Killer WASPs (21 page)

“Why don’t you give her some money and send her back to Austria?” suggested Joe. “Isn’t
there some problem with her green card that Barclay threatened her with?”

“I can’t do that to her!” said Sophie. “She did save my life. Plus Barclay can’t stand
her, so she helps keep him away from the house. She’s always nagging at him about
being overweight. And, over the last year before he moved out, she kept telling him
he was ruining the environment with all his housing developments.”

The three of us exchanged glances. Given that Barclay’s warning note had mentioned
similar sentiments,
could
Gerda have been the one who’d gone after Barclay? Sure, earlier in the day, we’d
all thought Chef Gianni was the new prime suspect, but now it seemed Gerda was back
in the running.

If Gerda was that enraged about Barclay’s environmental crimes, plus his threat to
report her to immigration, maybe Gerda had snuck over to Sanderson last Thursday night
and waited for him to arrive. Obviously, Gerda’d have had no problem hoisting Barclay
and dragging him into the bushes. She could probably bench-­press him, if need be.

Maybe Barclay had been lured to Sanderson by
Gerda
—­as Bootsie had suggested all along.

Or possibly Sophie was just playing dumb . . . and had paid Gerda to attack Barclay?
Sophie could have promised to share some of the seven million big ones from Barclay’s
life insurance with Gerda. Gerda could then buy her own basement bunker somewhere.

“Sophie, are you sure you get nothing if Barclay dies before the divorce papers are
signed?” I asked tentatively. “Isn’t there, uh, insurance or something in place?”

“I’m pretty sure my lawyer tried to work that out, but got stonewalled by Barclay,”
Sophie said, looking disappointed. “Although sometimes I can’t understand what the
hell my lawyer’s talking about, but I’m almost positive I don’t get any money from
Barclay until our divorce is done. Which better be soon, because I really don’t think
I can go back into the cement business. Cinnaminson is nice and all, but it’s not
like Bryn Mawr with all these big trees and farms around here.”

Joe and I exchanged glances. It was impossible to figure out if Sophie was as clueless
as she seemed. With millions at stake, could she really not know her financial situation
vis-­à-­vis her divorce?

“Of course, Gerda says the United States is even worse than Europe these days when
it comes to ruining the environment!” added Sophie. “She keeps talking about the importance
of land and about ­people needing open space. Bores the crap outta me!”

“Oh, great,” said Joe wryly. “An Austrian dictator who’s looking for more open space.
It’s 1939 all over again.”

“What?” asked Sophie, looking at us blankly. “What happened in Austria in 1939?”

A
FTER
J
OE HAD
given Sophie a basic account of Hitler’s atrocities and a fundamental explanation
of World War II, she looked upset. “I didn’t listen much in high school. I never knew
all that. That’s terrible,” she said. “But Gerda isn’t that bad. She’s just weird
about things like meat and forests. I don’t think she’s pure evil.”

Just then, my cell phone rang: Bootsie. Normally, I wouldn’t pick up a Bootsie call
at eight at night, because her calls tend to be lengthy and very tiring, but since
Sophie showed no sign of leaving, it seemed a good time to answer. “Hi, Bootsie,”
I said, excusing myself and going into the kitchen to put Waffles’s plate in the dishwasher.
“What’s up?” I asked, wiping a stray strand of linguine off Holly’s perfect white
marble kitchen floor.

“Gerda’s up,” Bootsie told me, hollering into the phone over a lot of noise in the
background. “Up and on the bar at the Bryn Mawr Pub. Will and I just ran over to get
a quick burger, since the boys are at my mom’s for the night. And the first thing
we saw when we came in was Gerda. She was chugging beer and doing shots of schnapps
with the guys from the firehouse. She’s completely bombed and just ordered a bucket
of wings.”

“I thought she didn’t drink!” I said, shocked. “Or eat meat.”

“Well, she’s drinking now,” Bootsie informed me. “Do you know how to get in touch
with Sophie? She should probably come pick up Gerda. This isn’t going in a good direction.”

Over the din of the pub—­the clatter of glasses clinking, voices chatting, Neil Diamond
on the sound system—­I head a deafening thud over my cell phone, the distinctive thump
of a body making contact with sticky, beer-­splashed tile. All bar chatter ceased
for a moment.

