Dead Cold Brew

by Cleo Coyle

  “Ditto.”

  “She could have taken off for Europe or Brazil or Bali—”

  “So we could either wait another twenty-four hours to hear from her, or we could call the police now. What do you want to do?”

  As Matt started pacing again, he noticed the extra Pumpkin Alfredo on the stove. Grabbing a fork, he began eating straight out of the pot.

  “Mmm . . . this is good,” he absently garbled, shoveling in the food.

  Hungry much?

  “Matt?” I prompted. “You can eat your feelings but there’s no time to chew on this decision. Should we wait? Or err on the safe side and call the police now?”

  I could see he hated the idea of calling the police, because (frankly) he hated the “fascist” polizia. Not so much Mike Quinn, not after all that Quinn had done for him in the past. But Franco and those false arrests Matt had been subjected to were another matter, along with every cop who ever wrote him a speeding ticket, every corrupt official he’d had to pay off in the developing world, and . . . authority figures in general.

  Which is why I knew how worried Matteo Allegro truly was when he finally said—

  “Let’s call the police.”

  Just then, my smartphone alerted me to a new message.

  “Esther is texting me from downstairs,” I said, scanning the words.

  “What is it?”

  I met Matt’s gaze. “Looks like the police came to us.”

  SIXTY-EIGHT

  I grabbed my printouts, scribbled Sophia a quick note in case she woke up. Then Matt and I hit the stairs.

  We found Detective Lori Soles at a table by a rain-spattered French door, dressed in her usual crisp slacks and pressed blazer, which barely hid the bulky weapon at her hip. Her short blond curls looked damp from the downpour, her expression beyond agitated.

  Between angry swipes of her smartphone screen, she gulped her Iced Vanilla Latte—which did little to cool her off.

  We hardly slipped into chairs at her table before Lori let loose—

  “Who the hell is this Hunter Rolf we arrested today?! Did he steal the Hope Diamond? Commit high treason? Plot to kill a world leader? What?”

  Matt blinked, surprised. “And here I thought cops in this city actually knew who they were arresting and why—”

  I laid a hand on Matt’s arm to silence him.

  “I know his name, Allegro,” Lori shot back. “Now I’d like to know why our collar was taken away from us.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean we’re out, Clare. No interview room questions. Not even a Thanks for your work, Detectives. Sue Ellen’s so pissed she went on a Tinder date. I feel sorry for the person she swiped right on this time!”

  Lori’s loud voice was turning heads. “McNulty just marched in, took over, and had us relieved for the day. You know, some of us actually like to be kissed before we get—”

  “Shhh. Calm down,” I said. “Are you talking about Lieutenant McNulty, the man who heads the Inside Job Squad?”

  Now it was Lori’s turn to be surprised. “You know him?”

  “We’ve met. I was a victim of the man’s brand of ‘witness correction.’”

  “Do tell.”

  I did. About the fireworks. And the panicked shooting outside the bar where McNulty and his men were drinking. I also confessed that I was the one who fingered Hunter when I spoke to Quinn about him.

  “So, you think Hunter Rolf is the cop shooter?”

  “Not now . . .” I explained how Hunter was the victim of circumstance, for the shootings and the poisoning of Gustavo Campana.

  “Well, I can tell you that Lieutenant McNulty won’t be taking your word for it. All interviews and investigations of both crimes are under his command. And he did not want Sue Ellen and me on his team. We’re out.”

  “What about Mike?”

  “Last I heard, your fiancé and his squad have been temporarily diverted from their own casework and put under McNulty’s authority for the duration of the cop shootings investigation. As of this afternoon, Quinn and his people are scattered across the five boroughs, tracking down Panther Man ‘leads.’”

  “Why are you putting finger quotes around the word leads?”

  “Because they’re obviously bogus. McNulty’s not about to give anyone the chance to solve a case he’s running, especially his chief rival in the department. That’s why he sent me and Sue Ellen off to see the wizard. He knows we’re tight with Quinn, and he obviously believes Hunter Rolf is a prime suspect. He wants the glory of a confession all for himself and his detectives.”

