Murder by Mocha

by Coyle, Cleo

  I smiled. To me, great chocolate was like a perfect espresso—the quickest path between the abyss my customers were stranded in and a sensory experience of transcendent pleasure.

  “We just started using a new chocolate supplier,” I explained. “Voss, in Brooklyn. They’re one of the few artisan bean-to-bar chocolatiers in the area . . .”

  Bean to bar was the hottest trend in the confectionary industry, and the more I learned about it, the more I realized how much it had in common with my own seed-to-cup specialty coffee business—from partnering with farms in developing countries to small-batch production and passionate service.

  “They even import and roast their own beans like we do.”

  “Sweetheart, it’s heaven in a mug,” Mike said. “But I still need the espresso hit. I have a one o’clock meeting with the first deputy commissioner, and I can barely keep my eyes open.”

  “Then don’t. Crash upstairs. I’ll caffeinate you in time for your meeting.” (The irony of drugging up an antidrug cop didn’t escape me, but I could see Mike wasn’t up for that particular joke.)

  “I can crash upstairs?” he said. “You wouldn’t mind?”

  “You have to ask? Drink this up and I’ll tuck you in.”

  “Tucking me in. I like the sound of that.”

  “Good,” I said, moving to check the front-door lock. “As long as you understand: tucking is not a euphemism for something else.”

  “It’s only one letter.”

  “You need your rest. You look like hell.”

  “I feel like hell . . .”

  “Then follow me . . .”

  I led Mike up the service staircase to my duplex above the Village Blend. (I say “my” because I lived there, not because I owned it.) The apartment was an exquisite little perk that my former mother-in-law handed me with my new employment contract.

  Madame Blanche Dreyfus Allegro Dubois had lived here herself for decades when she ran the Blend. Over the years, she’d packed the apartment with imported furniture, lovingly preserved antiques, and an array of paintings and sketches from Village artists (patrons of her shop for nearly a century), which is why she considered me a curator as much as a tenant.

  While Mike followed me into the master bedroom, I started some quiet tucking-in-time calculations. The bakery delivery had been made, so I had forty, maybe fifty, minutes to get the truth out of this man before I had to open the shop.

  “You want a snack before you crash?” I asked. “I made a batch of my Chocolate-Glazed Hazelnut Bars yesterday. You love those.”

  “When I wake up,” Mike said, letting out a long sigh. “I’ll have four.”

  I stepped close, tugged the knot of his tie. “So . . . are you going to tell me?”

  “What?”

  “What went wrong last night. It’s obviously weighing on you.”

  As head of the NYPD’s OD Squad (a nickname for a much longer, official sounding moniker), Mike supervised a small group of detectives tasked with the job of investigating criminal activity behind drug overdoses.

  Like the NYPD’s Bomb Squad, Mike’s team was based at the Sixth Precinct, just up the street, but they had jurisdiction across all five boroughs, which meant Mike’s workload was heavy, his hours unpredictable, and the mental strain of the political pressure periodically appalling.

  For those reasons—and a few others—the man strapped on mental armor daily, along with his service weapon. In the quiet of the bedroom, however, I expected him to loosen that armor, along with his tongue.

  “Well?” I pressed.

  “You really want to know?”

  “You really have to ask?”

  Mike didn’t answer, just watched me pull his tie free and begin unbuttoning his dress shirt. He stopped my hands, peeled off his shoulder holster, and took his time hanging it off the back of Madame’s Duncan Phyfe chair.

  “Two of my guys,” he slowly began.

  “Which guys?”

  “Sully and Franco . . . they spoke to a young man earlier in the week, an aspiring artist—”

  “Long Island City?”

  “Williamsburg. The kid was our key witness in a case against a New Jersey dealer doing business in the city. Looking over his statements, given the ME’s findings, I had some concerns. I went with them both to reinterview . . .”

  “And?”

  “This kid had been working all week on a sidewalk painting. When he was finished, he went to the roof of his ten-story building and dived off.”

  “Oh God. That’s awful . . .”

  “His painting was an elaborate bull’s-eye. Nobody realized it until he jumped. He aimed right for the center.”

