Killer Punch (4 page)

 

Chapter 6

“
G
ERDA!
”
SHRIE
KED
S
OPHIE
happily. She jumped up and ran to the bar, where she reached up on her tiny stilettoed tiptoes to hug her friend and erstwhile personal trainer.

“Come over to our table!” she urged Gerda, who shrugged and followed Sophie to where we all sat, trailed by a sous-­chef and the bartender, who was nervously toting the unwanted dishes.

“Listen, lady, we don't like to upset Mr. Shields,” he told Gerda nervously. “Chef Gianni told us when we opened this place last summer that whatever Barclay Shields wants is an automatic yes. I guess they're old friends. Plus the chef seems a little afraid of Mr. Shields,” he added, sotto voce.

“Lot of ­people scared of Barclay.” Gerda nodded, handing back containers of ravioli and tagliatelle. “Luckily, I'm not one of them.” The guy looked uncertain, but reluctantly disappeared through the crowd with the rejected pastas.

“Hi, Gerda,” said Holly with a little wave.

Gerda is one of the more unlikely residents of our town: An Austrian-­born fitness expert, she'd met Sophie and Barclay several years back when the Shieldses were honeymooning in Venice. Distracted by the sight of a Versace boutique, Sophie had almost slipped into a canal, and Gerda had saved her from a foot-­first plunge into the murky depths. They'd exchanged e-­mail addresses and thanked Gerda profusely, then continued on their tour of Italy.

But to the Shieldses' surprise, Gerda had showed up unannounced in Bryn Mawr and moved into their guest room, where she'd remained for two years. After Sophie split from Barclay, a fortuitous health crisis had forced Barclay—­a lover of all things meat—­to hire Gerda as live-­in trainer and nutritionist, since doctors had ordered him to lose thirty percent of his body weight.

Gerda's new job had paved the way for Sophie and Joe to have an actual romance, since there was no way Joe could amorously interact with his girlfriend with Gerda in the same house. Joe's greatest fear, though, was the return of Gerda—­if Barclay ever got svelte enough to ditch her. Luckily, so far, Barclay had apparently kept her on as his personal food police, and none of us had seen her since January—­until now.

Holly and Gerda had struck up an improbable alliance over the winter in Florida, where we'd gotten caught up in a swirl of events including trying to save a historic old schoolhouse that was almost torn down for condos. The erstwhile developer, one Scooter Simmons, had developed a crush on Holly, who'd met him for drinks one night to, well, pump him for information, and Gerda had served as her bodyguard, in case Scooter got too hands-­y with Holly.

“I didn't know ya were coming back to Bryn Mawr!” Sophie said happily. “Come have a drink with us. Or a club soda, if you're still anti-­booze.”

“Okay,” said Gerda. What I think was a smile appeared on her tanned and makeup-­free face. “Got to be real quick, though. Barclay waiting for food, and he get really pissy when he don't get it fast enough.

“I notice though that Barclay in an excellent mood,” Gerda added. “He decide to fly back up from Miami yesterday, and he real happy. You know what that means.”

“It means he's about to screw someone over in a business deal, and make a ton of money!” yelled Sophie.

“Uh-­huh. That's what I think, too.” Gerda nodded. “And I think one of those ­people he about to double-­cross is you, Sophie.”

S
OPHIE F
UMED FOR
a few minutes while Gerda explained that Barclay had been locked in the office of the fortieth-­floor Miami condo he'd rented since January, whispering about a mysterious deal at all hours of the day and night. Luckily, he'd been eating at a pricey steakhouse called The Forge a few times a week, so Gerda had been able to regularly hack into and browse through his e-­mail correspondence at will.

“I think Barclay suspected I was looking at his e-­mail, so he was being careful what he write,” Gerda said. “What I can see is he got money in a few deals in Florida, and one new condo deal over in Vegas. But there's one thing I see a few e-­mails about that's up here in Pennsylvania—­something about a farm. I don't get it, 'cause Barclay don't like to go outside, so there's no way he gonna grow, like, squash and broccoli.

“Anyway, a coupla weeks ago, he put new password on his computer, so I don't know the latest,” Gerda finished.

Vowing that she'd get half of whatever new venture her soon-­to-­be-­ex was cooking up, Sophie jumped up and disappeared on her teetery sandals into to the ladies' room to call her lawyer.

