by Клео Коул
“I thought so.”
“What about the captain?”
Lane sighed. “He was my biggest problem. When James told me the captain obtained evidence of my little switch on the production line, I knew I had to pay the man a visit.”
“So you broke into his apartment and ambushed Michael with his own Halligan tool.”
“The captain didn’t have all the documents in his apartment, but — lucky for me — I found a copy of his brother’s cover letter stapled to this — ”
Ryan leaned over me, displayed a United States Post Office tracking slip.
“I knew the captain sent the package to this address, but I had to wait for it to arrive.” He stood up straight again. “You know, a lot of people give the post office a hard time, but their tracking system is really very efficient. I knew it was delivered today, so I stopped in to retrieve it.”
Ryan gathered up the letter and schematics, and stuffed them into a backpack. Then he pulled out a strange device. A large battery was connected to an alarm clock and a pair of plastic bottles filled with clear liquid. The whole thing sat on a piece of plywood the size of a small serving tray. He placed the device on the table and set the alarm clock.
“All done,” Ryan said, slipping the bag over his shoulders. “In a few minutes the Coffee Shop Arsonist will strike again.”
Ryan doesn’t know that crime is solved. It hasn’t made the news yet! “You won’t get away with this! The arsonists have already been caught.”
“So?” Ryan smirked. “The police will conclude this is a copycat. Bye, bye, Ms. Cosi.”
With the roar of the roaster hammering my ears, I couldn’t even hear the jerk’s feet on the stairs — but with that bomb ticking away, I didn’t bother waiting to make sure he was gone before I began to yell.
“MATT! MATT!” I nudged him with my bound up feet. “WAKE UP!”
Not even a groan. Now I was starting to sweat, from fear as much as the heat radiating from the thrumming Probat. I looked around, searching for something to cut the ropes. A rough edge, a knife, or —
A coffee grinder blade!
Tucker had been giving Esther lessons on how to use a metal file to sharpen our burr grinder blades. One of those blades was sticking out of a vice on the edge of the wooden work table. Was the thing sharp enough to cut through the rope around my arms? Could I even get to it?
One way to find out...
I rolled my body across the basement floor. When I felt my torso bump the table, I folded and turned, pressing my back against the leg. When I got my feet under me, I slid up the table leg and moved toward the vice. Balancing on my bound-together feet, I pressed the ropes against the sharp edge of the blade and started rubbing.
It took a few minutes — and lots of abrasions to my hands and wrists — but I felt the hemp snap! When it did, I tumbled, falling across Matt’s body. He moaned as I worked on my ankles. By the time I got the ropes off my ex, he was awake.
“What hit me?”
“A Halligan tool.”
“A what?”
“Never mind. There’s a bomb down here and it’s about to go off.”
Matt was on his feet like a shot. He stared at the device. “I don’t know what to do to stop it.”
“You don’t have to! The city’s bomb squad is right up the street!” I dug for my cell phone as I ran for the stairs. “Matt, come on!”
“Unlock the front door!” Matt cried.
“What are you going to — ”
“Just do it!”
I raced up the steps and across the Blend’s main floor. Ryan had left the door unlocked when he fled, and I yanked it open. Matt emerged from the stairway a second later, the bomb cradled in both hands like a harmless tray of cookies.
“Matt, you’re crazy!”
“I’m not letting the Blend burn.”
He bolted across the street, where a clothing store had gone bankrupt two months before. The space was being gutted and an enormous construction container sat in front of the building. That’s where Matt tossed the bomb. Then he turned and ran.
The device exploded, sending an orange and red fireball into the sky, but the core of the blaze (thank goodness) was contained inside the metal box.
In the firebomb’s glare, I spotted a black BMW parked down the block. Ryan Lane stood beside it. He’d been waiting to make sure his device went off! Now he was jumping into his car.
“Matt, look!” I pointed. “That guy’s the bomber.”
My Honda was parked in front of the Blend. I unlocked the door, slid behind the wheel, and started the engine. Matt got in beside me.
