On What Grounds

and Katz are working a fresh stabbing. So I’m doubling up on this one.” The detective checked his watch. “Guess I’ve been up about twenty-eight hours now.”

“No offense, Detective,” said Langley, “but you look it.”

“Let me make you that coffee,” I said. “I can make it upstairs, in my apartment, and bring it down so I won’t disturb anything more.”

Quinn pulled out a chair and sat down. When he did, his face fell completely and his entire body seemed to finally give in to exhaustion. “Yeah,” he said after a long exhale. “Guess I could use it while I wait for the CSU to get here. Thanks.”

“Of course,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

“Ms. Cosi?” Quinn called.

“Yes?”

“I’ll need a list of employee names and addresses—anyone who’s worked here since Anabelle started.”

“Of course, of course!”

“Look, don’t get your hopes up,” he warned as I picked up Java’s carrier and headed for the back stairs. (She’d managed to cat nap through this morning’s entire Dragnet scenario.)

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“I mean I’ll pursue this on a limited basis, but chances are it was simply an accident, so prepare yourself. If the medical evidence supports that conclusion, the girl will have a case against the store—and you’d better prepare the owner. If she dies, the family may end up owning this place.”

I didn’t respond. What was there to say? Quinn was in no shape to be argued with. I simply gritted my teeth and headed for my duplex apartment above the Blend, quietly determined to find out what had really happened here last night—with or without the help of Homicide Detective Lieutenant Quinn.

Seven

“Okay, Java, I’m breaking you out.”

On hold with St. Vincent’s, I swung open the cage door of the PetLove carrier. A pink nose and white whiskers emerged, then four coffee bean–colored paws. Java excitedly sniffed every inch of the intricately patterned area rug that covered a large square of the parquet floor.

A nurse came on the line. Anabelle had been admitted to the intensive care unit, but the nurse couldn’t tell me anything more. I sighed, hung up, and said a short prayer as Java’s soft brown fur rubbed against my leg. I bent to stroke her. She stretched, arching her back, then continued to sniff out the place.

“So what do you think of your new home?”

The mrrrrow sounded like an approval to me, but then Java always did have good taste. Madame had lived here long before real estate values in the West Village had pushed the price tag on a duplex like this one into the million-dollar range.

The gorgeous apartment was one of the big reasons I’d agreed to manage the Blend again. That and being closer to Joy. At the thought of her, I automatically dialed her cell. It rang four times and then: “You’ve reached Joy. I’m probably sautéing something right now, so leave a message!”

“Hi, Cookie, it’s me—” I tried hard to keep my voice from shaking. “Something’s happened this morning at the Blend…and…oh, you know, I just wanted to see you tonight. If you’re free, come on over for dinner. Otherwise, maybe you can stop by for a cup of java—”

“Mrrrow.”

“Not you, Java,” I said as I hung up, immediately feeling guilty. Joy was busy with culinary school in Soho and a new Manhattan social life. The last thing she needed was Mommy butting in. But after seeing Anabelle lying motionless on that cold basement floor, I knew I wouldn’t sleep tonight until I saw my daughter again.

Sighing, I took in the room. “It is something, isn’t it, Java?”

Madame had decorated the place with her romantic setting on high. The main room—with its carved rosewood and silk sofa and chairs; its Persian prayer rug in muted shades of blue, green, and coral; its cream- marble fireplace, and its French doors opening to a narrow wrought-iron balcony of flower boxes—felt more like something you’d find in a Montmartre courtyard than a Federal-style walk-up.

The walls were muted peach, the draperies ivory silk, and from the fleur-de-lys molding in the center of the ceiling hung a charming bronze pulley chandelier holding six peach-tinted globes of faceted crystal. A lyre-back antique chair stood against one wall, and in a nod to the Colonial, the cozy dining room, adjacent to the living area, had a Chippendale table with four claw-footed chairs and a mahogany and satinwood English sideboard. The upstairs had a bedroom even more worthy of sighs, along with a large luxurious marble bath and a spacious dressing room.

“Now remember, Java, no using the Persian to sharpen your claws.”

“Mrrrow!”

Tail held high, she turned her back, seemingly offended—but then she always did like to pour on the guilt. Just her way of controlling her hapless owner.

I wasn’t really worried about the rug. I kept Java’s claws pretty well trimmed as a rule, and I’d already brought over her favorite catnip-laced scratching post, which stood at the edge of the Persian to lure her away like a kitty beacon.

With lures on my mind, I headed for the kitchen to prepare the pot of coffee for Lieutenant Quinn. There were several methods to choose from. I narrowed them down to percolator, electric drip, or Melitta.

If the man was used to that awful bodega coffee, then I didn’t want to choose a method too foreign. It might turn him off. My eye caught sight of the French press on an open shelf, and I inhaled, almost painfully. Unbidden, an image came to mind of serving Quinn’s lanky form fresh-pressed Kona first thing in the morning.

“Geez, Clare, get a grip.”

Quinn was an appealing man, but he was also married, with children. And I was an absolute philistine for thinking of such a thing when Anabelle was lying in a hospital bed.

“That’s what I get for living like a nun in suburban couple-land for a decade,” I mumbled to Java, disgusted with myself. “First intriguing man near my age who gives me a compliment and I’m spinning French press bedroom scenarios. Bean choice, Clare, focus on the java—”

“Mrrrrow?”

“No, no, not you.”

“Mrrrow!”

Java didn’t give a fig about bean choice, I realized, she just wanted to be fed. I opened a box of Cat Chow, and she crunched happily as I continued my work.

“Light, medium, or dark roast?” I wondered aloud, surveying the array of tightly sealed ceramic containers on my cupboard shelf. Properly storing coffee was serious business in my house—integral to maintaining any coffee’s freshness and flavor.

Whenever I walk into a kitchen and see beans stored in a clear glass jar on the countertop, I shudder. Exposure to light will affect the beans’ freshness and the coffee will lose its flavor.

I shudder twice as violently when I see storage directions on some of those inferior grocery store coffee brands. They actually tell you to “Store your coffee in the refrigerator,” implying you should simply take the bag you just bought at the grocery, open it, and put it in the fridge to be retrieved daily. Big mistake!

When the storage bag or container is removed from a refrigerator or freezer for daily use, it exposes the coffee to moisture in the air. The container then goes back in the freezer or fridge, and the moisture condenses and ruins the coffee.

A refrigerator or freezer should be used for long-term storage only. A vacuum- sealed bag, for example, can be placed in the fridge or freezer and opened only when ready to be used. But once the bag is opened, the beans should be transferred to a proper container, and not returned to the fridge or freezer.

My customers always ask me the best storage method. I’ll tell you what I tell them—

When it comes to storing coffee, just remember these four basic points: