French Pressed

by Cleo Coyle

  I spied Faye Keitel in the middle of the dining room, speaking with a tall maître d’. She looked stylish in a designer gown that put Madame’s green Valentino suit to shame. Her highlighted blond hair was coifed in an elegant French braid, her makeup perfect. Beside the pair, I saw Anton Wright in black tie. He held a wine bottle at arm’s length while he read the label.

  Faye tensed when she noticed my approach. Anton sensed her reaction and set the bottle aside.

  “Remember me?” I said.

  “Oh, hello,” Faye replied, forcing a smile. She glanced at Anton. “This is Clare Cosi. She’s—”

  “The mother of Joy Allegro, the innocent girl you framed for murder.”

  The maître d’ did a horrified double take. Faye and Anton didn’t even blink.

  “Please excuse us, Matthew,” Faye said.

  “Very well,” the maître d’ replied, then disappeared into the busy kitchen.

  Anton stood beside Faye, arms folded over his chest. Faye Keitel peered down her nose at me.

  “You’ve gotten our attention. Say your piece,” she demanded.

  I ignored her, faced Anton Wright. “I know all about that phone call the other night. You planned Tommy Keitel’s murder in Solange’s kitchen. Vincent Buccelli told me all about that conversation—before you murdered him.”

  “You’re crazy,” he said unconvincingly. Clearly Anton was rattled. But Faye Keitel regarded me through a gaze like ancient ice.

  “Why would Anton kill his golden goose?” she asked.

  “Because the goose was about to fly the coop. Tommy was bored and wanted a new challenge.”

  I faced Anton again. “Tommy told you he was gone when his contract expired, which messed up your plan to franchise the Solange name, didn’t it? How could you find backers without Tommy’s reputation to peddle?”

  Anton sneered. “I already had the investors, because I’d already sold the idea. I’d signed the contracts and taken the money—”

  I blinked. “My God, no wonder you were so desperate.”

  “I took a bath on those other restaurants,” Anton said. “Solange was a moneymaker, but it didn’t make up for my losses. I needed the cash, so I sold the franchise idea. All Tommy had to do was sign on to the deal, and he’d be a millionaire ten times over—”

  “But he wanted nothing to do with your scheme. He wouldn’t even sell you the recipes, would he?”

  Anton winced, and I knew I’d struck a nerve.

  “What do you want, Ms. Cosi?” Faye asked.

  “The same thing Billy Benedetto wanted,” I replied.

  When I mentioned the late Mr. Benedetto, even Faye seemed rattled. I took some satisfaction in that.

  “Oh, yes. I spoke with Benedetto, too. Before Anton murdered him.”

  “What do you want?” Faye repeated impatiently.

  “My daughter is going to cop a plea for Tommy’s murder,” I replied. “She’ll spend six or seven years in prison. When she gets out, you are going to back her restaurant to the tune of six million dollars.”

  “Now why would we do that?” Anton asked. “You can’t prove your ridiculous claims.”

  “I don’t have to prove anything,” I replied. “All I have to do is talk to Roman Brio. He’d certainly be interested in my tale, interested enough to ask questions, maybe write an exposé. What would happen to your deal then?”

  Anton locked eyes with Faye. “With Benedetto gone, I thought we were through with blackmail—”

  “Shut up,” Faye said softly.

  But Anton wouldn’t. “There’s precious little profit in this as it is. We can’t slice off another piece of the pie. That’s why we got rid of Benedetto—”

  “I told you to shut up, Anton.”

  “I should have never listened to you, never let you seduce me, talk me into this,” Anton said.

  “Excuse me, Anton,” I said. “But you wouldn’t be the first sucker who let his mistress talk him into murdering an inconvenient husband.”

  “I didn’t kill Tommy!” Anton replied. “Vinny, yeah, because I had to. And Benedetto because he was costing me money. But it was Faye who killed Tommy. She couldn’t wait.”

  Faye howled, and I whirled to face her. She had a steak knife in her hand, lifted from one of the place settings, and she lunged at me!

  I managed to deflect the blade with my forearm, which saved my life. It plunged deep into my shoulder instead of my throat.

