Shot in the Dark Read online

Esther snorted. “Hear that? In twenty short years, Mr. Boss will have a date.”

  Matt waved his phone. “More like twenty seconds.”

  Tinker-Tinker!

  “See!” he said with renewed vigor—and thumb typing.

  “What just happened?” I asked Esther.

  “Cinder sent him a Tinkerbell notification.”

  “Of what? The approach of Captain Hook?”

  “It’s just a glorified text message,” Esther explained, “telling him a woman wants to communicate with him. In Cinder-speak they call it a Glass Slipper. Only a Cinder-ella can send a slipper to a Cinder-fella. That’s one reason the app has become so hot.”

  Matt nodded. “Contrary to the Connie Francis song, boys go where the girls are, and more women are on Cinder than any other app. They feel safer making the first move, and I’m happy to let them. Once they swipe me right, Tinkerbell alerts me, and we can set up a date to see if—”

  “The Glass Slipper fits. I get it.”

  “And if it does . . .” Matt grinned. “We’re on our way to the . . . uh-hem ball. That’s Cinder-speak for going to—”

  “I get that, too. But what happens if Ms. Pumpkin Pot swipes left on you instead of right?”

  “Then we’re done. Accept-Reject. Win-Lose. It’s that simple.”

  “Simple? Or reductive? The decision to accept or reject a human being is being made on a few pictures and a paragraph!”

  “So?” Matt halted his thumb-typing. “Look, it’s no different than meeting a prospective partner in a bar or at a party. You check each other out, flirt a little, and you hit it off—or you don’t. The app just makes the party bigger.”

  “One must keep up with the times, dear,” Madame advised with a wink. Then she finished her espresso and tossed us a farewell wave. “My Silver Fox is in the coop!”

  “I don’t disagree with your mother,” I told Matt when he finally joined us behind the counter. “Keeping up with change is smart—from a practical standpoint. But there are larger issues to consider.”

  “Like what?”

  “Like change isn’t always for the better, especially when it involves human nature.”

  Matt scoffed, but Esther countered—

  “Ms. Boss ain’t wrong. I read an article by a social scientist who believes these dating apps are artificially turbo-boosting the ‘hit-it-and-quit-it’ culture, devolving excessive users into the addictive cycle of Skinner box animals.”

  “See?”

  Matt waved away my concern. As he tied on his apron, he pointed to his mother, who was already happily on her way out the door with her dapper-looking date. Then he challenged me to prove this “devolution” theory with a concrete example.

  I couldn’t. Not then. Within the hour, however, one of our customers did it for me . . .

  I was sipping an espresso on a much-needed break when—

  BANG!

  The sound of a single gunshot tore through our upstairs lounge.

  Looking back, I shouldn’t have been so shocked. A new mate with every swipe meant the old one was tossed away. When it happens enough times, anyone’s candy-store excitement could turn sour, even bitter. Binary code could connect continents, but it couldn’t reprogram people, delete our fears and frailties. Or erase our potential for violence . . .

  At the sound of that bang upstairs, everyone on the main floor quieted, the sea of faces going blanker than a dead smartphone screen.

  Was that really a gun?

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  With three more shots, chaos ensued. Freaked-out bodies stampeded the exit in unstoppable waves, and I bobbed amid the panic like a cork in the Atlantic.

  “Clare!” Matt shouted, leaping over the counter. “Where are you?”

  “I’m here!” I jumped up to show him and, on the next bounce, screamed a gentle suggestion to—

  “Call the police!”

  Two

  AS frantic patrons flowed around me, I noticed something disturbing (apart from the gunfire and mass exodus). Not a single person had come down from the second floor.

  I pushed my way through the crowd until I’d reached the bottom of our spiral staircase. It stood like a wrought-iron sculpture, still and empty. Peering up, I saw no one and quickly climbed three steps for height.

  Across the retreating sea of humanity, Matt was calling 911. When our eyes met, I pointed to the ceiling, my meaning clear—

  I’m going up!

