappeared back into his office.

  Living in Manhattan, I was no stranger to divas of all stripes in the upscale restaurant game. But Papas had attitude beyond reason. At least he was consistent, I thought, shrugging off Papas’s chilly snub. He treated employees and guests with equal contempt.

  After walking through the spotless, stainless steel kitchen, I strolled by the staff ’s break room and pushed through the burgundy leather double-doors, which took me into the two-story dining room.

  While the exterior of Cuppa J was as unassuming as its name, the interior was another matter. David had taken great pains to model the decor after a pair of famous Paris coffeehouses—the traditional Café Marly, designed in the 1990s by Oliver Gagnére and Yves Taralon, and the more modern Le Café Costes designed in 1985 by Philippe Starck.

  The Marly’s influence was evident as soon as you stepped into the breathtaking room. Dark burgundy-hued walls were gilded with art deco flourishes and lined with cherrywood wainscoting that perfectly matched the sixty-two cafe tables. Forest green velvet couches and low-backed ivory armchairs were interspersed with freestanding antique torchiers (a practical replacement for the Marly’s iron incense burners). A staircase of emerald marble framed by twin cenotaphs was situated on the south side of the dining room. And the brass-railed stairs led to an upper mezzanine fronted by more brass rails.

  At the top of the staircase a massive clock was set into the wall. This mosaic timepiece, fashioned from sheets of translucent quartz and colored stones, was a homage to the central motif of the now defunct La Café Costes, right down to the movement of the clock’s arms, which spun around twenty-four times every hour.

  David assumed this bizarre Alice in Wonderland feature was a nod to the surrealists. To me it seemed a fairly obvious statement about the nature of caffeine.

  The narrow mezzanine circled the entire restaurant. Along with additional seating, the upstairs featured a cherrywood bar, a spectacular view of the main dining room below, and an eye-level view of the huge brass-and-glass chandelier that dangled from the high ceiling.

  Crossing the dining room, I walked over to the first floor’s open coffee bar.

  Over the years, the crimes I’d seen upscale restaurants commit against the bean truly made me shudder. Leaving pots to simmer on burners until the liquid had the consistency of muddy tar. Serving customers espressos in cold cups. Frothing cappuccinos with steam wands that hadn’t been properly cleaned. Filling stacks of paper filters with pre-ground coffee and allowing it to sit around aerating for hours before brewing. (The moment you grind your beans, they begin to lose their freshness.)

  As Cuppa J’s barista manager/drill sergeant, I’d pretty much browbeaten every waiter and waitress into following the holy rituals of high-quality coffee service.

  With my clipboard in hand, I was very pleased to note that the area had been left shipshape by the previous evening’s closers. The espresso machine had been properly cleaned, demitasses neatly stacked on top; the coffee canisters were left tightly sealed; and the French presses were lined up in formation on the cherrywood shelves like good little soldiers of sparkling glass.

  I checked the contents of the coffee canisters. There were twenty in all, each holding a different blend or single-origin coffee featured on our menu. Back in the city, we did micro-roasting daily in the shop. In my weekly trips back to the city, I’d create the roasts needed at Cuppa J, then transport the whole beans back here in vacuum-sealed bags.

  I began making careful notes on the levels in each canister. Which ones needed replenishing? Which ones weren’t moving? This data would be fed into the computer where I’d created a program to track customer favorites.

  “Ms. Cosi, will you be finished soon?”

  I let out a reactive yelp of surprise. Papas had crept up on me. There was no other way to describe it. One second I was alone, the next he was there, right next to me.

  Others had joked about this phenomenon. Colleen O’Brien likened him to the ghost of Squire Malone, a legendary Irish haunter from her home county. Graydon Faas, a fan of Anime, maintained that the manager’s ability to spring upon an employee the moment he made a mistake must mean he’s housing a secret teleportation device in that office of his that he seldom let anyone enter. I could believe it.

  “I’m almost through,” I told Papas. “We’re really low on the Mocha Java. Probably because it’s a dark roast, so I’m pairing it with the chocolate soufflé and the flourless chocolate-kahlua cake, and chocolate’s the most reliably popular dessert flavor. I have more MJ in the basement, but not enough to get us through Sunday brunch. I guess I’ll call the Blend and have Tucker send some through our delivery service.”

  Thinking out loud was something I did when nervous and Papas was a guy who made me very nervous. He stared at me for a long silent moment. This was an annoying habit of his: you spoke, he stared, answering in his own good time.

  “Very well then, call your people,” he replied at last. Then he checked his watch. “I must run an errand. I will be gone for an hour, no more.”

  “That’s fine. When the wait staff starts arriving, I’ll put them to work dressing the dining room tables. By the way, have you heard from Prin about her family emergency? Do you think there’s a chance she’ll be back before Monday?”

