On What Grounds (Coffeehouse Mysteries, No. 1) (A Coffeehouse Mystery) (12 page)

A
few hours later, I was heading up the back stairs to my new second-floor apartment. Everything was under control downstairs. Tucker was on duty as assistant manager, and our evening barista, one of our many part-time workers, had just arrived.

After the events of the day, I really needed a few hours off. Joy was coming for dinner, and I wanted the time to clean up, set a nice table, and listen to some Frank Sinatra.

When I unlocked the door to the duplex, Java greeted me with her usual ear-piercing jaguar yowl. She wasn’t used to her new surroundings. Well, neither was I. But at least Java’s problem could be solved by a scratch or two behind the ears and a can of Fancy Feast Chopped Grill Platter. My dilemmas weren’t so easily solved.

After I presented Java with the attention and the food, the little ball of coffee-bean-brown fur chowed down, then contentedly sprawled across Madame’s living room Persian and began to groom.

I decided to groom as well. My first shower of the day was a dim memory—back in my former New Jersey home. It felt like another decade. I entered the bathroom (small but tastefully designed with a terra cotta floor, Mediterranean-aqua tiles, a marble sink, luxuriously large tub, and two watercolor originals from a student of twentieth-century American Realist painter Edward Hopper—“Boats in Brooklyn Harbor” and “Long Island Sea Foam”).

I dropped my clothes in a heap and jumped into the marble tub. The shower nozzle above had a spa-quality massage head. No time for that, unfortunately, just a hot spray and a quick soaping. After drying my hair, I stood before the closet pondering my wardrobe. I’d moved most of it in batches over the last few weeks. I’d done some shopping recently, too. What to wear suddenly had me stumped. I considered my ex-husband, remember he liked me in skirts—

Oh, god, what am I doing!

Disgusted with myself for giving Matt’s preferences even one moment’s consideration, I quickly grabbed the first clothes I saw—a pair of black slacks and a red blouse.

I finished dressing and set the table in the dining room. I pulled out the handmade lace tablecloth Madame had bought in Florence and put tapers in the crystal holders. Madame’s finest china was displayed in an antique cabinet in her Fifth Avenue dining room. Her second best was stacked in her Fifth Avenue kitchen. Here she kept a set of her third best dishware. But to be honest, I liked it the most: Spode Imperialware’s “Blue Italian” pattern, which has been in continuous production since 1816. I think I liked it best because it felt so cozy and homey, and the blue Northern Italian scenes set against the white earthenware matched the cheerful blue color in the marble of the Village Blend’s main counter.

I set three places.

Next I headed for the kitchen, complete with finished oak cabinets and brass fixtures. The dishwasher was small, but the refrigerator/freezer was large, and the stove was huge, with six burners and a double oven—all with shiny stainless steel finishes.

I’d stocked the tall wall cabinet last week with essentials like sugar, flour, oils and assorted can goods—everything I needed for the dessert I had in mind, Clare’s Cappuccino Walnut Cheesecake, one of Joy’s favorites.

I had phoned Madame earlier and invited her to join us for dinner. She loved to spend time with Joy, and my daughter loved Madame, too. But Madame had declined, claiming she was feeling tired.

The way she had said it—hesitating between “feeling” and “tired”—made me want to cry. It sounded like an excuse, like she’d wanted to say “ill” instead of “tired” but had caught herself. After seeing her in a wheelchair at St. Vincent’s cancer ward, I wasn’t going to press her. I’d wait until she chose to reveal the truth. I certainly wasn’t going to tell her a thing about our problems at the Blend.

Earlier today, I’d told Matt my worries about his mother’s health. I felt bad doing it, but he might have otherwise burdened Madame with the Blend’s problems, and his mother had enough troubles. She didn’t need to know about Anabelle’s fall, the threats made by Anabelle’s stepmother to sue, or the highly disturbing news Matteo had brought to my attention a few hours ago.

There would be other dinners, I told myself, even if Madame was ill and even if, God forbid, she wouldn’t be with us much longer. With that thought, I promised myself that I would make sure Joy and I had dinner with her in the very near future. Perhaps at her penthouse instead of here—so she wouldn’t have to travel.

For now, however, I had a dessert to prepare.

Fortunately, the rest of dinner was taken care of. Matt had insisted on making Joy’s favorite appetizer, which sent him on a shopping trip: first to Dornier’s, a gourmet butcher shop in the meatpacking district; and then to Carbone’s, a local Italian market that specialized in homemade mozzarella cheese and pastas.

