by Cleo Coyle
“The man was murdered then? For sure?” I paced back and forth, in front of the fire.
“The autopsy results aren’t in yet, but there’s evidence the man’s clothes were torn before he went over the balcony. It looks like he struggled with someone before taking the plunge.”
“And your colleagues in Midtown think Matt did it?”
“They know he was angry at Hernandez and threatened him physically. It doesn’t look good, but they’re going to need more than that to get the DA to charge him. They also know Ric Gostwick had a motive, although no one at the party remembers seeing him go out on the balcony.”
“What about Ellie? What happened to her, Mike?”
He held my eyes a moment, then looked away, into the flames. “I shouldn’t discuss the details . . .”
“Please. You know I was her friend.”
“I know.”
“And you know you can trust me . . . don’t you?”
Mike rubbed his eyes for a long, silent minute. “She was found naked,” he said quietly, “although it looked like she’d had a bath towel around her and had just finished showering. No sexual assault. The physical evidence leads us to believe that she’d made love with someone in the room’s bed, showered, and then was attacked. She struggled—there are signs of it on her body. We’ve got blood and tissue under her fingernails. We’ve got a contusion at the base of her skull, and hairs and bits of blood on the edge of a heavy chest of drawers where it appears she struck her head.”
“Oh, god.”
“That’s enough—”
“No! Please, keep going, Mike . . . How did you find her body . . . you know, when you first came into the room? Was it near the chest of drawers where you found the bits of blood and hair?”
“No . . . we found her . . . I’m sorry, Clare, we found her hanging by an electrical cord from the shower curtain rod.”
“What?”
“The killer tried to make it look like she’d hung herself. He did a piss poor job of it, too. We didn’t need an autopsy to see that hanging wasn’t the cause of death, that the scene had been clumsily manipulated.”
“You said he. Are you sure it was a man?”
“The injuries, the way the body was hung. If it wasn’t a man, it was a pretty strong woman.”
I thought of Monika Van Doorn . . . the woman looked tall and strong, all right. And she’d arrived well after Ric. Could she have gone to Ric’s room, looking for him, found Ellie, and flown into a rage? I told Quinn as much. He pulled out his detective’s notebook and jotted down her name for follow up. I mentioned Norbert Usher, too, Ellie’s slightly creepy Eddie Haskell-esque assistant.
“Norbert was at the Beekman event, too. I remember seeing him there.”
He scribbled the name.
“And while that notebook’s out,” I continued. “I have something else to tell you.”
“Shoot,” he said. His eyes found mine. “Not literally.”
“Don’t even try to make this easier.”
“Tell me.”
I gave him the condensed tale of what I’d discovered earlier in the week—how I’d talked to Ellie at the Botanic Garden, followed her to the V Hotel, saw her meeting Rick, but also saw a man tailing her.
Mike sat up straighter. “Where did you follow him?”
“An agency near the United Nations. They’re called Worldwide Private Investigations, and I spoke to a Mr. Anil Kapoor.”
“Spell it all for me . . .”
Mike wrote everything down. “This is a solid lead, Clare. I’ll phone my partner. We’ll go there first thing in the morning.”
“I want to go with you. Mr. Kapoor will remember me. He’ll probably be more willing to talk once he sees I’m your witness.”
“Okay.”
“And one more thing. Have you looked at Ellie’s husband as a suspect?”
“We always do in cases like this, as a matter of course, but Jerry Lassiter has an alibi.”
“Well, look hard at that alibi—and any associates Lassiter might have hired to hurt his wife—because Worldwide Private Investigations lists TerraGreen International as a client.”
“TerraGreen?” Mike flipped through his notebook.
“That’s the company where Lassiter’s a VP.”
“That’s right . . . so how could you pick up Matt?” I heard myself snapping. I couldn’t help it. I was extremely tired, it was very late, and my feelings toward Quinn had been a mixed bag for a long time. “Do you really believe he had anything to do with something so awful?”
