Roast Mortem (25 page)

“It didn't help?”

“The judge didn't care in the least that Kevin had a relative on the job. She believed he needed a hard lesson. I didn't say so at the time, but so did I. Kevin pleaded guilty and went to jail for a brief time. It killed his chances of becoming a New York City firefighter, and Michael never forgave me for not doing more to help his brother. But, Clare, I swear I did all I could.”

I turned back to the stove, considering Mike's words as I slipped six panko-breaded crab cakes into the hot peanut oil. The patties sizzled, the fresh herbs inside giving a hint of floral fragrance to the kitchen, but the primary sensation in the air was heavy and cloying, the kind of feeling you get when you know something is being fried.

“I don't understand why you and your cousin have to be at war over this,” I said. “Your actions were obviously reasonable and Kevin was in the wrong. How could anyone trust a kid like that to be a responsible firefighter, for God's sake?”

“Most of the family is on my side, Clare. Kevin even forgave me for not doing more to get him off the hook. But Michael never did.”

“Why not? If what you say is true—”

“It is. But my cousin's told his version of that story for so many years now he actually believes it. And that's the tragedy.”

I turned back to the burner. Mixing and forming crab cakes was simple enough, but cooking them was not. For one thing, there wasn't much keeping the patties together (not if you wanted to taste crabmeat instead of bread crumbs and binders), so poking them was a bad idea. Flipping should be done only once. And turning them was tricky. Anything held together this precariously had to be handled with finesse.

I glanced over my shoulder at Mike, tried to keep my voice light and casual. “How many years ago did all of that happen, anyway?”

“I don't know. Twelve or so, I guess . . .”

“Is Kevin okay now?”

“Kevin's doing just fine for himself, Clare. He's an engineer, married with two kids, and makes a perfectly good living. Until last summer, he had a great job at a firm in the city.”

“But he had to move to Boston, right?”

“That's right . . .”

Mike's voice trailed off, and I let it go, focusing on the completion of his meal. Using a spatula I slipped four of the hot crab cakes onto a large dinner plate, placed three colorful mounds of my homemade condiments around them: lemon-garlic mayo; dill-laced mustard sauce; and avocado, gherkin, and roasted pepper relish. Finally, I piled a generous side of my Thai-style coleslaw into a small salad bowl. (In my opinion, the sweet heat and bright astringency of my Thai slaw was the perfect accompaniment to the unctuous richness of the pan-fried seafood.)

Mike picked up his fork and dug in. “Oh, man, this is good . . .”

I made up my own plate and sat down.

“So . . .” I carefully poked. “Boston?”

“Yeah,” Mike said, pausing to chew and swallow. “Kevin was downsized recently—just last year—and he had to relocate for a new job, but I hear he's happy in Massachusetts. And the last time I checked, he no longer touches alcohol.”

As Mike inhaled his dinner, I ate my two warm cakes in silence, trying my best to enjoy the freshly fried flavor of lightly breaded seafood, the complementary notes in the tricolored accompaniments. But I still wasn't satisfied.

“Are you sure there isn't anything else between you and your cousin? Just the incident with Kevin?”

Mike looked down, suddenly focusing his attention on the last little bits on his plate. “The thing with Kevin, Clare . . . that's what Michael won't forgive.”

“You know, it sounds to me like your choosing your words carefully again. There's more to this story, isn't there?”

“That's all I can tell you . . .”

“You mean that's all you want to tell me.”

Mike looked up then, finally met my eyes. “Sweetheart, I'm going to ask you one more time to stay away from my cousin. Will you do that?”

“Yes.”

“Promise me, Clare.”

“Mike—”

“Promise me.”

I sighed. “I promise you, Mike.”

“Good, let's change the subject, okay? Mind if I watch the headlines?”

“No . . . I'd like to see them, too.”

Mike flipped on the small television in the corner of the counter, turned it to NY1, our local twenty-four-hour news channel.

“I'll make more coffee,” I said.

Obviously, Mike was done talking about his cousin, but I couldn't stand having secrets between us, and I was determined to get this one out of him.

As I measured out our Breakfast Blend, I considered how to reopen the subject. For about twenty seconds, the noisy gears of my burr grinder drowned out the dulcet tones of NY1's morning anchor. Then the grinder stopped and Pat Kiernan's voice came back.

“. . . a three-alarm fire in Long Island City. The coffeehouse was part of a popular international chain . . .”

“Coffeehouse!”

I turned quickly, just in time to see last night's recorded footage. I recognized several members of the fire station I'd just laughed with the night before. Then I recalled what Oat had said to Captain Michael as they strode away from his office
—“Long Island City . . . a two-alarm, going to three . . .”

“. . . and the mayor will make a statement later today about this sad turn of events,” Kiernan continued. “The coffeehouse was closed at the time of the blaze and no customers or employees were injured. But one of New York's Bravest lost his life . . .”

I glanced at Mike. We both tensed, waiting. Finally, the still, color photograph came up on the TV screen—a picture of the dead man.

I stumbled backward, fell into a chair.

“. . . best known for his appearance as Mr. March in last year's famous FDNY calendar, Bigsby Brewer died instantly after jumping from the building's roof. The cause of the fire is deemed suspicious and is under investigation.”

THREE
days later, a public funeral was held in Queens. Dante, Madame, and I attended. The mayor was there and the city commissioners. The cardinal came, the FDNY Emerald Society Pipes and Drums, the local press, and every member of Bigsby Brewer's beloved firehouse.

