Murder by Mocha cm-10

by Клео Коул

  “Your Americano is excellent,” Bob declared.

  The man’s lined face shed decades when he smiled. He looked far less intimidating, too.

  “Thanks,” I replied, happy he’d noticed. (Few people realized how tricky the drink was to get right.)

  “It’s the best I’ve tasted in over twenty-five years.”

  Now I was smiling. “We try to put love into every cup.”

  “I’m glad to hear that’s still the case.”

  Still the case? I glanced at Tuck.

  “Bob has a few questions about the Blend. I thought you should answer.”

  I extended my hand. “It’s nice to meet you. My name is Clare.”

  “Clare,” he said in a gruff tenor. “I’ve always loved that name. I had a sister named Clare . . .”

  His accent was stronger now, Brooklyn—but not Yuppie Brooklyn where Manhattanites flocked to buy artisan pickles and microbrewed beers. Working-stiff Brooklyn, areas like Coney Island and Bensonhurst. On the other hand, his camel hair jacket, finely woven shirt, and high-end watch implied an address other than those immigrant-packed ’hoods.

  “I haven’t been here for twenty years or more,” he said, “but I remember this place well. I was wondering if it’s still a family-owned business.”

  “The Allegro family still owns the Blend, and if I can help it, someone from the family always will.”

  His eyes sparkled. “I take it you’re a member of the family?”

  Was. Past tense. By marriage. I could have said as much, but the man’s continued scrutiny was making me uncomfortable.

  “Did you know Antonio?” I asked. “Or Madame?”

  “Madame?”

  “Madame Blanche Dreyfus Allegro Dubois,” I said.

  The sparkle faded, the lines returned. “So, she’s married again.”

  “Widowed, for a second time, I’m sorry to say.” I leaned closer. “Listen, I’m sure Mrs. Dubois would love to speak with you. Why don’t you tell me your last name. Bob—”

  “Clare!” Tuck was calling me again. I hadn’t noticed he’d stepped away. “Sorry, but our Chocolate Nun is on the phone. She has a delivery issue.”

  “Excuse me,” I told Bob.

  “Chocolate Nun” was the nickname for Gudrun Voss, the young proprietress of Voss Chocolate. New York magazine gave her the moniker in a piece it had done a few months back. While “chef’s whites” were traditional, Gudrun’s daily uniform consisted of a black chef’s jacket and chocolate-colored Kabuki pants. The black garb combined with her austere personality and zealous focus on bean-to-bar quality had inspired the reporter to come up with the Homeric epithet.

  I’d never met the “Chocolate Nun” face-to-face and still didn’t know much about her. Even the magazine piece included little about Gudrun Voss’s background, focusing instead on her Williamsburg factory as part of Brooklyn’s artisanal food movement.

  Picking up the phone, I was relieved to hear Gudrun had no problem getting the pastries and chocolates to the party tonight. All she needed from me was the direct phone number of the catering kitchen at the Rock Center event space.

  By the time I finished the conversation, I was even more curious about Bob’s questions. But when I moved back to the counter, Mike’s favorite barstool was empty, the elderly stranger gone.

  I checked my watch. It was time for me to go, too. I needed to shower and change. Even more pressing was that important meeting Mike had mentioned at the break of dawn. I’d promised to caffeinate him up for it.

  Moving to my espresso machine, I went to work.

  Eight

  Given the events of my morning, I couldn’t wait to see a male body lying on sheets that were not covered in fake blood. When I walked into my bedroom, however, I found the four-poster empty.

  Like silver-haired Bob downstairs, Mike Quinn had gone missing. His clothes and shoes were still here. So was his weapon. I could see it peeking out of his shoulder holster, which was still hanging from the back of Madame’s Duncan Phyfe chair.

  “Mike?” I called, stepping into the hallway.

  Before I could tap on the bathroom door, it swung open. The man himself filled the frame. His hair was damp and slicked back, his skin shimmering with shower dew. Around his hips, he’d tucked one of my fluffy white bath towels.

