by Amy Korman
“And there’s a really good Ralph Lauren outlet there, too,” Tom added. “Plus, Delaware has no sales tax.”
“Let me speed this story up: The BBQ was a bust,” Bootsie said. “We saw donut places, a fried-chicken stand, and crab shacks. No BBQ. I’m starting to think maybe you guys were in another state when you went to this place—if you really did even have this supposed sandwich.”
“I guess it’s possible that this happened in another part of this beautiful country of ours,” agreed Tom. “Maybe this happened last summer when we were in Georgia on that bench-buying trip? Or there was that weekend we went to Maine. Do they have barbecue up there?”
“Anyway,” said Tim, “finally we turned around and decided to make a quick run into Ralph Lauren, which I was thinking might be a good place for Gerda to grab a new outfit for the cabaret tonight.”
“I think she’d look good in a mini and boots,” offered Tom Colkett. “Sporty is her thing, I know, but Gerda in a mini would have a really fun vibe. I’d pair it with a turtleneck.”
“So Tom was trying on some polos, and I was trying on some tennis skirts, because Ralph makes really good ones, when who do I see holding three bow ties, a navy blazer, and a striped pink shirt, waiting to check out, but Scooter!” Bootsie said.
Bootsie recounted that Scooter had been focused on his purchases, and had paid and climbed into the backseat of a black SUV, which had then sped up I-95 toward the airport. While Jared and the Colketts waited outside, Bootsie went into the ticketing area and saw Scooter head to a Windsong Airlines desk, which runs four flights a day to Miami.
“I’m working on a theory that Scooter’s involved in the Chip kidnapping!” Bootsie said. “Miami is close to the Florida Keys, and that means the L’Etoile hotel deal is blowing up and we need to be there! Well, probably, since Gerda hasn’t gotten into Chip’s e-mails yet. But I’m convinced Scooter’s somehow involved in the Chip debacle.
“So I’m leaving tomorrow at 8 a.m. for Swan Key via Miami, since obviously we can’t miss Sophie’s cabaret. Let me call Holly, so she can use some of her frequent flyer miles to book the rest of you on the same flight.”
“You can leave us out, doll,” Tom Colkett told Bootsie. “Sounds fun, but we’re gonna be tired after the cabaret, and we still gotta find that guy with the brisket, so we’ll be heading back to Delaware this weekend.”
I started protesting that I, too, wanted to be left out, but Bootsie had already reached Holly, who immediately agreed, and added that Waffles could stay at her house with Martha.
Just then, Joe showed up. “I got your text about Florida,” he told Bootsie. “I’m in! I actually need to check in on Adelia Earle’s cottage’s new shower rod anyway, so this works out great.
“So, when are we going to break the news to Eula about Scooter taking off for Miami?” he said, a hint of evil glee in his face. “Not that I don’t feel a little bad for her,” he added.
“I guess we could do it tonight at the cabaret,” Bootsie told him, consulting her watch. “I need to leave soon to pick up Gerda at Maison de Booze. Sophie’s home getting ready for her performance, and she asked me to give Gerda a ride back to her house so Gerda can lead her through her vocal warm-ups.”
“You know,” Joe said pensively, “maybe we should give Eula back the gold bars right now and wind up this Samsonite saga. I mean, after we take our own gold brick as reward, which I’m planning to hide buried in some mulch in Holly’s front yard until we can figure out how to sell it without getting taxed. Anyway, let’s pick up Gerda, then take the suitcase over to Eula’s house.”
“Good idea,” I agreed, anxious to have the valuable items far away from The Striped Awning, and preferably in a bank vault somewhere.
“Great, let’s grab the luggage and go,” agreed Bootsie.
“We’re out of here,” the Colketts told us, heading out the front door. “Got to change and get our keyboards and bass over to Gianni’s by eight.”
Joe, meanwhile, headed to the back room of my shop, where I could now hear him rummaging around. “What the fuck?” he said. “Could you have any more Windex back here? And where’d you put the suitcase?” he demanded, sticking his head back inside the sales floor from where he stood in my storage area.
“What?” I said, shocked.
“You didn’t move the Samsonite?”
“I haven’t gone back there today!” I said, panicked. “I’ve only had four customers, and they all stayed near the front of the store. No one’s been in there all day!”
