Roast Mortem (33 page)

“Michael, no!”

He was half drunk and fumbling, more sad than dangerous. The rough brush of his handlebar mustache moved over my mouth first then down my cheek. I felt his lips at my jaw line, my neck, a hand groping my breast. I squirmed and struggled.

“Stop it right now! Stop!”

The captain froze, finally hearing me above the subway's deafening thunder. His lips moved off of my neck, his hand was no longer groping. He lifted his head and was just beginning to release me when—

“You son of a bitch!”

It was Mike—
my
Mike—standing at the pub's back door. He'd come to Saints and Sinners after all, his shout of outrage half swallowed by the unrelenting movement of the elevated subway. Before I could say a word, he launched, hauling back and punching his cousin in the side of the head.

“Mike,
don't
!”

The fire captain reeled, and Mike punched him again, this time in the gut. The captain's arms remained at his sides. He took the blows, like he knew he had it coming. Michael wasn't even trying to defend himself!

“Stop!” I shouted. “Your cousin's drunk! He didn't mean it!”

Another punch to the face.

“You'll
kill
him! Stop!”

But Mike just kept pummeling his cousin.

I ran to the pub's doorway. “HELP! SOMEONE HELP ME!”

A mob of firefighters rushed out and pulled the cousins apart. A few swings landed on Mike for payback.

“Leave him be,” Michael shouted, wiping blood from his nose.

The men complied.

Mike stood there, scowling with fury. The mechanized storm had finally subsided, and the night went deadly quiet as his gaze found mine. We locked eyes—a split second in hell.

“This isn't what it looks like.” My voice was raspy and far too weak. “You have to let me explain . . .”

Mike exhaled, glanced at the defensive line of firefighters, most of them his cousin's men. It was the last place he'd want to hear an explanation, and I couldn't blame him. Without a word, he turned and strode down the alley, toward the street.

“Don't leave, Mike. Come back!”

I moved to run after him, but someone caught my arm, held it firm. I turned. It was Val.

“Let him go, Clare. Let him cool off . . .”

I wheeled again, back toward Mike, but he was gone, swallowed up by the city's darkness.

“EVER
heard of a fire triangle, Clare?”

“Fire triangle?” I said, turning up the car's heater—to little effect.

Val waved her lit cigarette in the air. She'd opened her window to keep the interior from filling up, but the night had gotten colder and my clunker hadn't gotten any newer.

“Fire needs three elements to exist: fuel for it to consume; oxygen for it to breath; and heat to ignite the other two in a chain reaction—”

“Oh, right, I do know this,” I said, recalling Captain Michael's little lecture the night Caffè Lucia went up.

“Well,
you
, my friend are in a fire triangle.”

“Excuse me?”

“Fuel and oxygen in a room together don't do squat. But introduce heat and . . .
whammo
.”

“I am
not
heat. And that wasn't supposed to happen back there. Michael and I were just talking.”

Val took a drag. “Timing's like that. You can't always control it. Just like fire . . . or men.”

Tell me about it.
I'd already tried reaching Mike by cell phone—
ten
tries in a row. I'd gotten voice mail every time (and I'd left multiple messages). He hadn't bothered to return even one, and my sympathy for the man was slowly turning to impatience. In another hour, it would be full-fledged anger.

“I could understand Mike being upset,” I told Val, “but he should have trusted me better than that. He should have waited for an explanation instead of charging in and busting up his cousin!” I struck the steering wheel. “At least Michael didn't fight back. I have to give the man credit for that . . .”

After that one-way boxing match, the captain's men had helped him back inside the pub, where they began to clean him up. That's when Val hustled me outside, saying it was better if I got clear of the place. I didn't argue, and I knew Val's husband would be in much better shape than Michael to discuss Bigsby Brewer's death.

Now I was driving east on Roosevelt, toward the nearby neighborhood of Jackson Heights where Val shared a home with James.

The trip from Saints and Sinners wasn't long, only a few miles. When we turned onto Val's street, she pointed out her address, a redbrick row house three stories high. At the first open spot along the curb, I swerved and parked.

“You have the whole house?” I asked, impressed with the size.

“Just the first two floors,” she said. “It's a rental, but we've got a lot of square footage for the money, which is good because I'm probably about four weeks away from losing my job.”

“You are?”

“We have a separate garage in back, too. Come on . . .”

As I locked up the car, Val went to the front door. There was still half a cigarette left, but she snuffed it out in the base of a dying potted plant.

“James!” Val called as she strode across the tiled foyer and into the carpeted living room. The lights were blazing all over the house and somewhere a radio was barking the play-by-play of a basketball game.

“James!”

No answer.

“Sit down, Clare, relax. He's probably in the upstairs bathroom. The one down here isn't working.”

As Val climbed the stairs, I considered sitting down, then reconsidered. I really needed a caffeine hit now, and if I knew James, he had a decent supply of Arabica beans in his cupboards.

The Noonan kitchen was neat and well appointed. No surprise, considering the way James had manned his firehouse post. Every pot and pan hung efficiently on its pegboard hook. A sparkling clean coffeemaker stood at attention on the counter, its companion grinder on duty beside it. Flour and sugar canisters were lined up by descending height and a four-foot tall wine rack stood in the corner, fully stocked—again, not a surprise given James's preferences.

I half smiled when my eye caught the bright orange of a shopping bag on the floor near the trash can.
Yet another fan of UFC Korean Fried Chicken. Val, no doubt . . .

I was about to check the cupboards for whole bean Arabica when I noticed something on the kitchen table (other than the lazy Susan of condiments): a single bottle of beer. A pilsner glass sat next to it. The glass was nearly full,
nearly
because there was no head, the frothy white bubbles had died long ago.

