Murder Most Frothy

by Cleo Coyle

  “A moot point, Clare,” said David.

  I shook my head. “Don’t you see that the murder weapon could have been planted? That maybe that’s why the casings were so casually left behind on the beach. No professional hit man would have made such a mistake—”

  “No one said the arrestee was a professional hit man,” David argued. “He was probably just a punk.”

  “And I’ll bet there are no fingerprints on that gun, either,” I shot back. “I’ll bet the killer wanted that weapon to be found by the police—he probably even tipped them—so that someone else would be charged with the crime.”

  “Give it up, Clare,” David warned in an irritated voice. “O’Rourke says it’s over. So it’s over.”

  “One more question, then I’ll let it rest.”

  He sighed. “Ask.”

  “Where did they find the gun and pick this perp up?”

  “The wrong side of the highway,” David replied. “Somewhere in Hampton Bays, I think. Anyway, I’m simply relieved to hear that Treat’s killer has been caught.

  I can pay off the security firm and be free of people in uniform staking out my house at all hours.”

  I was alarmed. “Why drop the security?”

  “It’s no longer necessary.”

  “Please. There’s been a murder in this mansion. Your restaurant manager just tried to blow up your business. Can’t you keep the security in place for a few more weeks? For my sake?”

  Madame raised an eyebrow. “You know, David, Clare’s right. Given what just happened with your misjudgment of Jacques Papas, don’t you think you should listen to my daughter-in-law?”

  Ex-daughter-in-law, I thought. And considering Matteo’s relationship with Breanne Summour, things are getting exier every day.

  David’s gaze moved from me to Madame and back again. Finally he threw up his hands. “I know when I’m outnumbered!” He set the empty cup on the table and rose.

  “Now I have to dress,” he announced. “I’ve got a round of social calls to make, and I have to convince the gas and the glass company to send people immediately to repair the restaurant, or Cuppa J doesn’t open tonight.”

  FORTUNATELY for all concerned Cuppa J did open on Sunday, though not in time for its famous brunch. By four o’clock, however, on that sunny afternoon, the glass company had come and gone, the utility company had affected repairs, and the village fire marshal had declared the premises safe.

  While Chef Vogel handled preparations in the kitchen and Suzi Tuttle set up the dining room for the evening rush, I was on the break room’s couch going over the vendor list, wondering which of the restaurant’s clients I would have to charm on Monday in order to get our supplies delivered without the added ten percent markup negotiated by Jacques Papas, who was now cooling his heels in the Suffolk County jail awaiting a bond hearing.

  I was making little progress when Suzi interrupted me with another crisis. “I think the espresso machine is broken.”

  I followed Suzi to the coffee bar and quickly discerned the problem. Though the machine was plugged in, the electric outlet it was plugged into had shorted out. Running a high-voltage extension cord along the wall from the kitchen to the coffee bar temporarily solved the problem until an electrician could check out the socket in the morning. Crisis resolved, I returned to retrieve my notes in the break room.

  I paused just outside the door when I heard the voice of Graydon Faas. He was alone, talking to someone on his cell phone.

  Now, as a rule, I don’t eavesdrop on private conversations (unless, of course, I’m investigating a crime). But Graydon Faas was dating my daughter, which I felt gave me certain latitude as a parent. Also, Madame’s revelation that Graydon was the member of a family with a pharmaceutical fortune had piqued my curiosity. Here was a young man who was worth—quite literally—millions of dollars, yet who was waiting tables at a Hamptons restaurant rather than summering in luxury with every other member of his smart set.

  I guess it’s ironic that, after all my concern over David Mintzer’s safety and well being, it was concern over my daughter that prompted me to listen to the one-sided conversation.

  “I kept up my part of the deal, Bom.” I heard him say.

  Bom? As in Bom Felloes? I crept a little closer to the door, careful to stay out of sight.

  “Sure I could use some more,” said Graydon. “You know it, dude. But I don’t know…the last time what happened afterwards really freaked me out.”

  A glass crashed to the floor in the dining room, startling me. Graydon ignored the sound, kept right on going with his conversation.

