Клео Коул - Murder Most Frothy

“Jim, what—?”

He dug into his pocket, thrust a cell phone into my hand. “Call 911.” He wrapped his shirt around his nose and mouth and tied it behind his head. Head down, he ran back inside the restaurant.

I punched the numbers and the call went through immediately. I reported the gas leak, the address, and the fact that someone was inside the building.

I heard noise from inside the restaurant—the French doors opening, the sound of breaking glass. Still shaky, I hopped off the hood of my car and hurried to the entranceway. My head was throbbing and my feet seemed to take forever to obey my brain.

Just as I got to the front door, I saw Jim emerge from the kitchen. His shirt was still wrapped around his face, and his gait looked steady. I stepped inside to help him, but he rushed me at the door.

“Go back, Clare. I stopped the leak.” His voice was muffled by the cloth, but his words were clear.

“Are you okay?”

“Jesus, Clare, are you forgetting I was a SEAL? Any one of us worth his salt can hold his breath for three minutes.”

“What did you find back there? The stove is supposed to have a safety device. If any of the pilot lights go out, the gas should be automatically cut off—”

“The stove wasn’t the problem. The lines were sliced.”

“What?!”

“The hoses leading from the main to the stove were flapping loose and they looked sliced to me. I had to turn off the main. On the way, I opened those French doors—sorry, I had to break some of them. Are there any other outside windows in this place?”

“There’s a big window in the employee break room.”

“Which door?”

“The gas is already dissipating, Jim. Let me take care of it.”

“Okay. I’ll prop the fire doors.”

I took a deep, fresh breath, ran to the break room, and opened the door. The gas smell wasn’t so bad in here, probably because the closed door kept most of the vapors out. I began to walk to the window—then I screamed.

A body was sprawled on the couch, a woman clad in jeans and a flowered blouse. A pair of sandals lay on the floor. On the pillow, I saw loose auburn curls dangling from a disheveled ponytail. I grabbed the body’s shoulder, rolled it over. Colleen O’Brien’s skin had a faintly bluish cast, the freckles across her pug nose looked dark as blood against her deathly pale skin.

Frantically, I began shaking the girl. “Wake up! Wake up!”

Jim appeared at my side, pulled me away and bent over her, resting his ear on her chest. “She’s breathing—barely. We’ve got to get her outside.”

Jim hauled her off the sofa, cradled her in a fireman’s carry. It took only a moment for him to cross the dining room and exit the restaurant. He laid Colleen across the hood of my Honda, which was getting more action than a hospital gurney.

“You know her?”

“Yes! She works for David.”

“Think she was trying to kill herself?”

I blinked. “No…. I don’t know…”

I remembered how distressed she’d been the night Treat had been shot, and I realized it was possible.

Jim checked her mouth and throat for foreign objects. Then he began administering CPR. He was at it less than a minute when Colleen’s eyes opened. As she started sitting up, she began to heave.

Jim glanced at me. “She’ll be okay, once she empties her stomach.”

I held Colleen’s hair while she threw up all over my car—cosmic justice, after what had happened to the back seat of Breanne’s Mercedes. But I didn’t care. I was so relieved that she was alive.

“Jim, why did you ask me if it was a suicide attempt?” I whispered.

“Someone cut those hoses to the stove, Clare. It was either suicide or vandalism.”

Colleen held her head. “What happened?”

“There was a gas leak,” I lied. “Why were you in the restaurant?”

“Well, the truth is…I’ve been sleeping there for days,” Colleen said, “but don’t tell anyone.”

Jim snorted. “I think that ship’s already sailed.”

I silenced him with a jab of my elbow. “Colleen, why would you do that?”

She tried to stand up. I put a firm hand on her shoulder. “Stay still,” I commanded, wondering where the hell the fire department was. I still couldn’t hear any sirens. “Tell me why you stayed at the restaurant, Colleen.”

“The jerks running my share house raised the rates midsummer without warning,” she confessed. “I got angry. I didn’t want to give up every dime I made to those people, and I didn’t want to lose my job here, so I decided to sleep the rest of the season on the break room couch.”

I stared at her blankly. “How did you pull it off?”

“Oh, that was easy. I’d hide in the restroom until Jacques or the designated closer locked up every night, then I’d hide again in the morning when the chef arrived so no one would see me. And there were a few times Jacques had me close up—like the other night when he went to Bom Felloes’s party. Nights like that, I had the run of the place.”

On the highway, I heard the single blast of a horn. Scarlet lights flashed in the trees. The fire department was on the way, sans sirens. I realized only then that they ran silently so as not to disturb the wealthy residents of this exclusive community. Jim faced the road, slipping back into his shirt as he waited for the authorities to arrive.

“Colleen, listen to me,” I said. “This is important. Who closed up tonight?”

“It was Jacques. I thought he would never leave. He stayed in his office very late. But then I heard him lock up. I saw him from the break room window, driving away about two-thirty. I went right to sleep after that.”

The village fire truck rolled into the parking lot, lights flashing. A police car and an ambulance pulled in behind it. The doors opened and two paramedics leaped out and ran to us.

The fire chief and several firemen with oxygen secured the area and entered the restaurant. As Colleen was helped into the ambulance, I approached the police sergeant and introduced myself.

“This was no accident,” I said. “The gas lines appear to have been deliberately sliced, and the last person to have access to them—according to this young woman right here—was the manager of the restaurant, Jacques Papas. I believe he was trying to sabotage this place to cover up the fact that he’s been embezzling from the owner, David Mintzer, and some of the vendors.”

The officer shifted uneasily. “That’s a heavy charge, ma’am.”

“I know,” I replied. “But Colleen here was sleeping inside the restaurant. She can testify that Jacques was the last one to leave. And I came by tonight to take a look at the contents of his accounting book. I believe the deals he made with vendors were never approved by the owner and the result of those deals would have been the extortion of money by Papas.”

“We’ll need a statement,” the sergeant said.

“I’m happy to provide one,” I said, then I dropped the bomb. “I also believe Jacques Papas has been trying to kill David. I think Papas may have had something to do with the murder at David’s house on July Fourth.”

The sergeant swallowed hard. Clearing the crimes I’d just outlined was probably above his pay grade.

“Wait here, Ms. Cosi,” the sergeant said. “I’m going to put in a call to the Suffolk County police. Detective Roy O’Rourke is handling that case.”

Jim appeared at my shoulder.

“Think you solved your mystery?” he asked.

“I hope so.”

“You believe Jacques tried to burn down the place to hide his crime?”

I nodded. “Think it through. At the end of the summer, a bunch of vendors are going to be expecting the rest of their bills to be paid along with the ten percent Jacques had promised them. Blowing the place up would have created enough chaos to let him get away clean, jump a plane back to Europe—with the other half of those vendor payments. He was probably betting on David throwing in the towel and declaring bankruptcy.”