Joy, of course, was bringing her “surprise,” which I took to be yet another dish she had learned to prepare at culinary school. All of Joy’s recipes were fully tested before she brought them home to share, so I had no doubt that we were in for a gastronomic delight. And in any case, Matt was also planning a quick side dish—one substantial enough to be a main course in itself.

That thought alone spurred me into action. Matteo would be arriving within the hour, and when he was cooking, he always (and I mean always) completely dominated the kitchen. I was in no mood to fight for elbow room in my own place, so I got right to the cheesecake.

After tying back my hair, I preheated the oven then began pulling ingredients from the refrigerator and spices off the oak rack. The great thing about my Cappuccino Walnut Cheesecake was that you could whip it up fast. After rummaging through a stack of boxes still piled in the corner—my own well-used supply of cooking equipment, shipped from New Jersey a few days ago—I located my nine-inch springform pan.

I blended the walnuts, butter, and sugar for the crust. Then I poured the mixture into the pan and patted it down. Next came the food processor—another item I’d brought from New Jersey. As I spooned cream cheese into the hopper, my mind went back to the unpleasant meeting I’d had with Anabelle’s stepmother—who had threatened to sue the pants off the Blend for what happened to her daughter—and the ironic surprise Matteo brought me a few minutes later, when I’d heard Matteo’s voice calling,
“Clare? Are you up there? It’s dire I speak with you…”

I was still angry at Matteo for rushing off and abandoning Tucker to deal with the afternoon crowd alone, and I planned to let him know it.

“Up here,” I called, not wanting my staff to see me argue with my ex. After all, he was still the Blend’s coffee buyer—and now he was part owner, too.

I heard his heavy tread on the stairs and a moment later he appeared, his face flushed. It looked as if he’d been running.

“We’ve got trouble,” he announced.
No surprise there,
I thought.
Whenever Matteo’s around, trouble follows
.

“What?” I said, my voice tinged with anger. “It couldn’t be nearly as much trouble as leaving the Blend during lunchtime rush with only one person to handle everything. Tucker was swamped when I got here. What the hell were you thinking, Matt, disappearing like that, and—

“Clare, listen!
I’ve just seen Gordon Calderone. You know, Gordon from Parasol.”

My face must have gone blank because my mind sure had.

“Parasol Insurance,” Matteo said. “You know: ‘Your Umbrella in Times of Need’? He’s been the Blend’s insurance representative for over two decades now.”

“Oh,
that
Gordon from Parasol.” I did remember the man. Short and stocky, built like a football player (with an outgoing personality to match), Gordon used to stop by at least once a week, back during the ancient history around here—when Joy was a little girl and Matteo was still my husband.

“How is Gordon?” I asked. “I haven’t seen him in years.”

Matteo sat down in Darla Hart’s seat. I was glad I’d cleared away the mess because cigarette butts gross out Matteo almost as much as they do me.

“There’s a reason you haven’t seen him,” Matt said, his voice even. “It seems that when Moffat Flaste was managing the Blend, he failed to make the quarterly insurance payments. Gordon sent notice after notice, but they were ignored. He stopped by and Moffat brushed him off, implying the Blend had found another provider. Can you believe that? I could kill the guy. The liability insurance on the Village Blend lapsed months ago. In case of accident or personal injury, we’re not covered—not for liability.”

I sank down into the chair opposite Matt.

“Oh, no. No, no, no, no…”

I told Matt about Darla Hart’s visit, and her threat of legal action. After that we sat silently, just staring.

“My god,” I said, “for once you weren’t kidding. The situation
is
dire.”

“She could own this place by the time she’s through,” said Matt.

“What do we do?” I asked.

“I’ve renewed the insurance coverage,” Matteo said. “It just about emptied my checking account, but it could have been worse. I was honest with him about what happened, and he did what he could, which is sign us up to cover anything that happens in the future—”

“So we’re
not
covered for Anabelle?” I asked, even though I knew the answer.

“No, we’re not covered for her,” Matteo said. “But when the police report about Anabelle’s accident is filed, it will be too late for the parent company to deny our renewed coverage or raise our rates. We owe Gordon big time for this favor!”

I nodded in agreement. At least the business was now covered in case another barista took a tumble down the stairs, or a customer slipped on a wet napkin. That was something, at least.

But for me the real surprise was Matteo. I was always the level-headed, pragmatic adult in our relationship, he was always the Peter Pan, yet I didn’t even think of checking with the insurance company—something I should have done immediately after the incident (I still didn’t think it was an “accident”). Matt, however, was right on it, and he may have saved our butts and our business—at least from future liability. His generous gesture of paying the insurance bill was doubly unexpected.