  “Okay, if you say so. What time?…Okay, dude, eleven-thirty it is. You’re the bomb, Bom. See you later.”

  I whirled and literally ran to the other end of the kitchen. Graydon emerged from the break room a moment later and went to help Suzi Tuttle lay out the silverware.

  I didn’t know what business Graydon Faas had with Bom Felloes, but I suspected it was something shady. Even worse, I suspected it had something to do with the failed attempts on David Mintzer’s life.

  When everyone else was busy, I cornered Chef Vogel in the kitchen. “I need to leave early tonight, okay? Can you cover?”

  “Sure.”

  “Thanks, I owe you. Just don’t mention the fact that I’m leaving early to anyone else, okay?”

  The chef offered me a conspiratorial wink. “Have a blast,” he whispered. “After all the hard work you’ve put in this summer, you deserve a little fun.”

  I smiled and thanked him. Then I hurried back to the break room to retrieve my notes and make a cell phone call of my own—to the one person I knew wouldn’t question my “outlaw ways.”

  TWENTY-TWO

  THE night was fairly still, even on the water. This evening’s rental, Rabbit Redux, had an open-air helm, an enclosed cabin below, polished chrome rails, and a wooden deck that looked better than the parquet floor in my Village duplex.

  We were at anchor, rocking gently on the placid tide. The craft was moored about fifty yards offshore from The Sandcastle, Bom Felloes’s faux-medieval multimillion dollar estate. Bom’s split-level living room faced the ocean; its interior was visible through the mansion’s massive glass wall, a brilliant rectangle in the darkness.

  I glanced at my watch, illuminated by the dull glow of the helm’s light. It was twenty minutes after eleven o’clock. “Almost time,” I whispered to Jim, who was watching the estate through a pair of expensive-looking binoculars. His jaw was set, his body tense under the tight black wet-suit.

  “What are we looking for exactly?” Jim asked, his eyes never wavering from the target area.

  “Anything suspicious,” I replied lamely.

  Laughing, he lowered the binoculars. “The world’s suspicious, Clare. Everybody’s guilty of something.”

  “You don’t understand. Bom Felloes has been feuding a long time with David. David got the restaurant Bom wanted here in the Hamptons, which is worth millions of dollars in lost revenue to Bom. But the real damage is to his ego. And that kind of damage is the worst kind to men like these.”

  “That doesn’t necessarily make him a killer,” Jim said, still looking through the binoculars. “But it does make him…well, well, well—”

  “What?”

  “…a drug user.”

  My spine stiffened. “Let me guess. Cocaine?”

  “He’s either doing lines or trying to clean his coffee table with his nose and a straw. Oh, yeah. He’s got a nice size bag of white powder. Okay, now he’s poured some out on the table and he’s cutting it with something—”

  “Cutting it? Do you mean—”

  “He’s mixing the coke with some neutral substance. Could be something like baby powder, for instance, something that stretches the mix and diminishes the quality.”

  “Why would he do that? He’s filthy rich.”

  “Why indeed,” said Jim. “Doesn’t make sense after I saw him do a couple of lines of the pure stuff, unless
he plans on cheating someone, or…”

  “What?”

  “He’s taking the stuff he cut and putting it into another bag, wrapping it up. He set that bag aside, now he’s putting everything else away except for a couple of straws.”

  Jim shifted the binoculars. With my naked eye I saw headlights pulling up to the house’s entrance, below the stone tower at one end of the structure. I couldn’t make out the type of automobile, but Jim read my mind.

  “It’s a Mini Cooper—”

  “That’s Graydon.”

  Jim nodded. “Gangly kid in his mid-twenties, right? I can see him getting out of the car…the kid’s not alone—”

  “What? Who’s with him?”

  “A pretty girl is also getting out. Dark brown hair, shoulder length, kind of like yours. Curvy like you—”

  “Let me see,” I cried, snatching the binoculars. I peered through the lenses, focused, and my breath caught. “Oh god. Oh no. That’s my daughter!”

