Killer WASPs (15 page)

Howard told Holly that the Porterhouse was calling to confirm a dinner reservation
he’d made for them that weekend, but Holly, who’d become obsessed with the bartender,
refused to believe it.

Somehow the whole thing had snowballed into a lot of lawyers arguing in paneled conference
rooms, and into Holly spending more and more time at the club in outrageous outfits.
I guess I would have been suspicious, too, but I knew Howard adored Holly, and I truly
didn’t believe he had cheated.

“Did you at least find out anything from Sophie today about who knocked Barclay on
the head?” Holly asked Joe.

“Nope,” he said tipsily. “Just found out that there are more ugly shades of purple
in the world then I’d ever imagined.”

With a start, I heard a New Jersey accent and clacking heels loudly heading toward
our table. I didn’t even need to look.

Sophie. I guess she’d somehow invited herself to join Joe and Holly.

“Hi, everyone. Sorry we’re late,” Sophie announced. She was dressed all in pink: pink
miniskirt, pink silk blouse, pink sandals. “We got held up by the weirdest thing back
at the house. We were all dressed and ready to go, and then when we opened the front
door to head out to the Navigator, a big smelly package wrapped in newspaper was on
the front steps. So Gerda opened it, and we found a half-­dozen dead tilapia inside!”

“With a note,” added Gerda, who was in her usual black tracksuit. “It said, ‘Beppe:
Sleep with the fishes.’ ” We all froze, mid-­sip. Geez, this was like something out
of
Casino
. Could Sophie be making this up? “Could be that somebody’s going to kill Mr. Shields—­for
real this time,” Gerda added with a smile, buoyed by the threat to her ex-­employer.

“That fish was disgusting!” Sophie elaborated. “Gerda double-­Hefty-­bagged the whole
package, and it’s going out with tomorrow’s trash. It stunk to high heaven.”

“Aren’t you going to pass along the note to your ex? Or the police?” asked Holly.

“No way!” said Sophie. “If anyone wants to talk to the Forklift, they can track him
down themselves.

“And then when we finally arrived here, we got lost!” she whined. “It’s kinda dark
in there.”

“Well, the main clubhouse was built in 1910, and there’s quite a bit of oak paneling,”
said Joe wearily. “Why don’t you both sit down,” he added politely, pulling out a
chair for Sophie. Joe’s manners rarely fail him, even when he’s impaired. Gerda hoisted
her own heavy wrought-­iron chair from a neighboring table, moving it as easily as
if she was picking up a bag of cotton balls.

“Sophie, I have to ask you, why are you getting divorced?” Holly said as Sophie and
Gerda sat down, Sophie’s feet barely reaching the ground.

I noticed the Binghams, sipping their Gallo white zinfandel three tables away, agog
as they eavesdropped. I could only imagine their future versions of this story. With
some alarm, I also noticed a willowy older blonde on the grass tennis courts some
two hundred yards away. I couldn’t see her face, but was fairly sure that upright
posture belonged to Mariellen.

“Well, mostly because Barclay’s been cheating,” Sophie told us, in a confidential
tone. “That is, if you count hookers as cheating. ’Cause, some ­people don’t.”

We all nodded.

“What happened first was, Gerda was suspicious because she noticed a lot of restaurant
charges and Saks purchases on Barclay’s credit card statement, which she hacks into
every month. I mean, obviously, the restaurant bills weren’t surprising, but Saks
doesn’t stock the sizes Barclay wears, so that was weird. And it turned out that the
Saks charges were all for
bikinis
.”

Gerda inclined her head grimly.

“We asked Barclay about the charges, and he got
so mad
about us checking up on him that he actually reported Gerda to immigration, ’cause
her work permit and visa are, well, expired!” Sophie giggled.

Joe’s head snapped up, his tequila-­tranquilizer haze suddenly gone. My eyes doubled
in size as I stared at Gerda, while Holly sipped her drink loudly through a straw
and looked shocked. Gerda looked absolutely enraged, and I saw a vein pop out in her
neck and begin to throb. Her fists balled up, and she gave Sophie the Look of Death.

Finally, a motive for Gerda to have attacked Barclay.

“Luckily, it takes a long time to deport someone! And then Barclay went to Las Vegas
for a builders’ convention, so Gerda and I hired a detective that she found on the
Internet to watch Barclay,” Sophie rattled on, oblivious to our shock at the immigration
info she’d so casually thrown out. “And this guy was
good
. He broke into Barclay’s suite at the Wynn and planted a video camera, and sure enough,
after Barclay went to the Wolfgang Puck place for dinner and hit a ­couple of the
buffets, he came back to the room with two girls, and I’m pretty sure they were, you
know, hired help! This detective saw the whole thing! And like ten minutes after they
got back to the room, one of the girls put on a Catwoman outfit, and then”—­Sophie
paused here, perhaps with a glimmer that her tale wasn’t club-­appropriate, and gulped
some water. She decided to go on. “The Catwoman girl pulled out a loaf of white bread,
and, well, and  . . .” She hesitated again.

