Roast Mortem

Eleven

“Clare? You okay?”

Two hours after our unorthodox interview with the widow Quadrelli, I was back home in my West Village duplex with a still-empty stomach and a head full of questions.

After we’d dropped Madame off at her Fifth Avenue digs, I ran down my theories with Mike. He agreed with my observations, encouraged me to contact Stuart Rossi, and reminded me that FDNY marshals assigned to a fire were like NYPD detectives working a crime scene.

Fire marshals weren’t “just like” law enforcement officers, they were officers. They carried guns, interviewed witnesses, and (if warranted) made arrests.

“Just treat the man like a police detective,” Mike told me. “Call him first thing in the morning, give him everything you dug up, he’ll take it from there.”

Now I was descending my apartment’s staircase, dragging and tired, until a whiff of smoke hit me. Adrenaline instantly juiced my system.

“Clare? You okay?” Mike was gawking at me. I must have looked ill or gone pale or something until I realized the offending agent was safely contained in my living room fireplace.

“Did you hear me, sweetheart? You okay?”

“I’m okay.”

I wasn’t. Not really. But I didn’t want Mike feeling bad about his cozy fire-building gesture. The lengthening flames would warm the chilly room. Even the disturbing shadows flickering across the polished antiques made me conclude (in a whole new way) how lucky I was to reside in this place.

While this entire Federal-era townhouse was still technically my ex-mother-in-law’s, she’d made clear to me that she was legally willing its ownership to me as well as her son, so I felt like a caretaker now as much as a resident — an invaluable bonus that came with managing her coffeehouse two floors below.

As my sock-covered feet slipped across the chilly parquet floor, I noticed Mike’s gaze tracking me with unabashed interest. For a second, I couldn’t imagine why.

Sexy was not a word I’d use to describe me at the moment. Postshower, I’d dressed for sloppy comfort in a pair of black bike shorts and an oversized T-shirt that warned: Do Not Give This Woman Decaf!

The tee — along with an apron that said I Serve It Up Hot! — had been a gag gift from my staff last Christmas. But Mike had seen this shirt before. On the other hand, it was the first time I’d gone braless wearing it. (My street clothes, down to my underwear, had reeked of char, and my other bras were still damp from a morning’s hand-washing.)

Whatever the reason for the man’s open scrutiny, I was happy to return the gesture. With his sport coat tossed off, Mike’s muscular shoulders were nicely defined by his dress shirt — spotlessly white yet noticeably wrinkled from hours of wearing his leather holster. Tie well loosened, long, strong form folded into a relaxed crouch, he looked comfortably assured, entrenched in a zone of cool-blue control that was quintessentially Mike.

From our very first meeting, I’d been impressed by the man’s natural confidence, mainly because — unlike my exhusband — it lacked arrogance. Mike was often wary and sometimes skeptical, but he was never cynical, not in the way some people were, using it as an excuse for complacency or indifference. What attracted me most, I think, was his equilibrium. Mike was as hardened as any cop from the New York streets, yet he’d refused to let the job or the city kill his compassion.

Like a buttoned-down Ivanhoe, he now picked up the black iron poker and stabbed at the heart of the fire he’d built, not to kill the thing but to give it more air. And that’s when it hit me just how much Mike Quinn enjoyed igniting blazes in my hearth.

Hmmm...

Considering the occupation of the man’s cousin and younger brothers, I figured the desire to play with fire was probably a Quinn thing. Or maybe it was just some gene buried deep in the alpha-male string, a primal urge leftover from the DNA of grunting cavemen.

As I settled into the carved rosewood sofa, my gaze caught on his well-worn shoulder holster now hanging off the delicate lyre back of one of Madame’s heirloom chairs. Tucked inside the leather was his rather large handgun. Yet another kind of fire stick... ?

“You look a little funny, sweetheart. Do you need a drink?”

“I need to eat.”

I would have chowed down sooner, but I hadn’t been able to stand those reeking clothes another minute; so while Mike had taken care of parking my old Honda, I’d headed upstairs for a hot, soapy shower.

I could see from the shopping bag now sitting on the coffee table — not to mention the aromas of cooked meat assaulting my sensory receptors — that Mike had taken care of food, too. But what was it exactly?

The large, glossy bag didn’t look like your typical brown paper take-out sack. Vivid orange with a laminated exterior and nylon rope handles, it looked self-consciously hip, which was hardly ever a good thing when it came to authentically tasty takeout.

“UFC?” I said, reading the logo. “KFC I’ve heard of, but UFC?”

“It’s Korean-style fried chicken,” Mike said, putting down the poker.

I looked closer at the small print under the large UFC logo. “Unidentified Flying Chickens? I never heard of them.”

“There are only three stores in the metro area,” Mike said, rising to his full height, “one in Elmhurst, one in Brooklyn, and one in North Jersey. Sully swears by them, says he’s addicted. He just dropped it off.”

“Sully was here?”

Finbar “Sully” Sullivan worked closely with Mike on the OD Squad, a special task force Mike supervised out of the Sixth Precinct here in Greenwich Village. Sully was one of the nicest men I knew — an openly cheerful forty-something guy with ready quips delivered in a native Queens accent.

