Murder Most Frothy

by Cleo Coyle

  O’Rourke and Melchior exchanged glances again. This time I didn’t get the impression they were amused.

  “Ma’am, if you know something, it’s important that you tell us,” O’Rourke replied.

  “I agree.”

  We entered the kitchen a few minutes later. David was awake and completely pulled together. Clearly he’d had a good sleep. His color looked good, a deep tan against white teeth. And, as usual, he was dressed impeccably: tailored ivory slacks, a pale olive shirt, and Italian leather sandals. With a smile, David shook Sergeant O’Rourke’s hand.

  “Some coffee? It’s a very special blend, truly delightful. Please help yourselves,” David gestured. Behind him, Alberta Gurt had set up the large table with a pot of Summer Porch, mugs, and a basket of warm croissants next to a replenished bowl of strawberries. Madame hovered nearby. I could see her peeking around the corner, pretending not to eavesdrop.

  Without preamble, Sergeant O’Rourke bluntly declared, “Mr. Mintzer, Ms. Cosi tells us that you were the real target of last night’s killer. She believes Mr. Mazzelli’s murder was a case of mistaken identity.” O’Rourke shifted his pale gray eyes in my direction. “Would you care to elaborate, Ma’am?”

  “It makes perfect sense,” I began, covering the exact same ground I had done with Madame an hour earlier. “David left the party before the fireworks display and went to his bedroom with a migraine. Anyone would have expected him to be using his own bathroom—not Treat. Both men are about the same height. Both men have short black hair, and both were wearing the same khaki pants and short-sleeved, untucked shirts of nearly the same pinkish color.”

  “So are you accusing someone who attended the party? Or perhaps one of Mr. Mintzer’s business associates?” Detective Melchior prompted.

  “Oh my god,” David said on an outraged exhale.

  “Hold off, Mr. Mintzer,” said O’Rourke. “We want to hear everything Ms. Cosi has to say.”

  “Thank you,” I said, relieved the initial flippancy I’d experienced over the flippers had changed into serious consideration. “Remember the tracks I found among the dunes?”

  O’Rourke’s brow wrinkled unhappily. “The webbed feet, from the ‘Creature’?”

  “Oh my god,” David said again.

  “From a swimmer wearing fins,” I quickly corrected. “I believe those tracks were made by the shooter.”

  Melchior scratched his chin. “Wait a second, Ms. Cosi. We thought you knew something specific. A threat perhaps?”

  “Well…I did encounter Marjorie Bright on the property after the party was over. She threatened David.”

  “Threatened him how?” Melchior asked. “What were her exact words?”

  “She said, ‘Just tell David I’m not through suing him.’”

  David snorted.

  O’Rourke turned to him. “You don’t consider that out of the ordinary, Mr. Mintzer?”

  “A lawsuit? In this town? Puh-leeeze. If there’s a Hamptons pastime more common than suing your neighbor, I don’t know what it is. People file in civil court as often as they file onto tennis courts. Look, Ms. Bright’s already taken local action against me once over my trees being too tall, and I’ve already assumed her lawyers and mine will be playing footsie for some time before our issues are resolved.”

  “But, David, what was she doing on your property?” I demanded. “Don’t you find that suspicious?”

  “She has no direct access to the beach now that I’ve built on this land,” David replied with a shrug. “Maybe she simply took a walk along the beach and was returning through my property when you caught her. No big deal.”

  “If she was on the beach last night, we should interview her,” said O’Rourke, glancing at his partner.

  Melchior nodded. “I’ll make a note.”

  But that wasn’t enough to satisfy me. Marjorie Bright had been loitering on David’s property, smoking, and stewing, not just passing through. I was sure something was up with her, something bad—and although I couldn’t very well testify to seeing her there for any length of time, I felt in my gut that she meant harm to David.

  “What about the diver’s fins,” I argued. “How can you explain their appearance just twenty yards away from the bullet casings on the same night as the shooting?”

