Shot in the Dark Page 7

  THE blue and white fast boat named Martin Morrow decelerated as it approached us.

  The vessel was fifty feet long with an enclosed bridge. A high mast behind the cabin carried the emergency lights, which stopped flashing when the engine was cut.

  Avoiding the corpse in the water, the boat floated up to the dock, lightly bumping the wooden planks. Immediately, a figure in a shiny wet suit leaped from the deck and hit the river with a splash.

  As he swam toward the dead girl, a young cop in a blue formfitting uniform hopped over the rail and landed in front of us. His badge read Burns.

  “Hello, sailor!” Madame said with a wave.

  “Ahoy, there,” Officer Burns replied.

  We watched as he tied off the boat. Then he pulled a wrench from a utility belt and worked the safety railing. In under a minute, Officer Burns unbolted a section of the railing and set it aside, giving the crew full access to the dock.

  “Which one of you is Ms. Cosi?”

  I waved my hand.

  He jerked his blond head in the direction of a male silhouette inside the shadowy cabin. “Our sergeant will need your statement, so stick around, okay?”

  “Like glue,” I assured him.

  Suddenly, a voice called from the water. “Give me a hand, bro!”

  Burns donned waterproof gloves. Then he and the man in the wet suit moved the body onto the shadowy dock. As the diver climbed out of the river, Burns detached the dead girl’s red backpack and set it aside. Kneeling, he looked up at his partner.

  “You’re the EMT, Hernandez. What do you think?”

  Hernandez ripped the dripping snorkel-mask from his head to reveal curly black hair and liquid brown eyes. With obvious irony, he said—

  “I think she’s a goner.”

  “Yeah, sure, but do you think she’s the jumper they’re looking for upriver?”

  “She’s fresh enough, I guess.”

  Hernandez then leaned in for a closer look, but he didn’t need to lean far. He wasn’t much taller than I was, though his skintight wet suit revealed all muscle under the neoprene.

  “I see maceration on the extremities.” Hernandez glanced at me. “That’s wrinkled skin, ma’am. There’s not much rigor mortis, but cold immersion slows the process, so there’s no gauging time of death from that.”

  Hernandez wiggled the water out of his ear with a stubby finger.

  “Low tide and wakes from river traffic could have swept the jumper down here. I mean, it’s definitely possible—”

  “Excuse me,” I interrupted. “What jumper?”

  “We received a report of a female going into the water at the Boat Basin on 79th Street,” Officer Burns replied. “The scuba team went in after her, but no joy. They knocked off their pattern search up there a couple of hours ago. They’ll be back at it in the morning.”

  “When did this woman jump?”

  “Sixteen hundred hours.”

  My civilian mind translated: four o’clock in the afternoon. “You said the jumper went into the water. Did she fall?”

  Burns shook his head. “Eyewitnesses claim it was a suicide. They saw her jump. It was very deliberate.”

  Madame sniffed. “If you think this might be the same woman, why were divers searching where she jumped in? Clearly, the current moves objects up and down the river, depending on the tide. I’m just a taxpayer, but it seems like a terrible waste of resources to me.”

  Burns’s reply was diplomatic.

  “Ma’am, when a body drowns, its lungs fill with water and the corpse sinks. It’s only after gases build up in the stomach that it becomes a floater, and that could take days.”

  “Then why didn’t this poor child sink?” Madame asked.

  “Her backpack. It contained enough air to keep the body buoyant.”

  “I’m sorry, but that doesn’t add up,” I said. “Why would a girl jump into the river to commit suicide with what amounts to a flotation device strapped to her back? If this girl was so determined to kill herself, wouldn’t she have filled her pack with rocks or something equally heavy?”

  Hernandez and Burns exchanged glances but offered no answer.

  “And what about that wound on her head?” I pointed to the visible gash.

  Hernandez found his tongue. “Could be postmortem damage. Bad stuff happens in the river. She could have hit a rock or a pier, or been clipped by a passing boat. She definitely got knocked around. I mean, look at her. She’s even missing a left shoe . . .”

