Dead to the Last Drop (26 page)

“Abby is protected by an army of Secret Service agents.”

“So was JFK.”

“You actually think Hopkins will try to
kill
her? That’s a ridiculous leap.”

“Is it? Agent Cage and her detail have a job for a reason. What if Hopkins turns out to be one of those crackpots? What if this Abby situation pushes him over the edge?”

“
What-ifs
will drive you crazy, especially at this hour of the morning. Look, I know you’re tired. Admit it, will you? Why don’t you lean against me, just for a little while? Close your eyes and try not to worry so much . . .”

I didn’t argue. Matt’s body was warm and strong. I sidled a little closer, he put his arm around me, and I tucked in.

“What’s the other thing?” he murmured against my hair.

“What other thing?”

“You said two things were bothering you. One was Hopkins. What was the other?”

“Stan. I feel for that boy. Seeing him hurt so badly tonight was awful.”

“Ah, young love.”

“That’s easy to say—and far too dismissive. Abby and Stan truly belong together.”

“I don’t disagree. Seeing them on that stage, playing their music together, with the light coming down from above . . . it reminded me of the
tongkonan . . .”

“The what?”

“It’s a word the Toraja use, the people who grow this beautiful coffee. They build these structures in their villages with soaring roofs. According to legend, they were first built in heaven. That’s what Abby and Stan created in that moment. Something higher than the earth. Something transcendent.”

“That’s lovely, but I guarantee Abby’s mother and fiancé didn’t see it that way. They seem blind to her gifts. But not Stan. I spoke with him after Abby left. We’re both afraid she’s being railroaded into a marriage that will make her miserable. She’ll go through the motions like she does with her mother, walk down a Rose Garden aisle, and end up surrounded by people who don’t respect what matters most to her.”

“All that may be true. But you’re not her mother, Clare. You’re just her neighbor. Remember?” Matt actually began singing the theme from
Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood
.

“Okay, enough!” I covered his mouth with my hand. “I’m more than
just a neighbor. I’m Abby’s friend. And friends don’t let friends throw away a chance to be deeply happy for the rest of their lives . . .”

As I dropped my hand, Matt caught it.

“Then it’s up to Stan to do something about it . . . or he’ll lose the woman he truly loves. And that’s a loss he’ll always,
always
regret . . .”

With a sad smile, Matt kissed my fingers, his brown eyes melting into liquid pools. Those irresistibly dark depths weren’t easy to emerge from, but I had once, and I did again.

“That’s touching,” I managed, voice not quite there. “And I believe you. But please remember, I love Mike Quinn . . .”

Just the thought of Quinn snoring softly across town made me smile, and I closed my eyes, tucking back into my ex for a few minutes of shut-eye.

I couldn’t be sure, but before drifting off, the lips pressed against my hair seemed to send the whisper of a thought through my mind, one I couldn’t argue with . . .

You love Quinn. But you love me, too. And you always will.

S
eventy

B
ZZ.
Bzz-bzz-bzz . . .

An annoying bug had entered my dream, buzzing like crazy around my head. I wanted to swat it away, as Madame would, with an elegant wave. But it defied me completely.
Bzz! Bzz-bzz-bzz!

I opened my eyes—and immediately squinted.

The coffeehouse was flooded with morning light. I was still sitting on the banquette, leaning against Matt, who was sleeping soundly, eyes closed, arms encircling me.

The buzzing began again. But this was no bug. My mobile phone was vibrating on the café table. I picked it up and heard a deep male voice—

“Good morning, Ms. Cosi.”

“Who is this?”

“Sergeant Price. Metro PD.”

Oh, God.
“I’m sorry, Sergeant, but this isn’t a good time.”

“Yes, I can see that. Who’s your friend?”

“Excuse me?”

“The man whose arms are around you. He doesn’t look like a fed. Aren’t you supposed to have a boyfriend working at Justice?”

“Sergeant,
where
are you?”

“Right here.”

“Right where?”

A very loud knock shook one of our large front windows. I followed
the sound to the figure of a heavyset African American man in a blue police uniform, waving grimly.

“Matt! Wake up!”

“Huh? What?”

“You have to leave.
Now
.”

