Killer Punch (6 page)

 

Chapter 9

“
H
EIFER IN
T
OMATO
Patch
is back,” said Holly when we walked into the club forty-­five minutes later. “Abby went in to Swiffer the Camellia Room, and there it was.” She glanced down at Waffles, who wagged up at her and then gave a short woof when Joe appeared from outside. He looked slightly worse for wear: His hands were trembling, and he was clutching a frozen margarita and a cigarette.

“Honey Bunny!” shrieked Sophie, forgetting they were in a fight. “You look awful! Are ya drunk?”

“I've had a few,” Joe told her.

“Honey Potts is having a reunion with her painting in the Camellia Room, and the Colketts and Gianni are fighting outside,” Holly continued. We all trooped into the small conference room, where Mrs. Potts was standing in front of the canvas, frowning.

“Something's not right,” said the heiress gruffly. “I've called George Fogle to look at
Heifer
. Meanwhile, I'm taking her home.” With that, she hoisted the hefty frame and canvas, refusing all offers of help, and left.

Dusk had fallen outside, and the scent of hickory smoke wafted from over by the tennis courts, where Gerda was at work, safety goggles in place. As a test drive for the party tomorrow night, the Colketts had lighted the chandeliers dangling from the sycamores, and lanterns flickered outside the pretty white tent, which was open to the warm summer breeze.

“This is gorgeous!” I told Holly. “The party's going to be amazing!”

Just then, the stern tones of Gerda broke through the festive mood.

“Give me drill and stand back!” she announced sternly. “I almost got this smoker done.” She did some power-­tooling, and flames erupted from her improvised cooking area.

“Gerda single-­handedly built a grill out of a fifty-­five-­gallon drum today,” Holly said airily. “The Colketts have been trying to help, but it hasn't been all that pleasant for them. Gerda's management style is on the stern side, and the Colketts' strengths lie more in designing parterre gardens and placing chaise lounges.”

“We thought Gianni was bad,” whispered Tim Colkett, who was headed for the margarita machine. “Gerda is much scarier. I need a Marlboro Silver. What's one more lungful of smoke at this point?”

“Luckily, you just missed Gianni,” Holly added. “His pain pills kicked in and he started swaying near the open flame of Gerda's grill, so Abby the waitress is driving him home.”

“Holly, I need ride home, too,” Gerda announced, apparently done with her grill/smoker project. “I leave those guys Tim and Tom in charge of doing the overnight roasting of the ducks. I'm done for the day, but I come back tomorrow morning at 6 a.m.

“Why is this mutt here?” Gerda added, suddenly taking note of Waffles's adorable freckled body and droopy ears in the faint light from the lanterns. “Is not sanitary to have dogs at a place where ­people eat. I remember this dog. He's big fatty, needs to lose weight,” she helpfully informed me.

Affronted, I opened my mouth to tell her that Waffles was just big-­boned, and that in fact, he'd just been welcomed at a fine-­dining establishment in Jersey, but instead I decided to leave.

I could tell Bootsie was nowhere near being ready to head home, so Waffles and I would have to walk the two blocks back to The Striped Awning to pick up my car.

“Also, Sophie, don't let this guy drive home,” Gerda informed, indicating Joe with her power drill while she packed up her tool box. “He had, like, seven alcoholic drinks.”

“Fuck you,” Joe told her.

“Bootsie and I will drive everyone home,” Holly said, but I was already halfway down the club's driveway by then, having reached my daily fill of arguments and definitely my limit on Gerda. As I passed a slightly dented Mazda, the radio on and the windows down, I noticed two ­people in it: A girl with long blond hair was in the driver's seat, giggling, while a muscly bald guy was holding her hand and exaggeratedly kissing it.

Gianni and Abby the waitress! She didn't look upset, but then again, a girl in her early twenties isn't prepared for the likes of Gianni and his weird brand of sexiness. Abby needed to head back to college in the fall, not become Gianni's next girlfriend!

I paused for a minute, not sure what to do. I could ask Abby for a ride home, too, and Waffles and I would definitely kill the romantic vibe. I was about to flag Abby down and jump in her backseat when she started up her car, still laughing merrily.

