On What Grounds (Coffeehouse Mysteries, No. 1) (A Coffeehouse Mystery) (11 page)

T
HE
herd of too tall, too thin, and too toned young women, and a few lean and muscular young men, stampeded through the door as if they’d been stranded for weeks on the Sahara and just discovered the great oasis.

Sporting leotards and water bottles, the chattering pack usually showed in the afternoons and evenings, during their breaks between dance classes or show rehearsals at the Dance 10 studio just a few blocks away—the same studio at which Anabelle Hart had studied.

“Tucker, do me a favor,” I said, watching them swarm the counter.

“What?” he asked. “Help you serve this rabble? You already pay me to do that.”

“No. Something else.” I often saw Tucker laughing it up with Anabelle and other groups from the studio—he was usually after the attractive male dancers, but that didn’t matter at the moment. Tucker was in the arts and close to their age, so many of the girls seemed to treat him as a trusted friend. He wasn’t a direct competitor for dance jobs, and because he was gay, he wasn’t going to become some sort of unwanted male pursuer. The perfect friend to confide in—so, I asked Tucker—“After they sit down, I want you to introduce me to Anabelle’s friends.”

“Her
friends
?” Tucker raised an eyebrow. “Clare, among dancers that term is a fluctuating one at best.”

“Why?”

“Jealousy, of course.”

Nevertheless, Tucker did as I asked, calling me over after we’d served the group and they’d settled in at various tables.

“Come on over, C.C.!”

Actually, before he’d even called me, I had made a point of closely surveying the pack. Though I felt a little guilty for thinking it, Tucker’s comparing them with those hungry scavengers of the African veldt persisted—helped considerably by one girl’s zebra leotard and another’s leopard print headband and jacket.

They’d been in here many times before, laughing and whispering, gossiping and dishing, but I seldom made a point of listening to their conversations. (Most of my eavesdropping efforts leaned toward the older crowds—writers, painters, professors, and the occasional stock broker with a hot tip.)

Today, after lending an ear, I better understood Tucker’s “Wild Kingdom” comparisons. Why? Well, to start with, the dancers’ conversations included such genteel and eloquent remarks as—

“She’s a slut!”

“He’s a whore!”

“The bitch thinks she’s all that!”

“Can’t balance for shit—”

“No timing. No style. No talent!”

“I’ll break her legs before she upstages me again!”

And that was just in the first ten minutes.

“Hey, C.C.,” said Tucker, motioning me over to a table where five young women sat—three double tall lattes and two teas. He introduced me to the two teas first—

“This is Petra and Vita. They were both born in Russia and studied ballet in Moscow.”

Ahhh,
I thought,
that’s why the tea.
Matteo had told me, after a trip to Moscow and Leningrad, that tea was the most popular nonalcoholic drink in that country, usually consumed during midafternoon breaks or after meals.

“Nize to met you,” said Petra. Her eyes were two black pearls and her straight black hair was cropped into a severe dominatrix-style cut. “You have nize place here,” she said. Her chin rose to gesture toward the end of the room. “Nize samovar, too.”

On the mantel shelf above the fireplace and next to Madame’s French lacquered coffee urn was an antique Russian samovar.

“Excuse me, but what’s a samovar?” asked one of the latte girls.

“It makes very strong tea called
zavarka,
” said Petra. “It is Russian tradition to serve tea after supper. You clean supper table, put samovar in center of table, and whole family gathers round for tea.”

“How interesting,” I said, although I knew this already. I also knew, from one of Madame’s afternoon chats way back when, that the word
samovar
meant “self-heater” and the device was thought to be a modification of a Mongolian fire-pot, which had been used by the trans-Urals for cooking. With Petra’s haughty demeanor, however, I thought it best to keep my mouth shut and let Petra assume the role of expert.

“And you’re Vita?” I said instead.

“Charmed,” said Vita, “I am sure,” although she looked anything but. Petra’s companion appeared to be the “yang” to Petra’s “yin” (or was it the other way around?). Anyway, where Petra was dark, Vita was light—pale blue eyes and yellow-blond hair pulled so tightly into a ponytail I thought for a minute she’d had a face-lift at the age of twenty-three.

Tucker gestured to the first latte. “This is Maggie.”

This one reminded me of a Vegas showgirl. Long legs. Tiny waist. Big red hair. Bigger breasts. Wide, heavily lashed eyes with a color green that does
not
appear in nature—contact lenses, or I’m twenty-five.

The second latte and fourth girl came next. “This is Sheela,” said Tucker.

“S’up, Clare,” said the statuesque African-American girl with sculpted shoulders and a hip-hop attitude as sharp as her long aquamarine fingernails. “Your place is phat.”

