Killer WASPs (18 page)

“Okay,” I agreed doubtfully. I wasn’t sure this was good advice, but I was running
so hard to return Bootsie’s slams that I couldn’t focus on anything else at the moment.
“I really don’t think we’re ever going to go out again, though,” I told her.

The sun had barely been up for an hour, but it seemed to be beating down on me as
if we lived in the sub-­Sahara. What with the heat and a slight wine hangover, I felt
like Ralph Fiennes wandering the desert in
The
English Patient
.

“I called Walt last night to talk over a few things about last Thursday,” said Bootsie,
who wasn’t even breathing hard.

“They haven’t totally ruled out Mike Woodford, by the way, as the guy who hit Barclay.
Did he seem dangerous to you?”

“In what sense?” I asked, trying in vain to serve, and instead sending a ball into
the net.

“In the sense of someone who would hit Barclay Shields on the head!” said Bootsie,
exasperated.

“Definitely not,” I told her, with more conviction than I actually felt. I mean, what
did I really know about Mike other than that he had great arms and was an excellent
kisser?

“Well, he’s one of many on the list, because they haven’t narrowed down the suspects
much at all,” conceded Bootsie.

True to form, my aim and ball control were dreadful, so much so that at one point
Waffles, after dodging a ball I lobbed dangerously close to his head, whimpered and
disappeared under a nice cool azalea bush with just the end of his white tail sticking
out.

Thankfully, the lesson ended at eight-­thirty. Bootsie had to admit that I was nearly
hopeless, but we made another date for tennis the following week.

“How about some orange juice, girls?” shrieked Kitty, Bootsie’s mom, from her perch
on the porch, flagging us down as we headed toward our cars. “Or something stronger?”
she said, holding up a bottle of Bloody Mary mix.

“Gosh, that’s so nice of you, I have to get to the store!” I said, grabbing Waffles’s
leash from the bench and picking up his portable water bowl. He emerged, wagging,
from under the bush and trotted after me as I dashed toward the car.

“Did you enjoy your dinner last night with that handsome man, dear?” Kitty shouted
loudly enough to be heard in Trenton, forty miles away.

“It was very nice,” I told her. “Thank you!” I slammed my car door shut, but Bootsie
tapped on my window and leaned in.

“Sorry about Mummy,” Bootsie whispered. Then she added, with all seriousness, “Sometimes
she can be a little nosy.”

A
T HOME,
I showered, gulped some cold water, put on a pair of linen shorts and wedge sandals,
picked up the cardboard box I’d brought back from Jimmy’s rooms at the club, grabbed
the Bests’ cocktail ring from my bedside table, and lugged it all over to their house.
When I rang his doorbell, Hugh gratefully accepted the large box with the fish forks
and other old bric-­a-­brac. “I know you promised Jimmy not to tell me where he is,”
he said. “But do you think he’ll come back tonight?”

“I’m guessing more like tomorrow or Friday,” I told him.

I also handed Hugh his mother’s ring, which I’d put safely back in its black leather
box, but he encouraged me to keep it for a few days. “Wear it around for a bit,” he
told me. “Lord knows, my brother and I haven’t even looked at it in years. It’ll be
nice to see it out and about again. Mother used to wear it to all the parties at the
club.”

“Are you sure?” I said. The ring looked just as good this morning as it had the night
before, well-­aged but still glittery and fabulous. I’d have to show it to Holly,
who would love it.

“Absolutely,” said Hugh. He hesitated. “Tell Jimmy I miss him.”

Chapter 17

I
L
EFT
H
UGH,
headed toward town, and parked under my favorite shady tree at the club, where I planned
to do a quick check on Jimmy.

I entered the building by the grand, double-­wide front door, where I intended to
turn left and dash up the stairs unseen. Golfers and tennis players were visible outside,
but the club doesn’t serve food until eleven-­thirty and the building is usually empty
except for a few housekeeping staff midmorning. I saw no one, but was surprised to
hear a testy exchange coming from the dining room; I could hear, but not see, the
two ­people speaking. Realizing with a slight chill that I recognized the voices,
I stopped in the foyer, seized by an irresistible urge to eavesdrop.

