Murder by Mocha (31 page)

“How about an ankh?”

“A what?”

Dante touched one of the colorful tattoos on his own ropey arms—a cross with a loop on top. “It’s an ancient Egyptian symbol.”

“It’s called the Key of Life,” interjected Barry, one of our most loyal customers.

“Yes, it’s very spiritual,” agreed Jung-Min, another regular. “It looks cool on your arm, too.”

Dante smiled at the pretty, young grad student, now leaning over his shoulder. “Thank you.”

“Oh, you’re welcome,” Jung-Min said, grinning back. “When do you start pulling shots, Dante? I love your latte art!”

He checked his watch. “Fifteen minutes.”

A friend of Jung-Min’s wandered over (another coed, of course). “Would you show me some of your sketches, too, Dante?”

“Excuse me!” Nancy glared at the girls. “Dante is working with
me
now. Some privacy, please?”

Jung-Min and her friend blinked, shrugged, and found an empty table.

With an exhale, Dante closed his sketchbook. “How about a dolphin? All girls love dolphins, don’t they?”

“What’s
romantic
about a fish? I want something
personal
. From
you
.”

Dante visibly tensed.
Finally
, the boy got a clue. I bit my cheek and sipped my espresso. The earthy warmth felt as though it were spreading into my very bones.
God, I needed that... and this break from the Tantrum Queen. Now I know why Matt slipped away . . .

“How about a flower?” Nancy continued, reaching across to take Dante’s hand. “A rose with a heart around it—and your signature. I’ve got to have your name etched into my skin.”

“Oh, man . . .” Dante pulled back his hand. “I don’t think that’s such a good idea . . .”

“Why not? You sign your paintings, don’t you?”

Dante’s reply was drowned out by three loud voices—Alicia’s, Madame’s, and Matt’s. As they descended the staircase, Matt’s gaze found mine behind the counter. Looking pleased, he gestured as if he were drinking, then flashed a thumbs-up sign.

Setting down my demitasse, I hurried to catch up with Alicia, but she was already out the front door. Turning, I faced Matt and Madame.

“Where is she going?”

“To dress for this evening’s yacht party,” Madame said. “Which is where I’m going, too.” She pecked my cheek. “I’ll see you on the boat, dear!”

As Madame moved to the sidewalk, arm up, a cab pulled over and she was gone.

I turned to Matt. “Doesn’t Alicia understand how much trouble she’s in with the police? She needs to go up to the Seventeenth Precinct
now
, with a lawyer. She needs to amend her previous statement and straighten things out with Detectives Soles and Bass!”

Matt shrugged. “Alicia doesn’t seem to think it’s so urgent. She said she’s putting it off until the morning. She’s a lot more upset about what Gudrun Voss did to her product. And so am I.”

“What happened up there?”

He smiled down at me. “Score.”

“You got through to her?”

“Alicia drank a single cup of the Mocha Magic and admitted we were right. She started cursing like a sailor, ranting that Gudrun changed the product profile.”

“Why would Gudrun do that without telling her?”

“I don’t know. But Alicia swore she’d have it out with the little chocolatier on the boat tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing that.”

Given the “Sisterly” confrontations I’d witnessed this week, I wasn’t at all sure I was. Frowning, I checked my watch and glanced across the coffeehouse floor. Quinn’s two undercover sentries were still settled in our corner, nursing large lattes. Matt still didn’t know about them—or Quinn’s cold-case assignment or Scarface.

The bizarre story of his mother’s old flame being a cop killer had taken a back seat to the hot water we were in with Alicia and her Village people. Frankly, I was glad Matt was here. If something went down, I wanted someone around who could handle chaos, and Matt’s third-world travails—from African uprisings and Bangkok brawls to Indonesian tsunamis—had tempered him well.

Given the shooting gallery we’d gone through a few hours ago, I was glad he was coming tonight, too. But now I was the one slipping away. I had plenty to do before this yacht party started.

I just hoped to God it didn’t end with a bang.

THIRTY-SEVEN

A
S we exited the cab in front of the Twelfth Street Piers, Joy dropped the first bombshell of the evening.

“Mom, I can’t reach, Franco!”

“What do you mean?”

“I left him five messages since this morning. He never returned one.”

In less than an hour, the 240-foot-yacht
Argonaut
was scheduled to depart. Tucker and Nancy were already aboard, preparing a coffee and chocolate service for one-hundred-plus guests.

