Then I realized David might have decided to move out of the guest wing and back into his own room. So I went back down the steps to the first floor and crossed over to David’s wing on the south side of the mansion. As I approached his second-floor bedroom to knock, I stopped at the door to his private bathroom.
The crime scene tape was gone now, and the door was ajar. I couldn’t resist pushing it further, flipping on the light. The last time I’d opened this door, I’d found a bloody corpse. This time there was not one sign that a crime had been committed. The formerly bloodstained marble was pristine again, the holed window pane replaced with a sparkling new sheet of glass.
Suddenly the door on the bedroom side opened, and I prepared an apology to David for invading his privacy without knocking. But it wasn’t David. Pale blue eyes stared at me. Alberta Gurt’s alarmed gaze. She held an armful of dirty laundry.
“Oh!” we both cried. Then we nervously laughed.
“Couldn’t resist taking a look at the marble, eh?” Alberta said, dumping David’s clothes into a wicker hamper. The woman wore her maid’s uniform and her brown, gray flecked hair was pinned up. There was no sign of the makeup and jewelry she displayed last night when I’d questioned her.
“Oh…yes,” I stammered. “The marble is spotless.”
“The stonemason did a fine job of restoring the finish,” Alberta said, regarding the work. “David had a car service drive the craftsman here from Hoboken. The fellow was working in here for hours. Now it’s as good as new.”
Wish I could say the same for Treat.
“I thought maybe you were David,” Alberta said with a sigh. “He’s had a stressful two days, what with the Fourth of July party and all that’s happened afterwards. Arranging for security, getting the stonemason and the lamp installed…”
“I saw.”
Alberta shook her head. “Now he’s off gallivanting again. He needs his rest, that boy. He’s already had one migraine this week. If he’s not careful, he’ll be courting another.”
“Where did he go, by the way?” I asked. “His car’s still parked outside.”
“He’s gone to another party, just down the beach. He walked there around sunset.”
“Walked? Alone?”
Alberta nodded.
Now I was really annoyed with David. The lack of proper security lighting was bad enough. I’d told him about 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.”