Murder by Mocha

by Coyle, Cleo

  “But it’s only the chorus, Tuck, just a small part.”

  “Punch! What do I always say?”

  The lean Latino put down his cup and sighed. “There are no small parts, only—” He suddenly froze, glanced around.

  “You can relax,” I assured him from the next stool. “There are no small actors in here today.” (Since we’d opened six hours ago, I’d served a steady stream of hulking, hairy men.) “Exactly,” Tuck said. “And where would the Wicked Witch be without a dependable army of Flying Monkeys?”

  “Ha!” Nancy cut in, arriving for her lunchtime shift. “She wouldn’t need them if she had a flying Matteo!”

  “More like a plunging Matteo from what I heard,” Esther cracked.

  “Matt was very brave,” Nancy said, eyes glazing as she tied on her apron. “He saved my life. I’ll be forever grateful to him.”

  Esther stared at Nance a long moment. “Oh no.”

  Nancy turned to Tucker. “When is Matteo coming back to the Blend, do you think? Will he be working as a manager again, the way he did the other day? That was a great day! He’s such a good manager!”

  “Oh, boss!” Esther sang.

  I glanced up from Matt’s revised delivery schedule. “What?”

  She leaned down. “Did you hear that?”

  “Matt’s flying to Costa Rica next week,” I said. “Let’s hope Ms. Kelly is over her new crush by the time he gets back.”

  “I guess we should look on the bright side,” Esther said. “At least she’s over Dante.”

  “Nancy’s lucky he’s not pressing charges.”

  “Speaking of charges,” Esther said, “did you check out New York One’s In the Papers segment this morning? We’re still the top story across the city.”

  I nodded.

  Tuck moved toward us. “You know, I can’t decide which headline was my favorite. Chocolate-Covered Serial Killer Gets Licked, Spider-Man Saves 3 in Willy Wonka Hostage Drama, or Cocoa Kook Goes Loca for Mocha.”

  “Well, kook is certainly the right noun,” Punch said.

  “No doubt,” Esther said. “That sicko actually smiled for her mug shot.”

  “I know!” Punch cried, smoothing the monkey hair on his arms. “That girl is cray-zee!”

  “But not crazy enough for an insanity plea,” I pointed out, glad of it.

  Olympia Temple was no longer the wayward little girl hiding behind a curtain of hair. The media had discovered a brand-new sinister star, and she shined darkly for them. But Warhol’s famous fifteen minutes had begun ticking away already, and Olympia would soon learn what every convicted criminal knew—the brief clock of fame winds down to interminable years behind prison walls.

  “You know something I can’t stop thinking about?” Tucker confessed. “Olympia called herself Daphne and escaped off the boat as Laurel. Anyone who knows Ovid or a bit of basic mythology could have connected the two. It’s as if she wanted someone to discover the clues.”

  “From what Soles and Bass told me, serial killers tend to take pride in their work. Olympia Temple made killing her art. On some level, she wanted it to be appreciated.”

  “What? The art of murder?”

  I nodded. “Sociopaths get high on power, control, and manipulation. They also crave pity. I guarantee you, Olympia sees herself as the victim in all this, the star of her own sick show.”

  Tucker’s eyebrows rose. “Sounds like my little directorial pep talks to the disparate citizens of Oz. Every actor, no matter the size of his role, is the star.”

  “Exactly, and given what we now know about the late Ms. ‘Aphrodite’ Pixley—from her antics in college to her setting employees against each other—that woman was probably a sociopath, too.”

  “Yes, well . . . I’m sorry Aphrodite is dead, but I’m not sorry we’re all free of her.”

  “You and me both.”

  “So, no more Mocha Magic?” Esther assumed. “It’s dead?”

  “Kaput,” I assured her. “The only reason Madame signed that contract was to help an old friend.”

  “Doesn’t Alicia care about selling the powder?”

  “Not anymore. And she’s finished with Aphrodite’s Village, too.”

  “I’m not surprised,” Esther said. “I mean how does an ex-professor end up working for a Web site like that, anyhow?”

  “A job’s a job,” I said. “After Alicia left Bay Creek Women’s College, she couldn’t find another academic position, so she began to travel and write, which included freelance restaurant reviews and eventually food writing. Thelma was always looking for smart new writers and editors. Apparently, they reconnected on—”

  Esther held up her hand. “Don’t tell me. Facebook.”

  I shrugged.

  Tuck leaned against the counter. “One thing I don’t get. Why would Aphrodite want to put a controlled substance into Mocha Magic, and how could she think she would get away with it? The FDA would have found her out eventually.”

  “Alphas,” I said.

  “Am I supposed to understand that?”

  “Alphas are important to marketers because they’re the kind of customers who influence other customers. That’s what all these parties were about—Aphrodite was marketing to alphas: reporters, bloggers, food and beverage critics, wholesale buyers. If she could impress them with the potency of an adulterated product, then they’d spread the word. After the Mocha Magic took off, she’d remove the drug. By then, she was hoping the product would sustain itself via placebo effect.”

  “Sounds like your basic bait-and-switch,” Punch said.

  “You’re right. It was unethical—and the woman who created it, Alicia, had scruples. That’s why Aphrodite altered the formula behind her back.”

  “So what’s Alicia going to do now?” Tuck asked.

  “Travel, eat, write . . .” I smiled. “She’s going to have enough money to retire early.”

  Esther smirked. “She won the Powerball?”

  “Better. Alicia’s lawyer discovered that Aphrodite was behind Patrice Stone’s hiring Troy Talos to seduce her away from the Rock Center launch party.”

  Tucker, Esther, and Punch hooted. I didn’t blame them. It was a real bombshell.

  “Apparently, Aphrodite wanted Maya Lansing, the fitness queen, to be the spokesperson for Mocha Magic. Aphrodite knew Alicia would never agree to that. Her solution was to keep Alicia away from her own launch party and allow the fitness queen to take the spotlight. Alicia’s product hadn’t even hit the market, and Aphrodite was conspiring to undercut her.”

  Evidence on Aphrodite’s computer made it clear that she knew and approved of Patrice’s plan to hire parolee Troy and his girlfriend, Vanessa, which gave Alicia grounds to sue the Hades out of the woman’s estate and company.

  “The attorneys are working out a big, fat settlement as we speak,” I told them. “Soon Alicia will have enough of the Love Goddess’s money to do whatever her heart desires.”

  THE lunch crowd came and went, the flying monkeys with them as the Broadway auditions wound down for the day. Madame stopped by. I was happy to see her and immediately pulled a fresh espresso.

  “Have you heard from Lieutenant Quinn yet?” she quietly asked as I slid the demitasse across the blueberry marble.

  I shook my head, unable to trust my voice. The news was good otherwise, and I tried to focus on that. Sherri Sellars was released, the charges against her dropped, and Alicia Bower was a free woman who’d soon be stinking rich. But I couldn’t stop counting the hours since I last heard from Quinn (sixty-three going on sixty-four). Late last night, alone in bed, I had broken down and tried his cell, but as he warned, I only reached his voice mail—and I cried myself to sleep.

  “Try not to worry, dear,” Madame said.

  “I don’t know how to do that . . .”

  “Focus on what’s in front of you. Live each hour, each day, one at a time . . .”

  I nodded, unable to speak again. I could tell from her answer that Madame wasn’t ho
peful. This was starting to feel like Cormac O’Neil all over again.

  “Mom! Mom!”

  I whirled, panicked at the sound of fear in Joy’s voice.

  “Honey, what’s wrong?”

  “I was upstairs, watching the local news. I heard something terrible. I think it’s about Franco.”

  I gripped her arms. “What did you hear? Tell me.”

  “Arrests were made by the Internal Affairs Bureau—arrests of officers, some of them high ranking! The mayor’s holding a press conference in a few hours.”

  Oh God . . . I turned to read Madame’s face. She looked as stricken as I felt. Was this Larry Hawke again? He must have pulled the trigger on Franco and trumped up charges against Mike and Sully . . .

