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!”

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?”