“Why are you doing this?!” she demanded.
“I told you, your daughter asked me to find out—”
“It’s Christmas, for heaven’s sake!” She stomped her running shoe. “Why don’t you just mind your own damn business and let Alf rest in peace!”
I locked eyes with the irate woman. “Don’t you have something you want to tell me, Mrs. Glockner? Something that might help the police solve Alf’s murder?”
That did it. Her face went from berry red to almost snow-white. She went quiet and her voice turned low and calm: “You have to leave now.”
“Mrs. Glockner—”
“I have a busy day ahead of me.”
Yeah, with your personal trainer. Then there’s that highly lucrative moment when you sign off on the insurance policy and cash in on your husband’s murder.
I rose. “If you change your mind about talking to me, you can reach me in the city at the Village Blend. Thank you for your time, Mrs.—”
The door slammed behind me, sending the tiny holiday wreath tumbling to the ground.
With a deep breath of wintry air, I retraced my pointy footprints across the snow-covered yard, back to Linford’s sunporch. I was hoping that I hadn’t been missed, but it didn’t work out that way. Approaching the solarium, I paused when I heard angry voices. Peeking around a manicured bush, I spied Omar Linford and young Dwayne arguing in the room that Esther and I had vacated.
“. . . and I’m not going to stop! I told you already!” Dwayne shouted.
“You have to listen to me, son,” the older Linford calmly replied. “This is your life I’m talking about. Your whole life. You’re gambling with your own future—”
“I told you, Dad. I told you all weekend. I’m going to do this my way!” Dwayne shouted, and then he bolted from the room.
“Don’t be a fool!” Linford shouted after his son, then shook his head and sat down heavily in the solarium.
Better not go in that way, I decided, or he’ll know I was eavesdropping.
I turned, moved around the house, and headed for the front entrance instead. Barely a moment after I pressed the bell, the double doors jerked open. Frowning down at me was a big-boned, Caucasian woman with strawberry-blond hair and a line of freckles across her patrician nose.
What’s with all these amazons on Staten Island? Must be something in the water!
“Ms. Cosi?” the woman asked with a slight British accent.
“Yes.”
“We wondered where you’d gone off to!”
“I’m sorry. My assistant had to leave,” I explained quickly. “There were things I needed to discuss with her in private before she left.”
“I see. Well, I’m Mrs. MacKenzie, Mr. Linford’s executive assistant. Here’s the letter you requested.” She thrust a small manila envelope into my hand.
“Thank you.” I stuffed the envelope into my bag. “May I wait inside to call a car service? I need to get to the ferry terminal.”
The woman shook her head. “No need for a taxi. I was about to take Mr. Linford’s car out to run some errands. I’ll be happy to give you a ride. You’d better come in and get your coat.”
As I did, I noticed the Linford boy standing a few feet away in the foyer, big arms folded. He said nothing, just glared. Then his pumped-up body brushed roughly past me and out the front door.
A minute later, I heard an engine gunning and tires squealing. Glancing out the window, I watched Dwayne’s tricked-out SUV, with its fake bullet holes and airbrushed Viking raiders, disappearing down the tree-lined street.
Twenty-One
“Thank you for the ride,” I said, popping the car door.
“No bother, Ms. Cosi,” the unsmiling Mrs. MacKenzie replied. “I have many errands today. You were just one of them.”
As I stepped onto the walkway that led to the St. George Terminal, Mac pulled away from the curb. I noticed, however, that she didn’t leave the area. Instead, she swerved the BMW toward the terminal’s parking lot.
Odd, I thought.
Either Mrs. MacKenzie was taking the ferry herself today and didn’t care for my company, or she was picking someone up on an arriving boat.
As my gaze followed her car into the lot, it snagged once again on that garishly tricked-out SUV that could only belong to Linford’s son. Clearly, he’d caught a ferry to Manhattan already—or else he was waiting inside now and I’d be sharing my ferry ride with him, too.
The crowd was light inside the terminal’s neo-deco waiting area. The vast space with the soaring ceiling reminded me of one of those big-box Costco-type warehouses, except this structure was trimmed in Jetsons-like polished steel and illuminated by flood lamps.
A ferry was docked and waiting, and I quickly boarded, although I needn’t have hurried because it wouldn’t actually take off for another ten minutes. In the interim, I traversed the flat decks of floating metal and found the little refreshment stand onboard. I stood in line to buy a cup of hot cocoa and was just taking my first sips as the ferry finally chugged out of its slip.
There weren’t many passengers for this twenty-minute journey—not surprising at this time of day. Most riders were work commuters who packed the boat before nine and after five. As the engines throbbed, I moved quickly through the cavernous interior, skipping rows of sparsely populated benches for a choice position near the stern.
Despite the near-freezing temperature, I took a spot outside, close to the rail, just above the lapping waves. With the Blend now packed from morning till night and my mind working overtime to decipher the truth about Alf Glockner’s tangled life, a few moments of peace was exactly what I needed.
I closed my eyes, and as the crisp salt-tinged wind whipped through my hair, I imagined it was clearing my mind, too. Then I leaned against the metal railing and relished the contrast of cold bracing sea against my cheeks and steaming hot chocolate against my lips.
If I commuted every day on this route, I might have become jaded about the ferry-crossing experience, but I wasn’t. Not even close. As the boat swiftly cut a wake through Upper New York Bay, I opened my eyes again, drinking my fill of the cobalt blue chop, glistening in the afternoon sun.
In the distance, a black ocean liner smudged the pale horizon, its most likely destination the renovated docks of the Upper West Side. A sleek white pleasure craft zoomed by at twice our speed, slicing the water with a groove of froth as it veered toward the East River. Behind us, a little orange tug chugged along buoyantly; an FDNY fire boat motored steadily behind it.
Soon we were coming up on Liberty Island and its adjacent partner, the old immigration station of Ellis Island, now a historic landmark run by the National Park Service. Finally, there she was, Lady Liberty, soaring right above me, continuing her watch for the world’s wretched refuse.
I gawked at the steel-framed sculpture, her copper sheeting oxidized green after more than a century at her post. She looked so strong and sturdy in the middle of the bay, lifting her lamp to light the path to our harbor. Emma Lazarus had called her the “Mother of Exiles,” and I thought how right she was as I imagined how millions of immigrants to this country (my grandmother included) must have felt when they first saw her rising from the water, her gold-leaf torch held high.
When the Lady’s noble features finally receded, I turned my attention back to a business that wasn’t so noble. Reaching into my shoulder bag, my gloved fingers carefully fished out the manila envelope Mac had handed me.
Inside I found a smaller envelope, this one plain white. Linford’s name and address were printed by what appeared to be a standard computer printer. A Santa Claus stamp carried a postmark from Manhattan’s busy main branch on Eighth Avenue.
I’d hoped the letter would be handwritten, but no such luck. The writer typed the note and appeared to have printed it with the same computer printer used to address the post-marked envelope: