by Amy Korman
“Look, doll, we don’t want to get involved,” he said urgently. “Not that we know anything, of course,” he added, turning pink and running his hands through his hair. “We’re just trying to make an honest living. Look at my ear! I’m still hoping to get one hundred percent of my hearing back after the pomegranate incident the other night.”
“You know how it is. Business has to come first. We’re out here picking up some trees and rosebushes for Mrs. Shields’s party tomorrow night,” whispered Tom. “She’s redoing her entire yard in one day. You gotta respect that. And our policy is, we get along with everyone. Well, everyone that can afford us, that is,” he added.
“Well, cheerio,” said Tim, grabbing his companion. The two drained their glasses, got up, and dashed out of the barn.
I stared after them, confused. Were they just scared that Gianni would physically attack them again—maybe with something more dangerous than dried fruit—if he heard that the Colketts talked about him behind his back, or did the guys actually know something damning about Gianni that related to Barclay’s attack? And were they brothers?
I went back out to the car with Waffles, gave him water in his portable bowl, then we packed up and went to a barn sale out in Lancaster. We scored a few great items, packed up, and turned toward home.
Once up in the front seat next to me, Waffles lay down with a giant thump. He drank another bowl of water, which seemed like a good idea given his cookie binge. He looked a little green around the gills. He sighed heavily and peered at his belly, looking depressed. All that quinoa couldn’t be feeling good in his stomach.
I patted his head, and looked around at the lengthening shadows of the leafy apple orchards that graced the bucolic farms we were passing. It really was so gorgeous here. Life was simple. People worked hard, and no doubt slept as soundly as boulders until they rose with the sun to thresh wheat and build barns.
Maybe I could change my life up entirely, I thought suddenly. I’d find a brawny, stoic Amish man who’d forgo the sect’s no-makeup rule and allow me to wear mascara and lip gloss, and together we’d sip lemonade on Sunday afternoons while lambs grazed in our yard. Waffles and I would give up borrowing Holly’s expensive shoes and struggling to pay the bills, and adopt simpler pleasures.
But then again, I don’t know if I’m really the farming type.
And right now, it was almost cocktail hour, and I was really thirsty. Also, I couldn’t miss Sophie’s party tomorrow night. I’d have to table this Amish idea for a while. After unloading my purchases into the back room of The Striped Awning, we headed home. Waffles spent some quality time behind his bush and emerged looking relieved while I took a bath, and we both went to bed at our favorite hour: eight-thirty.
Chapter 7
BOOTSIE WAS IN my driveway honking impatiently at four twenty-five the next afternoon, thirty minutes earlier than she was supposed to pick me up for Sophie’s symphony benefit, but I was dressed and ready to go. I’d had a productive day cleaning up my yard and had stopped into the store to polish the silver acorns and serving pieces I’d bought in Lancaster County. I’d even gone to the 11 a.m. church service, then splurged on a five-dollar mocha at Starbucks. This was my perfect version of a Sunday.
“This party is going to be huge!” Bootsie crowed as I climbed into her giant SUV, wearing a fantastic yellow sundress that Holly had given to me after wearing it once to the post office and deciding she was “tired of it.”
“Bootsie, the event doesn’t start till five,” I said. “And Sophie’s house is less than a mile away.”
“Who cares?” shouted Bootsie, gunning her engine and throwing the gearshift into reverse. “Everyone in Philadelphia is early for parties. Eula Morris knows that. This shindig will kick off at four-thirty, mark my words.”
Bootsie roared out of the driveway on two wheels, and Mario-Andrettied the short distance to the Shields mansion.
“Sophie told me yesterday that she’s worried Barclay’s going to crash the party tonight,” I told Bootsie, while my eyes adjusted to the mind-boggling lime-green pattern of her Lilly Pulitzer dress. “If he gets out of the hospital, he’d love to make things uncomfortable for her in front of the symphony crowd.”
“Sophie doesn’t need to worry about Barclay coming tonight,” Bootsie replied, two-wheeling it around a corner of Dark Hollow Road. “He’s still in the hospital, and won’t get sprung until Friday at the earliest. He wanted to leave this afternoon, but as soon as they wheeled him out of the hospital, Barclay collapsed in the parking lot. They did an EKG in the emergency room, and immediately had to perform an angioplasty.”
At this, Bootsie sniffed disapprovingly. Bootsie doesn’t believe in angioplasties, or in being fat. She comes from the kind of family that thinks that no matter what the problem, a brisk jog, an aspirin, and a bracing five-mile swim around an icy lake will cure you. Whenever Bootsie’s mother, Kitty Delaney, gains a pound, she eats nothing but avocadoes and grapefruit for a week, and Bootsie subscribes to the same spartan regimen.
“Jeannie, our old sitter, was just arriving for her nursing shift and saw the whole thing,” Bootsie continued happily. “Now Barclay’s on clear liquids, and they’ve given him a bunch of pamphlets about lap-band surgery,” she continued, delivering this news with some relish. “He’s stuck there for at least five more days. And he’s scared that someone’s going to try to kill him again, so he hired a security guard and stationed the guy outside his room.”
“Did Jeannie the nurse fill you in about Barclay’s visitors on Friday?”
“Of course,” Bootsie replied. “Two guys with Jersey accents, in black jeans and leather blazers. They were pissed off about not getting in to see Barclay, and said they were relatives.”
“Make that Beppe,” I told her. “That’s Barclay’s real name: Beppe Santino. His nickname was the Forklift, before he had to leave North Jersey when his parents were killed in a suspicious catering-hall incident.”
“Are you kidding me!” shrieked Bootsie. “That’s fantastic. I had a feeling there was more to Barclay’s past!”
“Let’s just hope the cousins don’t show up at Sophie’s,” I said. “I don’t think Eula Morris was counting on anything other than tomatoes arriving from Jersey tonight.”
Bootsie took a left and squealed into a long driveway flanked by arbor vitae, where she almost crashed into Holly and Joe, who’d pulled into the valet parking line before us in Joe’s Range Rover. Bootsie was right—we didn’t need to worry about being early. There were already a dozen cars queued up to be parked. No one could wait to inspect Sophie, or more importantly, her house. Since I’m as inquisitive as anyone else, I craned my neck out the window to try to see around the line of expensive SUVs into Sophie’s property.
I’d never gotten a glimpse of the inner recesses of the Shields estate before, since it was hidden from the road by those enormous hedges. Now, though, a palatial, monstrous structure loomed ahead, evoking Cinderella’s castle at Disney World in size and scope. Overhead, the letters BS were woven into the arched gate of a wrought-iron fence that soared above the driveway.
“BS!” shrieked Bootsie. “I love it. This is going to be great!”
Chapter 8
IF 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 embarrassi
ng 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.
“HELLO, 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.