“It’s too risky,” said a male voice. “If he finds out that we noticed he was missing,
he’ll spiral-­slice us like a honey-­baked ham.”

“I don’t think we’re in danger—­that is, if you will just shut the fuck up!” said
a second man’s voice, rising in anger.

“It’s even riskier to stay quiet,” the first voice retorted. “We can’t just hope this
all goes away. ­People are getting seriously hurt. Who knows where this is heading?”

I was certain that the voices belonged to the Colketts. But what and who, exactly,
were they discussing? I desperately wanted to know—­but more than that, I wanted to
sneak upstairs before they saw me. It was one thing to theorize with Bootsie about
the spate of local crimes, but this conversation had a far more serious, and scary
tone. On tiptoe, I turned toward the locker rooms, but a floorboard squeaked and betrayed
me.

“Who’s there?” called out Tom Colkett nervously, poking his head around the doorway
and looking relieved when he saw me. “Oh, hi, doll!” he said, beckoning me toward
him. “Great to see you. Come say hello!” The florists had set up shop with huge buckets
of lilies, roses, and ranunculus, which they were plucking out and skillfully arranging
in the club’s collection of Chinese vases.

“We’re doing the flowers here now,” Tim Colkett informed me of the obvious, an apron
protecting his well-­tailored khakis and polo shirt. “Holly set it up. Love all this
paneling and portraits and the old Philly vibe, don’t you? And these ladies who lunch
in their vintage Lilly Pulitzer.”

“It’s definitely old world.” I nodded, admiring a profusion of roses they’d just placed
on a console table in the hallway. I also noticed a pitcher of Bloody Marys on a silver
tray next to the flowers, and two half-­full glasses next to it. I guess the Colketts
adhere to the same early cocktail schedule as the Binghams and Mrs. Delaney, who,
predictably, has a needlepoint pillow embroidered with the words “It’s five o’clock
somewhere!” in her living room.

The Colketts looked as uncomfortable as I did, so I turned to leave. I’d overheard
enough to know that the Colketts were involved with something unpleasant and potentially
dangerous.

“Well, I should go!” I said, aiming for a breezy tone. “I just was stopping in for
a quick second. Better get to the store!”

“Want a drink, Kristin?” asked Tom Colkett, who seemed as eager to project nonchalance
as I was. “We always find a quick Bloody in the morning gets our creative juices flowing.
You can imagine how many cocktails we need now that we’re working for Sophie Shields,
too. She’s got more statues than the Parthenon. ” He groaned, and I mustered a sympathetic
expression.

“Oh, no, thanks,” I told him as he held up the pitcher of drinks and tinkled the ice
cubes in it in my direction. “I was at Gianni last night and had a few glasses of
wine, but thanks so much. Well, good luck with the flowers!”

I was about to make a break for the door when I turned, and surprising myself, said,
“I couldn’t help overhearing you guys a few minutes ago. Do you know something about
the chef being pushed down the stairs, or have information about Barclay Shields?
Because if you do, you should go talk to Officer Walt. The situation could be pretty
dangerous.” I wasn’t sure where my sudden burst of courage had come from, but I was
worried about the Colketts. Whether they’d done something illegal themselves, or had
witnessed a crime, it would be better for them to own up to it before anything more
happened.

The Colketts exchanged glances. And then Tim Colkett wiped his hands on his white
apron, and spoke up.

“Listen, Kristin, this isn’t easy. We’re completely baffled about who we can talk
to, and we’re honestly scared to tell what we know. But you’re right, it might be
worse
not
to say anything.”

“I think the police are your best bet,” I said. And then, against my better judgment,
“But what is it that you know?”

Tim gestured silently toward the door to the lounge, and the three of us walked into
the empty room and closed the door behind us. I seated myself on the leather Chesterfield
sofa and the Colketts perched on either side of me.

