by Coyle, Cleo
I moved to the vase, picked up the flowers, and sniffed. “These stems smell like alcohol!”
Lori frowned. “Are you feeling okay, Cosi? You want to sit down?”
“There were two empty martini glasses on this night-stand,” I told them as calmly, clearly, and sanely as I could. “Someone removed them, along with the body and the bloody sheets. But before that happened, someone else must have dumped alcohol into this vase. Why?”
Sue Ellen glanced at her partner. “Maybe they wanted their drink shaken, not stirred.”
“Maybe the drink was drugged,” I said.
“I didn’t want the drink . . .” The voice was loud and cut-tingly clear. Alicia Bower was back.
All of us turned to see her striding into the room, head high. Her loose terry robe was now tightly wrapped and firmly knotted. Her tangled short hair was combed smooth. Her face was washed clean of tear streaks; her sickly complexion dusted with enough peach blush to make a zombie look fit.
“Dennis St. Julian and I were business acquaintances,” she explained with assiduous crispness (not one syllable burbled). I noticed her slight British accent had rejoined us, too.
“He rang me. I invited him up to my room. He brought mocha martinis from the hotel bar. I’d already had plenty of wine at dinner. Unfortunately, he insisted I drink it. I didn’t wish to argue. Instead, when he began to disrobe, I simply dumped most of it into that vase—”
She flung out her arm and held it there, pointing to the end table in the sort of exaggerated pose I hadn’t seen since I stopped watching daytime drama.
Lori Soles looked briefly at me then studied Alicia. “Was this Dennis St. Julian alive when you last saw him?”
“I woke up in a dark room,” Alicia replied, slowly lowering her arm. “I was disoriented. I’m not sure what I saw . . .”
I noticed Madame had drifted into the room. Just behind her stood an older gentleman, briefcase in hand, a scowl on his face. This, I assumed, was the lawyer Madame had called, and he didn’t appear happy with Alicia’s making statements to the NYPD. What lawyer would be? But then, I realized, what choice did he have?
Clearly, Alicia Bower’s inner executive had reemerged, most likely the instant she heard about Dennis’s body disappearing (along with all the evidence), and she’d decided to “handle” the police herself.
When Alicia fell silent, Lori glanced at me again, pointedly this time.
I was dying to speak up—with questions, accusations, critiques of Alicia’s acting ability—but Madame’s eyes were now mutely pleading for me to hold my tongue.
Fine, I thought, I’ll play along. But what the heck happened to the body? Not to mention the man’s clothes, the martini glasses, and the bloody bedding?
The answer came without my having to ask. Grimes, the officer from the basement, rushed into the room, slightly breathless, carrying a bundle of white sheets saturated with dried pools of burgundy.
“The bloody sheets!” I cried. “You found them!”
“In the laundry bin,” Grimes said with a nod. “Just like you thought, ma’am. Only I don’t think this is blood . . .”
“What?” I crossed to him, the detectives on my heels.
When I’d first glimpsed these sheets, it was at a distance, in a dimly lit room. Now the curtains were open, shedding light in more ways than one.
“You’re right . . .” I told Grimes.
The stains felt sticky and smelled sweet. I pulled a swatch of the material up to my nose. The cloying candylike scent was the same aroma I’d noticed when I first walked into the room.
Finally, I recognized the stuff. I’d just used it in my own kitchen!
“This is corn syrup.”
“Corn syrup?” Lori and Sue Ellen were now flanking me, handling the sheets for themselves.
“Are you sure?” Lori asked.
“I just used it last night on my chocolate-glazed hazelnut bars. Corn syrup is what gives the chocolate glaze the right consistency for drizzling.”
“But corn syrup is clear, isn’t it?” Sue Ellen countered. “This stuff is red.”
“Because this is flour, corn syrup, and food coloring,” I said, touching and smelling it more aggressively, “the recipe for fake blood!”
“And you know that how?”
“You’ve never heard of the Village Halloween parade? I run a coffeehouse on Hudson Street! My assistant manager is an actor and I’m a mother. . . .” Joy’s vampire phase was only eclipsed (pun intended) by a brief obsession with zombies.