  “Carnegie Hall! Carnegie Hall!” I yelled while I continued to wrestle with the crazed woman.

  The police who’d been waiting outside poured into the restaurant. Detective Lippert cuffed Anton Wright. Ray Tatum pulled Faye Keitel off me and disarmed her.

  I stumbled backward against a table. I was a little dizzy. My shoulder hurt like a son of a bitch, and I felt something warm flowing down my arm. My knees buckled. Before I hit the floor, Sue Ellen Bass and Detective Soles caught me, one on each arm. They cleared a table and stretched me out on the white cloth. Detective Soles pressed a stack of napkins against my wound to stanch the bleeding.

  They were asking me questions, but their voices were whispers. And they both seemed so far away. From my position on the table, I could see Solange’s gargoyles were still up there, on their high perches, but the detectives were closer…and they looked like angels, floating against the restaurant’s sunny yellow walls. I blinked, my vision going fuzzy.

  Mike Quinn strode across the room. “We’ve got it all on tape,” he announced, glancing around, looking for me. Then Mike saw me on the table. He saw the blood. “Son of a—”

  “Mike?”

  “Clare! You’re hurt! My God!” His rugged face loomed over me. He looked scared.

  “What’s wrong, Mike? Didn’t we get them?”

  “We got them, sweetheart. You got them.”

  “Good…Okay, then I can close my eyes now…finally take a rest…”

  “No, Clare! Stay awake! Please, sweetheart!”

  Mike’s booming voice began to fade. I saw him shouting at the female detectives. “Keep pressure on that wound, do you hear me? Where are the paramedics? Is the ambulance here? Dammit! Get the paramedics in here!”

  “Sorry, Mike. I’m just a little tired…”

  Then someone turned off the lights.

  EPILOGUE

  “NIGHT, boss,” Esther called, waving at the door of my hospital room. “Take care of that shoulder now. And go easy on the meds.”

  “My lady knows of what she speaks. So listen, Clare Cosi, and don’t be weak.”

  “Okay, Boris.” I tipped my hat to the hippest Russian rapper in the country—or at least on this floor of the St. Vincent’s Hospital. “I’ll keep it real.”

  It was late, close to the end of visiting hours, and Esther and BB Gun were the last to depart. They’d just helped me polish off a sinfully delicious box of Chef Jacques Torres’s handmade chocolates that Janelle Babcock had delivered earlier in the day.

  My daughter and ex-husband were back at the Village Blend by now. Madame had gone off to meet her beau for a late dinner—that mysterious younger man I had yet to meet. And I’d been entertaining an endless stream of visitors all day long: Tucker, Gardner, Dante, Detectives Soles and Bass. Even Napoleon Dornier had dropped by to see how I was doing.

  Now that Joy was cleared of Tommy’s murder, there was no more tension between Nappy and me. In fact, he confided that he’d already found a backer for his own restaurant. He was taking Tommy’s entire staff of cooks with him—Ramon included. And he was hoping I’d consider supplying the coffee beans.

  Janelle was the only Solange staffer to decline Dornier’s offer. She’d found a position with one of the most prestigious cake makers on Manhattan Island, a job that would easily double her pay (which was one reason she said she’d splurged and bought me the gourmet chocolates).

  I yawned and fell back against my hospital pillows. The room was full of flowers and cards, balloons and stuffed animals. The angry stab wound to m
y shoulder still smarted, and the meds were still necessary, but the surgery had gone well, and the doctors said I’d be leaving the hospital in a day or two.

  “Knock, knock?”

  “Is that the start of a joke?” I called. “Or a visit?”

  “It’s a visit…from a visitor who has his hands full!”

  Mike.

  I’d last seen the man hours ago in his detective jacket and tie. Now he was back, in worn jeans and a distressed-leather bomber, apparently bearing gifts.

  “What have you got there?”

  One hand held a huge thermos, the other a stack of paper cups. “Since you can’t go to the Village Blend, I brought the Blend’s coffee to you.”

  “Oh, Mike, you’re a savior! I’m dying for a cup!”

  “I figured you would be about now. ’Cause I know hospital coffee. You’re talking to a real vet when it comes to line-of-duty injuries.”