Bootsie, Joe, and I spent the next fifteen minutes looking through every inch of the store and back room for the missing rolling suitcase, which really only took about three minutes, since the shop’s not that big and a piece of luggage is hard to hide. The suitcase was gone.
“My nine-thousand-seven-hundred-fifty-dollar windfall!” yelled Joe. “This holiday is ruined even worse than it was before, thanks to Sophie’s stupid New Year’s Day wedding idea, when everyone knows that’s a terrible day to start something new!”
“What color was that suitcase again?” asked Bootsie suddenly. “Was it, um, blue?”
Joe and I both stared at her.
“Why are you asking that?” Joe demanded suspiciously.
“Well, the Colketts and I had a couple of beers in Delaware before we got to the Ralph Lauren outlet, and come to think of it, I think when Scooter got dropped off at the airport, he might have had a blue rollerboard with him,” Bootsie said nonchalantly. “Huh. I guess I didn’t realize it was the same one he took from Eula.”
“Yes, the missing Samsonite was blue,” screamed Joe. “It was the thirty-inch Black Label Firelite spinner in deep blue, to be exact. Scooter must have broken in here last night and stolen back Eula’s gold!”
“We’re going to have to grill Eula about what she knows that could help lead us to Scooter, and the suitcase, and thereby find Chip,” said Bootsie.
She and Joe were too upset to drive—Bootsie seemed slightly more devastated about the suitcase than she had when Chip had disappeared, which I didn’t point out—so we’d all piled into my car to pick up Gerda at work. We were now headed for Eula’s house, with Waffles sitting happily in the back between Joe and Gerda, neither of whom looked especially pleased to have a panting dog as a seatmate.
“Scooter must have mentioned something to Eula about a hotel deal he was working on,” Bootsie mused. She paused for a moment. “I’ll probably enjoy telling her about Scooter and the suitcase, but I’m angry that we have to admit that someone then stole it from us.”
I noticed that Eula’s house was freshly painted, and that sometime during the fall, she’d had a lot of new holly bushes and trees planted. There were crisp new black shutters, a jaunty navy front door, and a large American flag, as well as huge, fragrant wreaths on all the windows, and lots of lush greenery surrounding the doors and windows.
“Eula!” screamed Bootsie, rapping on a French door and startling the house’s owner, who was midworkout on a VersaClimber. Eula hopped off her home gym equipment and opened up.
“Did you find my suitcase?” she asked breathlessly.
“Sort of,” Bootsie told her, as Joe, Gerda, Waffles, and I crowded into Eula’s living room, which still had the cute new pillows and rug that Joe had decorated it with last summer as part of a scheme to gain access and search Eula’s house for a missing painting.
“I did a fantastic job on this place,” Joe congratulated himself. “In two hours last summer, I took this place from hand-me-down shack to boho-chic-meets-design-within-reach.” Eula shrugged off the insult, which is one of her better qualities.
Joe’s dissed my own run-down cottage many times, so I’ve gotten used to it, but actually Eula’s place was in way better shape than mine.
She must have used some of her Powerball cash to have the kitchen spruced up, too, I thought, noticing it was sheathed in sparkling white marble. A cool starburst light fixture now was hanging over the dining room table
, which I don’t think her aunt would have installed before she’d bequeathed the place to Eula.
“I like this house,” announced Gerda, giving an appreciative nod to the living room’s high ceiling, large fireplace, and mullioned windows. “This puts me in mind of small mountain houses in Austria.”
“Yeah, it’s cute,” agreed Eula. “But I’m thinking of buying a bigger place when I’m back from the Palace of the Seas trip. Something more like Holly’s place.”
At this, Joe perked up. I could see where he was headed: As much as he hates Eula, if she was going to buy a big old house that needed renovation, he could suddenly find a way to get along with her. For her part, though, Bootsie kept the conversation on track.
“Eula, we have some bad news,” she told her bluntly. “Your boyfriend stole your suitcase. Then, we stole it from him, but he seems to have purloined your Samsonite once again. And we’re not planning to recover it for you until you tell us everything Scooter blabbed to you about his current business deal in Florida.”
“Scooter wouldn’t do that to me!” Eula wailed. “And he didn’t take my new diamond necklace, either! Oops,” she added hastily, realizing she hadn’t mentioned missing jewelry to us before. “I can’t find a few pieces of jewelry I picked up on my cruise, but they’re probably around here somewhere. Anyway, there’s no way Scootie would do this.”
