Latte Trouble (6 page)

F
OUR
A.M
.

I dragged myself upstairs and was greeted by Java, a little female cat with fur the color of a medium roast
arabica
bean and more attitude than a pop diva.

Mrrrroooow!

She hadn’t been given her usual late night snack, and she was not amused. “Sorry, girl,” I murmured, bending to lift her into my arms. I carried her to the kitchen, scratching under her chin in a cheap a plea for forgiveness. The slow beginnings of a purr told me she was at least willing to extend an olive branch.

For the past five hours, I’d been toiling to restore some semblance of normalcy to the coffee bar, which was due to open in less than three hours for morning business. The Crime Scene Unit had been a hurricane, blowing through with no regard to private property. Esther and Moira had stayed overtime to help, and I’d called in Maxwell, another NYU student and part-time barista, to give us another pair of hands—but at one o’clock, I’d sent them all home and finished the rest myself.

Together, we’d cleaned the floor and counter and hauled the marble-topped café tables back upstairs from storage. By myself, I’d restocked the cupboards and under-counter fridge, and set up the reserve espresso machine—since the Crime Scene Unit had taken the one used during the party. And the entire time, I’d been thinking about Tucker and dreading what he might be going through. I knew he’d need a good criminal lawyer and fast, so the first thing I did, before any of the cleanup, was phone the Blend’s attorney, Larry Jacobson.

After an unfortunate accident in the store a year ago, Matt and I convinced Madame it was important to have legal counsel on retainer for any future civil entanglements, anything that could lead to our being sued to within a penny of our existence. But when I called I didn’t get Jacobson. I got his answering service, so I left a lengthy message. Then I called the Sixth Precinct for some kind of update on Tucker’s situation (which—big surprise—got me nowhere). I even tried my friend Mike Quinn’s cell, but it was obviously turned off, and I didn’t leave a message. The man had enough stress dealing with his divorce, and I certainly didn’t want to force him into any favors with a frantic, recorded plea. If I didn’t have some concrete answers from the police by morning I’d resort to trying Detective Quinn again.

As I stepped into the kitchen, I flipped on the lights, lowered Java to the floor, and popped a can of Fancy Feast. As I watched her eat, I turned on the small clock-radio on the counter. The radio was tuned to 1010 AM—the “All news all the time” station. The murder at the Village Blend was the fifth story, dovetailing behind a piece about the opening of Fashion Week festivities. The news item itself was mercifully short—who, what, where, and when, then the announcer moved on to the next story about a water main break in Chinatown. Ricky Flatt’s name was mentioned, but not the suspect’s. The Blend was referred to as “a popular Greenwich Village institution”—which would have been flattering under any other circumstances.

I flipped off the radio.

Although I was tired, I was too shaken up to go to bed. I didn’t have an appetite either. As bizarre as it sounded after the events of the night—particularly the use of cyanide as a secret ingredient—what I was dying for was a cup o’ joe. It wasn’t completely off the wall considering religious clerics in Yemen had used coffee in their extended prayer vigils for at least five hundred years, and I knew that’s what this night was going to feel like, given my worries over Tucker. In fact, I decided a French pressed pot of some newly arrived Mocha Yemen Mattari would be perfect. I fired up a gas burner under a kettle of filtered water, pulled down the tightly sealed canister from my kitchen shelf and began to scoop the dark, oily beans into my electric grinder.

Mattari was hard to obtain year-round (it’s best obtained in North America in fall and winter) but it was a rich cup, full of body, incredibly aromatic, and I’d roasted this batch dark, which meant there would be slightly less caffeine. (Customers are often under the mistaken impression that darker roasts, such as French and Italian, have more caffeine than lighter roasts. Not so. The darker the bean, the less caffeine. Which is why Breakfast Blends are usually light to medium “city roasts”.)

