Through the Grinder (4 page)

“Well, when you’re ready, you should look into our Cappuccino Connection night,” said Tucker.

“And that is?”

“A local church group puts it on twice a month on our second floor. You just sign up and show up.”

“Which church?” asked Winnie skeptically.

“It’s nondenominational,” said Tucker. “Just a way for single straights to meet. They even do that ‘Power Meet’ thing so you’ll meet a lot of men in one night.”

Winnie shook her head. “No thanks. If I were actively looking, which I’m not, I’d probably go with the e-dating thing.”

“Ohmygod!” cried a new voice. Inga Berg walked up to the counter. “I totally don’t know how I met men before the on-line thing.”

An assistant buyer for Macy’s, Inga had just been promoted to buyer—and the raise had given her the income to move out of her rental share off Seventh Avenue and purchase a condo in one of those new buildings overlooking the Hudson River.

“Inga, you can’t tell me you ever had trouble meeting men,” I said. She was a bubbly woman with a curvy figure, nearly waist-length golden hair, and dark eyes, so frankly it was hard for me to imagine.

“Oh, Clare, you just don’t get it. The on-line thing opens up a whole new world. I mean, it let’s you brrrrrrrowse.”

Now she sounded like Catwoman.

“Inga,” I said, “you make it sound like a shopping spree.”

“Exactly! And you know shopping is totally my life!”

O-kay.
“So what can I get you this morning?”

Inga was a regular but she didn’t have a “usual.” She ordered something different almost every time she came into the Blend—which, now that I’d heard her approach to dating, helped me understand her ordering philosophy in a whole new way.

“Hmmmm…let me see…what do I
feel
like…how about a Café Nocciuola?

“Coming right up.”

Nocciuola,
which is Italian for hazelnut, was basically a latte with the addition of hazelnut-flavored syrup.

(We didn’t have a liquor license, but I did keep a bottle of Frangelico, a lovely Italian hazelnut liqueur, hidden under the counter for the occasional spike—for a few very special customers upon request. When Matteo was around, he preferred to mix his own cheeky version, which he called a “Coffee-Hazelnut Cocktail,” a combination of Kahlúa, Frangelico, and vodka—hold the espresso. He especially liked to whip these up for the staff after closing on Saturday nights.)

“You know, I’ve been thinking of trying the on-line thing out,” said my daughter, approaching the counter. She turned to Winnie and Inga. “Can you recommend any sites?”

I tensed.

The last thing I wanted to hear was my daughter, my innocent Joy, inquiring about signing herself up for the shop-and-drop grinder of this city’s computer dating scene. Not that I knew about it firsthand—but I’d heard quite enough war stories from the front lines.

Still, what could I say? The last thing my daughter wanted to hear was advice from her mother, telling her to stop before she’d started.
So zip it, Clare,
I counseled myself.
Joy doesn’t want your advice…She doesn’t want it…She doesn’t—

“Joy, aren’t you busy with your culinary classes?” I blurted out. “I mean, computer dating doesn’t sound like something you’d have a lot of time for.”

Joy gave me a look I can only assume was also used on heretics during the Spanish Inquisition.

“I’d really like to know,” my daughter told Winnie, ignoring me completely.

“Um…I don’t know,” said Winnie, glancing uneasily from Joy to me and back again.

“SinglesNYC.com,” said Inga without hesitation. “I’m on it, like, 24/7, you know, to check out the new guys.”

“Thanks,” said Joy. “I’ll register this afternoon.”

God, Joy, sometimes you’re as stubborn as your damned father!

“You know what,” I said. “I’m going to register this afternoon, too.”

“You!” cried Tucker.

“You?” cried Esther.

Then everyone stared.

“Why not?” I said.

“Because…” said Tucker, “for one thing, you’ve never even attended the Cappuccino Connection.”

“And that goes on right upstairs!” added Esther.

“True. But I feel differently all of a sudden.” I threw a pointed glance at Joy. “Like computer dating might be worth a try.”