“Hi, Abby!” I called out, and she pulled up next to me. “Are you okay?”

“I'm fine!” she assured me, pointing at the chef, who sometime in the preceding five seconds had fallen asleep and was snoring in the passenger seat, seemingly gone in a Vicodin haze of glory. “Gianni just passed out. I'll take him home and leave him on his front porch!”

 

Chapter 10

A
FTER FIVE HOURS
of painting the next morning, Waffles and I decided to make a flea market run to Stoltzfus's, my favorite Amish country antiques hunting ground.

Not only is Stoltzfus's home to acres of outdoor vendors, an indoor barn with additional odds and ends, and a bratwurst stand, it also has my favorite dealers in silver and furniture, Annie and Jenny. There's also a small kiosk selling excellent locally brewed beer, which I try to avoid since the place is only open from 5 a.m. till 2 p.m.

Waffles absolutely loves Stoltzfus's, since Annie and Jenny always give him snacks—­although the vegan cruelty-­free cookies they bake are so taste-­free that Waffles is the only shopper who ever accepts them. As always, the dog emerged from the car determined to gallop to the bratwurst area, then reluctantly agreed to head toward Jenny and Annie's table, where he chewed valiantly on a gluten-­free oat bar that seemed resistant to being swallowed. One mighty gulp later, he finally got it down the hatch, and immediately fell asleep in the shade of their van with Jenny giving him a belly rub.

“How are things in Bryn Mawr?” Annie asked me as we exchanged greetings and chatted. “Any church sales coming up? Your town has amazing stuff in its attics!”

“I'll keep you posted,” I promised. The stuff that Bryn Mawrians donate to church sales does tend to be pretty awesome, with sets of monogrammed silverware and dessert plates going for ten or fifteen dollars, which I could then polish and sell at The Striped Awning for a significant markup. Annie and Jenny prowled such events all over Pennsylvania, even heading as far as Maine and Vermont in the warmer months.

“We met another girl from your town a few times recently here at the market,” Jenny told me, continuing her affectionate doggie rubdown while Waffles gazed up at her ecstatically. “She buys old frames and then paints over the canvases as a hobby, then she brings back the new paintings to sell a ­couple times a year.”

I half listened as I inspected a set of pretty Limoges serving platters.

“She has a deal with the guy who sells the organic corndogs,” Jenny went on. “He handles her art sales.”

“Her work is pretty cute!” offered Annie. “She does copies of paintings by Old Masters and major artists like Van Gogh. Maybe you know her—­little short gal, always wears beige? And low-­heeled pumps? Which is kind of weird since everyone else here is in sneakers and flip-­flops.”

Beige outfits and sensible pumps—­from Bryn Mawr? That could only describe one person, because the town just isn't that big.

If Eula was out here buying old paintings, remaking the canvases, and reselling them, could she actually be the culprit in the
Heifer
heist?

Was it possible that Bootsie was actually
right
? Maybe Eula had a weird obsession with valuable paintings! I'd read about art thieves who took paintings just to see if they could, and then locked them in a basement or a barn to molder away.

And who knew that Eula was a skilled copier of famous paintings? What if she stole
Heifer
, and then painted over it for reasons only she understood? Casually destroying paintings might be one of Eula's raisons d'etre, right up there with bossing ­people around!

She might at this very moment be selling a seven-­hundred-­thousand-­dollar English landscape disguised as, say, Monet's
Water Lilies
, while all around her, shoppers munched blithely on organic corndogs.

“Is that girl in the beige outfits here today?” I asked breathlessly, my mind still running through possible reasons why Eula Morris, an annoying but seemingly law-­abiding young woman with a passion for tomato growing and tennis, had taken this unusual turn toward crime.

“I haven't seen her.” Annie shrugged. “But I did see those florists you know. Nice guys, really well dressed, always kinda tipsy?”

The Colketts!

I occasionally run into them at Stoltzfus's, which I never expect. The Colketts are super-­upscale, and Stoltzfus's isn't. But they sometimes buy old garden benches or topiary forms here, and it's near their greenhouses, where they have gardeners raising the buoyant roses and hydrangeas their customers love.