  I remembered the scars I’d seen on the man’s naked chest. And I remembered what had happened after I’d seen those scars…and touched them, and kissed them. But that line of thought wasn’t going to let me sleep tonight, not without a bucket of icy cold banya water dumped over me.

  “So…how did we do, Lieutenant?”

  Mike moved my rolling tray next to the bed and poured me a cup of French-roasted Kenya AA from the thermos. “We got it all on tape, sweetheart,” he began, handing me the steaming cup then pouring one for himself. “Anton’s admission that he killed Vinny and Benedetto, his statement that it was Faye Keitel who murdered Tommy. It was a thing of beauty what you did—including deflecting that knife.” He reached out, caressed my cheek. “It saved your life.”

  “Yeah. But I shouldn’t have ended up in here at all. I should have remembered what Roman Brio told me about Tommy’s wife.”

  “What?”

  “Before she’d dropped her culinary career to have Tommy’s kids, she was the man’s roast chef!”

  “His what?”

  “It’s the position in the brigade that’s responsible for roasting meat. Like Anton, the son of a butcher, Faye Keitel definitely had knife skills. She was a cool customer, too. The thing I don’t get is what made her snap.”

  “I listened to the tape about fifty times, and I can tell you why. Faye Keitel snapped the moment Anton Wright turned on her. You heard the saying ‘no honor among thieves’? It’s true among murderers, too.”

  “She should have stabbed Anton then!”

  “No, Clare. In more ways than one, you put yourself between them.”

  As I sipped my dark cuppa, Mike updated me on the case. The detectives from the Nineteenth were handling the follow-up investigation. They’d legally confiscated and then examined the cell phones, computers, and personal files of Faye and Anton, and in short order they found evidence of their conspiracy to murder Chef Keitel.

  “There are e-mail exchanges and phone messages that document it all,” Mike told me. “Their alibis don’t hold water, and because of Faye Keitel’s attack on you, we’ve gotten a confession out of her with a plea deal in the works. Anton’s hanging tougher, but we’re working on him. Worst-case scenario, Faye will have to testify against him at his trial as part of her deal.”

  “That should bring the man to heel.”

  “We’re looking at Anton for Benedetto’s murder, too, thanks to what you observed at Flux last night.” Mike regarded me over his coffee cup. “You’ve been one busy homicide detective, Clare Cosi.”

  I raised an eyebrow at my partner. “I had a little help.”

  Mike laughed.

  “There’s only one thing I’m still puzzling over.”

  “Mmmm?” said Mike, swallowing his fix.

  “What in the world did Billy Benedetto have on Anton Wright? I mean…he was obviously blackmailing the man. But unless Benedetto was psychic—which I sincerely doubt—I can’t figure out how he knew where to pin Tommy’s murder.”

  “Billy Benedetto actually saw Faye Keitel come out of Solange the night of the murder. And Benedetto knew enough about the couple to realize that Faye would never set foot in her husband’s restaurant. He also knew Anton was seeing Faye on the side. When Benedetto heard the details of Tommy’s murder, he put two and two together and solved it before us. Unfortunately for him, he didn’t try to bring them to justice. The opportunity for extortion was just too tempting. The threats and e-mails from him were among Faye’s and Anton’s personal computer files. Benedetto claimed he’d go to the police with what he knew unless Anton backed his restaurant. Good old blackmailing Billy was willing to let Joy rot in jail so he could get a bona fide backer.”

  My fingers tightened around my cup. “Since you put it that way, I can’t say I’m sad that Benedetto’s off the planet.”

  “Well, he is. And Joy’s free. So how’s she doing?” Now that the talk had turned personal, Mike relaxed a little more, sat down on the edge of my bed. “Is she okay?”

  “Joy’s fine. She’s a strong girl.”

  Mike rested his hand on my leg. “I can’t imagine where she gets that.”

  I placed my hand on top of his. “She’s very relieved, Mike. But I can’t say she’s happy. The man she loved and admired is dead. Her good friend was needlessly executed, and the scandal has embarrassed her culinary school. We just found out today that she’s being expelled.”

  “Even with the dropped charges?”

