Latte Trouble

by Cleo Coyle

  “What’s in this latte?”

  Tucker shrugged. “Espresso. Steamed milk. Caramel-chocolate syrup. Whipped cream. And a chocolate-covered coffee bean on top.”

  Detective Starkey paused rather meaningfully. “How about Amaretto?”

  “Amaretto?” replied Tucker. “In a caramel-chocolate latte? No, Detective, no Amaretto.”

  “And you’re sure about that, Mr…?”

  “Burton. Tucker Burton. And, of course I’m sure. I made that latte myself.”

  A shout interrupted us. “The medical examiner’s here, Detective.” It was Officer Langley calling over from his post at the door. Two more uniformed officers had arrived as well.

  “I’m busy here, Officer. The M.E. knows his job. Tell him to do it,” Starkey replied without shifting her gaze from Tucker. Then she reached out and put her hand on Tuck’s shoulder. “And do you know who brought Mr. Flatt his beverage, Tucker Burton?”

  Wait a minute, I thought. What’s happening here? Starkey’s intense gaze was holding Tucker like a hunter drawing a bead on an unsuspecting deer. “Tucker, don’t answer that!” I blurted out. But it had already overlapped with his—

  “I did. I brought it.”

  “Ms. Cosi, I’m not speaking with you at the moment.”

  The detective’s words were a little too sharp, a little too loud. I didn’t care. Tucker was family, and I wasn’t going to watch him railroaded. I stepped up to the woman. “Tucker isn’t obligated to answer anything.”

  At nearly six feet, the chic Detective Starkey towered over me like an imposing stiletto, but I didn’t care. My façade and vocabulary, not to mention my current address, may have improved as much as hers since my own working-class childhood, but the old ways died hard—and I’d bet a thousand goomba dollars my old neighborhood was ten times tougher than hers.

  “He’s my employee,” I knocked the woman’s hand from Tucker’s body. “And I’m the one responsible for the drinks served here.”

  Detective Starkey reacted but not in the way I’d expected. One blond eyebrow arched and she studied me with the detached interest of Mr. Spock examining a strange new life form.

  “Clare, it’s okay,” said Tucker. “I’ll answer your questions, Detective. I’ve got nothing to hide.”

  “Did Mr. Flatt say anything to you when you served him the latte?” asked Starkey, dispassionately resuming the interrogation as if I’d never existed. “Did he complain about the taste, perhaps?”

  I crossed my arms and made unhappy groaning noises. Tucker ignored me. “No, detective, Ricky didn’t complain about the latte. And I didn’t serve the latte to him, Ricky took it off my tray.”

  Starkey’s blond eyebrow arched again. “Ricky? That’s the victim’s first name? So you knew Mr. Flatt?”

  Tucker sighed. His narrow shoulders seemed to sag inward. “I…I knew Ricky.”

  “Under what circumstance did—”

  “Rachel!” Detective Hutawa keened from across the room. “The doc wants to speak with us, pronto.”

  Detective Starkey flinched. What she probably wanted to do was curse a blue streak. Instead, she held up an index finger to Tucker. “I’ll be right back,” she promised. “And, Ms. Cosi? Do me a favor.”

  My arms were still tightly crossed. “What?”

  “Kill that damn music.”

  I watched the woman saunter across the room, then go into a huddle with her partner and another man in khaki pants and a blue blazer. Beyond them I spied Matteo, with Breanne Summour stuck to his side like an expensively dressed carbuncle. I stepped to the end of the counter and slammed the speaker system’s off switch. Everyone looked up as the pulsing electronica pounded its last beat and a funereal silence fell over the coffeehouse. I returned to find my staff in a tight circle. Wagon trains, I thought. Tucker was biting his thumbnail in a sudden moment of regret. “Oh, god, Clare. Did I tell that detective too much?”

  “That would be a yes,” said Esther.

  Moira’s eyes, already dewy, went wide. “That’s not funny, Esther. The police are going to arrest Tucker.”

  Tucker went pale. “My god, I can’t go to jail. I just can’t…”

  “Nobody’s going to jail,” I said.