  “Ma’am, this is a resort area,” said O’Rourke. “Diver’s flippers in the sand aren’t exactly bloody fingerprints on a rifle stock.”

  “But I swim or walk every day on that beach. I’ve never seen tracks like that before.”

  O’Rourke folded his arms. “And what’s your explanation?”

  “It’s possible Marjorie, or another enemy of David’s, paid for someone to do the shooting. The shooter had an employer.”

  “So we’re looking for two killers now,” said O’Rourke. “A trigger man and the person who paid for it?” He faced David. “What do you think of Ms. Cosi’s theory, Mr. Mintzer?”

  David shifted his surprised gaze from me to the Sergeant. “Why, I think it’s absurd. Ridiculous,” he replied.

  It was my turn to be shocked. “David! I—”

  “No, Clare,” he interrupted, directing his words to me. “I’m sorry but I have to say this now, because I don’t want any misunderstandings.”

  He paused. When he spoke again his tone was measured, his words carefully chosen. “No one is trying to kill me. I completely dismiss the notion that I am a target. No one has threatened me, I have no mortal enemies, nor am I involved in any illegal activities that might provoke the interest of some kind of professional hit man.” David faced the policemen. “I shall cooperate fully in your investigation. I and my staff are available for interviews if you care to speak with us.”

  “I’ll need a statement from everyone,” Melchior said.

  “And I shall also provide you with a guest list from yesterday’s event.”

  “Good,” O’Rourke said. “That would be helpful.”

  “I only ask that you not bother my party guests unless you absolutely feel it is necessary to approach them. That said, I want you to do all you can to apprehend the person or persons responsible for this terrible crime.”

  “I understand, Mr. Mintzer.” O’Rourke nodded. I promise you we’ll proceed with great discretion.”

  “Thank you,” said David. “Now let me take you upstairs and give you my version of what happened last evening.”

  As they spoke, David steered O’Rourke and Melchior out of the kitchen and presumably toward the bathroom where Treat had been shot. I peered out the tall kitchen windows at the uniformed officers still pacing the dunes. When I turned around again, Madame was in front of me.

  “David was certainly adamant in his denial,” she remarked quietly.

  “He protested too much,” I replied, rubbing my forehead.

  “You still think he was the assassin’s target?”

  “Now more than ever.”

  David appeared thirty minutes later. I braced myself, ready for him to unleash another wave of righteous outrage. Instead, he took my arm and steered me back toward the kitchen table.

  “Listen, Clare. I’m sorry about doing that to you in front of the authorities, but you have to understand my position.”

  I might have been humiliated but I wasn’t stupid. “You’re more concerned with bad publicity than the fact that someone may be trying to murder you, is that it?”

  David sighed. “Please, Clare. No one is trying to murder me. But even if someone wanted me dead, I could never admit it publicly. I have multiple businesses. Partnerships all over the world. I frankly loathe the comparison, but, like Ms. Stewart, I am my companies. They do not function without me. I can’t afford for anyone—not my associates, not my partners, investors, customers, or clients—to entertain the notion that I’m involved in something shady enough to invite a murder attempt. Millions of dollars and thousands of employees livelihoods are at stake. I have responsibilities.”

  I wanted to speak, but bit my lip and nodded instea
d. “I understand.”

  David slumped down in a seat in front of the table. “In any case, there are obviously gaps in my home security system—”

  “Didn’t I tell you that the first day I came?”

  “Indeed you did. That you were right about, Clare.”

  “It’s time you got a serious alarm system,” I told him, “installed outdoor lighting—”

  “I shall make the call just as soon as the police leave my house.”

  “Not just alarms and motion detectors, okay?” I said. “Real security guards, around the clock. You don’t have to hire Spielberg’s ex-Masaad agents, but for god’s sake get some Pinkertons, at least until Treat’s murder is solved and the murderer caught.”

  David smiled. “Very well, but on one condition.”

  “Yes?”

  “I want you to drop the notion that I’m the real target for murder—pronto.”