“Eula, I’m telling you that we broke into the house where Scooter has been staying and found your Samsonite right next to him, and you don’t think he stole it?”
“One thing I don’t understand,” I said. “The night that your suitcase was stolen, you said you had dinner with Scooter. So he maybe he hired someone else to grab it?” I wondered aloud.
“I asked Channing about that,” Bootsie told me. “Scooter was twenty minutes late to meet you at the restaurant that night. Plenty of time to grab that Samsonite.”
Eula didn’t deny this, and we could see from her sad pout that she was beginning to realize we were telling her the truth. “Maybe he was just keeping my valuables safe for me?” she ventured sadly.
We all raised our eyebrows at this, since Scooter’s nothing if not sneaky.
In the one week we’d known him last January, he’d faked zoning documents, sawed down a rare and endangered oak tree, staked out a huge condo building on a protected beachfront, and slipped Klonopin into his half brother’s drink.
“I’m going to level with you, Eula,” Joe told her. “Normally, I’d enjoy seeing you date a guy who’s known to be a total weasel, but in this case, I want my nine-thousand-seven-hundred-fifty-dollar share of your gold brick, so I need to know where Scooter told you he was going for this business meeting. Is the meeting in the Florida Keys?
“Because your new boyfriend seems to be involved with some shady business deal that has Bootsie’s brother Chip in the hole for fifty thousand dollars, and Chip might lose some important body parts, namely an eyelid and all his eyelashes, if we don’t help him out.”
“Scooter did mention he was going to Florida for a business deal,” Eula told us sadly. “It might have been in the Keys.” Then she crumpled onto a new pale gray sofa, and burst into a crazy storm of tears. “I’m starting to believe you’re right about Scooter! All my new diamonds that I got duty-free in Paradise Island were in the Samsonite, too, but I was too embarrassed to tell you!”
We all looked uncomfortable, and finally Bootsie broke the awkward silence.
“There’s only one thing you can do, Eula, to make yourself feel better. And that one thing is to be at Gianni’s in”—here she checked her watch—“less than an hour, so hurry up and get in the shower. Tonight you can enjoy an amazing cabaret starring Sophie Shields, guzzle a bunch of champagne, ogle Channing the hot chef, and tell us everything you ever heard Scooter say about a shady hotel deal in Florida!”
Chapter Thirteen
“Jingle bells,” trilled Sophie in a jazzy voice at 8 p.m., looking gorgeous in the silver beaded minidress that she and the Colketts had finally agreed upon. She’d perfected a little dance routine that the Colketts had “curated,” as they called it, which included feet tapping, some sultry hip swivels, and a few high kicks.
“Ji-ji-jingle bells,” chorused the Colketts from behind their instruments, with Tim on keyboards and Tom on the standup bass. They were performing the tune in the swingy big-band style of Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters.
“This is awesome!” whispered Bootsie. “The Colketts sound amazing, Sophie looks fantastic, and the whole vibe is totally Café Carlyle meets Fred Astaire meets Eartha Kitt!”
“Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one-horse open sleigh!” sang Sophie.
“Hey!” responded the Colketts in melodic unison, sawing away at the bass and banging on the keyboards.
Restaurant Gianni’s bar area had taken on the vibe of a 1940s nightclub, I noticed, with the lights down low, candles flickering, and Christmassy decorations hung everywhere. Champagne was flowing, and the thirty-five-dollar ticket price to the cabaret included a raw bar of shrimp and lobster cocktail.
If only John were here, I thought, feeling both wistful and irked. Sure, he’d been by my side at Thanksgiving, but that was weeks ago. Maybe Mike Woodford would be here tonight, and would get more specific about the possible dinner date he’d mentioned. That would show John!
“Look, there’s the handsome jeweler Pierre Lemieux,” said Holly. “He just sent Sophie a glass of champagne to sip on her break between songs!” She looked meaningfully at Joe, who cast his eyes toward the kitchen and swigged some Scotch. “Maybe you should go tell Sophie that you’re ready to get married, and then Pierre’s champagne will go flat.”
“How old is this Pierre Lemieux?” asked Gerda disapprovingly. “Looks pretty young to me.”