Joy rolled her eyes. “Okay, Mom, first of all, it’s called on-line dating. Not computer dating. ‘Computer dating’ was like something somebody did with punch cards in the stone age. But, you know what, go ahead. You register, too. In fact, I’ll help you with the profile. Maybe you’ll finally see there’s nobody better than Daddy out there.”

“I sincerely doubt that,” I told her.

I also sincerely doubted I’d actually meet
anyone
of romantic consequence. But, for my daughter’s sake—or maybe my own peace of mind where my daughter was concerned—I was going to make sure any service she used was legit.

A few minutes later, a crew from St. Vincent’s Hospital came in looking for their caffeine hits, and Tucker and I were swamped.

“Got that lat?”

“Got it!”

“Skinny cap with wings!”

Cappuccino with skim milk, extra foam.

“Dopey X!”

Doppio—aka “double”—espresso.

“Caffé Carm!”

Caffé Caramella—a latte with caramel syrup, sweetened whipped cream, and a drizzle of warm caramel topping.

“Americano!”

Espresso diluted with hot water.

“Grande skinny!”

Latte with skim milk.

“XXX!”

Triple espresso.

“Cap, get the lead out!”

Cappuccino with decaf. I shuddered—decaf drinkers truly gave me the creeps.

“Clare,” called Detective Quinn, approaching me behind the counter. “I have a question for you before I go.”

With his grim expression back, I expected a query concerning Valerie Lathem…or at the very least one about the list of coffee drinks that seemed to constantly perplex him. But to my stunned surprise, he didn’t mention either one.

“Are you free for dinner Thursday?”

S
HE
lived in one of those high-priced new buildings they’d put up near the river with rooftop parking and a view of the Jersey swamps.

HUDSON VIEW
read the white metal sign bolted to the red brick building. “
CONDOS AVAILABLE, INQUIRE IN-SIDE
.”

The bricks were new, the cheap chrome light fixtures shiny as a drawer full of QVC cubic zirconias, but the building had no style, no character, and no history. A nearly featureless rectangle, which, in the Genius’s view, would succinctly describe the woman inside—if you added a pair of pathetically second-rate breasts.

Her SinglesNYC.com profile had lied, of course.

“All of them lie,” whispered the Genius. “All of them…”

From the building across the street, the Genius watched the woman prepare for her Thursday night date. With her drapes left wide open, the blonde probably assumed no one was peeping. An easy mistake, since she was fifteen floors up, the office building directly across from her condo was only half leased, and the space where the Genius now stood appeared unlit and uninhabited.

Through the dark window, the Genius watched the woman drop her white towel and step into a lacey pair of black panties.

“Well, well, well, I see our hair color’s a dye job…”

Next came the bra—a push-up lace number that matched the black panties.

“That’s it, honey, work what you’ve got,” whispered the Genius, disgusted by the woman’s attempt to disguise her second-rate breasts.

Then came the little black dress, the shoes, the jewelry, the makeup. And…what’s this? The Genius peered through a pair of binoculars to find the woman moving toward her laptop. After punching up the SinglesNYC Web site, the woman stared at the photo, reread the profile.

“Yes, and what do you think of tonight’s date? Quite a catch isn’t he?”

Inside her apartment, the woman strode confidently to the mirror to survey herself. Then, giving herself a dirty little smile, she reached up beneath her skirt and slowly pulled off her panties.

“No panties for the big date? Hmmmm…another bad girl.”

“So what’s bothering you about it?” I asked Mike Quinn that Thursday evening.

“Something doesn’t sit right,” he said. “I mean apart from the fact that the transit boys let the news vultures snap away before the blood was swabbed up.”

“Those front page photos were…unfortunate,” I said. “I can’t imagine how Valerie Lathem’s poor grandmother felt, seeing her granddaughter’s blood on the tracks like that. Splashed all over the newspapers.”

“You got it,” said Quinn on an exhale of disgust. “You got it.”