  “Well, he’s not going to get a confession! Hunter is not guilty!”

  Now Matt put a hand on my arm. “Take it easy, calm down.”

  But I couldn’t. I was livid!

  “Why in heaven’s name is Lieutenant McNulty in charge of the investigation? Mike’s team was targeted before the Inside Job Squad. He’s been working the case longer than McNulty!”

  “That’s true, Clare, but McNulty is in favor right now at One Police Plaza, not your fiancé.”

  “Why?” I squeezed my eyes shut, already knowing the answer. “It’s because Mike embarrassed the mayor and police commissioner, isn’t it? They blame him for the newspapers publishing that Panther Man sketch.”

  “I’m sure that’s part of it. But don’t forget, Quinn went off to DC to work for Justice. He may be back in New York now, but those bureaucrats downtown are all too human—they have resentful streaks and short memories, and some of these new appointments in the commissioner’s office seem to have amnesia.”

  “Are you saying Mike’s career with the NYPD is in jeopardy?”

  “No, of course not. Mike Quinn is a thoroughbred. He’s a decorated narcotics officers, highly valued. The brass is not about to risk losing him in their stable. But they are pissed. So they’re spanking him by temporarily putting him under McNulty, who has much more political power at One PP—”

  “Okay! Enough with the career counseling!” Matt threw up his hands. “This pee-pee talk is pissing me off. It’s time we talked about my mother!”

  “Shhhh,” Lori and I hissed in unison.

  Then we all calmed down and got down to business.

  SIXTY-NINE

  TEN minutes later, Matt finished explaining his worries to Lori Soles. “So what do you think?” He rubbed the dark stubble on his chin. “I know I’m supposed to wait forty-eight hours to file a missing person’s report but—”

  “Actually, you don’t have to,” Lori replied, reaching for one of the fudgy Chocolate Globs that Nancy brought from our pastry case. “If you have serious concerns for the safety of someone whose whereabouts are unknown, you should immediately report them missing.”

  Then she sighed and looked again at the screen grabs I handed her. “Unfortunately, from what you’ve told me, and what I see here, this hasn’t reached the level of a missing person’s investigation.”

  “But you just said—”

  I settled Matt down again.

  “Look, I can see you’re worried, but from a law enforcement perspective, there’s little here to indicate a threat to your mother. She’s greeted pleasantly and responds in kind. She’s invited into a nice car and goes willingly. If she were a child, an Amber Alert would be issued instantly, but she’s as far from a minor as a hawk from the moon. If she were senile, that would be another matter—but she’s not, right, Allegro?”

  “She’s as sharp as a blade grinder.”

  “You haven’t received any threats to her well-being or any messages from her that indicate she’s in danger. Did you check to see if your mom’s passport was missing?”

  Matt shook his head. “Missing isn’t a factor. She carries it with her all the time. My mother likes to be ready to fly off to visit friends on a lark.”

  “There
you go—another reason an investigating officer would be skeptical and suggest that more time needs to pass. Otherwise, what we’re looking at could be a very innocent incident.”

  “But what if this incident isn’t innocent?” I said. “What if it’s connected to Gustavo Campana’s attempted murder?”

  “How so?”

  I explained what we knew about the man in the white suit. “What if this blackmailer tried to kill Gus?”

  “Clare, from my perspective, your theory is valid enough to investigate further. But from the NYPD’s perspective, the prime suspect for Campana’s murder was already arrested. The forensic evidence incriminating Hunter is all wrapped up with a nice fingerprint bow. And witnesses who know them both have gone on the record swearing that Gustavo and Hunter were not on good terms. The motive is easy enough to establish since Hunter’s wife would inherit the business. That’s why the DA’s office believes it can prosecute.”

  “But Hunter is innocent.”

