“Nope,” Jo assured her. “We’re just here to drink his cold booze.”
“So you work for Jackson?” Harriett seemed to have caught a whiff of something. “Do you spend a lot of time on the Pointe?”
“I spend my summers here,” Claude confirmed. “But I try to avoid Jackson as much as possible. I come out to stay with my partner and wait for his fancy friends to throw business my way. I arranged to have the entire cast of the Frozen musical flown in next week for an eight-year-old’s birthday.”
“Wow. That couldn’t have been easy,” Jo said.
“You wouldn’t believe. The negotiations were brutal. A couple of the women had heard about that murder down by Danskammer Beach. I had to hire a dozen extra security guards, which was totally unnecessary. The president himself couldn’t get through the Culling Pointe gate without a written invitation.”
Jo had been wondering how she and Harriett would turn the conversation to murder. She felt grateful that the woman had done their work for them.
“Were you out here on the Pointe when the body was found?” Harriett inquired.
Claude nodded grimly. “Yeah, it was my first day getting things together for the party. What a tragedy. Have they found the guy who did it yet? I’ve been so busy I haven’t been able to keep up with the news.”
“They’d have to search for the killer in order to find him,” Harriett said. “The cops don’t seem to think it’s worth their time.”
“I wish I could say I’m shocked,” Claude responded grimly. “My partner has a charity that builds schools for kids all over the world. In a lot of the places we travel, women are nothing but baby machines. Girls disappear all the time, and no one ever bothers to look. We like to think that things are different here. But they’re not. Not really.”
“Your partner runs a charity?” Jo asked.
“That’s how we met. I planned an event for him years ago. To be honest, I think he fell in love with my food. The man never met an amuse-bouche he didn’t like. That’s him right there.”
Claude pointed down toward the ocean where a middle-aged man with curly gray hair was horsing around with a group of kids. They were all lined up at the water’s edge, trying to leap over the waves as they arrived onshore.
“Isn’t that the guy we saw standing on the dock the day we were out on the boat?” Jo asked Harriett.
“Looks like him,” Harriett replied.
“Were there whales around that day?” Claude asked.
“Yeah,” Jo said.
Claude laughed. “Then it was him. Leonard’s always out there looking for whales. If I can get his attention, I’ll introduce you.”
Claude waved from the deck until she caught the man’s eye. He returned the gesture and left the kids playing in the surf. As he walked up to greet them, he grabbed a striped towel from one of the chaises and draped it around his neck.
“Well, hello there!” He was already on his way up the stairs when he recognized them. “If it isn’t my fellow whale watchers. I see you’ve met my better half. I’m Leonard.”
“Harriett.” She held out a hand. “And Jo.”
“Are you two enjoying the party? Claude really outdid herself this year.” He put his arm around the woman and planted a playful kiss on the top of her head. “I wonder what Jackson will think when he gets the bill.”
“I imagine he’ll think it’s an excellent write-off,” Jo said. “All you have to do is invite a few business contacts to your party, and the government picks up part of the tab.”
Leonard’s impish grin suggested he knew his way around the tax code.
“Claude!” They all looked up to see Jackson Dunn leaning over the roof deck railing. “Can you come up for a sec?”
Claude gave him a thumbs-up and rolled her eyes as soon as he’d vanished from view. “Doesn’t matter how much cash Jackson spends,” she said. “He always makes sure he gets his money’s worth. If you’ll excuse me, I must earn my pay.” She gave Leonard a peck on the cheek and hurried off.
“That woman’s a miracle worker,” Leonard marveled. “She could re-create Paradise if you were willing to pay. I don’t know what we’d do without her.”
“Claude told us you have a house on the Pointe,” Harriett said. “Why aren’t you up on the roof with your neighbors helping Jackson justify his deductions?”
A young woman in a black dress appeared on the deck with a thick green beverage, which she handed to Leonard. “My afternoon smoothie,” he explained. “I don’t drink anymore. And I have no time for all the glad-handing going on upstairs. I spent thirty years making money for other people. Now I’d rather just hang out with dogs and kids.”
“And whales,” Jo added.
Leonard’s face lit up at the mention of whales. “Can you believe the show that female put on the other day? I’ve been coming to the Pointe for twenty years, and I’ve never seen anything like it. I wonder what got into her.”
Jo had to restrain herself from glancing over at Harriett. “You do a lot of whale watching?”
“Whenever I can.” Leonard wiped away a green smoothie mustache. “They’re such magnificent creatures. At some point in the future, when our own species is more evolved, we’ll look back and be very ashamed of what we’ve done to the whales.”
“While you’ve been out looking for whales, have you noticed the crowds down by Danskammer Beach lately?” Harriett asked.
Leonard shook his head with disgust. “The vultures haven’t gone away since the body was found. I’m afraid that sort of behavior doesn’t say much for our species, either.”
“Neither does dumping the bodies of dead teenage girls in the scrub,” Harriett said.
“This is true,” Leonard agreed solemnly.
“Did you happen to see anything unusual in the weeks before the girl was found?” Jo asked.
“No one spends much time on the Pointe before May. I’ll fly in for a weekend here and there, but I usually spend the spring in the Caribbean.” Leonard stopped, and his impish smile returned. “So are you two going all Cagney and Lacey? Think you have a shot at solving the case?”
“Nope, just curious,” Jo said. “I’ve always been fascinated by serial killers.”
“Serial killers?” Leonard appeared to have lost his sense of humor. “I thought they said the young woman died of a drug overdose. What makes you think her death was the work of a serial killer?”
Harriett waved away the idea with a dismissive flip of her hand. “Don’t listen to her. That’s just what the ladies in town are saying. You know ladies—always looking for an excuse to get our panties in a twist.”
Leonard laughed. “Well, I certainly hope that’s all there is to it. I’d hate to think there’s a serial killer on the prowl in the area.”
“Isn’t that what Culling Pointe’s gate is for?” Harriett asked. “To keep bad guys out?”
“Yes, I suppose so.” The thought seemed to lift Leonard’s mood again. Shrieks of excitement came from the beach below. Something had washed up on the sand, and the children were calling for Leonard to come down.
“I think you’re being paged,” Jo said.