“Okay,” Sue Ellen said, turning to Alicia. “So that’s it? The whole murder scene Ms. Cosi saw here was faked?”
“A prank?” Lori pressed, her big blue eyes carefully watching Alicia. Sue Ellen was watching, too.
I joined them.
With all of our gazes trained on Alicia, she appeared to be fighting for composure. I reconsidered the tale of Dennis St. Julian, the inconsistencies, not to mention the coltish blonde who came pounding on the door, acted authentically stunned at not finding him in bed, then bolted at the mention of the police.
“Alicia,” I finally said, “please tell these detectives the truth. You thought the man in your room was murdered. You were frantic, and someone wanted to put you in that state. This was much more than a prank.”
I caught her wince, but she quickly recovered, shaking her head. “This was all just a misunderstanding.”
That word again! I faced Lori and Sue. “The timing alone is alarming. Tonight is an important launch party for Ms. Bower. A new product of hers is about to be presented to the press and an international group of wholesale buyers. I think someone was setting her up. I think someone—”
“Clare, please.” Madame stepped forward, put a hand on my shoulder.
I knew she was unhappy with the direction of this conversation. The Village Blend was deeply aligned with Alicia’s deal, and Madame, for whatever reasons, never appeared to trust the police.
But I did. Something criminal had gone down here—or was just about to—and I thought these detectives should be informed of it. When I turned to tell Madame this, however, she put her finger to her lips.
“À cheval donné on ne regarde pas les dents!”
I sighed, stopped talking.
Lori frowned at me, drawing her own conclusion from my limited facts, and moved closer to Alicia. “Have you received any mysterious phone calls or messages, Ms. Bower? Any threats? Has anyone made demands?”
“Of course not,” Alicia replied, folding her arms.
“And you’d report them if someone did?” Sue Ellen asked, her tone dubious.
“Most certainly!” Alicia said, smoothing her robe before recrossing her arms, even more tightly this time.
“Do you want to file a report?” Lori asked.
Alicia waved the woman off. “Please . . . I don’t have time for that. As Clare explained—against my wishes, I might add—I have a product launch to attend to. A year of work is at stake. Whatever . . . silliness happened here, we should all simply forget it ever happened.”
Lori Soles shrugged. “All right, Ms. Bower. If you don’t want to file a report, then our hands are tied.”
Alicia forced a smile. “I thank you both for coming, and I’m so sorry that Clare put you to any trouble.” She sent a pointed look my way.
Before I could retort (or lunge), Lori jumped between us: “It’s our job to investigate. Here’s my phone number . . .” She handed Alicia a business card. “Call me anytime, day or night, if anyone does attempt to threaten you or shake you down, okay?”
Madame touched Alicia’s arm. “Let’s go back to my suite, dear. We can order room service. You have a long day ahead, and you’ll need fortification.”
Alicia approached me before following Madame and the gentleman lawyer out the door. “No hard feelings, Clare. I realize you were just trying to help.”
“I would still like to know—”
“I’ll see you tonight at the launch party!�
� She waved as she whirled. “We’ll talk more there!”
Sue Ellen waited for the women to leave before turning to me. “Well, Clare, all I can say is, we’re very glad you called us.”
“The Key Card Burglar. I know.”
“No,” Sue Ellen said, surprising me. “I agree with your concerns. Your client is definitely a target.”
“My client?”
“Ms. Bower.”
“Actually, I work for the other woman.”
“Well, keep an eye on both of them,” Sue Ellen warned.
“What do you think happened here?” I asked.
Lori and Sue Ellen exchanged looks. “We shouldn’t speculate without more facts,” Lori said. “But we can submit the contents of that vase for a toxicology test—just in case Ms. Bower does end up being shaken down.”
“Thank you, Detectives. Thank you both for everything.”
“No,” Lori said, “you’re the one we’ll be thanking—and publicly. Are you ready to go down to the One Seven now? Do that lineup?”
“Sure.”
