Decaffeinated Corpse

by Cleo Coyle

  “It’s okay, Matt.” I squeezed his hand. “I’m here for you.”

  “I know, and I—”

  His words were interrupted by the sound of a man clearing his throat. Matt fell silent, turned abruptly to find Mike Quinn standing at the base of the wrought iron steps. The detective’s suit was rumpled from sleep, jacket slung over his shoulder, tie hanging loose.

  “What are you doing here?” Matt stood, his expression furious. “Are you here to take me in again? Why did you come back?”

  “What do you mean back?” Quinn replied, glancing momentarily at me. “I never left.”

  Matt glared at me in disbelief. I waited for the explosion, but when he opened his mouth to speak, no words came out.

  “He fell asleep on the couch, Matt,” I hastily explained. “Mike came here last night to tell me what was going on. He was so exhausted he passed out. That’s all.”

  “He passed out on the couch? You expect me to believe that? Well, I don’t, Clare!”

  “Matt, please calm—”

  “How could you do it?” he went on, clearly strung out beyond reason. “I’m getting a sleep deprivation third degree, and you’re . . . you’re entertaining the man who put me there—”

  “That’s enough, Allegro!” Mike finally roared. “Sit down and shut up!”

  Matt blinked, opened his mouth, then shut it again. With an exhausted exhale, he collapsed on a stool.

  “Why can’t I control him like that?” I muttered.

  “Listen to me, Allegro,” said Quinn. “I personally don’t believe you killed Ellie Lassiter or Carlos Hernandez. But others don’t share my opinion. That means I’m one of the few friends you’ve got, and you better take advantage of that fact, as soon as possible.”

  “Yeah? How?” Matt replied. “What exactly are you saying?”

  “I’m saying we should all work together to clear this mess up—for all of our sakes.”

  Matt stewed silently for a minute. Finally, he said, “What do you propose?”

  “For starters, I’m meeting my partner uptown, at the WPI agency office.”

  Matt squinted. “What agency office?”

  “Worldwide Private Investigations,” I said.

  “They’re the private eyes that Clare uncovered,” Quinn explained.

  I nodded. “They’re the ones who’ve been following Ellie Lassiter. Don’t you remember my telling you, Matt?”

  “Oh, god.” Matt held his head. “I do remember. It seems like ages ago.”

  “I think Ellie’s ex-husband hired them,” I said. “Frankly, I think he’s involved in her murder. He either killed her himself, or hired someone to do it for him, maybe the same someone who mugged Ric two nights ago.”

  Matt processed the information. “I’m going with you, Quinn.”

  “No you’re not. I’m the one going with him,” I said. “One look at me and the head of the agency won’t be able to deny anything. I sat right there in his office two days ago, asking about Ellie.”

  “And if he does deny it. We’ll get a warrant,” Mike assured me.

  “You’re staying here,” I told Matt. “There’s more important things to be done, and only you can do them.”

  “What things?” Matt’s tone was belligerent, but I couldn’t blame him. The man hadn’t exactly been partying all night.

  “I want you to call every coffee broker you know. Try to find out if Ric is buying beans.”

  Comprehension dawned on Matt’s exhausted face. “I understand where you’re going. Okay, I’m on it.”

  As Matt poured himself another mug of coffee, I grabbed my jacket. His “I’m on it” echoed through my head, and before I headed out the door with Mike, I almost told Matt that he was finally beginning to sound like his mother. But then I bit my tongue.

  As Matt began talking on his cell in a rough approximation of French, I decided that if anything could put Matt in a fouler mood than he was now, it was pointing out to him that he’d finally climbed aboard my Nancy Drew train.

  TWENTY-THREE

  WHEN I returned to the Blend, a throbbing sonic wall smacked me in the face at the front door. Someone had replaced the subtle sounds of Gardner’s smooth jazz program with the sort of thumping electro-synth fusion found in Euro-urban clubs. Not only was the music inappropriate, the volume was pumped to the limit. I approached Tucker at the espresso machine.

  “What’s this stuff coming out of the speakers?”

  Tucker directed his eyes to the ceiling, then rolled them. “There’s a man in the house.”

  “Matt?”