“Did you finally get your driver's license?” Bootsie asked, with her usual lack of tact, while Joe got up and politely pulled over a chair from a neighboring table for Gerda. Joe has excellent manners, even though he'd rather be anywhere else than at dinner with Gerda. I also noticed him gulping down a Xanax that Holly had handed over immediately upon Gerda's arrival.

“I fail driving test down in Miami,” Gerda said grimly. “Barclay was supposed to give me driving lessons, but he too busy with work. Then he had dental surgery and took so many painkillers he couldn't do nothing. I still got no license, but I got Uber waiting outside.”

“Barclay always did have impacted teeth!” said Sophie with evident satisfaction as she returned to the table. “My lawyer didn't pick up,” she added, “but I'm going to his office first thing tomorrow. Barclay isn't going to get away with cheating me out of one more dime in this divorce.”

“I help you, Sophie,” said Gerda, a small smile creasing her dry lips. “Barclay a real jerk lately, so I'm in the mood to make problems for him. I can go through his e-­mail once I figure out his new password.

“Plus that dentist nailed Barclay pretty good. His face swollen for two weeks, and he lose fifteen pounds. Anyway, tomorrow Barclay leaves for a week in Atlantic City for some secret business meetings, so I got plenty of free time coming up.

“Who knows, maybe he don't need me anymore,” announced Gerda. “I could quit my job and move back in with you, Sophie!”

T
HINGS SPI
RALED FOR
Joe after Gerda made this announcement.

Sophie made some noncommittal but positive noises about Gerda staying with her “for a few days, that would be fun!” while giving Joe nervous glances.

“Gerda, I don't think you should leave your job with Barclay,” Holly told the Pilates pro. “But since he's going out of town, I'm going to hire you for the next few days to help me with a party at the country club. You have the perfect personality to deal with Chef Gianni and the Colketts.”

“Sure, I help you out,” agreed Gerda. “I meet you there tomorrow morning at 8 a.m. sharp.”

“Make it ten-­thirty,” Holly told her.

Joe, meanwhile, waved down the waiter for a double vodka, and Bootsie surprised me by getting up to leave when I did.

“Hey, aren't you Gianni's camera guy?” Bootsie said to a cute twenty-­something guy in a navy T-­shirt and jeans who was doing a shot at the bar as we passed it on our way out.

“Yup,” said the guy boozily. “I'm Randy. Gianni insisted I film him going to the ER, which he says will make great TV. I was over at the hospital until half an hour ago. Gianni's gonna be fine, by the way. The deboning knife is really thin, and it landed in a muscle, so it's just a matter of sewing him up. Anyway, Gianni booked me into the Peach Creek Motel out on the highway, which is a total dive. I'd rather sit here and drink.”

As we left, a tiny elderly lady in a black skirt, black blouse, and white apron bid the chatty hostess a rather stern “
Buona notte
,” and headed out the door and to a flight of stairs that presumably led to her apartment, which had been the kitchen and lounge when this building had served as the Bryn Mawr Firehouse.

“So there really is a pasta lady who lives upstairs?” Bootsie asked the hostess.

“There sure is!” the Gap-­clad teen assured her. “She and her cat Bianca are up there, which is kinda creepy. But then I also feel kinda bad for her! She has to deal with Gianni a lot. He even flew her out to Beverly Hills to work at his new place, but she hated it and demanded to come back here. Supposedly she made it into the Food Network show for a few episodes, though, and she gets her name into the title credits.”

As I crossed the parking lot and got into my slightly dented Subaru, I saw the light from a TV flicker on upstairs in the apartment of the charming old building. Was Nonna Claudia lonely, I wondered, or was Bianca enough companionship after a full day of pasta making? Maybe she was one of those single-­minded ­people for whom work was everything. A perfect, pillowy gnocchi or pappardelle might be enough for Nonna Claudia. I sighed. Waffles and I weren't all that different from Claudia and her cat, when I thought about it, although we were still in the same town where we'd always lived, which afforded a certain comfort. How, exactly, had Chef Gianni gotten this lady to leave her home and share her genius for pasta with greater Philly, and did she regret having packed up her rolling pin and pasta machine for leafy Bryn Mawr?