(I thanked her, grateful that Joy and her young friends had enlightened me on the MTV lexicon. Otherwise, given the recommended dietary allowances from the health mafia for the last thirty years, I wouldn’t have guessed calling something “phat” was good.)

“And this is Courtney,” said Tucker. She was the one who had asked about the samovar.

A pale-skinned, frail beauty with a dainty nose and long blond hair in a ballerina bun smiled shyly up at me. She shifted in her chair, all arms and elbows, as if she were uncertain of what to do with them in polite company. She definitely seemed the wallflower of this group.

Before Courtney could muster the courage to say hello, Petra turned to me, shaking her head and loudly pronouncing: “Zat vas terrible, vot happened to Anabelle.”

The others nodded as one. If I hadn’t already figured out the pecking order of this pack by Tucker’s introduction, I couldn’t miss it now. My eyes locked on Petra.

“Do you think it was an accident?” I asked straightaway. “Or did Anabelle have enemies?”

As I expected, the directness of the question was not unlike a bulldozer slamming the trunk of an apple tree. I waited with my bushel ready to collect whatever might come down—while assuring myself I could dodge anything aimed directly at my head.

For a solid minute, mouths gaped, but nothing came out. Even Tucker, eyes wide, looked shocked by my frankness—but within a few seconds, they narrowed with interest.

The other eyes began to dart around the table until, finally, they all settled on the Russian émigré with the black eyes and the blunt haircut.

“You zink there vas maybe foul play?” Petra said slowly.

“Yes,” I said. “I think it is a little peculiar that a girl as graceful as Anabelle could suddenly plunge down a flight of steps.”

“Oh,
is
dat
all,” said Vita with a nudge to her Russian companion. “Do not stress yourselv. Anabelle vasn’t that good.”

“Oh?” I said.

“She was good enough,” Sheela said to Vita with a finger to the girl’s shoulder. “Good enough to get that spot
you
said you and Petra nearly got in Moby’s Danse.”

That news surprised me. Though not a follower of modern dance, even I had heard of Moby’s Danse, a troupe with a small theater in Soho. They mounted a few shows in New York City a year, and
The New York Times
dance critic loved them. Fawning write-ups usually made their shows overnight sensations with sold-out performances for months, providing the necessary buzz for subsequent national tours.

I was even more surprised that Anabelle hadn’t mentioned this accomplishment to me.

“When did she get that spot?” I asked.

“Just last week,” said Sheela.

“Well, she von’t be danzing for zem now,” Petra said, her black eyes narrowing.

“That’s cold,” Sheela said, cocking her head.

“No colder zan you ver to Vita when she beat you out of zat spot for Master Jam J. music video.”

“That was different,” said Sheela, eyes blazing.

“How?” asked Petra.

“Well, for one thing, Vita ain’t in St. Vincent’s sucking on a respirator. She’s sittin’ right here sucking down a tea!”

Vita and Maggie snickered at that.

But Petra seethed.

And Courtney shifted uncomfortably.

“What about you, Courtney?” I asked. “Do you have an opinion?”

“She
should,
” Maggie drawled, her Vegas showgirl lips perfectly outlined with pink lipliner. “She’s the one who’s gonna get Anabelle’s spot. Aren’t you, Courtney?”

Courtney just stared into her double latte and nodded.

“Is that right, Courtney?” I said, trying to coax her into saying
something.
“Are you going to be joining the Moby’s Danse troupe?”

The girl’s pale skin and delicate features reminded me of Anabelle. But that’s where the resemblance ended. This girl was much shyer and far less hardened than my assistant manager—whose street smarts, energy, and confident way of expressing herself could have easily kept up with the other girls at this table.

After a few silent moments, Courtney’s flushed face looked up. There were tears in her eyes. “Trust me,” she whispered, “I didn’t want to get into the troupe this way.”

There are good actresses and bad actresses, and this one was no actress at all. Courtney’s eyes were telling the truth. I was certain of it.

Then I glanced over at Petra. The contrast was so marked I drew in a sharp breath. Where Courtney’s soft blue eyes were brimming with tears of sorrow, Petra’s cold black pearls were as hard and unmoved as a predator’s.

But before I could continue questioning any of them, the front door opened and a harsh, direct voice cut through the mellifluous piano stylings of George Winston, one of Tucker’s favorite instrumental CDs—

“Who owns this place.”

Trouble.
You know it when you hear it.

I sighed.

Before turning from the Dance 10 table, I nodded my thanks to Tucker. I had gotten what I wanted—a lead on a motive. Tomorrow I’d visit the studio myself to find out more.

“Did anyone hear me?” the voice demanded again. “Who owns this place!”

