by Cleo Coyle
I cursed upon rediscovering the thing, but the truth is I was supremely lucky that the city tow trucks had been behind schedule yesterday; otherwise I would have found the ticket—and my Honda—at the impounding lot in the Bronx.
So there I was, walking back into the Village Blend, reading the small-print instructions from the City of New York about how and where to contest the darned thing, when I’d collided with the lanky beige wall.
I immediately looked up—away from Quinn’s brown pants (presumably a different pair from yesterday’s identical ensemble)—and beyond the starched shirt and striped tie (sporting today’s colors of brown and rust).
Quinn’s jaw was still as square as I remembered, his dark blond hair still as short but the stubble was gone. He’d managed to shave close without a scratch. And the shadows under his eyes were less pronounced this morning, though their intense color was still blue enough to require a conscious effort on my part to take a breath.
“How are you?” I asked after regaining my balance and a small portion of my dignity.
The question was simple enough, but it seemed to fluster the detective—as if my asking about his personal well-being was as odd to him as someone asking if he’d enjoyed his recent trip to Mars.
“I’m fine,” he answered after an awkward silence. His voice sounded less wrung out today, but his clipped words still had the bite of burnt coffee.
“You look better,” I said, trying to lighten things up. “Like you got some sleep, at least, since we last saw each other.”
“I’d like to speak with you,” he said, chipping each word out of ice.
Okay, so the man had beige walls inside as well as out. Fine. I wasn’t going to dwell on it.
I scanned the room for a place to sit. We had about an hour before the lunchtime rush and only a few tables were occupied. Two customers stood at the coffee bar, behind which I noticed my ex-husband staring at me and Quinn.
To be honest, Matt’s dark eyes were shooting us more of a glare than a stare.
I ignored him.
“How about we sit in the corner. Over there,” I told Quinn, gesturing to a table near the exposed brick wall—and far from listening ears.
“That’s fine.”
As I walked him over, I asked, “How long have you been waiting?”
“Not long. Ten, fifteen minutes.”
“Did Matt get you a cup of coffee?”
“No.”
My jaw clenched. “Well, please sit down. I insist you have a cup with me. I’ll be right back.”
“What the hell does he want?” Matt groused the second I stepped behind the coffee bar. He was putting the finishing touches—whipped cream and chocolate shavings—on two mochaccinos for the only waiting customers.
“Lower your voice,” I told him, shedding my jacket. Matt eyed my cashmere blend sweater, bought at Daffy’s fall sweater bonanza. (Daffy’s Fifth Avenue store was a real treasure trove—designer clothes remaindered at outlet prices, and without having to travel to the typical New Jersey outlet locations.) The sweater’s soft pine color brought out the green of my eyes, and the way it fit my petite figure didn’t do my breasts a disservice, either.
“Answer my question,” Matt demanded. “What does he want?”
“A cup of coffee, for starters,” I said. Hands on hips, I waited for Matt to oblige. After all, he was the barista on duty.
“Come off it.”
“Why else do people come to the Blend?” I asked.
“Clare, what does he want?”
“I swear, Matt—I can’t believe he’s been waiting here fifteen minutes and you didn’t at least offer him a cup of the house blend on the house—”
“Why, for God’s sake? You know these cops will drink anything that’s brown and in a paper cup. Half of them aren’t even particular about its viscosity level, as long as it’s under a dollar.”
“You’re being insulting to someone who is trying to help us—”
“Us? Or you.”
“Temper. Temper,” I said. “Just make us a couple of lattes.”
“No.”
“C’mon, just singles.”
“I am not wasting my talent on a Robusta-drinking philistine. And neither should you.”
With a sigh of disgust, I nudged Matt aside and smacked the switch on the automatic grinder. I took hold of the handle on the espresso basket, dumped the wet grounds, rinsed the basket, and packed the freshly milled coffee beans tightly in.
“He probably keeps a jar of Sanka in his desk drawer,” muttered Matt.
