Shot in the Dark Read online

  “And if you’re not alone, you’re not lonely, right?”

  “Give it up, Sigmund, it is what it is.”

  I noticed he was still fidgeting. I crossed my arms. “You’re just dying to check your phone, aren’t you?”

  Matt opened his mouth, but the sound I heard didn’t come from him. The voice was female, and it came from the street outside.

  A young woman was screaming.

  Six

  “PLEASE, ANSWER ME. I AM SO SCARED!”

  For an awful moment, Matt, Dante, Esther, and I looked like newly chipped ice sculptures. Then we ran to the windows facing the street to find Nancy Kelly, our youngest barista, peering up at us, a ribbon of streetlight illuminating her wheat-colored braids and fear-filled eyes.

  “ARE YOU ALL OKAY?” she shouted.

  “ARE WE OKAY?” Esther boomed back. “OF COURSE WE’RE OKAY! ARE YOU OKAY?”

  “YES!” Nancy assured us.

  “THEN WHY ARE YOU ACTING CRAZY?”

  “I’M NOT CRAZY. I’M WORRIED!”

  “ABOUT WHAT?” Esther yelled. “ARE YOU DRUNK?”

  “NO, I AM NOT DRUNK!”

  “BOTH OF YOU, STOP!” I ordered, but (of course) they didn’t. The pair kept arguing—which, in itself, was far from novel.

  To the rest of the world, Nancy was a perky, positive transplanted farm girl. To Esther, she was naïve to a fault, the polar opposite of her own acerbic, forever-urban persona.

  Smaller than Esther but with a country-girl fullness to her face and form, Nancy had a Judy Garland “Dorothy” kind of innocence with perpetually astonished eyes and crushes on nearly every “Mr. McDreamy” who ordered a macchiato.

  Esther, by contrast, was engaged to a streetwise Russian émigré who baked bread in Brooklyn by day and rapped poetry at night while she worked on a second master’s degree.

  Given their many differences, everyone was surprised (okay, shocked) when the two girls announced they were going to share an apartment in Alphabet City. Then again, the economic realities of New York real estate often made strange bedfellows.

  Truth be told, my ex-husband and I had endured sharing the duplex apartment above our coffeehouse for a short (exasperating) window of time, long after our divorce—but that was another story.

  Suffice it to say, these sisters from different misters had long ago dispensed with “polite” conversation, although tonight’s bi-level shouting match was a first.

  “Excuse me, ladies . . .” Matt interjected, attempting to take control of the situation with his Mr. Smooth approach. “How about we take this inside?”

  “DID YOU HEAR MR. BOSS?!” Esther scolded. “HE’S PISSED THAT YOU’RE DISTURBING THE PEACE!”

  “ME?!” Nancy’s hands went to her hips. “YOU’RE DISTURBING THE PEACE AS MUCH AS I AM!”

  Right about then two things happened: Dante began to laugh uncontrollably and our residential neighbors decided to join the conversation—with typical New York sensitivity.

  “KNOCK IT OFF, MORONS!”

  “PUT A SOCK IN IT!”

  “I’M CALLING 311!”

  Instead of taking the hint, Esther and Matt began yelling back at the neighbors—and with less than civil replies.

  That’s it, I decided. Enough!

  With a two-handed tug I yanked both of them away from the windows, stuck my head out, and ordered Nancy to—

  “GET IN HERE. NOW!”

  Seven

  TEN minutes later, we were all downstairs, sitting around the coffee bar.

  Actually, Matt and my staff were sitting. I was behind the counter, whipping up our Koko-Mocha Latte to warm Nancy up—and calm her down. And, boy, did she need calming.

  Nancy’s eyes were giant saucers, her hands flying objects.

  “After my Critter Crawl workout class, I checked my phone. When I saw the video, I freaked! Right there in the lobby of Equator Fitness! I couldn’t believe I was watching an active shooter on our very own second floor. I tried all your phones, to see if everyone was okay, but nobody answered.”

  “We turned them off,” Dante said.

  “Mostly because of Mr. Boss.” Esther jerked a thumb in Matt’s direction.

