Killer WASPs (9 page)

Chapter 8

I
F NOTHING ELSE,
the Shields house was large. I’m no architect, but anyone could see that the house
in front of us was an unholy, turreted disaster. Built of brick and faux-­limestone
blocks, the layout was mini-­Versailles in style, with two wings shooting off from
either side of a dumpy middle structure. Terraces perched precariously outside most
windows, and the letter S was carved into every ornate door. But its size was its
most notable attribute: The imprint of the house had to be twelve thousand square
feet. Parked at the far end of the driveway were two catering trucks from Gianni,
with kitchen workers scurrying to the house toting cartons of what looked like some
excellent hors d’oeuvres and gorgeous platters of shellfish. Remembering the lobster
of a few nights before, I had a slightly embarrassing surge of excitement. Gianni
might be psychotic, but he had a way with seafood.

“Are those
shrimp
?” I whispered to Bootsie, who was still transfixed by the house. “Let’s go find the
raw bar!”

Bootsie handed her key to a valet just behind Joe and Holly, and we followed them
down a grand walkway that led around the right side of the house to the pool. Holly
had been invited tonight because her parents’ chicken-­nugget money had helped pay
for a complete overhaul of the Symphony Hall downtown; Joe, as usual, had decided
he’d tag along to reconnoiter Sophie’s house. “Plus I’ve heard a lot about Gerda,
the Pilates instructor,” he whispered loudly. “She’s got to be here tonight!”

Holly, of course, resembled a page torn from
Vogue
. As she says herself, her sense of style is kind of wasted on Philadelphia. She had
on a short orange dress with a brown Hermès belt and cool brown sandals with lots
of straps, and no jewelry at all. Since she owns a lot of spectacular jewelry, I assumed
this was some kind of minimalist style statement.

“Uh-­oh, there are statues,” said Joe, shielding his eyes as he gazed down at the
pool area, looking upset.

“And there’s Gerda,” pointed out Bootsie. At the bottom of the path down from the
driveway was a table skirted in white linen, where a symphony intern sat nervously
next to Sophie’s permanent houseguest.

Gerda, manning the guest checklist, didn’t emit a welcoming vibe as she stabbed at
our names with a pen, crossing them off with what seemed like more violence than was
necessary on such a gorgeous spring evening. Judging by her scowl and somber outfit
(black stretch pants and jacket, Nike insignia), Gerda hadn’t gotten into the party
spirit.

“Down there by pool!” she thundered at us. “That is where party is.”

We all took off for said pool, a kidney-­shaped affair of vast proportions that was
indeed surrounded by some goofy-­looking sculptures of nude Grecian women. The yard
around it, though, was absolutely beautiful. There were cheerful rosebushes in full
bloom, emerald-­hued laurel hedges, and beds of heavenly peonies. This had to be the
insta-­yard created by the Colketts, who were extremely talented, I thought. A small
crowd was already mingling around the two bars that had been set up for the night
at either end of the pool. Suddenly, a tiny figure in purple emerged from the group
clustered around the bar at left and started teetering toward us.

“Yoo-­hoo, Kristin!” said Sophie. She was hobbling in a pair of glittery heels, and
her small frame was barely supporting what appeared to be most of the contents of
the Harry Winston flagship store.

“These are my friends, Holly Jones and Joe Delafield,” I said to Sophie. “Sophie Shields,”
I added unnecessarily to Holly and Joe. “And you know Bootsie.”

“Good to meet you. And nice to see you, Beebee,” Sophie added to Bootsie, who nodded
and then rudely took off, making a beeline for the house with a determined look.

“I think she’s hungry,” I explained, embarrassed. I knew exactly what Bootsie was
up to. It had nothing to do with the buffet, and everything to do with rummaging through
Sophie’s belongings.

“Your friend with the flowered outfits doesn’t waste any time!” giggled Sophie good-­naturedly,
watching Bootsie dash past the loaded hors d’oeuvres table and up a flight of stairs
into the house. “I guess she must need to use the little girls’ room! ’Cause the party’s
outside, not inside. But that’s okay!” The only thing Bootsie was interested by in
the bathroom were the contents of Sophie’s medicine chest, and that would be only
the first stop on a full forensic snooping tour of the house. Hopefully Sophie didn’t
mind Bootsie rifling through her shoe cabinets and flinging open the drawers of her
nightstands.