“That’s uncalled for,” I said as I began the extraction process.
“Or better still,” Matt whispered into my ear. “Folgers instant crystals.”
“Go to hell!” I whispered.
“Temper. Temper.”
After the extraction process was finished and the espresso had properly oozed out of the two spouts into separate shot glasses (remember, it should ooze like warm honey, otherwise you’ve got a brewed beverage—not espresso!), I poured the contents of each glass into their individual serving cups.
Because the lattes would be consumed in the dining room, I eschewed the paper cups and instead used the tall cream-colored ceramic cups stacked in neat rows on a shelf against the back wall. Next came the steamed milk, splashing into the dark liquid like a white tsunami.
I placed the lattes on a cork-bottomed tray, held it high like a good barmaid, and sashayed on over to our corner table, letting Matt watch my hips deliberately swing for good measure. With veiled glee, I could feel him seething silently behind me.
Tray held high, I weaved through the coffeehouse’s obstacle course of small marble-topped tables. I noticed Quinn watching me approach from across the room.
He was staring at my swaying jean-clad hips. I couldn’t read the guarded expression on the man’s square-jawed face, or the cool look in the depths of those dark blue eyes: Not as they watched my hips. Not even as they traveled north, up my pine-colored sweater, pulled tight from my upraised arm.
Now, another woman might have been delighted with this undivided male attention, and I thought I would be—but I wasn’t. In fact, Quinn’s blank stare was making me more than a little self-conscious and my steps slowed mid-room.
What the hell am I playing at? I asked myself. I’m no flirt. This is really, really stupid.
I brought the round tray down from its Bavarian beer-garten level and began carrying it with two hands, strategically positioning it to block any further view of my pine-colored breasts.
Sure, I may have started the day making a sweater selection with the hopes of seeing Quinn again, but the reality of having him stare at it (or rather me in it) suddenly felt like way too much to handle—as if petting my cat in the morning could remotely prepare me for feeding a tiger in the afternoon.
Why in the world did I think I could take on something as uncontrollable in my life as lust? (I mean, beyond the fantasy arena.) And with a married man!
After mentally kicking myself across the room, I set the lattes on the coral-colored marble surface of the table. Quinn still hadn’t said a word. Just kept staring.
“Remind me never to play poker with you,” I said, trying to break the tension.
“What do you mean?” he asked, continuing to stare.
“Forget it,” I said. And then, in an effort to battle my schoolgirl nerves and get back down to business, I launched into the story of my life for the past twenty-four hours. I recounted the conversations I’d had with Esther Best, Cassandra Canelle, and last but not least, Darla Branch Hart.
As I told my story, Quinn watched me wildly gesticulate with the same intense expression he’d given me as I came toward him from across the room.
When I finished, he said, “So…you’ve been working the case.”
I nodded.
He sipped his latte. A long sip. Then he leaned back and allowed a mild look of emotion to change his features—a cross between astonishment and admiration. B
ut he said nothing. Not one word of encouragement. Not even a compliment on the latte.
That hurt.
“Well,” I said, trying to hide my disappointment, “given what I’ve discovered—what do you think?”
“What do I think?” he said. “You conducted the interviews. What do you think?”
“I’m not the professional here.”
“When you spoke with these women, you saw how they spoke to you—their body language, their tone of voice. What was your impression?”
“My impression…” I sipped my latte. Thought about it. “To tell you the truth, I do have an impression I can’t shake. Well, really more of a vision than an impression.”
“What is it?”
“You really want to know?” I asked.
“No. I like to waste my breath.”
“God, you’re a tough audience.”
“Just tell me, Clare—Sorry, Ms. Cosi—”
“It’s okay, you can call me Clare. What’s your first name, by the way?”
He shifted uneasily. “It’s Mike. Michael Ryan Francis if you count the confirmation name.”
