Once Upon a Grind Page 19

“I didn’t see a note,” Franco said, “so barring a tearful pronouncement on some social media site, I’m guessing this wasn’t a suicide, either.”

  “It looked like a drug overdose. Do you think it was accidental?”

  Franco scratched the top of his shaved head. “That’s what someone wants us to believe.”

  He fished around inside the deep pockets of his leather bomber and produced a second evidence bag. This one contained a tiny plastic vial.

  “I found this under the body, and you saw the needle stuck in the crook of Red’s left arm, where you’d expect a right-handed junkie to shoot up.” Franco paused. “What I found next is thanks to you, Coffee Lady.”

  “Me?”

  “Yeah, I discovered a second needle mark on her other arm, and I wouldn’t have bothered looking, but I remembered what you told my loo.”

  “Lieutenant Quinn?”

  “He said you had some kind of hunch. You wanted the docs to check Anya’s left leg again, so they did. Among all those scratches from the park brush, they found the puncture point where the drug entered her system.”

  I flashed back to my vision of Anya with a bleeding leg.

  “How did you find out about that? I assumed Endicott would keep the OD Squad at arm’s length because of Quinn’s relationship with me.”

  “They tried. But when preliminary toxicology report arrived, Endicott had to cut OD in.”

  “Why? What did the report say?”

  “The drug injected into Anya’s system is something different—and a brand-new street drug means a new threat to the public safety. But what I found interesting is how this drug was administered. Anya received what’s called a Goldilocks dose.”

  “Goldilocks? Are you kidding?”

  “No. The Goldilocks Principle is scientific shorthand for something that falls within certain margins, as opposed to reaching extremes. You know, the porridge that isn’t too hot or too cold? The bed that isn’t too hard or too soft—”

  “I get it.”

  “Anya didn’t receive enough of this Sleeping Beauty drug to kill her. Yet she received so much that the docs are unable to snap her out of her coma without an antidote. The toxicologist said it was a one in a million chance—that’s because she thinks it’s a coincidence.”

  “You don’t?”

  “For a Goldilocks dose to work, the perp would need to know the victim’s weight and height in advance. I think someone knew that, and I don’t think it’s a coincidence.”

  “Then someone wanted Anya out of the picture—silenced but not dead. Why?”

  Franco had no answer. Not even a theory.

  I mentioned the lawsuit Anya was involved with, but we both agreed it didn’t add up. (Why drug a plaintiff in a secluded area of a park only to track her down hours later, in a much more public hospital room, to coerce her into signing a legal release?)

  With both of us confounded, I focused on something I hoped was finally resolved, the issue of Matt’s culpability. “If they confirmed the drug is not cocaine, that gets Matt off the hook, doesn’t it?”

  Franco grimaced. “Sorry, Coffee Lady. Endicott is the lead detective. He and his partner, Ned Plesky, know your ex-husband is a world traveler. They’re convinced he picked up something new and exotic during his coffee-hunting expeditions and smuggled it back here. It’s the most obvious solution to the case, and that’s the angle they’re pursuing.”

  A chill went through me—and it was only partly due to the fall breeze blowing across the patio. I regarded Franco.

  “Given your continued involvement with the case, I take it Endicott and Plesky don’t know about your personal connection?”

  “You mean my relationship with your daughter?”

  “She’s not only my daughter. She’s Matt’s, too.”

  Which posed more than one problem for the young sergeant.

  Once upon a time, Franco had arrested my ex-husband. Though I was locked up during the same incident, I’d long since gotten over it. Matt never did. He and Franco nearly came to blows in that interrogation room; and when he first caught wind of Joy and Franco together, he blew a gasket.

  After my ex-husband’s years dealing with corrupt police officials in banana republics—not to mention his own rocky past as a former cocaine user—he’d put officers of the law at the top of his despise list. It had taken quite a while for Matt to accept Quinn, but that was nothing compared to Franco.

