Espresso Shot

Twenty-One

Hours later, my body was still humming, but my patience was getting thin. I was more than ready to interrogate Monica Purcell, but Quinn had an early meeting at the Sixth then another one crosstown with a DEA agent, so he dropped me off at the Blend.

I changed into another skirt and blouse (pretty enough, although nowhere near as high-end as Fen). I checked in with the Blend staff and found out I’d just missed Matt, who’d opened that morning but was now off to meet Koa Waipuna for breakfast, along with a small group of coffee guys who hadn’t been able to make Monday’s bachelor party.

Then I headed uptown to meet Quinn at the Time Warner Center. He said he’d be there at ten, but it was nearly ten twenty, and there was still no sign of him. Rather than loiter in the main lobby, I left a voice mail message for him to meet me in Trend’s offices on the twenty-second floor.

After exiting the elevator, I found the reception area crowded with half a dozen male and female models, each accompanied by an agent with an oversize portfolio in a lap or under an arm. Young, buffed, and beautiful, they all seemed interchangeable. I moved through the gaggle, found a seat on a leather couch near the receptionist’s desk, and picked up Trend’s latest issue off the coffee table.

The blond receptionist had been on a call when I’d arrived. Now she hung up the phone and lifted a shallow cardboard box with the words 4 Your Health printed on its side. She checked the slip taped to it.

“Yuck,” she muttered. “I can’t believe she eats this same thing every morning.”

I lowered the magazine and cocked my head. The receptionist held the box aloft. “Anyone here have any interest in a wheat grass shake and a soy-protein muffin?”

The models and agents shook their heads, and I privately shuddered, longing for another Clover-brewed cup of my Rwandan Butambamo Blend (and one of Thomas Keller’s buttery Bouchon Bakery croissants wouldn’t have hurt, either).

The receptionist punched a button on her phone. “Terri, Ms. Summour hasn’t picked up her breakfast yet. Is there a reason for that?... Oh. Okay. You should have let me know she was working from her apartment this morning. Will you send an intern to get her breakfast off my counter? Frankly, it’s disgusting. I don’t know. Put it in the break room. Maybe someone else will want it.”

I stifled a laugh, listening to that exchange, but I was happy to overhear that Breanne was working at home. Maybe Matt’s finally convinced her to keep a low profile. I certainly hope so.

A minute later, a young intern with shaggy brown hair walked down the hall and up to the reception desk. He looked like he weighed ninety-five pounds, wore earrings on both ears and black lipstick. Without a word, the terminally hip dude snapped the breakfast box off the counter, then his polished crocodile cowboy boots moseyed away.

The glass front doors opened, and I looked up, expecting Quinn. But it was another man who snagged my attention. Tall and heavyset like an athlete gone to seed, he crossed the crowded reception area. His steps were cautious, as if he feared breaking one of the living, breathing Barbie and Ken dolls that surrounded him.

I know this guy, I thought as he approached. He was the same man who’d been loitering outside of Fen’s Fifth Avenue boutique the day before—at the very time Breanne was having her final fitting.

Now, as then, his appearance seemed wrong. Today he wore a too-tight wool suit of chocolate brown, black shoes with thick rubber soles, a white shirt so tight his neck bulged around the collar, and a tie the color of overcooked oatmeal. When he addressed the receptionist, his fingers tapped the counter impatiently.

“Ms. Summour, please.”

“I’m sorry. Ms. Summour isn’t in this morning. Perhaps you’d care to leave a message, or your card, and we’ll call you to set up an appointment for a later date?”

“I’ll come back.”

When the man turned around, his worn rubber heels squeaked. He strode past me, and I stood up, caught the receptionist’s eye. “Who is that man?”

She shrugged. “Never saw him before.”

“Thanks,” I said, bolting for the elevator. I made it just as the doors were closing. The car was crowded, but I squeezed inside. I used the close quarters as an excuse to get nearer to the big man. I smiled up at him once, but he looked away.

Damn. I waited until we reached the lobby before I tried again. As he stepped out of the elevator, I blocked his path. “You wanted to see Ms. Summour, right? I heard you talk to the receptionist. Maybe I can help. I know Breanne very well.”