  “Hey, don’t blame me! It wasn’t my idea.”

  “Actually, it was,” I reminded him.

  Dante nodded. “You said if we turned off ours, you would turn off yours.”

  “Yes. But I didn’t want to.”

  Esther glanced at her roommate and mock whispered, “He was phubbing us.”

  Matt folded his arms. “I can hear you, you know.”

  “Well, whatever the reason,” Nancy continued, “I was desperate to find out if you all were still alive. And you didn’t answer your phones, and I didn’t see anything on the local news.” Her eyes began to tear up. “You’re like my family here—you’re all I’ve got in this big city, and I was scared out of my mind, certain you were all shot dead!”

  “Take it easy, okay?” I slid the Koko-Mocha across the counter and patted her hand. “We think of you as family, too. And you can see we’re all just fine.”

  Nancy wiped her eyes and took a warming sip of the espresso mixed with our Dark Chocolate Syrup and infused with my lovingly steamed coconut milk. She thanked me with a shaky smile, but I could see she was still upset.

  “She needs more carbs!” Esther pronounced.

  Dante’s brow furrowed. “Carbs?”

  “Yes, Baldini! Don’t you know what you get when you spell stressed backward?”

  Dante scratched his tattooed arm. “Desserts?”

  “That’s right! Carbs help raise serotonin levels!”

  Esther quickly found a stray slice of my Amish Cinnamon-Apple Bread.

  “Eat this!” she ordered with the fretting intensity of a mother hen. As Nancy obeyed, Esther turned to Dante.

  “That’ll help her feel calmer and more relaxed.”

  “So would a good stiff drink.”

  “Please.” Esther showed him her hand. “The only thing worse than a hysterical Nancy is a tipsy Nancy.”

  Nancy rolled her eyes. “Will you stop talking about me as if I’m not sitting right here!”

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted, “but there’s something I still don’t understand. Nancy, how were you able to view that video? Did one of our customers send it to you?”

  Mouth filled with sweet cinnamon-apple bread, she shook her head, then swallowed and announced: “I saw it on Chatter. It’s a trending topic. It has a hashtag and everything!”

  I rubbed my forehead. There were so many apps and online services, I’d lost track of keeping them straight. “I’m sorry. What exactly is Chatter?”

  Nancy pulled out her phone and showed me a streaming timeline of posted comments with images, news stories, and videos.

  “It’s a new global social networking board. See the Trending Topics here along the side . . .” She pointed to the topic tags #VillageBlend and #CoffeeShot halfway down the list. She clicked on one of the tags, and a stream of comments appeared about the video, which had been shared multiple times.

  “Would you play the video for us?” I asked.

  “Sure!”

  Gathered around Nancy’s glowing screen, we watched the film begin—innocuously enough—as a video review of our coffeehouse.

  “. . . and here we are at the Village Blend in New York’s West Village!” A perky young woman winked at the camera then turned the phone to pan our second-floor lounge. “Home of the famous Fa-la-la-la-Lattes and Billionaire blend!”

  “But we didn’t get either,” said the filmmaker’s female friend. This second girl held up her drink. “I got their new Turtle Latte with their special house-made Chocolate-Caramel Syrup, topped with whipped cream and pecan praline syrup—it is soooo gooood!”

  “And I’m try
ing the Cinnamon Dolce Cappuccino—cinnamon and vanilla bean syrups whisked into an espresso with foamed milk. They drizzled it with vanilla-caramel and sprinkled on Ceylon cinnamon. Super-mazing!”

  “This place is even more super-mazing,” her friend pronounced. “They do open mic poetry slams here once a week. Cool musicians perform here. And the actor Tucker Burton has worked here forever. He’s had little guest parts in episodes of some of my fave TV shows!”

  “He directs, too, mostly cabarets and Off-Off Broadway, but he uses this room for rehearsals, and they say famous actors sometimes stop by to—”

  BANG!

  At the sound of the first shot, the girl on the video looked confused. “What the—?”

  “I SAID DON’T MOVE OUT OF THAT CHAIR. I MEAN IT!”