“And what?” asked Holly breathlessly.

“Excuse me. Ladies’ room!” I said hastily, jumping up and sprinting across the porch.

I sped inside the club, and blinked in the dim hallway as I walked toward the front
door, as far away as I could get from the crowded dining porch, and from Sophie and
Gerda.

I stopped short when I glanced outside and noticed a horse tethered to a dogwood tree
next to the parking lot. He was happily munching grass, swishing his long black tail.
Norman!

I couldn’t face any more of Sophie’s story, and I’d had my recommended daily allowance
of Gerda, who now had a concrete motive to have attacked Barclay. And obviously, with
Norman parked outside the front door, Mariellen would likely be off the tennis courts
soon and heading this way.

Still, I hadn’t gotten a chance to drink the margarita I’d wanted. And it was so pleasant
inside the clubhouse—­totally quiet, with oil portraits of former club presidents
looking sternly out from the walls and air conditioning blasting. To my right was
a corridor that led to the locker rooms, the dining room, and the (clearly marked)
restrooms that Sophie had struggled to locate, but I took a left into the club’s paneled,
cozy bar. I decided to have a quick drink in the bar, then sneak out the front door.

Perfect. As usual in summertime, there was no one in the bar, since it has a wintry
vibe with leather chairs and cozy couches, heavy chintz drapes, an enormous Oriental
rug, and a giant fireplace. I had sat in here hundreds of times with my grandfather,
and always loved it. It’s the one place in the club that still allows smoking, and
a faint whiff of cigar hung in the air.

“Margarita?” asked Ronnie from behind the old mahogany bar. I sat down gratefully
and accepted my replacement drink. Ronnie’s a guy from South Philly who’s been at
the club forever, even though he’s only in his late forties. Ronnie can always tell
if you want to talk or not, and he has an amazing ability to disappear into thin air.
He goes behind the bar sometimes, and if you blink, he’s gone through a door hidden
at the left of the bar, then magically reappears when you need another drink. I’m
pretty sure there’s a secret network of corridors in the club for the staff, actually.
They just pop out of nowhere sometimes.

This was great, I thought, closing my eyes for a moment and relaxing in the bone-­chilling
A.C. I couldn’t stand another moment of Sophie’s stories.

“I’ll have a glass of water, please, Ronnie,” said a man’s voice behind me. I glanced
to my right and saw John Hall next to me, smiling down at me, wearing tennis whites
that were damp with healthy perspiration. He’d clearly just worked up a big sweat
on the courts, and he looked kind of awesome. If you’re into tall, handsome men.

He reached for his glass and I checked out his forearms. I gulped. They were thinner
than Mike Woodford’s, but tan and muscle-­y.

And no wedding ring!

“Saw you sitting with your friends outside. Recovered yet from the party last night?”

I nodded, wondering if I had any mascara left from my quick swipe applied this morning.
I was also thinking I should probably cancel my fake vet appointment for Thursday,
now that I’d run into John again.

“Interesting picture of the chef in the paper today,” he said, with a smile.

“It was nice of you to help him last night!” I told him.

“He’s lucky he wasn’t badly hurt,” said John.

Ronnie was heading out to the porch with a tray of drinks in his hand.

“Ronnie,” I said, “by the way, could you not mention to anyone that I’m in here?”

“Haven’t seen anyone in here all night,” he responded in his usual deadpan way, and
disappeared.

“I’m not sure that member fraternization is permitted under club rules,” said John
with a smile, “but we never got a chance to really talk last night. Would you like
to have dinner with me this week?”

I clutched the bar to steady myself. A guy who had a normal job, no wedding ring on,
and had productive hobbies like playing tennis wanted to take me to dinner. “Yes,
sure,” I said, smiling. We planned to meet on the porch the next night at six-­thirty.
I would have rather gone somewhere else, like maybe Delaware or New York City to avoid
Bootsie, and truthfully, Holly and Joe, but couldn’t think of a way to tell him this,
so the club porch it was.

After we exchanged phone numbers, John the vet headed for the locker room. I crept
out the front, trotted past Norman, who didn’t seem to remember me from his traumatic
experience earlier in the afternoon, picked up Waffles, went home, brushed my teeth,
and put on some lip gloss. I called and left a message canceling my fake appointment
at All Creatures Great and Small, then I checked in with Hugh, who morosely informed
me that Jimmy was still AWOL.