His surprise turned to recognition, and I knew he remembered seeing me at the House of Fen, right before Monica Purcell showed up. Monica’s phone conversation came back to me in a rush. She’d said something about the rings, of course, but she’d also made another comment: “I’m sorry I missed you,” she’d told the person on the other end of the cell call. “I would have arrived earlier, but I’m running behind today ...”

This must have been the man that Monica missed. He certainly looked alarmed to see me. Suspicious now, he easily moved around my much smaller form and hurried away.

“Wait a minute!” I demanded.

But the man wasn’t waiting, and a tide of office workers was already pushing me back inside the elevator car. I gripped the door and searched for the big man, but he was gone.

“In or out, miss!” the man beside me barked as another figure stepped into the crowded elevator. His broad shoulders, sandy hair, and square jaw attracted an openly admiring glance from a leggy young thing in a micro-miniskirt.

“In,” I said, tugging Quinn’s arm.

“Sorry I’m late, sweetheart,” he whispered as we rode up. “There’s been a development. I’ll tell you about it later.”

I didn’t want to spill my racing thoughts in a crowded elevator, so I held my tongue, too. Unfortunately, there wasn’t any privacy in the reception area, either. So we approached the receptionist together, ready to ask for Monica, when the young man with the black lipstick hurried up to the front desk.

“Call 911!”

The receptionist’s eyes bugged. “What! Why?”

“It’s Monica. Petra just found her on the floor in the ladies’ room. She’s not moving, and we can’t tell if she’s breathing—”

“Where is she?” Mike demanded.

The young man pointed down a carpeted hallway, and Mike took off.

“You can’t go back there!” the receptionist called.

“He’s a cop,” I told her.

“Call 911. Now!” Mike shouted over his shoulder.

The receptionist dialed while I grabbed the hysterical intern. “What happened?”

“Like I said, Petra found her. She’s still with her. I took a peek, and I think she might be dead. She’s blue, and her tongue’s, like, hanging out.”

“Okay, take it easy,” I told him. “Take a breath and sit down.”

I was about to follow Mike but decided against it. I knew where Monica’s office was, and that’s where I went instead. The door was open, and the computer was on when I got there. Monica’s purse was on the desk, but I went right for the drawers. I lifted up that pencil tray and found the black lacquered box. The array of plastic, sepia-colored prescription bottles was still inside.

Using a tissue from a container on her desk, I carefully picked up each one and lined them up on the glossy, fine-grained wood. I examined the labels of each bottle. There was no pharmacy name or phone number printed, only the word Rxglobal and a Web address.

Still keeping the tissue between Monica’s things and my own fingerprints, I lifted the business card inside the box. The card was for a “Mr. Benjamin Tower, freelance photographer.” There was a telephone number and e-mail address. On the back someone—presumably Mr. Tower—had written a note:

Great lunch, Monica! Looking forward to working

with you!

I placed the card on the table beside the bottles and touched the computer mouse. The Runway New York! screen saver vanished, and Monica’s Internet start page appeared. I scanned the list of Web sites the woman had book-marked. Most were fashion designer home pages, the sites of competitors’ magazines, or news pages. One address jumped out at me: Rxglobal.

I hit the button, and the computer connected to the Rxglobal home page. There were lists of vitamins for sale, along with dietary additives, herbal supplements, and homeopathic remedies—in short, nothing Monica or anyone else would require a prescription to purchase. I cruised the site a bit to make certain I wasn’t missing something and came up empty.

Someone touched my shoulder, and I jumped in the chair. Mike was frowning down at me. “This is a crime scene, Clare. You shouldn’t be here.”

“How’s Monica?”

“Ms. Purcell is dead.” His tone was suddenly cold. “It’s not official, but that’s only because the medical examiner isn’t here yet. I’ve seen enough overdoses to know she’s gone.”

“Look at this.” I pointed to the bottles on the desk.

Mike snapped on a latex glove and read one of the labels. “Amphetamines.”

“There are at least nine vials here, Mike. She must have been abusing speed for months, probably to control her weight.”

He placed the bottle on top of the desk, examined several others. “A cocktail of these other drugs with the speed may have caused her death. We won’t know for sure until the toxicology report comes in. But I know one thing.”

“What?”

“These prescriptions are counterfeit. There’s a doctor name, sure—probably also bogus. But there’s no DEA number. Every legit prescription sold has a valid DEA number that consists of two letters, six numbers, and one check digit that’s too complicated to explain right now. There should also be a pharmacy name and address on the label, but all we’ve got is—”

“Rxglobal. I know. I was looking at their Web site.”

