Roast Mortem

He physically forced me to lie with my face in that vent for fresh outside air...”

Madame’s voice trailed off as her eyes filled with tears. “And now he’s in the ICU... he’s in there for one reason, Clare, because he did everything he could to make sure I wouldn’t be...”

I fell silent as Madame composed herself. I grabbed some tissues, handed them to her, one after another. Finally, she wiped her cheeks.

“Thank God those two young men came down when they did to carry us out... When they told me you were all right, I nearly fainted. I was so worried about you, Clare... You’d gone up there to the caffè to let Dante in, and we didn’t know what had happened...”

We hugged again and I sat down on the edge of her stretcher. Madame grasped my arm, looked into my eyes. “Who do you think set that bomb? An enemy of Enzo’s? Someone with a vendetta?”

“I think it was someone who had something to gain.”

“Gain?” Madame frowned. “You’re not suggesting Enzo did this?”

“No,” I said, thinking not anymore. “Enzo put himself in the ICU to save you. That doesn’t add up to a snake-blooded arsonist.”

“Then who?”

Madame’s big, blue-violet eyes were fixed on me. She wasn’t making the leap. Because she doesn’t want to...

“I need to speak to Enzo,” I said carefully. “I need to find out more about...”

“About?” she prompted.

“I just need to speak with him.”

“We’ll do it together!” Madame announced so loudly the men next to us quieted again.

“Madame, please — ”

“If someone deliberately set fire to that beautiful caffè and put all of our lives in danger, we are not going to let that bastard get away with it! Are we, Clare?”

“No, of course not, but please calm down...” Not only wasn’t the woman calming down, she wasn’t staying down. “Please. Don’t tax your system — ”

“What’s going on here?” A middle-aged nurse with iron-gray hair instantly materialized. “Where are you going, Mrs. Dubois? You haven’t been released yet.”

“But I need to speak with my friend — ”

“What you need to do is get your butt back on that stretcher — ”

Madame shook her head.

I took firm hold of her upper arms. “Madame, think. Enzo is in the ICU. They’re not going to let us both in there at the same time, and they’re certainly not going to let in another patient.”

I felt her muscles relax under my hands. She stopped fighting

“Yes. Of course, of course... you’re right, dear.”

“It’s okay,” I told the nurse. “She’s not going anywhere.”

The nurse nodded and hustled away.

“Now rest, okay?” I kept my voice pleasant as I helped Madame return to her hospital sheets, but I really wanted to kick myself. I’d brought up the arsonist to relieve the woman’s guilt, not give her a heart attack, too. “Why don’t you pass the time by talking to Mr. Dog Dare again?”

I pulled back the curtain to her left.

“Bourbon steak?” Diggy sang in greeting.

“When I come back,” I promised.

“Clare,” Madame called as I turned to go. “Tell me. Who do you think set that bomb?”

Enzo’s bratty little witch of a daughter, who else? And I didn’t think she did it alone. But was Glenn her accomplice? Or someone else? How many other lapdog beaus did that woman have on a leash?

I wanted to tell Madame what I thought and what I was beginning to fear — if Lucia had been ruthless enough to torch her father’s caffè, what other crimes would she be capable of committing? Would she harm her own father to get her hands on her inheritance faster? Was she capable of setting him up for an “accident”? Poisoning him?

I needed to know more before I started accusing anyone, even through speculation, and as Mike had warned me outside, this was not the time or the place. So my reply to Madame was —

“I have a few people in mind.”

“Who?”

“I’ll let you know.”

I took off fast after that, to avoid any further questions. But after just three steps, I stopped dead.

On the other side of the partitioning curtain, a big man stood, ear cocked against the snowy fabric.

“Oat?”

Lieutenant Oat Crowley had been listening to every word we’d said. Propped up on the stretcher next to him was Ronny Shaw, the firefighter who’d landed in here thanks to a chunk of ceiling.

Crowley and I stood staring at each other. His craggy, roundish face betrayed a mix of embarrassment and annoyance. Finally, beneath the slightly shaggy crown of his oatmeal-colored hair, the man’s features hardened into an iron mask. His eyes narrowed like a shooter’s gun sight, and I was in his crosshairs.

Crowley opened his mouth to address me, but considering our surroundings and the amount of ears and eyes so close, he appeared to be hamstrung.

Now what?

The lieutenant had shot me some pretty nasty looks outside, as if I’d been the sole cause of the animosity between the Quinn cousins, which was patently ridiculous. Their feud had been going on for years before I’d known either one of them. Still, showing weakness to Crowley would be a mistake (I’d learned a thing or two from Madame by now), and I boldly stepped up to the man.

“Hello,” I said.

“Ms. Cosi.” The words were more statement than greeting.

“How is your friend doing?”

“Who’s this?” Ronny asked from his stretcher, looking a little dazed.

“Nobody,” Crowley answered, then stepped toward me — and kept on stepping. He danced me backward, right out of Ronny’s designated ER rectangle. “He’s going to be fine, Ms. Cosi. How’s your old lady?”

“My employer is doing all right, considering...”

“Considering what?”

“Considering someone tried to murder her.”

Crowley stopped dancing me backward. “You ought to be careful what you say in a public place.”

“Maybe.” I folded my arms, finally standing my ground. “But what do you care? You must put out dozens of fires in any given year — ”

“Hundreds.”

“Exactly. You’ll have another fire tomorrow, maybe two. More next week. So what do you care what anyone says about any one of them?”

“I don’t.”

I studied the man’s eyes. You do. You do care. Why? I opened my mouth to ask, but Crowley spoke first, his voice so low even I could barely hear him.

“Steer clear of this, missy. For your own good.”

“Why? What do you know?”

“I don’t know a thing,” Crowley said. Then he spun around, walked back to his buddy’s bedside, and closed the curtain on our conversation.

Eight