I put down the salad bowl of fresh mesclun, raddiccio, and grape tomatoes, glistening in a dressing of olive oil, aged balsamic, and freshly ground sea salt, the shaved Pecorino Romano cresting over it all in creamy curling waves. Then I sat next to the detective in the cozy dining room of my duplex, which was located in the two floors above the Village Blend.

I’d set the antique Chippendale table with care, using the handmade lace cloth Madame had purchased in Florence and the candleholders of blown Venetian glass. Before Quinn arrived, I’d lit the candles and lowered the chandelier’s wattage, so the flickering glow of candlelight would reflect itself in the polished wood sideboard and bring a feeling of warmth to the room.

Earlier in the day, Quinn had offered to take me out to a nearby restaurant, but I told him it was a better idea for me to cook dinner for him at my place. No mental slouch, he understood.

Quinn was a married man. A lot of people knew us in this neighborhood. Since I had nothing prurient in mind—and I sincerely doubted he did, either—I didn’t think we should take the chance of giving the wrong impression to some passing acquaintance. Ours, or worse, his wife’s.

Better, I thought, to keep our private friendship just that—private.

“Wine?” I asked.

He’d thoughtfully brought a bottle of Pinot Grigio, and I’d been letting it breathe on Madame’s Florentine tablecloth for the last ten minutes.

“Let me,” he said and poured for us both.

I was relieved to see him take a glass because, from the moment he’d entered the apartment, he seemed tense, making me wonder if I really had made the right decision to entertain him privately.

Maybe the wine would relax him.

“So is that why you were unhappy with the transit police?” I asked. “Because of the news photos?”

“Something doesn’t sit right,” he repeated.

I studied Quinn’s face, all freshly shaved angles, shadows still present under winter blue eyes. As usual, his expression was unreadable.

We sat in silence a few moments.

Like most men, Quinn was the Twenty Questions type. “Something doesn’t sit right with…the search you made of her apartment?” I prompted.

The detective nodded as he took a sip of wine. “And with the suicide.”

I could think of a dozen more questions, but it wasn’t my business to grill him. It was police business. And Valerie Lathem’s family’s business. And none of mine. So I dished the mesclun into the Spode Imperialware “Blue Italian” pattern salad bowls. (It wasn’t Madame’s best china, but it was my favorite. The homey blue scenes of Northern Italy set against the white earthenware reminded me of an especially carefree summer when I was Joy’s age.)

“Clare, do you recall ever seeing Ms. Lathem come into the Blend with a companion?”

“Companion?”

“Friend or lover? Male or female?”

For a moment, I tried to recall her visits—anything unique about them, but it was so difficult to even remember her face. “It’s difficult…we serve hundreds of people a day. I try to get to know the regulars…but when we get busy…well, you’ve seen how crazy it can get…”

Quinn nodded.

“I can only recall her coming during the morning rushes. Alone.”

We ate in silence for a full minute.

“Did she leave a note?” I asked, too curious not to. “You know, a suicide note. Explaining why…”

“No note. No nothing,” said Quinn. “No drugs, no alcohol, no record of mental instability, or strained relationships. Everybody loved her. That’s what doesn’t sit right. There are usually some signs of problems. Issues. But my search and interviews have turned up a young woman who had everything to live for.”

“Was it possible she didn’t kill herself? That she just…I don’t know, slipped off the platform?”

Quinn shook his head. “The motorman said she
flew
right out in front of him. Flew. She didn’t drop down partially. She projected forward…and yet…”

“What?”

“She’d bought a bag of groceries at the Green Market. Who the hell buys groceries ten minutes before they off themselves?”

“You think she could have been pushed?”

Quinn’s thumb and forefinger caressed the stem of Madame’s Waterford crystal wine glass. “No witnesses. The platform’s security camera was mounted right above the woman’s head—so we’ve got no usable pictures. And the motorman claims he didn’t see anyone—but with the way that station slightly curves, and the place on the platform where the victim had been waiting, the pusher could have remained invisible behind a staircase.”

“So you think there was a…‘pusher.’”

“Can’t prove it.”