  Forcing my attention away from the glistening slab of naked cop, I focused instead on King Kong (what my staff called the largest cup we stocked).

  “Here you go,” I said, lifting the twenty-ounce behemoth. “The Blend’s Depth Charge for your eye-opening pleasure.”

  The King Kong DC was a triple espresso poured into a giant Breakfast Blend—essentially a java boilermaker. It was also the highest-caffeinated drink we served. A café in Brooklyn actually slung a ten-shot espresso they called the dieci (“ten” in Italian). The café’s customers dubbed it “porn in a cup,” but I refused to carry a similar monstrosity.

  Back in art school, one of my professors had impressed me with his love of ancient Greece, whose citizens had inscribed Nothing in Excess on their great shrine of Delphi. Certainly Athenians would have poo-pooed the dieci. But my objection had less to do with a philosophy of moderation than a baseline of quality: by the time the fifth double was pulled for the beverage, the espresso’s crema and texture were completely destroyed.

  So, okay, our super-large speedball wasn’t the sort of drink coffee connoisseurs ordered, either. Consumers of it veered toward the bleary-eyed NYU law student, night-shift beat cop, and overworked RN—but we had our standards.

  Mike set down the razor he was holding and knocked back almost half of the twenty-ouncer (a feat in itself).

  “Your hazelnut bars are on the kitchen counter,” I said, thinking how sexy his hair looked wet. Probably because it appeared darker, which seemed more dangerous. (Stupid? Yes. But who can argue with libido?)

  “Thanks,” he said, and raised the giant cup. “This is outstanding.”

  I smiled. “I thought I’d find you in bed.”

  He arched an eyebrow. “Disappointed?”

  “Yes. I am.”

  “Well, no cause for that. You found me didn’t you?”

  He leaned down. I backed up. “Sorry,” I said, stiff-arming him. “As much as I’d like to, the morning I had was . . .” I shuddered, thinking of that laundry bin. “I need to clean up.”

  He laughed and tugged back the wet shower curtain. “Tub’s free.”

  “Oh no. Not with you in here shaving.”

  “You don’t trust me to control myself?”

  I looked him over, sighed. “It’s not you I’m worried about.”

  “Well, okay. Now we’re talking.”

  “And that’s all we’re doing. You have an important meeting, and I have an endless day ahead.”

  I turned to leave. He caught my arm. “Stay. Keep me company.” He threw me a sweet leer. “You can keep your clothes on.”

  “Gee, thanks.”

  “You’re welcome . . .” He flipped on the hot water. I leaned against the doorjamb, watched him lather up.

  The shaving kit was Mike’s, of course. He kept personals here just as I kept things at his place.

  “So . . .” Mike said, as he rinsed his razor. “What was that urgent call about?”

  “Call?” The last thing I wanted to discuss. “Oh, nothing,” I said, making nothing sound lighter than pink cotton candy. “No big deal. Not important.”

  Mike turned, met my eyes. “You’re actually trying that with me?”

  So much for playing a man who interviews perps for a living. I cleared my throat. “Madame and Alicia—they had a . . . problem.” There, that was true.

  “What problem? Clare, what exactly did you deal with this morning?”

  “Deal with? Well, let’s see . . .” A disappearing dead body, a skeevy hotel burglar, two agitated detectives, and a wildly duplicitous business associate.

  “It really just boils down to advice. The women needed to speak with someon
e who had friends in the NYPD.”

  He stared. “Am I going to owe someone a major favor?”

  “No. Actually, it’s the other way around. Two gold badges now owe me one.”

  Soles and Bass had received so many handshakes and back pats at the Seventeenth you would have thought they’d brought in all ten of the FBI’s most wanted instead of some two-bit hotel bagman.

  “Okay.” Mike appeared relieved—and intrigued. “You’re going to fill me in on the details later, right?”

  “Yes, of course, when you don’t have a meeting with the first deputy commissioner to make.” I tapped my watch and he went back to shaving. Then his gaze found mine in the mirror.

  “I can’t wait to hear who owes you this favor.” His eyes were smiling.

