Dead to the Last Drop

by Cleo Coyle

  “It’s an old beat-cop trick,” he explained.

  “I hate to ask where you learned it.”

  “Stakeout, of course. Upper Manhattan.”

  “You were drinking beer on a stakeout?”

  “No, old-school Coca-Cola from a Mexican bodega. But after the job was over . . .” He smiled as he flipped open the cap on his own beer and took a long, happy swig. Then he dug into the food and went quiet until every bite was gone and his fingers were licked clean.

  That’s when Quinn’s laser gaze was back on me, and I uncomfortably turned my attention to Mrs. Bittmore-Black’s Smithsonian museum of a dining room.

  “If these walls could talk . . .” I mused.

  “You don’t know how many times I’ve thought that on homicide investigations.”

  “I can imagine.”

  Quinn looked over the antiques. “If you could choose one item in this room, just one, what would you like to hear talk? That cuckoo clock?”

  “A gift from a German chancellor,” I informed him. “And I’ve heard it talk already. Can you imagine that clock going off during the formal dinners here? Eccentric lady.”

  “Or a very wise one.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Consider the pontificating that must have gone on here among officials and bureaucrats. The sound of a cuckoo bird every hour would have been a brilliant reality check on pompous speeches.” He lifted his beer bottle. “So how about the Lincoln-era sideboard? You said this house was part of the Underground Railroad, didn’t you?”

  “It was, but that’s not what I would choose.”

  “What, then?”

  I gestured to the ornate tray on top of the sideboard.

  “The silver coffee service?”

  I nodded. “It was a gift to Mrs. Bittmore-Black from Jacqueline Kennedy.”

  “Really?”

  “I understand they were lifelong friends. Did you know Mrs. Kennedy lived at two addresses on this street? First in a town house with Jack, before they went to the White House, and then . . .”

  “And then?”

  “After the President was assassinated, Jackie moved back to Georgetown. This street served as a launching pad for her highest heights and in a stunningly short time—”

  “Her crash pad for god-awful depths.”

  I shook my head. “That poor woman. The whole thing must have felt surreal.”

  “The whole thing was a monumental crime, Clare, that’s what it was. A conspiracy to commit cold-blooded murder.”

  “Conspiracy? You don’t think Oswald acted alone?”

  “At this point, few detectives I know do. And if it wasn’t a conspiracy, then it was a conspiracy of dunces.”

  “You mean the Secret Service not properly protecting the President?”

  “Members were either in on it—or incompetent.”

  “Either one is hard to believe.”

  “Why? They’re not robots. They’re human. They make mistakes. And they can be corrupted like anybody else in government. Power corrupts, sweetheart.”

  “Even good people?”

  “Without checks and balances and transparency—what we in the crime-fighting trade call witnesses—power corrupts . . .”

  “Absolutely?”

  “No. Insidiously.”

  I studied him. “You’re not talking abstractly, are you?”

  “I’ve got . . . shall we say problems . . . at work.”

  “Yes. I know. I’ve known for a long time. What I don’t know are the specifics. I’ve been waiting for you to open up.”

  He drained his beer bottle and set it aside. “How about we start with what you know.”

  I shifted uneasily, but then leaned forward.

  “I know your work is classified, some special DOJ task force focused on corporate wrongdoing that utilizes your years of drug enforcement expertise. I know your new lawyer boss—that Katerina creature—is trouble. And it’s not simply about snapping her fingers, and calling you at all hours, and forcing you into unpredictable overtime.”

  Quinn’s steady blue gaze remained on me. “Well? I’m waiting.”

  “For what?”

  He gestured to the Kennedy coffee service. “Don’t you think Jackie listened in on a few of Jack’s phone calls?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Clare, don’t you want to talk to me about what you learned after raiding my pocket?”

  Oh, crap. “Mike, I’m sorry—”

  “Don’t be.” He leaned back and folded his arms. “That’s why I left my mobile phone in my jacket—and my mailbox unlocked.”

  Nineteen

  “TELL you what . . .” Mike tossed me his phone. “Let’s review it together.”

  I turned the phone back on and reread the text messages . . .

  Thur. 6:30 PM—Katerina Lacey, Esq.

  Great work, Michael. You are the man! Late meet tonight, your room. Work review + bubbly to celebrate. You deserve it. When the cat’s away! On Rodeo now. Facial and shopping. Expect me at 9.

  Mike’s reply came two hours later:

  Fri. 8:30 PM—Michael R. F. Quinn

  Apologies. On standby @ LAX. Must get back. Urgent, personal. C U in DC.

  I handed the phone back to him. “Can’t you complain to someone? File a grievance?”

  “For what?”

  “Sexual harassment. That’s obvious, isn’t it?”

  Quinn grunted. “Not so obvious. Her text message mentions work. We were on a business trip.”

  “What about the ‘bubbly’ and that ‘cat’s away’ remark?”

  He shrugged. “Is that any different than my NYPD CO buying me a few beers after a stakeout?”

  “Then it’s down to ‘he said, she said’?”

  Quinn nodded.

  “What about what I say?”