“May I help you,” I said, knowing at once I was going to need more than one double espresso to get through this afternoon.

T
HE
demanding voice came out of a killer body.

Tailored designer slacks on mile-high legs. Gucci boots and a black jacket of butter-soft leather over a white silk blouse. Blond hair tied back into a tasteful ponytail. Coach bag and skin too tan for a New York autumn with makeup applied in artful layers—lipstick, eyeliner, mascara—like talismans meant to ward off the curse of lines, creases, shadows, and any other betrayer of an otherwise youthfully slender appearance.

I’d seen this blonde at the hospital, I realized: Anabelle’s stepmother.

“
You
the one owns this place?”

The accent and phrasing were rough—lower-middle-class, not quite what I expected to hear coming out of such a finished and fashionable façade.

The voice was deep and rattled a bit in her throat, signs of a hardcore lifelong smoker, the sort of woman I used to see laugh-coughing amid marathon gossip sessions back in the hair salon next to my grandmother’s grocery in Pennsylvania.

“Well,” I began, “I’m a
part
owner, and the full-time manager—”

She cut me off. “I want
the
owner.
Now
.”

The increasing volume on that last statement drowned out the various conversations that had been buzzing all over the room. I glanced around to find dozens of pairs of eyes blinking in our direction.

A scene. Great.

Years ago, my grandmother gave me the best advice when dealing with hostile people—a situation she encountered quite a bit during her lifetime, given the hot tempers of her grocery’s working-class clientele and her son’s (and my father’s) knack for bringing more trouble to her doorstep than a barrel full of bad luck charms.

I didn’t realize until later, after the two years of college I managed to finish before becoming pregnant with Joy, that my grandma actually had a lot in common with Socrates, not to mention Abe Lincoln.

“Clare,” she would say, “if you want to win an argument with angry people, don’t argue. Just ask the kind of questions that will make them think you agree with them. Pretty soon, you’re both on the same side.”

That part was Socrates.

She also liked to say—“Remember, you catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. Try to make them see you as a friend.”

That part was Lincoln, the president who’d said over one hundred years ago, “It is an old and true maxim that ‘a drop of honey catches more flies than a gallon of gall.’ So with men, if you would win a man to your cause, first convince him that you are his sincere friend. Therein is a drop of honey that catches his heart; which, say what you will, is the great high road to his reason.”

I stepped closer to the blonde to (hopefully) discourage her from yelling again—and in a calm, quiet voice asked: “You’re Anabelle’s stepmother, aren’t you?”

Her bloodshot blue eyes with perfectly applied brown/black liner and mascara stared, the slight surprise for a moment unbalancing her predetermined indignation. “How did you know that?”

“I saw you at the hospital—”

“I’m her stepmother, that’s right,” she said. “I’m her closest relative, too. And that’s why I’m here—”

“Do you mean Anabelle sent you?” I asked excitedly. “She’s
awake
?”

The woman’s shoulders drooped a bit. “No. She’s still in her coma…But I heard she got that way because of your crappy managing of this place.”

“I’m sure you’re tired,” I said as soothingly as I could manage between clenched teeth. “And I’m as worried about Anabelle as you must be. Wouldn’t you rather we go somewhere more private to discuss this?” I gestured to the crowd of staring eavesdroppers. “What do you say?”

The woman glared back at the audience. “Screw them,” she said.

“How about a fresh cup of coffee?” I asked.

“I drink tea. Not coffee.”

“We have tea. How about a nice Earl Grey—”

“Green. Decaffeinated. Better for the skin,” she said as she began to dig into her Coach bag for a pack of Camels.

A chimney. Great. There was no smoking in the coffeehouse. Or in any coffeehouse, for that matter, ever since the city’s new statutes against smoking in public places. So I thought fast.

“How about we go up to the second floor?” I suggested. “We don’t open it up until evening. It’ll be nice and private.”

And, I added silently, I can sit you and your pack of Camels beside an open double-pane window to prevent your smoke from driving out half the customers down here.

“Fine,” she said. “But I don’t have all day.”

So far so good, I told myself. At least four yeses and she hadn’t once threatened fisticuffs—a routine occurrence in my old neighborhood, where use of brawn was preferred to use of brain by a margin of at least two to one.

After I prepared the coffee and tea, we settled in at a table on the deserted second floor. I learned her name was Darla Branch Hart. I told her my name was Clare Cosi. And the accusations instantly resumed—

“Anabelle is in the hospital for
one
reason—
negligence,
” the woman said, stabbing the air with her unlit Camel. “She had a workplace accident. So I expect you to pay Anabelle’s hospital bills.”