For a moment, I wondered if Claudia might have been the tipster who'd ratted out Gianni to the FDA, but then dismissed the idea. She was probably just what she seemed: a lady whose passion for pasta ruled her existence.

 

Chapter 7

T
HE NEX
T MORNING,
a slight hangover mingled with paint fumes combined to give me a headache that didn't improve with the arrival of Eula Morris, who stopped by at 10 a.m. with three framed still-­lifes of tomatoes that she'd personally painted.

“The Colketts told me these don't work with their vision for the party,” she told me sourly. “Which is ridiculous. I mean, how do tomatoes I depicted in the style of Cezanne
not
convey tomatoes? Anyway, I thought maybe you could sell them here at The Striped Awning.”

The paintings were cute enough, I thought: two larger canvases, and another tiny one about eight inches square, all in antique gilt frames. I told Eula she could leave them on consignment, and she zoomed away in her Miata. Next up was Bootsie, who came at one-­thirty with a delivery of a late lunch.

“Nothing happened at Eula's last night,” she said, handing me chicken salad on toasted white from the luncheonette. “I sat in a tree in her backyard and watched her for forty-­five minutes through her living room window. She misted her tomato plants, put on her pajamas, and watched HGTV for forty-­five minutes. She has a bunch of paintings hanging in her house, but
Heifer in Tomato Patch
wasn't one of them. And she was in her beige dress, not a blood-­spattered polo shirt.”

“That's so creepy of you,” I told Bootsie as I munched half my sandwich and gave the rest to Waffles, who thumped his tail happily as he ate. Bootsie shook her head disapprovingly—­her yellow Labs eat organic kibbles and never enjoy the fatty snacks that Waffles gets, which is why Bootsie's dogs are slim and fit, and Waffles is, well, portly in a dignified and adorable way.

“I mean, you sitting out there in the dark, watching her. That's super-­weird!”

“What—­you don't do that?” Bootsie asked. “Anyway, I'm a reporter! And Walt doesn't have the manpower to do surveillance. I'm helping the community.”

She shrugged. “And, anyway, Eula went into her bedroom to change into her PJs, and she pulled her blinds down. What's the big deal?”

I sighed.

“Anyway, here's our story on Gianni getting stabbed, which will have to hold over the public till Walt lifts the news embargo on the stolen painting,” she added, handing over the
Gazette
. “Obviously, my photos and Gianni story are page one. I texted it into my editor while I was sitting outside on Eula's patio,” she added.

I scanned Bootsie's story—­really, more of a paragraph, since Walt had said he couldn't comment on an open investigation and had no official suspects.

Luckily, Bootsie's editor is accustomed to her random and unsubstantiated theories, and always edits out her personal opinions, so the story about Gianni merely noted that buzz around town suggested that there were plenty of ­people with a grudge against the chef, including employees who complained that the chef forced them to work tons of hours and never honored requests for time off.

“It's hard to find anyone who
wouldn't
want to stab the chef, actually,” mused Bootsie, wadding up her sandwich wrapping and making a neat three-­point shot into my trash can. “It's not just the Colketts who hate him. I mean, he forced one waiter to cancel his honeymoon last year, and when his sous-­chef's wife had twins in April, he had to be back at work the next morning! Plus he has that elderly pasta lady working every single night, although I doubt she stabbed him. Anyway, all his staff admits that Gianni pays well and their tips are great. They make too much money to quit.”-­

I pondered this as I poured paint into a plastic tray. I could only imagine the tips left on the hefty checks that diners were handed at the conclusion of a meal at Gianni's.

“I'd love to moonlight at Gianni's myself and make some extra cash,” I admitted to Bootsie. “But I can't cook, I'd never be able to memorize all the specials, and I'm not good at balancing trays.”

“You don't have the cleavage for it,” Bootsie told me, looking skeptically at my T-­shirt. “Even if you got one of those Bombshell Bras at Victoria's Secret, Gianni would never hire you. Speaking of jobs, though, I saw Leena from the Pack-­N-­Ship over at the luncheonette, and she said you could take on a weekend shift,” Bootsie told me. “I told her how broke you are, and she said she'd pay you seventeen dollars an hour to sort through her backlog of packages.”

