by Amy Korman
As we passed Sanderson, I noticed yellow police tape was still in place, cordoning off the area where Barclay had been bushwhacked. I gave Waffles a stern look and informed him preemptively, “No Sanderson!” as we turned into the driveway. Then, for about ten seconds, as I parked and unloaded Waffles, I wondered what Mike Woodford was doing. Maybe he was taking a walk, I mused, or putting the cows away . . .
“Hello, Kristin,” said a gravelly voice from a holly bush in the yard next door, putting an end to my reverie.
My neighbor Hugh Best popped up from behind the holly, a pair of hedge clippers in hand, while Waffles, suddenly awake, wagged his tail at him and went over to sniff Hugh’s hairy ankles. Hugh looks much older than his age, which I believe is in the mid-seventies, and for gardening attire wore a tattered striped dress shirt, ancient khakis cut off just above the knees, brown dress socks, and black sneakers. Thanks to his precision with pruning shears, his yard looks pretty good, despite the fact that the white Colonial house he shares with his brother is in just as dire need of paint and repairs as mine. I’ve known the Bests forever, but I’m not sure of their financial status—they could be broke, or have millions and simply have forgotten to repaint their house and repair their gutters for the past thirty-five years.
Mr. Best greeted me with a sweet smile and a wave of Old Spice. He’s very unlike his brother Jimmy, who always smells like Scotch and cigars and is prone to making rude and lascivious comments. In my mind, I refer to Hugh as the Fussy One, and Jimmy as the Crabby One.
“Horrible business across the street, no?” the Fussy One said in slightly hushed tones. I agreed, and said quickly, “Well, I don’t want to interrupt your yard work!” and then bolted inside, suddenly starving. I threw some soup on the stove and refilled Waffles’s water bowl, thinking about Mike’s muscular arms and intriguing beard stubble. Then, in an unsettling flash, I wondered: Could Mike Woodford have had anything to do with whacking Barclay on the head? Because if there’s anything that ruins my appreciation of a man’s tanned forearms, it’s thinking that said arms might have bashed someone’s brains in.
As I did some laundry and folded towels, I decided it couldn’t have been Mike. For one thing, why would he have helped “find” Barclay under the bush if he’d been the one to throw him under there? Waffles (whose sniffer usually only works at close range, like if someone is eating a hamburger right next to him) hadn’t actually nosed Barclay out, but was merely pulling me in the direction of the developer. Mike could have easily steered me and Waffles away from the crime scene.
And unless it was some elaborate scheme by Mike to not seem guilty by finding Barclay, it just didn’t make sense for him to call the police about something he’d done himself. And why would Mike go after Barclay? His mind was on his herd, not on real estate developers. The attacker couldn’t be Mike Woodford, I was positive. Or very close to one-hundred-percent sure.
By this time, it was past eight-thirty, so Waffles and I climbed into bed and fell instantly asleep.
Chapter 5
THE PHONE RANG at seven the next morning. Waffles and I both were startled by the early call, and I cleared my throat, trying not to sound sleepy as I picked up the phone on my bedside table. It was Saturday, so I didn’t think it was a credit card company calling—but then again, maybe they’d started rousting past-due customers at the crack of dawn. I hoped it wasn’t the police with new questions about Barclay, or worse, Bootsie with her own interrogation.
More likely it was Holly, on one of her early-morning exercise kicks. Her fitness obsessions are rare, but they erupt semi-annually, and consist of her forcing me to go with her to a horrible gym called Booty Camp over by the library, where pudgy lawyers and doctors and incredibly fit housewives work out at 6 a.m. under the slightly insane eyes of a tattooed former marine. The women are all in great shape and barely break a sweat (except for me and Holly, who are drenched and pleading for mercy), but the accountant types invariably throw up after the four-mile jog and hundreds of squats and pushups.
“Is this Kristin? The Striped Awning girl?” bleated a small, nasal voice. “Did I wake ya up?” Sophie Shields.
“Oh, hi, Mrs. Shields,” I said as brightly as I could, sitting up in bed. Sunlight was streaming in through my linen curtains, and a breeze was stirring the leaves outside the open window. “How are you? Gosh, um, how did you get my home number?”
