Roast Mortem

past holiday season).

Where Mike and Sully wore suits, ties, and their methodical patience on their sleeves, the younger Franco displayed cocky confidence and a street-tough attitude, with a wardrobe to match: a Yankee jacket, cowboy boots, and an in-your-face red, white, and, blue ’do rag.

Despite the guy’s bulldog approach to law enforcement, however, I did not dislike him. What concerned me was Franco’s interest in my daughter. He’d taken Joy out a number of times while she was visiting me on her last holiday break. But, thank goodness, my girl was back in Paris.

I didn’t relish the idea of Joy meeting and falling for another French line cook, which could sway her to remain in Europe indefinitely, but I was even less happy with her developing an attachment to a detective whose persona seemed to fall somewhere between Dirty Harry and Rambo.

“I can’t believe you’re working with Franco,” I said.

“Why not?” He crossed his arm. “I needed the manpower.”

“The construction site investigation?”

Mike nodded. Over the past two weeks, he’d been following up on recent OD cases, one of which had ended in death. Working closely with the DEA, he and Sully had supervised a covert investigation of a popular nightclub on the Lower East Side, near the Williamsburg Bridge, where both victims had ingested the drugs.

Unfortunately, the place came up clean. No dealing had been uncovered on the premises. Now a source claimed the selling was being done at an adjacent construction site, where someone working on the site itself was dealing recreational drugs like ecstasy and Liquid E to club-goers.

“Well...” I tried to focus on the positive. (After all, I could see where a rough-edged guy like Franco would be an asset in working an undercover operation on a construction crew. And when it came to Mike’s choice of police personnel, who was I to argue?) “I suppose it was nice of the two of them to bring over dinner, along with your car...”

“Yes, it was.”

“Unidentified Flying Chickens...” I shook my head. “A Queens restaurant with an ironic name.”

“Yeah...” Mike sat down next to me. “It’s way too Manhattan hipster for the geography.”

“Have you tried it? What do you think of it?”

Mike arched an eyebrow. “You really care?”

He was right. I didn’t. The enticing aromas were making my stomach growl and my mouth salivate. I dug into the bag. The first box I opened was stuffed with warm chicken wings. A second later, my teeth were tearing into skin crispier than a newly fried kettle chip. The caramelized taste of slow-roasted garlic hit my palate first, next came a play of sweet brown sugar, slightly tingly ginger, and under it all, a low, meaty umami base note of soy.

“Oh my God,” I garbled as I masticated.

“Good?”

“Mm, mm... mmmmm...”

Mike joined me, opening another box, which was stuffed with fried drumsticks, glistening with a sweet-and- sour glaze. A third held containers of tangy cold slaw with a hint of Chinese mustard; cubes of cold, crunchy Korean radish; and sweet potato matchsticks.

“You know, I could duplicate this,” I managed to boast around a mouthful of soy-garlic wing.

“I don’t doubt it,” Mike said, who’d swooned over my cooking more times than I could count.

“They must fry their chicken twice to get it this crispy...” I munched some more, gathering flavor and textural clues, deducing the culinary technique. “Then after they fry it, they must roll it in the sticky glaze and dry it out in a warm oven...”

“Sounds like your famous Buffalo wings.”

“Except I don’t deep-fry those, just crisp them up in a cast-iron skillet. A tempura batter might be interesting to try...” I couldn’t help channeling one of my old In the Kitchen with Clare columns. “Home cooks tend to use all- purpose flour because it’s always in the pantry, but cake flour is the best way to go for frying batters, even for beer-battered onion rings, because it’s lower in gluten.”

“Well, sweetheart, the day you want to experiment, give me a call. I’ll be happy to help with the taste testing.”

“I’ve noticed you’re always available for that.”

“I’m always available for a lot of things.” He threw me his best leering wink. I laughed and leaned back on the sofa, grateful my bike pants had an expanding waistband. “Man, I really needed that...”

Mike reached out with a paper napkin, gently wiped at a ruby smear along my cheek. “I’m guessing you liked it...”

I did the same for him, rubbing at a smudge on his chin. “I’d say your man Sully’s a good guy to trust.”

“So am I,” Mike said. Then he leaned in and moved his mouth over mine.

That tasted even better.

Mike’s mouth was sweet and slightly sticky from the chicken glaze, and (frankly) I would have been happy to gorge myself on nothing but him for the rest of the night. But, after a few blissful minutes, I was the one who broke contact.

“I’m sorry, Mike...” I softly pushed on his hard chest. “I’d like to talk a little more...”

Twelve

As we broke contact, I saw the disappointment in Mike’s eyes. I didn’t blame him. I needed to talk, and that’s not what he needed.

“Everything you did tonight was wonderful,” I quickly reassured him, “coming to the hospital, helping with Mrs. Quadrelli, driving us home, arranging the food...”

But I wanted one more thing from Mike Quinn: answers about his cousin. And if the lip-lock went on any longer, I wouldn’t care about getting them — or anything else apart from the two of us upstairs on my mahogany four-poster.

Mike studied my face. “It’s okay,” he finally said. “I’m always glad to help...”

He leaned back on the sofa, stretched an arm across the back, gestured for me to move closer. I did, leaning into him.

“I have to admit,” he said, gazing at the crackling hearth, “it was nice seeing you with a satisfied expression again. The way you were choking down that vending machine coffee back at the hospital...” He shook his head. “I had to bite my tongue to keep from cracking up.”

“You had to bite your tongue? I thought I was going to lose it when Mrs. Quadrelli went on about Gustave Flaubert styling her hair.”

“Yeah, old Gustave’s probably some poor kid from Brooklyn named Gus Flabberson.”

“Par for the course on the hustle-a-buck schemes that go on in this town.”

“I thought I’d heard every alias in the book,” Mike said. “Jacking the name of Madame Bovary’s author is more creative than some.”

“I’m betting Gustave’s boss has an entire list of famous French author names ready to go.”

“So you think he’s got Stendhal doing the shampooing and Balzac on the register?”

“No,” I said. “If the man knows his French writers, Dumas is on the register and Stendhal’s in charge of color. Balzac belongs with the stylists.”

Mike laughed. “I actually do follow you, you know?”

“Oh? You mean not all cops are jarheads?”

“Naw. We only look like a paramilitary organization.”

I smiled. “Well, I’m not in a position to throw stones. I used a false identity to get in to see Enzo.”

“And you got some good information, too.”

“You think so?”

“Like I told you earlier,” he said, “call that fire marshal first thing in the morning. Tell him everything...”

The list of suspects wasn’t small, but I’d gathered good leads. Only one thing still troubled me: “I can’t stop