  I would have stumbled, even fallen, if I hadn’t been more concerned about propping up my daughter. When the bell over our front door rang, I didn’t care. All I wanted to do was close the shop and turn off the lights.

  “Joy? You okay? What’s wrong?” Manny Franco stood five feet away wearing a navy blue suit, his shaved head clean, his rugged face strained at the sight of my daughter’s tears.

  “Franco!” Joy rushed the man so fast and hard, the mountain of muscle nearly tipped over. He held her tight as she showered him with kisses.

  “J’étais ainsi inquiété,” she cooed.

  “Mais je suis bon, ma joie,” he said, his accent rough. “Tout est bon!”

  “Franco, what happened?” I demanded. “We thought Hawke had you arrested.”

  The sergeant’s smile got bigger. “Other way around . . .”

  As Franco told the story, he’d gone rogue for one reason: to prove that Larry Hawke could be bought.

  Apparently, the New Jersey dealer that Franco had arrested—counter to Hawke’s orders—was the nephew of a mob boss. The reason Hawke didn’t want him touched was not to turn the file over to federal officers but to bury it completely. The boss had reached out to Hawke, paying him to protect his relative.

  “I had some friends in the bureau,” Franco said, “even more in the boroughs. I asked around, put some things together, and went to Lieutenant Quinn. Turns out, he was interviewing this old-timer who’d gathered some pretty serious evidence against Hawke, too. So we all went to Internal Affairs, and they came clean with a case they’d been building against Hawke and some of his associates throughout the department. Damn good thing we came forward, too, because IAB was getting suspicious of our meetings with Hawke. They were starting to suspect me, Mike, and Sully of being just as dirty.”

  The bell rang again and we all turned.

  An older man stood there, tall and stoic. He had silver hair, sharp blue-gray eyes, and a bone-white scar across his ruddy cheek. Smartly dressed in a twilight blue suit, he searched the shop, finding and focusing on a single person sitting at the counter—Blanche Dreyfus Allegro Dubois.

  He didn’t move and neither did we.

  Slowly, Madame rose to her feet. She crossed to him and stood staring for the longest time. Then her gently wrinkled hand touched his scarred cheek.

  “Hello, Mac.”

  “Hello, Blanche.”

  “You look like you could use a cup of coffee.”

  Cormac swallowed and paused, as if he couldn’t trust his voice. “I could, Blanche. I could.”

  She laced her fingers in his and led him to the bar. I blinked back tears as he took Mike’s seat, settled in as if he’d never left. Then Madame slipped behind the counter and began to fix his drink.

  Instinctively, we backed away, let them have their privacy. Joy and Franco excused themselves, heading up to the closed second floor, arm in arm. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wherever Quinn was, I knew he was okay—at least I prayed he was. In fact, praying wasn’t a bad idea.

  I closed my eyes and that’s when I heard it. The bell rang one more time.

  “Got something hot for me, Cosi?”

  I took a breath, opened my eyes.

  Mike Quinn was standing in front of me, wearing a full-on smile.

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  EPILOGUE

  “THAT man is the most persistent, pigheaded Irish cop I ever met . . .”

  Upstairs in the duplex kitchen, Mike Quinn and I were sharing a fresh pot of coffee and fat, decadent slices of my Chocolate Blackout Cake (based on the original Brooklyn recipe). We had a lot of catching up to do, given his past few days of blackout.

  “It took him ten years,” Mike said, “but O’Neil learned everything he could about the world of finance. Once he knew how to follow money, he worked to connect Larry Hawke to the secret bank accounts where his dirty payoffs were hidden. Then he found the accounts of some of Hawke’s pals, and the rest is front page news—this week, anyway.”

  I refreshed our cups and sat down again. “I wonder what Madame and O’Neil are talking about downstairs.”

  “I’m sure he’s trying to explain what happened all those years ago.”

  “Do you mind telling me?” I didn’t want to exploit a confidence, but I was desperate to know. “Why did he leave her like that? Without even letting her know if he was dead or alive?”

  “From what I gather, O’Neil believed the less Mrs. Dubois knew, the safer she’d be. He was right, obviously. She made it through just fine.”

