Coffeehouse 09 - Roast Mortem

by Cleo Coyle

  “I’m not troubling Otto with this,” Madame stated.

  “That’s crazy.” I pulled out my cell. “I’ll call him.”

  “Please don’t.”

  “For heaven’s sake, why not?”

  “Otto’s hosting an important dinner between a promising young painter and a very serious Japanese collector. I wouldn’t dream of doing anything to hurt the artist’s prospects.”

  Considering what the woman had just gone through, I found that reply frustrating, although I knew where it came from. For decades, Madame had run our Village Blend as a second home for poets, writers, dramatists, and yes—as cliché as it sounded—struggling fine artists.

  Actors, dancers, singers, writers, visual artists, and students burning to prove themselves worthy of said identifiers still frequented our Village coffeehouse. But the neighborhood’s skyrocketing real estate values had driven the majority of them to more affordable neighborhoods in Brooklyn, here in Queens, and (in the case of many jazz musicians) North Jersey.

  Back in Madame’s prime, however, when Greenwich Village was still a “cheap” place to live on Manhattan island, she’d befriended some true legends of the art world (before they’d become legends): Hopper, Pollock, de Kooning, Rauschenberg, Warhol, Lichtenstein, even the graffiti prodigy Jean-Michel Basquiat.

  She’d also known artists, just as talented, who’d failed. Not in their art but in their ability to make a passable living at it. What the bottle and needle didn’t claim, the demands of day jobs or young families did. So it was no mystery to me why Madame didn’t want to feel responsible for interfering with even one aspiring artist’s sale.

  Still, I had to point out: “When Otto finds out, he’ll be extremely upset that you didn’t call.”

  Madame waved her hand. “To tell you the truth, dear, the last time I was in harm’s way—you recall, don’t you? At Matteo’s wedding last year?”

  “The shooting?”

  “Yes, for weeks after that little incident, Otto was solicitous to the point of annoyance. I’d rather not go through that again. I do adore the man, but a woman needs her space.”

  Madame glanced up then, beyond me, into the vast fluorescent bustle of the ER’s central area. “And where is your knightly young officer?”

  Knightly? That’s a first. I pointed. “Waiting room.”

  “I must tell you, Clare, he took excellent care of me, found me a sparkling water, brought me a hairbrush and mirror. Oh!” She pointed to my shoulder. “I see you have my bag. At last, I can do my makeup.”

  I handed over the recovered booty. As Madame pulled out her compact and lipstick, I heard male laughter and hearty greetings coming through the closed curtain to her right. That patient, whoever he was, had just gotten a visitor. At the same moment, I realized the Biker Guy on the stretcher to the left of Madame was watching us with interest—easy enough to do because the partitioning curtain on his side was pulled completely open.

  “Howyadoin’?” he called when he noticed me noticing him.

  “Fine,” I replied, then gestured to the plastic brace around his neck (the one beneath his narrow version of a ZZ Top beard). “What happened? Traffic accident? Spin out?”

  “Slipped in the shower.”

  “Oh . . .”

  “Clare, this is Diggy-Dog Dare.” Madame turned to the biker. “Diggy, this is Clare Cosi, my daughter-in-law—”

  “Ex,” I corrected, and not for the first time.

  “Charmed, I’m sure,” Diggy replied in basso profundo.

  “Before you arrived, we were exchanging recipes,” Madame explained. “Diggy gave me his favorite: tequila chicken.”

  “With tomatillo sauce,” Diggy noted.

  “And I gave him my bourguignon-style short ribs and—”

  “Osso buco,” I interjected with a nod. “I overheard.”

  Madame tapped her chin. “Now that I think of it, dear, didn’t you used to make a steak with bourbon sauce? I recall Matt raving about it and Diggy has a proclivity for bourbon. Don’t you, Diggy?”

  “A proclivity? No. But I do like it a lot.”

  “Of course, Matt always raved about your cooking,” Madame went on. She turned back to Diggy. “Matt’s my son. He and Clare have the most beautiful daughter together.”

  “Is that right?” Diggy scratched the roots of his beard. “I have two myself. Wife number three’s got custody of the first. Wife number four’s bringing up the second.”