  “I didn’t poison anyone,” insisted Tuck. “And I didn’t want anything bad to happen to Ricky. I mean, after what he did to me, I wanted to kill him, sure. But I didn’t want to kill him, kill him. That latte wasn’t even meant for him. I was supposed to give it to Lottie Harmon.”

  Moira put her arms around Tucker and hugged him. He buried his face in her shoulder and shook his head in despair.

  I knew that latte was meant for Lottie. And other people did, too. Surely the detectives will pick up on that, I thought, after they interview the key witnesses and gather all the facts. I noticed that another plain-clothes policeman had entered the Blend, or perhaps he was some official from the Medical Examiner’s office. Since it was obvious more law enforcement people were still arriving, I scanned the room, hoping against hope that a certain tall, attractively rumpled police detective might show up in the nick of time and put everything right again. But there was no sign of Mike Quinn anywhere.

  Then my gaze caught young Officer Demetrios. He was leafing through a worn notebook filled with his bold block letters. I stepped out from behind the counter to confront him. “What’s going to happen?”

  He looked nervously beyond me, toward the huddle near the corpse. “I…I couldn’t say, Ms. Cosi.”

  He tried to push by me, but I refused to be shaken loose so easily. “Why isn’t Mike Quinn here?”

  “I heard Detective Quinn’s on leave.”

  That explained why I hadn’t seen him lately. Some time ago, I’d weaned the man off the stale, bitter swill they called coffee in the average New York City bodega, so I’d been wondering where he was getting his caffeine fix.

  “Is there something wrong with Detective Quinn? An emergency? Is he sick or something?” I asked.

  Officer Demetrios shrugged. “He’s taking lost time, that’s all I know. Something personal, I guess.”

  Most likely marital woes, I decided. Off and on over the past year, we’d spoken of his troubles, of his cheating wife, of his indecision over seeking a divorce, and of all the custody issues that would subsequently involve his two children—

  But I put thoughts of Detective Quinn aside. He wasn’t here and he wasn’t going to be, so it was up to me to focus on the problem at hand. “What do you know about those two?” I asked, gesturing to slick Detective Starkey and her hapless partner Hutawa.

  Demetrios’s eyes were guarded as he whispered his reply. “You heard of that good cop, bad cop thing—the one they use on television shows?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “With these two, it’s more like bad cop, worse cop. Starkey and Hut don’t cut anybody any slack.”

  “Starkey and Hut? You’re joking.”

  “For chrissake, not so loud, Ms. Cosi. And you didn’t hear those names from me,” he rasped, then hurried away as if I had the plague and was on fire.

  I noticed the huddle by the corpse had finally broken up. Detective Starkey was heading back toward the coffee bar, her face impassive. My staff and I formed our own huddle as we watched the woman approach.

  “The Medical Examiner’s early conclusions match my own. Richard Flatt was the victim of foul play,” Detective Starkey informed us. Her eyes drifted to Tucker. “And since Mr. Burton here denies your latte recipe uses Amaretto—”

  “Amaretto?!” Tucker and I cried together, perplexed.

  “Ms. Cosi, the M.E. and I both smelled the scent of bitter almond. The victim’s skin has a distinctive pink hue, so if it isn’t Amaretto in the latte your barista here has been serving up, then it’s prussic acid—that’s cyanide.”

  Moira and Esther paled. I felt sick. Tucker stumbled and nearly fainted. Detective Starkey clutched his arm to steady him. When she spoke, her tone was calm but firm. “Mr. Burton, I’m
going to have to ask you to accompany me back to the station—”

  “No…I won’t go,” Tucker cried, his eyes like a wounded animal’s. Two uniformed officers I didn’t know, a young one and an older one, stepped up to Tucker’s side, took hold of his wrists. “Don’t resist, son,” warned the older one.

  “But I didn’t do anything,” Tucker protested, struggling. “Please, let me go….”

  “Look at me, Mr. Burton,” Detective Hutawa demanded, stepping right in front of him. Tucker stopped squirming to stare at the stout detective.

  “Can you hear me?”

  Tucker nodded.

  “I asked if you can hear me, Mr. Burton?”

  “Yes, yes, I can hear you.”

  Hutawa’s face was grim as he began to intone, “You have the right to remain silent…”

  “Oh, god, no.” Tucker closed his eyes.

  “Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law…”

  “No. Please,” Tucker begged.

