Killer Holiday

by Amy Korman

It was already 1 p.m. by the time we got back to the Sugar Lime, where we zipped a reluctant Gerda into the pink dress, inserted her into the fancy shoes, and stuck the messenger bag over her arm.

  “Sunglasses,” said Holly, placing a large pair on Gerda’s nose. “Now, you know what to do, Gerda, right? I mean, Brunhilda. First, you interest Scooter in a fake ski resort.”

  “And don’t forget to convince Scooter and Pete that the deal hinges on Chip being out of the picture,” Sophie said. “I got my lawyer to e-mail me a release for Chip from the L’Etoile deal, and I just printed it out for ya.” She stuck a document in the messenger bag.

  “We just have to hope Chip either doesn’t recognize Gerda, or figures out that she’s trying to rescue him,” Joe added. “Chip’s not the smartest guy around, but I think he’ll realize something’s up and keep quiet.”

  “I am ready.” Gerda nodded.

  “I’m calling your phone right now, Gerda,” said Sophie. “Answer it, and leave it on. That way we can stay out of sight but hear the whole lunch. And, we can bust in and help you and Chip if ya need us.”

  Gerda nodded and marched gingerly in her fancy heels to the patio, where we could see Minnie seated at a prime table with the three men. The rest of us lurked on Sophie’s private patio, which was to the right of the restaurant, and screened by some lush tropical foliage.

  “Chip!” screamed Bootsie, sotto voce, staring through the bougainvillea fronds at her brother. “He looks terrible!”

  “Not really,” said Joe. “I mean, he has a tan, he looks like he’s been working out, and he just ordered a beer. It’s not that bad to be kidnapped down in the Keys.”

  “That’s true,” said Dave. “I’ve really enjoyed it myself.”

  “Hello, Minnie Allington,” we heard Gerda’s muffled voice say via Sophie’s phone. “It is I, your friend Brunhilda Dagmar, the wealthy restaurateur and investor. What a pleasure to join you here at lunch.”

  “Gerda’s a horrible actress,” said Bootsie. “We should have rehearsed her more.”

  “I think Chip just realized it’s Gerda!” offered Sophie. “Looks like he choked on his guacamole. But he’s staying quiet.”

  “They’re buying it,” Joe said. “Scooter just pulled up a chair for Brunhilda. I mean, for Gerda.”

  Over lunch, Scooter and Pete told the fake Brunhilda all about their plans for L’Etoile, which would be an amazing resort and the first in all of the Keys to get special permission to build a glitzy high-rise. Gerda-as-Brunhilda said she’d give them a check as soon as she got to a bank, because she wanted in on the deal.

  Then Minnie gave the men her spiel about an Austrian ski retreat she and Brunhilda were planning, which would offer shares to the right investors, and that Brunhilda needed a top American legal brain for the ski project, for which this lawyer would be paid twenty-five thousand dollars per month. Gerda-as-Brunhilda agreed that Scooter was the man for the job. Then she turned her sunglasses toward Chip.

  “This person cannot be involved in my restaurant and boutique hotel,” said Gerda, voice crackling through her handbag and out of Sophie’s phone. “He is too American for my vision of Austrian resort, which has no place for a man in a T-shirt. Pete and Scooter, if you remove this tall blond man from my presence, we can proceed with our deal.”

  “Sure!” said Pete. “Chip, hit the road.”

  “Also, this young man looks like type who screw up a lot,” continued Gerda in frosty, judgmental tone (which wasn’t all that much of an acting job for her). It did, though, sound like she was warming up to her role as international tycooness. “I need clean slate if we going to launch fabulous projects together,” Gerda told Scooter. “So if this person Chip owes you money, I want you to forget his debt right now. And, sign a legal document to that effect, filling in his name here, and your name, here.”

  “Really?” said Pete dubiously. “Um, okay, but this guy was fifty grand in the hole with us.”

  “This is what I’m talking about,” said Gerda. “Small-time thinking is not what Brunhilda Dagmar is all about. Deal is off if you don’t sign.”

  “Okay, okay,” said Pete hastily, and we saw him scribble his name on the paper.

  Just then, a big black limo pulled up to the restaurant entrance. Two huge guys got out of the back, looked around, saw Pete and Scooter, nodded, and started heading over to their table.