“We sort of lied to you when you asked us about the chef and Barclay when we ran into
you at the flea market,” said Tim regretfully. “Sorry about that. The truth is that,
as you know, Barclay was attacked on the same night of the restaurant opening, and
of course, we were recovering from that incident over the topiaries. After I got hit
with the pomegranate that night, we abandoned the flowers and snuck outside to the
patio to have a ­couple of cocktails while the party got into full swing.”

“Needless to say, we’ll never work with pomegranates again,” added Tom.

“So, while we were hiding from the chef on the patio, we came up with a plan where
we could give the chef a big discount on his flowers, and we’d halve the cost of the
topiaries if he’d put our ‘Flowers by Colkett’ insignia somewhere prominent on his
menu. It would be tasteful, of course, a small and elegant logo, maybe right under
the Gianni logo. And we’d probably get a ton of new customers from being associated
with the hottest restaurant in town.

“Well, at about eight, with the party in full swing, we got up the courage to go talk
to the chef about it. We figured by then he’d be in a great mood, with everyone raving
about his new place. I mean, all the major socialites in town were there,” said Tim.
“So we searched the entire restaurant for Gianni, and we couldn’t find him.

“So then we looked for Jessica to talk to her about our idea. But”—­Tim paused for
effect—­“neither Gianni nor Jessica was there.”

“What do you mean?” I asked. “Of course they were there. I saw them.”

“Not after eight-­fifteen you didn’t,” Tim said definitively. “Because, trust me,
we cased the restaurant. No chef, no Jessica.”

Tom, who clearly wanted Tim to shut up, wore a dismayed expression. “Kristin doesn’t
want to hear this,” he told Tim. “You’re going to get us
into trouble
.”

I tried to make sense of what Tim had said about the missing restaurateur and his
girlfriend.

“Maybe you just couldn’t find Gianni and Jessica,” I suggested. “It’s a big restaurant,
and between the kitchen and the dining room, they could have been anywhere. I mean,
why would Gianni leave his own opening party?”

“Listen, we know it’s weird,” insisted Tim urgently. “But we hunted for Gianni for
at least half an hour, and we looked
everywhere
. Jessica gave us a full tour during construction when we first met with Jessica to
discuss flowers. We literally cased the joint—­went through the wine cellar, the restaurant,
the kitchen, patio, and the office upstairs. They weren’t there.”

“Other than the guests and all the waiters, the only staff we could find were a bunch
of guys in the kitchen who didn’t know where the chef was,” added Tom, who had evidently
decided to jettison his fears and join in the conversation.

“Those kitchen guys are incredibly efficient,” said Tim. “They were in there searing
baby lamb chops like nobody’s business, because ­people were eating them as fast as
they could get those hors d’oeuvres out on the platters. But the sous-­chef Channing,
the one with the muscles—­
he
was missing, too.”

“Also, the chef’s car was gone,” Tom told me. “The Fiat had been parked front and
center outside the restaurant, but it wasn’t there when we looked outside.”

I thought back to the night of Gianni’s event. Come to think of it, I hadn’t seen
much of the chef after the first hour or so of the opening party. If his car had been
gone, he must have left the restaurant during the period that the Colketts were describing.

Which was around the time that Barclay Shields was getting his head bashed in.

So Chef Gianni, a certified rageaholic—­one who hated Barclay Shields, because Barclay
had built him a house so shoddy that it made Barbie’s Dreamhouse look like fine craftsmanship—­was
not at his own soiree during Barclay’s head-­bashing.

“We finally sat down at the bar at about eight-­thirty, got Bellinis, and then we
noticed Jessica and Channing were back. Channing was carrying more lobster out to
the dining room, while Jessica was on the patio, smoking,” said Tim. “We went out
to talk to her, and then we saw that the chef’s red Fiat was back, too. You know the
car. You can’t miss it. Bright red convertible, license plate reads GR8CHEF.”

“Tacky,” pointed out Tom.

“Jessica, by the way, looked a little, well,
rumpled
,” Tim told me, sipping his Bloody Mary and waggling his eyebrows suggestively. “Plus
she had a big smile on her face, and you know she never smiles. And I thought I saw
grass
in her hair. I asked her if she knew where the chef was, and she said she had no
idea.