“Let’s leave my assessment of your ex’s character out of this, okay?” His tone was strained now, too, and a little defensive. “I had enough circumstantial evidence to grill him, and you know it. The hotel room was registered in his name, and his clothes were there. We even found his monogrammed handkerchief.”
“Ric borrowed those clothes!”
“We know. We know the whole story now, Matt gave us every detail. It was Ric’s room, and Ric was having an affair with Ellie.”
“So Matt’s off your ‘persons of interest’ list?”
“We won’t get DNA results for a while, but we already have a blood type on the tissue under her fingernails. It’s not Matt’s type.”
“What about Ric?”
“It’s not Ric’s, either. He’s the same type as Matt. Neither man appeared to have been the person Ellie Lassiter struggled with before she died.”
“So Ric and Matt are both off the hook?” I pressed.
“For Ellie,” Mike said. “But not for Hernandez. Midtown’s making the call on charging someone for that . . . it could be Matt or Ric . . . or neither.”
“Oh, god . . .”
“You’ll know soon, Clare. They won’t hold those guys long. They can’t. Habeas corpus, you know? And they won’t dare make a charge until they know the DA can make it stick in court. Just hang in there.”
I sighed, rubbed my neck, which was still sore.
“Come here,” Mike said quietly. “Sit down, try to relax.”
I sat next to him. He put one strong hand on my neck, used his fingers to gently loosen the muscles.
“Oh, Mike . . . that feels good . . .”
The warmth of the fire felt good, too, and the warmth of Mike’s strong leg against mine. I closed my eyes. My hand lightly settled on top of his thigh. The moment I touched him, I heard his sharp breath. I opened my eyes. This wasn’t a dream. Mike was really here. He was bending toward me, his mouth covering mine. The kiss was sweet and hungry and a little desperate for both of us.
I wasn’t the one to break off first.
Mike stared into the glowing hearth, put his arm around me, tucked me close against him. “Let’s take it slow,” he said.
“I like the sound of let’s . . . you know, you and me . . . plural.”
Mike laughed. “I like the sound of it, too, Clare. But I want it to be right between us . . . long and slow and beautiful, not here . . . not like this.”
“You mean not with two unsolved murders on the table and my ex-husband in custody?”
“Yeah . . .” He exhaled. “You know my personal life’s been in flux. God . . .” He cursed softly. “Why mince words? It’s been a hell of a mess for a long time. I never wanted to bring you into my mess. I didn’t think it was fair. And now I’m living like a college kid again, out of my old home, into this spare apartment . . .”
I smiled. “How spare?”
“Nothing I want you to see.”
“Come on, how bad could it be? A mattress on the floor? A bare lightbulb.”
“Close, Cosi. Very close.”
“Well, you could always ask me to help you decorate the place. I’m not bad at it, you know?”
“I don’t want you to be my interior decorator, Clare. I want you . . .” His voice trailed off. “I just want you.”
“I want you, too, Mike.”
“And it’ll be right between us soon . . . I promise.”
I cou
ldn’t argue with him. This guy was a romantic. That was okay. So was I.
We closed our eyes then. We were both exhausted, and in a few minutes, we dozed off. When I woke again, about twenty minutes later, Mike was sleeping soundly, and I realized the Blend’s second floor couch was about to become a temporary bed for another lost soul.
I rose, letting his body fall gently into a reclined position. I removed his shoes, went to my office, and looked for the thick wool throw I kept there. Back at the fireplace, I covered Mike’s lanky form, kissed his cheek. Then I wished him sweet dreams and climbed the back stairs to find my own bed.
TWENTY-TWO
BLEARY eyed, I stumbled down the stairs at ten minutes to six to greet the baker’s truck. I didn’t even have time to brew a pot of the Village Breakfast Blend before I heard the delivery bell ring. I unlocked the door and held it open.
“Howya doin’, Ms. Cosi,” announced Joey, the delivery driver.
I inhaled the warm batches of muffins, croissants, bagels, and mini coffee cakes, and wondered what Quinn would like with his Breakfast Blend. I couldn’t ask him yet. When I came down to open the shop, he was still snoring on the couch.
