Killer Getaway Page 21

  “First of all, we’re not dead,” Sophie said, giving Joe a squeeze as he came in from the dining hut, where he’d been overseeing the La Tente installation.

  “Also,” Sophie ticked off her mental list, “Barclay lost a truckload of cash on the restaurant and he got whacked in the head again. And with Gianni gone, and Olivia not trying to fuck everything up at Vicino, Channing and Jessica will get Vicino back as the number-­one spot in town.”

  “I have some good news, too,” Adelia told her, sipping a cappuccino, though she looked like she’d rather have had something stronger. “Bingo and Susie both got back in town late last night, and Susie already filed an injunction this morning against anything being torn down, sawed down, or even a blade of grass being cut at the old schoolhouse.”

  A FEW MINUTES later, all members of the Simmons clan arrived at Adelia’s, summoned by Susie to this neutral location. Bingo greeted the tobacco heiress with a big hug, and Susie wafted an air kiss to Adelia, while Scooter and his wife, Mary Simmons, came in wearing sour expressions. Soon, the family meeting devolved into a verbal brawl.

  Scooter began a three-­minute monologue during which he explained that Chef Gianni had gathered his investors in Gianni Mare for a guys’ weekend in Miami back in November, soon after he’d signed on to do the HGTV pop-­up place.

  Gianni had known he couldn’t put together the kind of place he wanted for fifty grand, and he’d lured Barclay down with the prospect of screwing over Sophie vis-­à-­vis her investment in Vicino. Scooter and Barclay were introduced at a boozy group dinner, where Scooter had tipsily bragged to Barclay about the prime piece of real estate that his family held. Barclay had at once jumped at the chance to get in on a high-­end condo development in such a ritzy town.

  Poor Scooter realized he’d been manipulated and forced into the deal to build the condos, now that he really thought about it. At least, that was the version he was now serving up to his stepmother.

  “It was all her husband’s idea!” said Scooter, pointing at Sophie.

  Susie Simmons seemed immune to her stepson’s woeful tale.

  “Scott, what did I tell you and your brother about tattling?” said Mrs. Simmons.

  “That it’s bad,” Scooter mumbled.

  “That’s right,” said his stepmother. “And one other thing. Remember how we used to ground you when you lied to us as a teenager?”

  Scooter nodded.

  “Well, it’s happening again,” Mrs. Simmons told him.

  “You can’t ground me, Susie! I’m forty-­one years old!” screamed the hapless lawyer-­slash-­developer.

  “Oh, yes, I can, because I still have control over your allowance,” said Susie Simmons, who seemed rested and energetic after her classic-­film cruise. “And as of an hour ago, the accounts are all under my control, and I’m giving your former monthly stipend to Mary.”

  She nodded at Scooter’s estranged wife, who couldn’t help a small triumphant smile. Scooter, for his part, looked pretty upset as he reached for a decanter and sloshed brown liquor into a glass.

  “Mary and I will be in charge of the money, and you’re not to go to restaurants. Or drink.” She gave a pointed look at Scooter’s drink as he gulped it.

  “Susie, please,” said Scooter hoarsely.

  “All right,” Mrs. Simmons said, relenting. “You can drink with me, since Mary and I have decided you should stay over at my house for a while, until she decides if she wants you back. We’ll have a two-­drink maximum, though, and I’ll consider adding a glass of wine for you at dinner if you behave yourself.”

  “Okay,” Scooter whined.

  “If you want to come hang out at the yurt, you’re welcome anytime,” Bingo told his brother forgivingly. “You might want to start meditating with me.”

  Scooter didn’t look too interested in this idea as he sipped his cocktail, but I thought it was remarkably nice of Bingo.

  “Aren’t ya mad at this jerk?” Sophie demanded of Bingo, pointing at Scooter. “And why the heck didn’t you bust out of that spa you were in?”

  “Scooter’s on his own path in life,” Bingo told her serenely, while the rest of us tried not to roll our eyes. “He may still become a man who’s connected with the earth at a deep level.”

  “I doubt that,” Scooter told him.