“This is so nice,” I said to Sophie, gesturing to the pool, where more guests had
arrived, including Honey Potts, in a Bermuda-­shorts ensemble, and Mariellen Merriwether,
in her usual tasteful linen dress accessorized with opera-­length pearls. The Colketts
were there, too, futzing around with some potted boxwoods.

“You look amazing!” I added to Sophie, not sure what else to say about her appearance.
She looked attractive enough, to be sure, but amazing was the best I could muster
up at the moment. Not many ­people in Philly have the balls to put on a red-­carpet-­ready
lavender silk, gown with a thigh-­high slit for an afternoon party.

“It’s Versace!” blinked Sophie. “Elizabeth Hurley has the same dress. And Kelly Ripa
got it in gold! You gotta wear some major Spanx under this one, I kid you not. Listen,
I gotta go mingle, but I’m so glad you came over to my humble abode!”

“Speaking of which,” said Joe smoothly, “Sophie, who’s your decorator on this, um,
fabulous place? Let’s get a drink.” He took her arm and guided her down to the pool
as he started his pitch.

“Sophie’s husband has mafia ties!” I hissed to Holly as soon as Sophie was out of
earshot. “That is, he probably does.” I gave her a quick update as we made our way
along a slate walkway flanked by Colkett-­installed peonies.

“I love it,” said Holly happily. “This town is seriously lacking in organized crime.
Just think of how great it would be to have an occasional drive-­by shooting!” I was
about to remind her that we weren’t exactly Drea de Matteo and Edie Falco, but she’d
lost interest already.

“Let’s go see what gossip the Colketts have for us,” suggested Holly, who was scanning
the crowd in front of her carefully, though she made an effort to look extremely casual.

Howard
, I thought. She’s checking to see if Howard is here, which she does so intently at
every party she attends that I’m beginning to wonder whether she’s having second thoughts
about her legal separation and imminent divorce. I’d have to ask her at a quieter
moment if she’d really thought through her decision. Her split from Howard is a long
story, but can be summed up in that Holly believes that Howard had a fling with a
busty bartender at his favorite steakhouse, the Porterhouse, which Howard denies.

“And we can get away from that annoying music,” Holly added, gesturing dismissively
toward a string quartet made up of symphony members who were gamely sawing away at
their instruments over by the rosebushes. I thought the quartet sounded pretty good—­the
symphony’s always playing for the president at the White House, and getting invited
to play in China and Russia, so they clearly have some skill—­but what do I know about
classical music?

I need a drink
.

“H
ELLO, GORGEOUS!” SANG
out Tim Colkett at the sight of Holly, who smiled up at him.

“Most beautiful girl in Philadelphia!” Tom Colkett said to Holly, kissing her hand
and then greeting me with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

“What do you think of the new rose garden?” whispered Tim. “This place was a complete
dump yesterday morning. It took four truckloads of plants, and thirty yards of mulch.
Now, if we can just get Sophie to lose the statues.”

“This is going to be nothing, though, compared to
your
yard, doll,” Tom assured Holly. “Now, that’s going to be freaky-­chic! That Cipriani
Hotel theme you’ve dreamed up is totally Sophia Loren.”

Just then, on a patio above us, we heard—­and saw—­Chef Gianni. With his parachute
pants billowing and earrings glinting, he launched into a tirade of abuse at a frightened
teenage waiter who was about to descend the stairs down to the pool area holding a
large silver tray of Parmesan puffs. At the sound of Gianni’s screaming, the Colketts
froze in terror, then blurted, “Excuse me, dolls,” to Holly and me, and bolted toward
the far end of the pool and busied themselves rearranging some flowers on the cocktail
tables.

“What’s with them?” asked Joe, who’d returned from wooing Sophie as a design client,
and was in line to get us drinks from the bar.

“They have post-­traumatic chef disorder,” Holly told him.

Who could blame them? I thought, as Joe handed me a glass of champagne. These Gianni
tantrums really were too stressful for a Sunday. I’d visit the buffet, which I could
see consisted of a Kilimanjaro of jumbo shrimp and stone crab claws, then convince
Bootsie to drive me home.

“I’ve got to get to the bottom of this mystery,” said Holly, tapping her toe contemplatively
and sipping her own champagne.

“You mean the mystery of who attacked Barclay?” asked Joe.

