I didn’t know whether or not to believe Omar Linford, but here was the acid test—
“You still have Alf’s letter, right?”
Linford nodded.
“I’d like to take it with me, then,” I said firmly. “You see, I’ve been advising the NYPD on this case, and the letter might help them solve Alf’s murder.”
“If it will help you catch Alf’s killer, Clare, then have it by all means.”
Linford gestured to his maid. “Has Mac come back yet?”
Her reply was a silent shake of her head.
“We have one problem with your request, Clare. Mrs. MacKenzie, my secretary, filed the letter God knows where. My wife might be a help, but she’s left on another holiday shopping spree, so I doubt very much we’ll see her before dark!” He smiled at the thought of his wife, then checked his watch. “Mac should be back here soon, certainly within the hour. When she arrives, I’ll ask her to locate the letter and hand it over to you immediately.”
Esther had remained silent through most of the questioning. But now she loudly cleared her throat. “What do we do until then?” she asked. “It’s freezing outside, you know?”
“By all means, continue to make yourselves comfortable in my home as long as you like...” Linford rose from the table. “Now, if you’ll excuse me, ladies, I have work waiting in my study.”
Twenty
Esther glanced at her watch for the third time in five minutes. Her black knee-high boot began tap-tap-tapping down each second as it passed. I understood her impatience—not that the waiting was unpleasant.
Linford’s maid had escorted us to this glassed-in solarium well over an hour ago. From the sunporch, the view of the surrounding neighborhood was sedately suburban. Cecily provided us with a stack of current magazines, as well as a crackling fire in the charming potbellied stove, a fresh pot of Jamaica Blue Mountain, and slices of a freshly baked flourless chocolate Jamaican rum cake, which, she confided, came from a recipe used by Dexter’s Taste of the Caribbean shops. The dessert was sinfully rich and fudgy, served on a warm little pool of coffee-rum sauce.
Everything was cozy, delicious, and copacetic—except for the fact that we’d seen no sign of Linford’s personal secretary, “Mac” MacKenzie, or the blackmail letter he’d promised to hand over to me.
“Sorry, boss, but we’ve got to roll,” Esther said, rising. “My final exam is in one hour. I own this test, but I’ve got to show up to pass it!”
This was the moment I’d dreaded. I knew Esther had to get back to Manhattan, and I even began to wonder if this whole “misplaced letter” wasn’t a ploy to discourage us, force us to leave without the note—something I was not about to do.
On the other hand, my best barista didn’t deserve to fail an academic test over this.
“Take my car and go,” I told Esther. “I’m going to stay and wait for Linford’s secretary to show.”
“How will you get back?”
“Easy. I’ll call a car service to take me down to the ferry.”
“Are you sure?”
“I’m not leaving here without that letter, if there even is a letter.”
Esther nodded and I called the maid to bring her coat, explaining she had to go but I was staying. As we waited, Esther noticed something going on at the house next door.
“I think that’s Vicki’s mother,” she said, pointing.
A tall, slightly heavy woman with short blond hair, wearing workout gear, running shoes, and a pink headband, was moving down the tiled walkway that bisected the expansive yard. She stooped down, picked up a Wall Street Journal that had been badly tossed onto the snow-covered lawn, and shook it free of snow. With her newspaper retrieved, she rose and stepped back into the house.
“That’s definitely Shelly Glockner,” Esther said. “I met her last year at Vicki’s birthday party.”
I nodded with interest. This was too good an opportunity to pass up. I mean, I’d come all the way from the West Village to Lighthouse Hill; I might as well shake another well-trimmed tree for information.
“Come on,” I whispered after the maid retrieved Esther’s coat. “I want to talk to that woman.”
The sunporch had a door that led to a wraparound cedar deck. A few steps down and I was on the lawn at the side of the sprawling house and already shivering. Away from the crackling fire, sans coat, I really felt the December chill!
“My car’s close to an antique,” I warned Esther. “Make sure you warm up the engine for at least five minutes before you drive away, or you might stall out.”
“I got it, boss. But I still feel rotten leaving you like this—”
“Go!” I gently pushed her. “Take your test. I’ll be back at the Blend in a few hours.”
With a reluctant nod, Esther headed toward the curb where she’d parked my Honda. I cut across the snow-covered yard, leaving little pointy-toed prints on the field of pristine white. Then I carefully stepped over a low row of leafless bushes that separated Linford’s elegant residence from the Glockners’ more modest home.
Of course, the word modest could only be used in comparison. The Glockner house—a split-level brick ranch with a double garage and what appeared to be a built-in pool, freestanding sauna, and glass-enclosed hot tub in back—was quite grand by New York City standards. In this neighborhood, the place could easily command a cool million or more, even in these overleveraged times.
A few moments later, I arrived at Mrs. Glockner’s front door (a single door this time), with a small wreath hanging there the only concession to the season.
I rang the doorbell, waited a polite ten count, then rang again. The curtain on the bay window stirred.
“I’ll be there in a minute,” a woman’s voice called.
I guessed that Mrs. Glockner was making herself presentable. But much more than a minute passed before the door opened. Freezing on her stoop, I counted the seconds.
When Mrs. Glockner finally answered, she was oddly still wearing the same sweats, and her short-cropped yellow hair was still banded by the pink elastic. So what had she been doing all that time?
“Hi,” she said.
“Mrs. Glockner? My name is Clare Cosi. And—”
“Come on in,” she interrupted, giving my hand a strong, no-nonsense shake. “Call me Shelly.”
Good, I thought with relief, at least she’s not going to give me indigestion.
She was a foot taller than me and a bit heavier, but Shelly Glockner’s size didn’t affect her carriage. As she led me inside, she walked with the proud, confident grace of a principal dancer.
Alf had mentioned that his wife was around his age (mid-fifties), but she looked much younger with high, sculpted cheekbones, and—like her pretty daughter—a generous mouth and dimples in both cheeks. Sans makeup, her face showed only the subtlest signs of a skilled plastic surgeon’s work around the eyes, chin, and neck.
We walked through a foyer into a spacious living room with a small, retro 1950s aluminum Christmas tree in the corner. The hardwood floor of almost black mahogany set off stark white walls covered with framed black-and-white prints. The furniture was mostly white, the tables and lamps all chrome and glass. A large fireplace of white brick dominated one wall of the large room, but there was no fire—and no sign there ever was one. The hearth looked as clean as a convent’s kitchen floor.
Along the mantel, I noticed an array of photographs, all framed in heavy silver. There were a number of pictures of Vicki at various ages; other pictures appeared to be of friends and relatives. Not one photo of Alf.
Mrs. Glockner neatly set aside a few black throw pillows, then sat down on her sleek sofa of white leather—not a scuff or smudge on it. With a gesture she invited me to take a seat in a matching chair.
“I expected you later this afternoon, but since you’re here now, it’s good that we can just get this over and done with.” She smiled widely. “I hope you brought the check for me!”