Espresso Shot (33 page)

Read Espresso Shot Online

Authors: Cleo Coyle

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #Detective, #Mystery, #Mystery & Detective - Women Sleuths, #Mystery & Detective, #Fiction - Mystery, #Coffeehouses, #Suspense, #Women Sleuths, #Cosi; Clare (Fictitious character), #Mystery fiction, #Divorced people, #Brides, #Weddings, #New York (N.Y.), #Brides - Crimes against, #Cookery (Coffee), #Attempted murder

BOOK: Espresso Shot
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Tower dropped his voice. “Knox sent me here to watch Ms. Summour, okay? Maybe shoot some interesting pictures.”
Friar folded his arms. “And did you get anything interesting?”
“Some dame waving a wedding announcement. The groom storming out. A lover’s spat, I guess. Not exactly JFK, Jr.”
“I hope not. The man’s been dead quite a few years now.”
“But those photographs of him fighting in public with his fiancée were worth a fortune.”
Friar shook his head. “Breanne Summour’s not nearly that famous. Why bother?”
I stepped up to the men. “Excuse me, Detective, but I have a few questions for Mr. Tower.”
Friar rolled his eyes, but he didn’t stop me.
“Mr. Tower, were you at your boss’s birthday party a few months ago?” I asked pointedly. “The one that featured a stripper dressed up like Breanne Summour? Did you shoot any interesting photos there?”
Tower frowned down at me. “I must have missed that bash.”
“What about Monica Purcell?” I asked. “What can you tell me about her?”
“Who?” Friar asked.
“Monica Purcell overdosed on prescription medication,” I said, “presumably from the painkillers and uppers I found in her desk. There was a business card hidden with those drugs, Mr. Tower,
your
card.”
“I had nothing to do with Monica overdosing,” Tower said, his bald head vehemently shaking now. “I had nothing to do with any of that!”
“Why did she have your card then?” I asked. “And why did you write that you enjoyed your lunch with her and were looking forward to working with her?”
Tower held up his hand again. “I didn’t set up that lunch. Randy Knox did. If you want to know about Monica’s deal with Randy, you ask
him
.”
“All right, that’s enough questions from you, Ms. Cosi,” Friar said. “I have my own questions for this guy.” The muscle-bound detective grabbed the collar of the photographer’s vest and pulled him away.
I approached Lori Soles. “You’re going to interview Randall Knox, right? He’s obviously fixated on Breanne Summour.”
“We already interviewed Knox,” Lori said. “We came up empty.”
“What if it wasn’t a coincidence that Tower was here?” I said. “What if Knox knew Breanne would be attacked, maybe killed, and he wanted his photographer on hand to capture images of the crime scene?”
“Look, I know Tower is a shark. I caught him sneaking into the apartment of that TV actress who OD’d last year, so he could shoot pictures of her body. But I can’t see Tower as a party to murder.”
“But you can question Knox again, right?”
Lori frowned. “I don’t see the point. There’s nothing suspicious about paparazzi hanging around celebrities.”
“But there’s a connection to Monica Purcell. You know about that case, right?”
“Drug distro and conspiracy to commit robbery of Ms. Summour’s rings. Yeah, Quinn talked to Sue Ellen and me about it already. But I don’t see how Tower is involved.”
“I found Tower’s card hidden in Monica’s desk.”
“That’s pretty thin, Cosi. Even for you.”
Suddenly Sue Ellen Bass took off, chasing after Detective Friar—presumably for another round of verbal sparring.
Lori blanched. “Sorry, got to go!” she said, hurrying after her partner.
“But somebody’s got to talk to Randall Knox,” I called. Then I felt a warm hand on my shoulder. I turned to find Madame standing there. “How long have you been listening?”
“Long enough,” Madame said. “I learned a thing or two watching you, my dear.” She threw me a wink. “And I already have a solution to your problem.”
“Which is?”
“You and I will talk to Randall Knox
together
.”
I nodded. “You’re on.”
“You know,” Madame said, as we headed for the street, “after surviving the Indonesian tsunami, drug violence and terrorism in Colombia, and the post election chaos in Kenya’s Rift Valley, our guests probably didn’t blink an eye at this disaster of a luncheon, but
I’m