“That wasn’t . . .” I couldn’t bring myself to finish the sentence.

“Yup, that was Gerda,” Bootsie confirmed.

“Sophie’s here,” I told her. “I’ll send her over.” I hung up and went back into the
living room.

“Gerda’s on a bender,” I told Sophie, Joe, and Holly. “It sounds like she’s going
to need a ride home.”

T
EN MINUTES LATER,
we all piled out of the Escalade and into the pub, where at first glance things looked
relatively normal for a bar on a Wednesday night: beer flowing, Van Morrison blasting,
Phillies game on the flat-­screen TV. Bootsie and Will were waiting for us in the
front booth.

“She’s back there,” Bootsie said, pointing to Gerda, who was laid atop a pool table
near the back of the bar, an empty shot glass clutched in her hand. A ­couple of men
in Bryn Mawr Fire Department T-­shirts stood next to her looking concerned.

“Sorry,” said one. “She looked like she could handle her booze. She said she took
a cab here, so we figured she wouldn’t have to worry about driving home.”

“I’m pissed off at Gerda for being such a hypocrite about booze, but I feel kinda
guilty!” squeaked Sophie. “Maybe she’s been working too hard.” She rushed back toward
Gerda’s supine form.

Three firefighters rolled Gerda’s spandex-­clad form onto a giant wooden Heineken
sign borrowed from the pub’s back room.

“She’s just drunk,” one of the firemen told us. “No harm done. We’ll load her into
your car.”

Most of the bar was staring by now, and not just at Gerda. We didn’t exactly fit in
with the casual, jeans-­wearing crowd. Sophie was in her purple outfit and teetery,
sparkly sandals, Joe was in seersucker, and Holly was still in her Pucci jumpsuit.

Then it got worse. Just as the firefighters passed through the bar, bearing Gerda’s
supine form, Mike Woodford came into the pub. He actually held the door for the Gerda
cortege, then for Holly, Sophie, and Joe, and then for Bootsie and Will, who went
outside to help pack Gerda into the back of the Lincoln. Then he looked at me and
raised one eyebrow.

“Don’t ask,” I told him, and left the bar.

“I
’M TAKING THE
day off from Booty Camp,” Holly announced, as Waffles and I emerged from her guest
room the next morning. The dog and I spent the night nestled comfortably on linen
sheets hand-­embroidered by cloistered nuns. Whatever they’d cost had been worth it,
and I could tell Waffles felt the same by the look of pure joy on his soulful, goofy
dog face. “Getting Gerda out of the car last night and into Sophie’s house was a workout
in itself!” Holly said.

I refrained from pointing out that Holly had done nothing more than open the car door
to assist in removing Gerda from the Navigator the night before. I could smell coffee
brewing, and it was a beautiful morning, with Holly’s outdoor living room once again
open for business. I was just heading outside with Waffles, hoping to find a private
hedge behind which he could do what he needed to do when the doorbell rang. Martha
opened the front door, and a courier stood there with a giant package wrapped in brown
paper, a white silk bow tied around it. It was roughly four feet by six feet in size.
Martha signed for the delivery, the courier left, and Holly looked at the slip.

“It’s from
Howard
,” Holly said bitterly, as she tore away the paper to reveal a painting sheathed in
bubble wrap. Even through the plastic bubbles, we could all see that the contents
were amazing: It was a huge white canvas, with a bold black swatch of paint swooping
over, the black paint forming a sort of giant, abstract wing. I’d studied one very
similar to this in college. In fact, was this—­could it be?—­

“Is that an
Ellsworth Kelly
?” I asked.

“Probably,” said Holly disinterestedly. “Howard knows he’s my favorite painter, and
he thinks expensive gifts will make everything okay. But they don’t!”

I refrained from pointing out that most of her relationship with Howard had been predicated
on the belief that expensive gifts
did
fix all problems.

“Holly, Howard really seems like he wants to patch things up,” I told her. “Why don’t
you two sit down without lawyers and try to figure things out? I know he still loves
you. Don’t you miss him?”

Holly shrugged, unceremoniously shoved the Ellsworth Kelly into a corner, and headed
for her patio, stepping over Waffles—­who’d done the bathroom thing outside, returned,
and fallen asleep in a sunbeam near the dining room table. Then she noticed the Bests’
ring, which I was still wearing on my right hand.