“We can’t tell Madame,” I admitted to Matt during that same conversation. “Not about Anabelle, not about the insurance. Not now.”

“Why not?”

I told him about St. Vincent’s cancer ward, about her saying she was too “tired” to come to see Joy for dinner. Matteo nodded, his face grim.

“No, we can’t tell her,” he agreed.

I sighed, remembering the look on Matt’s face as he said that. Then I slid the cheesecake into the oven, and set the timer.

Maybe Madame would beat the cancer, I told myself.

And Anabelle…maybe Anabelle would wake up tomorrow, tell us all what happened, and everything would be solved. Maybe.

But then I recalled the girl’s butterfly pulse, her pale face, her twisted rag-doll body at the bottom of the steps, and I felt my heart despair.

Suddenly, a series of rhythmic knocks sounded at the front door. There was only one person who knocked that way—my pride named Joy. I smiled, my spirits lifting.

I
opened the door to the apartment, fully expecting to find Joy standing on the threshold. Instead I found Matteo, arms weighted with grocery bags.

“Thanks,” he muttered. “I bought so much stuff I couldn’t get to my keys.”

“I thought you were Joy,” I said.

“Why?”

“The knock,” I said. “Rat-tat-uh-tat-tat. That’s Joy’s knock.”

“Who do you think she picked it up from?” he said, breezing by me and making a beeline for the kitchen.

I could smell the freshly grated Pecorino Romano wafting up from the grocery bags. Two crusty brown loaves of baguettes rustica protruded from another paper sack.

“It’s dinner for three, not thirty,” I called over my shoulder, closing the door.

“I only bought a few essentials,” he replied. “If I’m going to stay here, I’ll need some staples.”

Except you’re
not
staying here
! I thought.
At least not for long.

“Fine” is the word that actually came out of my mouth.

“I
know
what you’re thinking,” Matt called. “And don’t worry. You can have the bedroom. After dinner I’m going to clean out the storage room upstairs. It used to be my bedroom when I was a boy. I can haul up the foldaway bed from the basement, and I should be set for the week.”

Then Matt threw me a teasing leer. “Unless of course you’ve got a better idea for the sleeping arrangements.”

“No,”
I said. “Sounds like you’ve got it figured out just fine.”

Matt rolled up his sleeves and checked his watch.

“You still have that thing?” I asked, surprised.

“I
love
this thing,” he said with a smile.

It was a sporty self-winding duograph chronometer from Breitling (list price new: $5,000; “gently” used price at Torneau’s resale shop: $1,500). I had scrimped and saved during our first year of marriage and even borrowed some money from Madame so I could surprise Matt on our first anniversary. It moved from time zone to time zone with ease and even displayed the correct time in two zones at the same time—the perfect timepiece for a globe-trotter traveler like Matt.

“Wow, it’s late! I’d better start cooking,” he said.

“Well, don’t open the oven,” I warned. “You’ll ruin dessert.”

While I prepared the items for the cheesecake topping, Matt went to work behind me, bumping and elbowing me the entire time. God, he was annoying in the kitchen!

First he set a pot of water on the stove and lit the fire under it. A moment later I heard the crinkle of shopping bags as he dumped his plunder onto the counter.

“They had Maytag Blue Cheese—for once,” Matt said as he tossed a blue-marbled brick of soft cheese into the refrigerator.

I arched my eyebrow. “
‘Essentials,’
you said. Frightfully expensive blue cheese is an
essential
?”

“It is—in
my
house,” he said.

Just let it go,
I chanted to myself.
Don’t take the bait. Just let it go.

“And here,” he added. “Look at this!”

Matt proudly displayed a slab of bacon the size of Rhode Island.

“So you’ve brought home the bacon at last,” I blurted.
Whoops.

“Very funny.”

Matt loaded the crisp green leaves of Romaine lettuce into the vegetable bin, and plastic containers of grated cheese onto the refrigerator shelf next to a pint of heavy cream.

“So,” he said, “speaking of, uh, ‘bringing home the bacon’—is that why you came back here from New Jersey to manage the Blend? Are you having money problems?”

“No.” I bristled. “I was doing just fine, thank you very much.”

“So what’s the reason then? Why did you come back?”

Matt leaned a hand on the counter. With his rolled-up shirtsleeves, his muscular forearm caught my eye. Tanned by the Peruvian sun and slightly dusted with fine black hair, it reminded me of the first time we’d met on a brilliant June day along the Mediterranean.