I started the coffee, and was putting the pastries in the case when the bell above the door jingled. I peeked over the counter in confusion. We weren’t open yet, and I thought I’d relocked the door after Joey left.
When I glanced up, I saw Matt standing in the doorway, fumbling to get his keys out of the lock. Shoulders hunched, eyes bloodshot and weary, he seemed to have aged five years since the night before.
“Hey,” he said, noticing me behind the counter. Matt’s ever-present masculine bravado was gone. He seemed baffled and defeated.
“Coffee’s almost ready,” I replied, setting two cups on the counter.
Matt shook his head. “I need sleep. Not coffee.”
“No. You need to tell me what’s going on.”
He exhaled heavily, sat on a stool behind the coffee bar, and leaned his elbows on the marble countertop. The Breakfast Blend was finished and I poured. He took a sip, then two. Finally he swallowed a large gulp and set the half-empty cup on the counter.
I topped off his mug.
“I get it,” he said as I poured. “You’re trying to keep me caffeinated, so you can grill me.”
I smiled. He did, too. But I figured I had a limited amount of time before Matt crashed and burned, so I cut to the chase.
“What happened, Matt?”
He took another gulp. “Ellie’s dead.”
“I know . . .”
I let him tell me some of the things I already knew from talking to Quinn. Finally I interrupted, “How’s Ric taking Ellie’s death?”
“I only got to talk to Ric for a few minutes, but from what I can see he’s taking it pretty hard.” Matt rubbed his face with both hands. His flesh looked pale and clammy from lack of sleep. “Ric admitted to me that he and Ellie had made love Friday afternoon, to celebrate the rollout at the Beekman. I think he’s still in shock.”
“Do you think Ric was telling the truth?”
“About Ellie? Yes.”
“So the police let you go . . .”
“For now . . . Quinn believed me about Ellie. Or, at least, he pretended to. I told him what I knew about her relationships. And after your boyfriend was done with me, I thought I was free to go.” Matt sighed in disgust. “Man, was I wrong. Instead of being released, I was handed off to some blueblood flatfoot, if you can believe it, a detective named Fletcher Endicott. What a piece of work. I’ve decided the only thing worse than a street cop with an attitude is an Ivy League cop with an attitude.”
I remembered seeing the nattily-dressed detective in charge at the Beekman, the one with the glasses and the three-piece banker’s suit, though at the time I didn’t know his name. I was interrogated by his partner, a Detective Fox. He seemed fixated on the time of Hernandez’s death, kept trying to pinpoint the minute. I felt terrible for not knowing, but the moment a body lands on the sidewalk right in front of you, checking your watch is not the first thing that occurs to you.
“Endicott hauled me all the way up to Midtown East, so he could ‘interrogate me on his own turf’ as he put it, and I spent the rest of the wee hours denying I threw Hernandez off the balcony. Then they kicked me out.”
“So in the end, Detective Endicott let you go, too?”
“Believe me, he didn’t want to. I’m sure he’s looking for more evidence to officially charge me. Apparently, they’re going with Hernandez’s broken wristwatch as the time of death, and the girl in the Beekman’s kitchen was helping me find some aspirin around that time—so, for now, it looks like I might have an alibi. But I’ve been warned not to leave the country, so clearly I’m still on their ‘persons of interest’ list.”
I wasn’t surprised. “You did threaten the man publicly.”
Matt didn’t argue. He took another noisy gulp, draining his cup. “Detective Endicott’s still looking at Ric, too. I’m pretty sure they’re checking over his business visa and paperwork.”
It was the perfect segue, and I took it. “You said Ric was being honest about Ellie. You also hinted that there was something he wasn’t being honest about. Fill me in on that . . .”
“I heard things. Maybe it’s nothing,” Matt replied.
I could tell he was hedging. “Please, Matt. You have to be straight with me now. That’s the only way I can help.”
Matt looked down, sighed heavily. Finally he nodded.
