Seventy-one

Hours later, I ascended from the hot roasting room, feeling like a refugee from Dante’s Inferno, sweaty, tired, and defeated. I longed for a soothing shower and dreamless sleep. But more than that, I wanted answers.

Although I’d learned a lot today, it wasn’t nearly enough.

Mike agreed.

He was already in Miami and busy with his own work, but he continued to relay text message updates from Detective Russell, which is why I knew Mr. Scrib was stable but still unconscious in the ICU.

I also knew Russell was making even less progress than I was in finding Mr. Scrib’s attacker. Sure, I had my guesses. I even had possible motives. But I had no definitive answers, no confessions, and no proof.

After my meeting with Matt today, I felt just as frustrated with the precarious state of my own future.

What if I misjudged Madame? What if she ends up agreeing with her son and decides to sell this landmark shop to Cody Wood? The very idea struck at my heart.

I loved this old coffeehouse. I loved opening the shop in the early morning. I loved serving its customers. And I loved this time of the evening, too. Outside our wall of French doors, the lights of the city sparkled in the chilly darkness. We’d just locked up for the night, and the whole place was serenely quiet.

By now, Dante had left for a friend’s gallery show, and Howie Johnson was giving our plank floor one last mopping.

I noticed Esther and Tucker sitting at a table near the flickering hearth, and I joined them with a freshly roasted and brewed mug of Matt’s latest shipment of diligently sourced beans.

The high-grown Rwandan made an outstanding cup. Its bright note of citrus and its crisp, clean finish lifted my flagging energy, and I began to share everything I’d learned today with my two most trusted baristas.

When I finished spilling all I knew, I sadly told them that we’d hit a wall.

Esther didn’t agree. In fact, she surprised me with the announcement that she’d made a potential breakthrough.

“Earlier today, when Captain Siebold ran down his list of suggestions to combat productivity slumps, he mentioned brainstorming journals. He said lots of professionals use them—researchers, mathematicians, artists. As a writer myself, I use an idea notebook, and the captain reminded me of Beatrix Potter. Before she wrote her Peter Rabbit tales, she filled her teenage journals with thoughts and observations, all of them written in a code that only she could understand because she feared prying eyes.”

Esther tapped the notebook on the table in front of her.

“After speaking with the captain, I’m sure of something. This is Mr. Scrib’s brainstorming journal.”

“Is it written in code?” I asked.

“Not a coherent one like Beatrix’s. But I believe Mr. Scrib used these pages as a tool to help him call up memories and free-associate related words and phrases. There are hundreds of pages in this book. It’s a thought playground for his poetry as well as his true crime memoir. To all of us, it reads like gibberish. But for him, even the doodling would have helped his mind relax, create, and think about—among other things—people from his past.”

“His past?” I said. “Does that include the Writer’s Block group?”

Esther nodded. “Until our brunch with Addy this morning, I didn’t know who or what to look for. But I do now, so I can show you this…”

Esther flipped through dozens of pages filled with seemingly disconnected phrases and scribblings. On one page at the center of the chaos, Mr. Scrib wrote BB in big block letters, followed by the doodle of a cocktail glass.

“This must be Bobby Briscoe,” I realized. “Joan said he was a bartender as well as the group’s drug dealer.”

Around Bobby’s initials were scrawled words: walking pharmacy, Rx to order, class clown, loved by all, scruffy puppy.

“And see this?” Esther flipped to another page and pointed to one corner. “An elaborate letter J with flowers around it.”

“That must be Juliet,” I said and read the nearby words: class by herself, creative soul, sparkling prose, starlight laugh, want the world for her…

She turned more pages and showed us an ace of spades, with a doodle of a bow and arrow beside it.

“Ace Archer,” she and I said in unison.

Tuck leaned in, and we all read the scrawled writing around Ace:

Hack + Actor = Hacktor

dumb blond

pecs who needs Rx

“Wow,” Tuck said, “Mr. Scrib sure wasn’t a fan of this guy.”

“Clearly not,” Esther said.

When she turned to the next page, we saw the picture of flying birds, and the keys to Mr. Scrib’s apartment fell out of the notebook pocket. Tucker picked them off the floor and scanned the plea Mr. Scrib had written on the tab:

If I am incapacitated, please take care of Wacker.

“It’s a good thing he didn’t write this in code,” Tuck said. “You never would have gotten into his apartment and Wacker would be one dead duck.”

“That’s so not funny.” Esther snatched the dangling keys from Tuck and stuffed them back into the notebook.

“I wanted to show you this, too.” Esther pointed. “It’s another doodle representing Ace Archer. But this time, there’s a second arrow pointing directly to a huge picture of a top hat. A rabbit is popping out of the hat and a magic wand is waving over its head.”

“That’s the universal symbol for a magician,” Tuck said.

“Thanks, Sherlock. I guessed that already. What I don’t know is why a magician is important to Ace Archer. The stuff around it doesn’t make sense, either…”

We all fell silent, staring at the scribbled words:

tricky ideas, into his lap

cheap treasure alchemized into golden opportunity

inherited secrets, adapt ability, triggered it all

“Triggered it all must mean something,” Esther said.

“Except no one mentioned anything about a magician being part of the Writer’s Block group,” I pointed out. “Unless Ace was a magician, too, although he was never described as anything more than a handsome young actor.”

“A very obscure one,” Tuck said.

“Did I hear the words obscure and actor?” Mop in hand, Howie Johnson moved closer. “Because if you want info, I can dig up pretty much anything written about any actor alive or dead at the Performing Arts Library.”

“Could you look up Ace Archer?” Tuck asked. “We’ll pay you for your time, as always.”

“Sure. I’ve got a shift there in the morning.” Howie checked his watch. “Which means I better call it a night.”

As Howie headed out the door, Nancy appeared with newly applied makeup and styled and sprayed hair.

“I have a date in an hour,” she announced as she bundled up for the cold. “Don’t wait up for me, Esther, and don’t forget to stop by the grocery store. You told me to remind you!”

After Nancy left, I locked the door again.

Esther and I continued to page through the notebook, this time looking for any reference to Addy—a word, an initial, a hieroglyphic, anything!—but nothing popped out. Twenty minutes later, Tucker departed, and still Esther lingered, riveted by the notebook.

“I wonder if the true crime manuscript everyone is looking for will be in an elaborate code,” I said. “Like Beatrix Potter’s teenage journals.”

“Definitely not,” Esther said. “Like that note about Wacker attached to his apartment keys, Mr. Scrib wants his memoir to be read. This notebook, not so much.”

With that, she thrust the notebook inside her messenger bag.

“I better head home. I’ll read more in the morning.”

“You should call for a car,” I said. “It’s cold and you don’t have Nancy with you.”

Esther scoffed. “It’s only a fifteen-minute walk, and I need to pick up peas at the grocery store. Wacker gobbles them up like bonbons.”

After we said good night, I stepped behind the coffee bar. Glancing out the front window, I noticed Esther hadn’t left. She was still standing on the chilly sidewalk, and I assumed she’d forgotten something and would need to get back in.

I was about to head to the door when I realized she was simply checking her phone. As she did, I spotted something disturbing. An ominous figure appeared to be speeding right toward her on a blue Citi Bike. The fast-moving cyclist wore a black ski mask and long black coat and was flying at her from behind, so she couldn’t see!

Before I could move or even cry out, the thief attacked. With one gloved hand, the cyclist grabbed the long strap of Esther’s messenger bag and zoomed forward.

The violent pull of her shoulder strap yanked her sideways. She lost her balance, and for a horrified moment I feared she might be dragged. Instead, the strap broke, and my barista tumbled to the concrete!