  “You seem in good spirits, considering what you told me this morning.”

  “That’s because I was conflicted earlier this morning. Now I’m resigned.”

  “To what?”

  “Resigning.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “The way I figure it,” he said, “the Fourteenth Floor already knows how this story is shaping up in the press—”

  Mike was referring to the police commissioner’s office, which was located on the fourteenth floor of One Police Plaza—a location he also called the “Puzzle Palace.” (I always thought “Puzzle Palace” was what soldiers called the Pentagon. “They do,” Mike once explained to me, “but when New York cops use it, they mean police headquarters, especially when NYPD administrators issue politically motivated directives that are a complete puzzle to the rank and file.”)

  “Just to be clear,” I interrupted. “This news story you’re talking about—it’s that young artist, right? The one who killed himself yesterday by jumping into his own painted bull’s-eye on a Brooklyn sidewalk?”

  “Yes. My guess is . . . the commissioner’s people have been monitoring incoming questions from the press. The angle could be bad.”

  “In what way?”

  “The press could be gearing up to spin the NYPD as the big villain of the story.”

  “I don’t understand. How can you be the villain?”

  “My guys were the ones who handled the kid after his fiancée died of a drug overdose. Sully and Franco were the ones who nailed him down as a key witness against a Jersey drug dealer doing business in our jurisdiction, and they’ll be the ones accused of mishandling the boy.”

  “Mishandling?”

  “Pressuring, harassing, coercing—driving him to suicide.”

  As Mike dragged the razor across his cheek, I took a breath.

  “They didn’t, did they?” (I hated asking, but I had to know.)

  Mike’s body went rigid. “I went over everything, Clare, all night long. Every report, every statement, every phone call and follow-up. Franco and Sully did everything right. They called in Social Services for the kid, offered him witness protection—which he declined. They took his statement, left him their phone numbers, and moved along.”

  “But this morning you said there was something that concerned you about their interview.”

  “The kid’s timeline, that’s all. I needed firmer statements from him on the fiancée who OD’d—exactly when she’d taken the drugs he’d bought for her, how long he’d been making purchases, and more specifics as to how and where the purchases were made. He’d answered all of that on the initial interview, but his statements were too vague. I needed more to launch official surveillance and an undercover sting. At the time, right after the girlfriend’s death, Franco and Sully simply didn’t want to push the kid too hard.”

  “They did everything right,” I quietly echoed.

  “They did. So if the first deputy commish wants a head, he can have mine.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “I’m volunteering to step down as head of the squad.”

  “Mike, no! You love your job.”

  “I’m not passing the buck, Clare. I can’t live with that.”

  “Can you live with a demotion? A public censure?”

  “It won’t be public. We did everything right, and the Fourteenth Floor isn’t stupid enough to open us up for a raft of civil suits, although that usually happens anyway. This is internal stuff I’m talking about. I’ll still be on the force. I’ll just be reassigned to precinct work, probably Siberia. Some outer borough desk—”

  “I can’t believe your captain would let that happen!”

  Mike’s laugh was sharp. “My captain was the one who told me to take this meeting solo. He expects me to offer up one of my crew to the political gods. That’s why I came in here so wrecked. But then I slept on it, and when I woke up, I had my answer. I don’t have to sacrifice anybody’s career but my own.”

  “Mike, no—”

  “That’s it. My decision’s made.”

  I wanted to talk him out of it, but I couldn’t think how. Then my pocket started ringing. “Listen, there must be another way—”

  “Answer your phone, Clare.” He gently squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll see you at the party tonight. I’ve got to get going.”

  As he moved toward the bedroom, I pulled out my cell, checked the screen to see who was calling—although I really didn’t need to, the La bohème ringtone was signal enough.

  I had so many questions (not to mention unbridled rants) for my former mother-in-law, I didn’t know where to start. I took a breath, let the call go to voice mail, and stepped into the bathroom.

  A long, hot shower, that’s where I start.

  Nine

  Planning was overrated. She knew that now. The goal itself was paramount.