  “This is wrong!” I insisted.

  “You can’t do this,” Moira sobbed. She pushed forward, trying to get to Tucker. Esther Best restrained her.

  Detective Hutawa’s gravelly voice rumbled on. “You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford one…”

  “Clare! Do something,” Esther Best cried as she held Moira.

  I searched the crowded room for Matteo. He stood rigidly watching the arrest, frowning in fury, and it seemed to me he was about to barrel across the floor to raise living hell—but the light grip of Breanne Summour was apparently enough to hold him. Her French manicured fingers looked bone white against the fine black material of his Armani-clad arm, restraining him with bloodless insistence. Her glossy lips vigorously formed words, gripping his ear in a rapid whisper.

  I turned my gaze from my ex and squared my shoulders. “Tuck,” I said in a voice I hoped was calm and reassuring. “I’ll bail you out. I’ll find you a lawyer. Don’t worry, I promise I’ll do everything I can.”

  Which was, at that moment, not a thing. For now, I was forced to stand by and watch as the detectives placed handcuffs on Tucker’s wrists and led him through the doors to a parked squad car.

  As the police vehicle drove away, two detectives commanded me and my staff to step away from the counter. Then I helplessly watched as they wrapped my espresso machine, sink, and pastry case with fat rolls of police tape—the bright yellow color providing an incongruously sunny backdrop to the death black words that gave my coffee bar its new name: CRIME SCENE.

  FIVE

  ONE by one, the police questioned the partygoers. Most were sent on their way, but others who’d been standing near Ricky Flatt were forced to stay behind to sign written statements attesting to what they’d witnessed.

  Evicted from the coffee bar, my staff and I huddled near the fireplace. Esther Best settled into a morose funk while Moira tearfully wrung her hands. I turned from trying to comfort the sobbing girl and saw the sour-faced Detective Hutawa walking my way.

  “Do you have somewhere we can talk in privacy, Ma’am?” he asked.

  I nodded. “My office.”

  I led the detective up the staircase and through the coffee lounge on the second floor to my small, brick-walled office tucked away in a corner. My battered desk chair creaked as he settled himself into it. I pulled up a second chair and tightly crossed my legs and arms.

  Hutawa focused weary eyes on me. “Officer Demetrios tells me you’re a friend of Mike Quinn’s. Met him through another case connected with this establishment.”

  I blinked in surprise. “Detective Quinn is a regular customer,” I said guardedly.

  “That I know,” said Hutawa. He finally smiled. “Mike tells me the coffee is really great here. Something special.”

  “Yes, but I’ve never seen you in here. Why don’t you stop in sometime for a cup?”

  Hutawa’s smile faded. “Never touch the stuff.”

  I frowned. So much for attempting to establish trust. “What’s happening to Tucker, detective? When can I bail him out?”

  Hutawa sighed and looked away, his eyes scanning the bulletin board on the nearby wall. “He’s being processed, Ms. Cosi. His arraignment before a judge will most likely take place in the next twenty-four hours. If bail is set at all, it will be done at the arraignment. But if you really wish to help Mr. Burton…” Hutawa’s gaze met mine, his weary tone now calm and sympathetic, “I suggest you start by answering some simple questions about him.”

  “Fine.”

  The detective then proceeded to ask me a lot of questions, most of them about Tucker. I was honest, though not to a fault. When he asked me if I’d known of a prior relationship between Tucker and the victim, I hedged. “If such a relationship existed, Tucker never mentioned it to me.” My answer was technically honest, anyway—it was Esther who mentioned their affair.

  “Would you say Mr. Burton was acting normally today? Was he upset, agitated or angry about something?”

  “Of course not. Tucker was…well, he was Tucker.”

  Detective Hutawa was obviously fixated on Tucker and Ricky’s previous relationship as a motive. I knew he’d be questioning Esther—so I finally did confess that Esther had mentioned Ricky and Tucker had known one another “socially.” He didn’t press the matter, simply jotted down that fact in his notebook.

  But I was firm in adding another obvious detail. “That latte on Tucker’s tray, the one Ricky grabbed and drank, was actually intended for Lottie Harmon, the jewelry designer who hosted this party.”

  Hutawa stared at me in silence.

