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