Killer WASPs (23 page)

“Yesterday, we found the weapon that was used to hit Barclay,” he told us. “We borrowed
a new police dog from Philly to take over to Sanderson in the afternoon. Jared has
a dog—­well, his family has a dog—­and he and the dog had gone through Sanderson looking
for clues last weekend, but hadn’t had any luck. So we finally brought in a professional
sniffer, a German shepherd.”

Waffles, hearing the word “dog,” wagged his tail. He knows that word.

“
Your
dog inspected Sanderson for clues?” Joe asked the teenage intern, giving him a skeptical
look. “Is the dog trained for that?”

“Not exactly,” Jared said. “But usually he has, like, a great nose! He can find a
sandwich from a mile away. I’m not shitting you!”

This was really kind of sad. Bryn Mawr, a wealthy and historic town, used household
pets to conduct crime scene investigations. But then again, you wouldn’t expect the
Bryn Mawr police to have much in the way of a K–9 force.

“What kind of dog is it?” Joe asked.

“It’s a, uh, Labradoodle,” admitted Jared.

Joe and I broke out in laughter, and Jared and Walt looked uncomfortable. Even Waffles
would be better than that, I thought.

“Yeah, well, I know,” said Walt with a sheepish smile. “So anyway, this German shepherd
from the city came out yesterday after the Labradoodle didn’t find anything. Right
before the rainstorm yesterday, the police dog found the weapon. It had traces of
dried blood on it. We’re testing to see if it’s Barclay’s, but we’re pretty sure this
is what the attacker used.”

“What was the weapon?” Joe asked.

“It’s a bookend,” said Walt. “Shaped like an acorn. Has an inscription on it, it was
given to a graduate of Bryn Mawr Prep.”

Chapter 18

I
BLINKED, MY
stomach churning with surprise.

“I have bookends like that at my store,” I told Walt. “I just bought three of them
last Saturday at Stoltzfus’s, the flea market out in Lancaster County.
After
Barclay was attacked,” I added hastily. “Just so you know, I didn’t hit Barclay. I
didn’t even have the bookends last Thursday.”

“That’s okay. I don’t think you did it,” said Walt. “There are a lot of these acorn
bookends floating around town, since a lot of ­people received them as graduation
gifts over the years. In fact, I’m headed over to Bryn Mawr Prep right after I leave
here, to figure out how many of the things were given out, and to which graduating
classes.”

Walt told us that his best guess was that older Prep alumni hadn’t necessarily held
on to their bookends. ­People who’d retired to condos in Florida, or moved into smaller
town houses after their children left home, could have donated them to the thrift
shop over at the hospital or sold them at garage sales. It wasn’t out of the question
that Gerda or Sophie Shields, or the Colketts, could have gotten hold of one of the
acorns.

But Honey Potts, a proud Bryn Mawr Prep alumna, had definitely gotten a pair of acorn
bookends at graduation. Honey had freely admitted this when Walt had stopped by her
house yesterday to tell her about the police dog finding the acorn in her field. Honey
had, in fact, invited Walt into her library to show him her own pair of bookends.

But when they walked into the paneled room, the acorns weren’t there in their usual
place on the bookshelf.

“Mrs. Potts looked genuinely shocked that they were missing,” Walt told us. “And I
tend to believe her.” He added that Honey said she’d cleaned out a bunch of stuff
in her house the previous spring. She said she’d boxed up some items and put them
in the attic at Sanderson, and gave others away to relatives and friends. “She couldn’t
remember whether the acorns had been donated or given away as part of her cleanout,
or if she’d stashed them upstairs.”

By this time, Holly had come out to the driveway, listening breathlessly to the description
of the weapon used to attack Barclay.

“Mrs. Potts was going to look in her attic last night to see if she can find the bookends,”
Walt said. “So I have to get over there today, too. First, though, I have to tape
off your driveway and your patio, Holly,” Walt finished.

“Crime scene tape?” said Holly happily. “That’s fantastic! Everyone’s going to doubly
want to come to party next week if there’s crime scene tape here. You can come, too,
Walt. You too, Jared.”

“Okay, thanks, great,” said Walt, looking happy about the invitation as he unfurled
his yellow tape, the one good thing going on for him in his life at the moment. Jared
looked dumbstruck.

“The detectives from the city should be here in a few minutes,” Walt added.

“Perfect!” Holly sang out. “I’m picturing Daniel Craig and Hugh Jackman as the detectives.
And I’ve decided I’m going to help you, Walt,” she added. “I’m going to become Honey’s
new best friend. Even if she didn’t hit him herself, she must know
something
about what happened to Barclay Shields; I mean, it happened at her house. And I’m
going to find out everything Honey knows.”