  Tuck nodded. “He’s taken over the upstairs lounge. I’m sending up an espresso shot every twenty minutes, and he’s getting more manic. The music started about half an hour ago. Thank god it’s not too busy. I think some of our regular customers would complain.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake . . . you don’t have to wait for a customer. I’m complaining. Right now. Put Gardner’s CD back on.”

  “But Matt told me—”

  “I’ll handle Matt.”

  With two espressos in hand, I climbed the stairs. I found Matt slumped in an armchair, surrounded by a half dozen espresso cups. His shoes were off, and a fire roared in the hearth. His laptop computer was open on the table. Matt nodded when I entered, ended his call to someone on the Commodities Exchange.

  “You’re recovering nicely,” I said.

  Matt frowned. “So, did you and the flatfoot get the goods on Jerry Lassiter?”

  I handed Matt the cup. With jittery hands, he added a large amount of sugar before he swallowed the demitasse in a single gulp.

  “What are you doing?” I asked. “You never add sugar.”

  “I do when I need to stay awake. Now tell me what happened.”

  “Well . . . Mike was in rare form. By the time he was finished talking, Mr. Kapoor was only too happy to cooperate with the NYPD. The bad news is that Jerry Lassiter didn’t employ the detectives. It was Carlos Hernandez.”

  Matt sat up. “Hernandez? Why?”

  “Apparently, Hernandez hired the agency to dig up evidence of biopiracy for a possible lawsuit against Ric and the Gostwick Estate.”

  Matt rubbed his eyes. “Then it must have been Hernandez who had Ellie killed. She was helping Ric file for the legal protection of his hybrid. That has to be what happened.”

  “Mike thinks so, too. They’re going to look for a blood type and DNA match with the crime scene evidence. But . . .”

  “But what?”

  “But what if Hernandez didn’t kill Ellie?”

  “Come on, Clare. It’s the only scenario that makes sense.”

  “Not so fast,” I said—an admittedly useless thing to say to someone as wired as Matt. “Isn’t the whole point of a civil lawsuit to be awarded monetary damages? Why would Hernandez want to mess up the progress of getting the hybrid to market? Wouldn’t it make more sense to let the decaffeinated plant be a success, then sue for a share of it? And if Hernandez killed Ellie, then who killed Hernandez?”

  The questions hung there for a moment. When I decided I’d given Matt enough time to come to the same conclusion I had, I answered my own question.

  “Could Ric have done it? Did he somehow find out about Ellie’s murder, and then take revenge on the man who killed her?”

  Matt shook his head. “Ric’s a lover, not a fighter. In all the years I’ve known him, I never saw him raise a hand to anyone. Not even guys who tried to provoke him. He always used his wits and charm to get out of a bad situation.”

  My memories of Ric validated Matt’s claim. After all, the man hadn’t exactly held his own against the mugger who’d attacked him a few nights ago, though by his own account Ric was taken by surprise and from behind.

  “Look,” Matt said. “Hernandez had a lot of enemies. I know about this guy, and he’s a real piece of work. Brawling at New York nightclubs. Hanging out with known drug dealers. Gambling debts. Running out on restaurant and nightclub bills. A guy like that
can make a lot of enemies.”

  “Then why did he come to the Beekman alone?” I said. “Why wouldn’t a man like that have a bodyguard with him?”

  “I don’t know, Clare, but if you ask me, Hernandez had it coming.”

  “Don’t talk like that! You’ll get arrested for suspicion again.”

  “Even if I had wanted to kill Hernandez, I would have had to get in line—a long one.”

  “I suppose it’s possible somebody with a grudge finished Hernandez off,” I said. “But I’d like to know the connection . . .”

  Matt had no reply. He was staring at a graph on his laptop screen. “I made a few connections of my own.”

  “Good news or bad?”

  Matt’s grim expression said it all. “Ric’s buying beans. Colombian beans. A good quality Bogotá. Only I know this little fact, but Ric was going for the taste and complexity of Bogotá beans when he developed his hybrid.”

  He paused. “It gets worse. Ric contracted a Mexican firm to decaffeinate the beans he bought. I just talked to a fellow in Chicago who confirmed that a Royal Select Company processing facility in Mexico will take a delivery of Ric’s Bogotá in a couple of days.”