  The man’s frown deepened. “No.”

  Poor girl, I thought, assuming the worst. “Is there a death in her family? Is that the emergency? Maybe I should give her a call and ask if—”

  Papas cut me off. “That won’t be necessary. Prin won’t be back.”

  I blinked. “Really? What happened?”

  Jacques Papas looked away. “David Mintzer happened. He personally fired the young woman a few days ago. Gave her the boot without even a letter of
recommendation. Left me short of help, I can tell you. And in the middle of the season.”

  “But two days ago you yourself told the staff she’d left on a family emergency. We assumed she’d be back.”

  Papas shook his head. “That was a lie that David made me pass along to everyone because he didn’t want anyone else in his employ to know he’d fired her. David loves to be loved, you know. But at times he can be an indiscriminate bastard.”

  It was now my turn to fall silent and stare. “Do you know the reason for Prin’s dismissal?” I finally asked.

  The manager shook his head. “No. David doesn’t like to be questioned, Ms. Cosi—surely you’ve seen that side of him.”

  With that, I couldn’t argue.

  “I have worked for two decades in restaurant management,” Papas continued. “And I do find that the stick gets much better results than the carrot. But I would never have fired Prin. Not when we’re so shorthanded.”

  I nodded, not quite sure what to say.

  “I’d appreciate your remaining discreet with this information,” Papas pointedly added. “The only reason I’m telling you is to stop you from wasting time pursuing Ms. Lopez. Now you know there’s no reason to call the girl.” Papas glanced at his Rolex. “I have to go.”

  After the manager departed, I took a deep breath and made use of the espresso machine in front of me. What I badly needed at the moment was a shot (excuse the pun).

  Last night, I found out that Treat Mazzelli was secretly bedding every girl on the Cuppa J wait staff—Prin Lopez being one of the first to get shagged and dumped. Now I find out she’s been dumped a second time in the middle of the busy Hamptons season by David Mintzer himself.

  If that wasn’t enough to make a girl a little angry, I didn’t know what would be. But how angry? As I sent whole beans of our espresso blend through the grinder, then tamped, clamped, and extracted the essence of the beans into a shot glass, I considered this question.

  I’d found Prin to be a consummate professional on the job. But Suzi Tuttle maintained the girl had one hell of a temper off it. I remember an animated story Suzi had told in the break room about how Prin “went totally postal” at a Hamptons nightclub. A pretty hostess from a Southampton restaurant dissed Prin in some way at the crowded bar. The fight escalated from verbal to physical, with Prin pulling handfuls of the girl’s hair out. The bouncer had to be called in to stop it and ejected them both.

  It was very hard for me to believe that Prin herself would have gone “totally postal” by stalking and shooting Treat Mazzelli—whether she’d been trying to get revenge on Treat himself, or David, or both of them. It was equally hard to believe she may have persuaded some gangbanger friend from her South Bronx neighborhood to do it.

  But Prin’s firing was unexpected, and I wanted to talk to her. I downed the espresso, absorbing the rich, warm, nutty essence of the darkly roasted Arabica beans in one fortifying hit. Then I dried my hands and went back to the break room. An employee schedule was posted on the wall next to the door. Next to Prin’s name was a cell phone number. I dialed it and got a voicemail message.

  “Prin? It’s Clare Cosi, from Cuppa J. Would you please call me? It’s a matter of extreme importance.” I left the number of my own cell phone and hung up, wondering if Prin would even bother to return my call.

  While I was in the kitchen, I decided to get started restocking the milk, cream, and half-and-half at the coffee bar. I checked the standing refrigerator near the dessert prep area and saw three gallons of milk, two of cream, and no half-and-half. I headed for the walk-in stainless steel refrigerator. I opened the thick, insulated door and stepped into the chilly steel box, which was nearly as large as a bedroom in my Manhattan duplex above the Village Blend.

  A single bare bulb illuminated the interior, which smelled like a butcher shop—a not-unpleasant mixture of cheese and preserved meat. Shanks of dry-aged beef hung from hooks in the ceiling above, wheels and squares of imported and domestic cheeses. Boxes of green leafy vegetables, all of it produced locally, were stacked in the corner next to bags of onions, shallots, and several types of potatoes. Bundles of garlic hung from hooks on the wall, near slabs of bacon, aged prosciutto, and chorizo.

  Several stacks of plastic containers stood in the corner—all of them empty. Clearly, David’s July Fourth party had drastically leached the restaurant’s supplies. Unless we got a hefty delivery of dairy products in here, pronto, our impressive array of latte drinks would be off the evening’s menu.

  Rather than wait for Papas to return, I headed for his office. The manager’s inner sanctuary was untidy, but the vendor list was where I remembered seeing it a week ago, when Papas last called me in for a micromanagement session.