“I’m driving,” he said.
“No time to switch!” I replied, hitting the gas hard.
“Fine. I’ll call the cops.” But patting his pockets, Matt realized he’d left his cell in my Blend office.
“Reach into my pocket and take mine,” I said.
Ryan was speeding north on Hudson. He hooked a right on Clarkson Street just as the light turned red. I ignored the signal and followed, horns blaring behind me. He made another sharp right, but Matt managed to grab my cell despite the turns.
“Press six three times,” I told him.
“Not 911?”
“It’s my speed-dial code for Sergeant Franco.”
“That jackass!”
“Tell him you’re Joy’s father.”
“Joy? What does our daughter have to do with — ”
“Remember last year’s Christmas party? Remember when you told Joy to stay away from Franco? Bad idea!”
“Franco?” Matt said over the phone. “I’m Joy’s father — ”
“Tell him we’re chasing the guy who assaulted Captain Quinn and murdered James Noonan! Tell him the scumbag tried to kill us and now he’s fleeing the country!”
“He heard you,” Matt said, and held the phone to my ear.
“He’s on Delancey Street and coming your way!” I yelled. “He’s heading for the Williamsburg Bridge. Watch for a black BMW!”
“This is Manhattan, Clare,” Franco replied. “All the BMWs are black.”
“He has a big white NYC Fallen Firefighters Fund sticker on his bumper, and I’ll be right behind him in my red clunker. Where are you?”
“I just hijacked a pickup from the construction site. If your perp makes the bridge, we could lose him.”
“You have to stop him, Franco! Any way you can!”
I saw the bridge lights ahead. I was closing in on Ryan’s BMW, too, until a little green pizza delivery car cut in front of me. I braked to avoid a collision, and Ryan raced toward the ramp.
The delivery car sped up, too. It was hard to see Lane’s BMW past the big Jackrabbit Pizza sign on top of the little green car, and I looked for a way around him. That’s when Franco’s dirty yellow pickup shot out from between two other vehicles and T-boned Ryan’s BMW!
The delivery car was so close it slammed into the BMW, too. And I ran into both of them. Time crawled as I watched my hood flip open and the safety glass shatter. The shoulder strap bit into my chest, my nose flirted with the steering wheel, and my cell phone flew out of Matt’s hand and right through the windshield.
Then everything got very quiet. Matt and I exchanged stunned glances. Finally, we popped our doors.
Franco, in construction clothes, stood next to the BMW, a handgun aimed at a moaning Ryan Lane.
“Are you okay?” he asked, glancing our way.
“I’m fine,” I said.
“I was fine,” Matt replied, “until I found out you’re dating our daughter.”
“Come again?” Franco said without shifting aim. Suddenly, the door on the pizza car opened and the driver took off at a run.
“Hey, you!” Franco shouted, but didn’t try to follow, his aim stayed true.
I pointed to the wrecked pickup. “I’m sorry, Detective. Did I just blow your cover?”
“Yeah,” Franco replied. “But you also solved my case.”
I didn’t unde
rstand what the man meant until more police arrived, Sully among them. The older detective eyed my totaled Honda and turned to me. “You have insurance, Clare?”
“Not enough to buy a new car...” But Mike was cleared. The cost was more than worth it.
Then Sully joined Franco, who tucked his gun away and pointed to that little pizza delivery car, a green Nissan. The vehicle was shattered in the front and rear. But Franco was more interested in the illuminated Jackrabbit Pizza sign on the roof, now broken loose from the car and lying on its side.
“Check it out!” Franco whacked Sully in the arm. “I told you the drugs were in the pizza car!”
A tidy hole had been cut into the Nissan’s roof, a cover for the hole now swung loose on its hinges — and stuffed inside that hollow, lighted sign were dozens of plastic bags. Franco began yanking them out and opening them up. They were filled with club drugs.
Sully nodded, looking pretty pleased. “That delivery driver left the construction site when you grabbed the pickup. I think he thought you were chasing him.”
Franco shrugged. “Hey, man. Whatever works.”
