Seventy

WE gathered around the computer. Then the traffic cop rolled the footage.

The screen time read 12:33 AM, twenty-seven minutes before the Village Blend closed. Despite the late hour, the nearby LED streetlight, along with our own exterior shop lights, provided good clarity and color to the picture, which was shot from a high angle.

At 12:34 the man we knew as Richard Crest stepped into the frame and sat down at the corner table—the farthest from our door. His chair was flanked by open sidewalk on one side and the redbrick wall of our shop on the other. Crest thumbed his smartphone, ignoring his surroundings. A few people walked by on the sidewalk, and all the tables near him remained empty.

Six minutes later, a slender woman stepped into the frame holding a blue paper cup and shouldering a large tote bag. She wore baggy sweatpants, a pulled-up hoodie, and a large, loose jacket. A scarf was coiled around her neck and lower face, and gloves covered her hands. Though her facial features were hidden, strands of honey blond hair spilled out from under the hood.

The man’s attention was focused completely on his smartphone. As he crouched in his chair, typing into the device in his hand, she pulled an object from her jacket pocket.

Moving quickly, she placed the blue coffee cup on the table in front of Crest. In the split second it took for him to notice the cup being set down, the killer stepped behind him. Using her large tote bag to block the street view of the weapon, she shot Richard Crest in the back at close range. The victim jerked, and blood gushed from an exit wound in his chest. As he slumped forward, his dying spasms knocked the killer’s blue coffee cup off the table.

By 12:41, Crest was obviously dead, and the killer was calmly walking away, taking the victim’s smartphone with her.

Lori asked the traffic officer to run the footage again, while the two detectives provided commentary.

“The victim was shot once, through the heart. From the wound on the body, it was likely a .38 caliber handgun,” Sue Ellen said. “Though we can’t see it, the gun had some type of silencer attached, because the ShotSpotter in the area never picked up the blast, or sent an alert to the precinct.”

“The Crime Scene Unit recovered the coffee cup,” Lori said. “The killer wore gloves, but they hope to lift a fingerprint or two.”

The words coffee cup spurred my memory. “Wind it back,” I said. “I want to watch the victim die again.”

“Whoa, you’re a cold one,” Sue Ellen joked.

“Freeze it right there!” I said at the moment the killer set down the blue paper cup. I stared at the screen, then shook my head.

“This can’t be right. The cup—”

Lori squinted. “It’s a Village Blend cup. I can make out the design.”

“That’s my point.” I reached behind the counter and grabbed one of the white cups that we’d been using most of the evening. “This is our catering cup. We only use these white cups at events outside the Blend. Never here. But we were forced to use these cups tonight because we ran out of our standard blue Village Blend logo cups—”

“When?” Sue Ellen asked.

“About eight o’clock. Shortly after my barista Vicki opened a box of replacements in the pantry, I realized Matt had brought the wrong cups from the warehouse—”

“But you did use both cups tonight?” Lori countered.

“Sure. But don’t you find it strange that the killer walked around the party with the same cold cup in her hand for over four hours—or kept a disposable paper cup from a previous visit? It’s not normal behavior.”

“Neither is shooting someone dead at a corner café,” Sue Ellen pointed out. “Nevertheless, Cosi’s got a point.”

“Okay, noted,” Lori said. “Let’s move along.”

As we watched, various street cameras followed the killer slowly walking up Hudson. After a right turn onto Barrow, her trek ended at a redbrick prewar apartment building at the corner of Barrow and Bedford.

“She used a key or was buzzed inside,” Sue Ellen said. “The front entrance wasn’t tampered with according to the CSU team over there now.”

“It would help if any of you recognized this individual,” Lori said. “A lot of people live in that building, and she may only be a visitor or a guest. Have you ever been to this place before? Do you know anyone connected with this apartment house?”

Esther and I shook our heads.

Tuck stared at the screen in tense silence.

Finally, I apologized to the detectives for our lack of help.

“No worries,” Lori said as the traffic officer closed the computer. “With what we already have, we should be able to make an arrest within twenty-four hours—maybe less. There’s so much evidence that it’s only a matter of time.”

“And I should thank you, Cosi, for pulling us away from decoy duty in the park,” Sue Ellen said as she flipped her flowery skirt. “You don’t know how much I hate dressing like a drag queen.”

Then the Fish Squad wished us a nice night and headed out.

The detectives appeared chipper for good reason. They would soon have a killer in custody and a quickly solved homicide. But, as I sent my people home and locked the front door, I couldn’t share their enthusiasm or their certainty. And—as heartlessly mercenary as it might sound—I went up to bed worrying what kind of impact this violent crime would have on our coffeehouse.

A few fake gun blasts nearly torpedoed our shop. How were we going to survive a real shot in the dark?