  I found the number for Cream of the Lakes Dairy and used Jacques Papas’s phone to make the call.

  “Dairy. This is the dispatcher,” a male voice said gruffly.

  “Hi. I’m calling from Cuppa J in East Hampton, on—”

  “Sure, sure. I know the place,” the dispatcher said, suddenly friendly.

  “I was wondering if you’d made our dairy delivery for today?”

  “Let me check…Ah, here it is. My guy was there at nine. Mr. Papas ordered three gallons of milk, two gallons of cream, and sixteen dozen eggs.”

  Great. “Look, apparently there’s been a mistake. We’ve got no inventory here on dairy for the weekend and we need a lot more. At least twenty more gallons of milk, ten of half-and-half, and ten of cream.”

  “No problem, Ma’am. We’ll get it out there in an hour.”

  “Thank you so much.”

  “Not a problem. You want me to bill this on the fifty-ten plan, too, right?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The extra ten percent. We take fifty percent up front for deliveries, and we get the other fifty percent—plus ten—at the end of the season.”

  “I, uh…suppose that’s…okay,” I replied, not knowing what else to say.

  “Great. Just ask Jacques about it if you have any questions,” he added, clearly sensing my confusion. “He’s the one who worked it out.”

  I hung up, even more confused.

  Why, I wondered, would David Mintzer sign off on such a terrible arrangement? He had more than enough capital to pay for all of his deliveries on time. Even if he’d wanted to delay payment via a credit plan, there were certainly better interest rates out there than ten percent.

  The more I thought about it, the fishier the deal sounded. David would not have signed off on such a deal, but the man at the dairy didn’t mention David. “Ask Jacques,” he’d said.

  Clearly Papas was up to something—but what? Embezzlement?

  I checked my watch. Papas had been gone only thirty-five minutes, so I figured I had time to do a little sniffing. I began searching through the mess on his desk, hoping to find the blue book he constantly carried. I fumbled through a week of piled up newspapers without success. Next I decided to go through the drawers in the man’s desk.

  The first one I opened contained personal items—toothbrush and toothpaste, several bottles of very expensive cologne, a hairbrush, and so many men’s hair care and styling products I expected to find a tiny Vidal Sassoon in there with a pair of scissors. The second drawer contained stationery, envelopes, pens and pencils, and a stapler. The third drawer was locked.

  Before I could look any further, however, Papas’s angry voice shattered the silence.

  “What are you doing in here?”

  “Oh, hi, Jacques, I, uh—”

  “Who gave you permission to come in here?”

  “I had to call the dairy. We were out of half-and-half, and far too low on milk and cream.”

  Jacques Papas’s nostrils flared as he stared at me, obviously seething.

  “Since you weren’t here, and we needed the supplies, I found the dairy’s number and placed the order myself,” I continued. “The dispatcher was very nice. The truck will be here within the hour.”

  My
words seemed to calm the man. He nodded. “You should have told me you needed supplies before I stepped out. I would have placed the order.”

  “I didn’t know until I checked the walk-in. And I didn’t want to trouble you.”

  Jacques nodded again. “Fine. I shall be here to meet the delivery man.”

  “Great,” I said. Then I slipped by the man and out of his office.

  EIGHT

  AFTER being jolted into near-drowning by a Suffolk County Police bullhorn and uncovering a possible extortion scheme by a workplace colleague, I didn’t think anything else could surprise me today, but that evening something managed to do just that—or rather someone.

  Madame glided into Cuppa J in an elegant chartreuse sundress, on the arm of an elderly man I’d never seen before. His gray beard and tweedy blazer gave him the air of a professor, but his short, white ponytail, French beret, distressed jeans, and trendy rectangular glasses made him look more like a patriarch of West Village pop artists.

  “Clare, you look so stressed,” Madame told me as I walked up to her cafe table. “Perhaps you should call it a night.”

  Madame’s suggestion was kind but impractical. From five o’clock onward, the restaurant had been packed. It was now ten in the evening and most of the customers were here for coffee service and dessert. That may have slowed things down for Victor and Carlos in the kitchen, but not for me in the dining room. Because we were understaffed, I was pulling double duty, managing as well as waiting tables.

  “We’re far too busy for me to ditch early,” I told my ex-mother-in-law with a patient smile. “Besides, I’m not at all tired.”

  From her seat on one of the first floor’s green velvet couches, Madame raised a silver eyebrow. “I didn’t say tired, my dear. I said stressed.”

  Sitting cozily beside Madame, the bohemian-looking senior stroked his neatly-trimmed beard and remarked, “I think perhaps your daughter-in-law has been spending too much time on the ‘fashionable’ side of the highway.”

  I might have taken more offense at the man’s familiarity, if his bright blue eyes hadn’t been sparkling attractively with humor as he said it.