“Well, first I’m going to call up Solange’s maître d’ and tell him his coffee sucks.”
“Excuse me?”
I explained to Matt my idea. Actually, it was Mike Quinn’s idea, but my ex didn’t need to know that. “I’ll pitch a contract to improve Solange’s coffee service. It’s a way for me to get into Keitel’s kitchen and figure out what’s going on.”
“How are you going to pull that off, Clare?”
“Easy. I did it already for David Mintzer in the Hamptons. The restaurant should go for it. They won’t need to buy any equipment, because we have dozens of French presses stored in our basement for catering already. I can consign a portion of them to Solange for the time being. And I have more than enough roasted beans on hand to sell them for their dinner service. Tucker and Dante wanted more hours this month because they need the money, so they can take over my shifts.”
Matt sighed. “I can’t see how you’re going to convince Tommy Keitel to hire you. The man doesn’t drink coffee. I don’t think he even likes coffee.”
“That’s the beauty of it. I don’t have to convince Tommy. The man I’m going to pitch is Napoleon Dornier, the restaurant’s maître d’. He’s in charge of the front of the house. And the front takes care of the wine and beverages.”
“What about Joy?” Matt asked. “How’s she going to feel about your doing this? She might freak, accuse you of horning in on her territory.”
I frowned, hoping my daughter was more understanding than that. “She was happy to have my help last night.”
“True, and she might be happy to have you around the kitchen now that things are dicey. But still…” Matt shook his head. “Let’s keep it from her until you’re sure you can even get a contract with the restaurant. Then we can both tell her together. It’ll sound more like a business venture for the Village Blend, rather than, you know…”
“Another way for me to spy on her?”
“You’re not spying on her,” Matt gallantly pointed out. “You’re spying on everyone around her. That’s a very important distinction.”
“Thanks, Matt. I mean it.” It was a big leap for him, considering his jaundiced view of my previous forays into amateur detective work.
He nodded, rubbed his eyes. “I guess even if Joy quit her internship this morning, she’d still be a suspect on Lieutenant Salinas’s list, right?”
“Right. I have to find out how that knife got into Vinny’s neck. And to do that, I’ve got to get into Tommy Keitel’s kitchen.”
“Okay, fine, get into his kitchen,” said Matt, rising from the table. “But after hearing Joy’s little tale of falling for Keitel, I think I’ve got the man’s number.”
“What do you mean?”
“When it comes to this snooping stuff, Clare, I may not be as good as you. But as a man, I can give you one good piece of advice.”
“What’s that?”
“Stay the hell out of Tommy Keitel’s cheese cave.”
“Mooooom!”
I left the kitchen to find Joy standing at the top of the stairs. She was wrapped in a towel.
“What is it, honey?” I called. “Can’t you find the scented oils?”
“No!” she called back. “I mean, yes, I found them. I was calling you because I heard your cell phone go off—twice. Whoever’s trying to reach you, it might be important.”
“Thanks, honey!”
I bolted up the steps and grabbed my handbag off the hall table. As Joy returned to the bathroom, I ducked into the master bedroom and shut the door. My phone listed three missed calls in the last thirty minutes, all of them from Detective Mike Quinn.
Mike.
Just seeing the man’s name on my cell’s tiny screen did something to my central nervous system. I couldn’t wait to talk with him, tell him everything that had happened last night, ask him for his help and advice and support.
I was about to hit my speed dial when I saw he’d left a message. I punched the buttons and listened, eager to hear something sweet and sexy.
“Clare, it’s me, Mike…”
By now, my body’s reaction to the deep, gravelly timbre of Mike’s cop voice was Pavlovian. Like a love-struck teen, a shiver went through me. I could practically feel his arms around me again. His mouth on mine—
“I can’t imagine why you’re not picking up…Actually, with Allegro in the apartment, I can, which is what’s eating me. So, uh, look…” There was a pause, followed by an audible exhale. “I’m going to be blunt with you, Clare. I don’t think things are going in a direction I like with us, and…I’m sorry, but I need to have a talk with you. Don’t call me back when you get this. I’m going on duty, and I’ll see you later anyway. I’ll drop by the Blend this afternoon.”
“A talk…” I repeated. My legs didn’t feel so sturdy all of a sudden, and I sat down heavily on the four-poster’s mattress. First Tommy Keitel wanted “a talk” with Joy. Now Mike Quinn wanted one with me?
“‘Don’t call me back,’ huh?” Oh, hell no! I hit speed dial. Mike’s cell phone rang and rang, and then sent me to voice mail. Great. I snapped the phone shut.
“This day just keeps getting better.”
Ten
“Are you ready, Ms. Cosi?” Napoleon Dornier called from the kitchen doorway.
“Yes! Please, come in,” I replied. “Sit down.”
It was just after noon. I was dressed to kill in a conservative forest-green business suit that I’d hastily appropriated from Madame’s Valentino collection. With borrowed emerald studs in my ears, a stunning emerald necklace encircling my throat, green silk heels, and my dark brown hair smoothed into a neat French twist, I looked like a vendor worthy of pitching a four-star establishment.
I’d set up five French presses on one of the large round tables in Solange’s empty dining room. There was no lunch service today, a result of the police interviews, which had taken place all morning, according to Dornier. So the dining room’s cherrywood tables were still stripped of their white linens.
Back in the kitchen, the prep cooks were hard at work starting sauces and braising meats for dinner. The smells of a mushroom duxelles suffused the air with sautéing shallots and fresh tarragon as the leather-padded double doors swung wide on their hinges and Nappy Dornier swaggered out.
With six hours to dinner service, I wasn’t surprised to find him not in his formal evening wear but in comfortable street clothes. He looked less like a scarecrow in his loose beige khakis and untucked polo. The lime green color was a bold statement, given the bright red color of the man’s short, spiky hair, but then Dornier, with his pricey amber cat glasses, didn’t strike me as the kind of guy who was willing to fade into the woodwork.
Getting the appointment with the man had been remarkably easy. The moment I’d dropped David Mintzer’s name, Solange’s maître d’ couldn’t have been more accommodating.
“Name-dropping only matters when it serves an end,” Madame liked to remind me. “Use it stupidly, and you’ll be seen as an unctuous idiot. Use it judiciously, and you’ll go far.”
Well, so far, it had worked like a charm to get me in this restaurant’s door. But then New York was the sort of town that thrived on networking and connections. I hadn’t come to this burg with a pedigree or e-Rolodex, but over the years I’d gotten to know the customers of the Blend, and the natural relationships that developed were often very helpful.
David Mintzer, for instance, was well-known in New York as a successful and influential entrepreneur. Lucky for me, he maintained a town house in the Village and loved my espressos. That connection led to an offer to spend last summer in the Hamptons, setting up the coffee service for his newest restaurant—an experience that couldn’t have come in more handy at the moment.
“Let’s start with a Kenyan,” I told the maître d’ as he settled into a chair. Dornier was one of the city’s most accomplished and respected wine stewards, so the Kenyan Single Lot medium roast was a natural choice. I’d already coarsely ground the beans and steeped them for four minutes in the press. Now I pushed the plunger down and poured Dornier his very first sample of Village Blend coffee.