Murder by Mocha

by Coyle, Cleo

  “So Patrice knew about your crazy plan?”

  “No. She didn’t care about the details. She just wanted Alicia kept away from the launch party.”

  “Only something went wrong.”

  “Yes, Troy screwed up, and Alicia made the party,” Vanessa said. “I went to Patrice’s hotel room this morning, to beg for another shot. That’s when I found out...”

  “Patrice Stone was murdered last night.”

  “What?” Troy cried.

  Vanessa turned to him. “I was just coming to tell you. Patrice is dead.”

  Four uniformed NYPD officers arrived in time to hear Troy curse a blue streak. Franco pulled him to his feet, greeted two of the cops by name.

  “Take this pair into custody and Mirandize both of them.” He leaned close to my ear. “Not that they have much more to tell us, thanks to your curious mommy act. I can see why Big Mike is sweet on you.”

  “You want them at the Sixth, right, Detective?” one of the uniforms asked.

  Franco shook his head. “The One Seven. The Fish Squad is going to want a nice, long sit-down with Vanessa and the Sun God.”

  OUTSIDE the convention center, the sky was clear, the weather balmy. The sun was shining so brightly, it made my nose sting even more.

  “Who knew Candy Land could be so much fun?” Franco said, still shaking pita crumbs and yogurt bits out of his jacket.

  I continued to dab my bloodied nose with his hanky as I watched a handcuffed Troy Talos being placed into a sector car. Another NYPD vehicle idled at the curb with Vanessa already in the backseat. Franco noticed my nonresponse and gave me a strange look.

  “Are you feeling okay, Coffee Lady?”

  My ponytail was undone, my nose felt raw and swollen, and the front of my henley was splashed with my own blood. I shook my head.

  “I think I’m in shock.”

  “Then let’s get you to an ER.”

  He took my elbow, but I shook my head.

  “It’s mental. I’m still trying to process what Vanessa told us.”

  “What part?”

  “That Patrice Stone, my innocent victim, wasn’t so innocent after all.”

  “Oh, that...” Franco squinted at the cloudless sky. “Do this job long enough, and you’ll find out there’s no such thing as an innocent victim.”

  “Not true,” I said. “And that’s an awfully cynical way to look at the world.”

  Franco smiled. “She’s baa-aack! Now that’s the Clare Cosi I know.”

  “Yeah, well... what I know isn’t cheering me. I’m almost certain my former mother-in-law is in business with a murderer.”

  “Alicia Bower?”

  “I’m betting Alicia discovered that Patrice Stone was really behind that fake-corpse setup at the Topaz Hotel—and that’s why she killed her.”

  Franco nodded. “That’s a motive, all right.”

  “And on the night of the murder, I saw Alicia returning from the rain-soaked Garden alone. What was she doing out there?”

  “You tell me.”

  “She was looking for the security cameras! Alicia wanted to check the location of each lens so she could use an open umbrella to hide her identity.”

  “Yeah, this is starting to sound premeditated,” Franco said, his tone encouraging.

  “Alicia’s planning didn’t end there. Killing Patrice wasn’t enough. She tried to frame Maya Lansing, too, by using the fitness queen’s umbrella—a neat trick to dispose of two rivals in one night.”

  “That’s one tough old dame, but it sounds like you figured it all out.”

  “It makes perfect sense.”

  “Sure, it makes perfect sense,” Franco replied. “But where’s your proof?”

  My shoulders sagged. The answer to Franco’s question was simple. I didn’t have proof. Not yet. But now that I was sure of Alicia Bower’s guilt, I was certain I could find some kind of evidence to hand Lori Soles and Sue Ellen Bass.

  Fortunately, a germ of a plan was forming in my head. All I needed was the proper tool, and I knew exactly where to find it—with the rest of Joy’s childhood things in the closet of my duplex.

  TWENTY-EIGHT

  THE next twenty-four hours melted away faster than a white chocolate truffle on a sun-baked sidewalk. Time chilled only twice for me—first when I put our dinner together and next when Mike and I were finally alone.

