Latte Trouble

drank, was actually intended for Lottie Harmon, the jewelry designer who hosted this party.”

Hutawa stared at me in silence.

“If you’re looking for a motive, I suggest that maybe you should have a talk with Lottie.”

“That’s what you suggest, eh?” He dropped his notebook, folded his hands and stared at me. “So what do you suggest I ask this woman, Ms. Cosi? Should I ask her why a barista at the Village Blend was trying to poison her?”

“For heaven’s sake, Tucker had nothing to do with the poison in that drink—if there even was poison. If someone was intent on murder, then Tucker was as much a victim as Ricky Flatt.”

Detective Hutawa snorted. “Look, Ms. Cosi. Police work in this city is no noodle-salad picnic, and the worst part of this job is that I hear the same prevarications every day—nothing but lies and excuses.” The detective sighed. His shoulders drooped as if the weight of the world were slowly crushing them. “‘No, no, it wasn’t me, Detective, it was somebody else who looked just like me that pulled the trigger.’ Or ‘I had to kill him, man, because he screwed me in a drug deal or has evil eyes and an R in his name.’”

Hutawa paused, shook his head. “So please, Ms. Cosi, spare me the homilies. I understand the urge to protect your employee and your business interests, but don’t try to divert my attention away from the real focus of this investigation. The victim is Ricky Flatt, not this…this Lottie Harmon. And like it or not, your coffee brewer —”

“Barista.”

Hutawa grunted. “Whatever you want to call him, he’s admitted he made the fatal drink.”

“That doesn’t mean someone else didn’t poison the latte after he made it,” I countered, realizing, after the words were out, how unlikely that scenario would sound to a hardened police investigator.

But Hutawa sat back, folded his arms, and let me talk on.

“Listen, detective, I know that Tucker’s no killer. He’s one of the gentlest souls I’ve ever met. Why, Tuck even tried to help Ricky, he began to administer CPR—”

But Detective Hutawa had heard enough. “We’re through here, Ms. Cosi. If you don’t mind, I’m going to use your office for a while. Tell the rest of your staff to come up here—and please don’t attempt to concoct some phony story with the others because it will become apparent to me. It will only serve to insult my intelligence, and I don’t like to be insulted.”

Hutawa and Starkey had already made up their dual minds. To them, the case was clear. Tucker was guilty of murder. Obviously, the two detectives were only interested in building a case against him. And no doubt, the crime scene people were also working toward that same goal.

After Hutawa dismissed me, I found Esther and Moira waiting for me at the bottom of the stairs. “He wants to talk to you two next,” I said. Esther frowned, Moira paled as I sent them on their way.

When I returned to the coffee bar, I got a nasty surprise. While Hutawa was grilling me, the folks from the Crime Scene Unit had wrecked the entire area. They’d emptied the refrigerator, the coffee urns, and the cupboards. They’d dismantled the espresso machine, rifled the pantry, and even searched through the loose beans in the coffee bins. They had bagged up the garbage beneath the counter—wet coffee grounds and disposable filters mostly, since we weren’t using our usual paper cups for the private party.

All this was done, I supposed, in an effort to locate the source of the poison and confirm that no more of it existed. Of course, that was only a guess on my part, because none of the crime scene investigators would tell me a thing—or even acknowledge that I was speaking to them when I politely asked when I could have my coffeehouse back.

Their silence was beyond disturbing, so I drifted to the fireplace and, with all the chairs and tables moved out for the party, simply slumped down on the wood plank floor. I scanned the room for Matteo, hoping for a sturdy shoulder to lean on, but he was gone—either he’d given his statement to the police and escaped, or he’d shown even more attitude than me to one of the detectives and had been hauled off to jail. I doubted this, however, since I noted that Breanne Summour was also missing (gee, what a coincidence). Had they left together? Is there caffeine in espresso?

Someone else was also missing from the scene. While I was being questioned, Ricky Flatt’s corpse had been carried off to the morgue—only the yellow tape outline on the floor remained to mark the place where the medical examiner had pronounced him dead.

The partygoers were mostly gone, too. I leaned my back against the cold, brick wall. Next to me, the fireplace sputtered with dying flames. I closed my eyes, lamenting the state of my coffee bar and poor Lottie Harmon’s roll-out bash, and attempted to mentally process my gentle friend being forcefully hauled away in handcuffs.

Yet the crime, and the charges, didn’t make any logical sense—maybe they did to the police detectives, but they certainly didn’t to me. I knew Tucker, and I knew he was incapable of murder. Which meant somebody else at this party had to be.

There was no way cyanide could have been placed in any of the ingredients before the start of the party—the milk, the caramel-chocolate syrup, or the coffee beans. If that had been the case, then many more guests would have become ill than simply the two who’d downed Lottie’s drink. Someone had to have placed the poison in the drink right before it was served.

He or she must have been in the vicinity of the coffee bar before Tucker picked up that tray to serve Lottie. I tried to recall who was at or near the coffee bar around the time of the incident. Tucker, of course. Esther and Moira. And I was there…on and off, until I’d had to descend to the basement steps for soy milk—for Lloyd Newhaven. Okay, so Lloyd was there. And Lottie’s partners, Tad and Rena. Others were close by when I’d left the area for the basement, and almost anyone could have stepped up to the coffee bar and dropped something in that glass mug. The only reason Tucker had taken it himself was because the models had all been busy serving.

I would have to quiz Moira and Esther on who else might have swooped in during that time. But, as I saw it, the first step in clearing Tucker of a murder charge would be to prove that Lottie, and not Ricky Flatt, had been the killer’s intended target. And that brought me back to the question of why? I could almost hear Mike Quinn’s voice coaching me….

Who would want Lottie Harmon dead? Who would gain from her murder?

And those questions led me to another—what did I really know about Lottie Harmon anyway?

Six

I’d met Lottie about a year before, when I’d first returned to managing the Blend after a decade of suburban single motherhood. Madame had arrived one afternoon with Lottie, the two chatting and laughing as they breezed through the coffeehouse door.

“Clare, dear, I’d like you to meet an old friend and a former light of the fashion world,” Madame had chirped.

I shook Lottie’s hand. “Model?” I asked since, at over fifty, Lottie appeared tall and slim enough to have been one, and with her bold scarlet-dyed hair she obviously didn’t mind attention.

“Model? Clare, surely you jest!” Madame chided. “You don’t recall Lottie Harmon accessories? Her brand name was magic.”

“Was being the key word,” said Lottie with a laugh. “Once upon a time, back in the early 1980s.”

I thought Lottie’s comment was funny and self-deprecating, but her laugh made me cringe slightly. It didn’t sound as tossed off as the remark—in fact, it sound strained, high-pitched, forced.

“Lottie was the creator of Spangles,” Madame reminded me. “You must remember some of those popular pieces like the Spangle tie-bar? She sold millions.”

I nodded vigorously as my mind raced back over twenty years to big hair, shoulder pads, skinny neckties, Flashdance legwarmers, and New Wave music. “Lottie Harmon Spangles! Of course!”

Spangles jewelry had been a fashion trend used by every glam rocker and drooling fan. David Bowie, Prince,