Killer WASPs (6 page)

Suddenly, I noticed that Honey Potts had finished her oysters, and was growling good-­bye
to Mariellen and Lilly. She threw down her napkin, rose, and was heading our way,
clearly bent on making her way down the porch steps in front of our table. Luckily,
the grumpy golfers next to us waved Honey down to greet her, so I got up, whispered,
“Bye!” to Holly and Joe, and dashed down the steps, around the corner, and leaped
into my car.

I started up the engine and noticed the time: 6:30 p.m. I had been gone for almost
an hour. When I got back to the store, Waffles gave me an accusing look. I was pretty
sure he knew I was late by the way he yawned disapprovingly, but he jumped in the
car happily enough to head home.

As we passed Sanderson, I noticed yellow police tape was still in place, cordoning
off the area where Barclay had been bushwhacked. I gave Waffles a stern look and informed
him preemptively, “No Sanderson!” as we turned into the driveway. Then, for about
ten seconds, as I parked and unloaded Waffles, I wondered what Mike Woodford was doing.
Maybe he was taking a walk, I mused, or putting the cows away . . .

“Hello, Kristin,” said a gravelly voice from a holly bush in the yard next door, putting
an end to my reverie.

My neighbor Hugh Best popped up from behind the holly, a pair of hedge clippers in
hand, while Waffles, suddenly awake, wagged his tail at him and went over to sniff
Hugh’s hairy ankles. Hugh looks much older than his age, which I believe is in the
mid-­seventies, and for gardening attire wore a tattered striped dress shirt, ancient
khakis cut off just above the knees, brown dress socks, and black sneakers. Thanks
to his precision with pruning shears, his yard looks pretty good, despite the fact
that the white Colonial house he shares with his brother is in just as dire need of
paint and repairs as mine. I’ve known the Bests forever, but I’m not sure of their
financial status—­they could be broke, or have millions and simply have forgotten
to repaint their house and repair their gutters for the past thirty-­five years.

Mr. Best greeted me with a sweet smile and a wave of Old Spice. He’s very unlike his
brother Jimmy, who always smells like Scotch and cigars and is prone to making rude
and lascivious comments. In my mind, I refer to Hugh as the Fussy One, and Jimmy as
the Crabby One.

“Horrible business across the street, no?” the Fussy One said in slightly hushed tones.
I agreed, and said quickly, “Well, I don’t want to interrupt your yard work!” and
then bolted inside, suddenly starving. I threw some soup on the stove and refilled
Waffles’s water bowl, thinking about Mike’s muscular arms and intriguing beard stubble.
Then, in an unsettling flash, I wondered:
Could Mike Woodford have had anything to do with whacking Barclay on the head?
Because if there’s anything that ruins my appreciation of a man’s tanned forearms,
it’s thinking that said arms might have bashed someone’s brains in.

As I did some laundry and folded towels, I decided it couldn’t have been Mike. For
one thing, why would he have helped “find” Barclay under the bush if he’d been the
one to throw him under there? Waffles (whose sniffer usually only works at close range,
like if someone is eating a hamburger right next to him) hadn’t actually nosed Barclay
out, but was merely pulling me in the direction of the developer. Mike could have
easily steered me and Waffles away from the crime scene.

And unless it was some elaborate scheme by Mike to
not
seem guilty by finding Barclay, it just didn’t make sense for him to call the police
about something he’d done himself. And why would Mike go after Barclay? His mind was
on his herd, not on real estate developers. The attacker couldn’t be Mike Woodford,
I was positive. Or very close to one-­hundred-­percent sure.

By this time, it was past eight-­thirty, so Waffles and I climbed into bed and fell
instantly asleep.

Chapter 5

T
HE PHONE RANG
at seven the next morning. Waffles and I both were startled by the early call, and
I cleared my throat, trying not to sound sleepy as I picked up the phone on my bedside
table. It was Saturday, so I didn’t think it was a credit card company calling—­but
then again, maybe they’d started rousting past-­due customers at the crack of dawn.
I hoped it wasn’t the police with new questions about Barclay, or worse, Bootsie with
her own interrogation.

More likely it was Holly, on one of her early-­morning exercise kicks. Her fitness
obsessions are rare, but they erupt semi-­annually, and consist of her forcing me
to go with her to a horrible gym called Booty Camp over by the library, where pudgy
lawyers and doctors and incredibly fit housewives work out at 6 a.m. under the slightly
insane eyes of a tattooed former marine. The women are all in great shape and barely
break a sweat (except for me and Holly, who are drenched and pleading for mercy),
but the accountant types invariably throw up after the four-­mile jog and hundreds
of squats and pushups.

“Is this Kristin? The Striped Awning girl?” bleated a small, nasal voice. “Did I wake
ya up?” Sophie Shields.

“Oh, hi, Mrs. Shields,” I said as brightly as I could, sitting up in bed. Sunlight
was streaming in through my linen curtains, and a breeze was stirring the leaves outside
the open window. “How are you? Gosh, um, how did you get my home number?”

