Killer WASPs (12 page)

Chapter 11

T
HE NE
XT MORNING
I woke up with a head that felt like it was stuffed into a helmet that was three sizes
too small. Ugh. Scotch. My face felt raw from Mike’s stubble, and I was as thirsty
as Chevy Chase in the desert sequence of the first
Vacation
movie.

I checked the weather from my bedroom window, which was breezy and cloud-­free, and
froze when I noticed movement on the Bests’ porch. Jimmy poked his head out, looked
both ways, then ran out and grabbed his newspaper from the front lawn. He had a towel
on.

“Phew!” I said to Waffles, then shut up, because it hurt to talk. This was a hangover
that only a fried-­egg sandwich and a giant coffee could cure.

Then I had a sudden flash of hope, realizing it was Monday, and Visa should have deposited
Sophie’s funds into my checking account. I dialed the bank to get my automatic balance
update over the phone. Forty-­five seconds later, I sprang out of bed, let Waffles
out in the backyard, and practically danced back upstairs and into the shower with
the kind of joy that can only come when you’ve just found out that there’s more than
seven thousand dollars in your bank account.

I could pay down my rent and settle my credit card balance! I could buy Waffles some
new rawhide bones, and right after I got dressed and out of the shower, we were going
to go get the biggest, most overpriced lattes in Bryn Mawr! My hangover instantly
disappeared.

Forty-­five minutes later, Waffles and I pulled out of Starbucks with four venti lattes
anchored in a carrier, and aimed for the U-­Haul rental behind the Sunoco station.
Renting a truck took just ten minutes, and soon we were headed down Lancaster Avenue
to pick up Bootsie. I’d called her earlier, catching her while she was dropping her
kids off at nursery school, hoping she was still up for helping me move the stuff
into Sophie’s house, which of course she was.

In the few minutes it took for me to drive over to Bootsie’s office, I briefly reviewed
the night before and planned to leave the make-­out session with Mike out of my chat
with Bootsie. Bootsie can be surprisingly sex-­obsessed, and tries to instigate other
­people into wild schtupping sessions as often as possible. I knew she’d eventually
find out I’d kissed Mike, but decided to postpone the embarrassing questions as long
as I could.

As I pulled up to the
Gazette
, Bootsie looked like she was about to explode with gossip. Her cheeks were pink,
her eyes bright, and her toes tapping in the whale sandals.

“I’ve got a lot of news,” she said, climbing into my car. “Most of it about Gianni,
some of it about Barclay, and a little bit about Sophie Shields.”

Even though I was still feeling the aftereffects of Mike’s stubble on my neck, I wondered
if Bootsie had any information about the cute vet, John Hall. Then again, I didn’t
have time to have a crush on a vet. I had to focus on Sophie’s delivery, and on getting
the store restocked and ready for business. Also, I had to focus on not having a crush
on Mike Woodford. I banished all thoughts of men from my mind and sucked down some
coffee.

The
Bryn Mawr Gazette
offices, which are in an old limestone-­fronted bank building, had been spruced up
a bit in the past few days, I noticed. Planters on the steps to the front door had
been filled with ivy and white geraniums, and the door had been painted a cheery yellow.
Bootsie gratefully accepted her latte and was dumping Sugar in the Raw into it as
we drove to The Striped Awning to meet Gerda and Sophie.

“I like that new front door to your office,” I told Bootsie, hoping to distract her
from Waffles, who was currently breathing down her neck and wagging at her from the
backseat. “Very south of France!”

“Circulation’s doubled with all the Barclay Shields news”—­she nodded, pushing Waffles’s
nose away—­“so we’re making a few improvements. And this week’s bound to be even better.
We’ve got Sophie’s party and Chef Gianni’s accident on page one. By the way, the chef
is having some MRIs done, but so far his only real injury seems to be a broken ankle.

“Marcus, our society photographer, got a fabulous shot of Gianni mid-­fall,” Bootsie
added. “He actually captured the moment of impact when Gianni took out the cellist.
See?”

She shoved the newspaper into my lap when I paused at a red light. Yup, that was a
nice shot, I had to admit. It really did give a visceral sense of the “splat” of chef-­on-­cellist.

Bootsie looked really good today. As usual, she was beaming with good health and tanned
muscles honed by tennis and a lifetime of eating plenty of fresh vegetables and drinking
one-­percent milk. Her outfit was pretty subdued for her, maybe because she figured
there was no point in putting on full Lilly Pulitzer to schlep furniture. She had
on khakis, a pink polo shirt, and the aforementioned sandals. She was wearing a flowered
belt, but that was it in terms of floral motifs.