As Lori instructed Suarez to treat the vase and its contents as evidence, Sue tapped me on the shoulder.
“One more question, Cosi.”
“What’s that?”
“I barely passed high school French. I can ask your name and order snails, but that’s about it. What did Mrs. Dubois say to you?”
“À cheval donné on ne regarde pas les dents,” I repeated with a sigh. “I’m far from fluent, either, Detective. But she’s said it often enough. And her son practically lives by it.”
“And it means?”
“Loose translation: ‘Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.’”
I didn’t tell Detective Bass, but the grandmother who raised me also had a favorite saying—only she said it in Italian: Vedo le tazze e senza café. Loose translation: “I see the cups, but there’s no coffee.”
Well, I saw the cups, and I smelled something brewing. This morning’s charge of murder may have vanished, but trouble was almost certainly heading Alicia Bower’s way, and that meant my way, too.
SEVEN
THREE hours later, I was back in my coffeehouse, mainlining the tranquillity of an Athenian temple. The sun god was smiling through our spotless French doors, gentle flames danced in the exposed brick hearth, and caffeinated customers were quietly bowing over books, notepads, and laptops.
Our morning “crush” wasn’t quite finished. Our tables were still crowded, but no ugly jam-ups were evident in the queue.
I have no idea what Wharton professors teach their aspiring administrators, but in my humble experience managing a business had plenty in common with raising a child. Case in point, one of my first shining moments of motherly pride was hearing my daughter’s preschool teacher declare, “Joy is a joy!”
So, okay, my girl hasn’t worn Hello Kitty underwear for two decades, but you just know you’re doing something right as a mommy when your child behaves without your direct supervision; and you know you’re doing something right as a manager when your shop runs like a high-performance sports car without your shouting when to change gears.
Esther Best was now actively engaged behind the espresso machine. Nancy Kelly looked confident at the register. Neither sight surprised me—Esther was on the schedule, and I’d called in Nancy.
What did surprise me was the sight of the six-two floppy-haired actor chatting with customers from behind my counter.
“Tuck, what are you doing here?” He wasn’t scheduled to work until this evening. “Did you misread the schedule?”
“No,” he said. “I called in to ask for a favor, but Nancy picked up and told me that you had a personal emergency, so I came on down to help out.”
I squeezed Tucker’s arm. “Thank you.”
If our Blend crew was a family, then Louisiana-bred Tucker Burton was the responsible older brother. An actor-playwright and occasional cabaret director, he had an easygoing southern charm and showman’s wit that made him as popular with our customers as the near-perfect God shots he pulled.
“Whatever your favor is,” I told him, “consider it granted.”
“Really?” he said. “I know we’re short-staffed right now, but I need someone to take my shift next Friday.”
“I’ll work it myself.”
“Oh, you’re a peach!”
“More of a pear with these hips, but you’re welcome. What’s the occasion? Starting rehearsals for something new?”
“I have a hot date!” He beamed. “Punch has tickets to the Met and a friend in the chorus of Cavalleria rusticana.”
“Rustic Chivalry,” I translated. “Isn’t that the opera Coppola used in—”
“Godfather 3. Indeed, it is.”
“So if Talia Shire sits down next to you with a box of cannoli, you should—”
“Just say no. Very funny. But, really, Clare, given the smorgasbord of slayings in this town, there are worse ways to go than eating poisoned mascarpone while listening to a cute tenor sing ‘Hail to the Bubbling Wine.’ ”
Tuck was right. There were worse ways to go—like a carving knife jammed into your chest while you slept off an aphrodisiac. But where there’s fake blood, there must be a fake knife, right?
During my three hours at the Seventeenth, the Fish Squad let me know that nothing was discovered during the canvas of the Topaz guest rooms. No dead bodies, anyway. They’d found victims of the burglaries galore, which made their case. Personally, I continued to pray no corpse would turn up in the hotel Dumpsters.
“Excuse me, Tuck, you’re keeping me from my art,” Esther said, sidling around his lanky form.