  “Excuse me, Mr. Dare,” I said, moving to the partitioning curtain. “Would you mind very much if I had a private word with my ex-mother-in-law?”

  “Naw, no problem. Pull it.”

  I did, hoping the wall of white on both sides of her would help Madame’s grappa-happy mind to focus—on something other than alcohol-soaked meat, anyway.

  “What is it, dear? What’s wrong?”

  “Don’t forget!” Diggy-Dog’s voice boomed through the drapery. “I sure would like that recipe for bourbon steak!”

  “Okay!” I called, then took a breath and approached Madame with my serious face. “Enzo’s in the ICU.”

  “What? Why didn’t your young man tell me?”

  “For the same reason you didn’t call Otto. Mike didn’t want to upset you. Enzo’s stable now, but they’re monitoring him. It’s his heart . . .”

  Madame closed her eyes. “If anything happens to him, I’ll never forgive myself.”

  “That’s absurd. Why would you say that?

  “We arrived at the caffè an hour late, Clare. If we’d been on time, we all might have been out of harm’s way before the fire started.” In a rare show of naked anxiety, Madame wrung her hands. “If only we’d gotten there earlier—”

  “Listen to me—” I took hold of her shoulders. “If Enzo dies, the person that killed him is the arsonist who set that blaze.”

  Madame’s hand-wringing stopped. “Arsonist?”

  I nodded.

  “What are you saying, Clare? Did you see someone set the fire?”

  “No. But I witnessed the start. I think someone set off a bomb in Enzo’s shop.”

  “A bomb in Enzo’s shop!”

  Crap. The laughing voices beyond the curtain fell silent. I waited a few seconds, until the muffled sound of men chatting drifted back through the thin material again. Then I turned back to Madame.

  “Try to keep your voice down, okay? Tell me what you remember about the fire.”

  “There was a whoosh at first, that’s what I recall, a very loud whoosh. Enzo went up the stairs, felt the door, and knew there was a terrible blaze on the other side. Smoke began seeping through the floor.” Madame shook her head. “Enzo kept us alive, Clare.”

  “He did?”

  “Yes. He was a rock. We couldn’t get out of that basement. But Enzo kept assuring me the basement’s metal door was a fire door and we’d be all right as long as we could get fresh air. The man didn’t show one moment of panic. I can’t say the same for myself.”

  “Given what was happening, Madame, panic would have been normal.” And that thought made me pause . . .

  Had Enzo planned, all along, to end up trapped in the building, behind a fire door, to make himself appear innocent?

  “And then smoke began to fill the room, and he used all his strength to move some heavy crates. He helped me down onto the floor and made me move my head all the way into an old air vent. The smoke in the room became unbearable. There was only room for one of us to get fresh air. I wanted us to switch off, but he refused. He physically forced me to lie with my face in that vent for fresh outside air . . .”

  Madame’s voice trailed off as her eyes filled with tears. “And now he’s in the ICU . . . he’s in there for one reason, Clare, because he did everything he could to make sure I wouldn’t be . . .”

  I fell silent as Madame composed herself. I grabbed some tissues, handed them to her, one after another. Finally, she wiped her cheeks.

  “Thank God those two young men came down when they
did to carry us out . . . When they told me you were all right, I nearly fainted. I was so worried about you, Clare . . . You’d gone up there to the caffè to let Dante in, and we didn’t know what had happened . . .”

  We hugged again and I sat down on the edge of her stretcher. Madame grasped my arm, looked into my eyes. “Who do you think set that bomb? An enemy of Enzo’s? Someone with a vendetta?”

  “I think it was someone who had something to gain.”

  “Gain?” Madame frowned. “You’re not suggesting Enzo did this?”

  “No,” I said, thinking not anymore. “Enzo put himself in the ICU to save you. That doesn’t add up to a snake-blooded arsonist.”

  “Then who?”

  Madame’s big, blue-violet eyes were fixed on me. She wasn’t making the leap. Because she doesn’t want to . . .

  “I need to speak to Enzo,” I said carefully. “I need to find out more about . . .”

  “About?” she prompted.

  “I just need to speak with him.”

