Coffeehouse 09 - Roast Mortem

by Cleo Coyle

  “So that’s why you’re still here while the rest of the guys are off on a call?”

  He nodded and turned to take another peek at his pork shoulders. He looked so happy to be here on the job—maybe too happy?

  Twice now I’d seen the man frown at the mention of his wife. Why? Were James and Val just having the typical troubles of a busy married couple? Or were their problems more serious? It wouldn’t have been my business, except for the fact that Lucia Testa was fooling around with one of the men of this house. Was James’s marriage so unhappy that he’d decided to stray with Lucia?

  My God . . . I hope James isn’t the fireman I’ve come here looking for . . .

  I cleared my throat, brought up the same question in a new way. “So, I’m sure the guys appreciate having a cook like you in the house, but . . . you must prefer dining with your wife, right?”

  “Actually, Val never wants me to go to any trouble. That woman’s happy with a cold beer and a couple of sliders.”

  “Yeah, she mentioned her love of microbrews to me the other day. I was surprised. Considering her party-planning title, I figured her for a wine-and-brie girl.”

  James folded his arms. “I’m the guy who won’t touch beer, not to save my life. Give me a nice glass of Bordeaux with dinner, a few stinky French cheeses at the end of the meal, and I’m a happy boy.”

  An electronic crackle interrupted us. James stepped over to a shelf and turned down the volume on what looked like a small, boxy radio receiver.

  “Sorry,” he said, “I was buffing.”

  “What is that exactly? I saw a bumper sticker outside—Honk If You’re Buffing!”

  “You saw Oat Crowley’s car. That guy buffs in his sleep. When he dies, they’ll probably put an FDNY radio in Oat’s coffin.”

  “So buffing has something to do with a radio?”

  “Buffing is when you listen to FDNY chatter while you’re off duty. Even civilians do it, hence the title.”

  “Oh, buffing is for fire buffs. Like fans?” Or potential arsonists?

  “Bingo,” James said. “But lots of firefighters do it, too. You don’t climb the ranks without putting in the time, staying on top of what’s happening—and I’m taking the lieutenant’s exam in a few weeks.”

  As James turned back to his cooking, I began moving down the counter, checking things out (snooping really). Despite all the appliances, most of the floor space was taken up by a single scuffed table. My gaze ran over some job-related notices on one wall, then snagged on a colorful calendar taped to a cupboard door. The calendar was one of those famous FDNY specials—hunks in fire hats.

  “Excuse me, James?” I pointed to the bulging muscles of Mr. March. “Is that who I think it is?”

  “Yep,” he called from the stove, “that’s Bigsie in that cargo net. He’s still so proud of being named Mr. March he won’t let us take it down.”

  “Take it down?” I absently repeated, my attention focused on the near-naked, shirtless giant, his arms and chest standing out in bold relief as he clung to a net woven of thick hemp.

  Right behind me, I suddenly heard James laughing. “Like every red-blooded American woman who passes through here, you failed to notice that you’re gaping at last year’s calendar.”

  Woops. I tore my gaze away.

  “Don’t worry about it,” James said. “All the ladies love Bigsie. He’s the wildest wolf in this lair, with the possible exception of our captain. But you already know that, right? I mean . . .” He lowered his voice. “That’s why you’re really here, aren’t you?”

  “What? No! I’m here to help you and the guys with the donated espresso machine, that’s all. I hope you’re not implying—”

  “Sorry.” James put up his hands. “Not my business.”

  I changed the subject (fast) and pointed to the thick, wooden dining table. The circumference looked large enough to accommodate King Arthur’s crew. “So how many guys do you cook for on a given day?”

  “Twenty or so, I guess, depending on who’s doing a mutual and who’s coming in for a visit.”

  “You’re the only cook?”

  “I’m the only one who actually knows what he’s doing. A couple of the guys have tried, but when I’m not around, meals come down to microwave reheats or calls for takeout.”

  That’s when it hit me: all this trouble he’d gone to with the set up, all this passion he put into the firehouse meals . . .

