A Brew to a Kill

by Cleo Coyle

  “I got the text, too,” Matt said.

  “Here comes the bride…” I read, confused.

  “Dum, dum, de dum!” Matt finished and locked eyes with me, his expression a combination of bewilderment and terror. “Clare, I can’t believe what I’m reading. Did our daughter just elope?!”

  I stared for a moment, processing this.

  “She says she sent pictures!” Matt cried.

  “Calm down.”

  “I can’t get the attachment open!”

  “You’re going to sprain your thumbs.” I snatched away the man’s mobile keyboard, which he was beating on like a Lilliputian bongo drum. “Come on. We’ll use my laptop.”

  “Fine,” he said, but he wasn’t fine. “So what’s the story? She never told me a thing! Did you have a clue? Did our daughter fall for another line cook? Or get taken in by some backpacking bum? Clare, why didn’t you warn me?”

  “Will you get a grip? You’re overwrought and overreacting. I’m sure she’s just kidding around…”

  Actually, I wasn’t so sure.

  As our feet clanged their way up the wrought iron steps, I prayed my daughter hadn’t done anything rash—like dump her dirty work on me.

  Last I heard, Joy and Sergeant Emmanuel Franco were still hot as habaneros for each other. But Franco lived and worked here in New York while Joy was completing her culinary training in France.

  After they started seeing each other, I assumed it wouldn’t last. Surely one of them would meet a shiny new love interest? Or simply lose interest in the hard work of maintaining a long-distance relationship…

  But I’d assumed wrong.

  The two kept their passions primed via tricknology: e-mails, social networks, camera phone. In the meantime, Joy traveled back to New York when she could; and Franco’s overtime pay—not to mention his rudimentary French-speaking abilities, thanks to the Haitian families in his childhood neighborhood—kept him pond-hopping regularly to Paris, the most romantic city on the planet (unfortunately).

  Was there a chance that Joy had eloped with Franco? Yes. There was also a chance an earthquake would level New York in the morning, and I hoped neither disaster was in the offing because the last thing I needed (besides a whole lot of broken latte cups) was dealing with my authority-loathing ex-husband once he knew the truth.

  Not so very long ago, Sergeant Franco had chained Matt to a metal bar in an NYPD interview room and threatened to have him prosecuted for assault and attempted burglary (another story), all while pressing the most delicate emotional buttons imaginable in the man.

  Since then, I had learned to like Franco. I knew the rough interviewing technique he’d used on Matt was SOP for the NYPD. But my ex-husband was another matter, and I dreaded the day he learned his baby girl was cuddling up to a gun-toting, shaved-headed Brooklynite with six-pack abs and a cocky attitude. (Suddenly, a city reduced to rubble wasn’t looking so bad.)

  Cresting the staircase, we moved across the Blend’s second floor, a sprawling living room that boasted more café tables, another fireplace, and a shabby chic collection of French flea market sofas, overstuffed armchairs, and tastefully mismatched lamps.

  Something else dwelled here, too. You could almost feel it in the air, the curated artwork, the exposed brick walls…

  This was where Matt’s mother had nourished the bohemians of Greenwich Village for decades—with more than cups of her hot, black French roasts. With her open arms and open heart, Madame had opened this floor to artists of all kinds. Poets had chanted newly inked verse here. Jazz musicians had tested working compositions. Experimental playwrights had staged read-throughs. Her floor lamps had served as spotlights for impromptu standup; her couches makeshift crash-pads for struggling painters who’d lost their apartments—or drunken ones who couldn’t find their way back to them.

  At the moment, however, this famous floor was empty, the lights dim, the avant-garde ghosts quiet, even though Matt’s raving was loud enough to wake the dead.

  “I’m betting it was some slick Parisian who schmoozed Joy up when I wasn’t looking! And I swear, Clare, over the years I gave our daughter every warning I could think of about—”

  “Guys like you?”

  “Exactly!”

  Holding my tongue on that well-worn topic, I unlocked my battered office door and fired up my laptop. The e-mail from Joy was as terse as her text message. Pics attached. Talk to you soon!

  “Hurry it up, will you?”

  “Take it easy, Big Daddy…”

  I downloaded the attachment, unzipped the file. There were about a dozen photos here with captions. A quick scan and I was exhaling with relief. None of them included Franco. In fact, none of them included a man. Joy was posing in front of a series of fairy tale castles with her roommate, Yvette—

  “Oh, right. Now I remember…”

  “What?”

  “Joy’s roommate is the one getting married. Joy mentioned it a few weeks ago. Yvette’s family owns an ice cream franchise. They’re loaded and they’re going all out. Joy is the maid of honor and the two girls spent a long weekend in the Loire Valley scouting a reception site—medieval châteaux cum hotel and catering hall, that sort of thing.”

  “Oh, god.”

  “What’s the matter? Aren’t you relieved?”

  “I have to sit down. No. Lie down.”