  “Oh, wow,” said the girl holding the camera. “We got lucky tonight. Check out the performance art over there!”

  As she turned the lens of her camera phone, Richard Crest came into view. There he was in his skinny suit and open-collared shirt, cowering in the high-back chair, hands shielding his face.

  Standing in front of him was honey blond Carol Lynn Kendall in her white silk blouse and pink flowered skirt, waving her favorite semiautomatic handgun.

  In the background, several customers were backed up to the wall; others had taken cover under tables.

  “EVERYONE, LISTEN! I AM NOT GOING TO HURT ANY OF YOU! I’m here to make a point.” Carol fixed the gun on Richard. “This piece of garbage needs to stop abusing women. And I’m going to make sure he does! DO YOU HEAR ME, NOW, YOU PIECE OF TRASH? I’m sure you’ll hear this!” Pointing the gun at the ceiling, she pulled the trigger three more times.

  BANG! BANG! BANG!

  “Keep shooting,” a voice whispered. The command wasn’t for Carol. It was the girlfriend of the perky filmmaker. “If this is real, we could sell this footage!”

  She wasn’t the only one who saw dollar signs in snapping crime.

  Multiple camera phones began rolling, and as Carol Lynn continued to berate Richard, even the customers who’d taken cover came out, their curiosity overcoming caution.

  In the next few minutes, I arrived on the scene . . .

  I winced, seeing myself on camera, playing the bad boss and ordering Dante and the rest of the customers off the floor. The two girls shooting this video kept filming as they followed the customers down our stairs and out the front door, showing the small crowd that formed outside, staring up at the second-floor windows.

  When police cars pulled up and two officers began moving back the crowd, the video abruptly ended, and I asked Nancy to send me and Matt the link to it.

  “Wow,” said Dante. “That was intense.”

  “Now do you see why I was freaking?” Nancy asked.

  Esther patted her shoulder. “That video was harrowing. I would have freaked, too.”

  “How many people could have seen it?” I wondered aloud. “Not that many, right?”

  “Let’s find out.” Esther grabbed Nancy’s phone and tapped the screen a few times. “Just as I thought. This video was uploaded to YouTube and shared from there.”

  “How many views?” Dante asked.

  “Three hundred thirty in under an hour—and it’s going up really fast.”

  I glanced at Matt and we both exhaled with relief.

  “Thank goodness,” I said. “Three hundred thirty people isn’t that many.”

  Esther, Dante, and Nancy all stared at me as if I’d lost all sense of reality.

  “Boss, I didn’t mean three hundred thirty views period. I thought you understood—if it’s on Chatter with two hashtags, it would have to be bigger than that. It’s three hundred thirty thousand!”

  “We’re viral!” Dante declared. “How cool is that?!”

  As the three young baristas hooted and bumped fists, Matt caught my eye again, and I saw my own worries reflected there.

  Notoriety like this was nothing to celebrate.

  Like far too many posts on social media, those hashtags delivered only part of the story to the scrolling public. To them it was a minute’s entertainment, a momentary freak show.

  To us—and our beloved century-old coffee business—I feared those hashtags meant disaster.

  Eight

  “IT might be okay,” Matt said unconvincingly.

  “An ‘active shooter’ in our coffeehouse?” I wiped the table in agitated circles. “That video will destroy us . . .”

  The two of us were back upstairs, cleaning the remains of our snacking. I told our staff to call it a night, and they headed out, still believing “going viral” was “awesome.” Matt and I held our tongues—until we were alone.

  “Do you think our regular customers will be put off?” he asked.

  “Some will.”

  “I hope you’re wrong. One thing I am sure of. We can kiss all that new swipe-to-meet business good-bye.”

  “That’s certain. Who’s going to set up a date in a coffeehouse where Crazy Cinder-ella goes gunning for Prince Piece-of-Trash?”

  “I’m guessing our ‘Most Romantic Coffee’ in the Village ranking is history, too.” Matt collapsed into his favorite high-back chair.