  Mike moved to the carved-mahogany four-poster, sank down on the mattress. “The morning papers already have the story, which I assume will be the subject of my one o’clock meeting with the first deputy commish. My captain asked me to take the meeting solo. He’ll owe me . . . he says.”

  I sat next to him, touched his shoulder, felt knots as hard as baseballs. Oh, Mike. I dug in both thumbs, began to massage.

  He closed his eyes and exhaled. “Thank you . . .”

  I worked him over a minute. “So how messed up is your case?”

  “Scale of one to ten? Nine point five. This kid was the fiancé of the girl who OD’d two weeks ago. You remember the one I told you about?”

  “The singer?”

  “Yeah, beautiful girl, barely out of her twenties. Came here to be the next Lady Gaga. The boyfriend was the one who gave up the dealer. He’d also been the one buying his girl the stuff.”

  “It probably made him feel good,” I said. “Knowing she needed him that badly.”

  “Except it wasn’t him she needed,” he said. “It was the drug.”

  “Sometimes love is a drug.” (I wasn’t speaking rhetorically. Given my history with Joy’s father, I’d spent most of my twenties making amore-addled decisions.)

  Mike’s gaze shifted, as if looking for a change of subject. He found it. My sketchbook lay open on the bedside table. He leaned toward it, read the large letters I’d scrawled across the top.

  “Aphrodite’s Kitchen? What’s this?”

  “Nothing.”

  I’d been doodling elaborately around the margins: a big, voluptuous Venus emerging from the sea, a spatula in one hand, an oven mitt on the other. He picked up the book, clearly intrigued by my comic rendition of the Botticelli masterpiece.

  “Hey, give that here.”

  He teased it out of reach, scanned my list of recipe ideas. “These sound pretty tasty. Any test batches coming my way?”

  “As long as you make it to the launch party tonight. I’ll be managing the samples table.”

  “Samples for?” He tapped his forehead. “Right. That magical mocha coffee.”

  “Mocha Magic Coffee.”

  “A rose by any other name.”

  “When the name is trademarked, there is no other name.”

  “I remember now. You told me about it a few weeks ago. Some new coffee powder that enhances . . .” He smirked. “What does it enhance exactly?”

  “Alicia Bower claims it’s an herbal aphrodisiac, but I still have no idea what’s in it, other than my coffee beans and Voss’s chocolate. She’s keeping everything else to herself.”

  “Didn’t you mention she discovered the active ingredients in India?”

  “Yes, but I have yet to try it, and frankly, I’m skeptical about its potency.”

  “Well,” Mike said, arching an eyebrow, “I’m happy to be your lab rat. Got any around?”

  “I hate to disappoint you, but although Alicia has been hyping this thing online for weeks, the launch party is the first place anyone’s going to try the stuff. She has me serving it up as a beverage, and to showcase its versatility as a flavoring agent, we’ll have samples of mocha candies and bite-size pastries.”

  “Now you’re turning cookies and cakes into aphrodisiacs?”

  “Not me. All I did was share my chocolate a
nd mocha recipes from the Blend. Alicia gave them to her chocolatier to make—Voss, the same Brooklyn boutique we’ve started buying from.”

  “I don’t know, Cosi . . . sounds like those infamous Alice B. Toklas brownies.”

  “Don’t you go looking for collars on my turf, Detective. Nobody’s lacing anything with cannabis around here.”

  “Is that so?”

  “Yes. In fact, Alicia claimed she was so happy with the results of my recipes combined with her product that she treated Madame and me to dinner last night so we could brainstorm more, which is exactly why my sketchbook is full of them.”

  “Cannabis-free?”

  “So far. And by the way, the original Alice B. Toklas recipe was for fudge, not brownies.”

  “I hate fudge,” he said.

  “You do not. Your mother told me she made cherry cordial fudge for you every Christmas.”

  “Oh, chocolate fudge I’ll eat. What I can’t swallow is fudging—as in fudging statistics, fudging results, fudging the truth. Mathematicians call it a fudge factor—putting an extra calculation into an equation just so it will work out as expected.”

