Murder by Mocha

“Matt, go back to the car and grab my purse from the front seat. I have Voss’s number on speed-dial. I’ll call Gudrun and tell her to stop ignoring the doorbell.”

Matt was halfway to the car when the intercom crackled. “Who is it?” The voice was soft and electronically garbled.

“Gudrun? Is that you? It’s Clare Cosi.”

“You’re looking for Nancy, your little lost barista.” I heard a sound. Was that a giggle? “Nancy is here with us. Would you like to come in?”

Matt heard the intercom and turned. But Gudrun sounded odd and I sensed there was something wrong, so I waved him back.

The noise of grinding metal startled me as a hidden mechanism raised the shutter. I glimpsed movement through the glass door. Two figures were silhouetted against the blinding lights inside the factory. Blinking against the glare, I realized one of the figures was pressing a very large handgun to the other’s head.

“Come in, Clare Cosi. Now, or your little friend Nancy dies,” the soft voice taunted through the intercom.

Gudrun Voss is Olympia Temple? Good God, how could I have been so wrong?

Matt saw me tense and moved forward. I swung one hand behind my back and made a gun out of my thumb and index finger, pumping the thumb a few times to stress my point.

Please, Matt, see my finger gun! Figure it out!

As I moved toward the door, I risked a sidelong glance at my ex. He watched, openmouthed, until I was almost inside. Then he turned and ran back to the car with an urgency that told me he’d gotten the message.

Matt will call the police. He’ll tell them there are hostages, and they’ll send a SWAT team. Everything will be okay . . .

I’d hardly pushed through the glass door when the steel gate descended again. My heart took off, my brow grew damp with perspiration.

Heaven help me, I’m locked in with a stone-cold killer . . .

The scent of chocolate permeated the air. A machine roared dully somewhere on the factory floor. I watched Gudrun remove a Blue Tooth headset and toss it aside.

“Step forward,” she commanded in a voice louder than Gudrun’s usual meek tone.

I took three steps—not quite lunging but fast enough to rattle my adversary. She stepped backward, onto the factory floor, dragging her silent, struggling hostage with her. Was it Nancy? I couldn’t see the girl’s face! A burlap sack covered her head. I couldn’t see Gudrun’s face, either. I recognized her signature black chef’s jacket, but her features were obscured by her long, dark, loosely hanging hair.

Nancy (if it was Nancy) hardly struggled and never spoke. The burlap hood muffled her frightened whimpers as she docilely followed Gudrun’s lead.

Piled up around me were large, fat burlap sacks, all stuffed with dried and fermented cacao from Madagascar, South and Central America, and the Ivory Coast of Africa.

Gudrun had hollowed out the center of the building, and I could see all the way up to the roof and its massive glass skylight. Roasters, winnowing machines, grinders, mixers, and vats of chocolate liquor lined the brick walls.

“Where’s Aphrodite?” I demanded. “I know she’s here.”

“You know, do you?”

Gudrun’s voice was much too forceful, and I finally realized that I’d been played—and I’d been right.

“I know a lot of things,” I told the killer. “I know you’re not Gudrun Voss, for instance. And I know you’re not Daphne Krupa, either. Your name is Olympia Temple.”

The hostage began to struggle, and her captor cuffed her with the butt of the gun. Alarmed, I stepped forward, and Olympia leveled the weapon at my heart. With a sharp laugh she tossed her head, and the black wig fell away, revealing her pixie hair.

“I know everything, Olympia. And Soles and Bass—the policewomen I’ve been helping—they know everything, too.”

“Everything?” she cried. “What do they know? What do you know?”

I know the SWAT team is on its way, I thought. Only a minute or so had gone by, and I had three or four to wait, maybe more. The police wouldn’t be using sirens, so I wouldn’t hear them coming, but I needed time for them to get to us, and that meant I’d have to keep this maniac talking.

“I know you used an ice sculpture to fake your suicide,” I told her. “The ice hit the water like a body, then melted away so authorities would find shreds of your clothes and no sign of an artificial dummy. You used the same trick on the yacht—with our missing Venus ice sculpture—to fake your own murder.”

“How can you know that?” Olympia said, her tone clearly shocked.

“I know that—and I know how you got off the boat without getting caught . . .” While I spoke I searched for a way out, or a way to strike back. “Like the nymph in Ovid’s Metamorphoses , Daphne transformed into a laurel—not a tree this time, but a man. You became John Laurel, the reporter whose press pass you got from Susan Chu.”

“Poor Susie, she never figured anything out, never saw it coming when I hit her. I would have killed her, too, but I needed a witness to tell everyone I was dead. So I hit her from behind, painted the name Rufina, then screamed to get everyone’s attention before throwing the ice sculpture overboard and slipping away to transform again.”

I nodded my head, feigning admiration. “A stroke of genius. You had us all fooled. You were too smart.”

“You figured out a lot—for a glorified deli-counter girl.”

“But not everything,” I said, reigning in my fury. “I never figured out where you hid that umbrella. The one you used to bludgeon Patrice to death. Or the raincoat that kept blood splatters from staining your party clothes.”

“You actually helped me that night,” she said. “You and Mrs. Dubois knocked over that fiberglass Greek column and broke the interior light. The hollow tube was dark, so I stuffed the umbrella inside, along with my raincoat.”

I nodded again, like an impressed protégé. “You played us all.”

Olympia flashed a twisted smirk. “People are fools. Tell them what they want to hear, show them what they want to see, and they’ll follow like lemmings.”

“Is that how you lured Aphrodite tonight? Did you tell her what she wanted to hear?”

“Close enough. I waited for Gudrun’s closing time and took her hostage. Then I used Gudrun’s e-mail account to send a message to Aphrodite. ‘I’m going to the press with the truth about the drug in Mocha Magic unless you meet me at my shop at once.’ Worked like a charm. Dressed as Gudrun, I waved her inside and slammed the gates. Aphrodite and her little golden-haired assistant, Minthe, walked right into my trap.”

I was walking, too. Every few seconds I’d take a small step forward. Without realizing it, Olympia was backing away from me.

“But your plan tonight,” I said, desperate to keep her talking. “I can’t make sense of this . . .”

“Because you’re too stupid,” she said. Olympia squared her shoulders, clearly proud and pleased to have an audience, someone who could appreciate her masterful plan. “These women, these Sisters, condemned my mother to a cage, like some kind of animal. A place so horrible there was only one escape possible—”

“Suicide.”

“Now Alicia and Sherri will spend the rest of their days caged like animals, too.”

“And Aphrodite? Will she spend the rest of her life in prison?”

“That whore? The one who ruined my life?” Olympia shook her head. “Oh no. She dies here. Tonight. Thanks to the e-mail I sent, the police will think Aphrodite came here to murder Gudrun.”

“Why?”

“Because she threatened to reveal the truth about that drugged-up mocha powder of yours. And after Aphrodite shoots Gudrun, she’ll burn this place to hide the evidence. Of course, some of you will be trapped here