As I mulled over my daughter’s complaint, I felt Joy’s eyes on me. “What?”

“Have you heard from Mike?”

“Not since this morning. He’s on the job. Probably the same job Franco is working. That’s the life, honey.”

Joy shook her head, retied her ponytail. “Well, I hope nothing happened to Manny. It’s not like him to ignore my calls.”

I could see the worry on her face, and I wondered whether she could live every day in the shadow of that anxiety, because that’s what a relationship with a police officer meant, especially in this city.

On the other hand, I knew very well there could be another reason the sergeant hadn’t called my daughter. A tasty distraction might have crossed his path, like that Milk Duds girl. But if that’s the kind of dog Emmanuel Franco truly was, Joy was better off finding out sooner than later.

Still, a mother’s duty was to provide a place of comfort not chaos, so I squeezed Joy’s hand. “I’m sure Franco’s fine. Mike gets tangled up all the time and can’t call back . . .”

Joy looked relieved—that made one of us.

As we entered the terminal building, I warily eyed the crowd of strangers surrounding the yacht.

“I’m still not happy with your decision to help out tonight,” I said.

“Oh, Mom, stop worrying. Look!” She pointed to the base of the gangplank where security had set up a metal detector. “Everyone has to go through a scanner before they board. It’s safer on that yacht than it is in our coffeehouse.”

Joy had a point—and she didn’t even know about Scar-face. Neither did she know that two undercover Queens detectives would be on board, waiting for Maya’s killer to expose herself (at least, that’s how their lieutenant put it to me earlier). Left unsaid was the ugly truth: “exposure” for a killer like this could very well mean another dead body.

The thought had me speed-dialing Matt.

“I’m on my way,” he assured me. “Ten minutes from you.”

“Your father’s coming. Let’s board.”

After Joy and I passed through the scanner, we climbed the gangplank. A pair of hulking, square-jawed private security officers greeted us. They searched our bags, asked for photo IDs, and checked our names against a list on a laptop screen. That’s when I realized Matt’s name had to be added to my staff list.

Rather than explain the situation to the A-team, I looked for a familiar face. Thankfully, I saw two: Daphne Krupa and Susan Chu. The Mod Couple, once again dressed in 1960s-style psychedelic colors, stood with heads bent together in a secretive conversation.

I sent Joy off to find Tucker and approached them.

“. . . and what are you going to do?” Susan whispered.

“Oh, hey, Ms. Cosi,” Daphne said, loudly cutting off her friend. “Did . . . did you check in okay?”

“I did, but I have to talk to you about a staff substitution.” I explained about Matt.

“I’ll take care of it,” Susan said, and left for the registry desk.

I turned to Daphne. Curious what they’d been chatting about so intensely, I fished. “How’s your boss holding up? Is Sherri ready for her big night?”

“She’s totally frantic,” Daphne whispered, looking more than a little stressed herself. She began fidgeting with her pink-and-orange polka-dot scarf. “It’s gotten worse since the night Patrice . . . well, you know . . . and then Maya this afternoon.”

“Believe me, I know what happened to the fitness queen. I had a front-row seat.”

“My gosh . . .” She shook her head then leaned closer. “Ms. Cosi, you really do work with the police right?”

“What’s on your mind?”

“I found something—”

“Good evening, one and all!” Sherri Sellars loudly sang as she arrived at the top of the gangplank. Fit and trim in a beautifully tailored off-white suit, she exuded enough glamorous energy to power the Upper West Side. Her light brown hair, freshly sun-kissed by a salon colorist, was once again worn loosely to her shoulders, giving off that casual California style, while her rimless glasses reminded us all that we should take her seriously, too.

I noticed Daphne had stepped away from me, as if we hadn’t been speaking. I played along. A moment later, Sherri climbed the stairs to an upper deck without even glancing in our direction.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“I’m scared, Ms. Cosi...” Daphne’s usually upbeat voice sounded strangled. “This afternoon, Sherri told me to print something out, but I opened the wrong file on her laptop. The note was about Patrice, and something that happened the night she died. I think Sherri—”

“All fixed!” Susan interrupted. “Mr. Allegro won’t have any trouble coming aboard.” As I thanked Susan, she handed an envelope to Daphne. “And here’s Mr. Laurel’s press pass.”

