Through The Grinder

happy with the course of the investigation.

“You searched her apartment?” I repeated softly, pausing before I rinsed out the filter.

Quinn nodded.

“What do you think?”

Quinn took another sip of his latte.

Before he could say more — and, knowing Quinn, he certainly wouldn’t have said much more anyway — he was distracted by the increasing volume of the conversation at the table I’d just left.

“…and the Post reports at the end of the article that she was just promoted,” said Tucker.

“Where did she work?” asked Joy.

“According to the Post…Triumph Travel,” said Tucker, examining the page.

“Triumph has a lot of contracts around the city,” noted Kira. “They specialize in booking business trips for CEO-level execs.”

“Really?” said Tucker, skimming the page, then looking at another paper. “How do you know that, Kira? Nobody mentions it.”

Kira shrugged. “Easy, Tucker. I’m a genius.”

“Why would she kill herself, do you think?” asked Joy.

“Why does anybody kill themselves,” said Esther with a shrug. “Love.”

“Love?” said Tucker. “And this from you, our Goddess of the Jaded?”

“It’s only, like, monumentally embedded in our literary history,” Esther said. “Don’t you know that?”

Tucker rolled his eyes, then loudly cleared his throat and clapped his hands. “People! People! I have a question — ”

I tensed as the entire coffeehouse of customers looked up.

Esther should have known better. As an NYU English major, she liked to display her literary attitude on her sleeve (such as her frequently announced reason for working here — Voltaire and Balzac both supposedly drank over forty cups of Joe a day). But to imply that Tucker, a playwright and actor, wasn’t acutely aware of the myriad causes of human angst was practically daring him to make a scene.

“Show of hands please!” shouted Tucker. “Who in this room can trace their pain to (A) their parents? (B) Events that happened in the school or peer arena? (C) Genetics?”

The customers blinked and stared.

“I trace my pain to my bad mattress.”

The place erupted in peels of laughter.

Tucker turned and gave a little bow to the woman who’d made the quip — a strikingly elegant brunette standing by the front door in a gorgeous floor-length shearling.

Like Valerie Lathem, I’d seen Shearling Lady a few times before, but I’d never gotten to know her by name. Tucker took her order as she approached the counter.

“I don’t care what you think,” Esther called to Tucker. “I still say it was love.”

“Word,” said Joy. “Someone might have broken her heart.”

Oh god. My daughter had finally mentioned the subject of broken hearts.

“A guy just dumped me,” Joy told Esther rather matter-of-factly.

Now I was really tensing.

“If I had loved him, I think it would have been really devastating.”

I sighed with extreme relief, grateful to hear that Mario Forte hadn’t caused my girl any real pain.

With her cute heart-shaped face, bouncy chestnut hair, and equally bouncy personality, my daughter had gone on her share of dates in high school, but she had yet to fall — really fall — in love.

As a woman, I certainly did want Joy to experience the exhilaration Juliet felt for Romeo. But as a mother and ex-wife, I was acutely aware of that character’s completely screwed position at curtain’s close — so you’ll have to excuse my being profoundly happy that my daughter had just announced she had not in fact experienced the L word.

“What if it was a lack of love — lovelessness,” suggested Tucker as he coated the bottom of a cup with chocolate syrup for Shearling Lady’s Café Mocha.

“What are you implying?” I asked. “That Valerie Lathem was so lonely she leaped in front of the Broadway line?”

“Not having a man is a pretty common issue for women in this town, you must admit,” said Tucker. He added a shot of espresso, splashed in steamed milk, then stirred the liquid to bring the chocolate syrup up.

I frowned.

“He’s right,” said Shearling Lady. “According to the latest Census figures, there are four hundred thousand single women in New York City between thirty-five and forty-four, compared to three hundred thousand in a traditional marriage. And there are three times as many divorced women in the city as men.”

“I have more bad news,” said Tucker. “Désolé. Not all of those men are straight.”

Shearling Lady’s perfectly shaped raven eyebrow rose. “Neither are all the women.”

I took a closer look at Shearling Lady, wondering whether she were gay, too. Mid-forties was my guess. Her short raven hair, a rich black color with reddish highlights, was cut in the kind of trendy, feathery style I’d only seen on models. Her makeup was flawless. I was dying to ask where she’d gotten the coppery lipstick with a matte finish that perfectly set off the cream of her complexion — but I didn’t bother. I could tell by the coat and the hair that I probably wouldn’t be able to afford it, anyway.

“What are you? A Census taker?” Tucker asked the woman.

Shearling Lady smiled and shook her head. “Just a lawyer with a good head for stats. And recently divorced myself.”

That explained the money. Obviously, she was a highly successful lawyer. It also explained why she’d moved to the Village. Same reason as me — to start over, whether with a man or a woman. For my part, there was no wondering. Men were my cup o’ tea…as long as they were coffee lovers.

“I’m Clare Cosi,” I said, extending my hand. “Thanks for patronizing us.”

“Winslet’s the name,” said the woman. “Just call me Winnie.”

“You know what I think?” said Kira from her table. “A good cup of coffee is better than any man…it’s warm, satisfying, and stimulating. And it won’t cheat on you.”

“Amen,” said Winnie.

Tucker finished the Café Mocha with a dollop of whipped cream, shaved chocolate, and cocoa powder.

“Girls,” he said, handing Winnie her drink. “You’ve got it all wrong. A good man may be hard to find, but a hard man is definitely the best find of all.”

I smiled. Detective Quinn didn’t.

“Clare,” he said, quietly motioning me over as the coffeehouse conversations continued.

“Another?” I asked, seeing him hold up his nearly empty cup.

“Do you have anything stronger?”

I smiled. “You want a Speed Ball?”

Quinn choked on his last sip of latte. “You got heroin back there?”

I laughed. “Our Speed Ball is a grande house blend with two shots of espresso. It’s like a Boilermaker with coffee instead of beer and whiskey.”

“Speed Ball,” he muttered. “And I thought I’d encountered every street drug alias there was back when I was in uniform.”

“You want?” I asked.

“Set it up,” he said, and I did.

“You know, the same basic mix is called a Red Eye in L.A.,” I told him as I pulled the espressos. “I’ve also heard it called a Depth Charge, a Shot in the Dark, and a Café M.F.”

“Thanks for the street-slang briefing, Captain.”

“No sweat, Detective. And don’t forget” — I handed him the Speed Ball — “this drug’s legal.”

He took a healthy hit and his eyes widened. “Maybe it shouldn’t be.”