  “The cutting!” I realized. “Now it makes sense!”

  “What?”

  “Remember the little hybrid cutting you helped Ric smuggle into the country?”

  “Yes?”

  “Well, Ric lied to me. He said he borrowed it from you to show to Ellie. But Ellie assured me that she never saw it. Ric must have borrowed that cutting to show to Monika Van Doorn and her people at Dutch International. I’m sure everyone was impressed, and Dutch International signed the contract. Now Ric is going to deliver beans. Only they’re not going to be from his hybrid decaf plants—”

  “They’re going to be Mexican water-processed decaffeinated Bogotá packed in Gostwick Estate Reserve Decaf bags,” Matt said, finishing my thought.

  I nodded. “It’s the Kona scandal all over again. Only this time you and I are right in the middle of it.”

  “But you didn’t do anything wrong,” Matt assured me. “It’s all my fault. I helped Ric smuggle the cutting, and I’m an accessory to fraud. Not you.”

  “I’m in this with you, Matt. Both of our reputations are on the line, not to mention the reputation of this coffeehouse. It’s ugly what Ric is doing, but we have to face it. The Village Blend is about to become a party to fraud.”

  Matt stood. “It isn’t fraud if it’s exposed. I’m going to pay a visit to Monika Van Doorn. I’m going to tell her what I know, and what I suspect. After that, it’s between her and Ric.”

  “But you don’t even know where the woman is staying.”

  “Yes I do. Mother’s invited to the Dutch International Halloween party tonight. The RSVP contact is a number at the Waldorf=Astoria. So I called the hotel and checked with the desk clerk. The Van Doorns have been staying in a suite for over a month.”

  I rose to join my ex-husband. “Let’s go.”

  OUTSIDE the weather was blustery; the storm from the night before hadn’t completely dissipated. Periods of menacing clouds were followed by flashes of blue skies. After I instructed Tucker to call in barista help, Matt and I flagged a cab on Hudson and rode uptown.

  The old, original Waldorf=Astoria was located where the Empire State Building now stands. The current structure is a forty-seven story art deco landmark on Park Avenue. The grand hotel has been a temporary home for kings, princes, and the über-wealthy. I was reminded of that fact when we exited the cab on Forty-ninth Street and saw the commemorative plaque affixed to the wall. (Former President Herbert Hoover and retired U.S. General Douglas MacArthur had both lived in Waldorf suites.)

  Matt paid the fare while I stepped into the crowd. I glanced up at the MetLife Building looming in the background. Then I glanced at the hotel’s majestic entrance and stopped short.

  Matt joined me on the sidewalk. “Let’s go.”

  “Wait,” I cried, dragging him off to the side.

  Matt resisted, so I pulled harder. “Clare, what’s the matter with you?”

  “That man, coming out of the hotel,” I whispered, trying not to point. “That’s Neils Van Doorn, Monika’s husband.”

  He followed my gaze. “No way, honey. Look at the way he’s dressed. Van Doorn always looks as if he just posed for a “Fashions of the Times” layout. That guy’s either a recent immigrant or a style-challenged tourist.”

  Matt was certainly right about the clothes. Neils wore a lime green polyester track suit and matching jacket over an orange sweatshirt. The shiny material was decorated with shoelace trim in chocolate brown. Not even the discount chains would be caught dead selling clothes that tasteless. Neils Van Doorn was wearing the kind of cheap stuff hanging on racks outside outlet stores on Fourteenth Street, right down to the no-name twenty-dollar sneakers on his size twelve feet.

  “That’s him!” I insisted, seizing Matt’s hand and tugging him back to the middle of the sidewalk again. “He’s waiting at the light. Look at his face when he turns . . . There.”

  Matt nodded. “You’re right. I don’t get the clothes, though. Maybe that’s his Halloween costume. Superior Dutchman dresses as typical American hip-hop mook.”

  “Too subtle for an elitist’s Halloween costume,” I replied, still dragging Matt by the hand. “Men like Van Doorn dress up as Julius Caesar or Napoléon Bonaparte. I think he’s wearing a disguise.”

  Matt touched his forehead. “So now we’re going to follow him, right?”

  “From a distance. We don’t want to spook him.”