  He actually smiled. “I love you, you know that?”

  “Mike, I’m not kidding. There’s something I never told you. Katerina and I had a . . . well, a verbal exchange at your place.”

  He leaned forward. “When was this?”

  “My first week in Washington . . .”

  When I initially arrived in DC, Madame was bunking with me in the mansion, so I confined my love life with Quinn to his high-rise apartment, across town. That Friday evening, I was already dressed for dinner, waiting for Quinn to shave and change.

  “There was a knock at your door,” I explained. “You were in the bathroom, so I answered. Standing there was Katerina Lacey . . .”

  * * *

  “EXCUSE me, do I have the right apartment?” she asked.

  Tall and slender with blunt-cut bangs and supernaturally straight, strawberry blond hair, precisely sliced mere millimeters from her narrow shoulders, Katerina spoke with a cultivated accent; and while her words were polite, her tone and manner were drenched with disdain.

  “Aren’t you Mike’s superior?” I asked.

  Her pea green eyes narrowed. “And you are?”

  “Clare Cosi, nice to finally meet you.” I extended my hand.

  In high heels and a belted coat, she clutched a briefcase in one hand, a bag of Chinese takeout in the other—and didn’t bother freeing either to shake mine.

  “Oh, that’s right,” she said instead. “You’re the little waitress.”

  My hand dropped. “Master roaster, actually, and general manager, and, as of this week”—I gritted out a smile—“DC resident.”

  “Oh?” She pursed her glossed lips and looked beyond me. “Well, Michael didn’t deem that information significant enough to share. Where is he?”

  “Changing. We have dinner reservations.”

  “I see.” She looked me up and down, and smirked—as if my simple little black dress and the classic pearls my daughter had gifted me
were some kind of joke. “I suppose the work can wait. Over lunch on Monday. That’s when Michael and I will, you know”—she raised an eyebrow—“do it.”

  * * *

  “THAT piece of work!”

  Quinn was on his feet and pacing, a dangerous look in his eyes.

  “She knew you were moving to DC. I never stopped talking about it! And she knew about our Friday dinner plans. I remember turning her down for some invitation and informing her why. I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about that!”

  “I didn’t want to ruin our evening. And that’s obviously what Katerina wanted—the two of us fighting all night about whether you two were having an affair. And, Mike, I knew you weren’t. I never saw a man so happy as when I told you I was moving here to be closer to you.”

  He exhaled hard and took a breath. “Well, I appreciate your finally telling me that story. But face it, she said, she said isn’t much stronger than he said, she said. And if you examine the words she actually said, it could all be explained away as a misunderstanding.”

  “Fine, I get it. The woman knows how to cover her bony ass. But if that’s how she operates, it makes me sick. So how about quitting? I know you wanted those generous paychecks for your kids’ college funds, but you’ve put plenty away by now. And you know the OD Squad is waiting for you back in New York.”

  “It’s not about the money, Clare. Not anymore.”

  Twenty

  “IF it’s not about the money, then why stay?”

  “Because I don’t like the way things are going, and maybe I can do something about it.”

  “Well, I don’t like her hitting on you.”

  Quinn grunted. “Her passes I can ignore or evade. What I won’t tolerate any longer are her methods.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He sat down. “When I was a cop our stings caught bad people doing bad things. We knew they were doing bad things, all we had to do was catch them doing it and show the evidence to a grand jury.”

  Quinn rubbed his forehead. “Under my first boss at the DOJ it was the same, only we were catching bigger bad guys doing worse things. But when he died and Katerina took over, things got ugly. She expanded the operation exponentially, a wider net to catch bigger fish. Now she’s practically pushing entrapment. Her tactics are too aggressive, not to mention legally dubious. She has to be stopped.”

  “What about the other people on your task force? Don’t they want to stop her, too?”

  “No. Some are as ambitious as Katerina. Catch a big fish, and you’re on the fast track.”

  “And the others?”

  “They’re scared of her. Reading between the lines, she has some kind of hold on them.”

  “So Katerina wants to use your years of experience running drug stings to help her advance her career with high-profile entrapment cases? And she keeps her team in line with promises of advancement or threats? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  Quinn nodded. “And it gets worse. I’m sure she’s breaking the law to obtain confidential information.”

  “What makes you think that?”

  “Entrapping good people, which is what we’re doing, isn’t as easy as catching bad guys. You have to find their weaknesses and exploit them. You have to use their needs and desires, their fears and phobias against them.”

  “But to know all that, you’d have to get really close to them.”

  “Yes, you would. And yet Katerina seems to know—for every case. She’s constantly providing shadowy intelligence from ‘unnamed sources’ and ‘confidential informants’ who are never revealed and never come forward to testify.”

  “So is Katerina making this evidence up?”

  “I wish. A frame job would be easier to prove. But her intel is spot-on and ninety-nine percent accurate—and she always comes up with a way for me to exploit it in my stings so it will get her an entrapment prosecution. In law enforcement, it’s called parallel construction. You might obtain information illegally, but you don’t use it in court. You use it to find other evidence, and you prosecute based on that—which is why Katerina is in love with my ability to create effective stings. It shields her from a ‘fruit of the poisoned tree’ charge.”