  “Anyway, I love my brother no matter what!” Bingo told us. “As for the technology addiction lodge, it’s a very interesting place,” he added. “It’s filled to capacity with really stressed-­out ­people who haven’t put down their iPads or phones or computers for years, so when I begged to make a call to my lawyers to try to stop the schoolhouse project, they locked me in an isolation room.”

  Bingo explained that all the tech addicts at the spa eventually freaked out and claimed they’d been kidnapped and were being held there against their will—­which, of course, Bingo actually had been. But none of the staff had believed him, so he’d eventually just decided to wait it out until his weeklong stay was over. Then Arizona state troopers, alerted by Zack Safina, had come to pick up Bingo and take him to the airport.

  Bingo said he didn’t hold a grudge against the tech-­rehab staff, or against Scooter. “I just knew that somehow that schoolhouse would still be here,” Bingo said serenely.

  “Ya know, I like your style,” Sophie told him admiringly. “Maybe I’ll try to work on forgiving Barclay, too. Well, probably not, but ya got a good attitude!”

  AFTER THE SIMMONS family left, Sophie had another thought.

  “If Barclay had money in this condo deal, he ain’t going to give up so easily,” she told us. “He’ll sue Scooter, not to mention Bingo and his mom. My ex loves stuff like that.”

  “Mr. Shields waived legal action,” Adelia said. She picked up a folder and waved it. “All four of the condo partners agreed. That Gianni person only had a few thousand dollars invested, so he was easy to get rid of. And Scooter, Mr. Alvarez, and Mr. Shields—­your ex,” she said, nodding to Sophie, “signed this dissolution of partnership. There’s also a letter here that the property stays untouched until at least 2025.”

  We all took in this surprise development for a moment.

  “Why’s Barclay giving up so easily on the schoolhouse?” Joe wondered, voicing my own thoughts. “It seems weird that he’d let the condo deal go just because Scooter dropped out. Even a head injury and a hospital stay wouldn’t usually stop Barclay.”

  “Yeah, I could see Barclay trying to sue Scooter for breach of contract,” Bootsie said. “He’d love to find some loophole and force the Simmons family to sell the property.”

  “Ya got that right,” Sophie said. “Are you sure he signed this non-­suing agreement?” she asked Adelia.

  “I’m positive,” Adelia said, a little note of triumph in her voice. “Because I went over to the hospital with my lawyer, and I bribed him.”

  We all stared at her as she sipped at a frosty glass, smiling happily in her lemon-­yellow Oscar de la Renta silk caftan and hot-­pink lipstick.

  “I don’t know Barclay, but I don’t appreciate him helping Scooter with his schoolhouse plans,” Adelia told us.

  We all nodded, having overheard Adelia regaling the Reptile ladies the day before with how bad the traffic and construction noise would be if the condo deal went through. “I’d expect it from Scooter, and that Mr. Alvarez is so good looking that it’s hard to get mad at him, but I decided we needed to take care of Mr. Shields, once and for all.

  “Of course, I didn’t know that you three were being almost-­murdered at the same time, but, anyway, Ozzy and I packed up a little suitcase with some cash I had in the safe, met my lawyer, and drove over to the hospital. I told Mr. Shields that the best thing he could possibly do in this situation was take the money and leave the schoolhouse alone,” finished Adelia. “I explained that my lady friends and I may look elegant and have good manners,
but we don’t screw around.”

  “Mrs. Earle brought her gun, too,” commented Ozzy.

  “That’s so Jersey of you!” Bootsie shrieked admiringly.

  “So, this suitcase you gave Barclay: How much cash are we talking about?” asked Joe.

  “It was about two hundred and fifty thousand,” Adelia said. “He could have made a lot more on the condos, but if the whole town turns against him, it wouldn’t be worth it. I like to deal in cash, and I think Mr. Shields respected that. He told me he was packing it in and heading to Miami for a ­couple months. He might do some condos down there.”

  We all nodded, thinking Barclay might enjoy Miami more, honestly.

  “That still doesn’t explain who knocked Barclay on the head the other day,” mused Bootsie. “Olivia confessed to everything else, but she swears she and Daniel had nothing to do with that.”

  “Oh, that was me and Ozzy, too,” Adelia said, nibbling a cashew from a Sevres bowl on the coffee table.

