Killer WASPs (25 page)

Chapter 20

T
HE NEXT MORNING,
feeling upbeat after my impromptu date with John, I parked in back of The Striped
Awning. When Waffles and I got inside and turned on the lights, I noticed the familiar
form of Bootsie looming at the front door, waiting to chat, her tanned face flushed
pink with excitement.

Not this again, I thought. My first guess was that she’d somehow learned I’d been
at John’s condo the night before. Given the breadth of Bootsie’s network, she probably
had at least one friend or relative living in John’s rental complex, and who might
have spied me entering the grounds, or even seen us kissing on his back patio. I steeled
myself for an interrogation.

Truly, not all that much had happened between John and me the night before; I’d only
stayed for dinner. We were still just in making-­out mode. Even though he’d said he
was one-­hundred-­percent not going work things out with Lilly, I wanted to be careful.
What if he decided that having cocktails with his mother-­in-­law (and her horse)
most nights wasn’t all that bad, after all, and moved back in with Lilly? You never
know with men.

“Update from Walt,” Bootsie said breathlessly, after I unlocked the door, sat down
at my desk, and turned on my computer.

Phew, I thought, realizing she was back in crime-­fighting mode, and wasn’t focused
on my dating life. She took her customary seat in the in front of my desk, and tried
to wave away Waffles, who was in his customary position of amiably licking her ankles.

“The acorn was definitely the weapon used to hit Barclay. The blood on it matches.
Also, the chef is on bed rest for a few days, but he’s home already. The bullet just
grazed his foot, thanks to the cast,” she informed me.

“The real news is that Channing doesn’t have much of an alibi for yesterday morning
when the chef was shot. He went to the gym at eight, and then left a little before
nine, got a coffee from the Starbucks drive-­through, and headed to work. He got to
the restaurant fifteen minutes later, and you know the gym and Starbucks are less
than five minutes away from Holly’s. So he definitely could have swung into Holly’s
driveway, shot the chef, and then gone to work.” Bootsie paused to take a breath and
frowned. “Still, though, he just doesn’t seem guilty to me. Why would Channing risk
going to prison when he’s busy having lots of inappropriate sex with Jessica?”

I nodded in agreement. Their hot affair had to be preferable to a stint at Graterford.

“Sophie and Gerda are still in the running as suspects, because they don’t have much
of an alibi for yesterday morning—­only each other. If they have access to guns, they
could have definitely done the shooting.”

“I can’t figure Sophie out,” I said, shaking my head. “It doesn’t seem possible that
she could be as dumb as she seems, but then again, it seems more implausible that
she’s secretly smart.”

“I agree,” Bootsie said. “I’m starting to think Sophie’s just what she seems to be.
So I’m ruling her out, at least for now. Also, she has a motive against Barclay, but
none that we know of for shooting Gianni.”

“Great,” I told her. “I like Sophie, at least when she’s not talking about her and
Barclay’s sex life.”

“Walt’s pretty sure it wasn’t Honey Potts who took the shot at the chef yesterday,
but he can’t completely clear her yet,” Bootsie told me as I made a quick trip to
the back room for my favorite Swiffer, some paper towels, and a bottle of Windex,
and started to spruce up the store in hopes of foot traffic. I was listening to Bootsie,
but also thinking that I really need to get customers in again, since Sophie’s windfall
won’t last forever. Maybe I could go ahead with my mojito happy hour, or I could serve
hors d’oeuvres on Friday afternoons at the store to lure in buyers, I thought hopefully.

“What do you think about me offering wine and cheese on Fridays here at the store?”
I asked Bootsie.

“Kristin, focus!” she said impatiently. “This is important. As I was saying, the chef
was shot at 9 a.m. yesterday. Or a few minutes before nine, since you and Holly didn’t
note the exact time.” She shot me an accusatory glance.

“A shot was fired six feet from us,” I told her. “It was distracting.”

“Honey’s alibi is a little shaky, too. She had a 9 a.m. tee time at the club yesterday,
where she was meeting Mariellen Merriwether,” Bootsie continued. “The caddies said
they’re pretty sure that Honey picked up a golf cart right around nine, and they saw
her and Mariellen teeing off not long after. Of course, those caddies are always stoned,
so they have no concept of time.”

“They get stoned that early?” I asked, surprised.