“Gerda got it off the computer,” squeaked Sophie triumphantly. “She’s good at all that stuff. She can, like, get anyone’s personal information and check all your bank balances!” This was not good news. I pictured Gerda in a darkened corner of Sophie’s house in front of an enormous Mac, gleefully reading personal e-mails, studying bank balances, and learning every embarrassing secret floating around Bryn Mawr.
“She told me it’s good that we bought all your stuff.” Sophie giggled. “She said you’re kinda broke.”
“I really appreciate it,” I said, feeling resentful that Gerda knew the details of every bag of dog food and seventy-five-percent-off pair of jeans I’d ever charged. I was also terrified that Sophie had somehow changed her mind about buying out the store. Please, please, please don’t be calling to cancel the sale. . .
“Hey, I wasn’t always as obscenely rich as I am now!” said Sophie, rather kindly. “Don’t worry about it. The only thing is, I was calling because I can’t take delivery today on all that crap from your shop. I mean, the antiques. I gotta reschedule it for Monday.”
“Oh, that’s fine! No problem,” I said, thrilled, jumping out of bed as Waffles hauled his big stomach off the comforter and started rolling over toward the edge of the bed. Sometimes he’s too lazy to jump down, so he just rolls off the mattress.
“Yeah, it’s crazy over here today,” Sophie rattled on. She was sucking deafeningly on something through a straw. “Sorry, I got some fresh-squeezed orange-kale juice here that Gerda made.”
How was anyone so chatty at this time of day? Maybe it was all the Pilates.
“I got a call last night from Eula Morris, the lady who runs the Symphony Women’s Board.” I knew of Eula, though I’d never actually met her. She was a tiny but mighty battleship of a woman in her thirties, invariably dressed in swoopy beige dresses and large necklaces, who was excellent at raising money by fear and intimidation. “And guess what, there was supposed to be a big party benefitting the symphony tomorrow at Sanderson, but the police said that the place is still a crime scene because of Old Fatass”—I guessed she was referencing her husband—“getting his head bashed in there. So they can’t do the event over there.”
“Oh, that’s too bad,” I said, wondering where this was going. I brushed my teeth as silently as I could, holding the phone away from the brushing noise, since it’s definitely not good manners to talk through a mouthful of Ultra Brite, even this early.
“And guess what,” said Sophie triumphantly.
I was rinsing out my mouth, so I made a “Hmm?” sound indicating interest.
“I’m gonna have the party here!” Sophie shrieked.
I was shocked. First of all, the Symphony Women’s Board is one of the stuffiest old-Philadelphia organizations around, and tends to attract supporters whose average age is about ninety-seven. As a whole, the group smells of mothballs and L’Air du Temps, and they wear a lot of retro gowns not because they’re stylish, like the Holly types who buy vintage Pucci dresses at overpriced boutiques, but because that’s what’s in their closets. Eula and her aging supporters only occasionally added younger trustees.
Sophie, with her Joisey accent and precariously high heels, would stand out like a disco ball in a chintz drawing room amid the Symphony Women’s sea of classic navy St. John suits. But Eula was no dummy. She must have known that Sophie would be one of the only people around town who’d jump at the chance to host a hundred-person-plus bash on two days’ notice. Plus being associated with the symphony guaranteed you a story in the Bryn Mawr Gazette, which Sophie would
love.
I should call Bootsie about Sophie’s shindig, so Bootsie could cover it for the Gazette.
Or maybe I didn’t need to. She had to have heard about the party already.
As if reading my mind, Sophie piped up: “You should come tomorrow night! I’ll put you down as my guest, since I know ya can’t afford the two-hundred-dollar ticket. And you can bring your friend, the one from the store with the flowered shorts!”
As if I could stop Bootsie from coming—she likes to wave her press pass and barge into events. I headed downstairs with Waffles, who launched himself downstairs and out the back door with a clatter. He made a token run at a blue jay on a low branch back by the fence, then ambled over behind the laurel bush where he likes to conduct his morning affairs.