  “Mayday! Mayday!” screamed Bootsie into her phone, which, set on mute and buried inside Gerda’s blingy new Chanel purse, was doing nothing to warn her. “Gerda, some actual scary people have just arrived!”

  Chapter Twenty

  We all rushed out from our hiding spot and onto the restaurant’s patio. Chip gave Bootsie a huge hug, seemingly unconcerned that two thugs were now looming over his table.

  Things devolved quickly. Minnie informed Scooter that not only was their engagement off, but that she might report him for fraud, since apparently he’d been selling fake hotel shares to unsuspecting older folks in Pennsylvania.

  “What’s all this?” said one of the guys from the limo. “Pete, we came to tell you that your boss in Miami has been waiting for some cash from this L’Etoile deal, and if you’re skimming all the money for yourself, which it sounds like you are, you might want to jump in the ocean and start swimming.”

  “Just so you know, my brother here was scammed, too!” Bootsie told the guys. “He really thought this was a boutique hotel deal until a couple of weeks ago. Then he didn’t know how to get out of it, and was told he owed these guys fifty thousand dollars.”

  “Listen, lady, our beef is mostly with Pete,” said the guys. “Your brother isn’t worth our time and effort. Pete here made the mistake of screwing over our boss on this hotel deal, and he’s not happy.”

  The guys explained that their boss, one Theodore Martin from Miami Shores, Florida, had long owned the L’Etoile property, and had asked Pete to look into developing it. Then Mr. Martin started to hear around town that Pete Penworthy was lying to people and taking deposits for a much bigger hotel deal. “He’s going to shut down the fake hotel deal,” said the shorter of the two guys from Miami.

  “I’m completely innocent!” Scooter told them, jumping up. “So I’m just going to skedaddle. And if I can ever be of any help, or provide introductions to any people in Magnolia Beach—”

  “Shut it and sit down,” said the bigger guy. Scooter sat again.

  “What about this guy?” asked his colleague, indicating Chip. “Who are you?”

  “Chip Delaney!” said Chip. “Golf equipment salesman. I was hoping to get into the hotel game, but I guess it’s not going to work out.”

  “Beat it,” the guy told him. “I can’t be bothered with you.”

  “We are about to leave,” said Gerda, “but can you guarantee us that no one gonna pursue Chip here anymore and leave him threatening notes? Because he don’t have a lot of money, and he’s not a wheeler-dealer type.”

  The smaller guy eyed Gerda, and appeared to like what he saw. “Sure, honey, and who are you?” he asked. “I like your style. Tall and tan and European. And the Chanel shoes. Very nice.”

  “Sorry,” Gerda told him, “I’m focused on my career and I don’t have time to date.”

  Just then, a party van pulled up behind the limo, and the entire restaurant turned to stare as a dozen ladies in their seventies, clad in caftans and Lilly Pulitzer dresses and large sunglasses, emerged. One petite, smiling lady was waving in our direction, and she looked very familiar.

  “Is that . . . Adelia Earle?” I asked Joe, who looked panicked and nodded.

  “That’s her, and her Friday afternoon bridge club,” he confirmed. “She called me about her antique coasters last night, and I’d had a lot to drink, and she somehow got it out of me that we were all at the Sugar Lime Inn and just a two-hour drive from Magnolia Beach!”

  “Hi, Mrs. Earle,” said Gerda, who’d met the tobacco heiress with us last winter, and had always liked her. “How are you? Ho
w are all your friends that you have lunch with each day? I enjoy seeing you again.”

  “The girls are doing great!” said Adelia, indicating the group of women, who were headed to the bar. “We all love Joe, and it was the perfect excuse to ride down here for lunch.”

  Adelia caught sight of Scooter and shook her finger at him. “You naughty boy, Scooter, are you in trouble again?”

  “Not at all,” said Scooter nervously. “I’m, uh, just here visiting friends. Reading, boating, jogging, that’s it!”

  “Scooter and this guy Pete have gotten my brother into a major shit storm, Mrs. E.,” Bootsie told the caftan-clad heiress. “They involved him in an investment scam on an old hotel called L’Etoile, which was supposed to become a super-fancy resort with one hundred condos, two restaurants, a spa, and a disco, but is only zoned for about twelve rooms. And these two guys have a boss who actually owns the property, and isn’t too happy.”