  After a beat I nodded. “Okay. Agreed.”

  “Good.” David rose. “Now I’ll rejoin those detectives, before there’s any more damage done to my imported Italian marble bathroom.”

  SIX

  CUPPA J was a short ride from David Mintzer’s beach house, but, typical of a sunny summer day in the Hamptons, traffic was horrendous.

  Democratic, too.

  Late model BMWs, Ferraris, Mercedes, and Jaguars inched along with the same egalitarian sluggishness as my lowly Honda. A ten-minute drive became forty minutes of start-and-stop frustration.

  When I finally left “Leisure with Dignity” around eleven-fifteen, the Suffolk County police were still going over details of the shot in the dark. I could tell David was losing patience in discussing details of the party, what he knew of Treat’s background, how it might be related to his fellow employees or David’s guest list. Through it all, David’s facade probably appeared as charming as ever. But I had gotten to know him pretty well by now, and I recognized the cracks forming at his edges.

  I’d promised him that I’d stay out of it…but how could I keep my promise? While I tried to tell myself that the police were on the case and that was enough, in my gut I knew they were on the wrong case. And what good would that do David?

  In the bumper-to-bumper traffic, I contemplated what O’Rourke and Melchior would do next. They’d probably want to know the results of the autopsy and whether the bullet in Treat’s skull actually matched up with the shells I’d found. I’d bet a forty-pound bag of Jamaica Blue Mountain that they would.

  They’d also be conducting interviews with people who knew Treat, trying to dig up some significant vendetta or grudge. But it was the people around David who needed to be interviewed as far as I could see.

  Well, I thought, at least they’re going to talk to Marjorie Bright.

  Certainly, she was at the top of my suspect list. But as I inched along in traffic, I rethought the theory I’d hastily blurted out to the Suffolk County detectives. Cringing, I realized there were holes in my hypothesis through which I could probably drive a Hummer (much like the bright yellow one hogging part of the shoulder in front of me).

  For one thing, why would Ms. Bright have fouled up her alibi by hanging around the crime scene? Unless she fell into that category Mike Quinn had once mentioned—pathologically wanting to see the results of her bought and-paid-for crime—which I myself didn’t wholly buy.

  And for another, if a paid assassin had been involved in the crime, then why did I find bullet casings? A true professional would not have left shells behind. It smacked of amateurish carelessness…so…did that mean the shooter was actually an amateur?

  “Clare! Hey, there, Clare!”

  I peered out my open window to find Edna Miller waving at me from her roadside farm stand. Around her, wicker baskets displayed the colors of summer—red tomatoes, green-husked corn, plump white cauliflower, purple eggplant, and quarts and quarts of those lush, Long Island strawberries.

  “Hi, Edna!” I called back.

  My first week in the South Fork, I had befriended Edna and her husband, Bob, with a two-pound bag of Kona, that sweet, smooth coffee with buttery characteristics and hints of cinnamon and cloves, grown in the volcanic soil of Hawaii. (Many coffee roasters offer Kona blends, but for my money the single-origin experience is the way to go.)

  The Millers had been running this farm stand of impossibly fresh vegetables and fruits every summer for the last twenty odd years—and before that, Bob’s father had run it. They were “Bonackers,” part of the local families that had been living out here for generations.

  (At one time, “Bonacker” had been a pejorative term like hick or bumpkin. Its etymology was Native American, from the word “Accobonac,” which roughly means “place where groundnuts are gathered.” Such was the naming of nearby Accobonac Harbor and, consequently, the people who lived around it. These days people wore the name with pride. The East Hampton High School sport teams had even adopted it as their nickname.)

  The Miller’s land was located on the unfashionable side of the highway—the side away from the ocean—yet they’d been able to sell off just a portion of it for a small fortune. They’d kept the rest in the family and continued to farm it, just as they had for hundreds of years.

  “You want anything today?” Edna called, striding quickly out to the road. She was in her usual worn jeans and large tee-shirt, a half-apron wrapped around her waist.

