Murder Most Frothy
Page 1
Praise for the Coffeehouse Mysteries
LATTE TROUBLE
“[E]njoy Latte Trouble, espresso in hand.”
—Roundtable Reviews
“A delightful series…a captivating narrator…fast-paced [with] a big twist at the end.”
—Romantic Times BOOKclub
“Another delightfully percolating and exciting mystery.”
—Midwest Book Review
“Intriguing…Anyone who loves coffee and a good mystery will love this story.”
—The Romance Reader’s Connection
THROUGH THE GRINDER
“Coffee lovers and mystery buffs will savor the latest addition…and for those who like both, it’s a guaranteed ‘Red Eye.’ Fast-paced action, coffee lore, and incredible culinary recipes, brewed together with some dark robust mystery, establish beyond a doubt that this one certainly isn’t decaf. All hail the goddess Caffina!”
—The Best Reviews
“Full of action and murder with a little romance thrown in on the side. The ending is exceptional and completely unexpected.”
—The Romance Reader’s Connection
“A fascinating mystery…a brave, quirky heroine.”
—Books ’n’ Bytes
“There were ample red herrings in Through the Grinder’s story to lead the reader astray…[A] great mystery.”
—Roundtable Reviews
ON WHAT GROUNDS
“A great beginning to a new series…Clare and Matteo make a great team…On What Grounds will convert even the most fervent tea drinker into a coffee lover in the time it takes to draw an espresso.”
—The Mystery Reader
“A definite winner! The mystery is first rate, and the characters leap from the page and are compelling, vivid, and endearing. The aroma of this story made this non-coffee drinker want to visit the nearest coffee bar.”
—Romantic Times
“A fun, light mystery. Recommended.”
—KLIATT
“[A] clever, witty, and lighthearted cozy.”
—The Best Reviews
MURDER MOST FROTHY
CLEO COYLE
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME, NEW YORK
THE BERKLEY PUBLISHING GROUP
Published by the Penguin Group
Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, USA
Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario M4P 2Y3, Canada
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Penguin Books Ltd., Registered Offices: 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.
MURDER MOST FROTHY
A Berkley Prime Crime Book / published by arrangement with the author
PRINTING HISTORY
Berkley Prime Crime mass-market edition / August 2006
Copyright © 2006 by the Berkley Publishing Group.
Cover art by Cathy Gendron.
Cover design and logo by Rita Frangie.
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author’s rights. Purchase only authorized editions.
For information, address: The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
ISBN: 1-4295-2091-4
BERKLEY ® PRIME CRIME
Berkley Prime Crime Books are published by The Berkley Publishing Group,
a division of Penguin Group (USA) Inc.,
375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014.
BERKLEY PRIME CRIME and the BERKLEY PRIME CRIME design are trademarks belonging to Penguin Group (USA) Inc.
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: The recipes contained in this book are to be followed exactly as written. The publisher is not responsible for your specific health or allergy needs that may require medical supervision. The publisher is not responsible for any adverse reactions to the recipes in this book.
This book is dedicated with love to
Evelyn Cerasini
and Nana
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
A most frothy thanks to editors Martha Bushko and Katie Day, and literary agent John Talbot.
People can’t buy a new car every morning, but they can buy a premium cup of coffee that puts a smile on their face…. It’s the democratization of luxury.
—“$35 a Pound and Going Fast,”
Baltimore Sun, 2004
Coffee is the common man’s gold, and like gold it brings to every man the feeling of luxury and nobility.
—Sheik Abd-al-Kadir,
In Praise of Coffee, 1587
PROLOGUE
AMID the scrub grass of the high beach dune, gloved hands gripped seven pounds of bolt-action. Through the Remington’s scope, the shooter scanned the faces on the mansion’s expansive cedar deck.
The typical Hamptons crowd was here: Ivy League wives turned interior decorators, captains of industry turned serial cheaters, vapid heiresses turned wannabe celebrities. There were cold-blooded lawyers, eager-to-please newcomers, megalomaniacal executives, and tone-deaf pop singers—all sipping frothy drinks and wearing designer casual with diamonds as big as planets, wristwatches as pricey as middle-class cars.
Women bared too much or too little, their laughter forced or nonexistent, their attention on each other’s clothing, on the faces in attendance, on the host’s choice of artifacts. Men acted too bored or too eager, their focus on networking, for business or pleasure, the mantra always the same: “Close the deal, close the deal.”
And, oh, the celebrities. They were here too, looking far less air-brushed than their cover shots on TV Guide and Entertainment Weekly. But those observations would only be whispered after the party or behind their backs during it.
