“So,” I pried, “your bosses really decided they could let you off, after all?”
“Why do you ask that way?”
“Oh, because the way you changed plans last week, your grandmother seemed to think a boy was involved.”
Joy’s expression faltered. “I didn’t want to say anything.”
Aha! “What happened?”
“I met a guy. He’s French.”
Big surprise.
“We work together on the brigade, so we’ve spent a lot of time together—”
Score two for Grandma. Man, she can really call it . . .
“He’s so cool, Mom. He and I really hit it off . . .”
“But then?”
“But then he bailed on me. He was supposed to come home on this trip so you and everyone could meet him. But at the last minute, he said he didn’t want to come. He said if I had any delusions about his moving to America, we needed to stop seeing each other.” Joy’s eyes were filling with tears. “I think he just got scared . . . and then I didn’t want to come home, either. It felt like he totally ruined the holidays for me.”
“Sit down,” I said. She did and I put my arm around her. “I’m glad you told me. And I’m glad you decided to come home anyway.”
“Why are men such jerks?”
“Women are jerks, too. We’re all jerks when it comes to relationships. At one time or another we all let each other down. The miracle is when we figure out how to love each other anyway.”
Joy rested her head on my shoulder. “I’m glad I came home, Mom.”
“Me, too, honey.”
EARLY the next morning, Joy found me at the bathroom sink. She was already dressed in stressed denims and a sweater straight out of her suitcase, wrinkles and all.
“Mom? You’re up already?”
“I didn’t want to wake you, honey. It’s not even six. Go back to sleep, you must be exhausted.”
Joy shook out her newly grown long hair and reached into her pocket for an elastic band, automatically securing it into a tight, kitchen-ready ponytail.
“I’m still on French time,” she said, “so my internal clock’s gone completely to merde. Since I’m up, I thought I’d help around the coffeehouse today. That okay?”
I was still flying from last night’s reunion, and Joy’s words sent me soaring even higher. I was so happy she was home for the holidays, and here she was asking to spend the whole day with me? It was the best Christmas gift I could ever get.
She pointed to the sink. “What are you doing with Frothy’s jingle bell pillow?”
“Oh, Java got territorial. She sprayed the thing. It’s too bad. The two girls were getting along otherwise . . .”
Last night, a purring Frothy even curled up next to my bigger, older Java at the foot of my bed. But this morning, I found Java tinkling all over Santa’s embroidered sleigh.
“I don’t think Java liked the smell of this thing,” I said, “but then it did come from a strange apartment . . .” (With a dead guy in it, but I left that part out.) “I’ll give it a good soaking in strong soap, wash it out—that should do the trick.”
“What can I do? Make coffee?”
“Not here. You can start opening downstairs, though. Our bakery delivery guy should be here in the next half hour.”
“No problem, Mom. I’ll take care of it.” Smiling, Joy grabbed the coffeehouse keys off the table in the hall. “See you downstairs!”
I searched Frothy’s pillow for a zipper, planning to soak the inside and covering separately. But there was no zipper, just a tear in the fabric that had been closed with a safety pin. I unclipped it, and a flat, green, oval-shaped capsule clattered onto the tile floor—
What the heck is this?
I picked up the little green capsule and realized it was a flash drive, a portable computer storage device. It looked just like the flash drives I used to back up my laptop data. I put the device on the sink and searched the kitty pillow until I was satisfied it would yield no more secrets. Then I washed my hands and hurried down to the computer inside my small office on the second floor of the Blend.
I plugged the flash drive into my computer. It contained a single folder labeled CC.
“CC again?” I whispered. “Me? Clare Cosi?”
Uneasily, I opened the folder and a series of thumbnail images appeared, dated and arranged in progression.
“Macy’s Thanksgiving’s Day Parade?” I murmured, confused.
I clicked through pictures of the parade marching by an Upper West Side apartment building. Then I stopped and stared at a close-up of a man. The man’s face was familiar to me—and millions of other American women.