  I’d invited Quinn to join us for a very good reason, other than I wanted to see him (which was nothing newsworthy; I always did). I was more concerned with Sergeant Franco’s vendetta against that Jersey drug dealer.

  I wasn’t about to rat the guy out, especially after he’d backed me up so brilliantly, but since he and my daughter gave Mike so much agita the night before, I thought breaking bread around a communal table would benefit everyone. (And with a full stomach and a little vino, Franco might even feel sanguine enough to come clean with Mike privately, work out some kind of cop compromise.)

  So I pulled out my cutting board, my knives, and my large sauté pan. I warmed the extra-virgin olive oil, put pasta water on to boil, and began putting together what I’d come to think of as my Italian mole.

  Yes, I know: this was Manhattan, land of 24/7 takeout. But I’d promised Sergeant Franco a home-cooked meal, and I aimed to deliver.

  My grandmother’s pasta sauces simmered for five to six hours. I had only one. But I refused to sacrifice flavor. The trick was layering in fresh ingredients, intensify their essence with vibrant spices, and finishing with the velvety melting of a fine, dark secret: chocolate.

  The resulting mushroom-wine sauce was like an excellent coffee blend (not to mention my idea of the perfect man)—exhilarating complexity with a robust body, smooth finish, and the lingering feeling of rich, warm depth. (I planned to serve it over fat fettuccine noodles—and since sizable men came with sizable appetites, the menu would also include butter-basted Rock Cornish game hens with lemon and rosemary, Caesar salad, and fresh garlic bread.)

  Joy offered to help, but she was a salaried stove-jockey now, and I wanted to give my girl a break—frankly, I needed one, too, and that’s what cooking was for me.

  The rote routine of slicing mushrooms felt quietly calming. The faint scent of soil evoked relaxing visions of pastoral farms and lovingly tended gardens. The act of stirring was practically Zen meditation; and when the ingredients came together, the room was saturated with an aromatic air-bath more invigorating than a day spa.

  Such were my private musings. I seldom shared them—not in an age when most people ate with the press of a button, be it microwave or speed-dial call to a pizzeria. Then again, most people weren’t raised by a woman born in the rural hills of Italy, where bread was baked in outdoor ovens; cycles of planting and harvesting inspired rituals that stretched back millennia; dreams held powerful portents; and miracles were not only possible but seen and felt every day.

  My grandmother’s name was Graziella—Italian for Grace. “God put beauty in everything,” she’d say, “if you take the trouble to see it . . .”

  Like a vanilla bean in simmering milk, she infused my world with the sweetest essence, showing me the magic of rising yeast breads, the music of snapping green beans, and the gardener’s palette of ripe-red tomatoes, dark purple eggplant, yellow-gold zucchini flowers, and pale orange peppers.

  Not that my childhood had been a blithe, pain-free play. At seven, I saw no beauty in my mom leaving my pop for a salesman on his way back to Miami. Tears had been the culmination of that act. Tears and fear and confusion. But then Nonna stepped in.

  Day in and day out, she’d been there for me, just as she’d been there for the customers of her little grocery—just as I wanted my coffeehouse to be there for my customers when they stopped by for a warm cup of something that would reassure and renew.

  That’s why time in my kitchen always made me feel closer to Grace—and Joy, because I’d raised my daughter to believe what my grandmother believed: that simply taking, taking, taking made you a
sucking void, hollow, “like a dead person.” But preparing a meal was an act of giving, and giving was evidence of living. That’s why cooking meant so much to the likes of us. It was more than love. It was life.

  I could only hope Joy’s future husband would see that in her and love her for it. I knew it was one reason Mike loved me. Not that he’d explicitly stated it. But the man’s routine rendezvous with the Grim Reaper needed continual remedy, and the true-blue flame of my gas stove always lightened that darkness.

  I would have enjoyed Mike’s company in my kitchen that evening with his jacket and holster shed, his shirtsleeves rolled up, but he was running late, so when Sergeant Franco arrived, I opened a bottle of Pinot Noir, poured off eight ounces for my recipe (with a little taste of that cherry-oak velvet for myself), and sat my daughter and her roughneck suitor in the duplex living room with a crackling fire and the rest of the bottle.