At last, the shooter located the target—his short, stocky build was unmistakable, his untucked short-sleeved shirt an enormous pink flag. The trigger could have been pulled at that moment. Three rounds were loaded into the Remington’s magazine, three seven-millimeter bullets primed for their trip through twenty-four inches of steel and forty odd yards of night air. But the result would have been obvious.
The timing had to be right.
Guests came and went, clustering and dissipating like the tides. Music rolled over the mansion’s grounds, across the pool and manicured lawn, down the beach and onto the shoreline. Inside latex gloves, the shooter’s hands grew clammy. Behind the shooter’s feet, the foamy surf sounded restless, as if the ocean were lapping nearer with every passing minute, closing in w
ith each incoming wave.
Finally, the target stepped away from the crowded deck and into the great room. The place was lit up like a whorehouse. With every shade up and shutter open, every bulb and chandelier blazing, guests could readily see the mansion’s splendor—and the shooter could easily track the target’s movements down the hallway and into the south wing, up the stairs and toward the master bedroom suite.
Rogue firecrackers had been exploding for some time, a bright bang here, a sharp crack there, just like any other Fourth of July evening, little detonations from god-knew-where. But those stray explosions were nothing. The night’s most memorable fireworks were about to start.
Farther down the beach, the patriotic spectacle was finally launched. A succession of roman candles went up amid booms, blasts, and a pumped-up soundtrack. Rockets raced high over the water, bursting with an array of bright red light, trickling down like blood trails against the death-black sky.
Most guests were staring upward now, their blank faces dazzled by the show. The shooter’s focus remained far lower. For a few minutes, the target disappeared from view, then reappeared on the mansion’s second floor. He had moved to the bathroom window.
A shot rang out and then another. Both missed their target. A third round was fired. It traveled down the Remington’s barrel, through the thick window, and into the man’s skull.
At the party below, guests were still gawking skyward. They had failed to notice the rifle’s discharge. Amid the fireworks, it was just another big bang.
Contents
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
PROLOGUE
Chapter ONE
Chapter TWO
Chapter THREE
Chapter FOUR
Chapter FIVE
Chapter SIX
Chapter SEVEN
Chapter EIGHT
Chapter NINE
Chapter TEN
Chapter ELEVEN
Chapter TWELVE
Chapter THIRTEEN
Chapter FOURTEEN
Chapter FIFTEEN
Chapter SIXTEEN
Chapter SEVENTEEN
Chapter EIGHTEEN
Chapter NINETEEN
Chapter TWENTY
Chapter TWENTY-ONE
Chapter TWENTY-TWO
EPILOGUE
ONE
HOURS before I found the body, one of Detective Mike Quinn’s pithy comments came back to haunt me: “You know, Clare, it’s a little-known principle of physics, a great deal of money can create a completely separate universe.”
“You were right, Mike,” I whispered, taking in my surroundings.
I was standing on the bi-level oceanfront deck of Otium cum Dignitate, “Leisure with Dignity,” David Mintzer’s ten-million-dollar East Hampton mansion, where his annual July Fourth party was in full swing.
Floating candles bobbed in the Jacuzzi like dancing water fairies. Antique porcelain planters sweetened the sea air with rare orchids and night-blooming jasmine. Speakers, hidden in the topiary, accompanied the music of the nearby rolling surf with the majestic compositions of Gershwin and Copeland. And sterling-sliver serving trays overflowed with flutes of obscenely expensive champagne and freshly picked strawberries the size of lemons, dipped in the finest Belgian chocolate.
“East” Hampton, of course, was one of the most exclusive hamlets in the United States. It sat beside Amagansett, Wainscott, Sagaponack, Bridgehampton, Southampton, and a few other quaintly named seaside townships known collectively as “the Hamptons,” each with its own set of beaches, permits, and restrictive (some might say fascistically elitist) parking regulations.
East Hampton was also a prime example of my detective friend’s theory. For the very wealthy who summered here, from business moguls to movie stars, old money heirs to new money wannabes, the place was a trip back in time, where neon was outlawed, scenic rural landscapes were preserved, and genteel country estates were hidden from public view by towering “stay out!” hedgerows. (Or, as the local gentry referred to them, “privets for breaking the ocean winds,” because actually admitting your aversion for allowing the general public to even peek at your property might make you appear a total snob.)
The Hamptons, it seemed to me, were about a lot of things, but mostly they were about being one hundred miles away from the gritty threats and cheap kicks of New York City. Money had carved these people another dimension, an existence of safety and beauty and taste, free of the stench of fear and crime and tackiness.