  Jim Rand took the binoculars from me, gazed through them, at Bom’s living room. “Felloes is getting up to answer the door himself, which means no servants are around. And that means he wants this meeting to be private.”

  Jim faced me. “Call your daughter. Right now. She has a cell doesn’t she?”

  I nodded, fumbled for my phone, flipped it open. I didn’t need to toggle to her listing in my speed dial menu. She was the very first number. “What do I say?”

  “Jesus, Clare. You’re her mother. If you don’t know how to rattle her cage I can’t tell you.”

  Of course! I pressed send and the call went through. The cell rang once, twice, three times—I held my breath, fearing Joy had turned her own cell off against my express wishes. Just when I gave up hope, I heard my daughter’s voice.

  “What is it, Mom?” she answered, clearly annoyed.

  “I’ll tell you what it is, young lady,” I replied, my anger countering her irritation. “You’re at Bom Felloes’s house with Graydon. You’re there to pick up a bag of cocaine, which you and your surfer dude boyfriend will then consume!”

  “Mom…I…I…”

  “Don’t speak because it will only be lies. I know where you are right now, young lady. You just drove up to The Sandcastle in Graydon’s Mini Cooper, and I know what you’re doing—”

  “Ohmigod, Mom, how do you—”

  “Listen to me. You leave that house and go to David’s at once or I will call the police. I’d rather bail my daughter out of jail than let her destroy her life with the very drug that ruined her father!”

  Jim was watching me, clearly impressed. In the shifting light, I saw him nod and give me the thumbs up. But I wasn’t finished yet. It was time for me to deliver the coup de grace. “Joy…You know I have Detective O’Rourke of the Suffolk County Police on my speed dial now. Don’t make me use it!”

  Before Joy could stammer a reply, I hung up. For all she knew I was dialing the detective right now.

  “What next?” I asked Jim, my blood pumping with adrenaline.

  He observed the mansion. “I’d say your daughter will be leaving in about…” He grinned. “Yep, there they go.”

  With my naked eyes I saw the Mini Cooper’s headlights spring to life. Jim shoved the binoculars at me, started the boat’s engine. A moment later, we were cutting through the surf on the way down the coast to David Mintzer’s section of beach.

  “Look over there!” I cried.

  Jim followed my finger, saw the power boat bobbing on the waves in front of David’s mansion. No running lights were visible, it was not even a smudge on the water. I only spied the boat because it was silhouetted against the pool lights on David’s patio, which were shining brightly. Usually the house was dark by this hour of the night.

  “Whoever it is on that boat, they don’t want to be seen,” Jim said.

  “I know, and that’s usually your MO, isn’t it?”

  Jim’s eyes narrowed. He glanced in my direction. “Yeah, Clare. I’d call that suspicious.”

  He cut the engine and swerved our boat. Its momentum pushed us silently to shore. “Hold on,” he quietly warned, and we ran aground with a lurch. Then Jim went below and I heard him fumbling around. He emerged chambering a bullet into his handgun.

  “My god, Jim—”

  “Clare, get below deck and stay there.” His voice was quiet, but its tone had gone hard, sharp.

  “But—”

  “Now!”

  I went down the short stairs, waited until I heard Jim leap off the deck and splash into the shallow water. Then I crept back up to the deck again. I moved into a crouch, my head low. I could see Jim on the shore, playing his flashlight in the sand. Then he extinguished the lamp and vanished into the shadows.

  Fearful I’d lose sight of him, I crawled down the side of the boat and slipped into the water, my sneakers sinking into the cold, shallow tide.

  I moved across the sand, to the place where Jim had vanished. Despite the pool lights in the distance, I couldn’t see a thing. I wished I had a flashlight, too, then I remembered the tiny blue glow of the cell phone screen. I whipped it out and flipped it open.

  With the faint illumination I saw tracks in the sand. Webbed tracks. Flipper prints. As far as I could tell in the gloom, they led up to the rolling dunes fronting David’s mansion. I followed, stumbling along in what I hoped was the same direction Jim took.