“Really?” I said, intrigued. The pay sounded pretty good for a job that couldn't require too much brainpower. If I worked Sunday afternoons, I'd be more than three hundred dollars a month closer to paying off my always-­overdue bills. How hard could it be? Leena's mail counter is only open nine to two on weekdays, so there couldn't be that many boxes stacked in the back room . . . could there?

“Leena said things are a little worse than usual there since she's been focusing on her tomatoes for the past ­couple months. She's entering San Marzanos in the late-­tomato contest next month,” Bootsie told me. “Which reminds me, I need the
Heifer in Tomato Patch
story ready to go as soon as Walt gives the okay,” Bootsie said, whipping her iPhone from the pocket of her flowered pants.

“Shouldn't you be, like, interviewing Mrs. Potts and some art experts if you're working on a front-­page story?” I asked her.

“It's only two. I've got till seven tonight to turn in my story,” Bootsie told me. “I usually only need, like, fifteen minutes. I'm an excellent multitasker.”

“You could ask George about the importance of
Heifer in Tomato Patch
,” I suggested. “He'd be discreet if you told him to keep the theft quiet, and he knows everything about the art world. Maybe he'd even have a theory who took it.”

George Fogle is the local liaison for Sotheby's, and went to high school with us. He spends most of his time in New York City these days, but comes back to town frequently to meet with local clients—­including Holly, who actually buys things like art and “important jewelry.” He's always willing to lend his time and expertise, and even helped my elderly neighbors Hugh and Jimmy Best sell an heirloom ring last spring that turned out to be worth $2.7 million—­which enabled them to fix the heating and the roof on their formerly crumbling house, pay off their tab at the country club, and enjoy a very comfortable old age.

“Great idea! Once George starts talking about a painting, he can't stop—­which is perfect, because I'll just type everything he says, and my story will be done! Boom!” Bootsie said.

“That's it? I thought you were positive it was either Eula or Gianni who took the painting,” I said mildly. “You're going to just let them go about their business today?”

“Of course not,” she told me. “Holly's going to be at the country club all day, and so will the Colketts and, presumably, Gianni, since the stabbing didn't do much damage. Holly texted me that Eula said she has a mysterious errand to run today, and won't be over at the club till late afternoon. Which sounds totally suspicious, and is why I'm leaving here in five minutes to find her and follow her.”

“I don't see why Eula would want to steal Honey's painting,” I told Bootsie, climbing down from my stepladder, moving it slightly to the left and dipping my roller brush into the plastic paint tray. “Eula comes from the kind of family that probably has tons of paintings in gilt frames.”

“That's true,” agreed Bootsie. “But I think Eula's playing a diabolical mind game. She figured Honey would be so devastated by the theft that she'd quit the tomato contest,” said Bootsie. “Eula would do anything to win this Early Girl competition tomorrow.”

“I guess,” I said doubtfully. While Bootsie dialed up George, putting him on speakerphone so she could type copious notes into her phone about the works of Hasley Huntingdon-­Mews, I painted and mused on the fact that Bootsie had decided this year to enter the early-­tomato game herself.

She'd admitted to me after a few beers at the Pub last week that while she'd planted the actual seeds, she'd then turned over the care and nurturing of her tomato plants to her mom, Kitty Delaney, who's an excellent gardener. Bootsie hadn't seen her own tomato plants since April—­but had texted, tweeted, and Instagrammed pics as she'd dropped them off at the country club this morning, since today was the deadline to enter Early Girls in the competition.

Suddenly, George's painting monologue, still emanating from Bootsie's phone's speaker, caught my attention.

“So let me get this straight—­Huntingdon-­Mews is suddenly hot in the art world?” Bootsie said, still taking notes.

“Yup,” George confirmed. “Another of his pastoral scenes,
Ewe in Sunlit Meadow
, sold last month at auction for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. That's an all-­time high for his work, and represents a hundred and fifty percent increase in value over the past ten years.”

Just then, the country club's booziest members, Mr. and Mrs. Bingham, opened the screen door to the shop.

“That old oil painting might be worth three quarters of a million dollars?” Mr. Bingham said, emitting a slightly boozy whistle of admiration at the hefty price tag and adjusting his striped bow tie.