  “Unexpected hurdles may spring up tonight,” she whispered to the image in the bathroom mirror, “but you must remain calm, evaluate quickly, counter with flexibility . . .”

  Her first execution had taught her that.

  She’d written out everything three years before—details worthy of a textbook flowchart. The result was a rough job at best. Stealing that van, for instance, had been harder than she thought, then pacing the judge’s SUV, lining up the accident . . . so much had been trickier than she’d anticipated. Luckily, on winter nights, most of the roads around the country club of Bay Creek Village were dark and empty.

  With the “fatal crash” coming down as little more than a fender bender, improvisation became the order of the day. Idling the engine on the stolen van, she waited for just the right moment. When the judge stumbled out of her banged-up vehicle, down went the gas pedal!

  The morning news called it an accident, “a terrible, tragic, hit- and-run . . .”

  Boo-hoo for the judge’s husband and family—the same family that cared not a whit about the fate of her own!

  By the next day, the idiot box was spinning the story another way: “Police are investigating the suspicious hit-and-run that killed longtime Long Island judge . . .”

  “The authorities,” she was continually told, were “actively looking” for the driver. “Was it a tragic accident?” the anchor posited. “Or a premeditated act of vengeance?”

  Day after day, it went on. She’d been sick in the bathroom for most of it. The police were going to find her! She was sure of it. They would drag her to prison like her poor mother!

  But no one came for her. No one. And the relief was transcendent . . .

  She waited after that—an entire year. Then she struck again, her very own act two. The second kill had been as problematic as the first, but she’d succeeded.

  Once more, subsequent news reports seemed unfair, relentless, at times even ridiculous, but there was no getting sick in the bathroom. For some reason, she found the second evacuation much easier to swallow.

  No one came for her, of course, and she felt even freer to do as she pleased. Still, she wasn’t stupid. She went back to waiting, this time even more than a year . . .

  And now the waiting was over.

  The world was her stage again, her theater for new trials. “Tonight,” she confided
to the mirror. “Tonight begins act three . . .”

  Ten

  “I can’t believe you slapped me!”

  Esther glared at Tucker, shaking her reddening hand, though she managed to hold on to the cookie she’d purloined from his silver tray.

  “If you touch another Cappuccino Kiss,” Tuck warned, “I’ll whack your fingers again.”

  “There’s no another. That was my first.”

  My two senior baristas had been bickering since we got here. Happily, there were no witnesses. Arriving guests were immediately ushered into the rooftop Garden while we set up inside.

  And where was inside, exactly? The seventh floor of a skyscraper in the legendary Rockefeller Center, a sprawling complex in midtown Manhattan, home of the GE Building and NBC television.

  I had to admit, Alicia chose an impressive address to launch her new product. Crowning this art deco tower was “the Top of the Rock,” a multistory observation deck, somewhat lesser known than the Empire State Building but with equally breathtaking panoramas. Down here on the seventh floor, the Loft & Garden served as a popular space for society weddings and corporate parties. On the east end of this glorified rectangle sat the open-air Garden. It boasted a fountain and reflecting pool. At the west end was the Loft interior with floor-to-ceiling windows and space enough for a reception of two hundred.

  As twilight deepened into darkness, the tall windows treated us to views of Radio City’s neon marquee and the fairylike lights of Rock Plaza’s courtyard, where a bronze-cast statue of Prometheus attempted to offer the gift of fire to oblivious tourists strolling below.

  From what I remembered of the Greek myth, in repayment for Prometheus’s heroic act of bequeathing fire to humankind, Zeus ordered him chained to a rock where an eagle visited him daily to dine on his liver.

  No good deed goes unpunished sprang to mind. Mike occasionally muttered the aphorism in reference to police work.

  Today I knew why.

  Mike’s visit to the NYPD’s version of Mount Olympus was certainly over by now, but he had yet to return my call. With every passing hour, I worried a little more. Sure, Mike sounded firm in his decision to protect Sully and Franco by resigning, but that was only in theory. In my experience, hard facts hit you in the face with a whole lot more impact than airy little theories.