“Well, I’ll tell you my vision, Michael Ryan Francis, for all the good it will do…I see an image of Cassandra Canelle leaping through the air like a blue-violet bird, and telling me all she wants out of life is ‘perpetual music and an unending expanse of smooth and level floor.’ And then I see Darla Branch Hart’s expensive manicure snatching up two wrinkled bills and saying, ‘My stepdaughter deserves some money…and I’m gonna see she gets it.’”
“You see them both?”
“They intertwine in my mind. The images twirl, kind of like dancers on a ballroom floor…” I shrugged. “Sounds crazy, right?”
Surprisingly, Michael Ryan Francis Quinn didn’t in fact offer me a ride to Bellevue’s psyche ward. Instead he said I reminded him of an article he’d read a few years back about the strangeness of our universe.
“Excuse me?” I said. “The strangeness of our universe?”
Now who needed the ride to the nuthouse? I thought.
“No, listen,” said Quinn. “It applies. In the article, an astrophysicist explained how he was able to see a black hole in the darkness of space. He said, ‘Imagine a boy in a black tuxedo. The boy is the black hole. Now imagine he’s twirling with a girl in a white dress. The girl is the light from a nearby star. Now imagine the girl and boy are in a dark room, the room is the vast darkness of space. How do you locate the boy dressed in black if he’s dancing in a dark room?’”
Quinn paused, waited.
“You look for the girl in white,” I said. “The light gives away the dark.”
He nodded. “Darkness can’t hide. Not forever. Not even in the vastness of space.”
T WENTY
“S O what are you saying?” I asked Quinn. “That in my vision Cassandra is the light, the good mother, and she’s revealed Darla as the bad one—the one who kept Anabelle down and maybe literally pushed her down, as well?”
“We look for motive—and opportunity,” said Quinn. “Well, the motive could be the money she’d get from suing the Blend for a supposed accident. Or she could have been arguing with Anabelle about the five thousand dollars she’d lent her to come to New York. Esther said Darla wanted it back. And if Anabelle didn’t have it, it’s possible Darla pressured her stepdaughter to go back into nude dancing for it. Darla’s obviously too old for that now—so her only quick-fix for absolving the debt would have been to convince Anabelle to go down the low road again. Anabelle could have refused, Darla could have come here to argue further, cornered her, maybe ended up causing her to fall down the steps.”
“That’s motive enough. What about opportunity? Do you know where Mrs. Hart was the night Anabelle fell?”
“No, but I can try to find out.”
“That’s your best bet. And don’t rule out other possibilities. A theory might look pretty on its face, but it doesn’t mean you should marry it. I’ve learned that one the hard way, I can tell you, and not just in my work—”
The admission came with a frustrated sigh that surprised me. I wanted to ask about his loaded implication (that his marriage was going badly), but he just continued with his comments about police work, so I dismissed it as some sort of trivial husbandly annoyance over credit card bills or house chores—one sigh didn’t mean his marriage was on the skids, not by a long shot.
“Facts,” he continued. “Facts and evidence. This place was locked up tight. Whoever got out of here had a key. Do you have that list of employee names and addresses for me today?”
I pulled the folded paper out of my jeans pocket. I hadn’t noticed I’d pulled the parking ticket back out too until Quinn had taken the papers from me.
He glanced at the list of names.
“Tucker is my only other full-time employee besides Anabelle,” I told him. “The rest are just part-time workers and full-time students. I already spoke to all of them—Esther face-to-face, and the rest I called late last night to readjust their work schedules, and I honestly can’t see any of them as real suspects. None had a plausible motive for hurting Anabelle.”
Quinn nodded. “I’ll run the names anyway, along with Mrs. Hart. See if there are any outstanding warrants or criminal records.”
“Good. But can’t you do something in the meantime about Mrs. Hart?”
“Do something? Like what?”
“Like keep her away from Anabelle for one? If she hurt her once, she might try to hurt her again.”
Quinn paused a moment. “Anabelle is in the ICU,” he said. “She has supervision around the clock. No one’s going to harm her there.”