  The idea of his little girl marrying any cop, let alone this streetwise “mook,” was a situation he would not tolerate. And while daughters defied their daddies all the time, Joy loved her father dearly. I knew it would break her heart to break his—and so did Franco.

  Of course, with the Atlantic Ocean separating the young lovers, Matt believed one or both would lose interest, and the sparks would fizzle and die.

  I knew it was possible, too, maybe even probable. Now I wondered if that was the reason Franco didn’t recuse himself from involvement in this case. Was he done with Joy?

  His next words set me straight—

  “Endicott and Plesky have no idea I have a conflict of interest here. Over the last few years on the job, I’ve learned to keep my private life . . .” He shrugged. “You know, private.”

  “But you could get into trouble for keeping the truth from them.”

  “I’ll take my chances.”

  “You’d do that for Joy?”

  “I’d do that for family.”

  I was speechless. His relationship with Joy hadn’t fizzled out in the least. It had grown more serious—so serious that Franco was willing to risk his career to change Matt’s mind about him; to prove that he could be trusted, that he could be family.

  Given the disastrous romantic choices in my daughter’s past, I was elated by this news. I actually flashed on Joy in a wedding gown, bells pealing, birds singing—then a heartrending sob from across the small yard burst my mother-of-the-bride fantasy.

  Eldar stood some distance away from us, slumped against the back fence, bowler askew, face buried in his hands. His good friend had dreamed of a white wedding, too. But fate had delivered a black body bag.

  As my spirits sank, my anger rose. This crime scene was made to look like the result of a party girl who’d partied too much. But something more sinister had happened here. Franco knew it, and so did I—

  “You said you found a second needle mark on her body?”

  “Here . . .” Franco touched the inside of his right arm, a few inches above his wrist.

  “Her right arm?”

  “Other than that first, obvious injection site on her upper left arm, she had no other needle marks on her body so Red probably wasn’t a junkie. And if the victim was right-handed—”

  “She was right-handed . . .” I recounted her deftness last night in lighting her cigarette. “That makes it unlikely she used a hypodermic on herself with her left hand, doesn’t it?”

  Franco nodded.

  I faced him. “Let’s shake.”

  “And make up? I didn’t know we’d had a tiff.”

  “I’m not kidding. Shake my hand.”

  Franco extended his right arm. Instead of shaking it, I grabbed his hand, rotated his arm, and pretended to stab the inside of his forearm with an imaginary needle clutched in my left fist.

  “Smooth move, Coffee Lady. That could be how it was done.”

  “Do you think Red and Anya were injected with the same drug?”

  “It’s likely,” Franco replied, checking his watch. “But for Rozalina Krasny, there’s no wake-up kiss. I’m sorry to say, this Sleeping Beauty is DOA.”

  FIFTY-SEVEN

  ASSUMING we were done, Franco raised his phone to call in his colleagues. I pushed it back down. Red might be DOA, but I had no leads, and Esther was still missing.

  “Didn’t you find an
ything else in Red’s apartment?” I pressed. “There must be something more we can go on. Was her smartphone there or was it taken?”

  “I’ve got it. What do you want to know?”

  “What was the last call she placed?”

  “Metro-North Information, shortly before midnight . . .”

  Why would she want train info at that hour? I wondered. And the answer quickly occurred to me—one that involved Esther. I prayed it would pan out.

  “Other than that,” Franco went on, “there were a few calls to take-out joints in the area. The rest of her phone and text messaging history was erased.”

  “That’s it?”

  “Yeah, her apps are password protected.”

  “How soon will Endicott be able to retrieve this phone’s data?”

  “An expert on file system extraction can download the data on almost any phone in fifteen or twenty minutes. Doesn’t matter if that info is password protected, locked, or even deleted. A trained tech can grab it all.”

  “Then you should have a lead fairly fast, right?”

