The kitchen was empty when I found it.
Not unusual for a Saturday morning in a house this size, where Chef Laurent apparently kept banker's hours and Mrs. Tanaka ran on her own mysterious schedule. The industrial espresso machine sat on the counter like a monument to excess, surrounded by enough coffee equipment to stock a small café, and I spent a full minute just staring at it before deciding I didn't have the emotional bandwidth to figure out which button made actual coffee versus which one would launch the thing into orbit.
There had to be a regular coffee maker somewhere. Something with an on switch and a carafe and no touchscreen.
I started opening cabinets.
The first one had fourteen varieties of loose-leaf tea organized by country of origin. The second had enough spices to season a small country. The third had what appeared to be a very expensive collection of artisanal hot sauces that I was choosing not to think about too hard.
