nodded. “You know you can count on me.”
“I’d like you to take over, manage Cuppa J full time for the next two weeks—perhaps longer if my search doesn’t go well. That means long hours, and it means renegotiating the lousy deals with the vendors Papas made in my name. But I’ll pay you well, Clare. You can count on that.”
“I’m happy to do it, David. I’m sure I can ask Matt to postpone his next trip and take over managing the Village Blend for that long. But what about Chef Vogel? Wouldn’t you want to consider asking him to take over the management duties before me?”
David sighed. “Chef Vogel enjoys creating menus. He does so admirably. What he does not enjoy, however, and he’s made it abundantly clear, is payroll, employee schedules, personnel problems, and customer service. He’d be a lousy manager and he’d hate it, as well.”
“All right then, I guess I accept.”
David put his hands together in silent applause. “Thank goodness. Now let’s have some of that delightful brew!”
I poured, and we sat together at the table, enjoying the warmth and much needed caffeine.
“My god, I can’t stop thinking about that poor girl,” said David, shaking his head. “Colleen almost died in my restaurant. I just…I just can’t thank you enough for saving her life. And for saving the restaurant, of course. But, really, if that poor girl had died I never would have forgiven myself!”
“What about Treat?” I said evenly. “He’s dead too.”
“Yes,” said Madame, strolling in. “Mr. Mazzelli was somebody’s son, you know.”
David nodded. “Yes, he was, somebody’s drug informant son.”
Nothing like dropping a bomb in the breakfast room. “What?” I said. “What do you know?”
“I just got off the phone with Detective O’Rourke,” David said. “He tells me the police have found the murder weapon.”
I felt my guts twisting. “Where?”
“In the trunk of a car belonging to a young man from Manhattan. He was arrested for drug dealing in the wee hours of July sixth. The authorities ran ballistics tests and checked Treat’s background. When Detective O’Rourke was sure, he called me.”
“Sure of what?” I asked.
“O’Rourke discovered that Treat was a former cocaine dealer—arrested and charged, but never convicted. He was cooperating with the D.E.A, acting as an informant in exchange for immunity.”
The news to me was stunning. It certainly didn’t fit with any of my own theories.
“Officer O’Rourke says forensics can now tie the bullet casings from the beach, as well as the bullet recovered from Treat’s head, to the rifle. And since the weapon was found in a known drug dealer’s car, O’Rourke concluded that Treat was the sole target of the hit man.”
“Because Treat was informing on drug dealers for the D.E.A?”
“Yes. Now that O’Rourke has the murder weapon, the case is closed. That piece of evidence is incontrovertible.”
“It’s also circumstantial.”
David blinked. “I don’t see how.”
“For starters, why target Treat in the middle of a party and use a hidden sniper? Wouldn’t it have been easier to wait for Treat to leave the mansion, gun him down on the road, in front of his house—anywhere but in the middle of one of the biggest social gatherings of the season?”
“A moot point, Clare,” said David.
I shook my head. “Don’t you see that the murder weapon could have been planted? That maybe that’s why the casings were so casually left behind on the beach. No professional hit man would have made such a mistake—”
“No one said the arrestee was a professional hit man,” David argued. “He was probably just a punk.”
“And I’ll bet there are no fingerprints on that gun, either,” I shot back. “I’ll bet the killer wanted that weapon to be found by the police—he probably even tipped them—so that someone else would be charged with the crime.”
“Give it up, Clare,” David warned in an irritated voice. “O’Rourke says it’s over. So it’s over.”
“One more question, then I’ll let it rest.”
He sighed. “Ask.”
“Where did they find the gun and pick this perp up?”
“The wrong side of the highway,” David replied. “Somewhere in Hampton Bays, I think. Anyway, I’m simply relieved to hear that Treat’s killer has been caught.
I can pay off the security firm and be free of people in uniform staking out my house at all hours.”
I was alarmed. “Why drop the security?”
“It’s no longer necessary.”
“Please. There’s been a murder in this mansion. Your restaurant manager just tried to blow up your business. Can’t you keep the security in place for a few more weeks? For my sake?”
Madame raised an eyebrow.