  Adelia told us she and Ozzy had picked up an extremely heavy, three-­arm Christofle candelabra from her dining room sideboard, waited for Gerda to go jogging, and done the deed. The meatball hoagie delivery had just been a coincidence. “When Gerda told me how poorly he’s been treating Sophie here, I got so mad I decided he needed a little Southern-­style justice.”

  Ozzy nodded, a note of pride in his eyes. “The guy went down like a bowling pin,” he said.

  Chapter 25

  HOLLY WAS HOME, packing to spend the rest of the weekend at The Breakers, when we got back to her house.

  “Everything’s perfect with Howard!” she told us. “And look at this.” She pulled up the Indianapolis society column on her phone, on which the top story was Dawnelle Stewart’s engagement to a twenty-­five-­year-­old backup quarterback for the Green Bay Packers.

  “Dawnelle’s totally out of the picture, and Howard completely understands about J. D. and Scooter,” she said happily, grabbing her Celine handbag. “And everyone’s invited for dinner at the steak house at The Breakers tonight. Seven p.m.!”

  I looked longingly at the pool, wondering whether I’d finally be able to jump in this afternoon.

  “Holly, do you think I could come back down in March . . . just for a long weekend?” I asked Holly. “Maybe without Bootsie, Joe, and Sophie? No offense,” I added to Bootsie.

  “I already got you a ticket,” Holly told me, waving away my protests that I’d pay my own way. “Don’t get upset, I have about four million frequent flyer miles.

  “Plus,” she added, “I don’t want to be all alone down here in March, especially since I’ll be spending three weeks in February with Howard in Indianapolis. Dawnelle might be engaged to an NFL player, but that doesn’t mean I’m taking any chances.”

  AT 4:00 P.M., I dove into the pool, while Waffles lounged on a chaise nearby. At 5:00, Bootsie waved good-­bye.

  “I’m meeting Brian the Zoning Guy for mojitos!” she told me. “After all, I did promise him. See you at the steakhouse!”

  THE FLAGLER STEAKHOUSE was paneled with lots of candles and gorgeous ocean views, perfect for a perfect-­last-­night-­in-­Florida dinner.

  “I’ll have the artichoke hearts, the crab Louis, the dumplings—­actually, we’ll have two of all the starters,” Bootsie told the waitress.

  She looked around the table, which included Brian the Zoning Guy, who she’d brought along to dinner, and who was currently talking to Sophie about why there wasn’t a Versace boutique right in Magnolia Beach.

  Adelia and Gerda were to my right, hatching a plan for Gerda to stay on in Adelia’s guest room through April. Gerda would help Adelia and Ozzy with odd jobs and some light Pilates classes. “Then I move back to Pennsylvania in the spring,” Gerda told her new employer. “I think Sophie needs me. I probably move back in with her, maybe get her boyfriend to work out more, too.” My eyebrows shot up at this news. A summer with Gerda was probably not what Joe had been envisioning in the farmhouse he and Sophie were renovating so beautifully.

  “Should I order for everyone?” Bootsie asked and, without waiting for an answer, started listing what seemed to be most of the contents of the menu to the aproned server. “Okay, steaks. We’ll have the strip, the T-­bone, the tomahawk, and a ­couple of filets. Let’s do some veal Milanese and a ­couple of lobsters, too—­maybe two three-­pounders?”

  After adding about seven different side dishes and three orders of creamed spinach, Bootsie paused, while Howard (who’d be footing the massive bill) paused to order two bottles of a fancy-­sounding French wine.

  For my part, I began to calculate the total cost of just the steaks Bootsie had ordered. The total was so colossal that I gave up and tried not to think about it. Howard is one of the most generous guys around, and he loves steak houses. I knew he’d sign the dinner to his room charge and forget the whole thing.

  “Hey, isn’t that the pizza kid?” I said to Bootsie, snapping out of my reverie about tomahawk steaks.

  “That’s totally him!” Bootsie said. “Hey, Andy!” she shrieked. “Get over here!”

  Andy the pizza delivery guy was in a Flagler Steakhouse busboy uniform. He came to our table, looking scared he’d get in trouble with his bosses for lingering at our table, but more scared that Bootsie would go ballistic on him again.