  “Her affair with Tommy was considered ‘conduct unbecoming.’ That she can’t dispute.”

  “The poor kid. After all she’s been through…”

  “It’s a blow. This was her internship year. It should have been her best year ever. Now it’s her worst.”

  “But she does have the training, even if she doesn’t have the piece of paper that proves it. And don’t you think, Cosi, when it comes down to the wire, that someone’s ability to handle any situation is more important than a piece of paper?”

  Mike’s blue eyes were spearing me. I shook my head. “Why do I think you’re referring to something other than a diploma from a culinary school?”

  “You could get a PI license, Clare. If you ever want one, I can help you apply.”

  “Maybe someday, Lieutenant. Not today.”

  Mike shrugged. “I just think if you’re going to keep getting yourself mixed up in murder, you might want to think about carrying a gun.”

  “I’d rather think about a new Asia-Pacific blend. Matt’s getting some new beans in next week.”

  Mike laughed, glanced down at our hands, interlaced his fingers through mine. “So is Joy going to work for you now? At the Blend?”

  “God, no. She’d hate that.” I smiled. “Madame and Matt and I all agreed to send her to Paris after the holidays. Yvette’s invited her, so she already has a place to crash. And we’ve come up with the money to stake her for six months. She can polish her French and find a line cook’s position, and decide if she wants to stay there for a spell longer or come back to New York and start fresh.”

  “That’s got to be hard for you, Clare, to send her away.”

  “Harder than you know. But it would be worse to see her suffer here. There are too many terrible memories. She needs to make new memories, have fresh, exciting experiences. When I was in Italy at her age, I met my…That’s where I met Matt.”

  The mere mention of his name seemed to frost Mike’s edges. “Let’s hope she meets a better guy.”

  I nodded, although down deep I didn’t really agree. True, Matt had put me through some pretty bad times, but he was no Tommy Keitel. And he’d really come through for Joy and me in this round.

  Still, with Mike’s blue eyes smiling at me now, I knew I’d found a better guy. In many ways Matteo Allegro was an amazing man. But Mike was the kind who’d stay with you through the boredom—not just the thrills.

  I leaned forward then and kissed Mike Quinn. I kissed him sweetly then hotly, leisurely then hungrily. I could see that he needed it—and, frankly, I was getting tired of talking.

 
We came up for air when my bedside phone rang. And after all that delectable kissing, I had a little trouble finding my voice.

  “Hello?” I croaked.

  “Clare, something awful has happened…”

  “Hold on a second, okay?” I covered the receiver. “It’s Madame,” I whispered to Mike.

  He smiled, caressed my hair, pressed his lips to my forehead. Then he lifted his chin toward the hallway. “I’ll come back.”

  “No. You don’t have to leave.”

  “It’s okay.” Mike winked. “I’ll be right outside when you need me.”

  I smiled. That pretty much summed up Mike Quinn for me, all right. I watched him leave, the easy, powerful length of him; then I took a breath and pretended I could actually focus.

  “Okay, Madame, tell me,” I said. “What’s the matter?”

  “It’s Matteo…” Madame sounded stricken, like someone she loved had just been diagnosed with a terrible disease. “He’s gotten himself into a terrible fix, and he’s going to need our help like never before.”

  “Anything, Madame. Tell me what’s wrong?”

  “He just left me a message, Clare. He’s getting married.”

  “Married! Matt?”

  “In a few short months, Matt plans to wed himself to Breanne Summour. But he doesn’t love that woman, Clare. And I won’t let my boy make that kind of mistake with his life.”

  “But, Madame…” I closed my eyes, massaged my forehead. “It’s his life.”

  “Oh, please, Clare! Do you think you’re the only mother who knows how to butt in?”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying Matt may think he’s getting married, but I’m going to find a way to stop this wedding. And you, my dear, are going to help!”

  I closed my eyes. Oh, God. Here we go. “I think you’ll just have to accept it, Madame. Matt’s marrying Breanne Summour.”

  Madame’s voice went down to a subterranean octave. “Over my dead body,” she vowed.

  RECIPES & TIPS

  FROM THE VILLAGE BLEND