At this, Walt and Jared looked doubtfully at Holly, who didn’t inspire a ton of confidence,
to be honest. She didn’t look like she could pull off a Miss Marple–style investigation.
Currently attired in four-­inch heels and a caftan, airily applying lip gloss, Holly
looked more like she was headed to the beach in Mustique than a woman on a crime-­solving
mission.

I pictured Honey’s makeup-­less face, her loafers, and her leathery hide developed
from years spent in the fields with her beloved cows, and then tried to imagine Holly
and Honey as a seriously miscast Cagney and Lacey.

No one else looked convinced, but I knew that Holly could befriend Honey in no time.
Underneath her Gucci façade, Holly’s very determined.

“As soon as the detectives interview me, I’m off to Neiman Marcus,” Holly said, screwing
on the cap of her lip gloss. “I can’t become Honey’s new best friend without the right
outfit.”

I
T WAS 11:15
a.m. when Jared dropped me and Waffles off at The Striped Awning—­not all that late
to be opening up the shop, considering that we’d already witnessed a shooting this
morning. I unlocked, turned on the lights, and booted up my computer, first checking
on the acorn bookends, which were just as I’d left them. All three of them sat there,
looking benign. Not at all like attempted-­murder weapons, really. I picked each one
up again, feeling their considerable heft, and read the inscription: “From this acorn
grows a mighty oak.”

More like “From this acorn, a mighty head injury is inflicted,” I thought to myself.

It seemed frivolous after such a scary event that morning, but as I checked my e-­mail,
I couldn’t help wondering whether John would call me. He’d probably already reconciled
with Lilly the Beautiful Tennis Player, I thought morosely. My own tennis lesson the
day before seemed like it had happened a million years ago.

The rest of the morning was uneventful, and George arrived looking spiffy in a blue
blazer over a Lacoste shirt after Waffles and I had shared a bagel with cream cheese
for lunch. We chatted briefly about the chef getting shot, since George had listened
to the incident over Holly’s cell phone, and then got right down to business over
the Bests’ ring.

I carefully removed the bauble from my right ring finger, and laid it in its velvet-­lined
black leather box, which I handed across my desk to George. He donned a pair of glasses
and carefully picked up the piece of jewelry. He was quiet for a few minutes as he
turned it around and examined it from all angles, then looked at the little crown
insignia in the box’s lid. Then he quietly and gingerly put the ring back in its little
slot in the velvet, where it glittered elegantly in the light from the store’s front
windows.

“Let me get this straight,” George said finally. “Your neighbors inherited this very
beautiful piece of jewelry from their mother, and they don’t know where she got it.
And it’s been sitting in that tumbledown house next to yours for the last five decades.”

“That’s pretty much it,” I agreed.

“And you’ve been wearing it around town for the past few days, including this morning,
when you were at Holly’s and Chef Gianni got shot.”

“Yup.”

“So you’ve had the ring on while doing errands, walking the dog, cleaning the store,
picking up dog doo,” he asked in a neutral tone.

I nodded. If I wasn’t mistaken, I was beginning to sense a hint of negativity. “Is
that wrong?” I asked, trying not to sound defensive. “I could put it in the store
safe.”

“
You
have a
safe
?” said George, his voice cracking.

He looked dubiously at the store’s front door, which, as noted by Gerda, is flimsy
and ancient. Then he glanced at the tall front windows, which I sometimes forget to
close before I leave. “And where is this ‘safe’?” he asked, making air quotes with
his fingers as he said it.

“It’s in the back room!” I told him. “Hidden away, behind the cleaning supplies.”

He sighed.

“Am I correct in guessing that the safe is a vintage item?”

“It’s an older safe, yes,” I conceded. I could tell that George was mentally cataloging
the ease of a thief breaking into the store, grabbing the safe, and hightailing it
out the door lugging the old metal strongbox. It’s true that the safe isn’t too big,
and doesn’t weigh all that much, maybe forty pounds. Since some of the window locks
in The Striped Awning are missing (I keep meaning to replace those), and the deadbolts
date back to about 1928, I guess someone could bust in overnight if they put their
mind to it. I mean, if Bootsie can break into liquor cabinets and basement bunkers,
who knows what kind of ­people might be out looking to burgle my store? Then again,
The Striped Awning doesn’t usually have much worth stealing in it.

Meanwhile, George had gotten up, walked over to the front door, and was inspecting
the lock in a supercilious manner (which was uncalled for, if you ask me).

“George, that ring’s been sitting in the Bests’ house for decades, and no one’s tried
to steal it,” I told him airily.

“Well, the Bests haven’t been going around town wearing it, now, have they?” George
asked. “Kristin, I think it might be better if I take the ring out of the store. And
I don’t think you should be wearing it around town without some kind of insurance.”

