THE CHEF WASN’T dead, though. No dead man could scream that loudly. The bushes he’d landed on were newly planted in a thick, pillowy layer of mulch, which appeared to break his fall, and also, luckily, cushioned his impact on the hapless cello player—though the cello itself hadn’t been as fortunate. The chef was thrashing, cursing, and struggling to get up. The cello player, meanwhile, had rolled onto his back, the wind knocked out of him, his tuxedo torn and covered with rose petals and mulch. The cellist was a robust man, but he appeared dazed as he clutched his bow and stared at the tragic remains of his once-beautiful and expensive instrument.
“Excuse me,” said John Hall. “I’ll go check on those two,” and he walked over calmly toward the two men to assist with their medical care, insomuch as a vet can doctor two-legged creatures. I noticed that Mariellen and Honey had blithely reemerged from the house by the basement door. They cast a bemused eye at the tattooed chef and the fallen musician. The Colketts, on the other hand, looked panicked. They, too, had been inside the house during the over-the-railing incident, and their heads popped out at the top of the patio from which the chef had fallen. Their sunglasses were off, and their handsome faces looked terrified, until a millisecond later, when they disappeared back into the house.
Above me, Bootsie popped out on another balcony on the third floor, outside what I guessed was Sophie’s bedroom, her eyes bulging as she took in the situation below. She turned and ran back into the house. I felt a little badly that she’d missed out on the ruckus.
“Oh, Chef, I’m so sorry!” wailed Sophie, hovering over him and helplessly trying to pluck thorny branches from his thighs while the vet examined the cellist for broken bones. “You musta slipped on some seafood! Shrimp and crab get so gooey when it gets warm. I feel terrible for ya!”
“I did not slip!” screamed the chef. “I have special treads on my Crocs—I never slip.” He sat up, and gestured toward the kitchen. “I was pushed!”
Sophie looked thunderstruck by this accusation, as did most of the crowd, but Gerda, standing over him, was having none of it. “No one here would commit crime. I am like security guard as well as Pilates professional.” She crossed her muscular arms and stared down at the chef. “You slipped,” she said firmly.
“Fuck you!” he replied.
I noticed that Gianni’s girlfriend Jessica didn’t look all that worried about her boyfriend. She sauntered over to a table, sucked down the last of her mojito, and ground out her cigarette with her Louboutin before she made her way over to Gianni, who was still screaming insults at Sophie and Gerda.
Within a couple of minutes, I heard the wails of an ambulance arriving. Bad news traveled fast, apparently, and I noticed the same two medics who’d removed Barclay Shields on Thursday night galloping down Sophie’s driveway with their gurney at the ready. On their heels was Officer Walt.
I figured this was the perfect time to leave, so I booked it over to Holly and Joe, who were standing at the other bar, to say good-bye.
“I should go over to the chef and act sympathetic,” said Holly, sighing and topping off her own glass, since the bartenders had stopped serving and were simply standing and gaping.
“I’m going to wait until the screaming subsides,” said Joe, blithely munching on crab.
Mariellen, meanwhile, was watching the cluster of people gathering around Gianni with her mouth pursed in disapproval as she pulled at her pearls distractedly. Honey gathered up her L.L. Bean tote bag—not very cocktail-party-appropriate, but then again, neither were her kelly-green blazer and shorts—and, with drink and bag in hand, made one last run at the hors d’oeuvres buffet (which, given the chef’s predicament, clearly wasn’t going to be restocked).
If I knew Honey—which I didn’t, but I seemed to be running into her a lot lately—she was at least six minutes away from departing. There was still a good twenty pounds of crab on ice on the buffet, and no matter how much Mariellen nagged, Honey wasn’t going to leave until she did some damage to that pile of shellfish. From what I’d observed, while she wasn’t an eater on par with Barclay Shields, Honey was no slouch.
Since I now seemed to be on Mariellen’s shit list, and was still avoiding Honey, I used her proclivity for grazing as the perfect opportunity to leave before the three of us were caught in an awkward standoff in the valet-parking line. Quickly, I scanned the crowd again, wondering where the hell Bootsie was, when a glass of champagne appeared in front of me. And the flute of bubbly in question was being held by one extremely tanned hand.
“Leaving already?” said Mike Woodford.