We all eyed the handsome, dark-haired jeweler. He appeared to be about thirty, and had on a sleek navy suit that even outdid Joe in its crisp, unwrinkled perfection. He was smiling at Sophie approvingly, and gave a little whistle of approval as she finished up a soulful, meaningful, yet festive take on “Blue Christmas,” with plenty of significant looks aimed at Joe.
“Younger men are the new older men,” announced Holly. “Sophie might be in the market for a guy in the Lemieux age bracket.”
“She’s great at working the room!” I said admiringly. “Sophie’s a natural at performing.”
As everyone broke into huge applause, Sophie and the Colketts took multiple bows.
“How did the bird figurines work out?” I asked Holly, as Sophie walked over to where our group sat with a miserable Eula Morris. Mike, I noted sadly, was nowhere to be seen.
“It wasn’t as successful as we hoped,” said Holly.
“It was real scary!” shrieked Sophie, drying off a little sheen of perspiration with a starched white napkin.
“Right after we got there, a guy came in and robbed the Lemieuxs!”
Sophie explained that Holly had been about to examine some sterling figurines of grouse and Sophie herself had been about to layer on a few tennis bracelets, when all of a sudden, the Lemieux front door had been thrown open, and a guy in a mask and nondescript jeans and sneakers had come in. He’d had a gun and a note demanding that everything in the front display cases be handed over. Within seconds, he’d grabbed bracelets, an antique starburst pendant, and a few rings from the front display cases, but the alarm was going off like crazy. Within seconds, the guy was gone, having never spoken.
“And he moved like a robot,” Sophie said. “He had gloves on, a scarf, and his mask was one of those super-creepy ones that go all the way over the head and down to the shirt collar, so you can’t see anything about the person underneath!”
“What kind of mask was it?” demanded Bootsie. “I need to know this stuff for the Gazette!”
“It was—get this—a Krampus mask!” shrieked Sophie. “And it was scary as heck! But you can forget your newspaper story. This one’s already on the Philly papers’ Web sites and everything. Not only w
as Officer Walt called in by the Lemieuxs, but your editor in chief showed up. He said he was writing this story himself, and it’s gonna be front page tomorrow.”
“What time was this?” I asked. “Could it have been Scooter dressed as Krampus? Because he was shopping at a Ralph Lauren outlet at, like, lunchtime, and then headed for the airport at 12:45.”
“You know what—it was early, maybe 10:15 a.m., so maybe Krampus was Scooter!” mused Sophie. “I mean, I didn’t pick up on a resemblance, but that gives him time to get down to Delaware, shop, and hit the airport!”
“By the way, Gerda, we have an early holiday present for you,” Holly told her. “Your own gym. Joe’s going to completely remodel the barn next to the wine store so you can have two Pilates rooms, a gym, and a steam room.”
Gerda broke into one of her once-a-year smiles. “Merry Christmas to me!” she said. “This is a very welcome gift which will keep on giving via greater fitness for this village! Thank you in a very big way.” She thought for a moment. “This could be the year I expand into an empire of Pilates for more out-of-shape Americans. Also, I am thinking of way to convince Eula to sell me her cottage, which is my ideal home.”
Eula, for her part, ignored Gerda’s informal offer on her house. She was still calling and texting Scooter, but couldn’t reach him.
“Hon, that guy flew the coop,” Tim Colkett told Eula when the Colketts joined our group. “We saw him heading into the airport.”
“He’s gonzo,” seconded Tom. “He flew out of town right after he left the Ralph Lauren outfit, and this one”—here, he pointed to Bootsie—“trailed him into the check-in area, where he went to the Windsong Airline desk, and you know they only fly to Florida.”
“Plus, he stole your suitcase—twice,” Bootsie pointed out.
I felt badly for Eula, honestly. I had really started to think Scooter might have been The One for her. Scooter had the charm and manners to make her happy. If only he had sneaked the suitcase back into her house last night, the two could have resumed their romance, and the holidays would be back on track. Plus, an upbeat, in-love Eula would probably rarely come back to town! She’d be too busy wandering Rome or St. Tropez on Scooter’s arm to visit, and Holly and Joe could go off their anxiety medication, and all the town festivals, cabarets (not that those happened much), and events would be Eula-free.