  “I know L’Etoile!” said Mrs. Earle, her small face taking on a nostalgic glow behind her large sunglasses. “That was a favorite spot of mine and my late husband. We used to go there every New Year’s Eve. It was so romantic. We’d play tennis, swim, go fishing, and dance under the stars.”

  “The owner, Mr. Martin, said he doesn’t have time to renovate the place,” said the taller Miami guy to Mrs. Earle. “I’m real sorry, because I can see from how much you liked it that it must have been a special spot back in the day. But he has a bunch of projects in Miami right now, and he can’t be coming down to the Keys all the time to supervise the place.”

  Just then, the guy caught sight of a tall redhead entering the restaurant, heading for the bar.

  “Hey, there’s Sienna Blunt from HGTV!” said the thug excitedly. “I love her! Wow, what a celebrity!”

  “Hi, Sienna,” said Joe without much enthusiasm. “What, is this the only restaurant in town? Does everyone eat lunch here?”

  “It actually is the only place in town!” Sienna told him cheerfully. “Oh, there’s the investor I’m meeting, who’s down here on a fishing trip. Maybe you know her. She’s one of the biggest restaurateurs in Miami!”

  “That blond lady?” asked Gerda. “In a pink dress? Wait—she looks just like me.”

  “Uh-oh,” said Bootsie. “I think the actual Brunhilda Dagmar is here.”

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Twenty minutes later, with explanations given all around, Sienna Blunt was showing Mrs. Earle and the real Brunhilda her designs for the old L’Etoile Hotel.

  “I designed an updated look for the old building, and a spa, and a cool indoor-outdoor restaurant,” Sienna explained. “Think of the best of the 1940s South Beach hotels mingled with California midcentury modern and classic preppy Palm Beach. Lots of white marble with bright yellow accents, and gardens full of bougainvillea and lemon trees.”

  Sienna scrolled through her iPad.

  “The scale, of course, needs to be low, lush, and loungey,” she was saying, “while staying leafy and beachy.”

  “Anyone knows that!” snorted Joe. “I mean, it’s the Keys, not Las Vegas.”

  “Have you ever thought of having a clay pigeon shooting range there?” asked Adelia. “And doing the restaurant all in Lilly Pulitzer prints?”

  She turned to the scary Miami guys. “I have a group of friends over there at the bar who are always looking for fun weekend getaways, and I’m thinking L’Etoile could make a glamorous comeback. Brunhilda might invest, and my bridge club has money, and, of course, my family are the Stokes cigarette people. So if your boss is willing to sell, this girl and I could bring back L’Etoile’s glory days!”

  “Sure, he’s real interested in unloading the place,” the taller guy told her. “I’ll text him and run this past him. I mean, it’s a shame to let it just sit there, and your ideas sound real nice.”

  “Mrs. Earle, you should know that there is other spa nearby that will be competition for your L’Etoile idea,” Gerda told her, making her usual effort to quash any good mood that happened to be in her presence. “It’s called Le Vert Epinard, and is very well-known among movie stars, with all food grown organically on site.”

  “I’ve been there, dear, and it was pure hell,” Adelia told her. “L’Etoile is going to be fun, with the best margaritas for miles. Think of a spa that serves tequila, bacon, cheese, and pasta.”

  “Sienna will need help on a job this size!” said Joe hopefully to Mrs. Earle. “And I’m almost done with the renovation of your run-down shack—I mean that adorable cottage—and I’m available!”

  “Our boss says he’s good with selling to these two ladies and to send him the paperwork,” said the taller Miami guy, reading a text message. “So we’re done here, and we’re taking Pete with us,” he said, nudging Pete out of his chair. “What about this guy?” he said, indicating Scooter.

  “We have a plan for him ourselves,” Minnie told the muscular guys. “He was engaged to me and about to propose to another girl at the same time.”

  “That stinks,” the bigger guy told Scooter. “You should be ashamed of yourself.”

  “Scooter, your stepmother Susie isn’t going to like this!” Adelia added.

  “I really need to get going,” Scooter said. “I have a flight to Austria to catch. I’m all packed and ready to go, and I left my bags at the concierge desk. I think things have worked out really well here! Give my love to Eula,” he said.