“That kind of money could stock us with white zinfandel for life!” said Mrs. Bingham, looking her usual colorful, cheery self in a coral shift dress, with lipstick to match.

The Binghams, passionate consumers of chilled wine, are a kindly if tipsy pair invariably found eating lunch at the club. I have a soft spot for the Binghams, who smell faintly of soap and mothballs. Mr. Bingham is a retired banker and genial fellow in his late sixties, one of those golf-­tanned gents who seemingly never ages, and is in a perpetual good mood. He and his wife have always been around town, seeming completely happy with their gardening and an occasional nine holes of golf for Mr. B.

Because they drink from about 9 a.m. on, they don't make a ton of sense, but they're a likable pair. Unfortunately, they like to repeat newsy items heard around town, but their retelling is invariably full of errors. By the time they got through with George's
Heifer
info, Honey's painting would have been bought by a Russian billionaire or headed for the Louvre to hang next to the
Mona Lisa
.

“Could be!” said Bootsie, adding fuel to the fire. “Check out my front-­page story tomorrow for details.”

“Speaking of which, there's a
Gazette
story appearing this week in which we play a prominent role,” Mrs. Bingham whispered loudly to us with a little wink. “Stay tuned, because you're going to love it.

“We wanted you to write it,” she added to Bootsie, “but that little Eula was persistent as the dickens. She's a born reporter. Anyway, love the pink paint!”

A
S THE
B
IN
GHAMS
left, Sophie burst through the shop's doors, huge sunglasses obscuring most of her small face, and an uncharacteristically dejected slump to her tiny shoulders. She wore a pink Lilly minidress that looked adorable, but all of her usual jewelry and glitzy sandals were missing, along with her usual upbeat attitude.

“Are you okay, Sophie?” I asked her, concerned. “Did you talk to your lawyer yet?” I asked her as she sat down on a little bench by the front window and patted Waffles tentatively as he wagged up at her.

“Yeah, I just came from his office. I've been there since eight this morning!” she said. “I showed him the papers I got handed last night, and he said Barclay's demands are BS. He's just dragging out the divorce to be a jerk! Which is no surprise! Plus my guy knows a paralegal over at Barclay's attorney's office, and he's pretty sure he can bribe him, because this paralegal is saving up for law school and he needs the cash real bad.

“But it's not Barclay who's ruining my life—­it's Joe!” she added, and erupted into a huge sob and a storm of tears.

Waffles went running for his dog bed, and Bootsie looked distinctly uncomfortable. Her tennis-­playing, vodka-­sipping family doesn't do crying. If they're upset, they swim in a lake in Maine and have an extra ­couple of cocktails.

“I'm sorry,” I told Sophie, putting down my paint roller to sit down with her. “You two will work things out. You really love each other!”

“Ya think?” she said, pushing up her sunglasses as a ray of hope dawned on her tear-­streaked face. “Because I brought up getting engaged again this morning, and he told me that he couldn't talk about it because the fabric came in wrong for the curtains in our new living room, and it was a fuckup of epic proportions.”

“He gets really focused on fabrics!” I told her encouragingly. “That's just how he is. Plus Joe's not a morning person, so maybe you can bring it up again over dinner.”

“I know! I mean, all I said was that we should talk about pear-­shaped versus emerald-­cut engagement rocks, and that I know some guys in Jersey who have incredible discount diamonds, and he grabbed his fabric swatches and took off! Jumped in his car and was gone in, like, 2.3 seconds. It was only seven-­forty-­five in the morning!” Sophie wailed.

“He probably, um, went to the diner for breakfast, and then to the fabric showroom to straighten out the curtain fuckup,” I told her, feeling a wave of sympathy for Sophie—­as well as for Joe, who gulps anxiety meds anytime the subject of marriage comes up. “Plus he told me last night he's dying to go over and critique the tent for the Tomato Party. He gets really jealous when the Colketts are doing any high-­profile jobs,” I added.

“Ya got a point there.” Sophie sniffled, dabbing at her eyes with a Starbucks napkin she'd dug out of her Versace bag. “He's real mad that the Colketts got that job, but like I told him, Mrs. Earle paid him out the wazoo to do her kitchen job in Florida, and she wasn't about to let him out of her sight for the last two weeks.”