I was a college student at the time, spending the summer with my great-uncle’s family while studying Italian art history. He was backpacking across France and Italy, heading for Greece. I’d thought he was a Michaelangelo statue come to life.
Stop it, Clare.
I warned myself.
Stop it.

His dark brown eyes locked onto my green ones—he was waiting for an answer.

“I, uh…I guess I wanted a change,” I told him, attempting to change something else in that moment—my focus. I forced my eyes to shift away from his forearm and over to a two-pound bag of Carbone’s homemade fettuccini. “The suburbs were nice enough, don’t get me wrong. I mean, New Jersey has its charms—”

Matt snorted.

“It
does.
And it’s a good place to raise a child. I was happy there, at least in the beginning. But now that Joy’s gone away to school—never to live with Mom again—I thought I should try making a change, take Madame up on her offer to start again.”

“That’s it?”

“What do you mean, ‘That’s it’? Gail Sheehy created an entirely revised version of her book
Passages
based on that premise alone.”

Matt stared blankly.

“You know,” I said, “
New Passages
?”

Matt continued to stare blankly.

“Longer life spans,” I explained. “Second Adulthoods that begin after children leave the nest? You’ve never heard of this?”

Matt shook his head.

“Well,
you’re
older now, too,” I reminded him. His eyebrow rose, as if to say
duh.
“What I mean is: Haven’t you thought about the changes that come with reaching middle age?”

Matt dismissively waved his hand. “I never think about that stuff.”

Of course you don’t, I thought, because you’re another type that Sheehy writes about—the man who wakes up one morning on the Dark Side of Forty and realizes his bright future full of possibilities has dimmed and narrowed. That he’s too old to be a young…Well, a young
anything.

Matt would never admit it, but I was pretty sure his sprint to Parasol Insurance earlier today was evidence he was reaching that Dark Side of Forty stage. The
old
Matt never thought ahead, never took responsibility, and never, ever took cash out of his own pocket to help clean up a mess.

The old Matt would have taken the first plane out of town—waved
aloha
to me and Madame and let us pull out the buckets and mops while he made a deal at a
luau
for five hundred bags of Kona.

Sure, I could chalk up the change to Madame’s ownership deal. Even experiments in public housing (according to one of my customers who worked for the City of New York) have suggested that if you give people a way to own a thing, they suddenly find the time, energy, and money to invest in protecting and improving it.

And yet…that ownership theory didn’t really hold water when it came to Matt. For one thing, I was sure Matt had already assumed he’d inherit the Blend anyway—yet his actions had always been aloof where the Blend’s business was concerned. All he ever seemed to care about was the freedom to come and go as he pleased.

And—in terms of ownership theories—what about me? I found myself thinking. When I was
his
exclusively, he took me for granted. Just like the Blend.

Whether it was the new part-ownership status or the Dark Side of Forty change-in-perspective thing, I didn’t know. All I knew was that Matteo Allegro was showing positive signs of change.

Change is (usually) good. And ten years ago, I would have rejoiced at it. But I couldn’t rejoice now. Now our child was grown—and I wanted
my
freedom. After all the years of pining away for the man, I had finally reached an emotional point in my life where I wanted to be free of Matteo Allegro and all of his heartbreaking patterns.

Madame wouldn’t understand or accept my decision, but that was just too bad. Even with her cancer scare, I’d find a way to gently tell her. A tricky scheme (even one as well meaning as Madame’s) wasn’t going to erase years of pain, frustration, and resentment. Not for me anyway.

“Heads up,” Matt said, tossing me a bundle of fresh garlic. I caught it.

“It goes in the hanging basket behind you,” he said with a wink.

God, this was infuriating. My ex-husband knew my kitchen better than I did—and wasn’t shy about making sure I knew it. Well, I reminded myself, he
had
lived here as a boy with his mother before Pierre had moved them up to Fifth Avenue. Resentment rose in me anyway. I checked my watch. For Joy’s sake, I reminded myself yet again, I wasn’t going to start any battles with her father. Not before dinner anyway.

“So what’s on the menu?” I said, changing the subject to one that was nice, safe, and neutral: Food.

“I’m going with the fettuccini carbonara,” he said. “It’s rich—especially when I make it with fettuccini instead of thin spaghetti—but Joy always loved it when I cooked it for her. And it’s probably the only dish I can still cook better than my soon-to-be-chef daughter. She’s probably a real pro now that she’s been formally trained.”

