Murder Most Frothy

the flipper footprints in the sand! Didn’t he realize what an easy target he was making himself?!

“When did the security people arrive?” I asked.

“Soon after the detectives left. David arranged everything with a few phone calls.”

Alberta carried the wicker hamper out the bathroom’s hallway door. I followed her downstairs, to the laundry room, where she methodically separated the clothes by color.

“You’ve known David a long time,” I said.

“Too long, according to David. He tells me I treat him more like a son than a boss. It’s true I guess. When you see someone every day for fifteen years, it’s like they’re family.”

I tried to imagine what David Mintzer was like fifteen years ago. He would have been around thirty, I knew, but I couldn’t form a picture in my mind of him looking any way but how he looked today.

“I can’t complain,” Alberta continued. “David’s treated me like family, too.”

“Really?” I fished, thinking of his abrupt firing of Prin. “He can be a pretty demanding boss. Doesn’t like to be questioned.”

Alberta gave me a funny look. “Well, to me, he’s been good. He put me in his will so if something ever happened to him I’d be taken care of. He even included my nephew, too. How many people would do that for an employee?”

This was the first time I’d heard Alberta mention any other member of her family. “Your nephew?” I asked.

Alberta nodded. “My sister’s boy. Thomas got into some gang trouble in Buffalo a decade ago, when he was still a juvenile. After the justice system was done with him, Thomas came here to live with me, to get away from that environment. David helped Tommy get his G.E.D. After that, the boy enlisted in the Army.”

“He’s still a soldier?”

“Not anymore. He finished his enlistment last year, got an honorable discharge and landed a nice security job over in Hampton Bays. That might not have happened without David’s help.”

Of course I wondered if that security job involved carrying a gun. Certainly, the army would have given the guy training in target shooting. I also wondered if he knew that David had included him in his will—and if the amount of his inheritance was worth killing for. The hairs on the back of my neck began to prickle.

I was glad Alberta Gurt was feeling talkative. Perhaps it was the isolation that came with working on a property like this one. Although a whirl of social activity suffused the Hamptons, folks like Alberta weren’t part of that lifestyle. For them the Hamptons was a very different place.

“David seems like a very complicated man,” I said after a pause. “Over the years, you’ve watched him rise to the top of his game. It must have been an interesting sight.”

Alberta nodded. “I remember when David sold his fashion line to the Unity department store chain, and the first time he was on Oprah, too. I was sitting in the audience that day. He introduced me to Ms. Winfrey herself after the taping.”

“That must have been exciting.”

“David knows all sorts of people. He’s made so many friends over the years.”

“I suspect he’s made a few enemies, too?”

“That’s the funny thing about David. Even his business rivals come around. David finds a way to make things work out for the best, especially when he turns on that charm of his.”

I thought about his firing Prin and instructing Jacques to lie about it to the Cuppa J staff. Then there was that neighbor of his across the lane, the heiress in black, smoking among the trees.

“His charm certainly hasn’t worked on Marjorie Bright,” I pointed out to Alberta. “She told me she’s suing David.”

Alberta frowned and shook her head. “That woman is a piece of bad road, I can tell you. All her threats and raging over a few silly trees that only partially block her view from one window. But then people get riled up easily out here. Egos and money make for a bad mix.”

Alberta didn’t talk much more after that, just checked her watch and said she had to finish up her work for the night. I followed her down to the first floor, then bid her goodnight as I stepped into the kitchen to pick up my handbag. That’s when I heard my cell phone chiming.

“Hello, Clare. You needed to speak to me?” The voice was female, familiar, and blunt as a kitchen mallet.

Prin Lopez was returning my call.

Eleven

“Prin,” I said, sitting down at the large table, “thank you for calling back.” On the other end of the phone, I could hear clattering sounds, the familiar noises of plates rattling in a busy restaurant kitchen. “I found out what happened to you, just today,” I told her. “Jacques informed me. I’m so sorry”

There was a pause, followed by a cutting laugh. “Does that bastard want me to come back? Too late, I got my old job again, and with a raise, too. Tell that pompous pig I’m staying in the city.”

Okay, I thought, so there’s no love lost between Prin and David. Or was she referring to Jacques?

“Prin, I’m sorry to be nosy but…why were you let go?” I asked carefully. “Jacques either didn’t know or didn’t want to tell me.”

“Screw his so-called propriety. What do I care? I’ll tell you why I was fired. I ‘imposed’ on one of David’s precious guests.”

“I don’t understand.”

“I’ve been trying to make it as a singer for a couple of years now. I even recorded a demo, but I haven’t gotten much traction with it. Then, last week, Big D came into Cuppa J.”

“I’m sorry. I don’t know who that is.”

Prin sighed. “Big D? Devon Conroy? Among other things, he’s the host and producer of American Star—”

“Oh, right, right. Like that Star Search show from the eighties with Ed McMahon.”

“Ed McWho?” I could practically hear Prin rolling her eyes.

“Forget it,” I said, feeling my age (and for a moment there, I actually felt good that I didn’t have to go all the way back to Ed Sullivan for an example!) “Go on.”

“Well, Big D was having lunch with some television people. I saw him sit down at one of Graydon Faas’s tables. So I pulled Graydon aside, begged him to switch with me, give me the chance to wait on them. You know that prick Faas actually made me pay him a Benjamin to trade tables?”

I was sorry to hear that bit of the story. Obviously, Graydon wouldn’t be the first young man interested in making a buck (or a hundred) where he could. But it didn’t speak very highly of his character to charge a fellow worker for a favor.

“So you waited on Big D’s table?” I prompted.

“Yeah, I did. And along with the check, I slipped Devon my demo CD.”

“Ohhh…” I groaned, finally understanding why David had fired Prin. She’d broken his first commandment of working at Cuppa J.

“Remember that celebrities are here on vacation,” David had lectured the staff at the beginning of the season. “My guests do not want to be harassed, photographed, or hounded. And while they’re under my roof they won’t be. No one is ever to do anything but wait on them. No fraternizing, asking questions, requesting autographs, ever. On grounds of immediate termination.”

“Fine, so I knew it was against the rules,” Prin went on. “But it’s not like rules can’t be bent a little. And Big D was totally down with it. He didn’t complain. David wasn’t even there to see me do it.”

“You mean someone ratted you out?”

“Nobody had to. Jacques caught me in the act and fired me on the spot.”

“What? It was Jacques who fired you?”

“Yeah. Who do you think fired me?”