  Matt stumbled out of the office and collapsed on one of our couches. I took a closer view of the photos.

  “You should look at these, Matt. They’re very nice!” I called.

  He groaned.

  I was pleased by how healthy Joy appeared; lovelier than ever with that golden tan on her heart-shaped face and her green eyes laughing in the French country light. She’d traded her bulky chef’s whites for a fetching polka-dot sundress and heeled sandals, and from the way she smiled at the camera and tossed her long chestnut hair, I just knew that Franco would be getting these photos, too.

  I sighed, feeling that alliance of opposites again: this time, happiness and melancholy. Oh, Joy would make a beautiful bride. But I hoped it wouldn’t happen for a few more years because, no matter how old she got, I would always see her standing there with tomboy braids, a missing tooth, and a Hello Kitty backpack.

  I knew Matt was feeling it, too—this passing of time—and more keenly than I. So if Joy did decide to choose Franco for a groom, then she could tell her father.

  “I’m going to pass out right here!” Matt threatened.

  “You’ll get a backache!”

  Once more, I considered the on-screen photos. “They must have used Yvette’s digital camera for these. Usually, Joy just snaps a single blurry photo with her phone and hits send—”

  Snaps a photo with her phone. Oh, my god…

  “Matt! Did you hear me? She snaps a photo with her phone! Her phone!”

  “What?” Matt called. “Who are you phoning?”

  “A witness! A camera phone witness!”

  ELEVEN

  MY fingers pounded the keyboard. On my new hunch, I brought up an Internet search engine and looked for “Esther Best” in video. Hundreds of hits immediately came up with that search term—amateur videos of Esther rapping at poetry slams all over the city.

  Oh, lord, I thought, how do I narrow it down? I know! Sort by date!

  The most recent “Esther Best” video had been uploaded to the Internet less than an hour ago. I hit the tiny thumbnail on the list of search results and found myself viewing a YouTube broadcast recorded right in front of our Blend.

  “Bingo!” I cried, and began to watch the familiar scene.

  “Listen up, bouffant brain! Are you listening? Good! ’Cause you’re not in Kansas. You’re in my ’hood…”

  “Is that Esther I’m hearing?” Matt called. As the crowd cheered, he rose from the dead and wandered back to my office.

  “It’s Esther,” I assured him. “One of her fans shot this video today…”

  “Your cupcakes are mealy, your élan is fake,
and your infantile jingle gives the world an earache!”

  “Ouch,” Matt said. “She was kind of rough on the Kween, wasn’t she?”

  “It could have been worse. Kaylie brought up Esther’s weight, but Esther refused to go that low.”

  “What do you mean, ‘that low’?”

  “Crimini had a nose job over the winter. Esther wouldn’t go there.”

  “I may be ‘chubby,’ yeah, I’m busty, too, and my boyfriend loves the way my booty moves…”

  “Not exactly Shakespeare.”

  “I don’t know, if she switched to iambic pentameter, I think Esther would make a darn fine Kate.”

  “What? Like in Kiss Me Kate, The Taming of the Shrew?”

  “All she needs is a hip-hop Petruchio. I’m thinking Eminem.”

  “I doubt Boris would be happy about that.”

  “Your frosting, I hear, comes out of a can. And your beans? Sorry, honey, you can’t brew worth a dang! So get your buttercream butt off my grass, or I’ll plant my big black boot in your prissy little—”

  “Clare, it’s past midnight. Why are we looking at this?”

  “Because I have a hunch. Be patient and watch.”

  As Esther ended her rap, the camera drew back to show the entire Kupcake truck. Then it panned around to record the crowd, and that’s when I hit the pause key.

  “There it is! Look!” I cried.

  “What?”

  “The van!”

  “Where?”

  I enlarged the video to full screen. Like a great white, waiting to feed, the cargo van was parked just around the corner from the Blend. I could see the front and part of the side, but I couldn’t tell if anyone was behind the wheel. Either the front window was tinted or the evening light had cast one too many shadows.

  “Is that the same van, Clare? How can you be sure?”

  “I can’t. But I can find the kid who shot this video and ask him if he shot any more. He may have been filming something when the accident occurred. And if he was, we may get part of a license plate or a glimpse of the driver. I’ll check the kid’s YouTube channel to see if he uploaded anything…”

  “Are you telling me traffic accidents get uploaded to YouTube?”

  “All the time.”

  But in this case, there was nothing.

  I noticed the kid’s user name, “Homers_HomeBoy,” but no first or last name. No website or blog.

  “There must be an e-mail address…”

  I checked around HomeBoy’s channel page and found one. But I knew a phone number or address would save Detective Buckman valuable time. So I tried a quick trick I’d learned from Mike. I typed the kid’s e-mail address into Google.

  “Got you!”

  “Got who?”

