Dark Roast

I can tell a lot about a person from what they drink. So could you, if you were in my line of work. Take Mr Green-Tea-Frappuccino. I’ve no problem with ironic beards, but when the temperature’s low enough you half expect polar bears on your commute? Sticking to iced drinks is perverse. Probably a Taurus, they’re known for that kind of thing.

The girl with the raspberry ripple hair gets her hazelnut macchiato with an extra shot of espresso as dark as her heavy black boots. Hidden depths that one; Scorpio for sure.

When the woman in the hard-working yoga pants comes in, I switch the five pumps of cinnamon dolce syrup she wants in her “non-fat” latte for sugar-free. No judgement, we all need saving from ourselves.

Then there’s Hand Tattoos. Who takes his coffee Irish when he thinks no one’s looking, with something he carries in a flask in his top jacket pocket. He conducts his business at the back table, and the guys who meet him often stay over an hour without ordering anything. Not from us anyway. Everyone’s too scared to point out shop seating policy, and that’s how I know I’m not the only one who thinks Hand Tattoos is more dangerous than he looks.

Like clockwork chiming noon, a dozen Ugg boots stamp snow on the doormat, and I glance back to check the level on the pumpkin spice syrup. Should be fine. I don’t bother smiling; none of them look up from their phones. A Molly, an Emily, two Hannahs (one with “no H”). A Madeline - emphasis on the full name, no Maddie this one. And an Abigail bringing up the rear. I resist the temptation to write the second Hannah as annah on the cup. Too early in my shift for petty like that. I’ll save it for Lady Venti Six-shot Half-caff Americano With Almond Milk. She’s usually in by 4pm to count out the espresso shots on her fingers.

Except today, when she doesn’t show.

Two weeks later, our crew of Grande Mochas are in. Five-star trouble these boys, since they live to drive cars that don’t belong to them. And today they’re being haunted by a guy they don’t seem to know is a detective.

I do though.

It could be the suit, where the line of it’s ruined by a gun. Or it could be the way he says “black coffee, thanks,” and ignores me when I ask his name. As if he thinks there’s too much syrup in the air, let alone the coffee, and it’ll get in his mouth if it stays open too long.

Or, it could be the way his eyes cover the whole room as he waits for his drink.

I watch him watching the Grande Mocha Boys as he walks to the cart. But then I’m changing my mind about him as he selects four sugar packets, taps them into line, tears off all the tops at once and dumps their contents into his coffee. He stirs in slow circles with a wooden stirring stick. So, he wants to look serious but has a sweet tooth after all. Not a Capricorn then. Aries maybe? Hard to pin down.

“Can I help you, detective?” I ask, which earns me a startled eyebrow lift. I don’t elaborate and he clears his throat to recover.

“How well do you know your customers?” he asks.

“Some of the regulars chat,” I say. “Are you here for the boys?”

“What?” he asks, then follows my gaze. “Oh, no. I’m a little out of their league.”

“I’m not sure how I can help you then? We’re a coffee shop, not a confessional.” He almost smiles, looking at me properly for the first time. Seeming to like what he sees. The feeling’s mutual, badge and gun notwithstanding.

“No, well. I suppose not. Nothing… unusual been going on the past couple days?”

“Define unusual,” I say, smiling. “We humans are a funny lot.”

“True enough,” he says, then reaches into his jacket and comes up with his phone. “Those regulars you mentioned, one of them this lady?”

“Venti six-shot half-caff Americano with almond milk,” I say.

“That’s some memory you’ve got.”

“She’s in every day,” I say, careful with the present tense. “There’s nothing… I mean, she’s not—”

“Reported missing,” he says. “This was the last place she used her credit card. There’s some suggestion of her staying with a sister in a different city. But that’s been hard to verify, and her husband’s worried.”

“Tall man?” I ask, knowing the answer, “red hair?” The detective eyes me, steady and controlled.

“No, as it happens.”

“Well—”

“She meets a man fitting that description?” he asks. “Every day.” The last is not a question, it’s the click of a puzzle piece finding its place.

“Tall vanilla latte, no frills. Blueberry muffin,” I say.

“Ah. Has he been in, since the last time you saw this woman?” And while he doesn’t look surprised, he does look disappointed. As if, once again, the human race has let him down.

“No.”

“I’ll probably come by again,” he says, putting his phone away, his mind already ahead of him out the shop and down the street.

“We’re happy to help however we can, detective —?”

“Romero,” he says, nodding goodbye. I return to my place behind the counter.

Romero. That means the pilgrim.

It suits him.

Hand Tattoos talks to me for the first time the next day.

“What’d Donut Patrol want?” he asks, our fingers meeting round his mug.

“One of our regulars has gone missing,” I say.

“What did you tell him?”

“That she used to meet a man here.”

“Megaera,” he says, as if nothing important has come before that. His eyes are on my name tag. “That’s unusual.”

“I’m unusual,” I say, “but people call me Meg.”

He doesn’t tell me his name. I’ve never asked before. And I don’t ask now.

Two days after that, the Pilgrim returns to tell me our missing lady isn’t missing anymore.

“Oh, poor Charlotte,” I say, which has him glancing up from his phone. From the awful picture I’ve confirmed is her. What remains of her.

“How do you know the victim’s name?” he asks.

“I ask them — the customers I mean. For their orders.” I realise I’ve made him a drip coffee, hands on autopilot, and he accepts the paper cup without noticing he didn’t order it. Until he takes a sip. I put the sugar in for him.

“See a lot from back there, don’t you,” he says, once again in the grey between a statement and a question.

“I see coffees,” I say, “the people behind them are mostly an accident.” Not all true, but not a lie either. “Can I ask, was it the man she met here? The one I mentioned?” Romero considers me.

“Why?”

