wish I were . . .” I glanced at Ric. On many levels, my heart went out to him. “But in this country, we don’t exact justice at the top of twenty-sixth floor balconies. And as trying as Matt can be, I’d really like his name off that Midtown detective’s ‘persons of interest’ list.”
Mike nodded. “I think you missed your calling, Cosi.”
“Is that right?”
“With your nerve, you should have been a cop, a thief, or a demolitions expert.”
“Well, I’m too moral to become a thief, I’m too old to get into the police academy, and I’ve got more interest in working with flavor profiles than plastique. Guess it’ll have to stay a hobby.”
“Case by case, then?”
With everything that had happened, it felt wrong to smile, but a part of me was glad I’d finally done something right.
“Yeah, Mike,” I said. “Like I tell my Blend trainees. ‘One customer at a time.’ ”
EPILOGUE
“WHAT’S that?” I asked Mike Quinn a week later.
It was early evening, a slow night, and Mike walked into my coffeehouse, ordering up his regular, as usual. When I put the double-tall latte on the counter, however, he pulled out an unusual looking piece of paper and dangled it right in front of my nose.
“This is a BOLO, Cosi. And it’s got your name on it, and your license plate number.”
“What is it?”
“A ‘be on the lookout’—for your red Honda.”
“It’s not a traffic summons?”
“Someone driving your car went through a dead stop red light in Brooklyn last week, sped recklessly down Court Street, refused to pull over, and evaded a police chase. So, please tell me that your car was stolen.”
“It wasn’t.”
“You’re guilty of all this?”
“I can explain.”
Mike reached behind him, pulled out his handcuffs, and slapped them down on the coffee bar. “These would be going around your wrists if I hadn’t seen this issued last week and claimed it for follow up.”
“You’re burying the violation?”
“You’re lucky you live in my precinct. I’ll talk to the Brooklyn officer who’s charging you, get him to reduce it to a traffic ticket. But I’m warning you right now, you’re going to owe me.”
“Well, I could give you free lattes for a month, but I don’t know, Mike . . .” I picked up the handcuffs. “It seems to me I could do a whole lot worse than having you use these on me.”
Mike smiled—a rare occurrence. “I told you, Cosi. You owe me. But the cuffs are Stage Five.”
“And where are we?”
He plucked the cuffs from my hands and put them back on his belt. “Stage One.”
“Which is?”
“Dinner and a movie.”
My eyes widened. It was the first real date he’d ever proposed. “When?”
“How about every Saturday night for the foreseeable future?”
I laughed. “What if there are no good movies playing?” The detective took a long, satisfying sip of his latte. “I think we’ll come up with something else to occupy our time. Don’t you?”
“Oh, sure, let’s see . . .” I scratched my head. “There’s Yahtzee, Scrabble, Crazy 8s . . .”
Mike glanced around the coffee bar. “So where’s Zorro?”
“Uptown. His girlfriend’s taken him in. Since his arm’s in a cast, she’s having a high time playing nursemaid. Believe me, he’s living like a prince. I actually think they’re getting serious . . . and speaking of serious. Any word yet from the district attorney’s office?”
Mike nodded. “No plea deal. Van Doorn’s lawyered up pretty well, and he doesn’t want to admit his guilt, so he’s going all the way to trial. But old Neils is going to have a rough time of it. We’ve got DNA evidence nailing him to Ellie’s murder, a security camera showing him leaving the V Hotel near the time of death, not to mention all those witnesses to the Halloween shooting of his wife. There’s more than enough for a conviction on something . . . Gostwick, as you know, was another story.”
“I know . . .”
In the end, Ric wasn’t a stone-cold sociopath. He may have been a serial cheater, but he didn’t really want to see his oldest friend sent up for a murder he didn’t commit. When the police played him my recording, Ric officially confessed. The DA worked out a manslaughter charge of eight years, and he would likely get out in four or less for good behavior.
As for his magic beans, they were contractually in the possession of the Village Blend. If I let Matt’s kiosks have them all, which I intended to, the Gostwick Estate Reserve Decaf would