  Among the dunes, I glanced toward the pool and saw the reason the lights were on. David was lounging in the bubbling hot tub, a drink in his hand. I thought about calling a warning, but David was too far away to hear me—the rhythmic tumbling of the surf would surely swallow my voice. All I would accomplish was to warn the stalker that he was being stalked.

  I crossed an empty stretch of sand, then entered another row of dunes and stopped abruptly. Silhouetted against the glare of the deck lights, I saw a figure rise up, rifle with a scope clearly visible. I watched in horror as the figure aimed the weapon at David.

  “No!” I shouted at the top of my lungs.

  The gunman turned to face me, bringing the rifle around too. But before he could aim, Jim dived over the dune and slammed against the stranger. A loud crack split the silence as the rifle fired into the air, its flash bright among the mounds of sand.

  Jim knocked the rifle to the ground, grabbed the intruder by his shoulders and turned him around. When Jim saw the man’s face, he cried out, “Kenny, what the hell are you doing!?”

  Kenny? Kenny Darnell? Jim’s paparazzi partner threw a punch at Jim, and the two began to fight.

  I cried out for help, but a uniformed security guard had heard the shot and was already cresting the dune, flashlight beam pinning the struggling men.

  “Freeze!” cried the guard, pulling his gun.

  Kenny panicked. He broke away from Jim and stumbled across the sand.

  “Freeze or I will shoot you!” the guard shouted.

  “For chrissakes, Kenny!” Jim shouted, “Stop! It’s over! This guard will shoot you in the back. Give it up!”

  But Kenny kept running toward the water. I saw the guard drop into a firing crouch and take aim.

  “No!” Jim cried, throwing himself in the path of the bullet.

  Cursing, the guard lifted his weapon and Jim took off. He caught his partner halfway across the beach, tackling him.

  The guard ran across the sand, yelling, “Stay down, stay down or I’ll have to fire.”

  A moment later, the guard dropped to his knees in the sand next to Jim and cuffed Kenny. I arrived a moment later. Jim was breathing hard. He tossed me an unhappy, borderline pissed-off look.

  I folded my arms and raised an eyebrow. This is the thanks I get?

  He shook his head. “I told you to stay on the boat.”

  “You also told me I was a thrill junkie. How could I miss my fix?”

  “Up and at ’em,” said the guard, hauling Kenny off the sand. I blinked in surprise, finally recognizing the baby-faced guard. “Thomas Gurt? Is that you?�
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  “Yes, ma’am,” he said, his pale smooth skin gleaming with sweat. “My aunt asked me to take this shift. She thought something funny was going on. She told me she thought David was being menaced.”

  “Alberta said that?”

  “Yes, ma’am. She sure was worried about Mr. Mintzer.”

  I was glad it was too dark for everyone to see me redden. And I thought Alberta was a suspect. Some amateur sleuth I turned out to be.

  I moved to Jim’s side. He was glaring at the man in handcuffs. We followed as Thomas led him back to the house.

  I looked at the shooter, then at Jim. “So this man, he’s—”

  “Meet my partner, Kenny Darnell. Apparently his mother made a miracle recovery and he’s back, shooting bullets instead of photos.”

  Alberta and David met us at the edge of the mansion’s lawn.

  “I’ve called the police,” Alberta told us. “They’ll be here in a few minutes.”

  David followed Jim, the guard, and their prisoner into the house. I lingered behind to speak with Alberta.

  “You suspected David was in trouble all along, didn’t you?” I whispered.

  Alberta nodded. “Yes, ever since that poor young man was shot in his bathroom. Then David got sick and I was certain someone was trying to do him harm.” The maid leaned close and whispered, “David is frail, but he’s not that frail. I knew someone was trying to poison him.”

  “Why didn’t you say something to me? To David?”

  “Well, I’m sorry to tell you, Clare, that I was suspicious of you all along.”

  “Me? Oh, goodness.”

  “And as far as telling David what I thought…well, you don’t know David like I know David. The man is just stubborn. If you want to do something to help him, you have to do it behind his back. David hates sentiment, probably because he’s more sentimental than most of us. All along, I felt so guilty, Clare. David is like a son to me, and I felt I’d let him down—”

  “How?”