Murder by Mocha (9 page)

“Mike, no—”

“That’s it. My decision’s made.”

I wanted to talk him out of it, but I couldn’t think how. Then my pocket started ringing. “Listen, there must be another way—”

“Answer your phone, Clare.” He gently squeezed my shoulder. “I’ll see you at the party tonight. I’ve got to get going.”

As he moved toward the bedroom, I pulled out my cell, checked the screen to see who was calling—although I really didn’t need to, the
La bohème
ringtone was signal enough.

I had so many questions (not to mention unbridled
rants
) for my former mother-in-law, I didn’t know where to start. I took a breath, let the call go to voice mail, and stepped into the bathroom.

A long, hot shower, that’s where I start.

NINE

P
LANNING
was overrated. She knew that now. The goal itself was paramount.

“Unexpected hurdles may spring up tonight,” she whispered to the image in the bathroom mirror, “but you must remain calm, evaluate quickly, counter with flexibility . . .”

Her first execution had taught her that.

She’d written out everything three years before—details worthy of a textbook flowchart. The result was a rough job at best. Stealing that van, for instance, had been harder than she thought, then pacing the judge’s SUV, lining up the accident . . . so much had been trickier than she’d anticipated. Luckily, on winter nights, most of the roads around the country club of Bay Creek Village were dark and empty.

With the “fatal crash” coming down as little more than a fender bender, improvisation became the order of the day. Idling the engine on the stolen van, she waited for just the right moment. When the judge stumbled out of her banged-up vehicle, down went the gas pedal!

The morning news called it an accident, “a terrible, tragic, hit- and-run . . .”

Boo-hoo
for the judge’s husband and family—the same family that cared not a whit about the fate of her own!

By the next day, the idiot box was spinning the story another way: “Police are investigating the suspicious hit-and-run that killed longtime Long Island judge . . .”

“The authorities,” she was continually told, were “actively looking” for the driver. “Was it a tragic accident?” the anchor posited. “Or a premeditated act of vengeance?”

Day after day, it went on. She’d been sick in the bathroom for most of it. The police were going to find her! She was sure of it. They would drag her to prison like her poor mother!

But no one came for her. No one. And the relief was transcendent . . .

She waited after that—an entire year. Then she struck again, her very own act two. The second kill had been as problematic as the first, but she’d succeeded.

Once more, subsequent news reports seemed unfair, relentless, at times even ridiculous, but there was no getting sick in the bathroom. For some reason, she found the second evacuation much easier to swallow.

No one came for her, of course, and she felt even freer to do as she pleased. Still, she wasn’t stupid. She went back to waiting, this time even more than a year . . .

And now the waiting was over.

The world was her stage again, her theater for new trials. “Tonight,” she confided to the mirror. “Tonight begins act three . . .”

TEN

“I
can’t believe you slapped me!”

Esther glared at Tucker, shaking her reddening hand, though she managed to hold on to the cookie she’d purloined from his silver tray.

“If you touch
another
Cappuccino Kiss,” Tuck warned, “I’ll whack your fingers again.”

“There’s no
another
. That was my first.”

My two senior baristas had been bickering since we got here. Happily, there were no witnesses. Arriving guests were immediately ushered into the rooftop Garden while we set up inside.

And where was
inside
, exactly? The seventh floor of a skyscraper in the legendary Rockefeller Center, a sprawling complex in midtown Manhattan, home of the GE Building and NBC television.

I had to admit, Alicia chose an impressive address to launch her new product. Crowning this art deco tower was “the Top of the Rock,” a multistory observation deck, somewhat lesser known than the Empire State Building but with equally breathtaking panoramas. Down here on the seventh floor, the Loft & Garden served as a popular space for society weddings and corporate parties. On the east end of this glorified rectangle sat the open-air Garden. It boasted a fountain and reflecting pool. At the west end was the Loft interior with floor-to-ceiling windows and space enough for a reception of two hundred.

As twilight deepened into darkness, the tall windows treated us to views of Radio City’s neon marquee and the fairylike lights of Rock Plaza’s courtyard, where a bronze-cast statue of Prometheus attempted to offer the gift of fire to oblivious tourists strolling below.

