Клео Коул - Holiday Grind

I liked Vicki; it was hard not to. A full-figured girl with an equally full personality (just like her late dad), she had a mile-wide smile with adorable dimples. She laughed easily and at only twenty-one years old joked around with the customers with a level of ease I typically saw in someone much older.

Because Esther and Vicki had gotten to be good friends during the time Vicki worked for me, I’d actually asked Esther to help straighten her out. She’d told me Vicki’s parents had separated recently, and I assumed the girl’s erratic behavior was akin to Joy’s “acting out” after her father and I had split. The backlash was understandable. Alf and I even discussed it one afternoon over lattes...

“Vicki was always a good kid,” he told me. “I know she made some bad choices when she was working for you. But I don’t blame her. Childhood’s an insecure enough ordeal without having your parents screw up your universe, you know?”

I didn’t disagree with Alf. Even though “childhood” was a debatable term for a twenty-one-year-old, I knew how much psychological stock young adults put in having their childhood world still available to them, whether they went back to it or not.

My heart went out to Vicki because I assumed she felt some of the same fears I’d felt around her age—which, frankly, was what tipped the scales for me toward marrying Matt. At nineteen, my fine arts studies were going well, but my grandmother had recently died and my father had just sold off our family grocery. Yes, Matt had gotten me pregnant and I wanted to legitimize Joy’s birth, but a big part of me felt adrift at that time. My past was gone, my future uncertain. I’d wanted ties again, stability, someone to love and lean on, a family to belong to.

Unfortunately, my sympathies for Vicki did little to change her. Not even Esther could straighten her out.

“That girl,” Esther told me, “has a mind of her own.”

Vicki was always sincerely apologetic after she was caught messing up. Her behavior would improve for a week or so, but she’d always backslide again. Then she started picking up guys from dance clubs, bars, God knew where. One day there’d be a preppy white student from the Upper East Side waiting for her shift to end, the next a black kid from Greenpoint in basketball sweats, a week later an Italian street tough from Ozone Park.

Finally, one night, she’d been responsible for closing and “forgotten” to set the security alarm and bolt the back door. A lot of managers would have fired her for that alone, but I still didn’t have the heart. I read her the riot act instead, limited her hours, and kept her off key shifts. She pulled the plug herself, leaving the Blend for a waitressing job at a bistro on the Upper West Side.

I hadn’t seen her since—until tonight.

“I really liked your dad, Vicki,” I assured her as she sipped her mochaccino. “If there’s anything I can do to help—”

“There is!”

I blinked, a little surprised by the speed and force of her reply. “Okay. Tell me.”

“It’s that thing you do,” she said.

“That thing I do?” I paused. “You want me to make espressos for the wake?”

“No, not that thing. The other thing.”

I glanced at Esther, who looked suddenly uncomfortable.

“Sorry?” I said.

Vicki leaned toward me and dropped her voice. “What you did for Joy. I need you to do that again.”

“I’m not sure I know what you—”

“I know everything, Ms. Cosi. The real reason your daughter went to work in Paris; Esther spilled the whole story. She said you were the one who got Joy cleared of double murder charges. She said the police stacked the evidence against your daughter, but you still found the real killer.”

As Vicki wiped her nose, I shifted uneasily. Although I was proud of bringing Tommy Keitel’s killer to justice, my daughter’s involvement in that sordid affair was something I didn’t like spread around. I shot Esther enough of a frown to get that across. She replied with a typical Esther shrug—part sheepish, part defensive. I could almost hear her arguing: Okay, boss, I feel bad about gossiping, but what did you expect? It was in the papers!

“I know you liked my dad,” Vicki went on. “And he really liked you. He told me how much he looked forward to his latte breaks with you at the Blend. You want to see his killer brought to justice, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, but the police are working on it. I’ve spoken with them—”

“You mean that clown with the do-rag? Sergeant Franco?! He thinks Dad was shot by some anonymous street punk. I know better, but Franco and his partner don’t believe me.”

I frowned. “What don’t they believe, exactly?”

Vicki’s gaze locked with mine. “I know my father was executed .”

Once again, I glanced at Esther. This time she looked a little freaked and shook her head— Don’t ask me!

I turned to Vicki. “Who would want your father executed? I mean—”

“Omar Linford is his name,” Vicki replied. The sniffles were all gone now, her jaw set, her hazel green eyes flashing. “The man lives right next door, too.”

“Next door where? To your dad uptown?”

Vicki shook her head. “No, back home on Staten Island. He lives next to the house where I grew up and my mom and I still live.”

“So Linford’s your next-door neighbor?”

“He used to be close friends with my dad, but they had a falling out. Linford’s a shady businessman, Ms. Cosi. He may not have pulled the trigger on my father, but I’m sure he’s involved. I want you to find the proof—”

“Slow down, Vicki. How is this man Linford shady exactly? What’s your evidence?”

“It’s, like, obvious. He calls himself an importer, but no one seems to know what he imports. And he’s got ‘business interests’ in the Cayman Islands.” Vicki made air quotes around the words business interests .

“That still doesn’t tell me why he’d want your father killed. What motive would he have?”

“Motive! My dad borrowed two hundred thousand dollars from Linford!” Vicki’s reply was so loud a few heads turned our way. She lowered her voice again. “But he lost the restaurant anyway.”

“Restaurant?” I said. “What restaurant?”

“Dad never told you?” Vicki studied my surprised face. “He owned a restaurant for years—a steakhouse with a wine cellar. It was in our Lighthouse Hill neighborhood, right near the Island’s La Tourette golf course. It was way pricey, but he did pretty well, laughed it up with the Wall Street guys, you know?” Vicki paused to sip her mochaccino. “That’s why it didn’t surprise me when he started doing the stand-up thing in New York.”

“I don’t understand.”

Vicki shrugged. “He was practically doing it every night in the restaurant. Telling jokes, making his customers laugh—he loved doing that. Then the economy tanked, and those financial district guys lost their jobs and half their life savings. In, like, six weeks, Dad’s base just dried up.”

“So he lost the restaurant?”

“Not right away, Ms. Cosi. He loved his business to death, like, literally . He refused to close, just kept borrowing money to keep it going, spent a ton on ads in the papers, discount coupons, online stuff, but it didn’t work. Then his drinking got really bad and my parents’ marriage went right down the tubes with his business. That’s when I came to work for you. I was supposed to take over the restaurant one day, run it as my place. That’s why I didn’t even bother with college. I figured my future was all worked out, you know?”