The villages were located at the end of Long Island’s South Fork, a picturesque strip of land filled with ponds, marshes, and hills. Bluewater bays stretched along its north side, the Atlantic ocean along its south.
There were hiking trails here and haute cuisine. Farm stands and a film festival. Bird sanctuaries and built-in pools. Nature preserves and tennis courts. You could find Jackson Pollack’s original, unheated studio here, as well as Quelle Barn, Steven Spielberg’s multi-million dollar East Hampton summer home, supposedly guarded by retired members of the Mossad—Israel’s secret service.
Even the light was special in the Hamptons. Artists claimed it was the peculiar shape of the landscape, the slant of the sun’s rays as they bounced off the water. Whatever it was, they could find it nowhere else, which was one reason the area had become one of America’s most famous art colonies long before La-La Land’s A-list had started driving up the real estate prices.
Hamptons’ colors actually appeared richer too (not just the people). One morning when I rose for an early swim, I found myself gaping at an azure ocean so identical to the sky above it that no horizon line presented itself—the blue seemed to go on forever.
At the moment, on the other end of Long Island, the end without pristine white beaches, most of New York City’s residents were living on top of each other in cigar-box apartments, rundown rowhouses, and public housing—all of them sweltering in the kind of relentless city heat that liquefied every ounce of energy before sucking it right out of you. Emergency sirens and shouting neighbors routinely punctured any hope of sustained tranquility, and sidewalk garbage, baking in the summer heat, fouled the air with the sort of fragrances that Calvin Klein wouldn’t be bottling anytime soon.
Because tempers rose with the temperature, muggings, burglaries, assaults, and murders were now statistically up all over the city. And Mike Quinn had been clocking a lot of overtime at the NYPD’s Sixth Precinct.
Here in East Hampton, on the other hand, police work appeared to be limited to public drunkenness, auto accidents, or the occasional actress-turned-pathological-shoplifter. Delicate breezes refreshed the residents with the vigor of salt spray. And the nights were cool, quiet, and dark enough to actually see the constellations.
This place was a dreamland, Trump-meets-Thoreau, with an ocean view. And New Yorkers who had no roots in its history bought their way in with oodles of money, staking their million-dollar claims. They had indeed violated the laws of physics, as my friend Detective Quinn had put it, and created a completely separate universe.
So what the heck was I, middle-class working stiff Clare Cosi, doing here? At the moment, I was whipping up frothy coffee concoctions for David Mintzer’s illustrious party guests.
I know, I know…in America the term “barista” has come to be associated with out-of-work actors and college coeds—never mind that Americans consume half the world’s coffee supply, about 100 billion cups a year, and on a typical day seventy percent of the population drinks it. Here barista is not the highly-respected job title it is in, for example, Italy, a country with over 200,000 espresso bars.
The truth is, I’d gotten my coffee start early. My paternal grandmother taught me how. She raised me back in Pennsylvania, where I practically lived in her little grocery, making espressos for her customers and friends with the battered stovetop pot she’d brought with her from Italy. With every cup I poured, there was always a pat on the head, the pressing of a quarter into my palm.
My father, a flamboyant, constant
ly wired little guy who loved a good cigar and a shot of anisette with his morning demitasse, ran an illegal bookie operation from the back of Nana’s store.
My mother never sampled my coffee-making skills. She’d left when I was seven, and although for years I’d thought it was because I hadn’t been a good enough little girl, I eventually realized she’d become fed up with my father’s running around.
One day when a man from sunny Miami came to our town to visit a friend, Mom ran off with him, leaving nothing but a hastily scrawled note, which made her intentions clear. She wanted to erase her past completely, which unfortunately included me.
That’s when my grandmother stepped in. Making espresso in Nana’s grocery was one of my fondest childhood memories. So it was no big mystery why I associated the best of things with the rich, warm, welcoming aroma of brewing coffee—the essence of home, of Nana’s hugs, of unconditional love in the face of an incomprehensible rejection.
Even after my collegiate studies and successes as a culinary writer, I ultimately decided making the perfect cup time after time for a person who might be tired, weary, thirsty, or down, was not an insignificant thing.
Despite my function at this East Hampton party, however, my job title was not in fact “barista to the stars.” My actual occupation was full-time manager of the Village Blend, a landmark, century-old coffeehouse in Manhattan’s Greenwich Village, which was where David Mintzer and I had gotten to know each other in the first place.
In his mid-forties, David was one of those men who could be described with a list of features that had “slightly” in front of almost every one: slightly paunchy with slightly thinning dark hair, and slightly bulbous eyes. There were other things about him, however, that were far from slight: his wit for one, which was quick and wry; his business acumen for another.