“Are you kidding?” He yawned big. “I’m not leaving. Not without a
doppio . . .”

As Matt dragged himself to the espresso bar, I adjusted the hiked-up skirt of my little black dress, rubbed my sore neck, and hurried to unlock the door.

“Sergeant Price,” I said, forcing a smile. “What brings you back to my coffeehouse?”

“My officers were assisting the Secret Service last night. I volunteered to check the area, make sure the street barricades were collected, but that’s not why I came.”

I stifled a yawn. “Then it must be for the coffee.”

“There’s that,” he said with a nod.

“Come in, then, we can talk at the espresso bar.”

Matt pulled us all sustenance then he headed for the restroom.

“Who was that?” Price asked.

“My business partner.”

“Do you two spend many nights like that?”

I felt the heat blooming on my cheeks. “We were up late, that’s all. It was perfectly innocent. We just nodded off . . .”

The sergeant sipped his double, studying me for a minute before he changed the subject.

“I don’t mean to be the bearer of bad tidings, especially on a Sunday morning. But I came to ask if you knew about your friend?”

“My friend?”

The sergeant nodded. “Mr. Varma of the State Department? That fellow you claim rushed in through your back door three nights ago—he passed away late last night, without regaining consciousness.”

The sergeant’s use of the word
claim
didn’t get by me. But I was far more concerned with the terrible news.

“Mr. Varma is dead? I don’t understand. He was still breathing when they took him away in the ambulance. On Friday morning, I asked Officer Landry about him. He said he thought Varma would be fine once the alcohol wore off.”

“Officer Landry should refrain from practicing medicine without a license,” Price said, eyebrow raised.

“How did he die?”

The sergeant replied with a gallows chuckle. “That alcohol never did wear off, Ms. Cosi. Varma succumbed to acute alcohol poisoning. But that’s not the end of it. The autopsy uncovered irregularities.”

“What sort of irregularities?”

“Most victims of alcohol poisoning regurgitate while unconscious, and then suffocate. The doctors were ready for that, but it didn’t happen. Not in Mr. Varma’s case.”

“I already asked my staff about serving Mr. Varma. They said there was mostly a college crowd Thursday night. They don’t remember serving anyone matching his description. I checked my credit card receipts, too. The last time Mr. Varma came here as a customer was Open Mike Night well over a week ago.”

The sergeant tapped the back of his own neck. “Varma also had a puncture wound right about here. Would you know anything about that?”

“Punctured how? From a knife?”

“Not a stab wound, Ms. Cosi. Medical technicians call it a needlestick injury, like when doctors or nurses accidentally prick themselves with scalpels or hypodermics.”

“Varma stabbed himself with a needle?”

“From the angle of entry, it’s unlikely the injury was self-inflicted.” Price folded his big arms. “And in Mr. Varma’s case, it was more of an injection than a jab.”

“He was injected? With what?”

“Alcohol, Ms. Cosi.”

“Just alcohol. Then why did he die?”

“When you drink, a war breaks out between your stomach and your liver,” Price explained. “It takes twenty minutes for the stomach to pump alcohol into the blood, while the liver filters it out. That time lag gives your body a cushion to prevent alcohol poisoning. But an injection puts the alcohol right into the bloodstream, too fast for the liver to cope. In Mr. Varma’s case, the alcohol overwhelmed his system, but not before it produced the manic behavior you witnessed.”

The sergeant paused. “Of course, it would make my job a lot easier if that wound was inflicted by a meat cleaver.”

I blinked.
“Meat cleaver?”

“Like the meat cleaver with your fingerprints on it,” Price stated flatly. “The one I impounded out of your restaurant’s kitchen that night.”

“I don’t think I like where you’re going with this, Sergeant.”

“You know what, Ms. Cosi? I don’t like it, either. Not one bit. Because there’s something
wrong
about that night. And there’s something wrong about your story. I think you’re holding information back.”

“I have nothing to hide. I stand by my sworn statement.”

I did my best to mean it because, now that Varma was dead, I had no intention of involving Abby or Stan. Furthermore, Price was a uniformed sergeant, not a homicide detective. Though he was
trying
to make a case here, he clearly didn’t have one.