Daphne glanced at me. “Sherri’s been wooing John Laurel for weeks,” she explained. “She really wants a lifestyle piece in the
Times.
Anyway, I’m supposed to meet this reporter, escort him around personally.” Worrying the envelope in her hand, she looked to her friend, who made an odd face.

What do these girls know? What did Daphne find?

“Excuse me,” Susan said. “I’ve been summoned by Aphrodite.”

Daphne nodded in understanding—as if an actual goddess had called Susan for an audience.

Daphne began to continue with her tale when she glanced over my shoulder and tensed. “We’ll talk later,” she whispered. “Don’t approach me. I’ll find you.”

A second later, a hand touched my arm. I jumped.

“You seem tense, dear,” Madame said.

Alicia stood beside her, hands tightly fisted. “Our chocolatier Gudrun Voss is on board. We’ll have our private meeting with her before we leave this ship.”

A
rolling swell from a passing sanitation barge slammed the
Argonaut
, but the happily buzzing crowd barely noticed the motion. With the night beautifully balmy and clear, the city’s skyline provided a dramatic backdrop for Sherri’s stage, on the yacht’s top deck.

As we sailed up the East River, the view was split. On our left gleamed the towering skyscrapers of Manhattan, the glare of headlights on its FDR Drive creating a bright string of pearls down its riverbank. On our right, a lesser glow pulsed from the outer boroughs with their low-rise buildings and row houses, the pale yellow of distant headlights flickering more like backyard fireflies.

My baristas moved among the partygoers with trays of real Voss chocolates and faux Mocha Magic.

(Matt and I refused to serve the drug-laced stuff so we secretly swapped it for our Mexican Choco-Lattes. Historically, chocolate, coffee, and cinnamon were all considered aphrodisiacs, so it wasn’t a total dupe.)

Tucker ran things without a hitch—well, maybe one small one. We had no room for our frozen staircase tonight, so I’d ordered a Venus duo for dramatic impact.

“Weren’t we supposed to have two ice sculptures?” I asked.

“One Venus to a customer, I guess,” Tuck quipped.

Nancy Kelly appeared to be performing well. “How are you holding up?” I asked her as Matt snatched a dark-chocolate-mint truffle from her tray.

“Gosh, Ms. Cosi. Joy and Tucker think I’m going to pass out or something just because I got sick at Rock Center.” Blushing, she rattled a plastic bottle in her apron pocket. “Tuck even gave me seasick pills.”

“It could be worse.”

“I know! Esther could be here!”

Above the humming boat motor, swish of waves, and salt-laced Atlantic breezes, Sherri Sellars’s amplified voice echoed across the dark river as she welcomed her guests.

“In the sweep of life, love can be a glorious dream. But that dream will come true only for those who are open and ready, like budding flowers . . .”

Sherri cupped her hands. Then she slapped them closed, like a trap. “People who entomb their hearts like turtles in their shells miss the magic life has to offer. My desire, my fervent wish, is for all people to emerge from their shells and blossom in each other’s light. That’s why my late-night LA radio show,
Smooth Sailing in Relationships
, is going into national syndication this summer!”

Sherri nodded her burnished head, accepting the requisite applause. Since taking the microphone, her voice had been flawlessly modulated, her dulcet tones and perfect pitch ideal for radio. Yet every time the relationship specialist dropped a new nugget of mixed-metaphor wisdom, my ex-husband groaned audibly.

“In my years as a partnering counselor, I’ve heard the same refrain from other specialists. You have to work at a relationship, they all say. It’s not easy. You must knuckle down; pick up a paddle and row, row, row; put your nose to the grindstone.” Sherri paused. “No wonder young people shy away from marriage. It sounds like a second job!”

The crowd laughed, some applauded.

Sherri raised her index finger. “I have a thought. Instead of working at relationships, let’s
play
at them.” She grinned. “I mean, if it isn’t fun, why have a relationship at all, right?”

More light applause.

“So, ladies, instead of meeting your man at the door with a pout on you lips and that tired old line ‘We have to talk,’ why not greet him wearing a big smile and nothing else!”

Some of the men hooted.

“That’s right. Hand him a cup of Mocha Magic—a ‘miracle brew’ that’s guaranteed to put the magic moments back into your relationship. Then hit the bedroom! Play now, talk later. Or maybe not . . . Maybe you won’t have to talk ever again. And won’t he be happy!”