  “Fudge factor?”

  “Yeah. It’s what we law-enforcement types call a scam.”

  “Oh God . . .” The single word deflated me. “I just hope this aphrodisiac claim of Alicia’s doesn’t turn out to be one.”

  Mike paused, studied me. “You’re not kidding?”

  “What I am is worried.”

  “Why?”

  “Alicia has been using my Village Blend beans, that’s why. As soon as her product launches, everyone’s going to know it. So if this Mocha Magic stuff tastes like merde or doesn’t live up to its claims, then it’s my rep on the line.”

  “Oh, sweetheart, no it’s not. Your customers know how high your standards are. That won’t change.”

  “Bad reviews can do a lot of damage, Mike, especially if her magic powder lays a big, fat chocolate egg.”

  “You’re not the owner of this place; your former mother-in-law is.”

  “Madame may own this business, but she’s leaving it to me and her son to run—and one day we’ll leave it to our daughter. I’m also the master roaster here, not just the manager.” I paused, took a breath. “Sorry. I just loathe not being in control.”

  “I know you do. It’s how you’re built. It’s also why your coffeehouse runs smoother than the purr of a pampered kitten.”

  “That’s nice of you to say, but—”

  “But worrying isn’t going to change anything, Cosi. You’re fully on board with this thing. If it goes bad, you’ll figure out the next step. You always do. In the meantime, try to trust the process.”

  “What I’m trusting here is my employer. I have no choice. Madame is the one who signed the contract with Alicia—months ago, as it turns out, without consulting me or her son. She just roped us into this thing . . .”

  Despite my continual, borderline belligerent questioning, Madame had provided very few answers, beyond the vague explanation that Alicia was a dear old friend to whom she owed a great deal. (An NYPD detective I could handle. My former mother-in-law was another matter. The octogenarian took stonewalling to a whole new level.)

  “Well, Cosi, like I told you,” Mike said, reaching out and curling a lock of hair around my ear, “I’m ready to test the stuff when you are.”

  I smiled. “You’ll get your chance. Tonight.”

  “Why wait?”

  I laughed, but Mike wasn’t kidding, and the veteran street cop had some tricky moves. In one fluid motion, he caught my wrist, pulled me flat, and rolled. Now I was pinned on the mattress, at his mercy for a long, slow, delicious kiss.

  “Seems to me,” I murmured, “you don’t need an herbal stimulant.”

  “Do you?” he whispered, slipping his fingers beneath my henley.

  Before I could answer, his mouth was covering mine again, kissing me so deeply that when he undid the button on my jeans, I had all the resistance of self-saucing pudding cake.

  About then is when my cell phone went off, abruptly ending our tucking-in time. I might have ignored the darn thing, but the La bohème ringtone was adamant. My employer was calling.

  “Madame?” I answered.

  “Clare, thank goodness you picked up. You must come at once.”

  I glanced at Mike. “Come where? Your penthouse?”

  “No, dear, you forget. After you left the restaurant last evening, I took a room here at Alicia’s hotel so I could enjoy breakfast with her this morning.”

  “What’s wrong?”

  “Just come to the Topaz, room 1015. I’ll explain when you get here. And tell no one where you’re going, especially that nice police officer boyfriend of yours.”

  “Why not?”

  “Honestly?” She lowered her voice. “It’s a matter of life and death.”

  “If that’s the case, call 911!”

  “There’s an issue.”

  “An issue?”

  “Yes, you see . . . the situation is extremely delicate.”

  “But—”

  “No buts. And no more arguing. Keep the Closed sign on our door and hail a cab tout de suite!”

  TWO

  LEAVING Mike Quinn’s big, warm body felt about as right as pouring a fresh-pressed pot of Ethiopian Yirgacheffe down the drain. He felt the same but (being the amazing man that he is) let me go without a grilling. He even agreed to come downstairs to wait for Nancy Kelly to show.

  Nancy was my newest barista, an apple-cheeked twenty-something from “all over,” as she put it, “upstate mostly”—rural was my guess since she was the only member of my staff who bragged she got up with the sun. (I wasn’t about to let my regulars down, so I rang her.)

