Murder by Mocha

dry-cleaned clothes hung like the vines and fruit of a plastic-covered rain forest.

A half-dozen workers were busy at the far end of this huge basement. Much closer, a slender woman stood beside a massive laundry bin on wheels. Her back was to me, but I could see the blue housekeeping uniform and dirty blond ponytail. This was the same maid I’d seen on the tenth floor!

Encouraged that she might have seen the woman in black or noticed what had happened with the corpse in Alicia’s room, I approached her. I doubted she could hear me coming with the noise of the washers and dryers. I didn’t want to startle her. So I reached out and gently touched her shoulder.

She whirled to face me, and that’s when I realized this wasn’t a she at all, but a scrawny skeleton of a man with watery blue eyes, a yellow-toothed snarl, and enough chin stubble to cover a saguaro cactus. Around his neck was a long nylon rope with a key card attached.

Boy, does this guy look wrong. “You work here?” I yelled over the noise.

Immediately, he swung his fist, but I was already moving back from surprise, and his roundhouse just missed connecting with my left temple.

Before I could bolt, he brought his left into action—and there was more than a fist this time. A large, white object sailed toward my head. I dodged enough for the thing to wrap around one of the support poles for the dry- cleaning racks. The pole wavered, the rack trembled, and the dry cleaning swayed as the white thing burst open, scattering enough watches, rings, cash, iPhones, and gold jewelry to fill a Saudi prince’s birthday piñata.

That’s when I realized: the white thing was a pillow case; the booty inside was stolen; and the man in a maid’s uniform was a hotel burglar. Somewhere in my chase, I had lost the Blonde in Black and ended up following this creep!

The burglar cursed. I turned to run, but after three steps the man body-slammed me into that gigantic canvas laundry bin. The brakes must have been on because the bin’s wheels didn’t budge. Before I could turn and fight, he grabbed my legs and pitched me into it. I tumbled down, hitting the wooden base with a solid clunk.

For a second, I saw little stars dance. As my vision cleared, I rolled over and found myself staring up at two aluminum doors in the ceiling—just as they swung open.

Oh crap.

Soiled laundry tumbled out of the chute, and an avalanche of damp towels, rumpled blankets, and wrinkled sheets came down on me. That jerk pressed the release button!

Furious, I tried to stand, but the crushing mass pushed me back to my knees. My arms windmilled, batting blankets aside, but the torrent of wool, silk, and cotton was too much. I was wrestling a textile octopus with a hundred tangling tentacles!

The whirring washers and dryers became muted, and my world grew decidedly smelly. Still, bad air was better than none. As the dark, suffocating pile grew heavier, I imagined an ignominious epitaph: Beloved mother and coffeehouse manager smothered under a shroud of soiled bedclothes.

Oh, hell no!

Forcing my muscles into locomotion, I dug and dug, struggling against the mass like a swimmer pushing through black quicksand. I didn’t even know if I was making progress until I smashed my finger against the bin’s canvas wall.

“Son of a—!”

Hand stinging, I managed to trace the rough cloth to the top of the bin and grasp the edge. Using one, fast-weakening arm, I pulled myself up. I knew I was close to breaking out when the noise from the machines grew louder. Finally, my head emerged, and I was out of the underworld, although my face was still covered with a used hand towel. (Ugh. I could still smell the shaving cream.)

Before I could swipe aside the white blind, I felt strong fingers wrap around my right wrist. Another hand gripped my left arm. I struggled, thinking the creep was back to finish me off, until the damp cloth fell away and I found myself staring into the faces of two young male police officers—one Caucasian, the other Hispanic.

The cops lifted me out of the laundry bin, set me down on shaky legs. As I sucked in gulps of bleach-tainted air, I noticed two more uniformed officers standing over the burglar.

The thief was on his knees, still wearing the maid’s getup. His hands were cuffed behind his back, his long, dirty blond hair released from its ponytail and dangling around his face.

“Are you okay, ma’am?” the Hispanic officer asked. His name tag read Suarez. “The elderly lady upstairs sent us after you. Looks like we got here just in time. I saw that perp assault you, toss you in.”

“I’m okay,” I said, wondering if he could hear my little croak over the noise of the washers and dryers. “Thanks for the help.”

A big African-American officer, swinging a long nylon rope with a keycard attached, stood beside the prisoner. I remembered seeing that thing hanging around the burglar’s neck. The big cop noticed me staring and flashed me a thumbs-up.

I blinked, still trying to get my bearings when I noticed the Caucasian officer talking on his radio. His name tag read Grimes. Suddenly, he turned to me, yelling over the noisy machines.

“Are you Clare Cosi?”

“Yes!” I told him, too loudly.

“I’m happy to hear that,” Grimes said, looking relieved. “Because we’ve got a pair of seriously annoyed detectives waiting for you upstairs!”

“Okay, I’ll go right up,” I said. But then I stopped to consider that murky underworld of towels, sheets, bedding, and blankets from which I’d been resurrected.

“Ma’am? Is there something wrong?”

“Officer,” I said, “would you look into something for me?”

“What?”

“Dirty laundry.”

Six

Back on the tenth floor, I found Detectives Lori Soles and Sue Ellen Bass milling around the crime scene room as if it were the observation deck of the Empire State Building. The window curtains were fully open now, the morning sun streaming in.

“Why isn’t this room sealed?” I demanded.

Detective Bass folded her arms and threw a withering glance at her partner. “Excitable, isn’t she?”

Both women were dressed in beige slacks, white blouses, and sporty blazers—Lori’s milk chocolate, Sue Ellen’s bittersweet. They were acting true to form, too. If ever the Fish Squad pulled the old good-cop/bad-cop routine on a suspect, I had no doubt which one would play the heavy.

Right now Lori was shaking her short, yellow curls like a six-foot Raphaelite cherub while Sue Ellen’s dark ponytail appeared to be lashed tight enough to qualify her as a model for Munch’s Scream.

“Take it easy, Sue,” Lori told her partner, then turned to me. “When we arrived, Mrs. Dubois admitted us. There’s obviously no DOA here.”

“But there was. Didn’t she tell you that?”

“No,” Lori said, “as a matter of fact, she didn’t.”

I glanced around. “Where is Mrs. Dubois?”

“She went back to her hotel room. A lawyer arrived to consult with her friend, and they’re having a private conversation.”

“Well, take my word for it,” I said. “This is a crime scene.”

Sue Ellen waved an arm. “Does this look like a crime scene to you?”

I took a breath, let it out. “Listen, I saw the body and so did Mrs. Dubois. What exactly did she tell