Mike peered over my shoulder at the terminal. “Yeah, that might be their site. Or they might have another site that can only be accessed with a special password. We’re going to have to look into this.”

“You said there were other developments. That’s why you were late, remember?”

Mike nodded. “This morning I traced that unlisted number you got from Monica’s cell phone. The call was made to a man named Stuart Allerton Winslow, a chemist who lives on the West Side, not too far from Monica’s apartment. This guy once owned a small pharmaceutical research company that went out of business because of multimillion-dollar law-suits filed against it in civil court.”

“Why would this Winslow be interested in Breanne’s wedding rings? What’s he going to do? Break down their chemical composition? It doesn’t make sense.”

“Things always make sense, Clare, once all the facts are in.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a bright-orange color coming toward us, a cheerful hue, like freshly peeled carrots. A wiry man, attached to the conspicuous shade, entered the room. He was a head shorter than Quinn, his perfectly pitched tenor trumped by a heavy Queens accent.

“Is this the office of the deceased?”

Quinn turned to me. “Clare, meet one of the detectives I’m working with, Sergeant Sullivan. That’s Finbar Sullivan, so you can see why we call him Sully.”

Sullivan’s face was open and friendly. I met his eyes and smiled. “I think Finbar is a perfectly fine name. Very Celtic.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not so hot when you’re growing up in Ozone Park. That’s John Gotti country, land of Tonys and Vinnies. But thanks,” he said, then leaned toward me and cupped a hand over his mouth. “I can see why the big guy here’s fallen for you. You say the sweetest things.”

“Don’t flirt with my girl, Sully.”

Sully threw me a wink anyway, then turned to Quinn. “I saw the victim, Mike. She was thin. Real thin. You think drunkorexia?”

“Drunk-a-what-ia?” I asked.

Quinn glanced at me. “It’s not an official medical term, just shorthand for a relatively new condition: a combination of addiction like binge drinking, and eating disorders like anorexia. We usually see it in younger women, college age. The girls starve themselves to be thin, often abuse drugs, and consume alcohol as pretty much their only sustenance. Once they start, they have a life expectancy of about five years.”

“It’s crazy, all right.” Sully shook his head. “These girls won’t put an olive in their mouth, but they got no problem sucking down the martini it came with.” He turned to his partner. “You want me to secure the scene. Right, Mike?”

“Bag up Ms. Purcell’s personal effects and all the prescription bottles you can find. We’ll check them for residue. Prints. I’ll get back to you soon. I’m going to get Ms. Cosi out of here and swing by the Sixth for notification.”

“I hate that part.” Sully’s light mood suddenly vanished. “Okay, Mike, I’ll cover things here.”

As we left Monica’s office and walked down the hall, I touched Quinn’s arm. “What’s notification?”

Quinn stared straight ahead. “When I tell the next of kin what happened to their loved one, that’s notification.”

“Oh.”

The reception room was nearly empty now and eerily still. Two uniformed police officers stood at the front desk. The magazine’s art director was sitting behind it. The tall East Indian woman with long dark hair was sobbing into a handkerchief.

As we moved to exit through the glass doors, one of the uniforms called out, “Lieutenant? A word.”

Quinn looked at me. “I need a few minutes.”

“Go. I’ll wait.”

The glass doors opened a moment later, and Matt walked in. “Hey! Clare! What a morning I had! You won’t believe it!”

I blinked.

“Just look at me,” he said. “I’m dripping wet.”

Dark stains marred his white cotton button-down.

“It happened right outside, at Columbus Circle.” Matt threw up his hands. “Thea Van Harben walked up to me and assaulted me with her Starbucks—insult to injury, huh? I’m lucky I didn’t get second-degree burns.”

I closed my eyes. “What did you do now, Matt?”

“Nothing! I swear! Thea just said, ‘You threw your wedding plans in my face, so I’m throwing this into yours.’ And she let me have it. But, Clare, I swear I never mentioned my wedding plans to her. I haven’t even seen the woman since...” he shrugged. “You know? I can’t even remember.”

“Matt, something’s happened here—”

Before I could finish, he’d already looked past me and seen the policemen. His face went from perplexed amusement to stricken in less than a second.

“What’s going on? Why is Petra crying? Is Breanne all right?”