“A minute later, we spied the chef back in the crowd of customers, mingling and looking
positively cheerful,” Tim continued. “He acted like nothing was wrong, he didn’t have
a care in the world.

“And then the next day, we read about Barclay Shields getting his nut cracked, and,
well, what are we supposed to do?” Tim’s face registered fear, consternation, and
tipsiness.

“Maybe the chef needed more, um, crème fraîche or something, and ran to the gourmet
store in Haverford?” I hazarded. “And brought Jessica and Channing with him.”

The Colketts rolled their eyes. “Come on, Kristin, you have to admit that it’s beyond
weird that the chef was missing while Barclay was getting attacked. Anyone on his
kitchen staff could have gone to the store if he needed something. Maybe Jessica and
Channing were in on the Barclay attack with the chef! The three of them could have
put Barclay Shields under the bush where you found him.”

While I could easily envision the chef attacking Barclay, and maybe even picture Channing
helping if he had some motive, I struggled to picture Jessica helping drag Barclay
Shields across the fields of Sanderson in heels with her cigarette dangling elegantly
from her fingers. Didn’t really compute—­the only thing I could imagine Jessica dragging
was on a Marlboro Light. But the Colketts needed to tell the police what they knew,
that much was clear.

“I really think you should call Officer Walt,” I told them. “This sounds pretty important.”

Tom Colkett shook his head. “We’re florists, not crime busters, doll,” he said firmly.
“We’re not going to risk getting in trouble with the chef and losing customers over
this. Customers don’t like scandal, and if we’re talking to the police, then that
puts us right in the middle of a public mess. Plus, if Gianni’s going around trying
to kill ­people, we could end up as veal piccata.”

“Did you notice anything the night that the chef fell over the railing at Sophie’s?”
I asked them. “Because he’s convinced he was pushed. Was anyone near him around the
time of his fall?” Other than you two, I thought to myself, remembering how quickly
they had appeared at the top of the stairs after Gianni’s tumble.

“We didn’t see anything!” Tim insisted.

Tom nodded. “It’s true. We were out front downing a quick vodka, and had just come
back into the house when we heard all the ruckus, and then saw him flying off that
balcony. We didn’t see anyone else in the kitchen, so he must have just slipped.”

“Anyway, we’d better get back to work,” said Tim. “But please be careful about who
you mention this to—­we’re honestly scared.” The two gathered up their drinks, and
headed back out to work their flower magic. I followed, wondering whether their story
was invented to throw suspicion away from themselves, and onto the chef, Channing,
and Jessica. Then again, the more I knew of the Colketts, the less I thought they
were involved in any of the attacks. I also doubted they would have appeared on the
landing if they had pushed the chef off Sophie’s terrace. More likely, they wouldn’t
have shown their faces anywhere near the crime scene. I sighed, and made a left into
the hallway.

“By the way, Kristin,” said Tim, gazing at my borrowed bauble, “great ring! Love that
mega-­rock!”

I
FOUND
J
IMMY
midway through the Philadelphia newspapers and watching a tennis match from the window
seat, drinking coffee in his bathrobe. Again, the jazz was playing and the A.C. blowing,
and he looked like he didn’t have a care in the world. The remains of a breakfast
sandwich sat on the coffee table, along with a lit cigar in a silver ashtray. Jimmy
greeted me in a matter-­of-­fact manner, and informed me pleasantly enough that there
was no fucking way he was going home. So I drove to The Striped Awning and called
Bootsie.

“T
HIS IS GOING
to require a surprise attack,” Bootsie said when I reached her at the newspaper and
gave her the short version of the Colketts’ confounding tale. “We need to go talk
to Jessica right now, and see if she knows whether the chef had anything to do with
Barclay’s attack. I’m going to call Joe, too. He’s friendly with Jessica, so he can
come with us and convince her to spill the details. And after we talk to Jessica,
I’m going to call Louis, Barclay’s lawyer . . .”