Клео Коул - Roast Mortem

“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.

But James doesn’t like beer...

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?

Oh my God!

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.

Coffee. Oh, thank goodness...

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?”