Esther’s hips were twice the size of mine, and her latte-arts skills nearly as lean and mean. With an effortless flick of her wrist, she poured a thin stream of textured milk out of a small silver steaming pitcher. As if by enchantment, a cloud-colored phoenix floated up from just beneath the backdrop of chocolate-kissed espresso shots.
After proudly sliding the hot café mocha to a young, pierced sous-chef from a nearby bistro, Esther acknowledged my presence with a nod.
“Good almost afternoon, boss,” she said. “I understand an officer of the law is on the premises. I hope he doesn’t distract you too much. We do have that party to cater tonight.”
If Tuck was the Blend’s dependable older brother, then Esther was its challenging middle child. With a figure as full as the old Ziegfeld Follies hotties, and wild dark hair either sculpted into a retro half beehive or ironed as straight as Vampyra (which she attractively librarian-bunned for barista work), she ruled the neighborhood as a local urban poetess and Goth icon.
She was also my best latte artist and a reliable draw for two distinct fan bases. The slam poets came to see her throughout the day, many of them NYU students, where she worked as a TA while completing her graduate degree (don’t ask in what—she’d changed it two times already). After sunset, the rappers dropped by, many of them also rabid followers of her Russian boyfriend, Boris—a baker’s assistant-cum-minor rap recording artist. (The happy couple had met at a slam poetry throwdown in Brooklyn.)
All of these friends and admirers tended to hang around the Blend for hours. Fortunately, they downed lots and lots of caffeinated drinks.
“Is everything okay, Ms. Cosi?” It was Nancy Kelly asking. Seeing me behind the counter, her young brow crinkled. “You sounded kinda frazzled on the phone this morning.”
“Yes,” I said, “I had to deal with . . . a situation. Thanks for coming in on such short notice.”
“Holy smokin’ rockets, Ms. Cosi, no problem! I was already up and rarin’ to go anyhow!”
I smiled. Nancy was the newest addition to the Blend family. At close to her age, I’d moved to New York City with an equally effervescent outlook (most young people did). It took a year or so before the city’s pinpricks collapsed most of their bubbliness.
The crowds, crime, and insidious corruption inevitably boiled down fizzy new excitement into firm guarded
ness. A few years more and any remaining youthful optimism was usually cooked into hard-crack cynicism. In my experience, though, the transplants who thrived in this town found a way to hold on to that inner Nancy. (At least that’s what I tried to do.)
“Well, I appreciate the fact that you’re an early riser,” I told her. “I guess you weren’t kidding when you said you rose with the chickens.”
“Roosters, actually,” Nancy said, then pursed her lips in a lemony frown. “You know it’s those males who make all the dang noise.”
“How now?” Esther sang, pushing up her black-framed glasses. “Is that a thinly veiled man bash I hear?”
“I guess.”
“Does that mean your first night of New York clubbing didn’t go so well?”
Nancy blew air out of her ruddy cheeks. Like me, she wasn’t cover-model material, more sturdy than willowy, but she had the trustworthy complexion of a Vermeer Dutch housewife and the kind of generous curves that magnetized roving male eyes. Her baby-fine wheat-colored hair went well past her shoulders. At work she kept it secured in braids.
“I did meet a guy last night,” she confessed. “But . . .”
After a lengthy pause, Esther planted a fist on her bountiful hip. “Hello! Buts in stories are frequently followed by the best part, so please do dish, Ms. Kelly. I assume this guy was somewhat hot, right?”
“Smokin’!” Nancy’s head bobbed. “I thought things were going great, too. Really great—until I asked him where he lived.”
“You’re kidding?” Esther said. “How bad could it be? South Bronx? Newark? That big metal trash bin in the alley behind Whole Foods?”
“The dude told me he lived in ‘Alphabet City,’” Nancy explained, using her fingers to make little air quotes.
“Alphabet City.” Esther nodded. “So?”
“Well, geez! I may be a newbie to this big ol’ town, but I’m not that naive!”
Esther and I exchanged glances. Okay, we’re both confused.
“Nance,” I said, “what exactly do you mean by that?”