  With the Blend squared away, I hailed a taxi and rocketed north. My neighborhood’s sleepy lanes and ivy-covered bricks receded as Manhattan’s jungle of glass and steel grew. Soon we were rolling into the maze of cutthroat commerce known as Midtown. We zigged, we zagged, and finally we headed east, toward Lexington.

  A less glamorous avenue than majestic Fifth or stately Park, Lex made economic sense for the Topaz, a tasteful enough inn (only a few minutes walk from the Waldorf = Astoria, the UN, and Rock Center) with more reasonable rates for lengthy stays.

  At this early hour, the lobby was practically empty, save one distracted clerk who barely looked up from his desk as I rushed the elevator and ascended ten floors. Racing down the hall, I found the shellacked slab of wood marked 1015, lifted my knuckles, and—

  The door jerked open so fast I nearly pounded Madame’s forehead.

  “Clare! Thank goodness . . .”

  It was just after 7 AM, the sun was barely up, yet my former mother-in-law was already smartly shining; her silver-white hair smoothed into a glossy pageboy; her high cheekbones lightly brushed the pale terra-cotta of Village flower pots. Even the hint of lavender on her eyelids perfectly matched the orchids printed on her silk, kimono-style robe, making her vivid blue irises appear their own mercurial shade of violet.

  Clearly, this “matter of life and death” (whatever it was) had failed to rattle her. But I wasn’t surprised.

  “Survive everything,” she once told me, “and do it with style.”

  The woman’s fashionable aplomb was more than the product of a Parisian upbringing—or even the gently wrinkled chic of older New York ladies. All her life, Blanche Dreyfus had weathered countless personal storms, not the least of which was her family’s escape from Nazi-occupied Paris. The harrowing flight had robbed the little girl of mother and sister, but she’d soldiered on.

  Coming of age in New York, she found her bliss in the arms of Antonio Allegro, whose family had owned the Blend for a half century. Then Antonio died, tragically young, and Madame was left utterly alone with a boy to raise and a business to run (a clue to why she’d always treated the Blend’s bohemian staff, and its motley bunch of customers, as family).

  Later in life, she found a new mate i
n the wealthy French importer Pierre Dubois. She lost him, too, but not her sturdy resilience—or her steadfast support of my beloved Village Blend, one of the oldest-remaining family-owned businesses in Greenwich Village.

  For that, and many other reasons (especially her indefatigable support of my daughter), I loved her. Like the struggling actors, painters, playwrights, and musicians whom this woman had propped up or rescued over the years, I’d do almost anything for her, too, which was why I tried very hard not to be annoyed by her cryptic summoning.

  “Alicia’s inside,” she told me. Stepping into the quiet hotel hallway, she pulled her room’s door closed and leaned against it. “I thought it would be best if she stayed with me.”

  “This is about Alicia?”

  “Yes.”

  “But this isn’t her room?”

  “No. This is my room. Alicia’s room is down the hall. I didn’t want her returning to it.”

  “Why not?”

  “Alicia should tell you—in her own words.”

  I reached for the door handle.

  “Wait, dear. I’ll lead the way. She may need an interpreter.”

  “A what?”

  “An interpreter. She’s very upset.”

  “About?”

  Madame took a deep breath, let it out. “She’s innocent. Let me make that abundantly clear. Alicia simply is not capable of . . .” She closed her eyes, shook her silver pageboy.

  “Of?”

  “Murder,” she whispered.

  “Murder?”

  Madame’s eyes reopened and she grabbed my arm. “Let’s take this inside, shall we?”

  I nodded. (Finally, my curiosity trumped my annoyance.)

  The room was standard-issue modern shoe box: Lilliputian bathroom off a truncated entrance hallway, double bed, dresser, flimsy desk, and an armoire holding a television. The color scheme was aquamarine, the kind of tranquil island shade that a Manhattan designer selects to help guests feel “cool and calm” (especially after they get a look at their bill—and the whopping hotel-room occupancy tax).

  “Alicia?” Madame called in a soft singsong, as if addressing a nervous child (or excitable lunatic).