  “I know you, Clare, and if you believe that, I’m inclined to think it’s true. But McNulty is in charge now, and he’s not going to pursue any theory that doesn’t involve Hunter poisoning Gus. That charge is the only way he’ll be able to pressure Hunter into giving up information on Eduardo De Santis—his ultimate goal . . . and prize.”

  Matt sighed. “So we’re on our own?”

  “No. You have me. And I believe you.”

  “Then help us,” Matt urged, leaning across the table. “Get that black Jaguar tracked.”

  Lori sighed patiently. “If you had a license plate, I could easily run it for you. But the screen grabs don’t show us a license—”

  “What about traffic cameras?” I asked.

  “A nonemergency request for a detective to track that Jag through the archived data feeds would take at least a day or two to process.”

  “What if someone checks just one camera?” I suggested. “By watching an intersection near the Campanas’ place, at the date and time indicated here”—I pointed to the CCTV screen grab—“the observer is sure to see the Jag pass by within minutes and might be able to zoom in on a license plate. All someone has to do is take a quick look.”

  “Once again, it would take a day or two for a request like that to go through channels.”

  Matt’s jaw clenched and the veins on his neck twitched.

  “But you’re in luck. I have a friend in the Traffic Division. I’ll reach out to her,” Lori said as she reached for another Chocolate Glob. “She might agree to do me this favor out of school, without the red tape.”

  “That would be great,” I said. “And tell her she’s got free coffee for a week and all the Village Blend Chocolate Globs she can eat.”

  Lori took the screen grabs and rose. She put her hand on Matt’s slumped shoulders. “Don’t stop looking for your mother. Call her friends, check the hospitals . . .”

  Wincing at the word hospital, Matt raised a hand to silence her. “Okay. Enough.”

  “Sorry,” Lori said, taking one last Glob for the road. “These are amazing, Clare. Good bribery material.” She gave me an encouraging wink. “I’ll be in touch.”

  “What now?” Matt asked. “Before I called you, I texted her friends. Do we check hospitals?”

  “Not yet. There’s one person on that security camera footage who may be able to answer a lot of the questions we’ve been asking over the last two days.”

  “Who—” Matt cut his own question off when he realized the answer. “Perla Campana.”

  I nodded. “Gus’s eldest daughter was on the sinking Andrea Doria at the time this blackmailer claims he saw something—something so terrible that Gus paid him off to keep silent for sixty years.”

  “But Perla was only four years old at the time. Do you think she actually remembers anything?”

  “Let’s find out.”

  SEVENTY

  “THAT’S it!”

  I pointed to the stately sign above the fashionable TriBeCa address. White letters floated against a sea green background: Urban Salvage and Artifact Recycling Co.

  Matt pulled our Village Blend van over to the curb, tires bumping loudly on the old Belgian blocks that still paved the historically preserved side street.

  A century ago, this southern Manhattan neighborhood was a bustling center of textile and cotton trade. By the 1970s, it looked more like a ghost town, a decrepit blight of run-down properties on the city’s crime-ridden landscape. That’s when artists and urban pioneers like Perla moved in, converting the dingy, abandoned factories and warehouses into livable lofts and art studios—even naming the area TriBeCa, a catchy abbreviation of the neighborhood’s location: Triangle Below Canal.

  No longer a struggling artist, Perla was now a respected academic with an adjunct positon at Cooper Union. She was also a highly successful businesswoman who was often hired to consult on historic preservation projects throughout the Tri-State Area.

  Her retail-store-cum-art-gallery occupied the first three floors of this former warehouse, which boasted soaring ceilings, cast-iron pillars, and plate glass windows passing plenty of light, even on this overcast day.

  We entered the vast space like divers moving through a great sunken shipwreck, gawking at pieces of salvage Perla had plucked from urban landscapes here and abroad.

  To our left was a slab of the Berlin Wall, one side oppressively gray, the other freely painted with colorful graffiti. A video screen beside it played 1989 footage of Berliners sledgehammering away at the Cold War artifact.