  “James, it sure looks like you could manage your own restaurant . . .” Especially if you had the money to back you—like, say, money from a fire insurance payout?

  “No. Not for me.”

  “You’re that certain?”

  “Ms. Cosi, I was raised in my family’s diner. Managing a restaurant’s all about routine—boring, boring, boring routine. And I like to keep things lively. I’ll cook for the guys, sure, but that’s it. I’d much rather be running into burning buildings than running a restaurant.”

  Another danger junkie, just like my ex.

  But what James and Matt described as boring, I saw as constancy, dependability—maybe even loyalty.

  Sure, my trade demanded that you show up every day and perform the same basic tasks. But the customers I served gave up their hard-earned money in exchange for those tasks, and that wasn’t an unworthy thing. To me, maintaining high standards was far from tedious. Every morning, I embarked on my own little war, or at least a series of ongoing battles. Managing the Blend was a continuously renewing challenge.

  Of course I didn’t articulate any of this. I wasn’t here to debate James on my view of the food-and-beverage service trade. I was here to fight another kind of battle . . .

  “Excuse me, Ms. Cosi,” James said when a kitchen clock pinged. “I’ll just need a few minutes . . .”

  “Take your time,” I said, and went back to looking around. I scanned the various posters on the wall, but they were mostly job related: official announcements, charts, and instructions. Then I spotted a worn wooden closet door across the room. It was covered from top to bottom with personal photographs.

  I moved closer. The pictures were all taken at what looked like annual firehouse picnics. Each was hand labeled by year.

  “Looks like you guys have a lot of picnics,” I called to James.

  “Guess so,” he replied from the sink. “The guys with families do a thing in August at Six Flags, but our biggest event is the bash right after Medal Day. The captain has a great spot in Flushing Meadow Park on permanent reserve for us.”

  Medal Day . . . I’d heard all about the tradition at the Quinn’s St. Patrick’s Day bash. Every June, select firefighters of the FDNY were honored with citations for their bravery and heroism.

  As James continued working, I examined the picture gallery. The photos were hung year by year in vertical columns that ran from the top of the door to the bottom. One or two group shots of the company were followed by pictures of the men paired with their wives, families, or significant others.

  I noticed an older photo of Captain Michael Quinn and got down on one knee for a closer look. The picture was taken during the 2000 picnic. Captain Michael was grinning like a giddy boy. He looked so relaxed, so lighthearted. He had a woman on his arm. She was nearly as tall as the captain with a voluptuous figure and long, straight raven hair. The photographer caught her in the middle of a laughing fit, and her face was partially hidden by her hand. She was in the 2001 pictures, too—or I was fairly sure it was the same woman. In this photo her beautiful windswept hair was off her face and I got a good look—oval face, long nose, slightly pointy chin, wide, perfect, carefree smile.

  In the photos after 2002, the woman was gone. Captain Quinn appeared alone, dateless, and far less lighthearted. In some of these later photos he hadn’t even mustered a smile.

  My gaze continued moving up through the years of picnic photos—and then it stopped moving. As I stared at one particular photo, taken just three years ago, the tight, forced smile of Lucia Testa stared back a
t me.

  Just then, I heard heavy footsteps walking up behind me.

  My gaze still focused on Lucia’s face, I tapped the photo.

  “James,” I said. “Did you know that Lucia Testa is in one of these pictures? She’s standing among a group of men. Was she seeing one of these five guys, do you know? I see Oat Crowley is in the group—”

  And about fifty pounds lighter . . .

  I also recognized Ronny Shaw, the fireman who’d ended up in the ER next to Madame. There were a few other faces I didn’t know. One was a Latino man wearing a Puerto Rican Pride T-shirt, and another had a gray flattop—the kind of ’do my Mike called cop hair.

  “I see Captain Michael is in this photo. You mentioned what a wolf the man is. Was your captain ever involved with Lucia?”

  James didn’t answer, but I knew he was there. I could feel the presence of his large body right behind me.

  “And while we’re on the subject of Michael Quinn’s love life, who is that very pretty brunette he’s obviously with in the earlier photos? And why isn’t she in any of the later ones?”

