Клео Коул - Through The Grinder

“No panties for the big date? Hmmmm…another bad girl.”

“So what’s bothering you about it?” I asked Mike Quinn that Thursday evening.

“Something doesn’t sit right,” he said. “I mean apart from the fact that the transit boys let the news vultures snap away before the blood was swabbed up.”

“Those front page photos were…unfortunate,” I said. “I can’t imagine how Valerie Lathem’s poor grandmother felt, seeing her granddaughter’s blood on the tracks like that. Splashed all over the newspapers.”

“You got it,” said Quinn on an exhale of disgust. “You got it.”

I put down the salad bowl of fresh mesclun, raddiccio, and grape tomatoes, glistening in a dressing of olive oil, aged balsamic, and freshly ground sea salt, the shaved Pecorino Romano cresting over it all in creamy curling waves. Then I sat next to the detective in the cozy dining room of my duplex, which was located in the two floors above the Village Blend.

I’d set the antique Chippendale table with care, using the handmade lace cloth Madame had purchased in Florence and the candleholders of blown Venetian glass. Before Quinn arrived, I’d lit the candles and lowered the chandelier’s wattage, so the flickering glow of candlelight would reflect itself in the polished wood sideboard and bring a feeling of warmth to the room.

Earlier in the day, Quinn had offered to take me out to a nearby restaurant, but I told him it was a better idea for me to cook dinner for him at my place. No mental slouch, he understood.

Quinn was a married man. A lot of people knew us in this neighborhood. Since I had nothing prurient in mind — and I sincerely doubted he did, either — I didn’t think we should take the chance of giving the wrong impression to some passing acquaintance. Ours, or worse, his wife’s.

Better, I thought, to keep our private friendship just that — private.

“Wine?” I asked.

He’d thoughtfully brought a bottle of Pinot Grigio, and I’d been letting it breathe on Madame’s Florentine tablecloth for the last ten minutes.

“Let me,” he said and poured for us both.

I was relieved to see him take a glass because, from the moment he’d entered the apartment, he seemed tense, making me wonder if I really had made the right decision to entertain him privately.

Maybe the wine would relax him.

“So is that why you were unhappy with the transit police?” I asked. “Because of the news photos?”

“Something doesn’t sit right,” he repeated.

I studied Quinn’s face, all freshly shaved angles, shadows still present under winter blue eyes. As usual, his expression was unreadable.

We sat in silence a few moments.

Like most men, Quinn was the Twenty Questions type. “Something doesn’t sit right with…the search you made of her apartment?” I prompted.

The detective nodded as he took a sip of wine. “And with the suicide.”

I could think of a dozen more questions, but it wasn’t my business to grill him. It was police business. And Valerie Lathem’s family’s business. And none of mine. So I dished the mesclun into the Spode Imperialware “Blue Italian” pattern salad bowls. (It wasn’t Madame’s best china, but it was my favorite. The homey blue scenes of Northern Italy set against the white earthenware reminded me of an especially carefree summer when I was Joy’s age.)

“Clare, do you recall ever seeing Ms. Lathem come into the Blend with a companion?”

“Companion?”

“Friend or lover? Male or female?”

For a moment, I tried to recall her visits — anything unique about them, but it was so difficult to even remember her face. “It’s difficult…we serve hundreds of people a day. I try to get to know the regulars…but when we get busy…well, you’ve seen how crazy it can get…”

Quinn nodded.

“I can only recall her coming during the morning rushes. Alone.”

We ate in silence for a full minute.

“Did she leave a note?” I asked, too curious not to. “You know, a suicide note. Explaining why…”

“No note. No nothing,” said Quinn. “No drugs, no alcohol, no record of mental instability, or strained relationships. Everybody loved her. That’s what doesn’t sit right. There are usually some signs of problems. Issues. But my search and interviews have turned up a young woman who had everything to live for.”

“Was it possible she didn’t kill herself? That she just…I don’t know, slipped off the platform?”

Quinn shook his head. “The motorman said she flew right out in front of him. Flew. She didn’t drop down partially. She projected forward…and yet…”

“What?”

“She’d bought a bag of groceries at the Green Market. Who the hell buys groceries ten minutes before they off themselves?”

“You think she could have been pushed?”

Quinn’s thumb and forefinger caressed the stem of Madame’s Waterford crystal wine glass. “No witnesses. The platform’s security camera was mounted right above the woman’s head — so we’ve got no usable pictures. And the motorman claims he didn’t see anyone — but with the way that station slightly curves, and the place on the platform where the victim had been waiting, the pusher could have remained invisible behind a staircase.”

“So you think there was a…‘pusher.’”

“Can’t prove it.”

I nodded, having been down this road with Quinn before. From past experience, I’d learned that New York City detectives didn’t just investigate shootings, stabbings, and stranglings, but any suspicious death or accident that appeared might result in death.

According to Quinn, his department was routinely swamped and his superiors wanted what he called a “high case clearance” rate. They had no patience with Quinn’s marking time on cases that wouldn’t make an Assistant D.A.’s pulse race.

Quinn explained to me that the transit police statements to the press had played the death as a suicide in the public’s eye. So any other theory Quinn might wish to introduce would now be met with a great deal of political resistance within his own department — especially a theory with little evidentiary support. Even his partner on the case wanted them to close it out as a suicide.

After we finished our salads, I moved our bowls to the sideboard, ducked into the kitchen to retrieve the main dish, then set the platter of Chicken Francese down on the table between us.

“It smells delicious,” he said.

I served it up, and he began to eat.

“Save room,” I told him. “I’ve got a killer desert.”

Quinn closed his eyes, like he did every day when he took that first sip of my latte — but this time his mouth was chewing instead of sipping.

“Clare,” he finally said, “this is amazing.”

“It’s a crime how easy Chicken Francese is to make,” I told him between bites, “so if I were you, I wouldn’t be too impressed.”

“I don’t know,” he said, opening his eyes. “If I were you, I’d be careful with your confessions to crimes around me.”

I smiled. “And why is that?”

He took another sip of wine, a long one, and I’d swear that frosty blue gaze of his was drinking me in, too. “I’ve got cuffs, babe. And I know how to use ’em.”

I think I managed not to drop my fork — my jaw, I couldn’t account for. “I can’t believe you said that.”

Quinn’s dark blonde eyebrows rose, and he gave me one of those looks landscape surveyors reserve for choice pieces. He started at the top of my wavy, shoulder-length, Italian-roast brown hair, running down my heart-shaped face and lavender V-neck sweater, pausing just long enough on my C-cups to make me break a sweat.

Then he raised an eyebrow, tilted his head a bit, made a little sighing sound, and turned his attention back to his meal.