Oh my God. The “CC” in the note I’d found—the one in Karl Kovic’s coat pocket—it didn’t stand for Clare Cosi! It stood for this handsome TV celebrity who was laughing with an attractive young woman, one who was clearly not his wife.
The next image was a close-up of the young woman. I recognized her as Waverly “Billie” Billington, the famous “Pilgrim’s Daughter” heiress who died of a prescription drug overdose on Thanksgiving night. She was the victim in the case Mike was working on.
Just then I heard someone knock on the locked door downstairs. The bakery delivery must be arriving . . .
“I’ll take care of this, Mom!” Joy called.
“Okay, thanks,” I yelled back. As the jingle-jingle of the front door sounded, I placed a call to Mike Quinn’s cell.
“Clare?” Quinn said, his voice sleep-groggy. “Are you okay?”
“Mike, I just solved your Pilgrim’s Daughter case. And Alf’s and Kovic’s murders, too. And maybe even your cold case from last Thanksgiving—”
“Clare, sweetheart, have you been drinking?”
“No! Listen! I found Karl Kovic’s computer flash drive! He was hiding it inside a Santa Claus jingle bell pillow! It has digital photos on it. The link you needed is here, Mike.”
“What link? I don’t understand—”
“I’m looking at a series of images on my computer screen. They show a big TV celebrity laughing with Billie Billington on Thanksgiving Day. The two must have met at that parade-watching party Billie attended hours before she overdosed. And I’m willing to bet that party was thrown by Dickie Celebratorio. He probably even provided the drugs for the two to party with—”
“Whoa, Clare, slow down. Where did this all take place?”
“Karl Kovic shot this footage on the Upper West Side with what looks like a powerful zoom lens. He was using the pictures for blackmail. That’s why he was murdered. These images show the movements of the TV star he was blackmailing.”
“Who is this guy? What’s his name?”
I told Quinn but he didn’t watch much TV. “Believe me,” I assured him, “the guy’s famous! Anyway, the images show him talking to Billie Billington on the street, but then he walks off alone in another direction. More photos show the man buying junk food at a deli and ducking into an alley. He makes a cell call and then, lo and behold, Billie Billington appears in the alley, holding open the building’s side service door. The famous man slips inside, bypassing the lobby!”
“Billie slipped him into her building?”
“Yes! That’s why the woman’s doorman didn’t see anyone go into her apartment! She sneaked this famous guy inside by way of the building’s side service entrance! This is it! You can use this evidence to demand DNA and fingerprints from this man. No lawyer can protect him now! And then you can prove his guilt when you match his DNA to the crime scenes and maybe even his fingerprints to the gun that Franco recovered in Alf’s murder!”
Quinn finally caught up. “I’m coming, Clare. I’ll call Hong and Franco, too. Tell them to meet me at the Blend. Stay where you are.”
I figured it would take Mike at least ten minutes to get from his apartment in the East Village to my West Village coffeehouse. Feeling a combination of triumph and relief, I decided I’d finally earned my first cup of morning joe.
&nbs
p; I knew everything now. Shane the elf had been hired by Dickie Celebratorio to trail Karl, the Traveling Santa. But Shane had made an error. He didn’t know there were two Traveling Santas living at the same address. So when Alf Glockner left the building, Shane mistakenly followed Alf instead. Then Shane gave his report on Alf’s routine to Dickie, who turned around and gave it to the killer, who followed Alf and shot him.
Of course, Alf wasn’t blackmailing anyone! Killing Alf was a mistake—one the killer obviously figured out because he caught up with the right Santa, Karl Kovic, a week later. But the killer didn’t have the chance to search Karl’s apartment long enough to find the evidence. I did!
“Mom!” Joy called, her voice sounding a little odd. “Can you come down?”
I was halfway down the spiral staircase when I saw him—
“I’m sorry, Mom,” Joy whispered. “I thought he was the delivery guy.”
Chaz Chatsworth, costar of The Chatsworth Way and the featured performer in Karl Kovic’s little flash-drive slide-show, stood behind my daughter. His left arm was wrapped around her throat in a choke hold; his right hand held a gun to her head. Joy’s wrists were bound behind her back.
“My God . . .”