  With that, Scooter made a beeline to the concierge, who handed over the blue Samsonite. Gerda and Joe grabbed it from him, with the Miami guys looking on as we explained that the bag had been stolen from the same girl Scooter had misled in Philly.

  Scooter took one look at the huge guys’ disapproving faces, gave up on the Samsonite, and headed toward the hotel exit toting only an expensive-looking briefcase. He was hustling off the shady terrace of the Sugar Lime Inn when, unfortunately, in his haste, the briefcase got caught on a branch of a potted orange tree, the lock popped, and the briefcase fell open.

  Diamond necklaces and bracelets tumbled out onto the wood floor of the outdoor restaurant, and the happy din of diners enjoying conch-salad lunches ground to a halt.

  “Eula’s jewelry!” shrieked Sophie. “And wait a minute, that’s my Gucci watch! I’ve been looking for that since it disappeared the other night at the country club. Scooter musta grabbed it right off my wrist.”

  “And there are my Tiffany drop earrings and my Cartier diamond necklace, which I thought I lost on the Palace of the Seas,” said Minnie.

  “And all the antique jewelry stolen from the Lemieuxs,” said Holly. “We’ll just take that with us, because December’s almost over, and my shopping embargo is going to be done in less than ten days!”

  Chapter Twenty-two

  We flew home that afternoon, dropped off the Samsonite to Eula—minus two gold bars, since Gerda had decided that keeping four was too many and not nice, while Joe said that it had been a real pain in the ass to go all the way to Florida, and one wasn’t enough. We gave Eula a short explanation that Scooter would be in Europe for a while, and that we hoped she would find a much better guy to date very soon—maybe even on the Palace of the Seas.

  I picked up Waffles at Holly’s house, and enjoyed a blissful sleep and an uneventful Monday morning the next day at The Striped Awning. Outside on the town square, Sophie and Gerda were bossing around volunteers for the town festival decorating committee, and I snapped a few pictures of the decorations and texted them to John in California. Now that I was back from Florida, my missing-boyfriend malaise had returned. Maybe I’d simply call John and plead with him to come back for Christmas. Or I could try to guilt him into returning! Of course, Sophie had tried similar tactics with Joe vis-à-vis their engagement, and look how that had turned out.

  Meanwhile, Eddie from the Pub showed up and reorganized a large table and some chairs in the back of my shop for his first poker game, which was set for 10 p.m. the next night. Holly was home with the Colketts, who had found the barbecue g
uy in Delaware, and were currently decorating the heated Trendy Tent party space.

  At six, Joe stopped in and hit the Maker’s Mark, throwing a tiny candy cane into his drink as a garnish.

  “Adelia’s been calling me all day. Her ideas sound fantastic for L’Etoile,” Joe said glumly. “She’ll probably make another gazillion dollars to add on to her current tobacco fortune. Her friends alone will book up all the rooms.” He gave a glum wave as Sophie, Gerda, Bootsie, and Holly walked in.

  “Anyway, Adelia’s not sure that Sienna’s going to need any help with L’Etoile, so she’s keeping me on coasters and napkins for now.”

  “You know what?” Sophie said, plopping down in a chair and propping up her tiny boots on a footstool. “I think we need to take a break. Can’t we do something fun, like order in food and watch holiday movies on the giant screen in Holly’s new Man Shed, and she can show us where that moonshine thingy was supposed to go?”

  “What kind of food?” said Bootsie. “And I’m in, whatever kind of food it is, but can it be something with meat and cheese?”

  “Will there be gluten? Because I don’t approve, if so,” intoned Gerda.

  “There’s gonna be gluten,” Bootsie told her. “And beer. I got the Hoagie House menu right here,” and she whipped out a colorful tri-fold.

  “You know what I’ve always wondered—mostly when I’m real bored, like when I’m getting my highlights touched up, or waiting for the Colketts to look through about four thousand paint colors—what’s the difference between a grinder and a hoagie?” pondered Sophie, looking over the menu. “I mean, I mostly eat salads and stuff like that since I’m only four-eleven, and I gotta stay lean, but I like to eat junk food sometimes, and I feel like I should know.”

  “I think grinders have a toasted roll,” Bootsie told her.

  “Grinders are, like, hot, gooey chicken parmesan, and grinders always have cheese,” said Joe, with some authority. “Hoagies are cold, like turkey or salami.”