Anyway, the Colketts would definitely have noticed if Eula had been here today—­well, they
probably
would have noticed.

I mean, the painting was fairly large, and Eula is fairly small, so she would have been noticeable if she was schlepping the hefty framed canvas through the mass of vendors. Then again, the Colketts might have been distracted by the indoor beer stand and completely missed Eula.

I bought a pretty footed tray and a little silver-­plated candy dish from Annie and Jenny for a total of twenty-­two dollars. Then Waffles and I waved good-­bye and went in search of Eula and/or the Colketts.

I
FOUND
T
IM
and Tom heading out from the beer area to their white paneled truck, looking somewhat out of place with the rumpled hordes—­including Waffles and myself—­at Stoltzfus's.

Like Joe and Holly, the Colketts are invariably impeccable. Somehow, their clothes refuse to wrinkle or attract dust no matter what they do, and both wore well-­cut khakis and polo shirts. As always, they smelled amazingly clean and citrusy, and greeted me and Waffles pleasantly enough, emitting a faint whiff of pilsner when they gave me their standard cheek-­kiss greeting. Not surprisingly, they looked a bit worn from their party preparations, and they also looked like they were in a hurry.

This struck me as odd, since the Colketts have a special talent for the pleasantries of life—­they accomplish a lot, but always seem to have time to pause and exchange a little gossip.

Today, though, Tom hustled to slam the rear doors of the truck closed, then made a beeline for the passenger door, while Tim headed for the driver's seat, keys at the ready.

“How are you guys?” I asked. “Have you recovered from dealing with Gerda and Chef Gianni yesterday?”

“Honestly, doll, we'd like to change our identities and move to Peru to get away from the two of them, but that Food Network contract pays so much that we can't,” Tom said.

“I never thought that getting the feathers off forty-­five ducks and then slow-­roasting them over a 210-­degree flame could take so much out of a person,” agreed Tim. “We had to nap in shifts all night and take turns basting.”

“That sounds awful,” I agreed, truthfully. “By the way, you haven't seen Eula Morris out here at the flea market, have you?”

“No, thankfully,” said Tim. I briefly explained Annie and Jenny had met Eula here recently.

“Weird,” agreed Tom. “I mean, Eula pops up a lot of times just when you don't want her, but I can't picture her here amid this crazy scene!” He gestured at the motley group of vendors and shoppers around us.

“She doesn't strike me as the road-­trip type,” Tim seconded.

“Eula might surprise you,” I told them. She'd definitely shocked me in the past ­couple days with her secret New Jersey tomato greenhouse and her side business of art forging.

“I'm still recovering from her Tuscan farm theme idea,” Tom said, jumping into the passenger seat. “Anyway, doll, see you at the club tonight. We've got a truckload of hydrangeas that can't sit here in the heat.” With that, the Colketts were gone. They'd seemed genuinely disinterested in Eula and her passion for the paintbrush.

Were
the Colketts up to something painting-­related? Or were they just embarrassed to be caught mid-­pilsner when their big event was less than four hours away from welcoming the tomato-­obsessed of our town? If so, I certainly wasn't judging them. They'd done an amazing job designing the party. Plus months of dealing with Gianni and a single day of Gerda would drive anyone to drink.

I sighed as Waffles and I got into the car and cranked up the air-­conditioning.

If only John hadn't gone to that vet clinic, he might be here with me, since he was the kind of guy willing to help his girlfriend schlep antiques. John was amazing—­and Mike Woodford wasn't, I reminded myself! As soon as John was back in town, I was steering clear of Bootsie and her schemes, and any talk of missing paintings.

Before I steered away from the flea market crowds, though, I made two calls. First, I reached Walt at the Bryn Mawr Police Station and relayed what Annie and Jenny had told me about Eula's painting skills—­it didn't seem relevant, but I thought Walt should know. Then, naturally, I called Bootsie.

 

Chapter 11

T
HE
NIGHT WAS
perfect for the Tomato Party, with a light breeze ruffling the sycamores, and the temperature in the low seventies. I heard the whir of the margarita machine, and felt a surge of gratitude to Holly.