  “No, I’m heading over to work at the moment,” I replied, as the car inched along. “Did you have a nice Fourth?”

  “Yes, but what’s this I hear about yours?” Edna was pacing the Honda now, slowly moving along the shoulder of the road as I rolled along.

  “My Fourth?”

  No way, I thought. There’s no way she could possibly be referring to the shooting. All of the guests left before I discovered the body. So who could have told her?

  “My daughter-in-law’s sister is married to Park Bennett,” she explained. “And he lives next door to John King. And his son’s on the local police force. He said his boy was at that mansion you’re staying at…David Mintzer’s place. And he said a young man was killed—”

  “Yes, yes, I know all about it. But we don’t know very much at this point. David’s a little touchy so maybe you could, you know, keep it quiet.” Right. That’ll happen.

  “Oh, surely, surely!” said Edna. “Of course!”

  Behind me, the platinum blond on her cell phone laid on the horn of her Mercedes convertible so loud and so long that I thought I’d lose the ability to hear higher decibels. When I looked ahead, I saw the yellow Hummer in front of me had pulled away about a grand total of four car lengths.

  “Whoa,” I said. “I guess I better speed up a little, sorry, Edna!”

  “No problem, Clare. People are really touchy this weekend. You should have been here an hour ago. Two corporate attorneys got into a punch-out over the last honeydew melon!”

  “See you soon!” I called, my car speeding up.

  “See you, Clare!”

  Edna waved and turned back to the farm stand. I considered what she’d just said—not the story about the honeydew punch-out. That was actually on par for how bad things could get during the crowded summer season. Wealthy Manhattan people came out here to relax, but far too many of them packed their sense of entitlement and city impatience along with their toothbrushes.

  “The people out here are competitive and ambitious,” David had warned me when I first came. “They’re killers on the job. That’s how they got out here in the first place. And people who spend Monday through Friday screwing over people aren’t going to stop acting that way on Saturday and Sunday.”

  The local paper was full of incidents like shoving matches over parking spaces and restaurant tables. Just last week there was an assault charge filed after a few haymakers were thrown in a health food store. (One can only presume it took place in the stress reduction supplements aisle.)

  Anyway, I began to consider how Edna had heard about Treat’s death. Obviously news traveled
fast in this small enclave. And I doubted a murder in East Hampton would be treated like one in the city, precisely because murder was so rare.

  This small village fussed over the color of the awnings on Main Street for god’s sake. They cited you for tacking up a yard sale sign. The last thing they would tolerate was an unsolved murder in their midst. The guilty party would have to be found and successfully convicted or the competency of the authorities would be loudly and continually questioned by the powerful, opinionated people who summered here.

  In a place like this, the only sure way for the murderer to escape detection would be to pin the crime on someone else…that’s why the bullet casings could have been left. Sure, it could have been a careless amateur, or it could have been a cunning assassin setting up a frame job. To do that, the shooter would have to plant the weapon somewhere the police could find it…say, on the premises of someone who might have had a motive. Then the cops would have their conviction, and the shooter would get away with murder.

  The permutations of this theory were still bouncing around in my head when I turned into the shaded driveway of Cuppa J.

  SEVEN

  MY grandmother grew up in a world of straightforward sensibilities, when things were labeled simply and clearly. You said what you meant, and you meant what you said. But that was a long time ago, before SNL, MTV, metafiction, The Daily Show, and the saturation of practically every aspect of contemporary culture with irony.

  Sure, “Cuppa J” sounded like a casual, unassuming joint, but those were hardly the adjectives for David’s tony East Hampton cafe. Of course, he wasn’t the first to apply paradox to a restaurant name, not by a long shot. Chef Thomas Keller’s lowly sounding “French Laundry” was the most acclaimed gourmet restaurant in Napa Valley, if not the most highly regarded eatery in the country. And the Brooklyn Diner, just a few blocks away from Manhattan’s Carnegie Hall, was actually a four-star restaurant with linen tablecloths and a stellar wine list.