I nodded, having been down this road with Quinn before. From past experience, I’d learned that New York City detectives didn’t just investigate shootings, stabbings, and stranglings, but any suspicious death or accident that appeared might result in death.

According to Quinn, his department was routinely swamped and his superiors wanted what he called a “high case clearance” rate. They had no patience with Quinn’s marking time on cases that wouldn’t make an Assistant D.A.’s pulse race.

Quinn explained to me that the transit police statements to the press had played the death as a suicide in the public’s eye. So any other theory Quinn might wish to introduce would now be met with a great deal of political resistance within his own department—especially a theory with little evidentiary support. Even his partner on the case wanted them to close it out as a suicide.

After we finished our salads, I moved our bowls to the sideboard, ducked into the kitchen to retrieve the main dish, then set the platter of Chicken Francese down on the table between us.

“It smells delicious,” he said.

I served it up, and he began to eat.

“Save room,” I told him. “I’ve got a killer desert.”

Quinn closed his eyes, like he did every day when he took that first sip of my latte—but this time his mouth was chewing instead of sipping.

“Clare,” he finally said, “this is amazing.”

“It’s a crime how easy Chicken Francese is to make,” I told him between bites, “so if I were you, I wouldn’t be too impressed.”

“I don’t know,” he said, opening his eyes. “If I were you, I’d be careful with your confessions to crimes around me.”

I smiled. “And why is that?”

He took another sip of wine, a long one, and I’d swear that frosty blue gaze of his was drinking me in, too. “I’ve got cuffs, babe. And I know how to use ’em.”

I think I managed not to drop my fork—my jaw, I couldn’t account for. “I can’t believe you said that.”

Quinn’s dark blonde eyebrows rose, and he gave me one of those looks landscape surveyors reserve for choice pieces. He started at the top of my wavy, shoulder-length, Italian-roast brown hair, running down my heart-shaped face and lavender V-neck sweater, pausing just long enough on my C-cups to make me break a sweat.

Then he raised an eyebrow, tilted his head a bit, made a little sighing sound, and turned his attention back to his meal.

Taciturn bastard.

It wasn’t the first time we’d flirted, and I assumed it wouldn’t be the last. But I knew it wouldn’t go anywhere. Unlike my impulsive, outspoken, adventurous—and ultimately shameless—ex-husband, I could never consent to an extra-marital affair. And I sincerely doubted Quinn could, either.

On my part, I was raised a strict Roman Catholic. Even though I had lapsed in many ways, the sense of right and wrong (and guilt) had long ago been sewn into the lining of my clothing by the immigrant grandmother who raised me.

Still, unlike the St. Joseph medal affixed to the dashboard of my car, I wasn’t made of plastic. Testosterone wasn’t going to stop turning me on, and neither was Detective Michael Ryan Francis Quinn.

I’m sure I would have seemed far more sophisticated and mysterious if I had just sat there all enigmatic and silent like him. But I wasn’t a twenty-year veteran of poker-faced interrogations, and I suddenly couldn’t stop myself from babbling the entire contents of one of my old “In the Kitchen with Clare” columns from my Jersey days.

“You know, a lot people get frustrated trying to find the recipe for Chicken Francese in Italian cookbooks,” I yammered, “but they’re looking in all the wrong places. I mean, the recipe has antecedents, mostly in Italian-language Neapolitan cookbooks, but it’s really a New York dish. Francese, of course, means ‘in the French manner,’ but what you’ve actually got here is a basic chicken cutlet pounded out and dipped in flour and egg and more flour, then fried in olive oil, then dressed with fresh lemon juice. And since it’s best made in single portions, it seemed the perfect dish tonight for just the two of us…”

Just the two of us? Oh god. That came out all wrong!

“What I mean is, I’m sure your
wife
could make it for you—or for more people. All she’d have to do is under-cook the first batch, that way she can keep it warm in the oven without drying out the chicken while she’s cooking the additional batches. You see?”

“Clare.” Quinn put down his fork, and looked straight into my eyes. “There’s a personal reason I came here tonight.”

“Personal?”

“I wanted some advice…marital advice.”