I had no relationship with Varma. No reason to kill him.

Just stand firm
, I told myself,
and
Price will give up.

The sergeant drained his demitasse and set the cup aside, but not because he was giving up.

“I’m going to keep looking until I can make it right,” he vowed. “Mr. Varma’s family wants answers, Ms. Cosi. And so do I.”

Price rose and sauntered to the front door. But before he left, he turned to face me. “Your espresso is excellent, by the way. I look forward to sampling it again . . . and very soon.”

S
eventy-one

“I
T’S obvious Sergeant Price thought I was in some kind of secret relationship with Jeevan Varma,” I told Quinn as I leaned back in the car seat. “You should have seen his face when he caught me huddled there in the closed coffeehouse with Matt, wearing my wrinkled clothes from the night before.”

I threw up my hands. “And don’t forget Tom Landry! That young officer totally misunderstood my friendliness the night I met him. I can’t imagine what he told his buddies in blue about me—no, I
can
imagine it: ‘She’s a MILK in heat!’ I’m sure that’s the gossip he spread about me.
Hot MILK.
It’s scandalous!”

“Why is hot milk scandalous? I thought it helped you sleep.”

“Not that kind of milk. I meant—”

“Excuse me, sweetheart, but I’m still trying to process the part about your ex-husband sleeping with you.”

“Then you
missed
the part about it being
totally innocent
with no bed and absolutely no hanky-panky
.
Don’t you have an opinion on Price?”

“Calm down. You’re upset, and you have a right to be, but the sergeant’s visit that morning was a fishing expedition. He’s a good cop with a rumbly gut that tells him when someone’s lying. And you were lying. You hid the truth about Abby and Stan.”

“But that had nothing to do with the incident itself.”

“You’re sure of that, are you?”

I collapsed against the car seat. “I can’t be sure of anything. Not anymore.”

“Well, I can’t, either. But somehow you became a primary suspect in Varma’s murder.”

“How could that happen?”

“Varma’s real killer could have framed you for his murder.”

“How?”

“Oh, I don’t know—planting the murder weapon in the Village Blend and tipping off police.”

I held my head. “You know what makes this even worse? As bad as I feel about Abby being missing, I’m finally realizing . . . she’s a witness to my innocence. If Stan is gone, too, I’ll have no one left to back up my version of events.”

Quinn frowned. “I hadn’t thought of that.”

“What?”

“The connection between these cases seemed tenuous, but I think you found it.”

“What?”

Quinn aimed his finger my way.

“Me?”

“With Abby and Stan gone, no one would be able to corroborate what really happened that night in your coffeehouse. No one could get in the way of your being framed for Varma’s murder—”

“Stop. I know you’re tired and on edge, but that theory is off the rails. No one would kidnap or kill the President’s daughter just to cover up a frame job on a murder . . . would they?”

Just then, a metal door clanged somewhere inside the cavernous building. The punk lowered his smartphone and raised a very large gun.

Quinn was about to reach for his weapon, too, but paused when an attractive, young African American woman stepped out of the darkness and signaled the
all clear
to the gangbanger.

This woman was the detective we’d been waiting for, the same early riser who’d come to Mrs. B.’s mansion with papers for Mike.

“That’s her,” Quinn said. “That’s Danica Hatch.”

Following Danica out of the shadows was a hard-faced Asian man in his late twenties, maybe early thirties. He sported a neck tattoo made up of Chinese symbols and wore an overstuffed pack strapped to his back.

“Is that the man you told those gangbangers you had business with?”

Quinn nodded. “That’s Chan.”

“What in the world is he carrying in that giant backpack?”

“If we’re lucky . . . the proof we need to keep you out of prison.”

S
eventy-two

Q
UINN followed Chan and the gangbanger guarding us—who turned out to be an undercover cop—to an island of fluorescent brightness in a corner of the gloomy garage. Scattered on a battered workbench in front of them were tools, a jeweler’s magnifying glass, and dozens of smartphones intact and dismantled.

The rest of the space was in shadow, but not silence. I heard the occasional wet
plop
of water leaking through the roof, and the patter of rats scurrying about in the darkest recesses of the nearly deserted building.