  It was true. The dead girl wore a single slip-on sneaker on her right foot, hot pink to match the streaks in her blond hair. The pockets of her skinny jeans were turned out, too. They looked like stunted angel’s wings against the saturated denim.

  Burns faced the corpse. “Let’s find out who she is.”

  Still on his knees, his gloved hand rifled through the pockets of her cropped jacket but found nothing.

  “Looks like the tide took everything,” he said glumly.

  “Check out her backpack,” Officer Hernandez suggested.

  The gloves made it a struggle, but Burns managed to get the zipper undone. Inside he found three sealed plastic containers that formerly held food but now carried only air.

  Madame cocked her head. “Did you find any rocks among all that buoyant Tupperware, dear?”

  Ignoring her, Burns tossed a small plastic box to Hernandez.

  “There’s something in the backpack’s other compartment.”

  He opened the second zipper and reached inside. A moment later, Burns displayed what he’d found.

  Madame gasped at the sight.

  In his gloved hand, the Harbor Patrol officer clutched a thirty-two-ounce stainless steel thermal mug. The logo branded on its side was a familiar one—

  The Village Blend.

  Fifteen

  BURNS shook the thermos. “It’s still half full.”

  “Please, open it,” I said. “I’d like to smell the coffee inside. I may need to see it, too.”

  Burns blinked. “Excuse me?”

  Hernandez scratched his head. “Why would you need to do that?”

  “Because I’m the manager of the Village Blend, where that thermos was purchased. We refill those with our ‘daily specials’ for a discount, and regular customers stop in often.”

  Hernandez shrugged. “So?”

  “So if this young woman came to my shop for a refill today, the coffee inside that thermos will tell me when she bought it. That information should help you narrow down the time of death.”

  Burns and Hernandez shared dubious looks.

  “Coffee is coffee,” Burns said. “It’s stale or fresh, and that’s the end of it.”

  “Sorry, Officer Burns, but you’re out of your depth.”

  Hernandez snorted.

  “Let me elaborate,” I said in a more patient tone. “Between seven AM and noon today the Village Blend offered a single-origin from Ethiopia. Those beans carry a floral aroma with notes of apricot and honey. I roast them light, which better preserves the delicate flavors as well as the caffeine content. At noon, we changed our special to an estate Panama, with notes of berry and vanilla. My roast for that is City—that’s medium. At six, I switched to a blend we call Fireside. Sumatra is the star, and it’s not a coffee we source from a big estate. Our coffee hunter buys it out of the backyards and gardens of small farmers in Indonesia, and the semi-washed processing gives it a distinctive earthiness with powerful notes of chocolate and spice. I give those beans a Vienna roast, medium-dark, less caffeine for after-dinner enjoyment.”

  I rested my hands on my hips. “So, are you going to open that thermos now?”

  For a moment, Burns and Hernandez stared at me with slack jaws. Then a forceful new voice broke the silence.

  “Let the lady smell the coffee!”

&
nbsp; We all turned to face the man who’d spoken. It was the boat’s commander. He’d finally emerged from the bridge.

  Lanky and lean, legs braced against the rocking deck, the sergeant was at least two decades older than his crew. There was a hint of gray at his temples, but the rest of his head was jet-black—the patch covering his right eye was black, too.

  Madame’s violet eyes grew wide at the striking mocha-skinned figure. “Yo-ho-ho, and a bottle of rum!” she declared with a giggle that (unfortunately) came from consuming a tad too much of that very libation.

  With an embarrassed swallow, I reread the name painted on the bow, Martin Morrow, and concluded the obvious (or what I thought was obvious).

  “You must be Sergeant Morrow?”

  Officer Burns winced. Hernandez dipped his head and stifled a laugh.

  “This boat is the Martin Morrow,” the commander replied. “All NYPD vessels are named after fallen officers.”

  Okay, color me mortified. “So your name is?”