I was just pouring the boiling water over the ground coffee in my smallest French press when I heard the front door open, the rattle of keys, then heavy footsteps in the hallway. The kitchen door swung wide and Matteo stood there, frozen in his tracks, staring at me in surprise. He was still clad in the black Armani, which, with his tall stature and impressive physique, made him an imposing figure. Kind of like Darth Vader—only less trustworthy.

“You’re up early,” he said, checking his watch.

“Late,” I replied. “Notice the clothing? It’s what I was wearing last night.”

Not that you had eyes for anyone but that woman from
Trend
magazine
, I thought—but was too chicken to say. After all, the man was no longer my husband, and what he did in his spare time was
so
not my business. The fact that I found myself caring at all was what irritated me more than anything.

Using a wooden spoon, I stirred the grounds with a little more force than necessary and replaced the lid of the French press. (I found that stirring the water and freshly ground coffee nicely kick-starts the brewing process.)

“How are you fixed for staff?” Matt moved to the small kitchen table, removed his suit jacket, and draped it over a cane-back chair.

“It’s Esther’s regular day and she agreed to come early to help me open.”

Matt almost laughed as he sat down. “Good luck with that.”

Esther had slept through her alarm so often, I’d finally restricted the girl to afternoon and evening shifts only. But she seemed willing, and I was definitely desperate. “It’ll take me a day or more to juggle the schedules. I was relying on Tucker for so much, but at least his friend Moira agreed to cover for him.” I sat down opposite my ex-husband and stared.

He knew the look. “What?”

“I could have used your help last night. The investigators from the Crime Scene Unit didn’t leave the shop until after eleven. The place was totally wrecked.”

“Sorry, Clare, but I thought Tucker needed my help more.”

“Tucker?” I sat back. “You…you were helping Tucker?”

My shocked tone seemed to offend him. “Of course I was helping Tucker,” he said. “Where the hell did you think I was?”

Sleeping with Breanne Summour, what else?
I thought, but what I said was—

“How did you even know where to find him? I called the precinct, but no one would answer my questions or return my calls. Around one, a desk sergeant finally informed me that Tucker was ‘being processed’—exactly the same vague crap I got from Detective Hutawa.”

Matt sighed and rubbed his neck. “Tucker spent the night on suicide watch inside Rikers Island jail—”

“Suicide watch!”

I think the blood must have drained from my face because Matt’s expression went from simply tired to suddenly alarmed. “Clare, it’s okay. He’s okay. It’s just a ploy.”

“A ploy? What do you mean ‘a ploy’? What are you talking about?”

“Suicide watch means he’ll be isolated from the general hardened prison population and presumably safe from…interference.”

It took a few seconds for this notion to sink in—that a “suicide watch” could, in any way, be a good thing. But it finally registered, and a perplexing question came with it: “Matt, how in the world did you even know about suicide watch? Or arrange to get Tucker that status?”

“I didn’t,” he replied with a stifled yawn. “It was Doyle Egan.”

The name was vaguely familiar, but I couldn’t place it. “Who is—”

“Detective Egan is a former New York undercover cop who cracked that big Mafia case years ago, the one that led to the mob graveyard in Queens. He retired from the force, got his law degree, and is now practicing with a big firm.”

I nodded, recalling old headlines as mob victims from decades past were unearthed. “But how do you know this Egan person?”

“I don’t. Breanne Summour does. Egan writes a monthly column for
Trend
.”

“What would a man like that write about for a fashion magazine?” I asked. “The aesthetics of pinkie rings and prison tattoos? How to dress like a Wise Guy?”

“Breanne’s magazine doesn’t just cover fashion. It publishes all kinds of articles,” he replied, a bit too defensively, I thought.

“All right, okay. So…what about bail?”

“If the judge sets bail, it will be sometime this morning. Tucker is most definitely going to be arraigned for the murder of Ricky Flatt—that’s the bad news. But the good news is a top-notch criminal defense lawyer will be there to represent him.”

“Thank God. I tried Jacobson, but only got the service.”

