it came to Linford’s business interests. Even after I’d confronted Dex with circumstantial evidence that he’d been doing business with Linford’s company for years, he still refused to come completely clean about the extent of his relationship with the importer.
And while all of Linford’s business activities seemed legitimate, so what? If anybody knew how legitimate businesses could operate in a way to mask illegal activity, it was the daughter of the local sports bookie.
In the middle of my second call to Dexter, I remembered how he’d shown up at the Blend—abruptly and unexpectedly—the very same night that Vickie Glockner came to ask for my help in solving her father’s murder. Again, my mind started working and I asked Dexter point-blank if he’d been spying for Omar Linford, too.
Dex wouldn’t confirm or deny anything regarding the man, but he did get nervous enough to finally agree to arrange a “sit-down” lunch meeting at one o’clock sharp on Monday so I could ask Linford any questions “straight up” to his face. He wasn’t interested, he said, in being “caught between the diver and the pearl.”
On Sunday I phoned Matt for some kind of explanation on Dexter’s bizarre denials regarding Omar Linford, but Matt couldn’t talk more than a few minutes. Breanne had roped him into a last-minute trip to Connecticut for a “weekend in the country”—not for mistletoe and moonlight but for networking with her magazine’s publisher and his board of trustees.
“I’ll stop by the Blend after we get back on Tuesday,” Matt insisted. “I didn’t know that Dex knew this man Linford or did business with him, but I have a feeling I know what this is about. I just can’t talk about it now.”
“Why not? My meeting with the man is Monday, Matt. Why can’t you just explain it to me?!”
“Because it’s not fit conversation for a cellular line, that’s why!”
Now Esther was guiding my battered, decade-old Honda over the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge. Soon we were passing La Tourette Park, part of the Staten Island Greenbelt that included the woods around Richmond Creek and the manicured lawns of the La Tourette Golf Course. It was frozen and snow-crusted now, but I could still remember how lush and leafy this exclusive landscape looked a few summers ago.
I’d driven out to the Lighthouse Hill area only once before, to get a glimpse of the landmark Crimson Beech house, the only home in New York City designed by Frank Lloyd Wright, one of the many architects I’d admired during my fine arts studies. The original owners had it manufactured fifty years ago in kit form, and fewer than a dozen of these prefabricated houses were ever built.
Linford’s house was not prefabricated. From what I could see of it on my Google map, it had a much bigger footprint than the Frank Lloyd Wright house; the location was a more elite part of the neighborhood as well, one that included a view of the water.
“There’s the turn,” I cried. “You’re supposed to go left!”
Esther swerved so suddenly we nearly tipped onto two wheels. I managed to keep the struffoli upright, but barely.
“Sorry,” Esther said, glancing at my pastry. “What is that mound of doughnut holes, anyway?”
Esther was being flip, of course; the little fried dough balls of the struffoli were more petite than doughnut holes. After drenching them with a honey glaze, I’d molded them into their traditional Christmas tree shape (kind of a rounded pyramid), then fairy-dusted the entire sculpture with rainbow sprinkles, let the whole thing dry, and carefully tented it with plastic wrap.
“Struffoli is actually a very old tradition,” I informed her. “The honey glaze is supposed to ‘sweeten’ family relationships—”
Esther snorted. “Maybe I should bring some to my sister’s this year!”
“Italian nuns also used to make these in their convents and distribute them to noble families at Christmastime—a kind of thank-you for acts of charity.”
“Sort of appropriate for Linford, then,” Esther replied.
“What do you mean?”
“If Linford didn’t actually have Alf whacked, then lending him all that money was kind of an act of charity.” Esther shrugged. “Of course, the dude probably doesn’t see it that way if he expected to be paid back.”
“I didn’t actually think a glazed pile of fried dough balls would end up compensating the man for two hundred thou,” I flatly replied.
Esther turned onto Oceanview Court and we rolled up to the impressive address. We both raised our eyebrows at the man’s front lawn.
Esther glanced at me. “Is this guy into Christmas, or what?”
Every bush and tree