Espresso Shot

Mike raised a sandy eyebrow. “Okay, Esther. What do you mean by that?”

I stifled a smile as she explained that kopi was the Indonesian word for “coffee,” and luwak referred to the small catlike animal from which the coffee beans were collected.

“I don’t understand,” Mike said, taking another hearty quaff from his paper cup. He looked down at me. “Coffee beans come from trees, don’t they?”

I bit my lip, met Esther’s eyes.

“He has no idea, does he?” Esther asked.

I shook my head, and she looked about ready to lose it. Then she did, literally doubling over with laughter.

“What?” Now Mike’s blue gaze was spearing me.

“The luwak is a feral, forest animal,” I explained. “It eats coffee cherries and voids them whole. The Indonesian farmers collect them, process them, and sell them as the most expensive coffee on earth: Kopi Luwak.”

Mike stared into the ten-dollar cup he’d previously been enjoying and blanched. But there was nothing wrong with the coffee! Kopi Luwak had the cup characteristics of a really good Sumatran, heavy and earthy with hints of caramel and chocolate, as well as a superlative smoothness and a unique, lingering mustiness.

His eyes met mine again. “You’re telling me this coffee came out of a cat’s—”

“The digestive tract changes the chemical composition of the bean,” I said. “See, a coffee bean’s proteins contribute to its bitterness. The luwak’s digestive process breaks down some of the proteins, making the coffee extremely smooth.”

“Kopi Luwak is its official name,” Esther said, “but some people refer to it as something else.”

“Don’t tell me,” Mike muttered.

“Cat-poop coffee!” Esther cried then cracked up again.

Now Dante, Gardner, and Tucker were laughing, too.

Mike put down his cup.

Oh, God. I should have warned him.

“You look a little green, Detective,” Dante said. “What’s wrong?”

He glanced back at me. “Too much information.”

I bit my cheek. “Didn’t you once tell me that you can never give a detective too much information?”

“Yeah, but in this one case, I would have made an exception.”

“Its okay, Mike.” I patted his shoulder. “I’ll get your usual.”

As I prepared an extra special make-it-up-to-him latte, the bell over our door jangled. A few minutes later, Mike was introducing me to the customer who’d walked in. He was a cerebral-looking, middle-aged man with a receding blond hairline, fair complexion, and a bit of a paunch under a tweedy blazer.

“This is Dr. Mel Billings, Clare. He’s a pathologist who works with the OD Squad.”

I greeted the man, made him a cappuccino, and joined both men at a cafe table. Mike turned to me. “Dr. Billings is the man who performed the autopsy on Monica Purcell.”

“Oh?”

Billings nodded, took off the half-glasses he wore on a black cord around his neck. “Mike asked me to drop by and speak with you. He thought maybe you’d have some ideas for us.”

“Okay, I’ll do my best.”

“The victim I examined didn’t die of an overdose of conventional medication. She was poisoned—and not by anything usual. An exotic batrachotoxin was used to kill her. It’s perplexed us all.”

“Me included,” Mike said. “I thought maybe you’d have a theory, Clare.”

“Me? On what? What exactly is batrachotoxin?”

“It’s a poison extracted from the skin of toxic frogs,” Billings said. “Very rare. In Colombia, natives use it against predators. An expert I spoke to in Colombia tells me that many rural farmers dose thorny trees around their land with the batrachotoxin to scare away marauding bands of FARC.”

“FARC,” I repeated. “That definitely rings a bell. Matt’s mentioned FARC to me, usually with an expletive attached. As far as I know, they’re a revolutionary group that stands opposed to Colombia’s current government. They terrorize farmers and land owners.”

“You should also know that the items in Ms. Purcell’s stomach were barely digested,” Billings said. “There was some kind of bread or muffin product made primarily of soy protein and a pulpy beverage made of wheatgrass.”

“I’m thinking Monica Purcell saw Winslow that morning,” Mike said. “The robbery went bad the night before. I’m thinking he poisoned her breakfast.”

“Her breakfast... soy and wheatgrass...”

My mind went back to the morning that Monica was poisoned. I’d been sitting in the reception area when the intern came out in a panic, telling us about finding Monica’s body. But shortly before that, Breanne’s breakfast was taken from the front desk to the company’s break room.

“Mike, the food items you’re describing in her stomach are exactly the breakfast I turned down the day Monica was found dead: a soy-protein muffin and a wheatgrass shake. The receptionist couldn’t give those items away, so she had them moved to the company’s break room. She said the breakfast was a regular daily delivery to Trend ’s offices.”

“A delivery for Monica?” Billings asked.

“No.” I met Mike’s eyes. “That breakfast was meant for Breanne Summour. She didn’t come to the office that day.”

“You witnessed the delivery?” Mike asked, leaning forward. “In the reception area?”

“I didn’t see who delivered the food. But I witnessed it taken to the break room. And I can’t believe it was Winslow who poisoned it, either. He had access to so many conventional drugs. Why would he use something so obscure?”

“The connection to Colombia is clear,” Dr. Billings noted.

“Which means we’d need to find a man from Colombia with a motive for murder,” Mike said. “Clare, what do you think? You’ve been working this case all week. Does anyone come to mind?”

Oh, my God. “Javier.”

“Who?”

“Javier Lozado. I met him at Madame’s luncheon. He’s a very dashing Colombian man, operates several coffee plantations down there. He also had a terrible past experience with Matt over a woman he loved named Louisa. Matt slept with the woman behind his back. They came to blows over it.”

“Is Javier’s grudge strong enough to commit murder?”

“He’s a proud Latin American man.” I closed my eyes.

“And he told me he used to be a commando in the Colombian army! He’d know how to stalk someone, how to shoot a gun and hit a target. My God, it was Matt’s past all along and not Breanne’s that was the key to the danger. Why didn’t I see it?”

I leaned forward in my chair, laid out the facts. “The night Hazel Boggs was murdered, Javier wasn’t at the bachelor party, which means he could have been staking out the Village Blend, waiting for Breanne to appear. When he saw the look-alike with Matt, he could have shot her for revenge—by mistake.”

Mike nodded. “Go on.”

“Javier would have discovered the next day that Breanne was still alive. So he changed tactics and used the poison. When that didn’t work, he got more brazen and simply attacked her in the restaurant’s bathroom. He certainly had the opportunity for the bathroom attack. He was at Madame’s tapas luncheon, but he left before Breanne went into the bathroom! We all thought he ran after Matt, but he could have doubled back to attack Breanne. Koa Waipuna said they all split up to find Matt, and he didn’t see Javier again for almost an hour!”

Mike nodded again, pulled out his notebook. “We need more on this man. Write down his name for me, Clare. I want his description and anything else that can ID him. Do you know where he’s staying?”