“Clare, come on. Larry Jacobson’s not a criminal lawyer. We have him on retainer for civil matters.”

“I know that! I just didn’t know who else to call for a criminal lawyer recommendation!”

“Well, I worked it out.”

“I’m glad you did. Believe me, I’m grateful.”

“His name is Walter Tanner. He won a few high profile criminal cases. He agreed to represent Tucker as a favor.”

“A favor?” Matt had made a lot of connections over the years with his world travels, but I couldn’t recall him ever mentioning knowing a high-powered criminal lawyer. “A favor to you?” I prompted.

Matteo shrugged, looked away at the French press. The hot, filtered water was now clear as mud.

“Oh, I see…another favor for Breanne Summour.”

My ex didn’t answer. He simply checked his watch, then reached across the table and pressed the French press’s plunger. The flavors had been extracted from the grounds and now they were forced downward, all the way to the bottom. The beans had been chopped, drowned, and now they were being shoved out of the way. The entire process seemed very violent to me, all of a sudden, and through my exhausted gaze, the plunging action seemed to go on forever in surreal slow motion.

“That Mattari smells heavenly,” said Matt.

I grunted in reply.

It remained quiet after that, though silence between Matteo and I was not unusual, having been together—and apart—so much in our lives. Matt stood and retrieved two mugs from the cupboard and a pint of cream from the fridge. The cream was a gesture. He always drank his coffee black. After pouring both cups, he splashed cream into mine and set it down in front of me.

“Nice crop this year,” he said. “Sweet, fruity, nice depth.”

The Mocha Yemen Mattari was a single-origin coffee; that is, it was unblended with any other bean and simply came straight from its country of origin, in this case the country of Yemen and the region of Mattari. The “mocha” aspect of the name referred not to “chocolate” as in your average mochaccino, but the port from which the coffee was originally exported. If you mixed these beans with Java
arabicas
, then you’d have Mocha Java, the oldest known of the coffee blends.

I took in the piquant aroma, the warmth, the earthy richness, but none of it was reviving me.

“So,” sighed Matteo, breaking another long silence. “Why do you think he did it?”

“Who…did what?”

“Come on, Clare. Why do you think Tucker poisoned that guy? A lover’s quarrel? I never thought of Tucker as all that tempestuous. But you never know, I guess.”

“You can’t be serious.”

“What?”

“Do you really believe Tucker Burton is a murderer?”

Matteo sat back in his chair. “If not Tucker, then who?”

I set my mug down hard enough to rattle the small table. “That’s what I intend to find out.”

Matteo closed his eyes. “Oh, please, Clare. Not again.”

“Not
what
again?”

“You know. That Nancy Drew thing of yours. This time would you please call that Irish flatfoot,…what’s his name? Flanagan?”

“Quinn!”

“Fine. Call Quinn.”

“I did already, but he didn’t answer his cell and he’s not even in the city. He’s on leave. Family trouble.”

“Oh.”

“Matt, I can’t believe you could think Tucker would do anything like this. Why did you help him if you think he’s a killer?”

“I…I don’t know. Tucker’s a nice guy, and he works for the business my great grandfather started—my family’s business—and for that I feel like he’s part of the family. And everyone has a right to a fair trial.”

“But you
do
think he’s guilty.”

For a full minute, Matteo just sipped his coffee and mulled over his response. Finally, he sighed. “I’m sorry. I know you don’t want to believe it yourself, but yes, Clare, I think Tucker is guilty.”

T
WO
hours later, I was stunned when I came downstairs. Esther was there. She’d used her key to get in, and had already opened the pastry case in anticipation of the morning bakery delivery. Though she seemed her old cynical self, Esther’s face was pale and her thick glasses could not hide the redness behind them.