“I left my car back in Elmhurst,” Mike explained. “I asked Sully and Franco to swing by, bring it back to Manhattan.”

“Wait, back up. Did you just say Sully and Franco? As in Sergeant Emmanuel Franco?”

Mike nodded and I tensed. Detective Sergeant Franco was the complete opposite of Finbar Sullivan. Edgy and volatile, the man was about as subtle as a ball-peen hammer to the forehead (something I had learned over this past holiday season).

Where Mike and Sully wore suits, ties, and their methodical patience on their sleeves, the younger Franco displayed cocky confidence and a street-tough attitude, with a wardrobe to match: a Yankee jacket, cowboy boots, and an in-your-face red, white, and, blue ’do rag.

Despite the guy’s bulldog approach to law enforcement, however, I did not dislike him. What concerned me was Franco’s interest in my daughter. He’d taken Joy out a number of times while she was visiting me on her last holiday break. But, thank goodness, my girl was back in Paris.

I didn’t relish the idea of Joy meeting and falling for another French line cook, which could sway her to remain in Europe indefinitely, but I was even less happy with her developing an attachment to a detective whose persona seemed to fall somewhere between Dirty Harry and Rambo.

“I can’t believe you’re working with Franco,” I said.

“Why not?” He crossed his arm. “I needed the manpower.”

“The construction site investigation?”

Mike nodded. Over the past two weeks, he’d been following up on recent OD cases, one of which had ended in death. Working closely with the DEA, he and Sully had supervised a covert investigation of a popular nightclub on the Lower East Side, near the Williamsburg Bridge, where both victims had ingested the drugs.

Unfortunately, the place came up clean. No dealing had been uncovered on the premises. Now a source claimed the selling was being done at an adjacent construction site, where someone working on the site itself was dealing recreational drugs like ecstasy and Liquid E to club-goers.

“Well...” I tried to focus on the positive. (After all, I could see where a rough-edged guy like Franco would be an asset in working an undercover operation on a construction crew. And when it came to Mike’s choice of police personnel, who was I to argue?) “I suppose it was nice of the two of them to bring over dinner, along with your car...”

“Yes, it was.”

“Unidentified Flying Chickens...” I shook my head. “A Queens restaurant with an ironic name.”

“Yeah...” Mike sat down next to me. “It’s way too Manhattan hipster for the geography.”

“Have you tried it? What do you think of it?”

Mike arched an eyebrow. “You really care?”

He was right. I didn’t. The enticing aromas were making my stomach growl and my mouth salivate. I dug into the bag. The first box I opened was stuffed with warm chicken wings. A second later, my teeth were tearing into skin crispier than a newly fried kettle chip. The caramelized taste of slow-roasted garlic hit my palate first, next came a play of sweet brown sugar, slightly tingly ginger, and under it all, a low, meaty umami base note of soy.

“Oh my God,” I garbled as I masticated.

“Good?”

“Mm, mm... mmmmm...”

Mike joined me, opening another box, which was stuffed with fried drumsticks, glistening with a sweet-and-sour glaze. A third held containers of tangy cold slaw with a hint of Chinese mustard; cubes of cold, crunchy Korean radish; and sweet potato matchsticks.

“You know, I could duplicate this,” I managed to boast around a mouthful of soy-garlic wing.

“I don’t doubt it,” Mike said, who’d swooned over my cooking more times than I could count.

“They must fry their chicken twice to get it this crispy...” I munched some more, gathering flavor and textural clues, deducing the culinary technique. “Then after they fry it, they must roll it in the sticky glaze and dry it out in a warm oven...”

“Sounds like your famous Buffalo wings.”

“Except I don’t deep-fry those, just crisp them up in a cast-iron skillet. A tempura batter might be interesting to try...” I couldn’t help channeling one of my old In the Kitchen with Clare columns. “Home cooks tend to use all-purpose flour because it’s always in the pantry, but cake flour is the best way to go for frying batters, even for beer-battered onion rings, because it’s lower in gluten.”

“Well, sweetheart, the day you want to experiment, give me a call. I’ll be happy to help with the taste testing.”

“I’ve noticed you’re always available for that.”

“I’m always available for a lot of things.” He threw me his best leering wink. I laughed and leaned back on the sofa, grateful my bike pants had an expanding waistband. “Man, I really needed that...”

Mike reached out with a paper napkin, gently wiped at a ruby smear along my cheek. “I’m guessing you liked it...”

I did the same for him, rubbing at a smudge on his chin. “I’d say your man Sully’s a good guy to trust.”

“So am I,” Mike said. Then he leaned in and moved his mouth over mine.

That tasted even better.

Mike’s mouth was sweet and slightly sticky from the chicken glaze, and (frankly) I would have been happy to gorge myself on nothing but him for the rest of the night. But, after a few blissful minutes, I was the one who broke contact.

“I’m sorry, Mike...” I softly pushed on his hard chest. “I’d like to talk a little more...”