Murder by Mocha (24 page)

“No,” she said. “I’m just Troy’s girlfriend.”

“Okay, now, Troy...” Franco noticed me trying to staunch my bleeding nose. He handed me a folded handkerchief. “Why don’t you get whatever’s bothering you and the lady off that overdeveloped chest of yours?”

But Troy clammed up.

I touched Franco’s arm. Lifting his handkerchief to my bloody nose, I made sure to shield my lips.
Let me
, I silently mouthed.

Franco nodded. He understood my strategy and seemed happy to play along. Even though these two weren’t yet arrested and Mirandized, Franco was still a cop. If he asked questions, there were legal implications. But if I asked questions, well, I was simply a witness having a conversation that he happened to overhear. . .

“We know you tried to drug Alicia Bower in her hotel room the other night,” I charged, voice muffled by the hanky. “What drug did you give her? She’s an older woman in frail health. You could have killed her!”

Troy paled. “She was never in any danger. You can’t prove it—”

“Oh, yes we can! Alicia dumped half of your cocktail into her hotel room’s vase, and that sample is being tested by an NYPD crime lab. We’ll have proof against you soon enough, with or without your cooperation.”

“I’m telling you, Alicia was never in any danger! I knew her weight, her age, and I mixed the cocktail up especially for—”

“A roofie’s a roofie,” I said, “and administering one is a crime.”

“I just wanted to scare her,” Troy insisted. “Make sure she didn’t attend that product launch party. I tried to get her to come away with me, go on a last-minute romantic getaway to the Hamptons—but she was so obsessed with that stupid party she couldn’t think of anything else!”

“So you drugged her?”

“It was harmless, just part of an act, a stage show. I wasn’t going to take advantage of her. I was just trying to scare her.”

“With drugs?”

“Look, lady, I was desperate, so I went with a con I’d pulled a few years ago on the wife of some CEO in Palm Springs.”

“Is that what earned you the parole card?”

“No. I had a pharmacist’s degree, till I got busted for distributing steroids.”

Franco glanced at me with a half smile. “A muscle-head using steroids? I’m shocked... shocked!”

“That’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Troy said. “I had a license. I’ve got the knowledge. I didn’t mean Alicia any harm. I mixed up a cocktail with enough juice for her to sleep the full eight and wake up fuzzy enough to buy my butchered boyfriend act—”

“And believe she might have done the butchering,” I said.

“That’s right,” Troy replied. “I even gave myself a zombie cocktail.”

“A what?”

“Something I created. It’s a mix of drugs that slows the pulse, makes the skin cold to the touch, plus a sedative and muscle relaxant to help me play dead.”

“There’s really a mix of drugs that can do all that?”

“What? You never heard of
Romeo and Juliet
?” He smirked. “I woke up right on time, too. When I heard you in the hotel room, talking on the phone, I knew the whole thing was blown. I took off right after you left.”

I faced Vanessa. “And you were supposed to pretend to be his girlfriend? His wife? Someone to convince Alicia she’d better get out of town before the police arrived—and leave you some money for a lawyer before she left?”

“Yes, that’s all there was to it,” Vanessa said.

“So what’s your position at Aphrodite’s Village Online?” I asked.

She shook her head. “I’m and actress/model. I don’t work for that company.”

Boy, I liked that answer. “So...” I glanced at Franco, feeling pretty proud of myself. “Someone
hired
you to do this. What was the payoff?”

“Nothing,” Vanessa replied. “Just promises, that’s all. Only she can’t deliver on those promises. Not now.”

I blinked behind the hanky. “Why can’t she deliver?”

Vanessa stared at me with dead eyes. “She promised us big parts in her new Web series. Troy. Me. We were going to be rich Internet stars—and most likely cable television, too. All we had to do was make that stupid witch miss her launch party.”

“Maya promised you all this?” I asked.

“Maya?” Vanessa said. “Who the hell is Maya?”

Oh God,
I thought as the truth dawned. All the dots were there to connect. The California link. The lead role in a Web series. None of that pointed to the fitness queen, Maya Lansing.

“It was Patrice Stone who hired you, wasn’t it?”

“Yes,” Vanessa said. “We met her at an audition about a month ago. Patrice said she knew our work and would find something for us.” A shadow crossed her face. “What Patrice really knew about was Troy’s criminal record.”