Moira arrived fifteen minutes later. She looked delicate in the harsh morning sun and I suspected she’d had as sleepless a night as Esther and I. When she complained of a headache but declined any aspirin because of an allergy, I knew I should send her home—but I needed the help. She was carrying the morning edition of the
Post
, the only paper that had put the murder on the front page—the others had placed it on inside pages. “Lethal Latte” was the headline on a sketchy story stating “a suspect had been detained but not yet charged.” I knew that would change later in the day.

After we looked over the paper, I sat Moira and Esther down. Over coffee, I told them what Matteo had told me—that Tucker spent the night in jail and would be arraigned later today with a lawyer present. Of course, I left out the fact that my ex-husband thought Tucker was guilty.

“How could this have happened?” Esther moaned.

“That’s what I want to figure out,” I replied. “We were all here when it happened. Let’s try to recall exactly what took place and who was present.”

I rose and stepped to the customer side of the coffee bar. “I was standing here. Then I walked around the counter and checked the fridge for soy milk. When I didn’t find any, I went downstairs to bring some up from storage.”

Esther stepped up to stand next to me. “Before you left, I was standing next to you.”

“And after I left? What did you do?”

“I hung out a little longer. Then I went back out on the floor to collect more used mugs and napkins.”

“Moira?” I asked. “What do you remember about that time?”

“Well, Ms. Cosi, I was behind Tucker, who was pulling espressos. There was a whole line of them right here on the counter, in the tall glass latte mugs.” She pointed to the space. Moira, Esther, and I exchanged glances. We were all thinking the same thing.

“Those mugs were in easy reach. Anyone in this area of the coffee bar could have tampered with one of them,” I pointed out.

“A lot of people moved by that area,” said Esther.

“Then anyone could have done it!” Moira cried.

“Hold on, calm down,” I replied. “Let’s try to recall who was at the bar during the specific time when Tucker was making that latte. Think. Who did you see sitting or standing here between the time I went downstairs and came back up.”

“That Lloyd Newhaven character,” said Esther. “That’s the reason you went downstairs in the first place—to get soy milk for his latte.”

“Right,” I said. “Wait.” I ducked into the pantry near our back door and grabbed an inventory checklist, then I returned to the counter, pulled a pen from my pocket, and wrote Lloyd’s name on the blank back. “Okay,” I said. “What else do you two remember?”

“After you went downstairs,” recalled Moira, “a woman came up to talk with Lloyd.”

“What did she look like?” I asked.

“She was tall, had long black, straight hair—really long, like down to her hips. And she was all in violet. I think she was Asian.”

That sounded to me like one of the women whom Lloyd had escorted into the party. “Did you happen to notice if she had violet eyes, too?” I asked.

“I think she did,” said Moira.

“She did,” said Esther. “I came back and forth to the counter while I was collecting dirty mugs. And I saw her, too.”

“She’s a friend of Lloyd’s,” I told them, jotting down a few more notes. “That much I know, but not much else because she came as Lloyd’s guest, and his was the only name on the invitation. Who else do you remember coming up to the coffee bar?”

“There was a male model type,” said Esther.

“And what did he look like?” I asked.

Esther closed her eyes. “Dyed white-blond hair…crew cut…white T-shirt, black leather jacket and pants, bike chains, a wristband with studs—”

“Excuse me? Did you say studs?”

Esther opened her eyes and nodded. “He had this whole Billy Idol thing going.”

“Billy Idol, that’s right!” I cried. “I remember seeing him in the crowd. How old would you say he looked?”

“Oh, young,” said Esther. “Maybe twenty. Eighties retro is the new trend.”

“Oh, geez,” I said, scribbling away. “The twenty-year cycle continues.”

“What’s that?” asked Esther.

“When I was in high school, the fifties had made a come-back…you know, with
Laverne and Shirley
and
Happy Days
.”

“Happy what?” asked Moira.

“It was a TV show,” Esther informed her. “Ron Howard was in it.”

Moira’s brow wrinkled. “The movie director?”

I sighed. “Okay, do either of you remember anyone else?”

“Well, there was that man and woman,” Moira said. “The ones who work for Lottie Harmon.”