  “But if he was worried about her safety, why didn’t he stick around to protect her?”

  “You don’t understand. O’Neil couldn’t even protect himself. He went to the Feds, and they relocated him in witness protection, but two killers came for him within the first few weeks. He got lucky or he wouldn’t have survived at all. That scar”—Mike swept his hand along his own cheek and across his throat—“is from the botched hit. He knew any wife of his would have been killed, too. At that point, the man had no choice. He really disappeared, created another identity and another life in Australia.”

  “That’s all there was to it?”

  “Well . . .” Mike looked away, as if weighing whether to keep talking. “From what I gather . . . he loved Blanche deeply, but he also knew what was important to her . . .”

  He paused, turned to meet my eyes.

  “Go on...”

  “This coffeehouse, Clare—it was more than a business to her. It was a legacy. She felt it was her duty to keep it thriving, to pass it down to her child. How could he ask her to leave it?”

  I took a breath. Mike was talking about more than my mother-in-law, and we both knew it. Reaching for my cup, I realized my hands were shaking. I couldn’t read him. Not on this particular truth. I had no idea how he felt.

  “So . . .” My voice was weak. “O’Neil really just came back to get Hawke?”

  “He built a life in Australia—a wife, children, grandchildren. But he told us he’d reached an age where he couldn’t die without trying. So, yes, he came back to get Hawke, to clear his name—and to see Blanche again, try to explain what had happened all those years ago.”

  I glanced out the kitchen window, thought it over. “O’Neil is such a tough guy, so brave. He came all this way—thousands of miles after three decades. Why did it take him days to face the woman he loved and tell her his story? I don’t understand that.”

  “I do. It’s not easy to admit, but . . . as a man, I understand completely...” Mike’s gaze fell into the dregs of his cup. “He couldn’t find the nerve.”

  QUINN couldn’t stay. The mayor’s press conference required his presence, and he had a few other “very important things” to do, but he promised to come back for dinner. As night fell, I turned on the true-blue flame of my gas stove.

  According to Punch, the word mole came from the Aztec molli meaning “concoction.” Growing up in Spanish Harlem, he claimed every mama had a different combination of ingredients, a secret mix that made it her own. This particular recipe was new for me, something I came up with given this week’s crazy concoctions. I hoped Mike would like it.

  I warmed the oil first, sautéed the onions, added the peppers, and
the Guinness stout. Aromas rose from my pot and I inhaled deeply . . . the garlic and ginger, cumin and coriander, fennel and cinnamon.

  They say a dish like this is an acquired taste—not unlike living in a crowded, competitive city, where cultures and cuisines continually clash. It certainly wasn’t for everyone. Like most things in life, the key to making it work was keeping the blend balanced. Not too spicy but not too bland, either, and always tempering the bitter with the sweet.

  As I stirred in the Mexican chocolate, watched it sensuously melt, I felt an arm slip around my waist, warm lips at my neck.

  “Hi, Clare.”

  I smiled as Mike nibbled me. “You looked very handsome on television.”

  “You could pick me out in that sea of faces?”

  “I could.”

  “Want to hear something funny?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “I saw Soles and Bass at One PP, and they are royally pissed at you.”

  “Why? Because I screwed up their case against Alicia?”

  “Not even close. They’re angry about the wedding gifts.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “Apparently, the night of the Rock Center party, your baristas served aphrodisiacs to half the detectives in Midtown.”

  “That’s right. They did.”

  “Within two days, three of those guys proposed to their girlfriends and two reconciled with their ex-wives. Lori and Sue Ellen will be going to weddings for the next six months.”

  “Sounds to me like cupid helper isn’t always a bad thing.”

  “As me sainted grandmother used to say, ‘A little bit o’ crazy flavors the stew.’ ”

  “That reminds me, Detective . . .”

  “What?”

  “You and I never did take that loco mocha out for a test drive.”

  “Oh, sweetheart . . .” Mike’s lips moved to my ear, his breath hot as he promised, “Cupid won’t need any controlled-substance help in our bedroom tonight.”

  I turned in his arms, expecting a kiss—and found instead a small white box, the kind that held a ring.