  Matt’s eyes bugged and he fervently shook his head.

  I knew he wanted me to wait for the police, but I couldn’t sit by and do nothing. One of my other baristas, Dante Silva, was up there, along with a floor of innocent customers.

  Was this a hostage situation? Or someone’s idea of a joke? Were people terrorized and injured? Or was this simply a misunderstanding?

  Whatever was going down, I was determined to have a look, and (if possible) try to help. This was my coffeehouse, my staff, my responsibility.

  “You take the service stairs!” I mouthed to Matt before starting my climb.

  As I crested the top, I slowed my movements, entering the lounge in a crouched position. I spotted Dante’s shaved head and tattooed arms in a small crowd of gawking patrons.

  Finally, I saw who they were gawking at.

  A slender woman stood near the middle of the room. She was about my daughter’s age. Her white silk blouse looked virginal over her pink flowered skirt. Honey blond hair fell to her twenty-something shoulders.

  I’d seen her several times in our coffeehouse. She seemed a shy type, always sat alone—though she sometimes conversed with Tucker Burton, my assistant manager. On those visits, her willowy arms had sported a fashionable handbag or tote. Tonight, those limbs appeared to be accessorized with a semiautomatic handgun.

  “DON’T YOU EVER LAUGH AT ME AGAIN. GOT IT?!”

  Her shrill threat was directed at a man in his thirties. Cornered and cowering in a high-back Victorian chair, the guy appeared to be dressing for success in a designer skinny suit and open-collared shirt. His brown hair was threaded with salon-golden highlights, and the cut looked trendy—close-cropped on the sides with the thick, longish top slicked back.

  I’d seen this man a few times over the past week—in the company of several different women—though I couldn’t be sure, since his hands were raised in front of him and his head was turned at an angle that effectively hid his face.

  “I’ll shoot you next time instead of the ceiling! How would you like that? A bullet right into your heart. Or maybe your smirking mouth. Or better yet, how about down there?”

  Wisely, Mr. Bullseye elected not to take the multiple-choice quiz.

  “Maybe I should shoot you down there. Then you’ll know how painful it is to be shot down!”

  Tinker-Tinker!

  The man’s smartphone had fallen onto the ground and lay near his expensive loafers, along with a pen and a few bits of paper. When it sprang to life, so did he. In a stunningly brainless move, he lunged to answer it.

  “No! Don’t you touch that phone!!”

  With a savage kick, the young woman sent the device flying. Then she slapped the man’s head with her gun. He gave a yelp and curled back farther into the chair.

  “I won’t let you degrade another woman. I’d rather see you dead! Do you understand? DEAD!”

  About then, I noticed something that alarmed me (even more than this mini Italian opera). My barista Dante began to inch closer to the female shooter and her loaded gun.

  Bad idea.

  This young woman hadn’t shot anyone. Not yet, anyway.

  Was she disturbed? Yes.

  Homicidal? Maybe.

  Enraged? Absolutely—at the guy in front of her, and that was the point. She was obviously reacting to some kind of rejection from this man, which made me ce
rtain that another man wasn’t the answer to helping her see reason.

  Dante, despite being dependable, creative, and kind, was the wrong gender for this task. Unfortunately, that didn’t occur to him. So when he lifted his tattooed forearms to do something heroic—and possibly fatal—I quickly rose from my crouched position.

  “Dante!” I barked in a bad-boss tone. “Your shift was over an hour ago. No more overtime. Clock out and leave this minute.”

  Shocked to see me, Dante froze, unsure what to do.

  “Go,” I mouthed.

  “But—”

  “Now!”

  I pointed to the steps, and (thank goodness) he obeyed, heading down the spiral staircase.

  The crazed young woman either didn’t notice or didn’t care about our exchange. She simply continued making verbal threats to her target.

  Standing now, I got a better read on the crowd of people who had stayed to watch this drama. Many had their phones out to record the action.