“Gerda got it off the computer,” squeaked Sophie triumphantly. “She’s good at all
that stuff. She can, like, get anyone’s personal information and check all your bank
balances!”
This was not good news.
I pictured Gerda in a darkened corner of Sophie’s house in front of an enormous Mac,
gleefully reading personal e-­mails, studying bank balances, and learning every embarrassing
secret floating around Bryn Mawr.

“She told me it’s good that we bought all your stuff.” Sophie giggled. “She said you’re
kinda broke.”

“I really appreciate it,” I said, feeling resentful that Gerda knew the details of
every bag of dog food and seventy-­five-­percent-­off pair of jeans I’d ever charged.
I was also terrified that Sophie had somehow changed her mind about buying out the
store.
Please, please, please don’t be calling to cancel the sale. . .

“Hey, I wasn’t always as obscenely rich as I am now!” said Sophie, rather kindly.
“Don’t worry about it. The only thing is, I was calling because I can’t take delivery
today on all that crap from your shop. I mean, the antiques. I gotta reschedule it
for Monday.”

“Oh, that’s fine! No problem,” I said, thrilled, jumping out of bed as Waffles hauled
his big stomach off the comforter and started rolling over toward the edge of the
bed. Sometimes he’s too lazy to jump down, so he just rolls off the mattress.

“Yeah, it’s crazy over here today,” Sophie rattled on. She was sucking deafeningly
on something through a straw. “Sorry, I got some fresh-­squeezed orange-­kale juice
here that Gerda made.”

How was anyone so chatty at this time of day? Maybe it was all the Pilates.

“I got a call last night from Eula Morris, the lady who runs the Symphony Women’s
Board.” I knew of Eula, though I’d never actually met her. She was a tiny but mighty
battleship of a woman in her thirties, invariably dressed in swoopy beige dresses
and large necklaces, who was excellent at raising money by fear and intimidation.
“And guess what, there was supposed to be a big party benefitting the symphony tomorrow
at Sanderson, but the police said that the place is still a crime scene because of
Old Fatass”—­I guessed she was referencing her husband—­“getting his head bashed in
there. So they can’t do the event over there.”

“Oh, that’s too bad,” I said, wondering where this was going. I brushed my teeth as
silently as I could, holding the phone away from the brushing noise, since it’s definitely
not good manners to talk through a mouthful of Ultra Brite, even this early.

“And guess what,” said Sophie triumphantly.

I was rinsing out my mouth, so I made a “Hmm?” sound indicating interest.

“I’m gonna have the party here!” Sophie shrieked.

I was shocked. First of all, the Symphony Women’s Board is one of the stuffiest old-­Philadelphia
organizations around, and tends to attract supporters whose average age is about ninety-­seven.
As a whole, the group smells of mothballs and L’Air du Temps, and they wear a lot
of retro gowns not because they’re stylish, like the Holly types who buy vintage Pucci
dresses at overpriced boutiques, but because that’s what’s in their closets. Eula
and her aging supporters only occasionally added younger trustees.

Sophie, with her Joisey accent and precariously high heels, would stand out like a
disco ball in a chintz drawing room amid the Symphony Women’s sea of classic navy
St. John suits. But Eula was no dummy. She must have known that Sophie would be one
of the only ­people around town who’d jump at the chance to host a hundred-­person-­plus
bash on two days’ notice. Plus being associated with the symphony guaranteed you a
story in the
Bryn Mawr Gazette
, which Sophie would love.

I should call Bootsie about Sophie’s shindig, so Bootsie could cover it for the Gazette.

Or maybe I didn’t need to. She had to have heard about the party already.

As if reading my mind, Sophie piped up: “You should come tomorrow night! I’ll put
you down as my guest, since I know ya can’t afford the two-­hundred-­dollar ticket.
And you can bring your friend, the one from the store with the flowered shorts!”

As if I could
stop
Bootsie from coming—­she likes to wave her press pass and barge into events. I headed
downstairs with Waffles, who launched himself downstairs and out the back door with
a clatter. He made a token run at a blue jay on a low branch back by the fence, then
ambled over behind the laurel bush where he likes to conduct his morning affairs.

“Thanks so much,” I told Sophie, feeling embarrassed about being a freeloader at her
party, but not enough to miss out on free champagne and the chance to see Eula Morris
establishing eminent domain over the Shields estate. “I’ll be there.” I scooped ground
coffee into the coffeemaker, poured in water, and pressed on, debating whether I should
ask about how Barclay was doing. Technically, the two were still married. And Sophie
had told us she wanted him alive (purely for financial reasons, true, but still, alive).

But while Sophie rattled on about carved ice swans and an epic shellfish buffet she
was planning for her bash, it started to seem a little cold-­blooded of Sophie to
throw one of the biggest parties of the summer while her husband was in the hospital
with a head injury, but then again, I’ve never been divorced. It unleashes a tsunami
of anger and vindictiveness that’s basically nuclear in most ­people.