  The Google search results showed all the sites where the kid had included his e-mail address. I hit a link half-way down the page. Up came the kid’s digital address again, but this time attached to his profile at the Five Points Arts Collective in downtown Manhattan.

  “I know Five Points! Our Dante belongs to that group!”

  This was very good luck. The kid’s profile wasn’t anonymous here. No phone number or address, but his first and last names were displayed: Calvin Hermes.

  “Hello, HomeBoy!”

  I immediately called my artista barista. He answered on the first ring.

  “Huruffftt.”

  “Dante? Is that you?”

  “Sorry, boss. I forgot I was wearing a mask.”

  “Mask? What are you doing, robbing a liquor store?”

  “Nadine and I were mixing paint,” he explained. “Josh just got here and we’re about to apply the base coat to the truck…”

  Of course. I had forgotten. Dante had wanted to get a primer on the Muffin Muse before tomorrow’s party. “Listen,” I said, “I have an important question to ask. Do you know someone named Calvin Hermes?”

  “HomeBoy? Sure.”

  “First thing in the morning, I want you to get in touch with Calvin. Tell him to put together anything he recorded around the Blend tonight and send those digital files to Detective Buckman of the NYPD…”

  I finished explaining it all to Dante. Then I sent him an e-mail with Buckman’s contact information. Finally, I e-mailed Max Buckman directly, telling him to expect digital evidence from Calvin.

  I paused, my fingers floating over the keyboard. Should I type up my thoughts on Kaylie Crimini, too?

  No, I decided. It was late and Buckman was likely in bed. An e-mail message about a food-truck war might sound like a rant—or half-baked. I needed to explain it calmly, logically, and be ready to answer his questions. So I opted for a request to explain my theory in person, if not face-to-face, then over the phone.

  Please call me or drop by to see me when you have a chance. I have a theory I’d like to run by you.

  Yours sincerely, Clare Cosi.

  That sounded sane enough, didn’t it?

  Hitting send on the e-mail, I took another look at the freeze-frame of video, felt my outrage mounting again. “Look at that thing. That metal monster was just sitting there, waiting for the chance to attack someone from our Blend…”

  “I hope you’re wrong,” Matt said, “but I have to admit, what happened out front tonight—I can’t shake it off. And I don’t like the idea of leaving you here all alone…”

  “Thanks,” I said. “I appreciate it.”

  “You’re the mother of my daughter, Clare. My partner. My friend. You think I’d let anything happen to you?” He smiled then checked his watch. “So where is Big Foot tonight, anyway? On a stakeout or something?”

  “Mike’s in D.C. for a few days.”

  “What’s he doing in Washington?”

  “Consulting with the Feds—at their request. He didn’t want to make the trip, said it was pointless, that a simple phone conversation would have sufficed. But his superiors insisted.”

  “I get it. Politics. Waste of time.”

  “Mike doesn’t like it, either, but it’s part of his job—and he loves his job. And since you’ve brought up politics—”

  “I didn’t bring it up.”

  “I have a favor to ask. I need your help schmoozing some Very Important People at our party tomorrow.”

  Matt frowned. “What party?”

  “Dante’s going to paint our Muffin Muse truck, and we created an event around it—an Arts in the Street party. We’ll have rap artists, live music. The baristas have been distributing flyers…”

  I handed him one from a stack on my desk. “Isn’t it clever? Dante did it.”

  Matt nodded at the pop art fun of the little advertisement. “So what’s he going to put on the truck?”

  “It’s a surprise. All I know is he’s parodying a famous painting.”

  “As long as coffee’s in the composition, I’ll be happy.”

  “That’s what I told him—coffee and muffins. Anyway, Time Out New York listed it in their events page, and if we’re lucky, New York 1 news will send a reporter.”

  “Sounds like hundreds of people could show.”

  “Easily.”

  “So where are you holding this thing? Not in front of our shop?”

  “No. Brooklyn.”

  Matt stiffened. “Where in Brooklyn, Clare.”

  “Your new warehouse.”

  “Are you crazy? That warehouse is climate controlled! You can’t have a party inside—”

  “Take it easy, Blackbeard. Nobody’s setting foot inside your bean vault. The party is in the parking lot, and everything’s taken care of—the permits, the Porta-Pottys—”

  “Porta-Pottys? Oh, man…”

  “Look, you’re worried about money, aren’t you? The big monetary investment in our truck? Well, this party could alleviate some of that debt risk. Part of the reason we’re holding this event is to win a city grant for the summer.”

  “A grant?” Matt’s annoyed expression suddenly shifted to interested. “Okay, I’m listening…”

/>   “It was Esther’s idea. She’s been working with inner-city kids as part of her NYU practicum. She starts where they are, with their interest in hip-hop and rap, encourages them to write down their stuff. Then she shows them how what they’re doing fits into a larger literary movement within the history of poetry. She teaches them some new forms, gets them reading award-winning poets, and shows them where they can go in the public libraries to discover more inspirations for their street poems.”