“Thanks so much,” I told Sophie, feeling embarrassed about being a freeloader at her party, but not enough to miss out on free champagne and the chance to see Eula Morris establishing eminent domain over the Shields estate. “I’ll be there.” I scooped ground coffee into the coffeemaker, poured in water, and pressed on, debating whether I should ask about how Barclay was doing. Technically, the two were still married. And Sophie had told us she wanted him alive (purely for financial reasons, true, but still, alive).
But while Sophie rattled on about carved ice swans and an epic shellfish buffet she was planning for her bash, it started to seem a little cold-blooded of Sophie to throw one of the biggest parties of the summer while her husband was in the hospital with a head injury, but then again, I’ve never been divorced. It unleashes a tsunami of anger and vindictiveness that’s basically nuclear in most people.
Take Holly—when she split from Howard six months ago and moved out of the condo she and Howard had lived in downtown, she’d taken all of his custom-made squash rackets and gazillion-dollar golf clubs over the bridge to Jersey, and given them to a YMCA up in Newark. Then she’d donated his Porsche to the Police Athletic League auction, sending out a press release gushing about his generosity to all the Philly newspapers. Howard had been screwed, because what could he do then? He had to pose gamely with some kids at the Police Athletic League ball field for photos, and suck it up.
“How is your, er, Mr. Shields doing?” I ventured to Sophie, adding half and half to my coffee.
“He’s gonna be fine,” replied Sophie unenthusiastically. “I’m not going to visit him, that’s for sure, but I heard from my lawyers that he’s got one of those big head-wrap things on and he’s got some stitches and a concussion. But he’ll be okay, which is good, because we have a meeting with all our lawyers next week, and I need him there with bells on! He can’t die until this divorce is worked out, because suing him after he’s dead would be a real bitch.” She made a little harrumph sound.
“Apparently, no one has a clue about who went after him the other night,” Sophie continued. “Barclay’s lawyers decided to hire a security guard for his room, since obviously somebody wants him on ice.” She loudly slurped at her juice. “And my lawyers got a call from Barclay’s legal guys about one other weird thing happened yesterday afternoon. Two guys showed up at Barclay’s hospital room with a fruit basket the size of a Barcalounger, and told the guard they were there to visit Barclay. They said they were his cousins!”
“Uh-huh,” I said politely. “Well, that was nice of them.”
“Not so much!” Sophie said. “Barclay doesn’t have any cousins. No family at all. Both his parents were only children. It’s a sad story. His mom and dad died in a freak accident eleven years ago at the wedding of a business associate. A Swarovski chandelier that weighed half a ton fell on both a them at a catering hall up near Newark! Flattened them like two chicken cutlets. But at least they died together!”
I wasn’t sure how to respond to this, so I made a sympathetic murmuring noise. Getting crushed by a homicidal light fixture is something you don’t hear much about in Bryn Mawr.
“Yeah, Barclay told me that when he was younger and getting started in the construction biz, he and his parents had relatives out the wazoo. But they weren’t blood relations, they were all family friends. And business associates in the construction biz. I mean, everyone was Uncle Something or Other. Uncle Skinny, Uncle No-Thumbs, Uncle Meatball. There were a lotta nicknames!”
I was getting a bad feeling about the uncles.
“So, and this is just between you and me, Barclay decided to move away from North Joisey a few years after his parents’ accident, and start over! He even got a new name. His real name is Beppe Santino, but he had it legally changed. He had a nickname, too, which he told me one time when he was wasted on lemon martinis at Joe’s Stone Crabs in Miami. Barclay used ta be called the Forklift. Beppe ‘the Forklift’ Santino!”
Sophie giggled merrily for a few moments, while I attempted to absorb this information. The Joe Pesci bar scene from Goodfellas was playing in my head, but I didn’t want to jump to conclusions. Maybe Barclay (formerly Beppe) had just had an exceptionally close business “family,” with a fondness for nicknames.
“I guess maybe the guys with the fruit basket read in the paper about Barclay’s attack. Or, as they called him, the Forklift! You get the pun, right?” Sophie asked. “He used a forklift at work, plus he’s the size of a forklift. And he likes to lift a fork . . . to his mouth!”
“Oh, I understand,” I said, thinking that maybe the two “cousins” had indeed read about Barclay, whose beat-down had made a few local papers in Philly.
Or maybe the two had attacked Barclay themselves on Thursday night, and had come to the hospital hoping to finish the job.