Under other circumstances, that kind of slapdash philosophy might have given me pause. But considering the events of the past few days, I had to admit —
“I couldn’t agree more.”
Thirty-Nine
“Boy, oh boy...” Michael Quinn lifted a shaky hand and touched his bandaged head. “That expensive whiskey really packs a wallop.”
“It wasn’t Josie’s aged Irish that hit you, Michael. It was her boyfriend. A guy named Ryan Lane.”
“Well, can’t say as I blame him for it,” he said. “Not after the way Josie was goin’ on at the pub.” He paused. “And I can’t say as I blame my cousin for what happened the other night, either.”
One of the captain’s eyes was covered (the socket required reconstructive surgery), but the other appeared alert behind his bruised flesh. He gazed up at me now through that one good eye, blinking slightly at the bright morning sunlight that washed over the hospital room.
As he stirred and tried to sit up, the IV hose became tangled, and I rose from my chair to help him. “Let me adjust your bed for you,” I said. As the head of the mattress elevated, he turned whiter than coconut cake.
“Ouch.”
“You okay?
“Yeah, but I think I’ll be payin’ a little visit to that Ryan fella when I’m out of here.”
“If you do, it’ll be behind a sheet of Plexiglas.” I adjusted his pillows. “The man’s in custody — for assaulting you... and for killing James Noonan.”
Under his scarlet moustache, Michael’s lips tightened. “I still can’t believe Jimmy’s gone.”
“I’m so sorry... he was a real hero, and his killer will pay. The charges against Lane are piling up. The DA’s nailing him on Bigsby Brewer’s death, and they’re exhuming the body of Josie Fairfield’s husband.”
“Old man Fairfield?” The captain’s one good eye squinted.
“Turns out Lane was originally trained as a pharmaceutical engineer. He whipped up some concoction that knocked James out long enough to fake the suicide, brought it to him in a bottle of wine. Apparently he used a higher dose of the stuff to murder Josie’s husband. According to Josie, she and Ryan Lane had been sleeping together behind her husband’s back. That’s when Lane became obsessed with her. He wanted her for his own, so he killed her husband.”
“The poor bastard...”
“But then Josie began losing interest in Lane and looking around for a new conquest — you were an oldie but goodie, Michael, and she decided she wanted to rekindle the old passion.”
Michael grunted. “She was the only one...”
“Unfortunately, Ryan Lane had already decided to force Josie into ‘retiring’ with him. Given the roof spike fraud and embezzled millions, she looked as guilty as he did. Lane expected an even bigger payday in a few months when the sale of the company went through. He’d planned out his and Josie’s getaway, their change of identities, their new life in South America. He’d even purchased an estate with a coffee farm.”
“He must have known the roof spike would eventually fail...”
“I think he was counting on that. Just one more reason Josie could never return to her old life. But when Bigsby died, Lane knew his time was up. He probably could have gotten away with it — if the wheels of bureaucracy had ground as slowly as usual. But you and James messed that up, jeopardized everything. He killed James and tried to kill you to buy himself enough time to escape with Josie — and the millions he’d already stolen...”
I stopped talking when I realized Michael’s attention had drifted.
“Noonan...” he whispered. “That lad’s my last...”
“What do you mean?”
“Forget it.” He shifted again. “Anyway, Clare, I want you to know... I’m not proud of the way I acted the other night. I owe you an apology.”
“No, you don’t.”
“Yes, I do. And you’re not the only one — ”
The sound of a throat clearing stopped Michael’s words. I turned to find a broad-shouldered detective leaning against the doorframe. It appeared he’d been listening a while.
Mike Quinn glanced briefly at his cousin. Then his arctic blue gaze locked onto me.
“Hi, Clare.”
I couldn’t find my voice.
“Sully gave me a ride over,” Mike said. “Filled me in pretty good. Sorry about your car.”
“I’m not.”
Mike opened his arms and I went into them. When we were through embracing, I noticed Michael on the bed. Despite his pain — and for the first time since I’d arrived — the man was smiling.