  Again, no answer. A little annoyed by now, I turned around and found myself facing the last man I expected to see this evening.

  Michael Quinn’s big arms were folded across his white uniform shirt. Beneath his scarlet Lonesome Dove mustache, his jaw was working, and the tendons in his neck were stretched as taut as the cables on the GW Bridge. Even the man’s burn scar was flushing with fury.

  We stared at one another so long I could feel my own cheeks getting warmer than the hot plate of a Mr. Coffee.

  Finally James returned, drying wet hands with a towel. “There. All done—Oh, hi, Cap. How’s it going?”

  “You should be workin’ boyo, not gossiping,” the captain practically spat, still pinning me with his eyes.

  James blinked, obviously confused by his superior’s sudden anger. “We were just talking, Cap—”

  “Show the lady the espresso machine. That’s why she’s here, isn’t it?”

  “Uh . . . yeah, sure,” James said. “Right, over here, Ms. Cosi.”

  I followed James back to the newly installed machine. Captain Michael Quinn remained beside the photo gallery, scowling silently.

  TWENTY

  THE espresso maker from Caffè Lucia was a shiny, Italian-made Gaggia with two group heads.

  “It’s a beauty,” I said, stealing uneasy glimpses at the Captain.

  “Lucia delivered it . . . uh, not personally.” Now James was shooting glances at the man. “It was delivered the day after the fire. The Gaggia didn’t come with instructions so I downloaded the manual from the manufacturer’s Web site and installed it. Oat helped.”

  “Oat?” I tensed, remembering my unpleasant run-in with the man. “How did he help?”

  “He put together the cabinet it’s sitting on.”

  I nodded, trying to concentrate. It wasn’t easy. I was too upset by Michael Quinn’s unexpected appearance. Why is he here? Is there an explanation? Or did the man just outright lie to me?

  “So, did I hook this thing up right?” James was asking, face expectant. “Ms. Cosi?”

  “Oh . . . right, sorry . . .”

  “I’ve installed a lot of the stuff around here myself, so I’m pretty sure I hooked it up correctly. The metal parts weren’t really damaged. I only had to replace some rubber tubes and gaskets that were effected by the heat of the fire.”

  The fire. Yes, the fire. That hellish inferno came back to me fast, and so did the image of Enzo, fighting for his life in the ICU. I took a breath, refocused.

  “I’ll check it out,” I told James. “Can you hand me my backpack?”

  I noticed a commercial burr grinder sitting nearby. It bore the marks of heavy use, but the espresso machine appeared to be relatively new—

  Enzo had invested in this thing, I realized. He wasn’t expecting to retire anytime soon. And Lucia had to know that . . .

  Of course I also noted the woman had “donated” this machine to the firehouse in record time. Sure, Enzo had admitted the choice was hers to rebuild or not, but the speed at which she gave up the Gaggia suggested to me that Lucia didn’t exactly wrestle with the question. More evidence of motive.

  My focus went back to the machine itself. The Gaggia’s filtration system and nickel-lined tank were already connected to the water main. According to the gauge, the tank was properly filled. The gas jets appeared to be working, too.

  When James returned with my backpack, I fished out one of the Blend’s thermometers to check the temperature at the water spout. It was a little high at 205 degrees, and the pressure at the pump was also high. I adjusted both and bled off the excess heat.

  Finally I checked the portafilters and the heads. They were spotlessly clean—so clean the heads still needed “seasoning” before a perfect espresso could be pulled. (Like a new pan needing a layer of cooking oil, the heads of an espresso machine required a patina of coffee oil to eliminate the sharp taste of raw metal. A test pull or two at the beginning of each day always solved that problem for me.)

  “Good job setting it up,” I said at last.

  “Thanks.”

  “The temperature and pressure levels are close to perfect. You want the temperature at the head around 203.5 degrees, and”—I tapped the pressure meter—“at 8.2 bars for the pressure at the pump. With those settings and the proper grind, you should be able to pull a perfect espresso every time.”

  “Perfect is good,” James said. “In my book if it ain’t perfection, it’s broke—”

  Another ping from the kitchen timer interrupted us.