“And Patrice made you an offer.” I coughed into the hanky. “Why? Patrice was a golden girl. The sky was the limit for her.”

“Not according to what Patrice told me. She said Aphrodite was real tight with Alicia Bower and that radio doctor, Sherri Sellars. Back in college, Aphrodite and Sherri were in the same sorority or clique or something, and Alicia was their professor. Anyway, Aphrodite is planning an exit strategy. In another five years, she’s going to promote a replacement to head her company. Patrice wanted that spot. Her only other real competition was Sherri and Alicia—and Alicia was the one who’d come up with a really lucrative product, so she’s the one who needed to be taken down a peg.”

“So Patrice knew about your crazy plan?”

“No. She didn’t care about the details. She just wanted Alicia kept away from the launch party.”

“Only something went wrong.”

“Yes, Troy screwed up, and Alicia made the party,” Vanessa said. “I went to Patrice’s hotel room this morning, to beg for another shot. That’s when I found out...”

“Patrice Stone was murdered last night.”

“What?” Troy cried.

Vanessa turned to him. “I was just coming to tell you. Patrice is dead.”

Four uniformed NYPD officers arrived in time to hear Troy curse a blue streak. Franco pulled him to his feet, greeted two of the cops by name.

“Take this pair into custody and Mirandize both of them.” He leaned close to my ear. “Not that they have much more to tell us, thanks to your curious mommy act. I can see why Big Mike is sweet on you.”

“You want them at the Sixth, right, Detective?” one of the uniforms asked.

Franco shook his head. “The One Seven. The Fish Squad is going to want a nice, long sit-down with Vanessa and the Sun God.”

O
UTSIDE the convention center, the sky was clear, the weather balmy. The sun was shining so brightly, it made my nose sting even more.

“Who knew Candy Land could be so much fun?” Franco said, still shaking pita crumbs and yogurt bits out of his jacket.

I continued to dab my bloodied nose with his hanky as I watched a handcuffed Troy Talos being placed into a sector car. Another NYPD vehicle idled at the curb with Vanessa already in the backseat. Franco noticed my nonresponse and gave me a strange look.

“Are you feeling okay, Coffee Lady?”

My ponytail was undone, my nose felt raw and swollen, and the front of my henley was splashed with my own blood. I shook my head.

“I think I’m in shock.”

“Then let’s get you to an ER.”

He took my elbow, but I shook my head.

“It’s mental. I’m still trying to process what Vanessa told us.”

“What part?”

“That Patrice Stone, my innocent victim, wasn’t so innocent after all.”

“Oh, that...” Franco squinted at the cloudless sky. “Do this job long enough, and you’ll find out there’s no such thing as an innocent victim.”

“Not true,” I said. “And that’s an awfully cynical way to look at the world.”

Franco smiled. “She’s baa-aack! Now that’s the Clare Cosi I know.”

“Yeah, well... what I know isn’t cheering me. I’m almost certain my former mother-in-law is in business with a murderer.”

“Alicia Bower?”

“I’m betting Alicia discovered that Patrice Stone was really behind that fake-corpse setup at the Topaz Hotel—and that’s why she killed her.”

Franco nodded. “That’s a motive, all right.”

“And on the night of the murder, I saw Alicia returning from the rain-soaked Garden alone. What was she doing out there?”

“You tell me.”

“She was looking for the security cameras! Alicia wanted to check the location of each lens so she could use an open umbrella to hide her identity.”

“Yeah, this is starting to sound premeditated,” Franco said, his tone encouraging.

“Alicia’s planning didn’t end there. Killing Patrice wasn’t enough. She tried to frame Maya Lansing, too, by using the fitness queen’s umbrella—a neat trick to dispose of two rivals in one night.”

“That’s one tough old dame, but it sounds like you figured it all out.”

“It makes perfect sense.”

“Sure, it makes perfect sense,” Franco replied. “But where’s your proof?”

My shoulders sagged. The answer to Franco’s question was simple. I didn’t have proof. Not yet. But now that I was sure of Alicia Bower’s guilt, I was certain I could find some kind of evidence to hand Lori Soles and Sue Ellen Bass.

Fortunately, a germ of a plan was forming in my head. All I needed was the proper tool, and I knew exactly where to find it—with the rest of Joy’s childhood things in the closet of my duplex.