  That’s when I reconsidered the situation, and the young woman’s goal. This audience—and all those busy phone cameras—might be the whole point. If it was, the show was over.

  “We’re closing,” I declared. “Everyone has to leave. Right now!”

  My patrons shuffled in their seats. Then their phones disappeared as they collected their things and slowly headed toward me and the staircase.

  I used the exit tide as an opportunity to move closer to the armed woman.

  “Go ahead, finish him!” I heard a gruff voice call from somewhere behind me.

  I would have liked to know who made such a crass and dangerous remark, but it wasn’t worth taking my focus off that gun.

  As the last of the customers hit our wrought-iron stairs, I heard a psssst sound across the room.

  This time I looked.

  It was Matt, peeking around the corner of the service staircase door. When our eyes met, he made a hand gesture, showing me he was ready to enter the room and help. But my ex wasn’t the right gender for this task, either, and I shook my head, shooing him back before he was spotted.

  I knew the police would be here any minute. I also knew the protocol for an active shooter, thanks to my fiancé, Detective Lieutenant Mike Quinn. “When innocent lives are in jeopardy, Clare, we don’t hesitate. We shoot to kill.”

  This distraught young woman was bent on terrorizing the man in front of her. But did she realize her own life was in danger?

  With a deep breath, I took a few more steps. I couldn’t watch this young woman get gunned down or commit cold-blooded murder right in front of me. Not if there was a chance of talking sense into her . . .

  “We’re closing now,” I said, my tone as gentle as I could make it. “Your audience is gone. Now you must leave. You and your friend—”

  Poor choice of words.

  “He’s not my friend!” she raged. “He’s a monster. A sick crusher who needs to be taught a lesson!”

  While shouting at me, her gun stayed on him, but she turned a bit more in my direction. I noticed she’d taken great pains to make herself up for this performance: flawless foundation; perfect eyeliner; dusty rose blush and lipstick. Her jaw was proudly set, her small chin thrusting forward like a determined child. But her blue eyes looked wrong—frantic and darting one minute, then unfocused and eerily distant the next.

  “If he committed a crime against you,” I said softly, “you can go to the police. The Special Victims Unit will—”

  “He didn’t rape me. He lied to me. Said things that made me like him, trust him. And the next morning, I woke up next to a different person. He said awful things. Humiliated me. That may not be a crime, but it’s inhuman, abusive, and I’m not the only one he’s done it to!”

  “I understand,” I said. “You wanted him to listen to you. And he has. Now you need to stop.”

  “Me?” She waved the weapon. “I’m not the one who needs to stop! He needs to stop!”

  “I’m certain he will.” I glanced at Mr. Bullseye, quaking in his chair. “Look at him. He got your message—” As I continued to reassure the girl, I inched closer to that gun. “Now let’s put it down, okay? I don’t want you to get hurt. And that’s what could happen if the police come up here—”

  I told her if, but I knew they were coming, and we’d have no warning. Given the circumstances, they would roll up silently, no lights or sirens.

  The thought of police arriving appeared to throw a bug into the girl’s brain waves. Confusion overwhelmed her, and she froze up, eyes going glassy.

  This was my chance.

  A gentle tug was all it took to pull the gun from her hands. Before I knew it, Matt was behind me, taking the weapon away, and I was putting my arms around her.

  Seconds later, uniformed officers of the NYPD stormed into the lounge from both flights of stairs, guns drawn.

  Three

  CUFFED and Mirandized, Gun Girl was soon seated in the same high-back chair where she’d cornered her Cinder-fella. One police officer was posted by her side, while a half dozen more wandered around our upstairs lounge.

  With its antique lamps and eclectic mix of furniture, our second floor had the look and feel of a bohemian apartment—and given the cramped state of most Village flats and NYU dorms, many residents actually did use our lounge as their living room.

  This space is where Esther held her poetry slams; Tucker staged read-throughs and auditions for shows he was directing; and our community celebrated special events.