  “We’ll do it together!” Madame announced so loudly the men next to us quieted again.

  “Madame, please—”

  “If someone deliberately set fire to that beautiful caffè and put all of our lives in danger, we are not going to let that bastard get away with it! Are we, Clare?”

  “No, of course not, but please calm down . . .” Not only wasn’t the woman calming down, she wasn’t staying down. “Please. Don’t tax your system—”

  “What’s going on here?” A middle-aged nurse with iron-gray hair instantly materialized. “Where are you going, Mrs. Dubois? You haven’t been released yet.”

  “But I need to speak with my friend—”

  “What you need to do is get your butt back on that stretcher—”

  Madame shook her head.

  I took firm hold of her upper arms. “Madame, think. Enzo is in the ICU. They’re not going to let us both in there at the same time, and they’re certainly not going to let in another patient.”

  I felt her muscles relax under my hands. She stopped fighting

  “Yes. Of course, of course . . . you’re right, dear.”

  “It’s okay,” I told the nurse. “She’s not going anywhere.”

  The nurse nodded and hustled away.

  “Now rest, okay?” I kept my voice pleasant as I helped Madame return to her hospital sheets, but I really wanted to kick myself. I’d brought up the arsonist to relieve the woman’s guilt, not give her a heart attack, too. “Why don’t you pass the time by talking to Mr. Dog Dare again?”

  I pulled back the curtain to her left.

  “Bourbon steak?” Diggy sang in greeting.

  “When I come back,” I promised.

  “Clare,” Madame called as I turned to go. “Tell me. Who do you think set that bomb?”

  Enzo’s bratty little witch of a daughter, who else? And I didn’t think she did it alone. But was Glenn her accomplice? Or someone else? How many other lapdog beaus did that woman have on a leash?

  I wanted to tell Madame what I thought and what I was beginning to fear—if Lucia had been ruthless enough to torch her father’s caffè, what other crimes would she be capable of committing? Would she harm her own father to get her hands on her inheritance faster? Was she capable of setting him up for an “accident”? Poisoning him?

  I needed to know more before I started accusing anyone, even through speculation, and as Mike had warned me outside, this was not the time or the place. So my reply to Madame was—

  “I have a few people in mind.”

  “Who?”

  “I’ll let you know.”

  I took off fast after that, to avoid any further questions. But after just three steps, I stopped dead.

  On the other side of the partitioning curtain, a big man stood, ear cocked against the snowy fabric.

  “Oat?”

  Lieutenant Oat Crowley had been listening to every word we’d said. Propped up on the stretcher next to him was Ronny Shaw, the firefighter who’d landed in here thanks to a chunk of ceiling.

  Crowley and I stood staring at each other. His craggy, roundish face betrayed a mix of embarrassment and annoyance. Finally, beneath the slightly shaggy crown of his oatmeal-colored hair, the man’s features hardened into an iron mask. His eyes narrowed like a shooter’s gun sight, and I was in his crosshairs.

  Crowley opened his mouth to address me, but considering our surroundings and the amount of ears and eyes so close, he appeared to be hamstrung.

  Now what?

  The lieutenant had shot me some pretty nasty looks outside, as if I’d been the sole cause of the animosity between the Quinn cousins, which was patently ridiculous. Their feud had been going on for years before I’d known either one of them. Still, showing weakness to Crowley would be a mistake (I’d learned a thing or two from Madame by now), and I boldly stepped up to the man.

  “Hello,” I said.

  “Ms. Cosi.” The words were more statement than greeting.

  “How is your friend doing?”

  “Who’s this?” Ronny asked from his stretcher, looking a little dazed.

  “Nobody,” Crowley answered, then stepped toward me—and kept on stepping. He danced me backward, right out of Ronny’s designated ER rectangle. “He’s going to be fine, Ms. Cosi. How’s your old lady?”

  “My employer is doing all right, considering . . .”

  “Considering what?”

  “Considering someone tried to murder her.”

  Crowley stopped dancing me backward. “You ought to be careful what you say in a public place.”

  “Maybe.” I folded my arms, finally standing my ground. “But what do you care? You must put out dozens of fires in any given year—”

  “Hundreds.”