“Anabelle’s covered, Mrs. Hart,” I said, watching her place the cigarette between her lips and fire it up. (Why was I suddenly picturing the small burst of flame igniting the fuse of a cannon?)

“What do you mean, she’s covered?”

“When I promoted Anabelle to assistant manager,” I said, “she received health insurance and hospitalization coverage under our HMO plan. The bills will be paid. Except for the fifteen-dollar copayment. And there might be some deductibles—”

“Well,
you
have to cover all that. In fact, I’d like that fifteen-dollar copayment. Right now.”

I stared at her. “Fifteen dollars?”

“Yes,” she said, sucking in a lungful of tar and blowing it out the side of her perfectly lined lips.
“Now.”

I suddenly found myself reconsidering the use of fisticuffs as a conflict resolution strategy. After all, as I’d already mentioned, it
was
preferred two to one in my old neighborhood. And in the words of Joe Pasquale Cosi (aka my father), who was often forced to collect his fair share of earnings from one deadbeat business partner or other: “Cupcake, you just can’t beat the purity of communication in a simple punch to the nose.”

But Grandma would have disapproved.

“Mrs. Hart, I’ll gladly give you fifteen dollars if it will make you feel better.” I dug into my Old Navy jeans and came up with a ten and a five. I moved to place them on the table between us. She snatched them up and stuffed them into her Coach bag before the worn green bills even touched the coral-colored marble.

“Where’s my daughter’s things?” Darla next demanded. “The hospital told me she didn’t have a purse when they brought her in—and her roommate, that ethnic-looking girl, what’s her name? Esther? She told me Anabelle must have left the purse here.”

“The police have it,” I told her, trying to hold my temper (“ethnic-looking” could pretty much describe me as well as Esther and I didn’t appreciate the insulting tone she’d used in stating it).

“The police?” Darla Hart’s face looked stricken. I made a significant note of that. “Why would the police have it?”

Why would you look stricken at the mention of the police?
I wanted to ask, but saved that question and instead asked—

“Why do you think the police think Anabelle’s fall wasn’t just a workplace accident?” I asked. (Okay, so I fudged the facts—the police
did
think it was a simple accident. But the Petty-Cash Queen here didn’t know that.)

Darla’s mouth turned down, her eyes widened, then shifted to stare out the open window. She took a long drag. The white of the cigarette paper against the blood-red polish of the woman’s manicured nails reminded me of a line from Clare Booth Luce’s play
The Women
: “Looks like you’ve been tearing at somebody’s throat.”

“What do they think?” she asked, still staring into the afternoon rain clouds. Her fingers were slightly trembling.

“Well, the police called it a ‘crime scene,’” I said. “They took fingerprints, collected evidence, that sort of thing. Seems like she could have been pushed.”

Darla turned back, stared hard into my face. “
Who
do they think would have pushed her?”

I didn’t know, of course. So my instinct was to turn away, but I didn’t. I forced myself to hold her gaze. “Whoever they suspect. They wouldn’t tell me.”

Darla frowned again. Abruptly, she rose to her feet, almost spilling her untouched green tea. “I have to go.”

“Where can I reach you?”

“The Waldorf.”

She searched the table a moment and, after finding no ashtray, carelessly dropped the burning butt into her teacup. I grimaced, watching the pale rolled paper rise to the top of the green liquid and float there, dead and cold.

“I want you to know—and you can let all the owners of this place know—I’m hiring a lawyer,” she said. “I don’t care if all Anabelle’s hospital bills are covered by insurance. My stepdaughter deserves some money for her pain and suffering, and I’m gonna see she gets it.”

With that, Darla shoved the short handles of her fashionable Coach bag onto her shoulder, turned on her Gucci boot heel, and headed for the exit.

I watched her go, noting that her movements were as graceful as her stepdaughter’s. A former dancer, no doubt.

I leaned back, averted my eyes from the cold, dead butt floating in the green tea, sipped my house blend, and considered the fact that Darla was staying at the Waldorf yet snatching up a worn ten and five like she was down to her last dime. And I remembered Esther had said something about Darla showing up a few days ago to take care of some sort of “business.” I needed to find out what exactly that “business” was.

As I cleared the table, I quietly thanked my Grandma Cosi. I guess her method (not to mention Socrates’s and Abe’s) was really the best way to go—at least when you were trying to gather information from an angry source. Hostility handled and channeled through reason and strategy—

“Clare? Are you up here? It’s
dire
I speak with you!”

It was Matteo. Back from god knows where, doing god knows what. And using the dreaded
D
word again.

I sighed, wishing my grandmother were still alive—then maybe she could tell me why, when it came to my ex-husband, I almost always wanted to use the more straightforward conflict resolution strategy my father employed—and (need I add) preferred two to one in my old neighborhood.