The pomp and turnout were overwhelming, the grieving genuine. Thousands of firefighters from every borough showed up in dress blues. The small army couldn't fit inside the church so they lined up in formation on the streets outside, where cops redirected traffic for hours, all the way to the burial ceremony in Calvary Cemetery on Laurel Hill Boulevard.

The younger firefighters looked steely, the older ones visibly haunted, unshed tears glazing their eyes, tense expressions barely masking rekindled memories. Back in fall 2001, this city had seen hundreds of funerals just like this one, final farewells to those who'd answered their last alarms.

Now it was Bigsby's turn. And on the morning of his funeral, that's when it hit me. I'd
heard
his last alarm.

THE
cluster of days that followed blew by like fast-moving storms. Time felt compressed, and so did I. Tensions were so high that most mornings I woke up feeling as though I'd slept with my head inside a panini maker.

The Blend's business went on as usual—morning crush, lunchtime takeouts, evening regulars—but just as Mike promised, detectives from the Sixth took shifts in plain clothes while sector cars drove by so often I was starting to feel like I managed a gangland hangout.

There were no more threats, however, and no more coffeehouse fires. My two follow-up calls to Rossi and the precinct detectives handling my case yielded polite but completely fruitless conversations.

Madame continued to spend part of every day at the ICU, reading the newspapers aloud to Enzo. He was still comatose, but his condition was stable, at least. Until he woke up—if he ever did—the doctors wouldn't be sure of the extent of his stroke damage.

I met with Valerie Noonan twice (in microbrew bars, her choice) to finalize details for the bake sale. Mike and I managed to meet a few times for dinner, too—Cornish hens with coffee glaze and Cumberland sauce; an outstanding recipe for Triple-Threat Firehouse Penne Mac 'n' Cheese (that James shared with me); steak with a Jim Beam reduction; and Korean-style fried wings (my first attempt to identify the ingredients and technique behind those delectable Unidentified Flying Chickens).

As usual, Mike swooned for my cooking, but his undercover operation near the Williamsburg Bridge sapped so much of his time and energy that we failed to connect beyond the dinner table.

No more spicy-sweet 4 AM wake up calls. In the wee hours before dawn, Mike would come back to the Blend and relieve Matt from his night vigil of global coffee trading. Then Mike would come up to my bedroom, collapse onto the mattress, and by the time he stirred again I was already at work, pulling espressos . . .

 

 

FINALLY,
the day of the big bake sale arrived.

Val had chosen the location and it was perfect—Union Square Park, an island of green space ringed by skyscrapers. The park was three city blocks long and the northern perimeter was frequently used to stage open-air farmers' markets. That was the real genius of the location. New Yorkers were already used to stopping by the area for food purchases so the turnout was practically guaranteed.

Early that morning, volunteers from the NYC Fallen Firefighters Fund began setting up their tents and tables. Matt and I spent two hours transporting supplies and erecting our little blue Village Blend stand. Now he was gone—off to catch some sleep since he'd been doing business with Europe and Japan most of the night—while I stayed to man the booth, test our espresso machine, and marshal the troops.

Behind our portable counter, Dante and Esther began unpacking columns of plastic lids and cardboard cups.

Then Tucker arrived, waving the
New York Post
at us like a signal flag. “People, people, did you see this!”

“See what?” Dante asked.

Esther and I stared blankly.

“Oh my
gawd
!” Tucker was close to apoplectic. “There's something in this paper you all
need
to hear!”

“Lottery numbers?” Esther asked.

“Listen!” Tucker cleared his throat and his best PSA announcer voice began to read: “Coffee is a drug. Coffee is toxic to the human body. Coffee is a capitalist tool and should be eradicated from the earth—”

“What is that?” Esther cried.

She reached for the paper, but Tucker pulled it out of reach. “It's a letter from the ‘Coffee Shop Arsonist'—according to the headline, that's what the police are calling this Looney Tune. Last week, this letter was sent directly to the
New York Post
. Apparently, they just got the okay from the authorities to publish it.”

“
Keep reading
, Tucker,” I said quietly.

“Farmers in developing countries should be growing crops, not coffee. Coffee is a threat, a
weapon
! But I have a weapon, too, and I will use it. Close your coffeehouses or suffer the consequences—”

“Toxic?” Esther said. “On what planet? Try reading a Harvard study once in a while, why don't you? And did he say coffee is a
weapon
? That's lunacy. Coffee is the most traded commodity on earth next to oil. And they make
napalm
out of oil. So you tell me—which one is the weapon?”

“Blame it on the writer, Esther. I'm just doing a dramatic read of the lines.”

“You'd expect an actual arsonist to know the difference between a thousand-year-old beverage enjoyed around the world and a combustible fluid used to make firebombs. Isn't that his
job
?”

“All I can tell you is that the arsonist's ‘job' has got me goosey. And I'm sure I'm not alone. I signed up for mixing espresso drinks, not fielding Molotov cocktails.”

Esther shook her head. “Well, I'm not sweating it. This nut job has only burned three coffeehouses. Do you know how many cafés there are in this city? Statistics are on our side.”

“Listen, Missy!” Tucker snapped his fingers. “When somebody's out to turn me into a human torch, having the ‘odds on my side' is not a comfort! And in case you've forgotten, this firebug already left a warning package in
our
coffeehouse.”

“Where's your dramatic spirit? Think
Method
. Can't you see yourself playing Joan of Arc?”

Tuck went quiet a moment. “I realize you're joking, Esther, but that's actually not a bad idea for a black box production—I mean, given that Peter Pan is usually played by an adult woman, I don't see why I couldn't do Joan, although . . .” He flipped his signature floppy 'do. “I'd never want to cut my hair
that
short.”