That seemed like a good idea. George could take it back to his new, state-­of-­the-­art
safe at the Sotheby’s offices over in Haverford, or straight to New York. If anything
happened to the ring, I’d feel terrible, even if it wasn’t worth more than the few
hundred dollars that the Bests believed its value to be.

“Do you want to take it back to your office?” I asked hopefully.

“I can hold the ring for a few hours in the safe at the office in Haverford,” George
said, “but I’d need the owners’ signature to take it to New York. Can you get your
neighbors to sign a form that releases the item to Sotheby’s until we can have an
expert look it over and figure out what’s what?”

“Sure,” I told him. “I can get the brothers to sign it today, I’m almost positive.
Probably by early evening.”

“Great. You get the old guys to sign the release, and I’ll meet you at the club at
six,” George said, opening his briefcase, carefully placing the ring in its black
leather box inside it, and snapping the case shut. “I’ll take this right over to my
office.”

That’d work. I could close the shop at five, take Waffles home, get Hugh’s signature,
then get Jimmy to sign the Sotheby’s consignment document as well.

That is, if both brothers were willing to let George take the ring to New York. I
couldn’t see why not. It hadn’t been doing them any good moldering away in their house,
and they had nothing to lose.

“I’m glad you and Holly didn’t get hurt today when Chef Gianni got shot,” said George,
getting up to leave, then turning around with a serious expression on his handsome
face. He added, “Be careful. Lot of weird stuff happening around here. Bryn Mawr’s
starting to make New York look quiet and uneventful. This town’s full of nut jobs,
but who around here is nuts enough to try to kill someone in broad daylight?”

“N
UTS?” ASKED
J
IMMY
Best, handing me a bowl of tired-­looking peanuts up in his third-­floor club apartment.
George wanted to head back to New York tonight, and I had only a few minutes to get
Jimmy to sign the release and hand it off to George. As expected, Hugh Best had been
pleased to hear of Sotheby’s interest in his family jewels (so to speak), and had
already signed the document.

Also, just as important, I needed to convince Jimmy to go home, because the club staff
was about to evict him. I hadn’t quite figured out how to pry Jimmy out of his secret
hideaway, but I was thinking of going with a blunt approach.

I sighed as I gazed into the little dish of nuts. All the cashews and almonds had
been picked out. Why bother?

I had been dashing toward the club’s staircase with the Sotheby’s papers in my purse
when I bumped into Ronnie on my way upstairs. Usually, Ronnie’s perfectly groomed,
but today his eyes were bleary, his shoulders slumped, and his white shirt was rumpled.
He looked like a man beaten down by life as he carried a rack of wineglasses down
the hallway from the kitchen, headed outdoors to where a ­couple of staffers were
setting up an outside bar by the tennis courts.

“Kristin!” Ronnie said. “Wait a second, please.”

The tennis courts were packed on this sunny late afternoon. There was a tournament
going on, which meant that John was probably out there somewhere, I thought with a
little thrill. I couldn’t see his lean form anywhere on the first four courts, closest
to the porch. But wasn’t that Mariellen Merriwether’s ramrod-­straight back I noticed
on a bench outside Court 3? I could see pearls gleaming around the woman’s perfectly
groomed neck, so it had to be her. I’d done a mental shiver and refocused on Ronnie.

“Are you headed up to see the old man?” Ronnie had asked, pausing to balance the rack
of glasses on the banister of the club’s grand front stairs, jerking his thumb in
the direction of the third floor. I nodded.

Ronnie, normally so solid and upbeat, reached out and grasped my elbow, with a glazed
look in his brown eyes.

“Kristin, please—­Jimmy’s gotta go,” he had whispered desperately. “He’s driving us
crazy. The constant calls down to the bar. The snacks. The late-­night bowling and
the ass pinching. Not my ass, the waitresses,” he clarified. “Plus the members are
starting to ask questions about weird noises coming from the third floor. I think
he sings along to the radio after the Scotch kicks in.”

“I’ll do my best to get him out,” I’d promised Ronnie.

“If he doesn’t leave willingly tomorrow, we’re throwing him out.”

Now that I was up in Jimmy’s apartment, I understood why Ronnie was at his breaking
point: Things were deteriorating quickly. The apartment had taken on a distinctively
depressing scent of stale smoke and Scotch. It was cocktail hour and Jimmy was still
in his bathrobe, the bed was unmade, and his lunch tray hadn’t been picked up yet.
Clearly, the staff wasn’t being quite as attentive on day four of Jimmy’s stay as
they’d been initially, and Jimmy’s cute-­old-­man gimmick was wearing thin.

Jimmy himself didn’t seem all that thrilled to be here anymore, either, to be honest.
He wore the slightly manic, overtired look of a kid who’s been sent to stay with fun,
rule-­free relatives while his parents are off in Europe—­a kid who can’t wait to
get home to boring old Mom and Dad after a week of staying up too late watching TV
and eating candy for dinner.