“They’re college guys who just got home on summer break,” Bootsie told me. “Anyway,
I’m
sure
Honey isn’t involved in the shooting”—­her tone implied that Bootsie was actually
thinking there was a big chance Honey was involved—­“but there’s one other thing I
got out of Walt: They sent the bullet they pried out of the chef down to a lab in
Philly, and it was fired from an old pistol that dates back to the 1930s or 1940s,
and the bullet was also from that era.

“And here’s the interesting part: Honey admits that there are old guns stored at Sanderson,”
Bootsie continued. “Her father used to host foxhunts at Sanderson, and they had quite
a few weapons, including shotguns and pistols. They kept hounds, served sherry, played
bugles, the whole bit. And the guns are still there, stored in the barn!”

Mike Woodford flashed into my mind when Bootsie mentioned the Sanderson barn. I’d
been positive that he wasn’t involved with any of the crimes, but he did
work
in the barn. The barn with the guns.

But I dismissed the thought of Mike shooting Gianni as unlikely—­for one thing, I
was pretty sure he didn’t know where Holly lived, and possibly didn’t even know who
she was. And how would Mike know the chef was going to be at Holly’s?

Plus I’d tried and failed to think of a reason why he would want to go after Barclay
or Chef Gianni. Of course, if the guns were sitting around the barn, Channing would
have seen them, too, when he worked at Sanderson. Maybe Channing
had
borrowed a gun from Sanderson to mow down the chef?

“Honey used to foxhunt, too, back in the sixties, before ­people gave up hunting around
here!” Bootsie finished. “She’s said to be a crack shot!”

We looked at each other, both of us thinking: That did make Honey sound guilty.

“Anyway, I do think you should have wine and cheese here on Friday afternoons,” Bootsie
told me, gathering up her stuff to leave. “I’ll come. And if there’s free food, you
might even get Barclay as a regular customer, once he gets sprung from the hospital,
which I hear is going to be very soon.” I was about to remind Bootsie about Barclay’s
attitude toward antiques when I noticed a petite figure had just entered the store.

“Barclay
is
out of the hospital!” the customer squeaked. “Has been since yesterday morning!”

It was Sophie, of course, who’d just parked her Escalade illegally in front of the
fire hydrant outside, and swung into The Striped Awning in a yellow silk top, miniskirt,
and strappy sandals. With her blond hair and the yellow outfit, she reminded one of
a very tiny stick of butter. I got hold of Waffles’s collar, since he had a frisky
look in his brown eyes that foretold tackling Sophie again.

“You gals might think it was Honey Potts who shot the chef,” Sophie shrieked, “but
I know it wasn’t. It was Barclay!”

“Barclay got out yesterday morning?” asked Bootsie excitedly, sitting back down in
her chair. “I have a great source at the hospital, and she didn’t say a word. What
time was he checked out?”

“Early. Like eight!” said Sophie. She whipped off a pair of enormous sunglasses that
made her face look even smaller than usual. Underneath them, she was as well-­groomed
as ever, her blond hair perfectly blown out, full makeup and manicure in place, but
she also had a slightly wild-­eyed look this morning. “So he could have totally driven
over to get a gun at his condo, and then gone to Holly’s place to shoot the chef by
nine!

“Barclay didn’t actually get formally released,” Sophie added. “He just ripped out
his tubes and left, so the hospital tried to keep it quiet till this morning, but
his doctor called me looking for him! And don’t worry, I already called that Officer
Walt guy to tell him that Barclay’s out and about,” she informed us.

“Does Barclay have a gun?” I asked her.

“You bet he does!” Sophie shrieked. “He has a bunch of ’em!”

“Does he have any old guns?” asked Bootsie.

“I don’t know what-­all he has,” stormed Sophie with a toss of her head, “since he
has so many. But he usually won’t buy anything old, so I doubt he has an antique gun.
Guns are like flat-­screen TVs if you’re from Jersey—­everybody wants the newest and
biggest. And by the way,” Sophie added, “Barclay stopped by last night to tell me
he wants
me
to move out of the house, so that
he
can move back in. The house Joe and I are redecorating. Can you believe that?”

“Are you going to move out?” Bootsie asked her.

Sophie stomped her foot. “No fucking way! I just turned a guest room into a shoe room.
I got storage in there for two hundred seventy-­five pairs, and we got ’em organized
by designer and heel height. I just hope Barclay did shoot Gianni. I asked him about
it when he came over last night, but he just laughed, and said Gianni got what he
deserved.”