  I left the room with a kind of clueless buoyancy, pretending they were about to have a stimulating discussion about books, film, music, art, but (of course) one glance back revealed lips and tongues engaged in something other than discourse.

  I sighed, wondering what was wrong with me anyhow. When Mike and I first started dating, we didn’t talk about art, either—and we certainly didn’t need Mocha Magic.

  When Mike finally arrived, I unfurled my favorite tablecloth of Florentine lace, lit two tapers in crystal holders, and the four of us settled ourselves around the Spode Blue Italian pattern (Madame’s third best china) in the duplex’s small dining room of porcelain antiques and polished mahogany. More wine was poured; my food was eaten with smacking lips (on Franco’s part), kind compliments from my daughter, and Mike’s occasional thrilling moan of taste bud bliss.

  Mike and Franco never talked work, although an exchanged wordless glance or two suggested secret understandings. I might have been put off if Joy and I hadn’t engaged in a few private looks of our own.

  Dessert and coffee went quickly, thanks to Franco’s inhaling of my fresh-baked cookies. I’d contemplated making an easy, self-saucing Chocolate-Chip Cobbler, or my quick Chocolate Crostada, but I had two kinds of dough already chilling in the fridge. The first was my secret recipe for “Pure Ecstasy” Chocolate-Chip Cookies.

  With brown butter, espresso powder, homemade brown sugar, and two kinds of chips, my version of the time-honored American cookie produced a toffee-like gourmet treat with mouthwatering notes of buttery caramel. Naming them was easy: Mike never failed to make his man-in-ecstasy noise when he consumed them. (Actually, he said they qualified as a drug.)

  The other dough I had chilling was a classic peanut butter.

  Franco rivaled Elvis in his love of peanut butter. (This I knew from the Five-Borough Bake Sale.) And since an ICE chocolatier handed me a promo bag of sixty percent cacoa chips, I decided to create a “surprise” cookie center of dark chocolate. The result was a sweet and tender peanut butter cookie with the kind of ooey-gooey chocolate heart that grown men swooned for.

  My daughter liked the cookies okay, but her swooning was for Manny. Eager to be alone with him, they departed to go “clubbing”—in the East Village, they assured us, not East Jersey.

  Just before they headed out, I noticed Quinn murmur something to Franco (in a seriously dangerous tone) about GPS tracking. The young sergeant looked fairly cowed on that front. Then again, I speared the man with the kind of motherly glare that warned: if you even think about taking my daughter across the Hudson, you won’t see another sunrise.

  Alone again with Mike, the fireplace newly stoked, I settled into the sofa beside him. With our hot mugs of coffee and a fresh plate of warm cookies, time stretched luxuriously again, like that fine square of Valrhona dark chocolate melting on my tongue (or, in this case, the gooey chocolate centers of my Peanut Butter Surprises).

  “Sweetheart, these are...”

  I think he said outstanding. His mouth was too busy chewing to tell.

  “Freezing the dough balls before baking is the secret to successfully stuffing a cookie with chocolate,” I said, absently channeling an old In the Kitchen with Clare column. “Not that you need to know that in your line of work.”

  He laughed, leaned back, and put his arm across the sofa back, coaxing me to tuck into his long, strong body. (I didn’t need coaxing.)

  “Actually, I made them for Franco,” I confessed, snuggling closer, “a foodie token of thanks for backing me up today.”

  Mike fell silent after that, a somewhat sullen silence it seemed to me.

  “Okay, what’s wrong?”

  “You got a bloody nose,” he said. “Franco shouldn’t have let that happen . . .”

  We’d recounted the story at dinner—Franco and I took turns telling it (although I left out the part about the Incredible Hulk Vince checking me out, and Franco left out the Milk Duds girl).

  “You’re missing the point,” I said. “Troy Talos was cutting off my air. If Franco hadn’t doubled back and body-slammed the jerk, I would have had more than a bloody nose. I would have had brain damage.”