“I want what you took from Kovic’s apartment,” Chatsworth told me evenly.
Mr. Charm’s signature snowy hair was hidden under a baseball cap. He wore a fake brown beard and mustache and tinted eyeglasses. His cheap sweatpants and sneakers were the color of night.
I stared in shock at the man. Ten minutes until Mike gets here. Maybe forty seconds have passed since I hung up. Nine minutes at least. An eternity—
“Did you hear me, Ms. Cosi?” Chatsworth drove the weapon into Joy’s temple with enough force to make her cry out.
“You son of a bitch! Leave her alone.”
“Do you want her to die?”
“No!”
“I saw you there last night,” Chatsworth said. “Do you hear me? I saw you in Kovic’s apartment.”
I swallowed hard. This creep shot two men to death in cold blood. No matter what I said or did, I knew he was going to kill Joy and me, too. I had to stall—give Mike the time to get here—and the only bargaining chip I had was the flash drive in my pocket. The second Chatsworth got it, I knew he’d have no reason to keep my daughter and me alive.
“Yes, okay, I was there last night,” I slowly admitted. I glanced at the wall clock; another minute gone, another minute for Mike to get here. “And I found Kovic’s body . . . but I just called the police. That’s all—”
“Don’t lie to me,” Chaz snapped. “I waited outside until the police came. When they didn’t show right away, I knew you and that guy in the tux were searching for the pictures.”
I remembered Shane Holliway and his dumb soap star act. “What pictures? I don’t know what you mean—”
Chatsworth’s arm tightened around Joy’s throat.
“Please, don’t hurt her,” I said. “She has nothing to do with all this. She doesn’t know anything. I’m the one who can help you. Just let her go—”
“Maybe I will, if you tell me something. Come on, Clare. Tell me something that will make me happy.”
“It was the kitten! The man you saw—he took the cat from Kovic’s apartment.”
Chaz frowned. “The man in the tux was carrying a pet carrier and a cardboard box. I heard him tell the cab driver to take him to the Village Blend. I want the contents of that box or your daughter dies.”
Yeah, I’ll give you the contents of that box, asshole. “That box was full of cat crap!”
Chatsworth’s nostrils flared as he tightened his choke hold on Joy. “Don’t you know that six out of ten American men experience anger when a woman lies to them!”
He’s losing it! He’s choking her! “Okay, you win!” I shouted. “Here’s what you came for!” As slowly as I could, I pulled Karl’s secret flash drive out of my pocket and held it up.
“I want your computer, too,” Chaz said. “And I’m pretty sure I’ll find it upstairs with the little girl’s help. Lights out now, Clare. I don’t need you anymore.”
“What are you going to do?” Joy screamed.
“Early-morning robbery, cute thing,” Chaz replied. “Mother and daughter dead. A tragedy.”
Joy struggled, but Chatsworth tightened his grip again, until she could hardly breathe, let alone fight.
My fists clenched. There was no time left. Nowhere near time for Mike to get here. I had to do something.
“Mom goes first,” Chatsworth said. “So I can have a little fun with daughter before I put her lights out.”
He slowly shifted the gun until I was staring down the barrel. I’ll die, I decided, that’s what I’ll do. I’ll run at him, take the bullets, give my Joy a chance to get away—
I was about to lunge when I heard the loud boom!
A gun went off, I was sure of it, but I wasn’t shot—and then I realized Chatsworth was the one reeling, blood spurting from his shoulder.
But who shot him?!
The noise of falling glass caught my attention. I looked up to see a familiar silhouette through the cracked window-pane. Mike! I tore Joy away from Chatsworth’s grip and pulled her to the ground, out of the line of fire.
Glass exploded inward as Mike Quinn came through the French doors, firing two more shots as he moved. Bullets ripped Chaz Chatsworth, twisting him around until his limp body crashed into a café table.
Quinn stood over the dead man, his weapon smoking but steady in both hands. His clothes were rumpled, a five o’clock shadow on his cheeks and chin. He kicked the gun away from Chatsworth’s dead fingers and faced me.