I got a voice mail from Bootsie, informing me that not only was Barclay still in the
hospital, but Chef Gianni was stuck there, too, since doctors wanted to make sure
he hadn’t sustained anything worse than a broken ankle. They were concerned the chef
might have brain swelling because of his constant screaming and irrational behavior,
even though Jessica had insisted that this was his normal demeanor.

Then—­while sternly telling myself it was a bad idea—­I walked Waffles over to the
cow barn at Sanderson and found Mike Woodford, whereupon I made out with him for an
hour and a half while Waffles took a nap in the tack room. After the make-­out session,
I came home and fell instantly into a peaceful sleep.

Chapter 14

H
OLLY��S
D
IVORCE
H
OUSE
is a mile away from my place, just around the corner from the Shields residence. It
sits far back from the road, down a driveway shaded by old white birches and banked
with irises and hostas. A stately old stone house built in the 1920s, with French
doors and high ceilings and pretty moldings, it started out as your basic beautiful,
classic home. But with the help of Howard the Mogul’s money and Holly’s chicken-­nugget
royalties, she and Joe are making it even more spectacular by the day.

Trucks rumble in and out of the driveway all the time, filled with topiary boxwoods,
French sofas, Lucite tables, and toilets with heated seats. I never feel jealous of
Holly, though, because she’s just lucky that way. Style, money, and cool things pop
up around her as a matter of course. If she gasses up her car at the Sunoco station,
she’s the millionth customer and wins free unleaded fuel for a year. If she stops
into Saks for a new bathing suit, she wanders into a Calvin Klein trunk show, and
Francisco Costa pronounces her fabulous and invites her to his beach house in Brazil.
I don’t think she’s ever paid for a glass of wine in her life, because as soon as
she sits down at a bar, flutes of Moët and goblets of cabernet start arriving from
men all around the room. It’s just the way it is with Holly. I’ve learned to accept
it, and even enjoy it. Anyway, the only reason she’d moved back to Bryn Mawr from
downtown Philly was because of her divorce from Howard, so I hoped her house was giving
her some comfort and distraction.

Joe, who owns a small apartment in downtown Philly, is living in one of Holly’s guest
rooms for the spring while he helps her decorate the house, so she won’t get too lonely
during her divorce negotiations. (The sunny guest room overlooking the pool, the free
meals and cocktails, plus having all his laundry done by Martha, Holly’s housekeeper,
were added perks.) Plus Joe is currently single. Being straight and a decorator, he
meets a lot of women, but they’re mostly married to wealthy men. He also meets a lot
of gay fabric reps. The upshot of this is that he doesn’t date much.

I admired the property as I parked in the circular drive: The house called to mind
the set of an old Cary Grant movie, with its crisp, elegant white façade in classic
Main Line style. An American flag flapped in the breeze from the pediment above her
front door, which was flanked by enormous potted rosebushes in full bloom.

Since I had run out on Holly and Joe last night, I offered to bring over coffee this
morning. I’d decided not to mention my barn make out, since I knew Mike Woodford was
another bad relationship prospect. Plus I had the date with John the vet set up for
tonight. This was progress! Waffles and I trotted around the side of the house to
Holly’s new outdoor living room, where even though it was barely nine in the morning,
a festive, partylike atmosphere ruled the day. Reggae percolated from her new outdoor
speakers, and about forty new rosebushes had been installed in a hedge along Holly’s
patio/outdoor lounge. Holly was lying flat on her back on a chaise longue, clad in
black workout garb, with a tasteful sheen of sweat on her forehead.

“I just got back from Booty Camp,” Holly told me, smoothing her running shorts and
tank top. “I have to finish four hundred sit-­ups by noon. They make you sign a contract.”

Joe groaned from the sofa, looking hung over. He had on a bathrobe, sunglasses, and
a straw hat, resembling a more youthful Thurston Howell III as he lay back on white
cushions, sipping what I hoped was vodka-­free tomato juice. The hat, at least, added
a jaunty note—­very Dean Martin meets Justin Timberlake. Since Joe moved in with Holly,
he’s been dressing in what he calls “cruise wear,” and it really suits him.

And this outdoor living room concept Holly and Joe came up with is honestly genius.
It’s located just off her
indoor
living room, and is perfectly positioned for privacy, but the rose hedges are clipped
low enough so Holly can stand up and see who’s coming down the driveway. It’s perfect
for all the trucks that arrive with deliveries of sandals handmade in Capri, antique
beds from Sweden, and Jean-­Michel Frank tables from France.

