Espresso Shot by Cleo Coyle Page B

happened to be gay, and the man he was sitting with looked about ten years younger and a whole lot cuter than Barry’s current boyfriend.

    “I actually heard the shot,” Barry announced.

    “Really?” the other man replied. “You heard it? What about Martin?”

    Barry frowned and shook his head. “Martin left.”

    “Oh, really ?”

    The cute guy leaned forward slightly. I smiled, seeing the obvious. Barry, however, remained glum.

    “He packed up three days ago,” Barry said with a sigh. “So I was alone tonight. This is actually the first time I’ve come out since he dumped me. Anyway, I didn’t know what I heard was a gunshot. Not at the time. I thought it was something harmless, you know? Then I hear sirens and forty minutes later, the cops are pounding on my door—”

    “Excuse me,” I said.

    Both men looked up. Barry smiled. “Oh, hi, Clare. What do you need?”

    “Did you just say that you heard the gunshot in the street?”

    Barry nodded. “Sure did. It was right under my window, too.”

    “And where do you live exactly?”

    “Two and a half blocks away, on the same side of the street as the Blend.” Barry gestured in that direction. “I’m in a second-floor apartment.”

    “You heard the shot right below you?”

    “I’m sure of it.”

    “And what did you see?”

    “Not a thing. That’s what I told the police. I went to my window and looked down—I thought it might have been a kid with fireworks or a car tire popping, something like that—but there was nothing. Not a soul.”

    Barry’s story fit with what I’d experienced, too. By the time I’d turned around to look for the shooter, the person was out of view.

    “Did you tell the police anything else?” I asked.

    “What do you mean?”

    “I don’t know, I mean . . . You didn’t see anything, but did you hear anything after the shot? Say, like, footsteps running, something like that?”

    “Well, actually, now that you mention it . . .” Barry scratched his chin. “I did hear some footsteps really close, but they weren’t running. They were walking.”

    “What?” I’m pretty sure my bloodshot eyes bugged at that.

    “I heard some footsteps, like you said. But I didn’t see anyone there, so I didn’t mention it to the cops, you know? I mean, why would that matter?”

    “Well, if you heard footsteps walking, yet you couldn’t see who was walking, don’t you think this person could have been the shooter, maybe moving out of sight, say around the side of your building?”

    Barry stared at me for a few dumbfounded seconds. “Oh my God, Clare. I didn’t think of that. The footsteps must have been the shooter ducking into my alley. Oh my God, I should have told the police—”

    “It’s okay. Listen . . . Why don’t you write down this number?” I put down my cups and reached for Lori Soles’s business card in the back pocket of my jeans. “This is one of the detectives investigating the shooting. Just call her cell and tell her what you just told me. All right?”

    “Okay, Clare. Oh my God . . .” He wrote the number on his Village Blend napkin.

    “Don’t worry, Barry. You didn’t do anything wrong. Enjoy your coffee.”

    Juggling the two lidded paper cups, I moved to the base of the spiral stairs in the center of the dining room, unhooked the thin velvet rope with the dangling Second Floor Closed sign, and rehooked it behind me. As I clanged up the wrought iron steps, the crowd’s raucous chattering slowly dissipated, and my mind started working.

    Something isn’t adding up . . .

    By the time I reached the quiet of the upstairs lounge, I was fairly certain of one thing where the shooter was concerned. I looked around for Matt to see what he thought, but it wasn’t easy to locate the man. Most of the room was shrouded in darkness.

SIX

    THE second floor’s sofas looked like hulking silhouettes, the colorful throw rugs like gray storm puddles. There were eight antique floor lamps