Клео Коул - Roast Mortem

Ryan straightened. “Anyway, it was good seeing you ladies. Have a nice — ”

“Wait!” I lunged for the man’s sleeve. “Don’t go!”

Ryan was taken aback, but I couldn’t let him escape. I needed to question him about Oat!

“Won’t you join us, Mr. Lane? For one beer, at least?”

“Uh...” Ryan looked worried as he glanced back toward his boss. I didn’t blame him: given the level of drinking going on in this working man’s bar, if Josie Fairfield treated anyone else like she’d just treated Val, she’d be getting a black shiner to go with that shiny black handbag.

“One drink,” he said.

“Great!” I scooted over.

He pointed to our glasses. “But you two need a refill. Allow me — what are you drinking?”

“Let me,” Val said. “I have a tab open already. Do you drink beer?”

“Sure do. I’ll have what Ms. Cosi’s having. Harp, right?”

I nodded. Val got up, and Ryan sat down across from me, fiddled with his cuffs. “Your coffee is quite good, Ms. Cosi, exceptional. Who’s your roaster?”

“You’re looking at her.”

“Is that so?” He considered me with new interest. “I’d enjoy seeing your facilities one day.”

“Come by anytime. I do small-batch roasting in our basement.”

“You know, I fell in love with coffee years ago... on a trip to Nicaragua.”

“Oh? I’d really enjoy hearing about it.”

Okay, so I wouldn’t, but as Mike often said (in a piece of advice that sounded almost culinary), grilling an informant met with much more success if you tenderized him first. So while I half listened to Ryan, I turned my peripheral eye to his boss.

Given Josephine Fairfield’s past relationship with Michael Quinn, I was curious to see how he’d react at her approach. But Donald O’Shea had gotten to Michael first. The still unsmiling Queens battalion chief didn’t shake Michael’s hand or pat his back. They weren’t sharing drinks, either. The close conversation looked official — and it didn’t look pleasant.

“...and I ended up in the Samulali region, a rather untamed area,” Ryan was saying. “On that first morning, just as dawn was breaking, I drank fresh black coffee in a battered tin cup.”

I nodded politely.

“The beans had been dried in the sun and roasted inside a converted oil drum, which was turned by hand over an open fire. It was almost a spiritual experience...”

It took me a second to register that Ryan had stopped talking.

“How interesting!” I finally said. “You know, you should meet my partner, Matt. He’s our coffee buyer and travels frequently to South and Central America.”

Ryan sighed, his eyes glazing a bit. “Ever since that time, my dream was to buy my own coffee farm.”

“It’s not an uncommon dream,” I conceded. “One of the farms we buy from is run by a former California banker who followed his passion and purchased an estate in Panama after retiring.”

“I’m retiring from my job. Very soon.”

Finally, an opening. “Speaking of your job, Mr. Lane, you introduced Mrs. Fairfield as your boss?”

“That’s right. She is.”

“That’s unusual, isn’t it? For a woman to be in charge of a company that makes rescue gear for firefighters?”

“It was her husband’s company. He passed away last year and she took over. But it’s just an interim thing. She has no real interest in the business...”

“Is that right?”

“Yes, a larger corporation is in the process of evaluating us. In another month or so the purchase of Fairfield Equipment should go through without a hitch.”

“Is that a good thing? The company being bought?”

“Oh, yes. It’s really just a big infusion of cash and resources. We’ll have the opportunity to expand worldwide.”

“That’s good news, then, but I’m also wondering, Mr. Lane — ”

“Ryan.”

“Ryan, how well do you know Oat Crowley?”

“Well enough, I guess.” He shifted uneasily, scratched the back of his head. “I’m really sorry about the things he said to you today in the park. That was uncalled for. I mean, look at you here. You’re obviously friends with James’s wife.”

“Oat and I aren’t exactly on the best of terms, but there’s a reason for that and it’s not James.”

“Oh?”

“I have a female friend named Lucia. She’s involved with Oat. Has he ever mentioned Lucia to you?”

Ryan laughed. “Oat and I aren’t that close.”

“I see. Well, Lucia is convinced that Oat’s not the marrying kind. That he has no interest in settling down. Would you say that’s true?”

“Odd you should ask.”

“Why?”

“Any other time, I’d probably say I have no idea. But just today, in the park, when I mentioned retiring, Oat asked after my position. I don’t blame him — my job’s a lot less hazardous than his.” He smiled. “Anyway, I agreed he’d be a good candidate for it, and he confided that he was planning to retire from the department soon. He said he was finally ready to settle down, buy a big house, maybe even start a family.”

I knew it.

Crowley was after Lucia for more than the occasional booty call. He wanted to marry her. But with Enzo and Glenn standing in his way, Oat had to find a way to upset the balance in Lucia’s life. The caffè fire did that — and if the authorities determined the blaze was random arson (à la some mad coffee shop bomber), then Lucia would also net a portion of a big fire-insurance pay out, a convenient nest egg for a newly married couple to put a down payment for a “nice, big house.”

“Here you go, kids!”

Val was back, and in a much brighter mood. She set our topped-off pints in front of us and we toasted the successful bake sale. I was about to question Ryan further when Val waved us closer, hunching down, as if she were going to reveal who stole Salvador Dalí’s Two Balconies out of Rio’s Mansion in the Sky museum.

“So did you notice what’s happening at the bar?”

“What?” Ryan and I asked together.

She pointed. “See for yourselves.”

We all turned our heads to find Mrs. Josephine Fairfield, affluent owner of Fairfield Equipment, friend of New York City’s illustrious mayor, putting her manicured hands all over Michael Quinn. And he did not appear happy about it. Every time she laid a paw on him, he firmly removed it.

“Now that’s what I call chutzpah!” Val declared, taking a delighted swig of Guinness.

“Are they a couple again?” I asked.

“No,” said Val, eyes bright. “James told me she’s been calling him repeatedly, trying to get him back. It’s common knowledge at the firehouse. Ever since she dumped him, he can’t stand the sight of her!”

My mind flashed back to that night in the captain’s office, the same evening I’d discovered his “Kevin wall.” Michael had been annoyed by a personal cell call — a call from a woman named Josie .

“Look,” Val pointed, even more amused, “she’s throwing herself at the man!”

Lined up on the bar were a half-dozen shot glasses, sparkling like newly cut diamonds. Standing at the ready was a freshly opened bottle of well-aged, single-malt Irish whiskey (which probably cost as much as your average gemstone).

Josephine knocked back a shot, clearly not her first, and gave up on the patty-cake game. She began wrapping her dragon-flower designer scarf around Michael’s neck. She laughed, pretending she was choking him. Then she pulled him forward, expecting a kiss. He pushed her away.

“Son of a gun ,” Ryan Lane spat. “I better get up there...”

Val looked surprised by Ryan’s disgusted reaction, probably assuming (as I did) that the man would take a little delight from his haughty boss’s comedown. Then again, if Fairfield Equipment was being evaluated for purchase by a worldwide corporation, seeing your half-drunken boss throw herself at an off-duty member of the FDNY wasn’t exactly the optimum public relations moment.