by Cleo Coyle
As sunset came, I crested the service staircase and headed toward the front. Franco immediately moved to check in with me.
“Everything copacetic, Coffee Lady?”
“You tell me.”
He smiled. All was well, he assured me, still no sign of drug dealers or shots—other than singles, doubles, and triples.
Business always picked up during my roasting sessions. The rich, sweet aroma of caramelizing beans acted as an aromatic siren to every caffeine-deprived mariner within smell-range. Consequently, our sidewalk tables were packed, our main floor busy, our counter hopping, and my wonderful Tucker running it all like a perfectly tuned muscle car engine.
Like an audio cue to that very thought, the roaring vroom of a vintage GTO prompted half my coffeehouse to search the street.
After the bang-bang of Brooklyn gunplay and that lovely interview with the DEA agent from hell, the sound of Mad Max’s Buckmobile actually lifted my spirits.
The glint of cherry red steel and bright silver chrome rolled parallel to our sidewalk. The door popped open, and Buckman emerged. Out of uniform again, he sauntered into the Blend, and I waved him over.
The AIS detective greeted me tersely, glanced around, and stressed one word: “Privacy.”
I nodded, fixed us drinks, and led him up our wrought iron spiral staircase to our much quieter second floor lounge. We sat near a large open window, where the evening breeze entwined the aroma of my freshly roasted Ambrosia with the soft buzz of voices from the coffeehouse below.
“I didn’t know whether to look for you here or in a federal lockup,” Buckman quipped as he sunk into a comfy easy chair. I took the chair opposite.
“I take it you spoke with Quinn?”
“I never reveal my sources. Well, hardly ever. The point is, Cosi, I’m glad you’re okay.” He took a test sip of his Americano, then downed a satisfying swallow. “What did you do to get out of a DEA sweep, anyway? Sweet-talk them?”
“Yeah, I sweet-talked them, Max. And then Quinn sweet-talked them. I think their ears are still ringing from his tender tone.”
Buckman laughed. “No muffins?”
“No muffins.”
“But you finally met ‘Crazy Quinn’?”
“More like Quinn Unleashed.”
“I take it you’re an asset now? You don’t slip the grip of the Feds without some kind of deal.”
“No comment.”
“Keep it to yourself then, because I came here to tell you something.”
I leaned forward. “There’s a development in Lilly’s case? You got another lead?”
Buckman bumped his cup against mine. “Here’s to coincidences that aren’t.” After another long swallow, he sat back and crossed his legs.
“The van that struck Lilly Beth—remember I told you it was involved in another hit-and-run two weeks ago?”
“I remember.”
“Well, it was brutal and the victim was a big-shot doctor—”
That grabbed my attention, and I tossed back an educated guess: “Was the man a plastic surgeon, by any chance? I don’t know the guy’s last name, but I’m pretty sure you’re talking about a doctor named Harry who was once married to Gwen Fischer, Councilman Chin’s fiancée.”
Buckman’s leg slipped from his knee. “Man, you are good. No wonder Quinn wants you as his asset.”
“It’s no big deal. I just heard about his death at our party on Saturday. How many physicians could have been run over in the past two weeks, right? What was the victim’s full name anyway?”
“Dr. Harry Land, he operated the Better You Cosmetic Surgery Center on Seventy-Fifth Street and Broadway.”
“If the van committed hit-and-runs on both Dr. Land and Lilly Beth, I assume you’re looking for a connection?”
“My first thought, too, Inspector. Only trouble is, it didn’t pan out.”
Buckman was eyeing me closely now, and I could guess why. He was angling to use me as his asset. That’s why he was sharing all this. He certainly didn’t need my opinion of his theories. He had plenty of colleagues for that.
“Tell me more,” I said.
“We know Lilly worked as a nurse before becoming a dietician. But she didn’t work for this plastic surgeon. According to the Better You employment records, no one named Tanga ever worked there.”
“I take it you checked into Lilly Beth’s employment history anyway?”
A shadow crossed Buckman’s weary face. “According to all the records and databases available to me, the last nursing job Lilly Beth held was the graveyard shift at Beth Israel Hospital, and she quit that job six years ago.”
“Well, Lilly told me herself that she left nursing three years ago. She got her degree, took on freelance consulting work, and then started working with the mayor’s office.”
“What we have here, Cosi, is a black hole in Lilly Beth Tanga’s life. One that needs to be filled,” Buckman said. He tapped the coffee cup with his finger. “I have a strong hunch there’s a connection between Lilly and this Dr. Land. The driver of that white van wanted them both dead. Why? I want to know. And since Lilly’s employment records don’t show us a connection, I’m thinking the relationship might have been purely personal.”
“A love affair?”
