Holiday Grind

Still flat on my back in the snow, I felt an icy clammi ness creeping over me. Slush was trickling down the back of my parka, and I tried to sit up. Officer Langley gently restrained me.

“Don’t move, Ms. Cosi. An ambulance is on the way.”

“You’re kidding, right? ’Cause I’m freezing down here!” I sat up—then clutched my ribs. “Ouch.” I moaned.

“You shouldn’t move until the paramedics check you out,” Langley said. But I refused to remain on the frigid ground any longer, and the young cop gave up trying to fight me.

With a sigh of defeat, Langley helped me up. Loose strands of my shoulder-length hair were hanging in my face. As I brushed them away, a wind blast knifed through the courtyard. I groaned from the cold and noticed Langley shiver as he spoke into his police radio. Under his uniform’s hat, the man’s fair complexion blanched pastier than an albino thrown into a meat locker. After this long in the cold, I figured my own olive skin tone had gone nearly as pale.

Teeth close to chattering, I flipped up my hood and asked, “What happened?”

“We were chasing a suspect, Ms. Cosi. You got in the way.”

“Oh my God!” I cried, my chill suddenly forgotten. “You saw the killer? Did you catch him? Did he tell you why he shot poor Alf?”

Confused, the officer gave me a sidelong glance. “There’s no killer, Ms. Cosi. Just a mugger. We were chasing a purse snatcher, that’s all, and—”

“Langley!”

The deep, harsh call came from the side of the building where I’d found Alf’s body.

“Where the hell is he? Langley!”

We moved across the courtyard and up to the mouth of the alley. My eyes widened at the small army of police and crime-scene officers now gathering around Alf’s corpse. Two uniformed men began spooling out a roll of yellow police tape to cordon off the area around the metal Dumpster.

“Yo! Langley,” the man called again.

“Over here, Detective!” Langley waved.

A male figure broke away from the pack and moved toward us up the alley. “Give me the rundown,” he demanded from the shadows.

“Me and Demetrios heard a scream on Perry Street,” Langley explained. “A woman was being robbed. We pursued the perpetrator through that alley over there.” He gestured to the other side of the courtyard. “The perp fled through this yard, where he ran down Ms. Cosi here. I stopped to help her while Demetrios continued the chase with officers Wu and Gomez, also from the Sixth—”

“Those guys are after a shooter, Langley,” the detective said, still veiled by the darkness. “We got a DOA by the Dumpster over there.”

Langley tensed and exchanged a glance with me.

That’s when the detective finally stepped out of the shadows. Most detectives I’d met wore suits, ties, and overcoats. This guy wore cowboy boots and a Yankees jacket, and his head was covered by a red, white, and blue bandanna—an urban fashion statement my shaved-headed barista, Dante, once informed me was a “do-rag.”

“Some female called the dead guy in, then took a hike,” the detective said.

“Excuse me,” I interrupted, “but that female would be me.”

The detective appraised me with eyes as cold and gray as the dimly lit snow. I returned the courtesy.

The man was average height—which is to say at least seven inches taller then my five two—early thirties, maybe a little older. His skin was dusky, his features betraying a mixed heritage of what might have been Hispanic, Italian, and possibly Russian; in other words, a typical New Yorker. With one gloveless hand, he scratched his chin’s dark brown stubble.

“You know this woman, Langley?” he said, shoving a square of nicotine gum between his lips.

Langley nodded. “She manages the Village Blend on Hudson.”

“So you’re that coffee lady I’ve heard about,” the detective said, working his jaw. “Never been in your place. My drink’s Red Bull.”

“My name is Clare Cosi,” I replied.

“And you found jolly old St. Stiff over there?”

“His name’s Glockner, Alfred Glockner.”

The detective paused a moment and studied me again. “You knew the victim?”

I nodded.

“Sorry.” He glanced away then back again. “I didn’t realize you knew him. Sorry for your loss.” His tone was sincere—or at least he’d blunted its street edge enough to make it sound that way. “Did you witness anything suspicious, Mrs. Cosi? Hear a shot? See the man who mugged your friend—”

“It’s Ms. Cosi, Detective—what’s your name?”

“Franco. Sergeant Emmanuel Franco.”

“Well, I’m not so sure he was mugged, Sergeant Franco. Or if he was, I’m not so sure something else wasn’t happening, too—”

“Excuse me?”

“I’d like you to look at these footprints I found in the snow—”

“Why didn’t you stay close to the victim like the 911 operator asked?” Franco continued as if I hadn’t spoken at all.

“I’m trying to tell you. After I found the body, I followed Alf Glockner’s boot prints, and I’m thinking it doesn’t add up to a mugging.”

Sergeant Franco glanced around the snow. “What prints are you talking about?”

“Follow me. They’re right over here—”

It was still snowing as I led Franco and Langley into the center of the courtyard, but the heavy downfall had once again tapered off into light flurries. I pushed back the hood of my white parka in order to see better. It didn’t help.

“Where are they?” the detective asked.

“They were right here.”

Officer Langley scanned the ground with his flashlight, but the clean trail of prints I’d followed had been obliterated by the mugger, the policemen chasing him, even Langley when he’d stopped to help me.

“Do you see any evidence of the victims’ footprints here, Officer Langley?” Franco asked evenly.

“No, Sergeant,” Langley replied. “Sorry, Ms. Cosi.”

Franco shifted his attention to me. “What is it you think you saw, Coffee Lady?”

“I didn’t think I saw anything. There were footprints here. Alf’s prints. I saw them. It looked to me like he pulled that wooden crate over to those garbage bins—” I pointed. “Then I’m deducing he climbed them to get onto the fire escape for some reason.”

Franco exchanged a glance with Langley. “So it’s St. Nick the Cat Burglar, now?” he said. His expression remained neutral, but his tone was obviously flip.

“Just look for yourself,” I said tightly.

Franco held my gaze a moment, saw that my glare was dead serious, and, with a sigh of obvious male annoyance, flipped on his flashlight. He walked over to the crate and examined the box and the ground. He took a long look at the bins and finally the fire escape above them. As he walked back to me and Langley, an electronically garbled voice interrupted us. Franco lifted his radio to his ear, listened for a moment, and cursed a blue streak. Finally, he turned to Langley.

“Four of you in pursuit and you still manage to lose that perp!”

Langley sheepishly shrugged.

“Fine. You and your partner can do some overtime.” He shook his head. “Me and Charlie aren’t going to be the only ones bracing local skells all night to find an ‘armed and dangerous’ stupid enough to actually pull the trigger—”

“Excuse me, Sergeant, but what makes you think the mugger these men were pursuing is the same person who killed Alf? I found Alf’s body before the mugger ran through here.”