Matt shrugged. “Alicia doesn’t seem to think it’s so urgent. She said she’s putting it off until the morning. She’s a lot more upset about what Gudrun Voss did to her product. And so am I.”
“What happened up there?”
He smiled down at me. “Score.”
“You got through to her?”
“Alicia drank a single cup of the Mocha Magic and admitted we were right. She started cursing like a sailor, ranting that Gudrun changed the product profile.”
“Why would Gudrun do that without telling her?”
“I don’t know. But Alicia swore she’d have it out with the little chocolatier on the boat tonight. I’m looking forward to seeing that.”
Given the “Sisterly” confrontations I’d witnessed this week, I wasn’t at all sure I was. Frowning, I checked my watch and glanced across the coffeehouse floor. Quinn’s two undercover sentries were still settled in our corner, nursing large lattes. Matt still didn’t know about them—or Quinn’s cold-case assignment or Scarface.
The bizarre story of his mother’s old flame being a cop killer had taken a back seat to the hot water we were in with Alicia and her Village people. Frankly, I was glad Matt was here. If something went down, I wanted someone around who could handle chaos, and Matt’s third-world travails—from African uprisings and Bangkok brawls to Indonesian tsunamis—had tempered him well.
Given the shooting gallery we’d gone through a few hours ago, I was glad he was coming tonight, too. But now I was the one slipping away. I had plenty to do before this yacht party started.
I just hoped to God it didn’t end with a bang.
Thirty-Seven
As we exited the cab in front of the Twelfth Street Piers, Joy dropped the first bombshell of the evening.
“Mom, I can’t reach, Franco!”
“What do you mean?”
“I left him five messages since this morning. He never returned one.”
In less than an hour, the 240-foot-yacht
As I mulled over my daughter’s complaint, I felt Joy’s eyes on me. “What?”
“Have you heard from Mike?”
“Not since this morning. He’s on the job. Probably the same job Franco is working. That’s the life, honey.”
Joy shook her head, retied her ponytail. “Well, I hope nothing happened to Manny. It’s not like him to ignore my calls.”
I could see the worry on her face, and I wondered whether she could live every day in the shadow of that anxiety, because that’s what a relationship with a police officer meant, especially in this city.
On the other hand, I knew very well there could be another reason the sergeant hadn’t called my daughter. A tasty distraction might have crossed his path, like that Milk Duds girl. But if that’s the kind of dog Emmanuel Franco truly was, Joy was better off finding out sooner than later.
Still, a mother’s duty was to provide a place of comfort not chaos, so I squeezed Joy’s hand. “I’m sure Franco’s fine. Mike gets tangled up all the time and can’t call back . . .”
Joy looked relieved—that made one of us.
As we entered the terminal building, I warily eyed the crowd of strangers surrounding the yacht.
“I’m still not happy with your decision to help out tonight,” I said.
“Oh, Mom, stop worrying. Look!” She pointed to the base of the gangplank where security had set up a metal detector. “Everyone has to go through a scanner before they board. It’s safer on that yacht than it is in our coffeehouse.”
Joy had a point—and she didn’t even know about Scar-face. Neither did she know that two undercover Queens detectives would be on board, waiting for Maya’s killer to expose herself (at least, that’s how their lieutenant put it to me earlier). Left unsaid was the ugly truth: “exposure” for a killer like this could very well mean another dead body.
The thought had me speed-dialing Matt.
“I’m on my way,” he assured me. “Ten minutes from you.”
“Your father’s coming. Let’s board.”
After Joy and I passed through the scanner, we climbed the gangplank. A pair of hulking, square-jawed private security officers greeted us. They searched our bags, asked for photo IDs, and checked our names against a list on a laptop screen. That’s when I realized Matt’s name had to be added to my staff list.
Rather than explain the situation to the A-team, I looked for a familiar face. Thankfully, I saw two: Daphne Krupa and Susan Chu. The Mod Couple, once again dressed in 1960s-style psychedelic colors, stood with heads bent together in a secretive conversation.
I sent Joy off to find Tucker and approached them.
“. . . and what are you going to do?” Susan whispered.
“Oh, hey, Ms. Cosi,” Daphne said, loudly cutting off her friend. “Did . . . did you check in okay?”
“I did, but I have to talk to you about a staff substitution.” I explained about Matt.
“I’ll take care of it,” Susan said, and left for the registry desk.
I turned to Daphne. Curious what they’d been chatting about so intensely, I fished. “How’s your boss holding up? Is Sherri ready for her big night?”
“She’s totally frantic,” Daphne whispered, looking more than a little stressed herself. She began fidgeting with her pink-and-orange polka-dot scarf. “It’s gotten worse since the night Patrice . . . well, you know . . . and then Maya this afternoon.”
“Believe me, I know what happened to the fitness queen. I had a front-row seat.”
“My gosh . . .” She shook her head then leaned closer. “Ms. Cosi, you really do work with the police right?”
“What’s on your mind?”
“I found something—”
“Good evening, one and all!” Sherri Sellars loudly sang as she arrived at the top of the gangplank. Fit and trim in a beautifully tailored off-white suit, she exuded enough glamorous energy to power the Upper West Side. Her light brown hair, freshly sun-kissed by a salon colorist, was once again worn loosely to her shoulders, giving off that casual California style, while her rimless glasses reminded us all that we should take her seriously, too.
I noticed Daphne had stepped away from me, as if we hadn’t been speaking. I played along. A moment later, Sherri climbed the stairs to an upper deck without even glancing in our direction.
“What’s wrong?” I asked.
“I’m scared, Ms. Cosi...” Daphne’s usually upbeat voice sounded strangled. “This afternoon, Sherri told me to print something out, but I opened the wrong file on her laptop. The note was about Patrice, and something that happened the night she died. I think Sherri—”
“All fixed!” Susan interrupted. “Mr. Allegro won’t have any trouble coming aboard.” As I thanked Susan, she handed an envelope to Daphne. “And here’s Mr. Laurel’s press pass.”
Daphne glanced at me. “Sherri’s been wooing John Laurel for weeks,” she explained. “She really wants a lifestyle piece in the
“Excuse me,” Susan said. “I’ve been summoned by Aphrodite.”
Daphne nodded in understanding—as if an actual goddess had called Susan for an audience.