“No, I don’t care about that,” Holly said. “I mean about whether the Colketts are
brothers, or if they’re boyfriend and boyfriend. This landscaping project at my house
will be the perfect opportunity to find out.”

I rolled my eyes and veered off from Holly and Joe toward the smaller, second bar
to the right of the pool, near where the Colketts were hiding out. There were only
a handful of guests over here, sitting at white-­clothed little tables decorated with
potted orchids.

“Could I please have a little more champagne?” I asked the bartender, a pretty, dark-­haired
girl who I remembered from Gianni’s restaurant opening. Since I was hoping to leave
shortly, I figured I’d better drink up and make my move on the shrimp. I felt like
a freeloader, but I was starving after my day of household chores, and is there anything
better than cold shrimp and champagne? I’m pretty sure there isn’t.

I put three shrimp on a little plate, then reached for the tongs again and added another,
ladled a large dollop of cocktail sauce next to them, dipped a shrimp, and stuffed
it into my mouth. “Yummmm,” I said to myself happily, making sure I wasn’t getting
sauce on Holly’s yellow dress.

“The shrimp are great,” said a tall man next to me, who was wielding the silver serving
pieces to score himself some crab claws. “Little high in cholesterol, though.”

I looked up, disconcerted at being caught mid-­gulp, and annoyed by the anti-­shellfish
stance this guy was taking. But then I noticed that he had nice blue eyes, brown hair
with some gray in it, and was smiling down at me in a friendly way. I instantly revised
my position. The guy was in his late thirties, I guessed, and actually was incredibly
good-­looking. Plus, while he was way more well-­groomed than my usual scruffy type,
there was an appealing hint of five-­o’clock shadow forming on his handsome jaw. This
man was obviously just concerned with my health.

He squeezed half a lemon on his crab, and in a gentlemanly way offered to squeeze
some on my shrimp.

“Thanks,” I said, proffering my plate for the lemon spritz. “Honestly, these shrimp
are so good, they’re worth it.”

“You’re right,” he said, popping some crab in his mouth. “I have a theory about buffets.
You need to skip all the extraneous stuff—­like bread, salad, anything that’s just
filler—­and focus on the key items. Any kind of fish or filet mignon comes first.
If it’s brunch, then I do the omelet bar, the cheeses, the roast turkey, and then
I go right to dessert. You can’t waste stomach space on things like donuts.” I had
to agree, this made a lot of sense.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said that about the shrimp,” he added apologetically.
He really had nice eyes with some great crinkly lines around them, which made him
all the more appealing. “I just read a story in a medical journal about some of the
health risks of shellfish, but it’s not good cocktail conversation.”

Was he a doctor? I love doctors. As Holly would say, they’re so medical.

“You’re a doctor?” I asked hopefully.

“I’m a vet,” he said. “Large animals, mostly. But I read the AMA journal, too. Sometimes
research on ­people can have implications for how we treat our animal patients. Not
that the animals I treat are eating a lot of shrimp.” I tried to follow along with
the conversation, but was preoccupied by taking in his deep tan and the sexy lines
around his blue eyes.

He also had this kind of incredibly honest look to him. That isn’t my usual type,
but then again, my type wasn’t exactly working for me. And there was absolutely nothing
about the vet that said
Going to Thailand
. If anything, his vibe was more:
Going to gas up my station wagon, then take a jog around Bryn Mawr, grill a steak,
and go to sleep
. In other words, he seemed really normal.

“I have a dog,” I told him. “He’s a really sweet basset hound. He’s a little stubborn,
but he’s so lovable . . .” My voice trailed off for a second as I was momentarily
distracted by the sight of Honey and Mariellen lurking near the house. “It’s too bad
that Lilly isn’t here tonight,” I heard Honey growl. “Where is she, again?”

“Tennis tournament,” Mariellen drawled. “Up in Greenwich. You know my daughter, she
won’t miss a tennis match.” I did a mental eye roll. How could anyone get excited
enough to drive four hours to Connecticut to swat a tennis ball?

And then I noticed that standing next to Honey was a man in a navy blazer, khakis,
and what appeared to be Gucci loafers. He was youngish, handsome, and not too tall.
He looked perfectly at ease among the symphony crowd. And then I almost dropped my
drink, because the man was grinning at me, and the man was Mike Woodford.