Killer WASPs (19 page)

Sometimes it’s good to have Bootsie take over. Her plans don’t always make sense,
and they often backfire, but at least she always has an idea.

“In the meantime, we just have to hope the chef’s not at the restaurant,” said Bootsie.
“We need Jessica alone, and willing to blab.”

We tracked down Joe at Sophie’s house, where he had effected a breakthrough of sorts:
He’d finally convinced Sophie to go with a tasteful shade of biscuit in her main rooms,
and the painters were priming the walls, so he agreed to take a break. Bootsie swung
by the shop, and she and I then zoomed over to Sophie’s to get Joe. He leaped into
the backseat of her Range Rover, with Sophie hot on his heels. Joe slammed the car
door behind him, but Sophie, today clad in hot-­pink spandex leggings and a minuscule
pink sports bra, rapped on the car window, which Joe glumly rolled down.

“Hi, Beebee and Kristin!” Sophie said. “Can you bring Joe back ASAP? We got a lotta
work to do here. Plus Gerda’s on the warpath. She’s got a major bug up her butt, and
I don’t want to be stuck here with her all by myself.”

“It’s true,” confirmed Joe. “Gerda thinks someone’s been fiddling around with the
lock to her office, trying to infiltrate her computer. She’s completely paranoid.”

Bootsie and I exchanged glances. “She’s nuts!” said Bootsie, who happens to be an
excellent liar.

“Sometimes she really drives me crazy!” said Sophie, nodding. “But anyway, Joe said
you have important business and that it might help figure out who clobbered my ex.
Trust me, I want whoever did it found—­so I can thank them personally!” She giggled
for a second. “But seriously,” she added, “I know some ­people might even think
I
had something to do with it.”

“Oh no,” we all said at once, in a rush of words.

“No one thinks that!” added Bootsie, in a patently false tone.

“Well, I didn’t,” said Sophie sourly, her mouth smooshed into a sad little moue. “I
don’t believe in violence. I believe in big divorce settlements!” She giggled again.
“Well, anyway, great to see you, girls. Come over for some champagne when the house
is done!”

Joe hit the up button on the window quickly as Bootsie two-­wheeled it out of Sophie’s
place, and I filled Joe in on what the Colketts had told me about the chef and Jessica.

“Unbelievable,” Joe said. “But, yeah, I could totally see the chef attacking Barclay.”

“And somehow the chef got Channing and Jessica to help him! Probably, anyway,” said
Bootsie.

“Did you get any more info about the Colketts’ relationship? Brothers, married ­couple,
cousins?” asked Joe.

I shook my head regretfully. “Nope. I’m starting to think the Colketts’ status is
one of life’s mysteries, like Stonehenge,” I told him. “I’m not even sure I want to
know.”

Bootsie steered us into the gravel driveway at Gianni, and we all trooped inside to
look for Jessica. A hostess stood at her station up front, organizing the menus for
the lunch crowd and adjusting her glossy dark hair.

“Is Gianni here?” I asked her, sotto voce, hoping against hope that he wasn’t.

“Chef Gianni’s at physical therapy for his broken ankle,” said the hostess nonchalantly.
“He has it for two hours a day for the next four months. And boy, is he pissed about
it.” She snickered to herself at that, proving again that the chef was not a beloved
boss. It seems that threatening your busboys and regularly excoriating the staff as
hopeless losers doesn’t do a lot for employee morale.

“And
Jessssicaaa
, is she here?” Bootsie hissed in a loud whisper.

“Outside,” said the hostess, looking bored and pointing to the patio.

Jessica was sitting at one of the small outdoor tables, sketching what appeared to
be a furniture layout for a residential client, in the shade of a big sycamore tree.
She had on jeans and sandals, and no makeup. Actually, she looked even prettier than
usual without her usual Manolos and glossy façade of makeup. She had a slight tan,
and, something I’d never realized before, a few adorable freckles on her elegant nose.
She greeted Joe in a friendly manner, and was amiable enough to me and Bootsie when
he introduced us.

“We heard something that we wanted to ask you about, Jessica,” said Joe hesitantly.
“It’s kind of awkward—­but did you know the chef was missing for something like thirty
minutes during the opening party last week? Friends of ours noticed he was gone, and
they tried to find him all over the restaurant, but then they noticed his Fiat wasn’t
parked behind the restaurant.”

Jessica sat up straighter and looked at us, but appeared unconcerned. “You know what,
I didn’t know he left the party,” she admitted. “But I had to go run an errand myself
that night, so I didn’t really keep track of Gianni after the first fifteen minutes
or so of the party.”

“An
errand
?” asked Joe, pulling up a chair and sitting down at Jessica’s table. “What kind of
errand are we talking about?”

Jessica, a girl not easily fazed, turned pink, and a small, goofy smile came over
her face.

“Were you off schtupping that hot guy Channing that night?” blurted out Bootsie. “Because
we heard you were both missing during the party, and that you had grass in your hair
after you got back!”

There was a moment of shocked silence as we all stared at Bootsie, and then at Jessica.

“Um-­hmm,” Jessica confirmed. “You know what, I’m not gonna lie to you. I
was
with Channing that night.”

“I knew it!” cried Bootsie. She and I both sat down at Jessica’s table, too.

“We’ve been having a fling for about a month now,” said Jessica proudly, after looking
around to make sure none of the restaurant staff was listening in. “It started out
as just a one-­night thing, but during the opening party, somehow I found myself back
in the kitchen, sneaking out the back door with Channing. There was something about
that night—­I guess it was the vodka, and the crowd, and the warm weather—­that just
put me in the mood!”

“Where’d you go?” Joe asked. “Did you do it in your car?”

“No, we took Channing’s truck over to the fields at Sanderson and did it behind a
haystack,” confided Jessica. It seemed that once Jessica started talking about sleeping
with Channing, she couldn’t stop. She’d been bottling it up for weeks, and now the
floodgates had opened.

“Channing is the best sex of my life!” she told us breathlessly. “I’m not usually
the outdoorsy type, but since Channing used to work at Sanderson and loves trees and
cows and all that crap, I’m trying to get more interested in, you know, nature.”

“What time did you go?” Bootsie asked Jessica. “You never realized the chef was gone?”

“We left right around eight,” said Jessica. “I checked the time, because I knew we
couldn’t be gone more than half an hour, or Gianni might realize we were both missing.
And we were back here by eight-­thirty—­maybe a few minutes earlier, even.”

“You went all the way over to Sanderson, did it, and got back here in less than thirty
minutes?” I said, impressed.

“What do you think?” said Jessica, gesturing with her thin, tanned hand toward the
firehouse-­turned-­restaurant behind her, where Channing had just appeared from a
side door.

We all looked over. Channing was picking up a case of wine from a liquor truck that
had just pulled up to carry it inside. He had on a white T-­shirt, jeans, and a day’s
growth of beard over his male-­model jaw. His muscles rippled in the sunshine, and
he sizzled a grin our way.

“Yeah, that works,” said Bootsie. “Drive over, find a spot behind some hay bales,
boom, then drive back. It might not even take me half an hour!”

“Why does this even matter?” asked Jessica, frowning a little in the sun. She shielded
her eyes as she looked over at us. “I mean, I know it wasn’t very nice to cheat with
Channing behind Gianni’s back. But all Gianni does is work, and then go home and watch
the Food Network. He’s obsessed with getting his own show by the time he turns forty.”
She paused. I noticed Joe’s eyes widen at this piece of information. Joe’s ambition
is to get a design show on TV, but he only admits this after he’s had a lot of tequila.

“I promised myself I’d tell Gianni about Channing as soon as the restaurant was up
and running, but then the timing was bad after he fell and injured himself. I’m
going
to break up with Gianni, though.” Jessica looked distinctly nervous as she said this,
and we all imagined the apocalyptic tantrum that her news would unleash.

“Well, I might not tell Gianni about Channing right away,” Jessica amended, “but I
am going to end it with him. I did have feelings for Gianni when we first got together,
but I just can’t take his temper anymore. Plus all I can think about is Channing.”

The beefcake that is Channing reappeared from the side door to heft more pinot noir
into the restaurant. Jessica smiled girlishly and shrugged.

“Did you notice whether Gianni’s car was here when you and Channing left to go, uh,
get your freak on the night of the opening?” Joe asked Jessica.

“I never looked,” she said. “Gianni parks that stupid red Fiat right in front of the
restaurant so everyone can see it, but, honestly, Channing and I took off so fast
that night that I never even noticed Gianni’s car. I guess it could have been gone.”
Jessica paused, and stared at us curiously.

“Why are you asking about Gianni? Do you think Gianni was
stalking
us that night?” she said breathlessly. “Does he know about me and Channing?”