Thanks to her generosity, I was once again a guest at a party I couldn't afford, and gave her a little hug when I arrived at five-­thirty, an hour before the party was due to start.

As party co-­chair and sponsor, Holly had handed us all free tickets for tonight's event, and had delivered a pink silk Trina Turk dress to me with strict orders to wear it. As always, she claimed it was headed for a Goodwill drop-­off—­which was possibly true, since Holly has a shopping problem. She buys a ton of stuff that she later decides “makes her look like a couch.” Also, since Leena at the Pack-­N-­Ship is known for losing packages, the returns that Holly tries to mail back rarely get there.

Holly had to be desperate for this party to finally happen—­and end. It had taken over her entire summer, and sent her husband, Howard, to buy up a trash and trucking company in Oregon, since he told Holly it was better for everyone if he left town until she was done with the event.

“The tent looks amazing!” I told Holly, and in fact, the setting was truly gorgeous. The red-­and-­white chevron floor lent a chic air to the party space, and huge glass vases filled with tomatoes of every type sat on sleek glass shelves behind the white lacquer bar. “Tomatoes have never looked so cool!”

“It's amazing what the Colketts can do with three thousand votive candles, twelve thousand dollars' worth of orchids, and twenty-­seven rented Venetian chandeliers,” said Holly, smiling sweetly at the designers.

“We honestly are so talented that even we can't believe it sometimes!” Tim agreed tipsily. “Thank goodness Gianni got that TV show so our genius can reach a wider audience. I just hope this country-­club crowd appreciates us. Speaking of which, where's Eula?”

“I sent her to go supervise Gianni.” Holly snickered. “That should go well.”

Holly quickly explained that Gianni and Skipper had set up separate rival areas on which to stage their hors d'oeuvres. Gianni's moulard birds were currently sending up savory scents as they sizzled above a wood-­burning temporary grill.

Nearby, screened by some potted plants, a tiny figure in black was grimly rolling out dough on a long wooden table, which she then cut into long strands and handed over to a guy who plunged them into a giant pot of water boiling over a portable stove.

“Ugh, there's Gianni's granny, or whoever she is.” Tim shuddered, nudging Tom. “Look, Tom, it's Nonna Claudia! And she's as ghoulish as ever!” he added, giving the lady a little wave, which she ignored.

“She scares us,” Tom whispered to me and Holly with a little shudder. “When she was out in Beverly Hills training the kitchen staff, it was like, we need to move up cocktail hour from 10 a.m. to 9 a.m. just to deal with her sourpuss face! Never a smile, not even once!”

“I've seen her before somewhere,” said Holly, with a little frown of concentration. “She looks so familiar.”

“She works at Ristorante Gianni,” I told her. “You probably saw her coming out of the kitchen and heading upstairs the other night.”

“Which is totally sinister,” sang out Tim Colkett. “I mean, just think, she and her cat are upstairs all the time, watching the parking lot and, like, judging ­people's outfits when they walk in to dinner!”

“Gianni wants all the credit for his feather-­light pasta for himself, but of course we know it's all her. I mean, she was in L.A. for three weeks at the new restaurant training the pasta chefs, but she never talked to us once. The weird part is that the Food Network ­people said she made great TV!” Tom told us. “They were super-­bummed when she packed up her pasta machine and told Gianni she was coming back here.

“Anyway,” he added, “did you notice we stealthily incorporated four hundred branches of tiny tomato blossoms around the entrance to the tent? Trust me, that was a huge argument with a farmer in Delaware. And it was worth the battle we had to personally select them this morning and truck them up here this afternoon!”

I had to agree, though truthfully, I wasn't sure that tomato fans such as Mrs. Potts and the Binghams would love the massive installation of yellow tomato flowers created by the Colketts. To this crowd, each of those flowers represented a lost tomato never to be chopped, simmered, and turned into spaghetti sauce.

Just then, I noticed a small band of ladies in Talbots dresses arriving onto the club porch and heading for the tent. I checked my watch—­6:05. In true Bryn Mawr tradition, the tomato crowd was almost thirty minutes early for the kickoff party.