“There’s a guy I know. Roger Mbele, a West African coffee broker. Last month I ran into him at Kennedy Airport and we got to talking. He already knew about Ric’s hybrid coffee plant and congratulated me on the exclusive deal. Then, yesterday afternoon, he calls me out of the blue to tell me that Dutch International just cancelled its order for three hundred bags of his green beans. Roger was stuck holding the bags—so to speak—and he wasn’t happy.”
“I don’t understand. Why did he call you?”
“Roger wanted to know why his deal collapsed, so he called the buyer at Dutch International’s corporate headquarters in Amsterdam. The buyer told Roger that the company would normally purchase his beans for decaf processing, but they didn’t need Roger’s green beans any longer because they’d just made a deal to sell beans that were already botanically decaffeinated, and they were expecting their first shipment in the next few weeks. That’s when he called me.”
“Is it possible that someone else came up with a similar product and beat Ric to the market?”
Matt stared down at his empty cup. “I think it might be worse than that.”
I didn’t get much sleep the night before. Maybe that was the reason, but I didn’t make the connection until Matt mentioned her name.
“Monika Van Doorn was with Ric at—”
“That woman!” I cried. “I saw her at the party, pawing up Ric!”
Matt nodded. “Now that her father’s passed away, she’s the head of Dutch International. That’s the first thing I thought of after I got Roger’s call.”
“So you think Ric made a deal with her?” I asked. “I thought the Village Blend had an exclusive distribution deal for the initial rollout?”
“So did I.”
“Is that what all those cell phone calls were about at the tasting last night? You think Ric is cheating you?”
“Not me, Clare. I have the hybrid beans in my warehouse. Enough to last six to eight months. Ric told me I had practically his entire harvest and I believed him. I still do . . .” Matt’s voice trailed off.
“So what were all those calls about last night? All those numbers you scribbled on pieces of paper?”
“I called a couple of growers, asked for some up to date numbers on Brazilian yields. Then I did a little calculating.”
I was anxious to hear Matt’s conclusions. I knew that coffee yields varied wildly among countries and regions. Factors like soil, weather, and irrigation techniques had as much influence on the qua
lity and quantity of coffee as they had on wine grapes. And yield per acre on robusta farms was generally twice that of farms that produced arabica (one reason, but not the only reason, why arabica beans were generally pricier).
“You know that Brazil is the number one producer of coffee in the world, right?” Matt said.
“Right.”
“The country averages around twenty million bags a year.”
I nodded. “At about one hundred pounds per bag.”
“One hundred and thirty-two,” Matt noted, “but there are problems in Brazil. For one thing, it’s the only high-volume coffee-producing nation subject to frost. And Brazilian estates have some of the lowest yields. In Hawaii they get over two thousand pounds of clean coffee per acre. In Brazil that average is less than nine hundred pounds per acre—which is up substantially from the four hundred pounds in the sixties, but not even close to equaling Hawaii’s output.”
Matt took out a pen and started writing on a napkin.
“The Gostwick Estate is fifty acres, but not all of their trees are mature. At best Ric is harvesting forty thousand pounds of clean hybrid coffee, probably less. So if he’s selling Dutch International three hundred bags, at one hundred thirty-two pounds a bag, that equals nearly twenty tons—Ric’s entire harvest and then some.”
Matt looked up from his scribbles. “These numbers don’t add up, Clare. Either Ric’s got another estate somewhere, which is possible but highly unlikely, or—”
I closed my eyes. “He’s perpetrating a fraud on Dutch International.”
Matt rose and began to pace. “Do you know what that means? I’m in partnership with Ric Gostwick. My reputation and the reputation of the Blend will be ruined along with him if word gets out.”
“What do we do, Matt? I’m in this with you, you know?”
He stopped pacing. “I know . . . and I have to tell you, Clare, I’m grateful you are.” He squinted. “Not that you’re in trouble, too, but that you’re here for me . . . here for me to talk to about all this, I mean . . . it’s a lot to deal with, and I’m . . .” He moved closer, sat down and took my hand. “I’d never tell anyone this but you,” he whispered, “but I . . . I’m scared.”