  “If you’re looking for a motive, I suggest that maybe you should have a talk with Lottie.”

  “That’s what you suggest, eh?” He dropped his notebook, folded his hands and stared at me. “So what do you suggest I ask this woman, Ms. Cosi? Should I ask her why a barista at the Village Blend was trying to poison her?”

  “For heaven’s sake, Tucker had nothing to do with the poison in that drink—if there even was poison. If someone was intent on murder, then Tucker was as much a victim as Ricky Flatt.”

  Detective Hutawa snorted. “Look, Ms. Cosi. Police work in this city is no noodle-salad picnic, and the worst part of this job is that I hear the same prevarications every day—nothing but lies and excuses.” The detective sighed. His shoulders drooped as if the weight of the world were slowly crushing them. “‘No, no, it wasn’t me, Detective, it was somebody else who looked just like me that pulled the trigger.’ Or ‘I had to kill him, man, because he screwed me in a drug deal or has evil eyes and an R in his name.’”

  Hutawa paused, shook his head. “So please, Ms. Cosi, spare me the homilies. I understand the urge to protect your employee and your business interests, but don’t try to divert my attention away from the real focus of this investigation. The victim is Ricky Flatt, not this…this Lottie Harmon. And like it or not, your coffee brewer—”

  “Barista.”

  Hutawa grunted. “Whatever you want to call him, he’s admitted he made the fatal drink.”

  “That doesn’t mean someone else didn’t poison the latte after he made it,” I countered, realizing, after the words were out, how unlikely that scenario would sound to a hardened police investigator.

  But Hutawa sat back, folded his arms, and let me talk on.

  “Listen, detective, I know that Tucker’s no killer. He’s one of the gentlest souls I’ve ever met. Why, Tuck even tried to help Ricky, he began to administer CPR—”

  But Detective Hutawa had heard enough. “We’re through here, Ms. Cosi. If you don’t mind, I’m going to use your office for a while. Tell the rest of your staff to come up here—and please don’t attempt to concoct some phony story with the others because it will become apparent to me. It will only serve to insult my intelligence, and I don’t like to be insulted.”

  Hutawa and Starkey had already made up their dual minds. To them, the case was clear. Tucker was guilty of murder. Obviously, the two d
etectives were only interested in building a case against him. And no doubt, the crime scene people were also working toward that same goal.

  After Hutawa dismissed me, I found Esther and Moira waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. “He wants to talk to you two next,” I said. Esther frowned, Moira paled as I sent them on their way.

  When I returned to the coffee bar, I got a nasty surprise. While Hutawa was grilling me, the folks from the Crime Scene Unit had wrecked the entire area. They’d emptied the refrigerator, the coffee urns, and the cupboards. They’d dismantled the espresso machine, rifled the pantry, and even searched through the loose beans in the coffee bins. They had bagged up the garbage beneath the counter—wet coffee grounds and disposable filters mostly, since we weren’t using our usual paper cups for the private party.

  All this was done, I supposed, in an effort to locate the source of the poison and confirm that no more of it existed. Of course, that was only a guess on my part, because none of the crime scene investigators would tell me a thing—or even acknowledge that I was speaking to them when I politely asked when I could have my coffeehouse back.

  Their silence was beyond disturbing, so I drifted to the fireplace and, with all the chairs and tables moved out for the party, simply slumped down on the wood plank floor. I scanned the room for Matteo, hoping for a sturdy shoulder to lean on, but he was gone—either he’d given his statement to the police and escaped, or he’d shown even more attitude than me to one of the detectives and had been hauled off to jail. I doubted this, however, since I noted that Breanne Summour was also missing (gee, what a coincidence). Had they left together? Is there caffeine in espresso?

  Someone else was also missing from the scene. While I was being questioned, Ricky Flatt’s corpse had been carried off to the morgue—only the yellow tape outline on the floor remained to mark the place where the medical examiner had pronounced him dead.

  The partygoers were mostly gone, too. I leaned my back against the cold, brick wall. Next to me, the fireplace sputtered with dying flames. I closed my eyes, lamenting the state of my coffee bar and poor Lottie Harmon’s roll-out bash, and attempted to mentally process my gentle friend being forcefully hauled away in handcuffs.