  “You’re the one missing the point, Cosi. Franco shouldn’t have taken Joy across the Hudson last night—and today you and he both should have called Soles and Bass.”

  “Oh, please. Do not equate what I did with what Joy did. I phoned Lori Soles. I got her voice mail. I only went to the ICE show to see if Nutrition Nation was giving out black umbrellas. Then Alicia’s Candy Man dropped in as the Apollo of Abs and . . . well, it just snowballed!”

  “Take it easy. I’m not looking for an argument.”

  “Neither am I...”

  I shouldn’t have been surprised at Mike’s criticism of Franco. Mike was his supervisor, after all, responsible for his actions and well-being. On the other hand, I’d seen Mike bend the rules, even bend the truth if it would help him get the job done, because like all good detectives, Quinn was as much Odysseus as Dudley Do-Right. He was valiant but he was wily.

  Well, so am I...

  With long sips of my dark, rich (still-unnamed) coffee blend, I let the silence stretch between us until the man’s inner Odysseus emerged again.

  “So what happened?” Mike finally asked (as I knew he would). “I mean after Franco sent the One Seven your convention-center cargo? What did Soles and Bass tell you?”

  “Not much I didn’t know already. They did find out how Troy pulled the stabbed-to-death routine.”

  “Fake knife?”

  “Not exactly. The carving knife was real but the blade was sliced off, the bottom bent into a ninety-degree angle. Flesh-colored latex sealed the flat end to the man’s chest in an upright position and all that fake blood camouflaged the latex. That and a sedative with a zombie cocktail to slow his heartbeat and cool his skin and the illusion was complete.”

  “Clever.”

  “It was. And it almost worked, too. Vanessa was all ready to play the part of Troy’s wife, pounding on the hotel room door to confront her cheating husband—only to find him stabbed to death and Alicia the likely suspect.”

  “I get the scam. Alicia should have opened the door fuzzy from a drugged martini, hysterical from waking up next to a corpse—and, therefore, amenable to Vanessa’s suggestions.”

  “Like give me some money and get out of town fast,” I said. “Then Alicia would have missed her own product launch party, which would have damaged her standing with her boss, Aphrodite, especially with Maya Lansing swooping in to steal the show along with a big chunk of the Mocha Magic profits. And that’s exactly what Patrice Stone wanted—to bring Alicia down a peg and move herself up the game board, closer to becoming Aphrodite’s successor.”

  “So is the Fish Squad picking up Alicia Bower for an interview?”

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “Their lieutenant doesn’t think the case is strong enough. No physical evidence has turned up to implicate Alicia—not yet. They’re still looking.”

  “Yeah,” Mike said on an exhale. “I’ve been there, all r
ight...”

  “As Sue Ellen put it to me: ‘Even a half-wit of a defense attorney could pull apart a case of circumstantial evidence.’ ”

  “It’s true... especially if there were others at that party who had motive.”

  “On the other hand, Lori said this new development has moved Alicia up their persons of interest list. Troy and Vanessa have solid alibis for last night: They were working the ICE show with plenty of witnesses. And they admitted that Patrice paid them for a criminal ‘prank’ against Alicia, which would have given Alicia a very strong motive for murder. The whole thing narrows the field for the Fish Squad’s investigation.”

  “It also narrows the field for the detectives analyzing the crime scene.”

  “You mean they’ll start looking to match physical evidence to Alicia?”

  “That’s how they’ll build the case against her. They’ll find something. And when they do, they’ll secure warrants, uncover what they can to get a confession. It’s barely been twenty-four hours. You just have to—”

  “Wait. I know. It’s what detectives do.”

  “You’re usually pretty good at waiting.”

  “Not in this case.”

  “Why?”

  “Well . . .”

  I paused, took a breath, and raised my mug for a long, strong sip of fortification. I didn’t want to ruin the evening, but I had to bring this up—

  “Alicia’s product,” I said. “The Mocha Magic powder. . .”

  “What about it?”

  Mike shifted on the sofa, suddenly uncomfortable—which didn’t make me all that comfortable, either. Leaning forward, I put distance between us, enough to see the truth in his midnight blues.