certainly relieved to be walking away from it.”
TWENTY-EIGHT
THE receptionist was hardly out of her teens. Hispanic, with dark hair and hot-pink lips, she was filing her moon-and-stars fingernail design when we approached her desk.
“Madame Dreyfus Allegro Dubois to see Mr. Randall Knox,” Matt’s mother declared with the aplomb of Queen Elizabeth.
From her doe-eyed expression, I could tell the elaborate name had bewildered the poor girl.
Madame cleared her throat. “Simply inform your boss that Matt Allegro’s mother is here to dish dirt on mutual foe, Breanne Summour.”
While the receptionist dialed her boss, I looked around. The
Journal
’s run-down digs were a far cry from
Trend
’s ultramodern headquarters. There was no Columbus Circle view here, no ready access to Central Park, either. The
Journal
’s offices were on a dingy stretch of Eighth Avenue, a few blocks south of Penn Station, and the building’s other occupants weren’t Time Warner Inc., CNN, and Thomas Keller’s Bouchon Bakery, but Manny Kinn Enterprises, a “manufacturer of vinyl outerwear,” and the Circle Jay Group, publishers of
Wag
and
Live Nude Girls
.
“Mr. Knox will see you now,” the girl said, waving a tiny night sky on her long fingernails. “Down that hall, make a right. You’ll find Mr. Knox in the corner office.”
The hallway’s avocado walls were dingy, the beige carpet threadbare, and a fluorescent light fixture buzzed somewhere above our heads. The short hall ended in a large room divided into cramped cubicles and offices along the wall. As we approached the corner office, a man stepped forward and extended his hand.
“I’m Randall Knox. Come in, please.”
Most of the view in Knox’s office was of another building’s brick wall. The wooden desk was small and the steel shelves cluttered with magazines, file folders, and back issues of the
Journal
. Knox himself stood in sharp contrast to his shabby office. Pressed and polished, the slight, bald gossip columnist wore a London-tailored suit of blue pinstripes with a silk tie of bright scarlet.
He gestured to two battered wooden chairs opposite his desk then moved to occupy his own worn leather chair. While he silently regarded us through little, round Joseph Goebbels-style glasses, I read the large plaque hanging off one shelf:
PUBLIC OPINION IS A SHIP ADRIFT. OUR JOB IS TO TAKE THE HELM!
Reading that, I suspected Knox’s resemblance to the Nazi propaganda minister wasn’t limited to his eyewear.
“Mr. Knox,” Madame began, “my name is—”
“No need for introductions, you’re the mother of Matteo Allegro, costar in the wedding of the week.”
Randall Knox leaned across his desk and spoke in a conspiratorial whisper. “I also know you’re not particularly happy that your son is marrying Breanne Summour. By the way, that heart attack you staged was masterful. My kudos. We had a nice photo of Matt partying at Le Shellac, and we were all set to go with the headline ‘Boy Toy Clubs While Mom Has Coronary,’ but our reporter found out you were faking it.”
Madame looked down her nose at the gossipmonger. “And how in the world did he accomplish that?”
“I don’t usually give up a source, Madame, so I’ll just say it was a hospital aide who clued us in. You see, I have feelers everywhere.” He smiled. It wasn’t warm.
“Not everywhere,” Madame said. “Surely, you exaggerate.”
“Oh, you’d be surprised. I know many things about many people in this town—the sort of things one
thinks
are completely private. For instance, I know that you covered the travel and hotel costs for many of your son’s Third World chums so they could attend his wedding. Despite some valuable assets—your Fifth Avenue penthouse, the West Village town house, an impressive collection of jewelry, and a museum-quality wardrobe of vintage designer clothes—you are not a very wealthy woman when it comes to liquidity. Your expenses are covered by your late husband’s annuity, so to come up with that quick chunk of change for your son’s celebration, you sold off a valuable painting in the collection Pierre Dubois left you—”
“That shows how little you
do
know, Mr. Knox.
Portrait of a Vintner
by Marcel Brule was
not
valuable. It was only marketable because the descendants of the vintner who was the subject of the painting coveted the work, hence my agent at Visser Gallery was able to secure a premium price.”
