Клео Коул - On What Grounds

“Well, Quinn,” I muttered. “Guess we’ve got ourselves another mystery.”

I knew Quinn wanted me at the precinct for a statement, so I began to walk swiftly toward the staircase. Hopefully Java hadn’t wandered far from the duplex apartment. My guess was she’d descended to the second floor’s cozy setup of sofas and chairs and was sniffing up a storm.

“Java!” I called. “Java Jive!”

She always came when I called. So instead of wandering the four floors of the entire building, I decided to stay put and keep calling her. Absently, I noticed the empty demitasse cup on the counter. I automatically took it to the sink.

“Java!” I called again. Now that I was behind the counter, I remembered there were used espresso grounds in the portafilter. I had just knocked the wet grounds into the garbage can below the counter when I heard a male voice say, “Good evening, Ms. Cosi.”

My heart nearly stopped. The coffeehouse had been locked up tight. No one was supposed to be here.

A light blond, pale-skinned man emerged from the pantry area. He was wearing a finely tailored overcoat, and his features looked familiar, but for a moment I couldn’t place him. I was too busy freaking out about the fact that he’d been waiting silently back there. A white rabbit in the gray shadows.

“Who are—”

My voice choked when I saw he had something in his hand, and he was pointing it at me: A gun. A gun. A gun. My god! My god! My god!

Still behind the counter, I glanced down. There was nothing to defend myself with—no knife, no pick, not even a glass I could throw. I was simply staring at grimy black coffee grounds. The stranger couldn’t see my hands, so I grabbed a fistful. I wasn’t sure what I’d do with it, but my gut told me to grab something, anything.

“Step away from the counter and do as I say.”

“Who are you?” I asked, as I dropped my hands to my sides and stepped out toward the main room, where the stranger was standing.

“Oh, Ms. Cosi,” he said, “I’m insulted. Don’t you remember meeting me this evening?”

I stared a moment then blinked, stunned by the recognition. The man was right. I did know him. He was Richard Engstrum, Senior. I’d met him at the Waldorf charity ball.

I swiftly put together the reason he was here. Obviously, his wife had told him about my threat to go to the police tomorrow with evidence against his son. He must have come to protect his son, I decided. So all I needed to do was set him straight!

“Mr. Engstrum, listen to me—” I was about to tell him we’d caught the guilty parties tonight. I was even going to apologize for accusing his son of wrongdoing, but he interrupted me.

“No, Ms. Cosi. I’m the one with the gun. So you’re going to listen to me. I want you to know it was Anabelle who chose to have the first ‘accident.’ I simply made sure she had a second one. The fact is, I did try to talk her out of the blackmail. But she wouldn’t listen. So you see, since she left me with no choices, I left her with none.”

I suddenly felt sick to my stomach. Engstrum wasn’t here innocently chasing down some ploy of mine. That was now abundantly clear. He had just confessed to murder.

“It was you?” I asked in a weak voice. “You wanted her to lose the baby?”

“Yes,” said Engstrum.

“But she lost her life.”

“Yes, I just heard about that. And that’s why you’re going to lose yours, too, unless you give me the evidence you say you have against my son.”

Don’t lose it, Clare, I told myself. Don’t freak out. Keep it together. Think!

“It’s with the police!” I cried abruptly. “And they’re coming here any second!”

“No they’re not. You’re bluffing. I run a high-stakes business, Ms. Cosi. I know when people try to bluff me, and you’re bluffing now. I saw you wave good-bye to that police car a few minutes ago.”

Engstrum cocked the gun. It was small, but it looked big enough to kill. His hard, emotionless eyes gave me the impression he’d pulled the trigger on people already—maybe not gun triggers, but there were all kinds of other triggers that when squeezed hurt and ruined people.

I’d seen his type before. The type who could look at a human being and then assign a worth based solely on a coldly calculated business strategy or perceived use in obtaining one or another kind of self-gratification. People were no longer people, just pawns, just numbers. Madame Blanche Dreyfus Allegro Dubois had seen his type before, too. Back in World War II they’d worn swastikas.

“Really, Ms. Cosi. Do you want to die like this?”

“No! Please!”

“Where is the evidence?”

I thought fast. If I could lure him toward the stairs…and employ some sort of distraction…

“It’s in a locked container,” I lied at last. “In the enclosed alley. Right out back.”

“Let’s go get it. Together. ”

He waved the gun, indicating that I should lead, walking in front of him. I felt my mouth go dry, my legs go weak. Adrenaline flowed through me like a hundred cups of coffee.

“Don’t you have any conscience?” I asked, trying to mentally push him off balance. “Even if you don’t care about Anabelle. How could you kill your own grandchild?”

“ Child. Not grandchild.”

“What?!”

“I have no remorse, Ms. Cosi, because Anabelle Hart had it coming. She brought it on herself.”

“What!”

“You can’t sell yourself as one thing and then turn around and expect to be bought as another.”

“I don’t understand.”

“She was a nude dancer when I first saw her. Sure, I flattered her with some jewelry and some nights at the Plaza, but that didn’t mean I bought her as anything more than a little tramp, even after she quit the nude dancing. She thought she’d found her sugar daddy to fund her little artistic delusion. Getting pregnant was a stupid calculation on her part. I don’t dance to the tunes of tramps, they dance to mine.”

“But your son? She was seeing you son. I don’t understand—”

“When I told her to get lost, she went after my son to spite me. She suckered him into a relationship to get me to pay up. But her only leverage was that pregnancy—so I got rid of it.”

“ And her. She died of her injuries!”

“That’s too bad, but like I said, she had it coming. She brought it on herself.”

My head was reeling, my mind racing. I suddenly remembered two things that Esther Best had said—that Anabelle had been arguing with her stepmother about money for a few months now…and that she’d talked to “Richard” before going to work the night she was assaulted.

All along, I had thought Richard was Richard, Junior. But it was the father. It was Richard, Senior, whom Anabelle was trying to blackmail—clearly with the help of her stepmother, who had bookmarked all those Engstum System Web sites on her laptop.

“How much did she ask for?”

“One million.”

“Oh, god…”

Engstrum was worth well over fifty times that. Suddenly, Arthur Jay Eddleman popped into my mind.

“Why didn’t you just give her some money and tell her to go away?” I said. “She was pregnant with your child after all—”

“First rule of business, Ms. Cosi, never pay more for a service than it’s worth. I had no intention of ever parting with one red cent. Now let’s get that evidence. Do not move unless I tell you. Otherwise I will shoot you.”

“Okay, okay, please don’t shoot.”

We’d come to the back door. It was chained and bolted.

“Unchain the door,” he said. “Slowly.”

I did.

“Now unbolt it.”