Клео Коул - Decaffeinated Corpse

I couldn’t imagine Mike as being anything but a cop. To me, he was like one of those concrete block warehouses people barely notice on a fair weather day but run screaming to for refuge in a Category Four.

And then there were his eyes. Nothing average there. Even when the rest of him appeared aloof or exhausted, Mike’s eyes were alert and alive, taking in everything. Intensely blue, they were the shade of a Hampton’s sky— which I had only recently discovered, having just spent my first summer there—and when they were on me, my blood pumped a little faster (even without caffeine).

Behind the counter, Joy had finished brewing that fresh French press pot of Ric’s new decaffeinated beans.

“Make Ric’s to go,” I advised her. “He’s heading out.”

I was tempted to keep yakking. I wanted to ask her about that new boyfriend, the one she’d discussed with Matt and not me. It rankled that she was keeping secrets, but we’d been through some rough patches in the last year, and I could see where she might be sensitive about my meddling in her new “adult” life.

My ex-husband had been wrong about a lot of things, but I wasn’t going to disregard his advice just because he could be a horse’s ass in other quarters. He loved our daughter. And she loved him. And maybe, for once, Matt knew what was best.

Biting my tongue, I stopped the dozen grilling questions on the tip of it. Instead, I put an arm around her and thanked her for coming down to say hello.

“No problem, Mom,” she said. “It’s nice to see you.” She hugged me then. It was unexpected but heartfelt, and it made me feel a thousand times better.

As she headed off toward Ric and her dad, I turned back to Quinn.

“We have something new tonight,” I told him. “Beans from a prototype decaffeinated coffee plant. Would you like to try a cup?”

He arched a sandy eyebrow. “You think I come here for decaffeination?”

“Now you sound like my baristas.”

“The usual,” he said, his low gravelly voice like music. “That’ll be fine.”

It always gave me a kick to make Quinn’s “usual.” Before he’d made detective, he’d been a hardened street cop, and even though he wasn’t the sort of man to wear his machismo on his sleeve, I vowed never to tell him that in Italy his favorite nightly drink was considered a wussy breakfast beverage favored by children and old ladies.

The latte was also the most popular coffee drink at the Village Blend, as it was in most American gourmet coffee shops, so who was I to judge? Our double-tall version used two shots of espresso, steamed milk, crowned with a thin layer of foamed milk. (In a cappuccino, the foamed milk dominates.) And because we throw away any espresso shot older than fifteen seconds, we always prepare the milk first.

I cleared the steam wand and dipped it deep into the stainless steel pitcher. One trick for steaming milk (as I tell my new baristas) is to keep your hand on the bottom of the metal container. If it becomes too hot to handle, you’re probably scalding the liquid. That’s one reason I clip a thermometer to every pitcher (150 to 160 degrees Fahrenheit is the optimum range).

As I worked, I kept one eye on Matt, across the main room. He’d approached Ric, who was still sitting by the fireplace, speaking into the phone. When the man completed his call, Matt quietly spoke to him.

Without protest, Ric rose to his feet. The top of his head came dead even with Matt’s. The two could have been brothers, I mused, with their perpetual tans, short-cropped raven hair, and womanizing ways. Then Ric swayed in place. The man was obviously still woozy from the blow to his head.

Matt offered an arm. “Take it easy,” he said as he helped his friend negotiate the close-quartered sea of cafe tables.

As usual, our sparse gathering of patrons, barely looked up from their seats. Mike Quinn, on the other hand, tracked the two zigzagging males as if he were a fixed bird of prey. “What happened to Matt’s friend?” he asked, his gaze never wavering from the pair until the two men left the building.

I didn’t want to lie, but I didn’t intend to break my word either. “Oh, you can guess, can’t you?”

Quinn turned back to me. “One too many decafs?”

I laughed—in an unnaturally high pitch. Since it was time to aerate the top of the milk anyway, I let the steam wand’s gurgle drown out my disturbing impression of an overexcited munchkin from the land of Oz.

Now Quinn’s gaze was fixed on me as I pulled two espresso shots and dumped both into a double-tall glass mug. Then I tilted the pitcher of steamed milk. Using a spoon, I held back the froth at the top, letting the velvety white warmth splash into the liquid ebony.

The Blend had a tasty variety of latte flavors—vanilla, mocha, caramel, hazelnut, cinnamon-spice, and so on—but Quinn was a purist. I finished the drink with a few spoonfuls of frothy light foam and slid it to him. He took a few long sips of his no-frills latte, wiped away the slight traces of foam on his upper lip with two fingers, and sighed like a junkie getting his fix.

I loved seeing the man’s stone face crack, relaxed pleasure shining out like sun rays through a storm cloud. I noticed the shadow of a beard on his jaw line. The dark brown scruff made him look a little dangerous. Not for the first time, I wondered what it would be like to wake up next to him first thing in the morning. He caught me looking. I turned away.

For well over a year now, Mike Quinn had been a loyal friend. He was someone I’d trusted and confided in, someone who’d helped me get through difficult situations, a few of which had involved murder.

Mike had confided in me, too... often about his case-loadand sometimes about the crumbling state of his thirteen-year marriage. He had two young children, a boy and a girl, and he’d wanted to stick it out for their sakes, but the last few years had been the worst. He’d tried marriage counseling, group therapy, and “couples’ exploration” weekends. Finally, he decided to grit his teeth and just bear it until his kids were older, but his wife didn’t feel the same. She was the one who made the final cut.

About a month ago, she announced that she wanted a divorce. She intended to marry the “new” man in her life— which translated to the latest guy in a string of affairs. And since New York State requires couples to live apart for one year before a divorce can be granted, she insisted their jointly-owned Brooklyn brownstone be put on the market immediately.

Mike’s wife and kids were now preparing to move into the guest house on the new man’s Long Island estate (the new man apparently pulled down in a month what a veteran detective made in a year), and Mike was living alone in Alphabet City. He’d taken a one bedroom rental, not that I’d seen it.

Did I want to? was the real question.

Yes! was my resounding answer.

I’d had a brief summer fling with Jim Rand, but we’d parted ways at the start of September. Now he was scuba diving thousands of miles away, although it might as well have been millions. Jim was the kind of peripatetic lover of adventure who couldn’t stay in one place long enough to let a tomato plant take root, let alone a relationship, and I’d had his number from the moment I’d met him.

The attraction between me and Mike was something else, something more. Over the past year, we’d flirted regularly, laughed at each other’s jokes, and shared many a long, quiet conversation. But as long as Mike was trying to make his marriage work, there was no way I was going to allow us to cross that platonic line.

Things were different now... and yet they still weren’t right...

My ex-husband’s little prediction about the man “making moves” on me was quaint, but I didn’t believe it for a second. Mike Quinn had “gun shy” written all over him—and it had nothing to do with the .45 peeking out of his shoulder holster.