“You mean her partners, Tad Benedict and Rena Garcia?” I clarified, but I’d already remembered them and didn’t consider them suspects. After all, they had no motive. What was there to gain from killing off your golden goose partner?

“You know what?” said Moira, eyes widening. “
Tad
was the one who asked Tucker to make that latte in the first place.”

“Tad was?” I asked, intrigued. “You’re sure?”

“I’m sure,” said Moira nodding emphatically.

“Yeah, that’s right.” Esther agreed.

I whirled. “You heard it, too?”

Esther shrugged. “I thought you were there for that.”

I shook my head. “No, I must have still been downstairs. Tell me exactly what you remember.”

“Well,” Esther began, “it was so crazy that people were taking the lattes before the trays could get more than a few feet beyond the coffee bar and Tad said that Lottie looked like she could use some caffeine. And then Tucker sort of announced he was going to make a latte for Lottie.”

“That’s right,” said Moria. “That’s what I remember, too. Tad touched Tucker’s arm and said something like, ‘Sorry to pressure you, but could you see that Lottie gets one? She could probably use another shot of caffeine to get her through the final hour.’ Then Tucker said something like, ‘One very special caramel-chocolate latte for the guest of honor coming up.’ He announced it very theatrically, you know?”

“Well, that’s nothing new for Tucker,” I pointed out. “But it does mean anyone nearby would have been aware the drink was going to Lottie…I just wonder why Tad didn’t take the latte to Lottie himself?”

Moira shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Neither do I,” said Esther. “By that time, I was back doing my clean-up rounds.”

“So Tad asked for it to be made, but didn’t take it to Lottie…” I murmured.

“You think Tad poisoned the latte with arsenic?” asked Moira.

“Cyanide,” I corrected. “And I’m not saying that at all…it’s just…interesting.”

“You mean suspicious,” said Esther. “Sounds that way to me.”

Only if Tad had a motive, I thought. What could he gain by killing Lottie? Her designs made him a wealthy man—well, a wealthier man, anyway. Why would he murder his meal ticket? Could it be a war over control of the designer label? That didn’t seem to make sense because the label wouldn’t be worth half as much without Lottie’s designs behind it.

“Ms. Cosi?…Clare?”

I blinked, finally hearing Moira’s voice break into my thoughts. “Yes…what is it?”

Moira and Esther exchanged a look. “The bakery van is here,” said Moira. “Didn’t you hear the knocking?”

“Oh,” I said and rose to unlock the back door. I was surprised to find Theresa Rosario standing there, in jeans and a sweater, her long brown curls tied back. Next to her stood the regular delivery person, Joey, a good-looking Italian kid attired in his usual baggy jeans, backwards baseball cap, and Yankee jacket.

Theresa was the youngest baker in her large Italian family. Like the Village Blend, the history of the Rosario Bakery stretched back over a century. A small storefront in Little Italy had led to a second shop on First Avenue in the East Village, then to two more on the Upper East and West sides of Manhattan.

“I brought over more Ricciarelli,” Theresa told me as she and Joey carried in boxes of pastries and deposited them in our pantry area near the back door. “We had so many almonds on order, I just whipped up another big batch.”

Joey had delivered the special order of pastries for Lottie’s bash the night before. The little diamond-shaped almond cookie with powdered sugar on top was a delicious rarity, so I wasn’t complaining to hear she’d included them in our standard daily delivery, too.

“The guests practically inhaled them last night,” I told her. “And I’m sure my customers will love them today.”

“Last night, right…you know, I heard
something
on news radio about your party,” she said. “Was there some kind of trouble?”

I met Theresa’s intense, gossip-hungry brown eyes and suddenly realized why she’d shown up to help with deliveries, today of all days. “Oh! You know, I think I hear the first customers of the day knocking!” I cried. “I’ll tell you all about it later, okay? Gotta go!”

Then I shooed Teresa and her delivery boy out the back door and darted off to open the front.