  “I’ll be right back,” James said with another unhappy glance at his captain, who was still silently standing and staring.

  When James was gone, I stuffed the thermometer into my pack and crossed the room. “I want to talk to you,” I quietly told the man. “I need to ask you some questions and I want honest answers.”

  “About my love life?”

  “No.” I gritted my teeth. “Not about your love life. I don’t care about your stupid love life.”

  He raised a skeptical eyebrow.

  What was that? A Quinn family trait? “Okay, maybe I’ll ask some questions about your love life, but it’s not why you think I’m asking—”

  “You’re a terrible liar, darlin’.”

  “Me! You’re the one who said you wouldn’t be here!”

  The captain smirked. “Now why would I have said a thing like that? This is my firehouse, isn’t it?”

  I was about to reply (with a string of less-than-ladylike verbiage) when the blare of a truck horn made me jump. A second later I heard rumbling engines, so powerful they reverberated the floor along with the hanging pots and pans.

  Captain Michael looked down at me. “Looks like your burnin’ questions will have to wait.” He unfolded his thickly muscled arms. “My boys are back and you’ve got some teachin’ to do.”

  A few minutes later, a masculine monsoon swept into the kitchen. For an unnerving second I feared I’d have to teach almost twenty outsized men the art of espresso making—an undertaking I feared would take all night. But after wolfing down plates of James’s dinner, the horde vanished into a nearby community room. The entire evening meal took seventeen minutes flat.

  Only eight firemen remained in the kitchen, counting James Noonan and his friend Bigsby Brewer (and not counting the unnamed probie who was put to work cleaning the dishes and pans).

  While Captain Michael continued his silent watching from the sidelines, the eight arranged folding chairs in a semicircle around the espresso machine.

  “So this is everyone?” I asked James.

  He nodded. “Yeah, from every shift, too. Some of the guys came in just to learn how to use the Gaggia.”

  “Great,” I said. And I meant it. If these were the core espresso drinkers of this firehouse, they were the most likely to have frequented Caffè Lucia and had continual contact with Enzo’s daughter. Scanning th
e faces, I recognized Oat Crowley and Ronny Shaw. The final three I’d never met. Well, now was the time . . .

  “My name is Clare Cosi and—”

  A hand shot up. I recognized the lined face under the gray flattop as one of the men in the photos with Lucia.

  “No offense, Miss, but I don’t know why I’m here. I can’t stand coffee. It smells real nice, but most of the time it tastes like brown water.”

  The speaker leaned back and folded his arms. The kitchen was so quiet I could hear the metal folding chair creak under his weight. Suddenly the group laughed, and I realized I’d missed out on a private joke.

  “Dino’s just yanking your chain, Ms. Cosi,” James informed me from the front row. “Elfante lives on coffee. Like ten or twelve cups a shift.”

  “Yeah,” said Bigs. “We make him kick in extra for beans, the weasel drinks so much—”

  “And it tastes like brown water. Around here, anyways,” Dino insisted, and then he continued to rant about their typical firehouse brew until Ronny Shaw beaned him with a balled-up paper napkin.

  “Let the lady talk!”

  The last time I saw Shaw, he was lying on a stretcher in the ER, Oat Crowley hovering near. Both had eavesdropped on my conversation with Madame, and I still wondered why they seemed so interested. When he raised his left hand to throw the paper ball, I noticed it lacked a wedding band. Then it occurred to me that getting injured in a fire you started yourself is a good way to deflect attention away from your guilt.

  “Thank you,” I told Ronny. “But Mr. Elfante actually makes a good point—”

  “Call me Dino, honey . . .”

  “The delicate flavor oils in the bean are volatile,” I said, ignoring Dino’s wink. “The reason is because if they’re released too soon during the brewing process, they go up in steam and you experience them through your nose instead of your palate.”

  “Told ya,” Dino cracked smugly—and got beaned again.

  “The purpose of an espresso is to extract the essence of those oils in such a way that the flavor goes into the cup. A perfectly pulled espresso should taste as good as great coffee smells.”