For his part, Skipper had stuck with a tried-­and-­true favorite: He'd gone with a mojito-­burrito buffet, a popular combination of items which he'd inaugurated at the country club when he became executive chef last year. Mojito-­Burrito Night, while met with some initial resistance from the older members, was now a huge hit at the club and quite affordable at just $9.95.

It's one of the few club events that fits in my meager budget. Actually, I can't afford the club at all, and there's no chance I could pay my annual membership fee, given that I'm behind on rent at the shop and AmEx has been calling my house incessantly about my past due charges. Somehow, though, my club dues are fully up-­to-­date—­Ronnie insists that my grandparents prepaid my fees for several years in advance, but I know it had to have been Holly.

“Where's Eula?” asked Bootsie, popping up at my elbow. She looked very pretty tonight, I noticed, in her standard party outfit of Talbots cotton shift dress and flat sandals. She'd added some dangly earrings, and even gone for a swipe of pink lipstick.

“I've got a plan to get her drunk, then drive her home and search the parts of her house that I couldn't see when I was in her tree on Thursday,” Bootsie said. “I did a little legwork outside her house today. It's one story, but there's an attic, and it looks like she's got a secret painting studio up there. I aimed my binoculars at her second floor window, and I'm pretty sure I saw an easel!”

Just then, Sophie and Joe showed up, and I quickly told them about Eula's surprising hobby of selling paintings at Stoltzfus's. Naturally, Joe agreed with Bootsie that Eula was the mastermind behind the
Heifer
heist.

“Where's Gerda?” I asked, hoping she might be skipping the party.

“We just dropped her off at Barclay's place,” Sophie told me, wriggling nervously in a silk caftan, while Joe headed for the bar. “She's going to work on figuring out his new e-­mail password tonight.”

“Hey, everyone,” shouted Chef Gianni, limping out from his outdoor kitchen area while three waiters followed him bearing trays of delicious-­smelling tiny plates of pasta. The chef waved his crutch for emphasis as a crowd of arriving guests paused, gazing admiringly and sniffing the air. “My duck ragout is finally ready! Gianni got stabbed, but he don't give up!”

Waiters began passing the little plates of pasta to guests, along with tiny silver forks and linen napkins. More servers followed, bearing glasses of some delicious-­looking red wine, and Gianni personally helped hand out the snacks to the little crowd of early party guests, doling out kisses to the ladies and doing some greetings of the back-­slapping variety to husbands.

I instantly forgot the fact that I don't eat duck, and dug in. The food was so delicious that the group actually cheered.

“Gianni try to be modest, but I killing it with this pasta!” the chef said.

Then he indicated Skipper's burrito setup, which did look a little flat next to Gianni's modern-­Italian tour de force. Gianni made a skeptical face as Abby and two other waitresses loading up trays with Skipper's mini-­tacos and tiny shrimp tostados.

“I feel like I'm at, what you call it, Taco Bell!” yelled Gianni to the admiring crowd of club members. “What is this, Skipper, refried beans? Maybe I'm at Chipotle!”

“These are organic black beans sautéed in a chili oil, and we have some heirloom tomatoes and fresh cilantro that we grew ourselves in the club's veggie garden. Of course, we make our own tortillas, and the meats are free-­range chicken and grass-­fed beef . . .”

Skipper wiped some sweat from his brow.

Just then, a huge sheepdog ran up to the gas grill where Skipper and his team were basting a hefty piece of beef. Skipper's signature burrito filling, a flank steak, had floated its smoky, yummy scent out past the sycamores and the laurel hedges, and the sheepdog sat down by the grill, panting and slobbering.

I knew this dog: It was Toby, the Binghams' free-­roaming mutt, who enjoys a fence-­free existence, but is luckily quite streetwise. Toby pauses at crosswalks and waits at stop signs, so he makes his way around town without incident.

Toby usually respects sheepdog-­a non grata zones such as the club, the cow pastures at Sanderson, and the cemetery. But Skipper's flank steak had put this well-­mannered pooch over the edge.