He moved to get around me, but I caught his arm. “It’s Monica Purcell, Breanne’s former assistant. She overdosed on prescription medication, Matt. She’s dead.”

“My God, what about Bree? Is she okay? Where is she?”

“She’s not here. She’s working at home this morning. Didn’t she tell you?”

“No. She told me she had a dermatology appointment.”

Dermatology? That sounded odd to me until the light went on. Breanne had said something to Roman in Fen’s fitting room about having “work done” before the wedding.

“I’ve got to find Breanne,” Matt said.

I noticed Quinn walking toward us. He nodded stiffly. “Allegro.”

Matt’s greeting was about as warm. “Quinn.”

“Matt,” I said, “before you bolt to find your bride, we all need to talk.”

“About what?”

I gestured to the uniformed police and the sobbing Petra. “Not out here.”

Matt nodded. “There’s a conference room we can use. I know where it is. Come on...”

As Matt led Quinn and me past a line of cubicles to a glass door, he pulled out his cell phone and rang Breanne to make sure she was okay. It was a short call, and he quickly signed off. I noticed he hadn’t informed her about Monica. Before I could ask, he volunteered, “I’m not telling Bree over the phone. After we’re done here, I’ll head straight for her place.”

I nodded, pleased to hear Matteo Allegro was going to take care of the woman he was about to marry—but then my ex always had been a very loving man. (That was his problem, really, he loved women a little too much.)

“She’s bound to be pretty upset,” I said.

“I know.”

The meeting room was large, with buff leather executive chairs, a huge conference table, and a panoramic view of the city skyline. Quinn put his back to the view. I sat down across from him, and Matt shut the door.

“Okay. What’s going on?” Matt demanded.

He crossed to take the chair at the head of the conference table, and I brought him up to speed, telling him about the attempted theft of Nunzio’s rings and the suspicious-looking man who’d popped up two times in two days, looking out of place, the second time shortly before Monica Purcell’s body was found. I told him about Winslow and the possible connections between Monica’s drug habit, her interest in the wedding rings, and the questionable timing of her death.

Matt rubbed the back of his neck. He looked confused. “What do you mean, ‘questionable’ timing? I thought you said she died from an overdose of prescription medication.”

“She could have. But the prescriptions are bogus and appear to be illegal. And given the kind of people she’s gotten herself involved with, I’m betting the drugs she took this morning were purposely tainted.”

“Hmmm.” Quinn’s eyebrows lifted. “That actually makes sense, Clare.”

“Then don’t look so surprised.”

Quinn folded his arms. “You’re on a roll. Go on.”

“Okay. So the key to this whole mess really comes down to this chemist, this Stuart Winslow.”

Matt closed his eyes. “Wait a minute! What chemist?”

“I’ll lay it out again, Matt, slower this time. But you have to pay attention and try to keep up.”

Quinn cleared his throat—or stifled a laugh—or both. I couldn’t tell which. I cleared my own throat and turned to Matt again.

“We know that Monica phoned a chemist named Stuart Winslow. I overheard the call. So we know that Winslow cared very much about when Nunzio’s rings were arriving and what was going to happen to them. We know Monica witnessed Breanne giving the rings to Roman, who vowed to keep them with him at all times until the wedding. Then robbers targeted Roman that very night, and they knew he was holding valuable rings. But the robbery went bad, they didn’t get the rings, and Monica conveniently died right before we were going to interrogate her about what she knew.”

Matt leaned back in his chair. “Jeez.”

“I don’t know who this Stuart Winslow is, or how he’s connected to Monica—or even Breanne for that matter—but I’m almost positive he had something to do with the robbery attempt and maybe even Monica’s death.” I glanced at Quinn, relieved to see him nodding in agreement.

Matt scratched the back of his head. “But if this Winslow guy is the one who tried to run Breanne over, and he also tried to gun her down on Monday night, then what was the point? Why does he want my fiancée dead?”

I drummed my fingers on the table then stilled when it hit me. “Maybe it was Monica who wanted Breanne dead. Maybe she and Winslow were working together, even sleeping together—”

“Maybe isn’t going to solve this, Clare,” Quinn interrupted.

“No,” I said. “It’s up to us to get to the bottom of it.”

“How?” Matt asked.

I met Quinn’s eyes. “I have an idea...”