  “Exactly. You’ll have another fire tomorrow, maybe two. More next week. So what do you care what anyone says about any one of them?”

  “I don’t.”

  I studied the man’s eyes. You do. You do care. Why? I opened my mouth to ask, but Crowley spoke first, his voice so low even I could barely hear him.

  “Steer clear of this, missy. For your own good.”

  “Why? What do you know?”

  “I don’t know a thing,” Crowley said. Then he spun around, walked back to his buddy’s bedside, and closed the curtain on our conversation.

  EIGHT

  SEEING Enzo was more difficult than I’d anticipated. For one thing I was tired—emotionally drained over my worries about Madame and Dante, and mentally strained by the absurd scene between Mike and his cousin. The cryptic threat from Oat hadn’t helped, and the hospital’s critical care facility wasn’t exactly a laugh a minute, either.

  Laid out like the ER downstairs, the ICU consisted of beds lined up in tidy partitioned rows, but that’s where the similarity ended. There was a hypersterile scent to the ICU; no sharp, astringent sting of ER alcohol or bright, clean bleach. There were no grounding smells at all, which only increased the surreal feeling of disconnection, and where the ER was filled with bustle and noise, this unit exhibited the chilling reverence of a funeral home’s viewing room.

  Male and female nurses in scrubs went about their duties like polite androids, fully aware yet completely detached from ongoing human dramas around them: a young Filipino woman sobbing at the bedside of a comatose grandfather; a Hispanic man mumbling Hail Marys next to a youth swathed in bandages . . .

  An RN escorted me through it all, to the bedside of Madame’s friend. Enzo’s skin appeared fragile as rice paper, his cheeks sunken, his surfaces painted paler than a winter moon. This robust older gentleman, so full of burning energy, now had all the life of one of Mike’s postmortems.

  I took a breath and closed my eyes, willing myself to toughen up. It wasn’t easy. Feelings were washing over me, images from half a lifetime ago: that phone call in the dark morning hours; my frightened little girl crying in her bed; the summons to an ICU like this one to find my dynamic, young husband laid out like a c
orpse, clinging to life, his strong body brought down by a little white powder.

  I thought I’d frozen those memories, left them far away, like ancient snow on a mountain top, but the smells and sounds flash-melted it all, raining it down in a sudden, unavoidable flood.

  “Mr. Testa?” The nurse’s voice. “Your daughter is here to see you.”

  “Daughter?” he repeated, voice weak. “Lucia?”

  For a few seconds, the steadfast beeping of Enzo’s cardiac monitor was the only sound on the planet. Then I silently wished myself luck and stepped up to the bedrail.

  “How are you, Papa?” I said in clear English, then quickly switched to quiet Italian: “I said you were my father so they would let me in here. Is that all right with you, sir?”

  The corners of Enzo’s mouth lifted. “Hello, daughter,” he croaked in English, strong enough for the nurse to hear. Like me (and more than a few Italians) the man obviously believed that rules were made to be broken.

  With relief I leaned over the rail and kissed his colorless cheek. Despite the oxygen tube taped under his nose and the IV snaking into the bulging blue vein in his hand, Enzo’s eyes appeared clear, a miracle considering everything he’d been through.

  He patted me on the cheek, and the nurse walked away. She’d already explained that his lungs were strained from the toxic fumes he’d inhaled, and his heartbeat had become erratic. Further tests were needed to pinpoint the problem.

  I knew how important this interview was. None of the fire marshals had come around yet to question Enzo. If he died before they spoke with him, they might just pin the arson on him, which meant the real perpetrator would get away with murder.

  “I’m glad you’re safe, Clare,” Enzo rasped. “When everything went boom, Blanche was worried only about you and your friend. How are they doing?”

  “The ER is getting ready to release Madame. How are you feeling?”

  “Me? I’m about ready to run the New York City Marathon.” Enzo laughed, but it quickly degenerated into a weak cough. “How is your artist friend?”

  “Dante was hit on the head, so they’re holding him overnight for observation.” I summoned a tight smile, still worried about my artista barista. “You know, before the fire, he was admiring your mural . . .”