From what I remembered of the Greek myth, in repayment for Prometheus’s heroic act of bequeathing fire to humankind, Zeus ordered him chained to a rock where an eagle visited him daily to dine on his liver.

No good deed goes unpunished
sprang to mind. Mike occasionally muttered the aphorism in reference to police work.

Today I knew why.

Mike’s visit to the NYPD’s version of Mount Olympus was certainly over by now, but he had yet to return my call. With every passing hour, I worried a little more. Sure, Mike sounded firm in his decision to protect Sully and Franco by resigning, but that was only in theory. In my experience, hard facts hit you in the face with a whole lot more impact than airy little theories.

So where was he now? I wondered.
Is he with his squad? Or in some pub across town? Did he seek out some shoulder (other than mine) to cry on?

Punishment for good deeds, or at least good intentions, had me reconsidering my own morning. After my long, head-clearing shower, I’d returned Madame’s call, absolutely insisting on straight talk. Thank goodness, she agreed. No more equivocating.

Like me and the Fish Squad, Madame believed Alicia had been targeted for some sort of nefarious scheme. She even volunteered to question the woman, but I’d specifically asked her to get Alicia here early so we three could hash things out. At this late hour, my calls went unreturned, and I had yet to see either lady.

I was beginning to feel like Prometheus’s brother, Atlas, whose bronze likeness was power-lifting a weighty sphere on the other side of this complex. With my own worries heavy on my shoulders, I focused instead on that universally acknowledged painkiller . . .
chocolate
.

Like the Greeks and their theory of fire, the Aztecs thought of chocolate as a gift from a god, one who’d stolen the cocoa tree from paradise and delivered it to us mortals on the beam of a morning star.

I could see Esther appreciated her little bites of heaven as much as I did. Glancing back to my senior baristas, I noticed Tuck explaining why he’d slapped her hand.

“Sorry, but I was counting. That was your
third
kiss.”

Esther’s response: “Nah-
ahh
.”

Hands on hips, Tucker faced her. “Did I just hear the Dark Princess of street poetry murmur the astoundingly jejune phrase ‘nah-ahh’?”

Esther smirked. “When you fail to amuse, I’ll disabuse. You don’t inspire . . .” She snapped her fingers. “You tire.”

“Hey, you two,” I called, attempting to derail this hip-hop train before it fully left the station. “Tell me how this looks!”

I had just finished placing two hundred shot glasses filled with triple-chocolate
budini
on a miniature staircase of blue-hued ice. The chilly steps were a dramatic way of keeping the creamy Italian puddings fresh. They circled a frozen-water sculpture of Aphrodite—your basic, armless, Louvre Venus de Milo rendered as Giant Popsicle.

I’d recommended the
budino
to Alicia as an alternative to gelato, which never would have held under these circumstances. Of course, chocolate, sugar, eggs, and cream weren’t its only ingredients. Like everything else we were serving, the treats were laced with Alicia’s Mocha Magic Coffee “love” powder.

Tucker and Esther, who’d been filling silver trays with goodies, now turned to offer their
oohs
and
aahs
at my frosty staircase of passion-inducing pudding shots. Then Esther went back to munching her stolen kiss and Tucker returned to fixing the chorus line of cookies she’d disturbed.

Their verbal sparring ceased, but Tuck couldn’t stop himself from pointing two fingers at his own eyes before thrusting them at Esther.

“I’m watchin’ you, girl,” he said, playing up his Louisiana twang.

Esther pulled her serving glove free, pushed up her black-framed glasses, and stuck out her tongue. Then she snatched a piece of broken tiramisu bar from the “damaged goods” bowl and waved it in the air before popping it in her mouth.

“Chill, you two,” I warned.

Esther faced me, mouth full. “I’m out,” she garbled then swallowed. “What next?”

“More’s coming.” I pointed across the room to Nancy Kelly, who was wheeling a stainless steel bakery cart our way.

“Holy smokin’ rockets!” she cried. “Those cute little ice steps are really something!”

“What’s that?” Esther slid her dark frames down enough to peer at Nance over them. “You didn’t have ice back in Yokelville?”

“We didn’t have ice stairs, except maybe in the winter,” Nancy replied honestly.