To create the space, Holly and Joe had expanded a brick terrace adjacent to the long
rectangular pool, tented it in white canvas, and had modeled the decor on the pool
area of the Cipriani Hotel in Venice. Since the Cipriani is on a lush little island
a few thousand yards from St. Mark’s Square in Venice, rather than set in a backyard
in suburban Philly, the effect wasn’t exactly the same, but Joe had still done an
amazing job, with lots of white lounges and sofas with crisp chocolate-­brown piping
and potted boxwoods giving it a unique Mediterranean-­meets-­English-­country-­house
vibe. This was especially impressive considering the fact that the house had previously
belonged to the mother of Mr. Bingham, one half of the gossipy, white zinfandel–drinking
­couple from the club.

Old Mrs. Bingham been a dog-­loving, embroidery-­happy lady who’d sheathed the house
in flowered wallpaper that had taken contractors a month to steam off, but the rooms
were now resplendent in shades of creamy white. Since Joe’s not finished decorating
yet, much of the house and its furniture are draped under tarps, but Holly’s bedroom
is already done. Joe installed a Lucite bed and little Lucite tables and glass lamps,
with white linens and silk curtains, an antique Swedish daybed over by the window,
and an enormous modern painting in shades of pink by Elliott Puckette over the bed.
Other than one antique mirror and Swedish chest of drawers, it’s totally minimalist.
Holly’s clothes are stashed in a ginormous closet/room with racks and drawers that
are also fashioned of Lucite, reminiscent of a Prada boutique.

Martha, the housekeeper of any mere mortal’s dreams, had set up a silver tray with
juice, a bowl of glossy grapes, and a plate of sliced mango dressed with lime on the
tented porch. There weren’t any muffins or anything, of course, since Holly hasn’t
eaten much since she got legally separated, but it was still a great breakfast spread.

“I can’t believe you left last night. That Vegas story was Marquis de Sade meets
Fifty Shades
!” Holly told me happily, as I handed out the Starbucks coffees. “The girl with Barclay
took the Wonder Bread and put it all over—­”

“I’m not up for hearing that story!” I interrupted her, alarmed.

“
I
want to hear that story,” said Bootsie, who’d suddenly appeared from the rose thicket
and was listening eagerly while taking in the new and improved patio. She took off
her Wayfarers, plopped down on an upholstered pouf, and pulled her iPhone out of a
Nantucket basket handbag.

“Forget the Vegas incident!” I told Bootsie. “Sophie got a package of tilapia delivered
to her house, and a warning that Barclay would soon be sleeping with the fishes. Even
I know what that means.”

“I heard about that,” Bootsie said. “But I guess the Forklift is safe at the hospital.
Speaking of which, I just stopped in there to talk to Jeannie the nurse. The chef’s
still there for observation after his fall.”

Bootsie explained that because the hospital is quite small, Barclay and the chef had
been installed in rooms right next door to each other. While Barclay was still barred
from ingesting anything other than chicken broth and his vitamin drip, the chef was
allowed to eat whatever he wanted. So to torture Barclay, Gianni had spent most of
the previous day having his waiters and sous-­chefs delivering incredibly fragrant
dishes, making sure that Barclay saw each gorgeous plate of food as it passed by his
open door.

The chef’s minions had actually prepared a ­couple of pasta dishes at Gianni’s bedside
using a plug-­in stove, including one with a particularly heavenly smelling tomato-­and-­sausage
sauce, then seared a tenderloin in an iron pan with lots of rosemary and garlic until
the entire hospital smelled like a Tuscan village. Nurses and orderlies had been given
plates of pasta to enjoy, and had happily wandered the halls past Barclay’s room.

“However, I don’t think the chef is the one who knocked Barclay out last week,” continued
Bootsie, munching some grapes. “I’ve thought this over, and I don’t think he could
have left the restaurant that night and gotten over to Sanderson to hit Barclay, then
gotten back in time without anyone noticing he wasn’t at the party. I’m still convinced
Gerda hit Barclay that night. And she could have pushed the chef, too.”

“Are you telling me that you haven’t heard about Gerda’s motive for taking out Barclay?”
prompted Joe, propping himself up a bit on his settee as a heavenly breeze wafted
by, ruffling a clematis arbor.

“I thought you would tell her,” said Holly to me, sipping water and doing stomach
crunches simultaneously.

“Apparently, Barclay tried to get Gerda deported,” I relayed to Bootsie. “Sophie told
us at the club last night, and Gerda was none too happy about Sophie sharing this
tidbit.”