  “Sergeant Jones.”

  Madame giggled again. “Davy Jones?”

  “No, darlin’. Leonidas Jabari Jones.”

  Burns and Hernandez exchanged surprised glances. “Leonidas?” they mouthed to each other.

  I cleared my throat and introduced myself to the sergeant, stressing again that I was sure I could help. The sergeant nodded and instructed Burns to open the thermos with his gloved hand.

  “Don’t touch it, okay?” Burns warned me. “It’s evidence.”

  “I’ll just take a sniff,” I assured him.

  Balancing it on one knee, Burns held the container aloft like a consecrated offering.

  I lowered my nose to the opening and inhaled deeply. I raised my head and slowly let the air out of my lungs before I sniffed again. There was nothing floral, delicate, or fruity about this coffee. The bold spice and rich chocolate were unmistakable—this was my darker-roasted evening offering, the Fireside blend.

  “I’m sorry, Officers, but this woman isn’t your jumper. I know this coffee, and it wasn’t brewed and sold until after six this evening. You told me eyewitnesses saw your jumper go into the river at four, right?”

  Hernandez nodded.

  Officer Burns closed the thermos and set it beside the backpack. Then he gently closed the victim’s eyes and covered her body with a plastic shroud.

  Sergeant (not Davy) Jones stepped off the deck and approached me. Now, I’m not much over five-two, even on a big-shoe day. And though I’m quite used to my near-munchkin status, I couldn’t help finding the eye-patched sergeant intimidating. It was more than his height. Jones had the commanding presence of a battleship. Even his voice projected the power of an air horn.

  “You’re sure about the time, Ms. Cosi?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Thankfully, Jones stopped looming over me—to loom instead over Hernandez. “What’s in the plastic box Burns tossed you?”

  “Something to do with her work, maybe . . .” Hernandez displayed a bright red memory stick with a USB plug-in.

  “It’s possible that storage device contains her suicide note,” I said, pointing to the red stick. “If she is a suicide.”

  The sergeant fixed me with his good eye. “So why do you think she wouldn’t simply write a note on a piece of paper like everybody else?”

  “Maybe she did, but I’m convinced she did not float all the way down from 79th Street . . .” I pointed across Twelfth Avenue to the Manhattan skyline. “That whole area is an extension of the Flatiron District’s original Silicon Alley. Tech companies like Uber, Google, Microsoft, and Thorn, Inc., have East Coast headquarters close by. I know because I’ve catered their events.”

  “What’s your point, Coffee Lady?”

  “I think this woman may have been a tech company employee. And I don’t think she killed herself. But if she did, it’s likely she would have digitized any final message to the world.”

  “Let’s find out.” Sergeant Jones turned to Burns. “Grab my laptop on the bridge and bring it here.”

  “Why, Mr. Jones . . .” Madame giggled. “Are you sure he shouldn’t check your locker?”

  The sergeant arched a dark brow over his one good eye.

  Oh, brother. “We better get some coffee into you,” I whispered to Madame.

  “Well, don’t use that thermos,” she declared. “It’s evidence, you know!”

  Meanwhile, Burns scrambled aboard the Morrow and returned with the computer—an older-model laptop scuffed and grimy from use. He inserted the drive into a USB port, then glanced at the screen.

  “It won’t read.”

  “Wiggle the drive in the socket,” Hernandez said. “That’s what I do.”

  As they struggled to activate the drive, my smartphone vibrated.

  I quickly checked the caller ID, hoping one of my baristas was getting back to me about the identity of this poor girl. But I was wrong.

  It was the police who were calling, or rather one very special police person—my long-lost fiancé, Detective Lieutenant Michael R. F. Quinn.

  With a deep breath, I answered the phone.

  “Hi, Mike,” I said, forcing my voice to sound light and carefree. (It wasn’t easy.) “Where are you?”

  “Where am I? In front of your coffeehouse! I stopped by your shop for a surprise visit, but I got the surprise. Where are you?”