“And while I really shouldn’t be talking about this, I can tell you,” she said in
a confiding tone, “that Gianni’s fall definitely wasn’t an accident. One of his waiters
who was just about to come back up the kitchen stairs swears he saw
someone
reach out and give the chef a shove.”

“What?” I said skeptically. “Those waiters couldn’t have seen anything from down there.”

“This one did!” Bootsie insisted. “His name’s Jason. And he’s an engineering student
at Penn, so he’s no dummy. He saw a hand emerge from the kitchen door and give Gianni
a good hard push!

“And,” Bootsie continued, “Jason particularly noticed that the hand that shoved Gianni
was jewelry-­free, and the person wasn’t wearing nail polish. Other than that, he
couldn’t say much. It wasn’t a really big hand, he did notice that. Sort of medium-­size.
Could have been a man’s hand, if the man was on the small side, or a woman’s hand.”

“Where were all the cooks and ­people working in the kitchen? Wouldn’t they have noticed
someone shoving the chef? He was standing right outside the kitchen when he fell . . .
or got pushed,” I said mildly.

“Cigarette break!” Bootsie said. “All four cooks were outside, smoking on Sophie’s
front steps. And that incredibly hot guy who was leaving the party with Jessica, the
one with the muscles? I asked Officer Walt about him. You know who I mean, right?”
Bootsie’s eyes took on a lascivious glow.

I nodded. I remembered. It’s not like there are that many gorgeous twenty-­something
guys with incredible cheekbones, dreamy eyes, and biceps rippling through their T-­shirts
roaming around Bryn Mawr. It’s no Miami or Malibu.

“The guy’s name is Channing. And he doesn’t smoke,” Bootsie told me, “so he wasn’t
out in front with the other cooks.
But
he wasn’t in the kitchen when Gianni got pushed, either.”

Bootsie paused for effect. “
Apparently
, Channing was somewhere else in the front yard, with
Jessica,
while
she
was having a cigarette.”

I wasn’t sure what Bootsie’s emphatic phrasing signified, but I assumed it conveyed
suspicion about what Channing and Jessica had been doing outside. As always, Bootsie
was hinting toward sex or make-­out scenarios that might not have happened. Then again,
the hot muscle-­y guy and Jessica had indeed looked as if they were on intimate terms
when we’d seen them the night before at Sophie’s house.

“But this Jason might have imagined the whole thing about Gianni being pushed,” I
said, getting back to the chef’s fall. “I know ­people hate Chef Gianni, but it seems
pretty reckless for someone to shove him over a railing in the middle of a crowded
party. I think Sophie’s right, and it was a slippery shrimp incident.”

“No way!” shouted Bootsie, grabbing the
Bryn Mawr Gazette
back and waving it at me. “This was a targeted attack on Gianni.”

“I guess so,” I said doubtfully. “You don’t think one of Barclay’s Jersey relatives
could have had anything to do with pushing Gianni, do you?” I added. I couldn’t imagine
why the Newark cousins would have it in for the chef, and no one had mentioned seeing
any unexpected guests at Sophie’s party, but I’d much rather blame professional criminals
for the attack than pin it on someone local.

“Not a chance. Someone would have noticed two goombahs like that wandering around,”
Bootsie speculated. “I think it was Gerda.”

Oh great, I thought, since we were about two seconds away from seeing Gerda. Hopefully
she wouldn’t push one of us down Sophie’s stairs while we were lugging furniture into
the house.

“Besides, the reason that I
know
Gianni was pushed,” Bootsie continued, her blue eyes gleaming with exultation, “is
that Gianni got his own cream-­colored handwritten note like Barclay’s!”

At this moment, we were pulling up to The Striped Awning. There was Sophie, looking
minuscule at the wheel of the Escalade. Gerda was beside her, looking at her watch
pointedly as we drove up. Even though I knew we weren’t late, I felt anxious and guilty.

“You waited till now to tell me there was a note?” I said. Bootsie has an annoying
habit of waiting until a conversation is ending before doling out the pertinent item
of gossip, and this was one of those times. “What exactly did the note to Gianni say?”

“Shh!” Bootsie warned me, putting her finger to her lips, pointing through her open
window to Gerda.

