Through The Grinder

Breakfast Blend.

“Whip me up another one, Mr. Barista,” said Kira, waving her own empty cup. “Nice to know my addiction will keep me from slashing my wrists.”

Esther wasn’t convinced yet. “Valerie and Inga were both coffee drinkers, and they both killed themselves.”

“The study said one-third less likely to commit suicide, not one hundred percent,” noted Winnie. “Nothing is one hundred percent in life. Except that more than half the women who come to this town looking for fulfillment through a man or a career will end up disappointed.”

Winnie was starting to sound like Esther now — whose philosophy could probably be summed up in one phrase: Expect the worst and you won’t be disappointed.

As the tide of conversation in the Blend was getting more and more grim, I actually welcomed the fresh blast of cold air that heralded the arrival of a new customer.

I looked up to see Mike Quinn standing at my counter. It was good to see him there. It had been so long, I was starting to give up hope of ever seeing him again.

The police detective had obviously been on hard duty for quite a while. He looked haggard, his iron jaw displaying the stubble of a dark blonde beard that was substantially more than a five o’clock shadow. His lean cheeks looked wind burned and his overcoat appeared in need of a good cleaning.

“Can I speak to you?” Quinn asked in a voice of dry ice.

“Sure,” I said, turning to fix his usual latte. I figured we could chat while I whipped it up.

When he said, “NOW,” I froze.

Quinn wasn’t the most charming guy I’d ever met, but he was usually polite — at the very least, civil. Obviously, the man’s nerves were raw.

I turned back to face him. “Go ahead. I’m listening,” I said.

He glanced from me to Esther and Tucker, whose gazes were now glued to him.

“We need to speak somewhere more private,” he said, his voice suddenly calmer.

I nodded. “My office. Just give me a minute.”

I crossed to the coffee urn and filled two grande-size paper cups with piping hot Breakfast Blend.

I felt Esther’s and Tucker’s eyes on my back, and Kira’s and Winnie’s, too. Mercifully, the other customers were either seated too far away to have heard Quinn’s remark or simply had no interest.

“Follow me,” I told the detective, and made a beeline for the back service staircase and my second floor office. Quinn’s heavy shoes fell right behind.

Twelve

As we entered my small, utilitarian office, I thrust a cup into Quinn’s hand.

“Have a seat and drink this,” I said.

The store’s safe was here, along with a somewhat battered wooden desk, a computer, and files of our employee and general business paperwork.

He slumped into the easy chair next to my desk and held the cup under his nose. The aroma slightly eased his grim expression, and after he sipped I could see the full-bodied brew wash some of the tension out of his wind- burned face.

“This is good,” he said.

“It’s a medium brown roast in the West Coast style, but we use a nice blend of Indonesian and Costa Rican.” I set my own cup on the desk, untied my blue apron, and hung it on a hook on the back of the door. “You get a fruit-toned complexity from the Indonesian, and a nice resonance from the less subtle Latin American bean, with just the right amount of dry acidity. In my opinion, most breakfast blends are bitter and dry. But not ours.”

“Right.”

I closed the door, then smoothed my khaki slacks, adjusted my pink long-sleeved jersey, and sat down in the desk chair. “Too much information?”

He raised an eyebrow. “In my opinion, you can never give a detective too much information.”

I raised my own eyebrow. “Then you should also know we change the blend every year — mainly because the Indonesian beans tend to be inconsistent from season to season due to the old fashioned way they’re processed.”

Quinn took another sip and sat back. “Ah, the vagaries of international agriculture.”

I sampled my own cup and we sat quietly for a moment.

“I didn’t mean to be short with you downstairs,” he said.

“It’s okay. You look like hell. I gather you were over near the West Tenth accident this morning?”

Quinn’s face froze in mid-yawn. “And you know that how?”

“Esther Best, one of my part-timers, lives on that street. She got here a little while ago and told us what happened.”

“I’d like to talk to her,” Quinn said. “Find out if she saw or heard anything.”

“She didn’t,” I replied. “Just the gory aftermath. Has her pretty rattled, though.”

“Yeah. Me too.” Quinn sighed as he rubbed the back of his neck.

“I didn’t know you investigated traffic accidents.”

“I don’t. This morning’s ‘accident’ was a homicide.”

I stiffened. The idea of someone being crushed accidentally under the wheels of a ten ton sanitation truck was bad enough — hearing Quinn confirm it was no accident gave me an unnatural chill.

“You’re sure?” I asked.

Quinn nodded. “We have two witnesses. The assistant manager at a nearby bar came in early to clean up. Heard a woman scream the word ‘no’ and glanced out the window just in time to see Ms. McNeil fall under the truck’s wheels.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “Did you say McNeil?”

Quinn reached into his pocket and drew out a dog-eared leather-covered rectangular note pad.

“Sally McNeil, a.k.a. ‘Sahara’ McNeil. West Tenth Street, apartment number — ”

“I know the name,” I said.

Quinn closed his pad. “You want to tell me how you know her? Regular customer?”

“Yes, I’ve seen her here before, but it was more than that. She came here last Saturday night for our Cappuccino Connection.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

“You see her leave alone.”

“No. She left with a…mutual friend.”

Quinn sat up. “Male or female?”

“A man,” I replied. “An old college friend of hers…I understand.”

“His name?”

“Bruce Bowman. But I don’t think — ”

It was Quinn’s turn to blink. “You know Bruce Bowman?” His tone was even but his eyes were hard. I suddenly felt like one of his collars sitting under an interrogation room spotlight.

“I just met him…during this last Cappuccino Connection,” I stammered, smoothing my khaki slacks compulsively now.

“Did you meet Bowman professionally, as the manager of this place?”

“Well, actually, I participated in the Cappuccino thing, too…just because, you know, Joy wanted to do it and I wanted to screen the men who’d signed up…screen them for my daughter, but then — ”

“But then you made a date with Bowman yourself?”

Though Quinn was wearing his detective hat, his questions were getting far too personal.

“The Cappuccino Connection is just a neighborhood social introduction group,” I told him defensively. “It’s run by a local church. Bruce Bowman was there, Joy was there, too. And everybody meets everybody for a couple of