“Where did you get
that
?” asked Holly, grabbing my hand and looking at the ornate ring with a practiced eye.
“How did I miss that last night?”

“There was a lot going on,” I told her.

Frankly, though I’d wondered the same thing. When at the top of her game, Holly would
have spotted the ring the second I’d walked in the door. “My neighbors, the Bests,
lent it to me. It’s their mother’s old cocktail ring,” I told her and Joe, who’d appeared
from his room and was now toting a coffee mug.

“It’s totally Jackie Kennedy, the Onassis years!” raved Holly, looking more like her
old self as she plopped down outside on a huge white upholstered chaise. “It’s
so
J. Lo meets the Queen of England meets Elizabeth Taylor.”

“I know,” I agreed. “But the Bests had it appraised, and it’s not worth anything,
apparently.”

“Those geezers?” scoffed Holly. “They don’t know anything about jewelry. I’m calling
George,” she said, and poured herself a glass of water.

Waffles and I followed Holly outside, and I sat back in a comfortable lounge chair,
admiring the spectacular setting as an occasional puffy cloud floated by. The rain
of the previous evening had left the grass and flowers looking particularly buoyant.
A magnificent yellow butterfly floated by on its way to the rosebushes, followed by
a robust, furry bumblebee. It’s amazing what money can do. Even the bugs at Holly’s
house are well-­groomed and attractive. Gosh, I could lie here all day.

My reverie was broken when Holly told me to hold my hand against the white cushions
on the lounge chair, so she could snap a quick photo of the Bests’ ring with her iPhone
to e-­mail to George.

George Fogle is a friend of ours who after high school moved to New York to attend
Columbia University. There, he fell in love with a girl named Danielle, then a chef
and now an entrepreneur who owns several cool bistros around Manhattan. George, in
the meantime, got a master’s degree in art history at Yale, and became an appraiser
at Sotheby’s in New York. He also has the sometimes thankless job of working half
the week here in Bryn Mawr as the local Sotheby’s liaison.

Basically, that means George keeps in touch with Philly’s wealthiest families, who
might be in the market to sell, say, a Thomas Eakins painting they inherited from
Granny if they find their trust funds dangerously depleted. He’s also in charge of
meeting and greeting newly moneyed ­people like Sophie and Barclay Shields. New money
often decides to start collecting the expensive and beautiful things Sotheby’s sells
at auction—­say, fine English furniture, or twentieth-­century abstract art. (Somehow
this didn’t seem likely with Sophie, but you never know.) The best-­case scenario
for George is someone who gets addicted to buying at auction—­like Holly did for a
two-­month stint the year before she married Howard, until her father called her one
day from the chicken plant, and told her that her allowance was on hold until she
stopped buying twenty-­seven-­thousand-­dollar French console tables.

So nowadays George spends two days week in Bryn Mawr, and the rest of his time in
Manhattan, which is less than two hours away by train or via the Jersey Turnpike.
Handsome in a slightly goofy way, with reddish hair and a dusting of preppy freckles,
he’s an all-­around good guy who sometimes stops into The Striped Awning when he’s
in town to say hi and look around, because, as he says, you never know when I might
have a piece that’s actually “worth something.” So far, that hasn’t been the case,
but it’s always nice to see him.

“George?” sang Holly into her cell phone a minute later. “You need to get together
with Kristin ASAP. She has a ring on that deserves its own reality series on Bravo.
I just sent you a picture of it. It belongs to those Jurassic neighbors of hers, the
Bests, and it’s the size of your eyeball!”

Holly’s voice was temporarily drowned out by the sound of an engine gunning into her
driveway.

“George, hold on a second, someone’s just pulling up,” said Holly, peering from her
sofa over the rose hedge.

“Chef Gianni,” she announced. “He’s here to talk about the menu for a party I’ve decided
to throw in honor of myself and my new house.”

“
Chef Gianni?
” I said, getting up and taking a peek. It was indeed the chef unfolding himself from
the Fiat, bitching loudly in a combination of English and Italian about his heavy
cast as he climbed out of the car. Jessica, who apparently had heeded the advice to
hold off on dumping the chef, patiently held his crutch, rearranged her hair, and
lit a Marlboro Ultra Light all in the same motion as she waited for him to get into
limping position.

“
Bastardo!
” said the chef, addressing his crutch angrily.