TWENTY-EIGHT

T
HE next twenty-four hours melted away faster than a white chocolate truffle on a sun-baked sidewalk. Time chilled only twice for me—first when I put our dinner together and next when Mike and I were finally alone.

I’d invited Quinn to join us for a very good reason, other than I wanted to see him (which was nothing newsworthy; I always did). I was more concerned with Sergeant Franco’s vendetta against that Jersey drug dealer.

I wasn’t about to rat the guy out, especially after he’d backed me up so brilliantly, but since he and my daughter gave Mike so much
agita
the night before, I thought breaking bread around a communal table would benefit everyone. (And with a full stomach and a little
vino
, Franco might even feel sanguine enough to come clean with Mike privately, work out some kind of cop compromise.)

So I pulled out my cutting board, my knives, and my large sauté pan. I warmed the extra-virgin olive oil, put pasta water on to boil, and began putting together what I’d come to think of as my Italian mole.

Yes, I know: this was Manhattan, land of 24/7 takeout. But I’d promised Sergeant Franco a home-cooked meal, and I aimed to deliver.

My grandmother’s pasta sauces simmered for five to six hours. I had only one. But I refused to sacrifice flavor. The trick was layering in fresh ingredients, intensify their essence with vibrant spices, and finishing with the velvety melting of a fine, dark secret: chocolate.

The resulting mushroom-wine sauce was like an excellent coffee blend (not to mention my idea of the perfect man)—exhilarating complexity with a robust body, smooth finish, and the lingering feeling of rich, warm depth. (I planned to serve it over fat fettuccine noodles—and since sizable men came with sizable appetites, the menu would also include butter-basted Rock Cornish game hens with lemon and rosemary, Caesar salad, and fresh garlic bread.)

Joy offered to help, but she was a salaried stove-jockey now, and I wanted to give my girl a break—frankly, I needed one, too, and that’s what cooking was for me.

The rote routine of slicing mushrooms felt quietly calming. The faint scent of soil evoked relaxing visions of pastoral farms and lovingly tended gardens. The act of stirring was practically Zen meditation; and when the ingredients came together, the room was saturated with an aromatic air-bath more invigorating than a day spa.

Such were my private musings. I seldom shared them—not in an age when most people ate with the press of a button, be it microwave or speed-dial call to a pizzeria. Then again, most people weren’t raised by a woman born in the rural hills of Italy, where bread was baked in outdoor ovens; cycles of planting and harvesting inspired rituals that stretched back millennia; dreams held powerful portents; and miracles were not only possible but seen and felt every day.

My grandmother’s name was Graziella—Italian for Grace. “God put beauty in everything,” she’d say, “if you take the trouble to see it . . .”

Like a vanilla bean in simmering milk, she infused my world with the sweetest essence, showing me the magic of rising yeast breads, the music of snapping green beans, and the gardener’s palette of ripe-red tomatoes, dark purple eggplant, yellow-gold zucchini flowers, and pale orange peppers.

Not that my childhood had been a blithe, pain-free play. At seven, I saw no beauty in my mom leaving my pop for a salesman on his way back to Miami. Tears had been the culmination of that act. Tears and fear and confusion. But then Nonna stepped in.

Day in and day out, she’d been there for me, just as she’d been there for the customers of her little grocery—just as I wanted my coffeehouse to be there for my customers when they stopped by for a warm cup of something that would reassure and renew.

That’s why time in my kitchen always made me feel closer to Grace—and Joy, because I’d raised my daughter to believe what my grandmother believed: that simply taking, taking, taking made you a sucking void, hollow, “like a dead person.” But preparing a meal was an act of giving, and giving was evidence of living. That’s why cooking meant so much to the likes of us. It was more than love. It was life.

I could only hope Joy’s future husband would see that in her and love her for it. I knew it was one reason Mike loved me. Not that he’d explicitly stated it. But the man’s routine rendezvous with the Grim Reaper needed continual remedy, and the true-blue flame of my gas stove always lightened that darkness.

I would have enjoyed Mike’s company in my kitchen that evening with his jacket and holster shed, his shirtsleeves rolled up, but he was running late, so when Sergeant Franco arrived, I opened a bottle of Pinot Noir, poured off eight ounces for my recipe (with a little taste of that cherry-oak velvet for myself), and sat my daughter and her roughneck suitor in the duplex living room with a crackling fire and the rest of the bottle.