“That’s not what we’re worried about,” Joe reassured her. As we all got up to leave,
he turned back thoughtfully toward her. “Jessica, considering the chef’s temper, maybe
you should wait a few more days to break up with him. Just till the end of the week,
okay?”

“You don’t have to spell it out for me,” said Jessica, who seemed to be in the mood
to let out a Hoover Dam’s worth of information. “In fact, and I’m only telling you
this because I’m planning on getting the hell out of town ASAP, ­people don’t even
know Gianni’s real story! He tells everyone he came here from some fancy town in Tuscany
just a few years ago, but that’s bullshit. He originally came over to the U.S. from
the not-­so-­scenic part of Sicily, and his first restaurant was a pizza parlor in
Newark!”

“You mean, like actual greasy, cheesy, comes-­delivered-­in-­a-­box pizza?” said Bootsie.

“Oh yeah,” Jessica said. “We’re talking sixteen-­inch sausage-­and-­pepperoni pies
served on Formica countertops. Gianni knew Barclay Shields then, too! That’s when
their feud started. Barclay was named Beppe when they were back in Newark, and he
had a stake in Gianni’s first pizzeria. When Gianni decided to reinvent himself, he
had to pay off a bunch of guys in Jersey before he could launch Palazzo. Some of the
guys were upset that Gianni got a fancy new life.”

She paused for a minute, looking frightened. “Barclay and Gianni really do hate each
other. Barclay was always threatening to tell all the rich ­people on the Main Line
about Gianni’s real background, and vice versa.”

“I’d keep this to yourself,” Joe advised Jessica. “This sounds like dangerous information
to share with anyone else.”

“Okay,” agreed Jessica, looking relieved. She was obviously petrified.

And honestly, I couldn’t have agreed more. Maybe Gianni had whacked the giant Barclay
to shut him up about Gianni’s pizza-­tossing past. I didn’t even want to imagine what
he could do to Jessica with a chef’s knife and a meat mallet. She could end up as
veal piccata, too.

“S
O, DO YOU
believe her?” asked Bootsie, once we were back in the car.

“Absolutely,” I said.

“Of course,” said Joe. “It makes perfect sense. I can picture Gianni as mafia pizza
guy. And he’d definitely want to keep his past quiet. But whether he was the one who
hit Barclay, I don’t know.”

“Maybe
Jessica
’s lying, and she really was with Gianni that night, helping him attack Barclay instead
of getting boned by Channing,” suggested Bootsie.

We all thought about this for a second as Bootsie steered back toward Sophie’s. Then
we burst out laughing at the thought of Jessica messing up her Manolos if there wasn’t
an orgasm in the offing.

“Yeah, never mind,” said Bootsie. “I guess we know the answer to that.”

“But one thing doesn’t add up,” I mused aloud, after Joe had climbed out at Sophie’s
and Bootsie had turned back toward town. “If the chef whacked Sophie’s husband, why
did the chef also get one of the warning notes, just like Barclay? And, why would
he fall off Sophie’s balcony on purpose—­since we know Barclay couldn’t have been
the one to push him?”

“To divert suspicion away from himself!” said Bootsie confidently. “Gianni decided
to stage the whole thing, and left himself a fake note! A little tumble would be worth
it to Gianni, if it meant he could get away with almost-­murder. I have a sense for
these things.”

I refrained from pointing out that only an hour ago, Bootsie had been certain that
Sophie had a hand in the attack, and had also repeatedly named Gerda as her go-­to
suspect. I also didn’t mention that even during high school, Bootsie’s so-­called
sixth sense has always been one-­hundred-­percent faulty. She was always wrongly predicting
things like snow days, pop quizzes, and what time someone’s parents would come home
from dinner at the club, which resulted in things like all of us being caught mid–tequila
shot at age sixteen, getting grounded, and failing chemistry.

“I’m going to drop by and talk to Officer Walt right now,” Bootsie told me. “I’m pretty
sure this will sew up the case!”

Ten minutes after I got back to The Striped Awning, my phone rang. “I can’t talk long,”
Joe told me, “but Holly needs you to stay over at her house tonight. I didn’t want
to say anything in front of Bootsie, but you’ve been neglecting Holly.”

What! There was no way I was doing that. I’d been out late last night, and up at dawn
for Bootsie’s horrible tennis drills, then dealt with Jimmy Best, the Colketts, and
Jessica . . .