“And your agent was Otto Visser, your current beau.” He smiled again. “Still, Madame, to part with a cherished objet d’art—”
“
Not
cherished, Mr. Knox. My late husband, Pierre, was fond of old masters-style portraiture. My tastes are more modern.”
“The luncheon earlier today was also hosted by you, and you footed the bill, too, I understand.”
Madame pursed her lips, clearly annoyed by the man’s relentless one-upmanship game. “I’ve been humoring my son,” she admitted. “The lunch was a pleasure—apart from the wedding. There were many old friends I wanted to see.”
“I’m sure,” Knox said. “But it seems to me these are not the actions of a woman who really wants to
sabotage
her future daughter-in-law’s wedding plans, which is why I sincerely doubt you’re here to ‘dish dirt’ on Breanne Summour, despite the story you gave my receptionist.”
Madame narrowed her eyes on the gossip king. “I just want my son to be happy.”
“And if Breanne Summour makes him happy?” he said. “What then?”
Madame stared speechless at the man. He’d painted her into a rhetorical corner.
Great.
This guy was a whole lot smarter than Stuart Winslow (or maybe he just seemed that way because he wasn’t blasted out on pills). Either way, I could see I had my work cut out for me. He’d already stunned Madame into silence. Now it was my turn to step up.
“Excuse me, Mr. Knox, but I have a question for you.” I leaned forward in my chair. “I’d like to know why you sent Ben Tower to Machu Picchu today.”
Knox shifted his gaze. “Ah, Ms. Cosi. I was wondering when you were actually going to speak—”
Bite me, gossip boy.
“It was rude of you not to introduce yourself as Matteo Allegro’s ex-wife.”
“Actually, I didn’t introduce myself at all, but what does it matter? You seem to know everything already.”
Knox simply stared at me. Apparently, I’d rendered him as speechless as he’d rendered Madame.
Score one for the Chihuahua.
“I asked you a question, Mr. Knox. Why did you send Ben Tower to the restaurant? A fortunate coincidence for a gossipmonger, wouldn’t you say? There’s your photographer, all ready to snap pictures moments after Breanne is brutally attacked. It’s almost as if you knew something was going to happen. Maybe something you engineered.”
Knox chuckled hollowly. “Sorry, Mrs. Allegro—”
“It’s Ms. Cosi, which you already know.”
“Look, I don’t need to have Breanne Summour mugged to take her down. Truthfully, I just heard the news of the attempted robbery a few minutes before you arrived—Ben Tower phoned me—which means this must be one of your sleuthing adventures. Am I right?”
Now I felt my lips pursing in annoyance.
Okay, score another one for gossip boy.
“And what do you know, Mr. Knox, or
think
you know?”
Knox’s pale-blue eyes gleamed behind his little round glasses. “Let’s see, where to begin . . . how about last fall? When your daughter was briefly held for the murder of Tommy Keitel, you were the one who cleared that case, not New York’s finest. Before that, you were mixed up with a most unfortunate international incident near the UN, at the Beekman Tower. Then there was that shooting at David Mintzer’s East Hampton beach house.” Knox shook his head in mock wonderment. “Yes, Ms. Cosi, it seems wherever you go, trouble follows. Or is it the other way round?”
I studied the small man’s smirking face, thought of something Matt had mentioned to me right before his bachelor party. “I know things, too, Mr. Knox. My ex-husband told me that your animosity toward his fiancée reaches back years. Is that true?”
Knox glanced away. “Breanne Summour is just another flighty celebrity. More fodder for my gossip page—”
“That’s crap, and you know it. You have some kind of history with her. So what was it? Were the two of you lovers once upon a time?”
“Lovers? Me and Breanne?” Knox snorted. “I could hardly stand the woman, even back then.”
“Then I’m betting Breanne undermined your career.”
Knox raised an eyebrow. “You’re guessing.”
I was, but I figured—given Monica Purcell’s sleazy office tactics—career sabotage had to be it. After all, Breanne Summour had been Monica’s first boss. Who better to teach the girl techniques for undermining colleagues? Even Roman had called her Breanne 2.0.

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