  “Don’t you need a license to do detective work in this state?” Matt shot back. “I have an idea. Why don’t you follow him, and I’ll go talk to his wife.”

  “No!” I cried, dragging my ex-husband across the street. “There’s plenty of time to corner Monika later. Anyway, I’m too nervous to follow Van Doorn alone. In that disguise, who knows what kind of dive or dump he’s heading for.”

  Matt rolled his eyes. “Clare. This is gentrified Manhattan in the twenty-first century. There are very few dives or dumps left.”

  TWENTY-FOUR

  “THERE’S no way I’m going in there.” Matt folded his arms over his chest and stood his ground.

  “I don’t want you to go in now,” I said. “Wait until after Van Doorn leaves. Otherwise he’ll see you.”

  But Matt shook his head. “Not now. Not ever,” he replied.

  Here we go again.

  My ex would—and did—travel through the most primitive underbelly of the Third World in search of specialty coffee beans. But a few years back, during another crisis, he’d refused to enter the men’s room in a gay bar that we had staked out. Now he refused to enter an admittedly seedy pawnshop on Manhattan’s West Side.

  We’d followed Neils Van Doorn on a long trek to this disreputable looking shop on the ground floor of a decrepit warehouse, a half block away from the Hudson River.

  “What do you think he’s doing in there?” I asked.

  “Why don’t you go in and find out,” Matt replied. “Van Doorn doesn’t even know who you are. You might pull it off.”

  “Maybe I will,” I declared.

  From the recessed service door we’d ducked into, Matt watched with disbelief as I approached the pawnshop’s front window. I paused, perusing the array of stuff on the other side of the grimy glass.

  While pretending to examine the old microwave ovens, cheap stereo systems, and kitsch jewelry from the 1960s, ’70s, and ’80s, I watched Neil Van Doorn inside the shop. He spoke with a three-hundred-pound bald man sitting on a tall stool behind steel bars. Neils slipped the watch off his left wrist, handed it up to the fat man, who examined it closely. I moved to the next window, still pretending to shop. I found myself gazing at old military gear—web belts, rusty helmets, bayonets, a compass, and an old, olive green box with U.S. ARMY stenciled on its side in bold white letters.

  It started to drizzle and I pulled my collar up
. Meanwhile Neils and the fat man haggled. Finally the man behind the bars opened the cash register and counted out money, slipped the bills through a hole in the bars. I hurried back to Matt.

  “I think he’s pawning his watch,” I said incredulously.

  “That’s ridiculous,” Matt replied. “The Van Doorns are rich. He’s been living at the Waldorf=Astoria for over a month. Do you realize what that costs?”

  “I know what I saw. Anyway, his wife has all the money. Maybe she has him on a tight leash—wait, he’s coming out.”

  I ducked into the doorway with Matt, but we were on the same side of the street. If Neils walked in our direction, there was no way he would miss seeing us. Fortunately, he paused under the shelter of the doorway.

  He reached into his jacket, pulled a New York Yankee cap out of his pocket, and slipped it over his head to protect himself from the rain. Then he stepped onto the sidewalk and moved toward us.

  Remembering the cap I saw on the night Ric was mugged, I was about to say something, when Matt’s hands closed around my waist. He turned me completely around and pushed my spine against the door. Then he pressed his heavy form against me, bent low and covered my mouth with his before I could say a word.

  With Matt’s back turned to Van Doorn, and our faces pressed together, there was no way the man would recognize either of us. Through eyelashes dampened by the light rain, I watched Neils Van Doorn pass us by without a second glance.

  I gently pushed Matt’s chest. He kept kissing me. “Matt,” I murmured against his gently moving lips—and pushed harder.

  “Sorry,” Matt mumbled sheepishly as he finally broke off. “I saw it in a Hitchcock movie once, thought it was a nice ploy.”

  “Well, the last time I checked, I wasn’t Ingrid Bergman, not even close. And you aren’t Cary Grant, either.”

  “It was a nice kiss, though.” His eyebrow arched. “Don’t you think?”

  I had no time to be annoyed. I’d recognized that Yankee cap, and I told Matt about the night Ric was mugged. The attacker had knocked me down, too, and dropped the headgear. I told Matt about catching a glimpse of it.