Bootsie and I looked at each other again and shrugged. There seemed to be little chance
that Barclay, fresh out of Bryn Mawr Hospital, would have been able to track Gianni
down at Holly’s house, but who knew?

“What’s up with Barclay’s angioplasty?” asked Bootsie.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care! We’re getting the divorce agreement hammered out
next week, if he doesn’t have a heart attack by then,” said Sophie triumphantly. “I
think whoever’s trying to whack him should just wait it out. He’s one cheesesteak
away from the grave!”

T
HE REST OF
the day at the store was blissfully uneventful, other than three phone calls. The
first was from Hugh Best, who reported that Jimmy had safely returned home. I could
hear music in the background and the tinkle of ice cubes into glass, and Hugh sounded
very upbeat.

I could only imagine the rejoicing and general celebration going on in the kitchen
and staff lounge at the club, the hallelujahs chorusing from the waiters and bartenders
now that Jimmy was gone.

The next call was from George, who told me that he’d delivered the brothers’ ring
to a specialist at Sotheby’s Upper East Side offices in New York.

George said that the woman was immediately able to identify its elegantly tattered
black leather and velvet box as vintage Garrard (which, he told me, is Britain’s crown
jeweler). If the ring box was original, then the jewel was by Garrard—­this remained
to be verified, George said, but his colleague, a brilliant French woman in her forties,
was locked in her office with her reference books, her computer, a jeweler’s loupe,
and the ring, doing a ridiculously thorough job of researching the provenance of the
bauble. If it was Garrard, he told me, it definitely had value, much more than a few
hundred dollars.

Honestly, I was impressed. Even if it sold for as much as, say, five or ten thousand
dollars, it would be a nice windfall for Jimmy and Hugh. They could crank up the heat
next winter and dial back on the casseroles. “I wouldn’t say anything to the old guys
yet, though,” George suggested. “A lot of times, these things don’t work out the way
we hope. I’d hate to get their hopes up.”

At five, the phone rang again.

“Doll!” said a voice speaking in a loud whisper. “Tim Colkett here. Since we already
spilled so much info to you, here’s a little more news. We were at Gianni’s restaurant
today doing the flowers for the bar, and not that we were eavesdropping or anything
like that, but we couldn’t help listening to Jessica and Channing, who weren’t being
very careful about keeping their conversation on the QT.

“And I happened to hear Jessica and Channing talking over secret plans to move to
Palm Beach.”

“Palm Beach,
Florida
?” I asked.

“They’re relocating there ASAP,” said Tim. “Opening their own restaurant. Fresh pasta
and grilled meats, sidewalk tables, very summer in Amalfi. Jessica’s planning a late-­sixties
vibe, with glossy orange walls and white leather banquettes and mosaic tiled floors.”

“Interesting,” I murmured, wondering if this was a false lead to take attention away
from Tim himself. I still didn’t think Channing was the one who shot Gianni, but if
he had, it shouldn’t be too hard for the police to find him in Florida. Palm Beach
isn’t all that big.

Actually, moving to Palm Beach sounded like a good idea for him and Jessica. She’d
need to get as far away as possible from the chef when he found out about her fling
with Channing.

“By the way, not to gossip, but we just had to make a quick stop at the club, and
guess who’s here having drinks right now,” added Tim.

“Honey Potts and Holly Jones?” I ventured.

“How did you know that!” screamed Tim.

“Just a lucky guess,” I said.

“Well, you’re right, and what’s more, Honey is wearing a
dress
,” he said. “A white linen number from Talbots that Holly told us she helped pick
out.” Wonders never cease, we agreed, and we ended the call and hung up.

Leaving the shop an hour later, I realized I was ecstatic at the prospect of a night
at home with Waffles. There was a light breeze, the sun hadn’t yet started to set,
and I rolled down the car windows so Waffles could stick his head out, foot-­long
ears flying in the breeze, sniffing the yards full of blooming peonies and daylilies
as we drove home. Lawnmowers, that classic summer soundtrack, buzzed outside the car,
and when I got home and went into the gate, I could smell cigar smoke wafting over
the holly bushes from Jimmy’s porch, and the faint sound of what I think was a Dean
Martin record.