  “We already have one. I was able to access her day timer—she left it open—but most of it’s in code. I’ll give you an example: Eldar said something about an appointment Red had on the Upper East Side this afternoon, right?”

  Franco pulled another evidence pouch from his leather bomber. It contained Red’s smartphone. He didn’t don gloves again. Instead he activated the phone through the clear plastic bag.

  “There’s no name on today’s meeting, only a time and address.”

  I half expected to hear the number for Leila Quinn Reynolds’s apartment building. But the address Franco read wasn’t hers, so I jotted it down.

  “Red has a second appointment scheduled for ten o’clock tonight. No name or location, only someone’s initials.”

  “Can I see?”

  “Here it is.” Franco pointed. “The initials are PCC. Beside it she typed free.”

  “Are there any more entries like that?”

  Franco’s finger swept across the screen. “I’ve got two from last week. Tuesday and Friday. And two from the week before, same days. We need to find this individual.”

  I called to Eldar, still slumped against the back fence, and he sullenly approached.

  “Did you drive Red to the Upper East Side last week?” I asked.

  Eldar nodded. “Two days she went. Tuesday and Friday, like the week before.”

  “There’s your answer,” I told Franco. “PCC isn’t a person. It’s Red’s code for the Prince Charming Club. That’s what she called the place. And guess what? Anya was a member, too.”

  I told Franco what I knew about this uptown speakeasy, the limousines and well-dressed couples coming out of its battered black door with a diamond-shaped talking mirror, one that threatened me when I tried to enter without a key.

  “It looks like Red’s been going there for a few months,” Franco said as he paged through screens of her day timer. “Most entries say free, but a few say match.”

  “Maybe Red had a special date on those nights.”

  “You should look for one of those men,” Eldar declared, stabbing the air above the smartphone.

  “Why do you say that?” Franco asked. “I mean, Red may have been a member of some secret Playboy Club, but she was also a rap artist, wasn’t she? In that world, violence and rivalries are way more common than in the land of day spas and Dom Pérignon.”

  “Violence might be more common in the rap world, but not rivalries,” I pointed out. “They’re just as fierce at the better addresses. And this death wasn’t violent—monstrous, yes, but coldly and cleverly done. It points uptown, not down.”

  Eldar nodded. “One of her men will know something.”

  Franco fixed his stare on the driver. “Red did seem to know a lot of men, didn’t she? How did you feel about that? Did it bother you?”

  Eldar stiffened. “Sure, it bothered.”

  “Enough to want to do something about it?”

  “What would I do about it?” Eldar said. “Stubborn girl. There was no talking sense to her.”

  “Maybe talk wasn’t enough,” Franco pressed. “Maybe you had to take action. Stop her from making a mistake.”

  Eldar took a horrified step back. “I would never hurt Red. She was good friend. Good person—”

  Franco stepped forward. “You have an alibi for last night?”

  “Check my log, Mr. Officer. Check GPS in car and phone. I have nothing to hide! I dropped Red and her friend here last night and never saw either girl again. Not alive.”

  “Believe me, I’ll check.” Franco deactivated Red’s phone and turned to me. “Time’s up on this little discussion, Coffee Lady. Now I have to call in the local gendarmes.”

  “How are you going to explain your presence? You’re an awful long way from the Sixth Precinct.”

  “No problem . . .”

  When Franco joined the investigation, Endicott’s partner handed him a list of Anya’s known associates for follow-up interviews. It was busywork to keep him out of the way, but one of the names on that list was Rozalina Krasny.

  “I’ll say that you two came on the scene before I did. I was here to question Miss Krasny about Anya. And you two were searching for the young woman she was last seen with. I have your statements, and if the other detectives want to question you further, you’ll have to speak with them, okay?”

  Eldar and I emphatically nodded.

  “Just find the man who did this,” Eldar said. “Find him and put him in ground.”