“That’s huge!” Bootsie shrieked. “Now it all makes sense! And Gerda probably went
after the chef, too.”

“And that would be why?” asked Joe languidly, sipping his drink.

“Partly because she’s a vegan and a health freak, and the chef is such a bad influence
on the whole Main Line, serving all those really fattening pastas and cheeses,” Bootsie
said, as if this was obvious. “And pork! I mean, the note that was left for the chef
mentioned swine, and there are at least four different dishes that feature prosciutto
at Restaurant Gianni. Which is the ultimate pork product!”

I wasn’t sure how prosciutto rated on the scale of pig-­related delicacies, but that’s
not surprising given that my main source of nutrition is canned soup.

“But really I think Gerda hates the chef because he’s Italian, and Italian and German
­people hate each other!”

“They do?” said Holly, puzzled. Honestly, this sounded like bullshit to me.

“Also, I was wondering why Gerda would keep all her desk drawers locked,” Bootsie
told us, “and I realized she could be the one leaving those threatening notes for
the chef and Mr. Shields. So I went to the stationery store in Haverford yesterday
afternoon, which is the
only
place ­people buy notepaper around here, and asked if anyone had bought any cream-­colored
stationery recently.

“Well, actually I asked at the shop if Gerda, Sophie Shields, or Honey Potts had bought
any cards in that off-­white shade recently,” Bootsie clarified, “and Eric’s not sure
about Sophie, but he’s pretty positive Gerda bought some note cards, and he thinks
they were off-­white! Or at least, they might have been!”

“Bootsie, that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard in my life. And it doesn’t prove
anything. Tons of ­people buy white note cards,” Joe said, pushing his hat back and
rubbing his temples. “You can get them online, or pretty much anywhere.”

“Cream-­colored cards,” corrected Bootsie. Joe put on his sunglasses, sighed, and
appeared to fall asleep.

“I’m going over to the police station right after I leave here to talk to Officer
Walt,” mused Bootsie. “He needs to know that Barclay wanted to deport Gerda. And he
obviously should hear about the tilapia incident.”

“You’d think Walt would have found that out,” said Joe.

“He’s overwhelmed,” explained Bootsie, adding importantly, “which is why I’m helping
him out.

“I can’t believe Gianni serves all those dishes made with ham,” complained Holly,
toweling off her angular shoulders. “No one I know eats anything in the pig family.”

“I do,” said Joe.

“I would, if I could afford to go there,” I said.

“Oh, please, everyone loves the pork dishes at Gianni!” said Bootsie. “And the other
meats are amazing there, too. I mean, who doesn’t like shaved Parma ham, and then
there’s the short-­rib ravioli, the pounded veal, the Bolognese . . . you know what,
I’m starving just thinking about it,” she finished. “I think I’ll go to the Hoagie
Hut and get an egg sandwich on my way to see Walt.”

With this, Bootsie got up and left. Thankfully, her attention-­span problem had kicked
in.

“I never got to tell her the story about Sophie and Barclay and the hookers in Las
Vegas,” said Holly, eating a grape. I decided I could tell them about my upcoming
date with the vet later. If I stayed here too long, I feared I’d get sucked into a
sofa and a vortex of island music, champagne at noon, and maybe miss meeting John
at the club.

“I’ve got to get to work,” I said. “Aren’t you on decorating detail at Sophie’s today?”
I asked Joe.

“I told her I’d be there at ten.”

“Yoo-­hoo!” came a yodel from around the front of the house. “Holly, are you here?
I can’t see very well with all these new bushes you planted!”

There was rustling of shrubbery, and footsteps in the not-­so-­distant distance.

“Shit,” said Holly desperately, sitting up. “That’s the Binghams. And I have a horrible
cramp in my stomach from all those fucking sit-­ups.”

“I can’t
believe
what you’ve done with Mother’s house!” said Mrs. Bingham, popping around the corner,
followed by her husband. La Bingham eyeballed the scene around her, clearly appalled,
yet fascinated. “What are you all doing over here, having a party? At nine-­thirty
in the morning?”

Joe got up, muttered, “Late to work!” and disappeared inside, his bathrobe sash trailing
behind him in the sunshine.

“When am I going to get that tour inside the house, dear?” Mrs. Bingham sang out hopefully
to Holly.

“Soon,” promised Holly politely. “But I can’t let you see inside today, because it’s
not perfect yet. Let me get you something to drink!”

She grabbed my sleeve and we went inside, Waffles trotting along behind us. Holly
shut the door firmly behind us, while the Binghams peered unabashedly through the
windows, their noses flat against the glass.