Coffeehouse Mysteries - 08 - Holiday Grind by Cleo Coyle

Author:Cleo Coyle
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Tags: Mystery
ISBN: 9780425230053
Publisher: Berkley Hardcover
Published: 2010-08-15T03:38:10+00:00

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.

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