I glanced up and noticed something curious beyond the back door window. A soft yellow light was glowing between the cracks in a small wooden shed—the garage Val mentioned. The structure was separated from the main house by a narrow concrete drive.

I moved to the kitchen's back door and turned the handle. It was unlocked. I exited the house, feeling the chill of the night once more.

As I crossed the narrow drive, I became aware of a low rumbling. But this wasn't the Number 7 train. This was the sound of an idling car engine. With every step closer to the shed, the rumbling grew louder. But why would someone want to run a car motor
inside
a garage?

I lunged the last few feet to the door, tore it open, and gagged on the toxic white fog. A man's body was slumped over the steering wheel.

I stumbled back outside, choking and coughing. Taking a deep breath of fresh air, I charged back in, yanked open the car door, and used every molecule of strength to drag the big, inert body out to the cold concrete.

My heart was pumping, my adrenaline racing. Gasping violently, I turned over the unconscious man, desperate to help.

It was James Noonan, and there was no helping him. He was already dead.

METAL
clinked against the windshield. I started at the sound. Disoriented, I licked my lips, tasted salt, and realized I'd cried myself to sleep. Then I remembered the reason and my eyes welled up all over again.

My ex-husband rapped the rain-flecked window a second time. To spur me to action, he pointed to the stainless steel thermos in his hand.

I sat up and popped the door lock. Matt climbed into the front passenger seat. His half-porcupine head looked like the before-and-after picture of a men's hair gel commercial; his eyes were bloodshot; and twin emotions warred on his face, an epic struggle between concern and annoyance.

Without a word he unscrewed the thermos lid and poured. I grabbed the metal cup, bolted it, held it out for more, and gulped a second. Now I knew how Val felt, taking those first drags on the smokers' patio.

“Okay, Clare,” Matt said, “I'm here. What the hell is going on? You were crying so hard I couldn't understand half of what you were blubbering over the phone.”

I spilled the whole awful story: the drunken pass by Mike's cousin, the unholy timing of Mike's seeing it, the ugly bar fight, then my going home with Valerie and discovering her husband's asphyxiated body in their small garage.

My hero firefighter was dead. As I described the baby pink color of James's corpse, I broke down again. Matt handed me a handkerchief then put his arm around me. When I finished getting his leather jacket good and wet, I began telling him what happened after the police arrived.

“An army of them tramped all through the Noonans' home,” I said. “Detectives interviewed Val and me in separate rooms, and I told them that I believed James was murdered.”

“Murdered? Why?”

“That's what the detectives wanted to know.”

“And?”

“James was killed because of what he knew about Bigsby Brewer's death. I'm sure of it.”

“What did he know?”

“James wouldn't tell me. That's why I went to see him. He was supposed to be at the pub, but he never showed. So I asked Val to help me try to coax the truth out of him . . . and I
know
there's a truth. Michael Quinn even confirmed it.”

Matt looked about as convinced as those guys with the gold shields.

“I told the detectives to speak with the captain. They wrote his name down in their notebooks, assured me they'd follow up in the morning, but I don't know . . .” I shook my head.

“What's the matter, Clare? The cops will follow up.”

“It's just that . . . despite my assuring them that James was murdered, they began looking hard for a suicide note, and unfortunately they found one—in Val's e-mail box.”

“What did it say?”

“Five words. ‘I am so sorry. Good-bye.' It was a text message sent from James's phone earlier in the evening.”

“That's it?”

“Anyone could have written it! Especially if James had texted Val in the past. The addresses would be right there, stored inside his phone!”

“Did you tell the cops?”

“Yes,” I said, “but I don't think they believed me. Val broke down at the sight of the message, sobbed openly about her husband's depression; his erratic behavior and mood swings; how James was mourning the death of his best friend, Bigsby Brewer; how hard he'd taken the loss . . .”

I met Matt's eyes. “Bigsby was a hero to me, too. He went with James into that collapsing caffè, helped save your mom and Enzo.”

I paused to gulp more coffee (and cry a little more).

“Here.” Matt pressed a second handkerchief into my hands (the first one he'd given me was already soaked).

With frustration I swiped at my uncontrollable waterfall. “Sorry,” I said.

“Don't be. After your call, I laid in a supply.” He pulled open the right side of his jacket, the inside pocket was bulging with folded handkerchiefs.

I would have burst out laughing. But it struck me as touching and I started crying all over again.

“Oh, boy . . .” Matt held on to me.

“I don't believe that lame text message,” I said against his jacket. “The killer sent it. I'm sure of it.”

“I don't know, Clare . . . How can you be?”

“The beer on the kitchen table.” I leaned back, finally dried my eyes. “James
hated
beer. If he wanted to get drunk one last time, he had a four-foot rack of good wine he could have guzzled instead.”

“People who decide to off themselves do irrational things.”

“Right. So if you were going to end it all, you would add arsenic to an espresso made from freshly roasted Yirgacheffe peaberries? Or a cup of green tea brewed from a grocery store box?”

Matt scratched the back of his head. “I see your point.”

“And . . . there's something else . . . As I was sitting here, waiting for you, before I nodded off?”

“What?”

“I remembered: At the bake sale in Union Square Park, I met this club guy, Dean Tassos, a ‘friend' of Val's, only he was acting like more than a friend: fawning words, lingering touches, sweet looks—”

“Where are you going with this?”

“Just listen: Dean called Val while she and I were at the pub. She didn't want me to hear their conversation so she took the call in the ladies' room.”

“And how do you know it was Tassos?” Matt asked.

“The ring tone—‘You Spin Me Right Round' . . . Val had it set especially for him, and immediately after Dean calls her, she decides her husband isn't going to show and asks me to give her a ride home.”