Murder by Mocha

The sergeant’s smile got bigger. “Other way around . . .”

As Franco told the story, he’d gone rogue for one reason: to prove that Larry Hawke could be bought.

Apparently, the New Jersey dealer that Franco had arrested—counter to Hawke’s orders—was the nephew of a mob boss. The reason Hawke didn’t want him touched was not to turn the file over to federal officers but to bury it completely. The boss had reached out to Hawke, paying him to protect his relative.

“I had some friends in the bureau,” Franco said, “even more in the boroughs. I asked around, put some things together, and went to Lieutenant Quinn. Turns out, he was interviewing this old-timer who’d gathered some pretty serious evidence against Hawke, too. So we all went to Internal Affairs, and they came clean with a case they’d been building against Hawke and some of his associates throughout the department. Damn good thing we came forward, too, because IAB was getting suspicious of our meetings with Hawke. They were starting to suspect me, Mike, and Sully of being just as dirty.”

The bell rang again and we all turned.

An older man stood there, tall and stoic. He had silver hair, sharp blue-gray eyes, and a bone-white scar across his ruddy cheek. Smartly dressed in a twilight blue suit, he searched the shop, finding and focusing on a single person sitting at the counter—Blanche Dreyfus Allegro Dubois.

He didn’t move and neither did we.

Slowly, Madame rose to her feet. She crossed to him and stood staring for the longest time. Then her gently wrinkled hand touched his scarred cheek.

“Hello, Mac.”

“Hello, Blanche.”

“You look like you could use a cup of coffee.”

Cormac swallowed and paused, as if he couldn’t trust his voice. “I could, Blanche. I could.”

She laced her fingers in his and led him to the bar. I blinked back tears as he took Mike’s seat, settled in as if he’d never left. Then Madame slipped behind the counter and began to fix his drink.

Instinctively, we backed away, let them have their privacy. Joy and Franco excused themselves, heading up to the closed second floor, arm in arm. I breathed a sigh of relief. Wherever Quinn was, I knew he was okay—at least I prayed he was. In fact, praying wasn’t a bad idea.

I closed my eyes and that’s when I heard it. The bell rang one more time.

“Got something hot for me, Cosi?”

I took a breath, opened my eyes.

Mike Quinn was standing in front of me, wearing a full-on smile.

Epilogue

“That man is the most persistent, pigheaded Irish cop I ever met . . .”

Upstairs in the duplex kitchen, Mike Quinn and I were sharing a fresh pot of coffee and fat, decadent slices of my Chocolate Blackout Cake (based on the original Brooklyn recipe). We had a lot of catching up to do, given his past few days of blackout.

“It took him ten years,” Mike said, “but O’Neil learned everything he could about the world of finance. Once he knew how to follow money, he worked to connect Larry Hawke to the secret bank accounts where his dirty payoffs were hidden. Then he found the accounts of some of Hawke’s pals, and the rest is front page news—this week, anyway.”

I refreshed our cups and sat down again. “I wonder what Madame and O’Neil are talking about downstairs.”

“I’m sure he’s trying to explain what happened all those years ago.”

“Do you mind telling me?” I didn’t want to exploit a confidence, but I was desperate to know. “Why did he leave her like that? Without even letting her know if he was dead or alive?”

“From what I gather, O’Neil believed the less Mrs. Dubois knew, the safer she’d be. He was right, obviously. She made it through just fine.”

“But if he was worried about her safety, why didn’t he stick around to protect her?”

“You don’t understand. O’Neil couldn’t even protect himself. He went to the Feds, and they relocated him in witness protection, but two killers came for him within the first few weeks. He got lucky or he wouldn’t have survived at all. That scar”—Mike swept his hand along his own cheek and across his throat—“is from the botched hit. He knew any wife of his would have been killed, too. At that point, the man had no choice. He really disappeared, created another identity and another life in Australia.”

“That’s all there was to it?”

“Well . . .” Mike looked away, as if weighing whether to keep talking. “From what I gather . . . he loved Blanche deeply, but he also knew what was important to her . . .”

He paused, turned to meet my eyes.

“Go on...”

“This coffeehouse, Clare—it was more than a business to her. It was a legacy. She felt it was her duty to keep it thriving, to pass it down to her child. How could he ask her to leave it?”

I took a breath. Mike was talking about more than my mother-in-law, and we both knew it. Reaching for my cup, I realized my hands were shaking. I couldn’t read him. Not on this particular truth. I had no idea how he felt.

“So . . .” My voice was weak. “O’Neil really just came back to get Hawke?”

“He built a life in Australia—a wife, children, grandchildren. But he told us he’d reached an age where he couldn’t die without trying. So, yes, he came back to get Hawke, to clear his name—and to see Blanche again, try to explain what had happened all those years ago.”

I glanced out the kitchen window, thought it over. “O’Neil is such a tough guy, so brave. He came all this way—thousands of miles after three decades. Why did it take him days to face the woman he loved and tell her his story? I don’t understand that.”

“I do. It’s not easy to admit, but . . . as a man, I understand completely...” Mike’s gaze fell into the dregs of his cup. “He couldn’t find the nerve.”

Quinn couldn’t stay. The mayor’s press conference required his presence, and he had a few other “very important things” to do, but he promised to come back for dinner. As night fell, I turned on the true-blue flame of my gas stove.

According to Punch, the word mole came from the Aztec molli meaning “concoction.” Growing up in Spanish Harlem, he claimed every mama had a different combination of ingredients, a secret mix that made it her own. This particular recipe was new for me, something I came up with given this week’s crazy concoctions. I hoped Mike would like it.

I warmed the oil first, sautéed the onions, added the peppers, and the Guinness stout. Aromas rose from my pot and I inhaled deeply . . . the garlic and ginger, cumin and coriander, fennel and cinnamon.

They say a dish like this is an acquired taste—not unlike living in a crowded, competitive city, where cultures and cuisines continually clash. It certainly wasn’t for everyone. Like most things in life, the key to making it work was keeping the blend balanced. Not too spicy but not too bland, either, and always tempering the bitter with the sweet.

As I stirred in the Mexican chocolate, watched it sensuously melt, I felt an arm slip around my waist, warm lips at my neck.

“Hi, Clare.”

I smiled as Mike nibbled me. “You looked very handsome on television.”

“You could pick me out in that sea of faces?”

“I could.”

“Want to hear something funny?”

“Absolutely.”

“I saw Soles and Bass at One PP, and they are royally pissed at you.”