“The idea—” I say, “of a murderer, right there.” I point at the chair he always sat in. “It’s… unsettling.”

Something’s shifting behind Romero’s eyes. They say thinking looks like cogs turning, but this is more like deep water over black rocks. Currents I know are there but can’t see.

“We don’t think it’s him,” Romero says, “although he’s disappeared.”

“Oh,” I say, relaxing into a relieved smile. “Well—”

“Have you heard of the Skeleton King?” Romero asks, killing the smile.

“Everyone has but, you don’t mean… not Charlotte?”

“We believe so. We tracked her more habitual movements, and they align with his other victims. We think he’s a customer here.”

Nothing happens. My ears hum and my heart pumps but the words are slow to reach the outer limits of my body.

“The man who… starves his victims to death,” I say.

“Yes. Well, starvation is a signature. But the victims die by other means.”

“Other…” I stop myself. But he tells me anyway.

“He starves them, limits their water. Then, when they’ve gone mad with thirst and hunger, he arranges a banquet. He ties them to a chair with wire, and leaves them. Calls in a cryptic clue to the police, but by the time we find them, they’ve strangled themselves trying to get to the food. Usually half decapitated themselves, as you’ve seen.”

I look down to find my fingers trembling on the countertop.

“I’m sorry,” Romero says. “I wouldn’t tell you this, except we need your help. Is there anyone here you could imagine capable of such things?”

Yes.

“No. I mean… what does someone who could do that look like?”

“Like any of us,” Romero says, “which is what makes them so dangerous.”

The rest of that day is a distraction of looking for a murderer behind every coconut milk latte. I tell myself over and over it’s a normal day. I’m there to scrub coffee grounds from under my fingernails and make sure we don’t run out of soy creamer again. That’s all.

But it doesn’t help. My mind won’t lie quiet. As I pull shot after shot, my eyes find their way to our regulars. My hands don’t need their master, they know the work by heart.

Such familiar faces.

The crumple-suited day trader at the end of the banquette, tie askew and face pallid with laptop light. Could it be him? He puts cinnamon in his Americano. Purists would call for his head right there. His blonde hair is slicked back, by gel in the morning but sweat in the evening as his work writhes and dies before him. At 5 he gives in to a slice of red velvet, the crumbs tacking up his keyboard. Too busy then? Too frantic? Or the sort that needs a second, secret life to survive his first?

What about the sharp-suited businessman in the chair by the window? In at 11 every morning and out again by 11.25. Flat white and a plain croissant. A killer might like things simple, straightforward. Might favour routine. He has heavy black eyebrows but I never get a good look at his eyes, which makes my palms itch.

“What’d he want this time?” asks a charred voice.

“She’s dead,” I say, without properly connecting my brain. “Our customer, they found her body.”

“Shame,” says Hand Tattoos, in a way that makes me squint at him. He’s smiling, and when he sees me looking he shrugs. “What can I say? I don’t like adulterers.”

So he noticed them too.

I end the day thinking everyone could have a severed head in their handbag.

“Do you know the myth of Tantalus, detective Romero?” I ask him, when he comes back to question some of the other staff.

“The myth of what?” he asks.

“A man who was half god. He stole ambrosia from the Olympian table and ended up in the deepest part of hell. The part reserved for thieves and murderers, and those who offend the gods with their greed.”

“What kind of barista are you?” Romero asks, almost laughing.

“The grad student kind,” I say, almost laughing with him. “Do you know what Tantalus’ punishment was, for taking what wasn’t his to take?”

“Let’s assume I don’t,” Romero says.

“Temptation. Eternal starvation. As in, to tantalise. He was placed in a lake of crystal water that receded when he bent to drink, under a fruit tree that grew taller when he reached to eat.”

“You’re saying… what are you saying?”

“Charlotte. Of course she didn’t deserve to die, but… perhaps the killer was offended by her?”

“Because she… took a man she shouldn’t have?” he asks. I shrug, turning back to my work.

“I was thinking about what you told me, about the food. The way the Skeleton King’s victims die. I’ve been trying not to, but you went and put it in my head.” Romero doesn’t reply and I look back at him. He seems preoccupied again, his mind on a journey without him. The Pilgrim.

“Who…” he says. “Who would know this story?”

“Students, like me. People interested in mythology or classics.”

“It fits,” he says, and then he’s no longer truly talking to me. “The victimology has been muddled. Across gender lines, race lines. Different social and economic backgrounds. So unusual. He seemed to be killing at random. In madness… But…” he trails away, then snaps his eyes to mine. “Thank you, for everything. I’m sorry I had to share such awful details.”

“I’ll survive,” I say, smiling to reassure. “I’m glad I could be useful.”

I’m pulling shots of espresso and chatting to a friendly woman about her son’s graduation when Romero’s team burst through the doors. They head straight for the sharp-suited businessman with the black eyebrows. As they haul him away he bellows that he doesn’t know how a copy of The Odyssey got in his briefcase, or anything about the horrifying pictures hand-drawn in its margins.

Romero ignores him.

When the commotion dies down, I try a handful of kind words to comfort the friendly woman. But it takes a free lemon muffin to settle her properly.

And when closing time rolls round, I clean and lock up with unusual care. I won’t be coming back, but a last shift doesn’t mean it’s acceptable to leave the job badly done.

The Skeleton Queen, safe in the world’s believe that true monsters are always men, has the corpse of a tall, redheaded adulterer to dispose of. A shame, I suppose, to miss my chance at the mocha-drinking car thieves. But there’s a new city on my horizon. By the time Romero figures out my gift of the dark-haired businessman I’ll be far enough away that, Pilgrim or not, he won’t follow.

Yes, a new city. A new life. Perhaps a new name to match. It makes little difference.

Wherever you go, people need saving from themselves.