  Too upset to sit, I took a fast walk around the floor, looking for stray cups or glasses. My baristas had done a good job busing the tables. The floor needed a more thorough sweeping, but that could wait for morning.

  Morning. I closed my eyes and released a pent-up breath. What would the morning bring? Will the press and media cover the story—and make things worse for us? Or will Gun Girl be old news by the break of day?

  With no crystal ball to tell me, I returned to Matt, who was back to staring into his crystal screen.

  “After the night we’ve had, please tell me you’re not looking for another Glass Slipper.”

  “Nope. Ordering an Uber. Unfortunately, the Broadway shows are letting out, so it looks like I’ll have to wait for a car . . .”

  As he continued tapping his phone, he slumped back and crossed his legs. That’s when I spied a slip of paper stuck to the heel of his designer loafer.

  I yanked it free, and Matt sat up. “What is that? A bill of large denomination would be nice.”

  “You’re close.” I skimmed the print on the paper. “It’s a bank withdrawal slip for—wow, ten thousand dollars.”

  “You’re kidding?!” Matt dropped to the ground and searched for more paper under the chair. “Too bad, no cash. All I found was this ballpoint pen.”

  He tossed it onto the café table, and I told him where I’d seen that pen before. During tonight’s awful scene, it had fallen at Richard Crest’s feet, along with his phone and a few scraps of paper—this was obviously one of them.

  “Why would Crest withdraw ten grand in cash?”

  Matt shrugged and returned to his phone screen. I studied the paper in my hand. There was no name on the withdrawal slip, but the bank branch was listed along with the last four numbers of the account. There was an exact time for the transaction, too: almost five hours ago, 4:47 PM.

  “What should I do with this?”

  “Throw it away,” Matt said.

  “No, I think I’ll hold on to it . . .” I tucked the paper into my apron pocket. At the very least, it would give me an excuse to talk to Richard Crest the next time I saw him. And I had to admit—

  “Something about this bothers me.”

  “What?”

  “In the age of credit cards and smartphones, why would anyone withdraw so much in cash?”

  “Maybe he had a craving for a diamond martini at the Blue Bar.”

  “Nobody orders that ten-thousand-dollar drink. It’s a publicity stunt.”

  “I was kidding.”

  “Listen, do me a favor. Call up that video again.”

  Matt studied me. “Are you all right?
You look stressed. Maybe you should go upstairs and get some rest, try to forget about what happened here, and—”

  “Just do it!”

  With tight lips, he tapped the screen. I leaned over and together we re-watched the video. When it hit a certain point, I pounded his shoulder.

  “Matt, look at that!”

  “Ouch! What?”

  “Pause it.” I pointed to the screen. “See that? Richard Crest’s face is completely hidden from the camera. His head is turned to the side and down, his hands are up, and he keeps them there. Don’t you find that strange?”

  “Why? He obviously didn’t want to be shot in the face.”

  “But look—” I tapped the screen to start the video again. “Carol Lynn keeps trying to engage Crest, and he won’t respond. Not one word. That’s not natural. Most people in that situation would have tried to calm her down, reason with her, persuade her not to shoot. But Crest just sits there, not saying a word. And he never moves his hands away from his face.”

  “Well, when you put it that way . . .” As Matt watched more of the video, he began nodding his head. “Yeah, you’re right. It’s as if he doesn’t want to be—”

  “Recognized!” I finished for him. “Now why would that be?”

  “Off the top of my head? He’s married with children, and using the app to serially cheat.”

  “Wow. You came up with that in record time. Having a flashback?”

  “Please. Let’s not revisit ancient marital history.”

  “Fine . . .” I took a breath. “And you’re right. Using dating apps to cheat isn’t exactly uncommon in the swipe-to-meat market. Or maybe there’s something else going on here.”

  “Like what?”

  Tinker-Tinker.

  I frowned at my ex. “I thought you said you were ordering an Uber?”

  “I was, but the Cinder app never sleeps . . .” As his voice trailed off, he began typing a reply to the Glass Slipper message. Seconds later, he gave me a sheepish shrug. “Looks like I won’t be going home alone after all. One of my earlier dates had second thoughts.”