Murder by Mocha

“Okay, Tucker, what’s going on?”

“Good morning to you, too, boss.”

I grabbed a stool at the espresso bar, motioned him closer. “There really are green women in here, right?”

“Don’t worry, C.C., you’re not hallucinating.” He fluttered the back of his hand. “This is simply spillover from an open casting call at HB Studios.”

“Glad to know I’m not crazy.”

On the barstool next to me, a leanly muscled Latino man nudged me with a laugh. “Your customers are the ones who are crazy today. Crazy for a part in another ridiculous Broadway spectacle.”

I greeted Punch—dancer-singer-actor and Tuck’s current main squeeze. “Let me take a wild guess,” I said. “It’s not Stephen Sondheim.”

The two silently shook their heads.

“Somebody’s reviving The Wiz?” I tried.

“You’d think that, wouldn’t you?” Punch said. “I mean, I wish!”

“You have to understand, these are post-postmodern times,” Tucker said as if they’d been arguing about this subject. “One must either deconstruct the traditional or approach it with an innovative sequel.”

“Innovative,” Punch said, rolling his eyes. “Uh-huh.”

“So what’s the production?” I asked.

Punch smirked. “Return to Munchkin Land.”

“It’s a working title,” Tuck noted.

“Who killed my sister? Who? Who? Who? Was it you, my pretty?”

Tuck slid an espresso in front of me. “Given the events of last night, that question’s timely, you have to admit.”

I blew out air and picked up the demitasse, not wanting to admit anything. But before I could take a sip, I felt a heavy hand on my shoulder.

“Clare, we need to talk . . . now.”

My ex-husband had spoken (and in such a lovely tone of voice). I could only assume he’d found out about Franco and Joy. I closed my eyes, not yet caffeinated enough for this discussion. As he plopped onto the empty stool on the other side of me, I knocked back the espresso so fast I barely tasted it.

Tuck gawked at me. (It was not my usual way of enjoying espresso.) I met his eyes. “Another one, please. ASAP.”

“A doppio this time?”

I nodded.

Tuck glanced at Matt. “You want a double, too?”

With a grunt, my ex nodded his shaggy dark head. The length of his hair still threw me. Yesterday he had looked like a jet-lagged Musketeer. Today it was more like an Arabian pirate—a seriously hungover Arabian pirate. Twelve hours’ worth of dark stubble had sprouted around his trimmed goatee and worry lines notched the skin flanking his rum-colored eyes.

“Whatever could be on your mind?” I asked as Tuck beat if for the back of the espresso machine. (He knew when to get out of the line of fire.)

“Breanne and I tried your Mocha Magic stuff last night,” Matt said.

I cleared my throat, thanking heaven this was not about our daughter’s brilliant decision to tail a known drug dealer with a rogue cop across half the state of New Jersey.

“So?” I croaked. “Did you like the herbal product?”

“That’s precisely the issue, Clare. Your Mocha Magic is not herbal. You’re pushing a drug!”

“Keep you voice down! What’s your problem?”

“That damn Mocha Magic Coffee is my problem and yours, too. When I brought it home last night, Bree said it might make an interesting lifestyle piece in her magazine. So we talked about trying it together and . . .” He combed long fingers through his disheveled hair.

“And? What?”

“And, after two cups, we stopped talking.”

“You made love?”

“That’s a polite euphemism for what we did. We couldn’t stop. Remember, I was already juiced from the party . . .” Matt sighed. “I guess it was my fault. I kind of swept Breanne off her feet.”

“Wait a minute,” I said. “You had great sex—with your wife—and that raises red flags in your head?”

“Listen to me. Your launch party pushed this as a drink mix of coffee, cocoa, and a few herbs. Well, I don’t buy it. What exactly is in the stuff? Those individual packets don’t list the ingredients.”

“The ingredients are on the boxes—twelve packets to a box. They’re also listed in the press kit. Wait! I have one behind the counter.”

I ducked around the espresso bar for the envelope, spilled the contents on the marble top: a slick brochure, a contact sheet, and six single-serving packets. I scanned the brochure’s ingredient list.

“Okay, here we go. There’s Panax ginseng—”

“That’s just ginseng grown in Asia,” Matt said. “Why bother to stick the word Panax in there except as a cheap marketing ploy?”

“And Pausinystalia yohimbe extract—”

“Yohimbe!” Matt cried. “I smoked that crap back in high school. Everybody said it was a legal high. They were only half right.”

“I’m waiting . . .”

“It was legal.”

Punch snickered, and I realized he’d been eavesdropping.

“Okay,” I said, still reading. “What about this: yin yang huo, otherwise known as horny goat weed.”

“Excuse me?” Punch interrupted. “You’re kidding with that one, aren’t you?”

“No,” I said. “In fact, there’s a legend attached to it.”

“Really?”

I handed over the brochure, and Punch began to read aloud: “Horny goat weed’s aphrodisiac properties were first discovered when shepherds noticed their goats became amorous after they ate this herb . . .”

Tuck arrived with our double espressos. “Sounds like that legend about the origin of coffee.”

“Which is?” Punch asked.

“Goats started frolicking around in an unusually spirited manner after chewing cherries on a coffee shrub. So the goat herder sampled them.”

“Sampling coffee cherries would just wake you up,” Punch pointed out. “What’s a herder to do, all alone on a mountaintop, after trying horny goat weed?”

“Let’s not go there,” I said.

“Yes,” Tuck said. “After all, in any given countryside, there’s always a goat herder on the next hill!”

“¡Ay ay! ¡Arriba!”

While Punch and Tuck high-fived each other, Matt folded his arms. “Sorry to kill the fun, but no amount of yin yang hooey or ginseng can account for the effects Breanne and I felt last night.”

“Wait,” I said, trying not to panic. I grabbed the Mocha Magic brochure back from Punch. “There’s Passiflora extract—that’s passionflower—and damiana.”

“Clare, you’ve had damiana before.”

“I have?”

“Los Cabos, Mexico?” Matt said. “That week on the Baja Peninsula.”

“Oh, right . . .” (Joy was three. She had stayed with Matt’s mother while we took a little vacation—only there wasn’t a lot of sightseeing beyond our waterfront bedroom, not after one trip to the bar.)

“They used damiana instead of triple sec in their margaritas,” Matt reminded me. “You loved the taste. We must have sucked down a gallon.”