Buckman nodded. “This doctor was married during those missing years of Lilly’s life, so it would have been an extramarital affair on his part. But from what I’ve been able to determine, it’s not so farfetched. This Dr. Land was popular with the ladies, and he had a lot of very prominent female clients who went for his healing hands, if you know what I mean.”
“Was Public Advocate Tanya Harmon one of those special clients?”
“Now how did you know that?” Buckman asked, astonished again.
“Another educated guess. I met her at my party. She appeared addicted to Botox—and a close friend of hers used Dr. Land for her daughter’s surgeries, so…” I shrugged.
“Well, you’re good at hunches, Cosi. Tanya Harmon was on Land’s patient list. Whether she was in his little black book, too, we don’t know yet.”
I didn’t know, either, but it was an intriguing notion, and one I hadn’t considered before. Could Tanya have killed Dr. Land in some kind of jealous rage? After a relationship had gone sour?
I wasn’t sure an ambitious man-eater like Tanya was capable of such feelings, but she may have had another motive. Could she have been doing a favor for her well-heeled political-donor friend Helen Bailey-Burke? Those two had been tight for years—until lately, anyway—and Helen had been openly hostile with Dr. Land’s ex-wife, Gwen. She’d actually slapped the woman in public, so she must have been even more upset with Dr. Land over the death of her daughter, Meredith. But why would either of them have gone after Lilly? That didn’t make sense.
“With Dr. Land dead and Lilly unconscious, I can’t ask either one if they were lovers,” Buckman said. “But whatever their connection, we have to find it.”
“You said we.” (There it is.) “I take it you want me in on this?”
Buckman locked eyes with me. “I’ve spent time at the hospital—”
“A lot of time, I’ve heard.”
“And I’ve talked to Lilly Beth’s mother, Amina Salaysay. Nice lady, but every time I try to question the woman about her daughter’s past, she claims she knows nothing.”
He leaned forward again. “I know she’s holding back something. Maybe Mrs. Salaysay is ashamed of something her daughter did. Or maybe it wasn’t kosher, something outside the law, and she’s afraid to share it with the police. Whatever it is, I have to know, so…”
“So?”
“So I’m thinking a woman’s touch might work on Lilly’s mother, not another cop, but someone she knows and trusts already. I’m thinking you could talk to Mrs. Salaysay.”
Buckman paused to rub his eyes, and I flashed back to a man from my old neighborhood, a widower who worked on his vintage Cadillac daily after his wife died. By the end of that first summer, the
car was a showpiece. My nonna used to say it was sad, that he focused on his car because he didn’t have a woman in his life any longer, a real human being to lavish his attention on.
It seemed to me, Buckman was that man.
But who was Lilly Beth to him? A stand-in for the wife who’d been run down? A new pet project? Or something more?
Seeing the tortured expression on Buckman’s face, I wasn’t so sure the answer mattered. Not now, anyway. So despite my own problems—and I was up to my assets in them—I agreed to help Buckman, the way he’d helped me. The way he was trying to help Lilly Beth.
“I’ll do it…” I said and squeezed Max’s hand. “I’ll reach out to Mrs. Salaysay tomorrow morning, have a talk with her, and pass along everything I learn.”
A bit of Buckman’s weariness seemed to lift with my reply. I asked him a few more questions and we discussed Lilly’s condition. The news was good. Her vitals were strong and the doctors were more hopeful than ever.
Finally, Buckman drained his cup and stood.
“See you soon, Cosi. Thanks for the coffee.”
FORTY-TWO
“MIKE?” Hearing a noise, I lifted my head off the pillow.
“Don’t bother with the lamp, Clare. I can see…”
The image of the man I loved moving toward me in a silver pool of shimmering moonlight might have been romantic, even magical, if he hadn’t been peeling off a shoulder holster—and I hadn’t been waiting to talk with him about a brutal hit-and-run.
I rubbed my eyes, trying to wake up. “Did you see the carnitas burrito I left for you?”
“Zapped it in the microwave. It was good, thanks.”
As I propped myself up, Quinn wrapped his holster straps around his weapon, set it on the dresser, then removed his extra ammo clip, gold badge, knife, and pepper spray.
“So…” I said, suppressing a yawn. “How is Matt holding up?”
The edge of the bed depressed as Quinn’s solid form sunk down. He unlaced his shoes. “Considering everything he’s going through, I’d say your ex-husband is doing okay…”
I really felt for Matt this week. While Quinn had stopped the DEA from totally trashing his warehouse (and my coffeehouse), the agents who’d arrested us had ripped open and dumped out the entire shipment of Ambrosia beans, crushing a percentage in the process.
Luckily, most of the lot was salvageable. For days now—when Matt wasn’t answering an endless list of questions for Quinn’s squad, NYPD brass, and a select group of federal officers—he was in Red Hook with bodyguards, determinedly shoveling up those exquisite beans and preserving them in plastic containers.
“I’m no fan of Allegro’s, you understand,” Quinn added, “but under this kind of pressure, plenty of guys would have broken down by now.”
“Matt’s made of tough stuff,” I said. “He’s spent a lot of time in the Third World, seen a lot of harsh things.”
“I know…” Quinn pulled off his tie, unbuttoned his shirt. “I haven’t been to the countries he has, but I’ve been to plenty of those places… dark places. You know what I mean?”
“I do… and I think Max has, too.”
“Max Buckman?”
“He stopped by tonight.”
“Oh?”
I shifted on the mattress, making room for Mike’s broad shoulders. As he stretched out under the covers, he exhaled a familiar little note: the “Quinn Hymn to Being Horizontal,” that’s how I always thought of it.
“Come here…”
He didn’t have to ask twice. I tucked into him, resting my head on his solid chest. His sigh this time was one of deep pleasure. I felt it, too. Then his callused fingers began drawing sweet little circles on the bare skin of my upper arm.
I closed my eyes and sighed. Ben Franklin had nothing on the electrifying charges Mike Quinn’s lightest touches sent through me, but I couldn’t shake my worries. So I took a deep breath and explained—
“The reason Buckman stopped by… he needed a favor.”
The delicious caressing stopped. “I hope it involves coffee and muffins.”
“A little more than that…” I cleared my throat. “He asked me to talk to Lilly Beth’s mother. She won’t talk to the police, and he thinks I can help fill in some blanks in her life.”
“Mmmm…” (This noise I recognized, too—it wasn’t happy.)
“Early tomorrow, I’m going to Queens.”
“Franco goes with you, Clare. That’s not an option.”
“Don’t worry. He’s driving us.”
“You and Buckman?”
“Me and Matt’s mother. Lilly’s mom might feel more comfortable with Madame there.”
“I hope you’re able to help, but remember, it’s Buckman’s case.”
“That’s what’s troubling me.”
“What do you mean?”
“He’s trying to make a connection between a hit-and-run that killed a plastic surgeon and one that killed Lilly. But it seems to me Max might have a motive beyond simply solving a case.”
“And what would that be?”
“Add it up. He came to see me on a Sunday night, clearly obsessed about having every year of Lilly’s life accounted for. I think, on some level, he’s still chasing that driver who killed his wife, the one he couldn’t put away.”
“No,” Quinn said without hesitation. “That’s not it.”
“How can you say that so definitively?”
“Because, Clare…” Quinn hesitated then plowed forward. “Max Buckman did put away the man who killed his wife.”
“What?” I sat up, brushed back my hair. “How?”
“I shouldn’t really share this—”
“Tell me!”
Quinn blew out air. “I’ll have to start with the incident… the one that killed Sara. An insurance broker got crocked at a Second Avenue bar, hopped the curb, struck Max’s wife with his SUV, and drove away. Sara Buckman had massive internal injuries, head trauma, the works. Max fell apart after it happened. She lay in the hospital two weeks before the docs told him she wouldn’t wake up. He kept hoping, praying—until he put her in the ground.”
“God, that’s awful…”
“Six weeks after her death, Max went back to work, found out how badly things were handled during the on-site investigation. The driver wasn’t found in time for a breathalyzer test to matter. He hired a top attorney and with spotty evidence, the prick walked.”
“And that’s when Max went after him?”
“Yeah. He’d been saving up to build a dream house for his wife. He didn’t need that money anymore, so he took a leave from the PD, moved into an apartment in Jersey near the guy’s brokerage firm.”
“What did he do? Wait for him to drive drunk again?”
“No. He wanted more than a simple DUI. This man’s firm was worth millions. He had clients across the whole tristate area, and in his year of investigation, Max uncovered an interesting hitch. Every third policy this guy wrote was a fraud. He’d sign up clients and pocket their money instead of passing it on to the insurance companies. Then he’d hand them phony policies not worth the paper they were printed on. Max built the case. The prick was doing this in three states, which made it interstate commerce fraud.”
“So he went to the Feds with it?”
“Yeah, when he was ready, Max called in the FBI, and the Feds did the dirty work. The man was sentenced to twenty-five years.”
“And he called me a vigilante.”
“Is that right?” Quinn said, tone clearly amused. “Well, Buckman’s entitled to his opinion. To me, you’re a concerned citizen, maybe a little more curious than your average taxpayer, but you’re a good woman, Clare, with a good heart.”
“He said we were two of a kind.”
“Then you might as well include me and make it three. We all want to get the bad guy. We want to see justice done.”
“Let me ask you something,” I said. “How did you know all this? I mean, Bucket-mouth talks a lot, but I can’
t see him sharing all that with just anyone.”
“I know the story because while he was on leave, Buckman needed help on occasion—running background checks, getting addys off license plates, that sort of thing.”
“And you risked your career to help?”