“Matt, she just started culinary school. She’s years from graduation,” I said. “In fact, she confessed to me that she’s having a little trouble in one class. Apparently a hollandaise broke and the guest instructor humiliated her in front of the rest of the class.”

“Maybe she needs a few pointers from her dad.”

“You think you could help her?” I asked hopefully.

“Sure. And this should cheer her up, too.” Matt reached into his pocket and withdrew a small, square box. “Check this out,” he said.

I opened the box.

“I picked it up in Mexico,” said Matt.

I looked down and almost winced.
Not again.

When Joy was nine, Matt brought a bracelet back from one of his endless trips and gave it to her. The bracelet was lovely, its delicate links made of pure, fourteen-karat rose gold. Since then, Matteo had presented her with various charms, distinctive little items he found over the years in foreign lands on his never-ending quests for the richest coffees, the bluest waves, the tallest mountains—and (I’m sure) other sorts of stimulation as well (cocaine and women).

For a lot of years, those seemingly thoughtful little baubles from Dad, transported from faraway lands, delighted Joy. In grade school she wore the bracelet constantly. In junior high less so, and by high school…Well, the truth was, Joy hadn’t worn that charm bracelet in public since the junior high school prom—not that Matt was ever around enough to notice.

“It’s a charm,” Matt explained. “For Joy’s bracelet. Think she’ll be wearing it tonight?”

“I don’t know…”

“Like it?”

“It’s…interesting,” I said diplomatically. What I was looking at was a little nugget of gold shaped like an incredibly stout woman wearing a bowler hat and holding an ear of corn over her prodigious breasts.

“It’s supposed to be Centeotl, the Aztec goddess of corn,” Matt explained, after noting my puzzled expression. I nodded, not quite
up
on my religions of Mesoamerica.

“And the significance is?” I asked.

“Corn was central to the Aztec diet. Their corn goddess was a harvest god. And since Joy is going to be a chef, I figured, you know…food, harvest…” Matt’s voice trailed off, and he shrugged his broad shoulders.

“How very Joseph Campbell of you,” I said, trying to be positive. I handed the box back to him and laughed as I added, “as long as it’s not some sort of
fertility
goddess.”

Matt stared down at it. His brow wrinkled. “Actually I think it is.”

We were interrupted by another rhythmic knock—the identical one Matt had used.

“Joy!” I said.

She’d finally arrived. The two of us ran a sort of short foot race (which looked about as embarrassing as it sounds) to see who would be the first to greet her.

I won—by virtue of being short enough to duck under Matt’s arms, just as he was pulling open the door.

“Hello!” I said, reaching up to hug my daughter, who either had grown another two inches since the last time I saw her or was wearing stacked heels.

“Mom,” she cried, hugging me back. “I saw Tucker downstairs and he told me about Anabelle. How terrible!”

“Hi, kiddo!” Matt said. Joy rushed into his arms.

“I missed you so much, Daddy,” she said, squeezing him tightly.

I was about to close the door when the shadow of another figure fell across the threshold.

“Mom. Dad,” Joy said, bursting with excitement. “Here’s my
surprise
! I want you to meet Mario Forte.”

A young man stepped into the room. He was tall for an Italian. That’s the first thing I noticed. Taller even than Matteo. (Now I knew why Joy was wearing stacked heels!) His hair was black and long and tied back in a loose ponytail. His lips were curled into a slight smirk which, to my mind, marred his otherwise good features. He wore black slacks and a long-sleeved black shirt, unbuttoned far enough from the neck to show a gold chain dangling between sculpted pecs. The sleeves of the shirt were rolled up and I glimpsed some sort of tattoo around his bicep—it looked like barbed wire.

Joy looked up at the young man with something akin to hero worship.
Uh-oh,
I thought. She was smitten. And my ex-husband tensed the moment he realized it.

So much for a relaxing evening.

“Mrs. Allegro,” said the young man, taking my hand. “It is a pleasure to meet with you at last. Joy has told me so much about you.”

Is that right?
I thought, then why didn’t she mention I’m “Ms. Cosi,” and no longer “Mrs. Allegro”?

“And you must be
Mr.
Allegro,” Mario said, stepping up to Matteo and reaching out to shake his hand. “I did not expect to meet you so soon—”

“I’ll just bet you didn’t,” Matt muttered, his jaw muscles working. They shook hands, but neither seemed to put much enthusiasm in the gesture.

“Joy told me that her father was a mystery man,” Mario said with a little chuckle. “The ‘mystery’ was when you were going to finally make an appearance at home.”