I rolled my eyes. Obviously, I wasn’t going to talk about this in front of Gerda the
Computer Hacker. “I’ll tell you after we pack up,” Bootsie hissed.

We hopped out of the U-­Haul, me bearing extra venti lattes for Gerda and Sophie,
and Waffles bolting from the back and leaping out onto the sidewalk after Bootsie.

“Hi, Sophie, and hi, er, Gerda! I got you a decaf soy latte, Gerda, since Sophie mentioned
you’re vegan. And Sophie, yours is nonfat.”

“My fave!” said Sophie, who was clad in a pink Juicy Couture tracksuit and pink sneakers.
“Gerda won’t mind just this once if I down some caffeine. And you better believe I
need it, after the night we had!”

Gerda’s expression, however, was cloudy as she regarded Sophie sipping her venti drink,
and became even stormier as she glanced down at the giant coffee I had offered her.
“It’s, er, decaf. And soy,” I repeated hopefully.

“Starbucks, very bad. Mass product, sugar, all bad,” Gerda said, waving the drink
away. This really rubbed me the wrong way. I love Starbucks, and it’s a luxury I can’t
afford on my Dunkin’ Donuts budget. “Um, okay,” I said. I didn’t know what to do,
so I walked over a few steps and put the venti cup in the big public trash can on
the corner of Lancaster Avenue.

“Gerda’s such a stickler!” giggled Sophie nervously, looking embarrassed. “Hiya, doggie!”
she added, patting Waffles timidly on his brown head.

“What is this?” said Gerda, gazing down at Waffles, who was panting at her feet, looking
incredibly cute and friendly. His brown eyes and huge ears were irresistible! Even
Gerda would have to admit that.

“This is Waffles, my dog,” I said proudly.

Gerda eyed Waffles critically for a few moments.

“He is fat load,” she pronounced, finally. “This animal needs more exercise. And you
are causing problem by spoiling him with fatty foods.”

The Egg McMuffins we’d eaten over the weekend flashed before me. And then there’d
been the Havarti and crackers we’d shared last night before bed. And the breakfast
sandwich I’d just gotten him from Starbucks. He’d eaten it in about five seconds,
and I’d tossed the wrappers in the U-­Haul office trash can so Bootsie, another health
nut, wouldn’t see it.

“He’s just big-­boned,” I told her, trying to sound neutral, though I was boiling
inside. I guess the truth hurts. Waffles probably could use a few more long walks
and a few less sandwiches. “Well, thank you for helping us move this stuff,” I added,
hoping to defuse the situation.

“Will be easy,” Gerda proclaimed to us. She eyed Bootsie’s tawny, muscled form with
beaming approval, and then turned her gaze to me and my Old Navy flip-­flops ($2.99),
Target dress ($24.99), and lack of bulging biceps (obviously no time or money had
been spent on them). Disappointment spread quickly across her face. What the hell,
I thought, annoyed, as I unlocked the store. First she dissed Waffles, and now she
was dissing me.

“No security system?” Gerda asked disapprovingly as I unlocked the door, and we walked
into the store. “Is bad idea, eh?”

“Oh, it’s very safe around here!” I chirped breezily. “No one’s into crime in Bryn
Mawr. They’re more into tennis and dogs.”

“I think not,” Gerda intoned. “Mr. Shields was nailed pretty good the other night.”

I briefly considered telling Gerda to go screw herself, but I wanted to stay on good
terms with Sophie. Plus Gerda was right about my flimsy old door lock. The security
at The Striped Awning isn’t too impressive.

When we all got inside, I picked up the heaviest box, and almost threw out my back,
so I put it down, and Gerda and Bootsie toted it out. I carried out some newspaper-­wrapped
serving dishes and a small box of silver to the truck, while for her part, Sophie
carried out a pillow, then stood watching and making helpful suggestions while the
three of us did the schlepping.

Thanks to Gerda and Bootsie, we had everything packed into the truck in ten minutes
flat.

“We meet you at house in a few minutes,” said Gerda, as Sophie scrambled into the
driver’s seat of the SUV. I nodded sourly at her, and locked up.

“She’s kind of rude, but she keeps herself in good shape,” said Bootsie, climbing
back into my car after Waffles.

“So when did Gianni get the threatening note? And what did it say?” I asked, easing
out of my parking spot in front of the store and heading for a stop at my house to
drop off Waffles, so as not to subject him to any more of Gerda’s verbal abuse.