  As Eldar and I returned to his car, I asked him for another ride and he readily agreed. On the way to our destination, I came clean and told him the truth about Anya and her comatose state. This came as a shock to him.

  “Red never mentioned any of this to you?”

  “Red was nervous last couple of days, but I thought it was because of her problem with ‘East Side’ woman. Now I know better. Tell me, Miss Cosi, will your policeman friend find the man who did this to my Žabica?”

  I took in his sad expression and remembered my vision from last night: Red’s little girl voice calling for someone to help her, someone to care.

  “If Franco doesn’t find her killer, I will. I promise . . .” The words seemed to buoy Eldar and I was glad. I was also curious. “Why did you call Red Žabica?”

  Eldar shrugged. “It means ‘Little Frog.’”

  “She reminded you of a frog?”

  “Was joke between us.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “When Red found Prince Charming Club, I told her she was like story of Princess and Frog but in reverse . . .”

  Eldar swiped at new tears that filled his eyes. “She was like frog—cold sometimes, and she had tough skin, you know? But if just one of those Prince Charmings kissed my Red with love in his heart, he would have found beautiful person hiding inside.”

  FIFTY-EIGHT

  I felt for Eldar. He was a kind man with a sweet spirit, which was why I trusted him to drive me to the best lead we had on Red—the address of her appointment on the Upper East Side. Unfortunately, bumper-to-bumper bridge traffic stalled our progress (no surprise, this was New York), and like most inhabitants of this manic city, I shifted into multitask mode.

  Behind the wheel, Eldar noticed me pulling out my phone. “Who are you calling, Coffee Lady?”

  “Remember my friend, Esther? She was the reason I came to you in the first place. Well, Sergeant Franco gave me a clue to where she might be.”

  “And where is this?”

  “Westchester. Esther’s sister lives there, and it’s along the Metro-North commuter train line—where Red called for information last night.”

  He nodded. “Very smart, Coffee Lady.”

  “Only if I’m right,” I said, dialing.
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br />   Eldar regarded me. “I hope you do not mind that I call you Coffee Lady. Is term of endearment, yes?”

  “I don’t mind,” I said, listening to the line ring. Come on, Hattie, pick up!

  “This young police officer Franco is sweet on you?”

  “On me? No. On my daughter.”

  Eldar frowned. “And you approve of this?”

  “I know he seems rough around the edges, but Franco is an amazing person. And he’s backed me up more than once. He and my daughter are very much in love.”

  “But your daughter—” He looked me up and down. “She cannot be more than thirteen, fourteen. Is this not too young for such a man?”

  “Bless your bad eyes, Eldar. My daughter is in her mid-twenties.”

  “Nothing wrong with eyes.” He gave me a little smile. “Nothing wrong with you, either, Coffee Lady.”

  “Thank you, but I should tell you that I have a boyfriend.”

  “Oh.” Eldar’s shoulders slumped a little. “Too bad.”

  “I appreciate the compliment. It’s very flattering.”

  “Is okay. Pretty lady like you should have boyfriend.”

  “And a nice man like you should have a girlfriend.”

  He didn’t smile again, but he did sit up a little straighter. “Is kind for you to say, hvala.”

  “You’re welcome,” I said then gritted my teeth because my call to Esther’s sister went to voice mail. I left a message.

  As traffic began to move, Eldar zipped us from lane to lane until the low-rise buildings and attached houses of Queens were a river away. Now we were smack in the middle of mid-Manhattan’s towering skyscrapers.

  Eldar slalomed around cars, vans, and delivery trucks like a bowler-wearing Nascar driver, moving us past slick office buildings, designer shoe stores, and high-end restaurants. Soon he was pulling into a parking space across the street from our destination.

  I gawked. “That’s where Red was going? Are you sure?”

  “Am sure.”

  I thought we’d be heading to an apartment building or business address. But Eldar was pointing to the twilight purple awning of Babka’s, one of the most storied restaurants on the city’s cultural map.