“So anyway, the party tomorrow. The best part of the whole thing is that Chef Gianni is the caterer for the party! It’s the ultimate screw-you to Barclay!” finished Sophie happily. “My ex hates the symphony, but even more, he hates Chef Gianni!”
Eula must have known this, I realized. She was almost as plugged in as Bootsie, and no doubt knew all the details of Sophie’s divorce and of the feud between Gianni and Barclay. Sophie wouldn’t be able to resist hosting the party, which was guaranteed to enrage her husband.
“I got the Colketts coming today to work on the landscaping. They said for the right money, they can install a whole new garden by tomorrow afternoon and get, like, some great trees for the pool area. And I’m pretty sure Barclay’s going to be stuck in the hospital at least through the weekend. I don’t want him coming over here during my party. But he probably won’t—he’s afraid of Gerda.” Sophie’s Pilates instructor did seem a little scary.
“Speaking of Gerda, I have Pilates now and I gotta choke down the rest of this juice, so I better run,” chirped Sophie. “Anyway, see you tomorrow! Party starts at five. I’ll be the one in Versace!”
Chapter 6
“ROAD TRIP!” I told Waffles, after Sophie’s phone call.
It was the perfect day for a drive out to Lancaster County, a gorgeous area of Amish farms an hour west of Bryn Mawr where flea markets and barn sales are plentiful on Saturdays. I had quite a few pieces of furniture and some silver pieces in the back room at The Striped Awning, but not enough to completely restock the store once everything in the front of the shop was delivered to Sophie’s, so it was definitely time for an antiques-scouting expedition. This would also give me time to digest Sophie’s phone call, fragments of which were still ping-ponging around in my head. Barclay’s “cousins” rang some alarm bells. Despite Sophie’s request for discretion, I’d have to share this info with Bootsie. Just not at this moment. A phone call to Bootsie could kill most of the morning.
Since Waffles is up for anything—he even likes going to the vet, where they always stick a thermometer up his rump—he sat by the door and drooled happily while I jumped in the shower, got dressed (Target cotton dress, $19.99), and threw a couple of bottles of water and his water bowl in a pink L.L. Bean tote bag (Christmas present from Bootsie).
On the way out of town, I stopped at The Striped Awning and hung a sign that said
“Closed for the Weekend” since anyone passing by and seeing the entire contents of the store packed into boxes and wrapped in tarps would no doubt think I was closing up for good. Of course, it’s not like customers were exactly lining up around the block, but just in case one of the few people in the greater Philadelphia area who weren’t spending the morning whacking balls on a golf course wandered by, I wanted to make sure they’d come back another day. Next, I stopped at the drive-through cash machine to withdraw money from my still-limping checking account, and tucked two hundred dollars in twenties into my bra. You have to pay cash at the markets, and I figure it’s hard for anyone to steal a bunch of money from my chest without me noticing. Plus, since I have almost no cleavage, anything I stick in there can’t hurt. Feeling a little like Kate Upton, I headed out of town for the expressway.
A long drive to a flea market is one of my favorite things to do, and in May, it’s heavenly. It was seventy-two degrees and sunny, the best time of the year in Philly before humidity grips the area for all of June, July, and August.
The markets around Philly are ideal for finding stock for The Striped Awning, even if most of them open at unholy hours like 5 a.m. and close at 2 p.m. (I think this is an Amish thing.) Occasionally, things like French chairs turn up amid all the locally made Pennsylvania Dutch blanket chests and quilts, and you can find great smaller pieces—tableware, mirrors, Audubon prints—for next to nothing.
Which is not to say that all the local flea markets are hotbeds of undiscovered chic. There’s one held monthly in a dusty tomato field in South Jersey that sells creepy castoffs such as vintage knickers and fusty fox stoles on rickety folding tables. I don’t know why I schlep over there once a year—I keep hoping it will get better, but it never does. The last time I went, a straggly woman in a housedress behind one of the tables had a pair of old socks hanging from a flagpole, flying in the meager breeze. She claimed they were one-hundred-fifty-year-old Civil War stockings, but, honestly, who would buy old socks, even if they’d once been worn by Robert E. Lee?