Take Holly—­when she split from Howard six months ago and moved out of the condo she
and Howard had lived in downtown, she’d taken all of his custom-­made squash rackets
and gazillion-­dollar golf clubs over the bridge to Jersey, and given them to a YMCA
up in Newark. Then she’d donated his Porsche to the Police Athletic League auction,
sending out a press release gushing about his generosity to all the Philly newspapers.
Howard had been screwed, because what could he do then? He had to pose gamely with
some kids at the Police Athletic League ball field for photos, and suck it up.

“How is your, er, Mr. Shields doing?” I ventured to Sophie, adding half and half to
my coffee.

“He’s gonna be fine,” replied Sophie unenthusiastically. “I’m not going to visit him,
that’s for sure, but I heard from my lawyers that he’s got one of those big head-­wrap
things on and he’s got some stitches and a concussion. But he’ll be okay, which is
good, because we have a meeting with all our lawyers next week, and I need him there
with bells on! He can’t die until this divorce is worked out, because suing him after
he’s dead would be a real bitch.” She made a little harrumph sound.

“Apparently, no one has a clue about who went after him the other night,” Sophie continued.
“Barclay’s lawyers decided to hire a security guard for his room, since obviously
somebody wants him on ice.” She loudly slurped at her juice. “And my lawyers got a
call from Barclay’s legal guys about one other weird thing happened yesterday afternoon.
Two guys showed up at Barclay’s hospital room with a fruit basket the size of a Barcalounger,
and told the guard they were there to visit Barclay. They said they were his cousins!”

“Uh-­huh,” I said politely. “Well, that was nice of them.”

“Not so much!” Sophie said. “Barclay doesn’t have any cousins. No family at all. Both
his parents were only children. It’s a sad story. His mom and dad died in a freak
accident eleven years ago at the wedding of a business associate. A Swarovski chandelier
that weighed half a ton fell on both a them at a catering hall up near Newark! Flattened
them like two chicken cutlets. But at least they died together!”

I wasn’t sure how to respond to this, so I made a sympathetic murmuring noise. Getting
crushed by a homicidal light fixture is something you don’t hear much about in Bryn
Mawr.

“Yeah, Barclay told me that when he was younger and getting started in the construction
biz, he and his parents had relatives out the wazoo. But they weren’t blood relations,
they were all family friends. And business associates in the construction biz. I mean,
everyone was Uncle Something or Other. Uncle Skinny, Uncle No-­Thumbs, Uncle Meatball.
There were a lotta nicknames!”

I was getting a bad feeling about the uncles.

“So, and this is just between you and me, Barclay decided to move away from North
Joisey a few years after his parents’ accident, and start over! He even got a new
name. His real name is Beppe Santino, but he had it legally changed. He had a nickname,
too, which he told me one time when he was wasted on lemon martinis at Joe’s Stone
Crabs in Miami. Barclay used ta be called the Forklift. Beppe ‘the Forklift’ Santino!”

Sophie giggled merrily for a few moments, while I attempted to absorb this information.
The Joe Pesci bar scene from
Goodfellas
was playing in my head, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Maybe Barclay (formerly
Beppe) had just had an exceptionally close business “family,” with a fondness for
nicknames.

“I guess maybe the guys with the fruit basket read in the paper about Barclay’s attack.
Or, as they called him, the Forklift! You get the pun, right?” Sophie asked. “He used
a forklift at work, plus he’s the size of a forklift. And he likes to lift a fork
. . . to his mouth!”

“Oh, I understand,” I said, thinking that maybe the two “cousins” had indeed read
about Barclay, whose beat-­down had made a few local papers in Philly.

Or maybe the two had attacked Barclay themselves on Thursday night, and had come to
the hospital hoping to finish the job.

“So anyway, the party tomorrow. The best part of the whole thing is that Chef Gianni
is the caterer for the party! It’s the ultimate screw-­you to Barclay!” finished Sophie
happily. “My ex hates the symphony, but even more, he hates Chef Gianni!”

Eula must have known this, I realized. She was almost as plugged in as Bootsie, and
no doubt knew all the details of Sophie’s divorce and of the feud between Gianni and
Barclay. Sophie wouldn’t be able to resist hosting the party, which was guaranteed
to enrage her husband.

“I got the Colketts coming today to work on the landscaping. They said for the right
money, they can install a whole new garden by tomorrow afternoon and get, like, some
great trees for the pool area. And I’m pretty sure Barclay’s going to be stuck in
the hospital at least through the weekend. I don’t want him coming over here during
my party. But he probably won’t—­he’s afraid of Gerda.” Sophie’s Pilates instructor
did seem a little scary.

“Speaking of Gerda, I have Pilates now and I gotta choke down the rest of this juice,
so I better run,” chirped Sophie. “Anyway, see you tomorrow! Party starts at five.
I’ll be the one in Versace!”