have considered sober.”
“That’s not all.”
“Okay. I’m still listening.”
“I think Vincent Buccelli’s death points to Brigitte, too.”
“How?”
“Tommy and Joy were using the boy’s apartment for sexual encounters.”
“Christ, Clare. What was your daughter thinking?”
“Don’t even go there.”
“Well, clearly Keitel went there. To Vinny’s apartment, I mean. And if the head chef was disappearing with the pretty intern often enough, then people probably figured out what was happening, right?”
“Yes, Mike, exactly! If Brigitte still had feelings for Tommy—maybe even hoped to become his mistress again—how would she have felt seeing him carry on an affair right under her nose with an intern half her age? It probably drove her crazy to see the two of them disappearing in the afternoons for sex. I’ll bet Tommy was even insensitive enough to tell Brigitte where she could reach him while he was gone! And…come to think of it, more than one person at the restaurant mentioned that Brigitte had it in for Vinny. She probably started picking on him when she realized he was allowing Tommy and Joy to use his apartment for their trysts!”
“Makes sense so far.”
“Well, here’s the kicker. On the night Brigitte threatened my daughter with a knife, she accused Joy of ‘undermining’ her rep with Tommy. That was the very same night that Vinny was murdered. I’m betting Brigitte cracked that night. She went out to Queens and killed Vinny, using a knife from Solange. I think she did it with the intention of framing Joy, who had a key to Vinny’s place. Or even Tommy, since she knew he went there to sleep with Joy.”
“I follow. An investigation would have eventually turned up their names. Both had access to Vinny’s apartment, and both worked at Solange, so they had access to the murder weapon.”
“I’m not saying it makes complete sense. But the woman wasn’t making a lot of sense the night I saw her ranting. If we can find her, we might get her to confess to at least one of the murders.”
“And Joy’s a suspect in Vincent Buccelli’s murder, too. Is that right?”
“She was interrogated but never charged.”
“Who’s the detective on that case?”
“Lieutenant Salinas.”
“Hold on…” I heard some shuffling of paper. “Salinas is in Queens, right? Do you remember the precinct number?”
I told him.
“Okay, Clare. You’ve got solid theories—for both murders. I’m going to give Salinas a call…”
Mike hung up, and I rose from the couch. As I stretched my achy body, I felt painful needles shoot through my arms. That’s when I noticed the nasty purple bruises where Lippert’s men had restrained me.
On a furious exhale, I headed for the kitchen and slammed together a stove-top pot of espresso. I needed the dark kick—even though I was already disturbed enough to kick furniture.
I ground the Italian roast fine, dumped the black sand into the filter, filled the lower chamber with water, screwed together the two separate parts, and banged the Moka Pot onto the gas burner.
Within minutes, liquid began to boil inside the little silver pot. At just the right moment, the water shot from the lower chamber to the upper, forcing itself through the cake of packed grounds. That’s when the stove-top espresso was born, suffusing the room with the intense aromatics of the darkly caramelized coffee beans.
I closed my eyes, and in the briefest flash of sense memory, the rich, earthy smell returned me to my childhood. I was back in my grandmother’s grocery again, watching Nana stir her pots of minestrone, mix up her homemade pastas, bake her Italian breads and cookies.
A sturdy, practical immigrant, Nana had lived a hard life, losing sisters in the Great Depression, a husband and brothers in World War II. She had what they called “the insight” and was able to read coffee grounds for the women of the neighborhood, advise them, even perform the occasional ritual to banish those cursed with the malocchio—what the old Italians called the “evil eye.”
Because my own mother had abandoned me—and my father was too busy running numbers, not to mention running around with a succession of flashy women—my grandmother was the one who made sure I was raised right.
Nana was my mother, my friend, my teacher, my shoulder to cry on, my fearless defender. Until her death, just a few months before I’d met Matt, she was the one person whom I could count on to make a bad day good again.
And now it’s your turn, Clare.
Since Joy’s arrest, my emotions had been all over the map. But dread and helplessness were no