  To our right were antique lampposts from London. Ahead, gargoyles from Paris. A scarred wooden slab was labeled as the original front door to Edgar Allan Poe’s Brooklyn residence, and part of a demolished building from Alphabet City displayed a mural of superhero characters by a world-famous graffiti artist.

  “Panther Man again,” whispered Matt, pointing to the Art Deco–style rendering of more than a dozen men in tights. “Looks like you can’t get away from him.”

  “Don’t remind me . . .”

  There were pieces of sidewalk, subway signs, antique traffic lights, and more front doors, lighting fixtures, and window frames labeled as once attached to residences of famous New Yorkers from Teddy Roosevelt and Walt Whitman to Madonna and Lady Gaga.

  “A store dedicated to historical trash,” Matt whispered.

  “And you know what they say? One man’s trash is another man’s treasure.”

  “Especially when you have an excessive amount of treasure . . .” Matt tilted his head toward a trendy-looking couple, arguing over whether to put an SPQR sewer grate in their penthouse apartment or Hamptons’ beach house.

  Behind them on the wall, I noticed a timeline of framed black-and-white photos showing the evolution of Perla’s store, from an abandoned linen warehouse to the upscale showplace it was today.

  A parallel set of photos illustrated Perla’s personal journey, from a young sharpshooting competitor in the 1972 Olympics, to a pro-anarchy antiestablishment activist in the early 1980s, to her academic career in the 1990s.

  Finally, we came to the end of the floor and a giant squared and polished chunk of Manhattan schist. A nearby video showed Perla in a white hard hat, leading a tour somewhere beneath the city . . .

  “This bedrock was formed over 300 million years ago under the Manhattan skyline,” she told the camera. “Not unlike the formation of diamonds, the hardest naturally occurring substance on our planet, heat from the core of the earth and pressure from the mountains above turned fifteen miles of fragile shale into this super strong stone. Without this foundation to anchor the city’s skyscrapers, builders couldn’t reach for the stars. Ironically, stars are what appear to twinkle around you here, so deep underground, as crystal deposits in the schist—of mica, milky quartz, and blue kyanite—sparkle and wink in the urban builder’s industrial light . . .”

  “May
I help you?” An intense young woman in a short skirt and ankle boots adjusted her horn-rimmed glasses for a top-down evaluation of us.

  “Hello,” I said politely. “We’re looking for Ms. Campana—” I pointed to the screen, where Perla continued lecturing the camera on the qualities of Manhattan bedrock. “Is she here?”

  “I’m sorry, Professor Campana is very busy today. But I’m happy to help you!” She gestured to the big chunk of New York like a game show model presenting prize number one. “Are you interested in our Schist Squared piece for your residence or an office space?”

  “We’re not customers,” I clarified. “We’re friends of Perla’s family, and we really do need to speak to her. It’s urgent.”

  The young woman pursed her lips with a kind of skeptical superiority. “I don’t think I understand. If it’s urgent, and you’re really ‘friends,’ why don’t you text her?”

  “We prefer to speak in person.”

  “Well, she’s not even on the premises . . .” The young woman glanced at her smartphone. “At this hour, she’s consulting on the Track 61 Project at the Waldorf Astoria—or more precisely under it.” She flashed us a smug smile, as if she’d made an inside joke that only she could understand. “Would you care to make an appointment?”

  “No. That won’t be necessary,” I said. “I’m familiar with the hidden VIP track connecting Grand Central with the Waldorf, the one historians believe FDR used to hide his handicap. Did you know Andy Warhol threw an underground party down there in 1965?”

  “He did?” The girl blinked at me in shock, as if a trained monkey had just recited a Shakespearean sonnet.

  “Yes, dear,” I said, channeling Madame, who’d attended that very party. “And even Andy would agree. Trendy glasses and a few short years of college are a poor replacement for a lifetime of experience and decent manners. Good day.”

  Before Matt could close his dropped jaw, I tugged him away from the sputtering girl and out the chic junk store’s door.