  Sixteen

  I’M standing on a cold, damp dock ready to scream!

  That’s how I wanted to answer the man, and I wouldn’t have stopped there. I would have spilled everything, all my fears and frustrations, all my shock and anger and sadness.

  But now was not the time.

  “We had a bit of a problem,” I said. “I’ll tell you about it later—”

  Quinn quickly cut off my equivocating. “If you’re talking about the shots fired from a prop gun, I already heard about it . . .”

  Not exactly a shocker. While Quinn wasn’t the kind of guy who kept up with viral videos on social media, he almost always got the word on local police incidents.

  “Franco?” I assumed.

  “He let me know about fifteen minutes ago. That’s why I left work early and came to see you—”

  “Is that your man on the phone?” Madame called through her cupped hands. “Blow him a kiss from me. Just like Dinah Shore!”

  She blew a tipsy kiss and threw out her arm, smacking Sergeant Jones on his shoulder. Thankfully, the big guy appeared more amused than annoyed.

  I lowered my voice even more and informed Quinn: “Madame invited me out for a late meal at Pier 66, and a few too many rum cocktails—”

  “So I deduced.”

  “Got it!” Officer Burns cried at last. “Okay, here we go. I see a bunch of video files on this memory stick. One, two, three—five of them.”

  “Play one,” Officer Hernandez urged.

  “We’ll see if this antique can do it.”

  “What’s all that chatter?” Quinn asked in my ear. “Are you still in the restaurant?”

  “No, dinner is over.”

  “So you’re taking Madame home?”

  “Not this minute. We kind of got jammed up.”

  “Jammed up?” Quinn’s tone sharpened. “How?”

  “We’re at a crime scene, actually.”

  “What!”

  “Relax. We’re just witnesses.”

  “Except I left my glasses at home, so I didn’t see a thing!” Madame announced.

  Quinn went silent a moment. “Clare, is your former mother-in-law soused? At a crime scene?”

  “No comment.”

  “I got one of the videos going,” Burns said. “Looks like a woman waving a gun. Let me turn up the volume . . .”

  “EVERYONE, LISTEN! I AM NOT GOING TO HURT ANY OF YOU! I’M HERE TO MAKE A P
OINT . . .”

  I froze in place.

  This video wasn’t a suicide note. It was the same viral video I’d viewed with my staff earlier this evening. Like that Village Blend travel mug in the dead girl’s backpack, this downloaded video was connected directly to my coffeehouse.

  What I didn’t understand was why.

  Why was my former customer carrying a digitally saved version of Gun Girl’s active shooter show? Did she know Carol Lynn Kendall? Or Richard Crest?

  Given Crest’s aggressive approach to meeting random women through Cinder swipes, the latter seemed more likely. Could this dead girl have been one of Crest’s many shop-and-drop women?

  I had zero evidence of this, of course, and I knew what these Harbor Patrol officers would say if I started blathering wild speculations.

  They would say I had no proof.

  They would tell me there was no need for a crime scene unit because the body itself was the crime scene and any gathering of forensic evidence would take place at the morgue.

  They would argue time of death alone doesn’t prove she was murdered. Even if she wasn’t the four o’clock “jumper,” that doesn’t mean she didn’t also commit suicide.

  They would tell me I didn’t even know this girl’s name, and her possession of a viral video seen by tens of thousands of people meant absolutely nothing.

  But with everything I’d seen and heard tonight, I strongly suspected there was something to these connections. These officers would agree if only they were in my shoes.

  I blinked. Shoes . . .

  “Clare? Are you there?”

  “I’m here.”

  “Is everything all right?”

  “No, it’s not . . .” I stepped away from Burns and lowered my voice to a whisper. “Could you come to the pier? I may need your help.”

  “To get Madame home?”

  “No. To find a missing shoe.”

  Seventeen

  “THIS is nice.”

  “Nice?” My fiancé ran a hand through his short sandy-brown hair. “And here I thought we were on some sort of investigation—”