  These historic walls (covered with works by artists whom Madame had cheered up, warmed up, or sobered up over the past six decades) had seen everything from band rehearsals to baby showers and bar mitzvahs. But tonight was no party. As of thirty minutes ago, this space had become a crime scene.

  I recognized most of the uniformed cops milling around. They were all good customers, especially Patrolmen Langley and Demetrios. These longtime regulars on the Hudson Street beat were now updating the young detective on the scene.

  “She never talked. Not even when I read her rights,” Officer Langley said. “But I got her to nod that she understood, so it’s legit . . .”

  He was right about her despondency. When I’d hugged the young woman, I felt all the fight go out of her. Once the drama was over, she deflated like a sinking raft. Now her head was bowed, her gaze fixed on the floor, her loose honey-colored hair veiling an expressionless face.

  Officer Demetrios lowered his voice. “I think she might be off her meds or something . . .”

  I considered that observation. The way her manic performance instantly flatlined to dazed silence, she might have been off her medications—or on illegal narcotics.

  “And this was the only weapon you recovered?” Detective Sergeant Emmanuel Franco displayed the gun, now encased in an evidence bag.

  Langley nodded. “Funny, huh?”

  Detective Franco frowned. “Not for her.”

  “You want me to wait?” Langley asked.

  Franco shook his shaved head. “Take her back to the precinct and start processing her.”

  The two officers carefully helped Gun Girl out of her seat and led her away. Detective Franco stayed behind.

  Another Village Blend regular, Franco had been nearby when the report of shots fired came over his police radio. As a concerned friend, he rushed to the scene—though the man was much more “friendly” with my daughter, Joy Allegro.

  As ranking officer, he took charge of the investigation, which (no surprise) utterly annoyed my ex-husband.

  Matt disliked uniforms in general and policemen in particular, the result of too many encounters with corrupt officials in developing countries that just happened to grow excellent coffee. But his animosity toward Emmanuel Franco went far beyond Matt’s typical penchant for uniform scorn.

  Franco had arrested my ex-husband—more than once.


  Truth be told, he’d arrested me, too, but I got over it. Matt never did. Even worse, Franco had captured the heart of Daddy’s little girl. For that, I worried Matt would never forgive the man, whom he alternately referred to as a “mook” or a “slob,” depending on his mood or the weather.

  To be fair, Matt was spot-on about Franco’s typical dress-for-distress wardrobe. Stained hoodies, old T-shirts, scruffy denims, and scuffed work boots were the usual attire for the young detective—job-appropriate choices since he spent most of his time on undercover work for the OD Squad (the nickname of an elite NYPD task force that focused on investigating drug overdoses).

  But tonight was different.

  Franco was put together like I’d never seen. A charcoal gray jacket, immaculately tailored, hugged his muscular frame. Sans tie, his ebony Egyptian cotton shirt was open at the neck. His biker boots had been replaced by upmarket footwear no down-market cop should be able to afford.

  “Going to the prom?” I asked.

  He grinned and fingered the collar. “Nice, huh?” he said.

  I waited for an explanation. He could see I was curious. But he offered none. Instead, after an awkward pause, he looked suddenly uncomfortable and turned away.

  After directing officers outside to grab statements from witnesses still on the scene, he instructed me to take a seat in the lounge and wait for him to take my statement. Matt joined me, and together we both watched (and listened) as Franco spoke with the victim.

  Richard Crest, an investment banker of some sort, was agitated. Not because of his recent brush with death. Crest was stewing because Gun Girl had cracked his phone screen when she kicked the device across the room.

  “I should make her pay for damages,” he griped, cursing as he tried to resuscitate his phone.

  Franco gripped his elbow and directed him to a chair beside the wood-burning hearth. In the flickering glow of the still-crackling fire, the two young men appraised each other.

  Manny Franco’s poker face betrayed nothing while Richard Crest’s disparaging gaze took its time looking over Franco’s new suit. Crest grudgingly approved. Only then did he begin to talk.