“Skipper, your steak brought in a new customer, and he got four legs and a tail!” Gianni shouted to the small crowd of guests. “Hey, don't worry, we all gotta start somewhere!”

“Oh, Toby, you naughty boy,” said Mr. Bingham, wandering over in a yellow sport coat, glass of white zinfandel in hand. He waved a finger at his wayward dog, who merely wagged up at him and kept drooling.

Just then, two yellow Labs showed up, joined Toby grill-­side, and commenced whining, while Gianni, earrings gleaming as he leaned on his crutches, kept up a running commentary. “These dogs might hire you for their next party, Skipper! Could be whole new business for you!”

“Bootsie, aren't those your Labs?” I hissed, giving her a nudge.

“Huh—­that
is
Chewy and Rocky!” she said, seemingly undisturbed by her dogs having galloped a half mile away from home. “I told Will to make sure our fence got repaired this week. I'll have to call him to come pick them up.”

While Bootsie shrugged and dialed her husband, Gianni made a last dig at the club's head chef. “Hey, Skipper, maybe you the one stole that painting of the cow yesterday! You probably need the money.”

With this, Skipper had had enough of Gianni. He stalked inside the club and disappeared as the rest of the guests arrived.

“
T
HE
PAINTING THAT
was returned yesterday is a fake
Heifer in Tomato Patch
,” Mrs. Potts told us five minutes later. She downed a mini-­taco in one bite, and sipped a large vodka.

“It was almost immediately apparent, though the counterfeit painting was a pretty good one at first glance,” confirmed George Fogle, who'd accompanied Honey to the party. The two had spent the day researching forgers of Henry Huntingdon-­Mews's works, of which there had been many back in the painter's own century, but none that were known in present-­day art circles.

“This version of
Heifer
wasn't painted all that long ago,” said George. “Probably earlier this year, since oil paint can take months to fully set onto a canvas. Also, it was layered over an existing canvas. It's a commonly done technique that's called pentimento, this kind of reuse for an old painting. In this case, the artist found a gilt frame and canvas that's almost exactly the size of Honey's original.”

A new painting layered atop an old one? Bootsie and I stared at each other.

Eula was a pentimento painter! At least, according to Annie and Jenny. We needed to call Walt.

“That's just like
The Thomas Crown Affair
!” shrieked Sophie. “I love that movie! I mean, when Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo get naked on his staircase, it's awesome. Although I couldn't stop thinking that cold marble stairs would really hurt your tush.”

“It's hard to know if this was supposed to be a joke, or if the artist set out to create a convincing forgery of
Heifer
,” continued George. “I made some calls today, and Walt took the fake painting in to try to lift any fingerprints that might have been left. Meanwhile, though, the real painting is still missing.”

I told George about Eula's hobby of re-­making old canvases, then wondered if this would be a good time to mention to George and Mrs. Potts that a Vegas restaurateur named Lobster Phil LaMonte was also checking around for her painting. Probably not, I decided. It seemed a little too complicated to explain over a mini-­taco.

Plus George can be a bit competitive, plus I had a feeling he and Lobster Phil moved in very different circles. And who knows? Let each of them do their own thing, and maybe somewhere between Vegas, Jersey, and the fancy New York art world, one of the two might actually find the wayward canvas.

“Now that I'm done with this party project and I don't have to deal with that hideous Eula Morris,” said Holly, “I'm going to devote ninety-­three percent of my time to taking you out for cocktails and tracking down your painting, Mrs. P.”

Mrs. Potts gave Holly a smile, cheering up a little. Holly's the only person who ever convinced the elderly heiress to wear lip gloss and occasionally put on a tasteful sheath dress instead of her usual Bermuda shorts, and they have an unlikely but firm friendship.

“What are you going to do with the other seven percent of your waking hours?” George asked Holly.

“First, I'm going to get Eula Morris to stop wearing beige, and then I'll come up with a plan to get her to move at least three states away from here!”

T
WENTY MINUTES LATER,
I wondered if Holly would mind if I took off from the tomato fest. Then again, the ticket she'd generously bought me had been close to one hundred dollars, there was an open bar, and I had on the borrowed Trina Turk dress. But the conversations at this soiree were honestly a little strange.