“You mean there’s nothing you’re willing to do to restrain Darla Hart? Aren’t you even going to take her down to the precinct and interrogate her?”
“Clare—” Quinn began with a sharp tone. Then he paused a moment and spoke again, this time with the sort of tone you might use when trying to explain calculus to a preschooler. “Clare, you have no evidence to prove she’s guilty of any criminal act. Or even that there was a criminal act. So the answer to that would be no.”
God, I thought, that tone was insufferable! “Then what are you going to do?” I demanded. “Have you at least questioned Anabelle’s boyfriend? I haven’t gotten around to him yet.”
Quinn frowned and shifted in his seat. “To be honest with you, my work on this case—what I mean to say, official police involvement in this case—is going to be limited. My superior knows that the Crime Scene Unit found no evidence that Anabelle’s fall was caused by foul play—”
“Yeah, I know. And the rape kit and physical exam proved negative on evidence that there was any attempt at sexual assault.”
Quinn’s blue eyes widened. It was the first moment he’d showed open emotion since he sat down (surprise, followed by annoyance).
“How in the world do you know that?” he asked.
“I have my sources,” I said. Mike Quinn grimaced. I added: “I also know that Anabelle is pregnant, which makes her condition even more tragic.”
“And how did you find that out, too?”
“I told you, I have my sources—”
“Who, Clare?”
His cheeks were actually flushing red.
I shook my head. “No way.”
Quinn took a deep breath, exhaled it. “All right, fine. Like I said, there is no evidence of foul play. My boss wants this shut, but he’s willing to let me keep it open while there’s still a chance Anabelle can wake up and give an eyewitness account to some sort of assault. Meanwhile, I’m supposed to be working on another case—a shooting and therefore a clear-cut homicide.”
“So what are you saying, you’re going to help me investigate this, but on the side? Why? What’s it get you? Free coffee?”
Quinn stared at me with no expression, then he looked away, shrugged. “I like your coffee.”
“Really? You didn’t say anything yesterday when I gave you your first cup of our house
blend—”
“I don’t gush. Not as a rule. Certainly not over coffee. But I’ll tell you now since you’re asking—it was the best damned cup I’ve had in my entire life of coffee drinking…and that’s a lot of coffee drinking.”
I smiled. “Thanks. What about the latte?” I asked, pointing to the tall cream-colored cup. “Bet that’s your first one, isn’t it?”
Quinn peered down into it. “Never thought I’d like the fancy drinks—they always seemed sort of—well, you know, sort off—”
“Gay?”
He laughed. “What does that make me if I like it?”
“Not gay. Just…oh, I don’t know…Continental, I guess. You know like that Dashiell Hammet detective. The Continental Op.”
Quinn laughed again. Then he grew serious. Exhaled. “If my boss gets wind of my helping you out of school, I’m off the case, okay?”
“Okay,” I said.
“So whoever your source is, make sure my helping you stays quiet.”
“Will do.”
Quinn looked down at the papers in his hand, noticed the parking ticket beneath the employee list. “What’s this?” he asked, quickly reading it. “A parking ticket—”
“Oh, sorry. You shouldn’t have gotten that. Here, I’ll take it back.”
“One hundred and five dollars? Hydrant violation. What happened?”
“It’s no big deal,” I said, embarrassed. “I mean, I didn’t think I was that close to the hydrant. There was just no other place to put the car for a few minutes. I was going to move it right away, but then I’d found Anabelle, and with all the activity, the car just sat for hours.”
I expected Quinn to return the ticket to my outstretched hand with an accompanying cop lecture about traffic safety or fire prevention. Instead, he shoved the ticket into the pocket of his stained trenchcoat and simply said, “I’ll take care of it.”
“What? No!” I was mortified. The man was already going out on a limb helping me in his spare time. I didn’t need him ponying up to the traffic division for my sake, too. “It’s okay. Really. I didn’t mean for you to trouble yourself—”
