Tucker Burton was my assistant manager, an actor playwright whom I could always rely on to handle the Blend when I was absent. Tucker certainly wouldn’t require Matt’s help to keep things running, but it would have been nice.
“How’s my pride named Joy?” asked Matt, the smile evident in his voice, as it always was when it came to his little girl.
I glanced at the digital clock on the microwave: 7:02 A.M. “Still sleeping, I suspect.”
“Don’t wake her. I’ll try to see you both before I leave for Central America. Give Joy my love, tell her I’ll see her soon. Oh, and I bought her a present. Damn, my ride’s here. Gotta go.”
The line went dead. I handed Madame her phone and cradled the warm mug of coffee in my hands.
“Do you think Matteo suspects?” Madame asked.
“Suspects? Whatever is there for him to suspect?”
“That the game is afoot, of course.”
“Madame, for heaven’s sake, it’s not a game. I’m not getting involved in this murder investigation beyond what I helped to discover last night. I’m going to let the police handle it. And stop channeling Arthur Conan Doyle. I think maybe you’ve been spending too much time with Dr. MacTavish.” (Madame had been dating the distinguished St. Vincent’s oncologist for some time now, a Scottish stud on a par with Sean Connery.)
“I assure you, Clare, Gary and I are not reading Sherlock Holmes stories to one another,” she sniffed, “and don’t change the subject.”
I sighed. “Look, even if I do stick my nose in, it’ll only be to see that David gets some proper security in place around here.”
“Of course,” said Madame in a tone that sounded more like “of course not.”
“Besides,” I went on, “you’ve had your turn at playing detective. Don’t forget, you helped me clear Tucker of murder.”
“Pooh!” Madame replied. “I was so worried about our dear Tucker, I hardly enjoyed the experience. This time it’s different. I’m terribly sorry about what happened to that young man, but I hardly knew Mr. Treat Mazarrati —”
“Mazzelli. Treat Mazzelli.”
“There you are! I didn’t even know the victim’s proper name. Without a personal stake in the crime, I am free to be objective about the hunt. I’ll just put on my figurative deerstalker’s cap and—”
“Except,” I interrupted, “I don’t think Treat Mazzelli was the intended target. I believe the killer was after David.”
Madame paused, considering this. “Mistaken identity?”
I nodded. “The shooting occurred in David’s private bathroom.”
“But the men are twenty years apart. How could you mistake one for the other?”
“From a distance, do you really think that would be apparent?”
Madame tapped her chin. “Yes…yes, I see what you mean. And the two are about the same height…with the same color hair…”
“And clothing.”
Madame shook her head. “There I have to disagree with you. While they were both in khaki pants, David’s shirt was a linen Ralph Lauren. How can you compare that quality to Treat’s Cuppa J Polo?”
“No comparison for a fashion layout, I grant you. But both shirts had short sleeves and the same loose, untucked shape. And they were very close to the same color.”
“Yes, my dear, of course, you’re right. And you’re very good at this—”
“Thank you.”
“All the more reason for you to continue investigating and me to help,” Madame replied resolutely.
“Madame—”
“I may just learn a thing or two from you, and, besides, if the true target was David, the least I can do is aid our host in his time of need. I’m not the sort of person who deserts a vessel when the captain’s in need of hands!”
“You win.” I took a sip from my china cup and set it down on its matching saucer. “Stick around if you want. But in an hour or so I’m going to talk to—”
“Joy?” Madame finished for me.
“What? Are you reading my mind now?”
“She’s already gone for the day,” Madame warned. “She left exceedingly early. To catch the sunrise wind.”
“Excuse me?”
“Joy went kite surfing with that waiter from last night. Graydon is his name, I believe.”
“Graydon Faas?”
Madame nodded.
“Joy went off with Graydon this morning?” I had some trouble wrapping my mind around this development.
Madame nodded again. “She and I have connecting rooms, you know. So I heard her rising and speaking to him on her cell phone. I made her coffee before the boy beeped his horn out front. What is this world coming to when a young man simply beeps for his date?”
“It’s a
“Actually, Clare, it’s more defined by what it isn’t,” Madame levelly informed me. “It’s not wave surfing, you see. Nor wind surfing. And it’s not kite flying, either. It’s really a fusion of these sports. The surfer catches the wind with a kite and uses it to race across the ocean’s waves.” Madame sighed. “It sounds absolutely marvelous.”
I shook my head. “Where do you pick up this stuff?”
“Oh, I keep my mouth closed and my ears open. You can learn a lot from the leisure class—a lot about leisure, anyway. And to be perfectly frank, a percentage of them aren’t much good for anything else.”
I stood and drained my cup. “On that note, I’m heading for my swim. Now I really need it.”
Outside, the wind had dried up most of the night’s rainfall, but the air was still damp and salty. I flip-flopped down the lawn, across the white pebbles and onto the beach, then I kicked off the rubber thongs and let the wet white sand squish between my toes.
Sunlight sparkled on the green-blue water. I reached the edge of the surf, dropped the flip-flops and the towel I’d draped around my neck, slipped out of my robe, and waded into the surf.
The chilly water was a shock, but I soon got acclimated. I swam around a bit to stretch my limbs. Then I turned over on my back and floated, letting the lapping Atlantic sooth the edges of my dulled but still throbbing headache.
The cool waves and the warm sun worked their magic, and I imagined myself tethered to a kite, racing across the rocky surf as swift as the jetstream. I wondered what Mike Quinn was doing at the moment and tried to imagine what the lanky, broad-shouldered detective would look like stripped to the waist on the back of a surfboard, his sandy hair slicked back, his pasty skin tanned golden, his perpetually weary, wrungout expression rejuvenated by the ocean wind.
This pleasant image had barely formed in my head before it was interrupted by a booming declaration, echoing across the waves. “This is the Suffolk County police,” announced the amplified voice. “Please come out of the water now. We need to speak with you.”
Startled out of my wits, I splashed out of my floating position and abruptly sank. My mouth gaped like a fish and I swallowed salt water as I flailed downwards. My arms thrashed and I surfaced once again, gasping and spitting. I spied three police officers pacing along a stretch of David’s private beach. A fourth man—the heaviest of them—wore a suit and tie, not a uniform. He stood with a bullhorn clutched in his fist.
“I’m coming!” I called.
Doubting the man had heard me, I swam toward the shoreline, cognizant of the fact that my robe, towel and flip-flops were at least twenty-five yards from the knot of policemen. I emerged a few moments later, sopping wet. As I moved across the sand, a cold gust breezed by, raising goose bumps on my arms and legs. Suppressing a shiver, I faced the heavyset man with the loudspeaker.
“Are you Mrs. Cosi?” he asked, this time without the bullhorn.