  “I got a new job here,” he whispered. “Please don’t screw this up for me.”

  “Okay,” Bootsie told him, “but I still think you lied to us the other day. There was more to the story about the meatball sandwich delivery.”

  “That part was true,” Andy insisted. “I just dropped off the sub. I had nothing to do with hitting that dude in the head.”

  “We know who did that,” I assured him. “Was there something else you didn’t tell us, though?”

  “Yeah,” he said, squirming. “I did another weird errand that night. I stopped to get a beer after the police interrogated me, and I was sitting at a bar in West Palm feeling all depressed, when this hot girl in leather pants and her boyfriend came up to me and offered me two hundred bucks to drop off this fancy Hermès shopping bag at a cottage in Magnolia Beach.”

  He paused for a second, embarrassed. “I really needed the money for tuition, and the girl was kinda scary, too. She told me if I didn’t drop off the bag, she’d hunt me down and make me regret it. She said not to look in the bag, either, which, by the way, had something alive in it. So I did it! I just hope it wasn’t a kitten or something in that bag!”

  “It was a baby alligator,” Bootsie told him.

  “Oh, okay, that’s cool,” said Andy. “Can I get you guys some more butter?”

  Love Killer Getaway?

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  at the first book in the Killer WASPs Series

  KILLER WASPs

  Available from Witness Impulse

  “YOU FOUND BARCLAY Shields after someone tried to kill him last night?”

  I didn’t have all that much information about what had happened to Barclay Shields, local builder of shoddy mini-­mansions that are about as well constructed as your average game-­show set. But I knew from long experience that Bootsie McElvoy would never leave until she had put me through a Guantanamo-­style interrogation that would stop just short of waterboarding.

  “I did find him.” I sighed as Bootsie flung open the screen door to my antiques store, The Striped Awning, and charged toward a little French chair in front of my desk. “How did you hear?”

  “More like, how would I not hear?” responded Bootsie, her sky-­blue eyes bulging with intensity. “Let’s start with the police report,” she said, rummaging in her canvas tote bag, and emerging with a sheaf of papers, which she brandished triumphantly. “I have a lot of questions.”

  I sat down at my in-­the-­style-­of-­Chippendale desk, pushing aside a stack of paperwork—­actually, a pile of
unpaid bills—­ resigned to being grilled like a rib-­eye.

  What a waste of a gorgeous, sunny May morning. All around Bryn Mawr, lilacs were blooming in front yards, drivers were tooling by in convertibles, and women were happily pulling out their summer clothes—­which in Bootsie’s case meant a pair of flowered Talbots shorts, a Lacoste shirt, and pink sandals embroidered with whales. My dog Waffles, a freckled, drooling basset hound with an oversize belly, a permanently soulful expression, and an addiction to Beggin’ Strips, wagged happily at Bootsie from his bed in the front of the store. He likes to sit up there, close to the tall front windows, where he can chew his rawhide bones and check out passing poodles.

  Bootsie ignored Waffles—­she doesn’t believe in any dogs that aren’t Labs, which are the preferred breed of her L.L. Bean–catalog family. Bootsie defines preppy: Even her marriage is preppy, with her two adorable toddlers, a chintz-­filled brick Colonial, and tennis matches galore.

  Bootsie, who graduated from high school with me fifteen years ago, is six feet tall, has chin-­length blond hair and a permanent tennis tan, and is married to a former Duke lacrosse star named Will, whom she met through her equally bronzed, blond brothers. Bootsie and I don’t have much in common, but we’ve stayed friends over the years—­she works just down the street from my store, at the Bryn Mawr Gazette, the local newspaper in our small town outside of Philadelphia, where she covers both real estate and charity events. Basically, she writes about gossip.

  Working at the newspaper is perfect for Bootsie, because she’s incredibly nosy. She has a network of family members and friends placed around the suburbs of Philly who funnel her information each day. When she’s not on her cell phone, she’s working the aisles of the Publix, the liquor store, and the post office. She’s honestly pretty talented at intelligence gathering: Bootsie once called me in the middle of the night to tell me that our friend Holly Jones was getting divorced, which Holly herself didn’t even know until the next morning.