  Quinn got quiet again . . . too quiet.

  “What else?” I pressed. “What could be worse than using illegally obtained information to entrap otherwise good people?”

  “I did a little digging,” he confessed, lowering his voice as if he feared someone was listening. “And when I stepped back from all of our prosecutions, it seemed to me there was a pattern. Many of the people Katerina targeted have either openly campaigned against the current President or given large amounts of money to his opponents.”

  “You mean . . .” My whole body went cold. “Your boss is using the Department of Justice for political payback?”

  “It’s not an easy case to make from the outside because her targets are across the political spectrum. But from the inside, what I see is a woman who owes her position to the current President and is looking to advance herself through a reign of terror on his rivals, followed by a government-funded guillotine. I can’t prove it yet, but I think Katerina used those same ‘mysterious connections’ to dig up dirt on President Parker’s opponents before his first election.”

  “Hold on a second. Isn’t opposition research legal?”

  Quinn’s blue eyes turned glacial. “Not when a government official abuses the power of her office to do it. Then it’s a felony.”

  “Mike, do you realize what you’re telling me? If that woman is using your years of experience to help her do political dirty work, then . . .”

  I closed my eyes, seeing an image of Mike, walking into a congressional hearing room, cameras rolling, his distinguished NYPD career over, reputation shredded, the college savings for his kids in the pocket of defense attorneys. And that was the good scenario. Worst case? The man I loved, this very good man, would be heading to federal prison.

  “There’s no dodging it, Clare. No walking away. I’m guilty, too. My fingerprints are on some of her most recent prosecutions. I didn’t figure out her game until it was too late.”

  “There must be something you can do!”

  “I can. And I will. But I need hard evidence, not just theories and accusations.”

  “Does Katerina know you’re onto her?”

  “That’s why she keeps making passes. She doesn’t care that I’m in love with you. She wouldn’t care if I were married. She figures if I’m in her bed, then she can keep me in her camp and manipulate me any way she pleases.”

  My stomach lurched remembering my only encounter with that woman. At least I had a little toughness in my soul, and a lot of trust in Quinn. I felt terrible for the wives or girlfriends she may have played that number on before me.

  “There’s got to be a way to bring down someone as powerful and connected as Katerina. There’s got to be . . .”

  “This town isn’t kind to whistle-blowers, sweetheart, but I’m working on it.”

  He moved his chair closer to mine. “And while I’m working, I want you to know how grateful I am to have a woman like you in my life. Trusting me, loving me, backing me.”

  “You’ve got it as long as you want it.”

  Quinn touched my cheek. “How about forever?”

  “Sounds like a plan.”

  We smiled, despite our troubles. And then we were kissing—sweetly at first and then not so sweetly.

  I didn’t want to resurface, but I did, tipping my head at the dirty plates. “I’ve got to clean up,” I whispered.

  “Leave it. I’ll help you—in the morning.”

  “It won’t take long.”

  “Clare, are you—”

  Cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo, cuckoo went the clock.

  He pointed. “See, the bird agrees with me.”
<
br />   “Very funny.”

  That’s when I heard the chain jingling. While we were kissing, Quinn had quietly closed his bottle-opening bracelet on my left wrist.

  “Sorry, sweetheart, you’re in my custody now.”

  “Mike, what are you—”

  With a click, Quinn snapped the other handcuff on his own wrist. Then he gently tugged, and I was suddenly trailing him into the den and through the double parlor.

  “Where are we going? Central Booking?”

  “Up the stairs to the master suite. I’m a patient man, Cosi, but now it’s time for bed.”

  “But, Mike, I’m not a bit sleepy.”

  His smile widened. “Who said anything about sleep?”

  Twenty-one

  EARLY the next morning, I heard it again, the manic drumming of fists pounding on a locked door. The desperate, insistent sound knocked me from my nap.

  My eyes opened to stillness.

  The pillow beside me was empty. The shower hissed in the master bath. Pink sunlight peeked through the curtains. On the antique night table, the digital clock read 6:05.

  Was I dreaming, or had I experienced a flashback to the strange events in my coffeehouse?

  Then the chimes rang, and I bolted upright, ripping away any lingering cobwebs. Someone was at the front door.

  Up and out of bed, I threw on my white terry robe, vaguely aware of something stuck in the sleeve. By the time the chimes rang for the third time, I was hurrying down the carpeted staircase.

  At the entryway, however, I paused, vowing not to make the same mistake I’d made last night.

  “Hello?” I called through the closed door. “Who’s there?”

  “Sorry if I woke you, ma’am,” replied a muffled female voice. “I’m here on official business.”

  Suddenly I was gripped by panic.

  Did Sergeant Price see through my lies and send an underling to bring me in for questioning? Or is this the Secret Service? Maybe Abby never made it back to her dorm room, and they’re here to pick me up for interrogation. Either way, I was in a boatload of trouble.

  I opened the door, expecting to face a phalanx of official uniforms. Instead, my visitor was alone and out of uniform, despite the police ID dangling from a plastic necklace.