“Where
are
you from exactly?” Tuck asked.

“All over. I come from a lot of places.”

“Where they get up with the chickens, apparently,” Esther said.

“Roosters.”

“Which implies Nancy actually kept chickens.”

“Why should I tell you anything!” Nancy threw up her hands. “All you guys ever do is make fun of me.”

“We’re not making fun of you,” Esther said. “We’re alternately appalled and yet charmed by your bumpkin ways.”

Tuck waved a gloved hand. “Don’t sweat it, honey. All newbies get tortured. When I first came to New York, my bayou accent earned me so much ribbing I tasted barbecue sauce.”

“How did you get it to stop?”

“Simple, sweetie . . .” He snapped his fingers. “I stuck.”

“To what?”

“To doing what I came here to do. When you stick around long enough, you become a New Yorker. It’s inevitable—although you do have to hold on tight.”

“To what?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Your dreams, your soul, your sanity . . .”

“It’s like that sign you read before you get on an amusement park roller coaster,” Esther said. “Secure your belongings.”

“You’ll see,” Tuck added, “unless you beat it for a kinder, gentler burg. Believe me, there are plenty—but none as exciting . . .”

I didn’t say anything to counter Tuck and Esther, mostly because I agreed with them. New York was a glorious town filled with memorable thrills, but like any carnival coaster enduring the dips required gripping the bar with everything you had.

“Oh, wow!” Esther pointed to the tray I’d pulled from the bakery cart. “What do you call these?”

“
Gianduia
,” I said. “It’s a lovely brownie named after a hazelnut-chocolate invented a few hundred years ago in northern Italy. We also have a tray of
gianduia
fudge.”

Esther blinked. “Za-
do
-ka? Like bazooka only with a
z
in front?”

Nancy shook her head. “It’s Zudoku, almost like the game.”

“No, no. It may start with a
g
,” I explained, using the appropriate Italian arm gestures. “But you pronounce it zhahn-
doo
-yah.”

Esther munched one of the chocolate triangles and rolled her eyes. “Ohmigod, it’s so delicious, rich and chocolaty, moist and chewy, with the most perfect toasted hazelnut finish, but . . .”

“It’s
gianduia
, Esther
.
How can there be a ‘but’?”

“Listen, boss lady, trust someone whose grandfather turned the name Bestovasky into Best: this particular treat needs a reassessment of nomenclature.”

“Excuse me?”

“The name should roll off the tongue, not tie it into knots.” Esther took a second bite, stared off into space. “What do you think of Cocoa Hazelnut Bliss? Or . . . I’ve got it! Brownies Italiano!”

“I like that name!” Nancy cried. “Brownies Italiano sounds really cute.”

I stared.

Esther folded her arms. “Okay, maybe not.”

“Maybe Ms. Cosi’s right,” Nancy said. “The name kind of reminds me of Nanaimo bars. It’s a weird name for a dessert, but nobody in Canada has a problem eating them!”

“Nano-
what
bars?” Esther said.

“Nun-EYE-mo,” Nancy repeated. “They’re a no-bake bar cookie, yummy stuff. They’re a little like Ms. Cosi’s tiramisu bars.”

“Good call, Nancy,” I said. “Nanaimo is exactly what inspired me to make a bar version of tiramisu.”

Esther squinted at Nancy. “So now you’re from Canada?”

Nancy shrugged. “Like I said, I’m from all over.”

“I am
completamente finito
!” Tucker interrupted with a Fred Astaire soft-shoe shuffle.

One glance at his section of the display and I could see why he was celebrating. With a field of Cappuccino Kisses and Chocolate Espresso Saucers as his canvas, Tucker used the lighter-hued Hazelnut Latte Thumbprints to create a series of interlocking hearts across half of the samples bar tables.

“We’re pushing an aphrodisiac, right?” Tuck said. “So I thought, let’s go for it!”

I smiled. “Really amazing.”

“Neato,” Nancy chirped.

“Not bad,” Esther said with a sniff.

“It’s simple stagecraft,” Tuck said. “Five years of HB Studio classes taught me to strut across a stage and dress one, too.”

I checked my watch. Most of the guests would have arrived by now. The Garden presentations should be starting any minute.