“Are you okay?” he asked, his voice tight with emotion.
I helped Joy to her feet and nodded. “We’re both okay. How did you get here so fast?”
“I never left,” he told me. “I was sleeping in my car outside when your call woke me. I would have fired sooner, but I couldn’t get a clear shot until he took the gun away from Joy’s head.”
Five minutes later, Emmanuel Franco climbed through the shattered window, followed by his partner, Charlie Hong. For a few silent seconds, we all stared down at the dead celebrity. Then Franco turned to me and asked—
“Who the hell is he?”
“It’s a long story, detective,” I said with a sigh. “And I’ll be happy to start at the beginning. But first I’m going to need a really big cup of coffee.”
EPILOGUE
“LOOK up.”
Mike Quinn’s whisper tickled my ear as I began pulling two new shots behind the espresso bar. I glanced toward the ceiling to find a small bunch of green herbs dangling above my head.
“What is that?”
“Mistletoe.”
I laughed. “Mike, that is not mistletoe.”
“No?”
I sniffed the flat-leaf bouquet. “It’s Italian parsley!”
“Really?” Quinn pointed across the Blend’s crowded main floor. “Your former mother-in-law assured me it was mistletoe.”
Madame, looking stunning tonight in a jade and burgundy ensemble, gave us a little wave. I shook my finger at her. She laughed, then turned to rejoin Otto, Matt, and Breanne.
“So what does that mean?” Quinn complained. “Are you telling me I’m not getting a Christmas kiss out of this?”
“Not a mistletoe kiss, no. Now shoo, Detective, and let me work . . .”
It was Christmas Eve and the Village Blend was packed with Santas—Traveling Santas. After the crime-scene cleanup, I’d called Brother Dom and suggested something that would cleanse the Blend’s karma: a party for the men and women who’d been working so hard to bring the spirit of the holidays to the needy of the city.
Once Brother Dom and his crew finished their Christmas Eve rounds at the shelters, churches, and soup kitchens, I invited them here for Fa-la-la-la Lattes and an avalanche of cookies baked by my baristas.
Brother Dom was thrilled to accept the offer, as well as the check fr
om Madame for his charity. But that wasn’t the biggest donation. After finding out about Dexter Beatty’s and Omar Linford’s little scheme to cheat the city, I phoned Omar and strongly suggested he give back a little. Or even better, a lot.
Linford quickly—even happily—wrote the check for Brother Dom. He didn’t even mind hearing from me again (a miracle, because I’d been responsible for having his son busted). It seemed the arrest finally put the fear of the DEA into Dwayne Linford. He stopped fighting his dad and agreed to enroll in college for that music degree. At last, Dwayne’s nights of club hopping were finished (for a while, anyway) and for that, Omar was grateful.
With Chatsworth dead—and his DNA and fingerprints not only linking him to Alf’s and Karl’s murders, but also the Pilgrim’s Daughter and Cora Arnold OD cases—you’d think Madame’s friend Mr. Dewberry was finished, too. But Phyllis Chatsworth had just been handed the publicity bonanza of a lifetime.
Within days of her husband’s death, she’d tearfully appeared on every major interview show in the country. Her instant prime-time special, Phyllis: How to Survive the Unthinkable , just got the green light for development into a new weekday talk show. Her executive producer? James Young.
Dickie Celebratorio (aka Richard Torio) was facing a number of charges that he considered unthinkable. But the DA’s office had solid testimony to back up their charges of accessory to murder, among others.
With the promise of immunity, Shane Holliway agreed to testify that Dickie had hired him to surveil Alf Glockner two days in a row before he was shot to death by Chaz Chatsworth (the recovered fingerprints on the gun confirmed Chaz as the killer). The TV talk show host had used Shane’s lousy PI report to follow the wrong Santa.
And then there was Heidi Gilcrest, that pretty, young Chatsworth Way production assistant who always made sure Chaz got his junk food. She tearfully agreed to testify that whenever she and Chaz slept together, Dickie was the one who’d provided the recreational drugs—the very same drug that ended up killing Billie Billington and Cora Arnold.
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