Mike released me and approached his cousin. I held my breath, watching the two stare at each other.
Finally, Michael lifted his hand and held it there.
With a silent nod, Mike shook it.
Epilogue
Six weeks later, Madame and I were heading back over the Queensboro Bridge. This time, I’m happy to say, her art-dealer boyfriend, Otto Visser, was driving.
We were attending the opening of Osso Buco Pronto! — a nouvelle Italian restaurant. The location was Long Island City, but the event looked more like a gallery show in SoHo than the launch of an outer-borough eatery (even one with a Manhattanesque ironic name). Oh, sure, there were trays of samples from the restaurant menu, and a brigade of food writers (online and print) were in attendance, but there were just as many members of the art world here, and for very good reason.
From our corner booth, Madame and I joined the applause when Lorenzo Testa appeared in a wheelchair pushed by his daughter. Grinning tearfully, he joined Dante Silva and the other young artists who had diligently worked to re-create his original mural. (For reference, they’d used blowups of the digital photos that Dante had shot just before Caffè Lucia burned.)
As Enzo rolled by to pose for the press, I caught sight of Lucia’s impressive engagement ring, courtesy of Oat Crowley.
According to Madame, Enzo couldn’t be happier that his daughter at last had chosen a man over a boy. (Of course, I didn’t see that she had much choice, given the third point of that particular fire triangle — Glenn Duffy — was now facing twenty-five years to life.)
“What happened to your man Otto?” I asked Madame, after the restaurant’s young chef-owner proposed a toast to Enzo. “I lost track of him...”
Madame pointed across the large, crowded space to a tall, dapper fellow, leanly built with thinning but still-golden hair. “He’s over there, dear, explaining to that New York Times reporter how it took Dante and six of his friends an entire month to recreate what my old friend envisioned and painted by himself.”
Madame drained her champagne flute and shot me a sly smile. “Of course, what Otto is really doing is laying the foundation for Enzo’s public show this summer at his Chelsea gallery.”
“Whatever works,” I said (my new go-to catch phrase).
The paintings to be shown at the Otto Visser Gallery weren’t new. Enzo was still weak and recovering from his stroke; it would take lots of time and therapy before he could paint again. What the world was going to see, for the first time, were the canvases Enzo had painted of his wife — a subject to which he’d lovingly devoted himself for decades. And though the artist himself remained reluctant to part with any of his creations, Enzo at least agreed to a public show, which wasn’t bad publicity for Otto, either.
After a few rounds of Prosecco and trays of delightfully seasoned morsels, Madame found me again.
“So where is your noble knight this evening?”
“Another undercover operation,” I said. “He phoned to tell me he’s running late.”
“The wheels of justice perpetually grind, don’t they, dear? Well, if he doesn’t make it, Otto and I will be happy to give you a lift home.”
“Thanks. Matt made the same offer a little while ago — in front of Breanne, unfortunately. I told them I’d take the subway.”
“Well, he knows you don’t have that little Honda anymore — ”
“Yes and that’s fine. I’ve decided to live without a car for a while. After crashing two of them in one day, I probably couldn’t get affordable auto insurance, anyway.”
As I sipped my sparkling wine, I noticed Tucker and Esther bantering (or bickering — who could tell?). They shared a booth with Kiki and Bahni, Dante’s fawning apartment mates. The girls looked thrilled that their boy was finally getting some critical attention from the press. I was happy for Dante, too, but worried I was about to lose one of my best baristas to the fickle arms of the art world.
“Did you notice that sign across the street when we came in?” Madame asked. “It says the Pink Mirage is coming to Long Island City.”
I nodded. “Dean Tassos isn’t stupid. He closed the Red Mirage to relocate in this hotter area. Did I tell you that Valerie Noonan is working for him now?”
“That lovely girl from the bake sale?”
“Yes, she’s overseeing the activities at all of Dean’s catering halls...” My eye wandered back to another section of the astounding mural, one of Enzo’s later editions to the sprawling piece. Madame noticed my interest.