I turned around as my stomach did a small flip. I have to admit, Mike cleaned up well. I actually preferred his usual T-shirt and Levi’s outfit, but the blue blazer and white shirt looked really good with his tan. I couldn’t even smell any eau de cow, just some manly-smelling soap. Irish Spring, if I wasn’t mistaken. “Don’t go yet,” he said in my ear. The beard stubble felt amazing against my earlobe, and I looked into his dark brown eyes, which looked friendly and a little amused.
“What did I miss?” exploded Bootsie, suddenly popping up next to me. She was so anguished about missing the chef’s tumble that she didn’t even notice Mike and his beard stubble invading my ear.
“Bootsie, we should go. The medics need all the cars out of the driveway,” I improvised, turning away from Mike and ignoring the champagne he’d brought me. I didn’t want to be rude, but this wasn’t the time to introduce him to Bootsie.
“Are you nuts?” said Bootsie. “This is the social event of the season!” I shot an embarrassed glance back at Mike, told him, “Bye!” and bolted up the path toward the driveway at a quick trot, Bootsie on my heels.
“Did someone really push Gianni?” she hissed.
“It all happened really quickly,” I told her over my shoulder. “It seemed more like an accident.” The chef, quieter now, was being wheeled up the pathway to the ambulance into which the medics neatly inserted him and sped away. Another ambulance wailed into the driveway to pick up the cellist.
“Can we please leave now?” I implored Bootsie.
“Of course not,” she said. “I’m a journalist,” Bootsie added. “This is big news now that the che’s been injured.”
I’m pretty sure writing up suburban real estate transactions doesn’t make Bootsie the next Christiane Amanpour, but it was pointless to argue with her.
“Honestly, it looked like Chef Gianni just lost his footing,” I told her, inwardly debating my options of ways to get home.
Bootsie brushed this aside. “Just so you know, I’m here reporting for the paper and doing a little research for Will’s cousin Louis, the lawyer,” she told me. “Louis asked me to help him come up with some theories about what might have happened to Barclay Shields on Thursday night. And right now, I’m thinking Sophie and her Pilates teacher were somehow involved with both attacks.”
Bootsie nodded meaningfully at Gerda, who was helping the medics push a gurney containing the cello player up the hill. “Just look at her! Sophie probably had Gerda push Gianni over the railing just now, and I think Gerda also did the job on Barclay’s head the other night.”
“Maybe,” I said doubtfully. “But Sophie told us she loses money if Barclay dies. And why would Sophie want to kill the chef? Sophie needed the chef alive and cooking tonight. There was another whole course to go after the shrimp—Sophie wouldn’t have wanted her guests to miss out on the osso buco.”
“Well, then, maybe Gerda attacked him without Sophie’s approval,” mused Bootsie determinedly. “Gerda could be a rogue operator. I’m positive she had something to do with this. Look at her—she’s beaming!”
Gerda did have a creepy smile on her makeup-free face as she left the driveway and marched back toward the house, seemingly pleased that the party was over and that people were beginning to head up the hill from the pool area.
“Why don’t you come back here with me tomorrow?” I whispered to Bootsie. “I’m sending over a truckload of stuff from the store to Sophie. You can help me unpack it. Now, will you take me home?”
Bootsie perked up at this opportunity to further nose around Sophie’s. “Count me in on moving the stuff from your store!”
“Great!” I said, relieved. “Let’s get your car.” I waved frantically at one of the valet parkers.
Suddenly, Bootsie elbowed me in my side (which kind of hurt), and hissed, “Look at that!” She nodded at the far end of the driveway, where Jessica the interior designer was disappearing off toward an SUV parked over with the catering trucks—presumably to rush to Gianni’s side at the hospital. And Jessica was accompanied by one of the cooks who worked for Gianni.
I could see why Bootsie was staring. The cook was gorgeous. He looked to be in his mid-twenties, with ridiculously muscular arms rippling under his white T-shirt and cook’s jacket, a deep tan, brownish-blond hair brushed back from his high cheekbones. He was the ultimate in cabana-boy fantasy. He was shepherding Jessica up the stairs, his arm crooked under her skinny elbow, and they were whispering to each other in a way that suggested—okay, screamed—intimacy.
“That guy is hot!” exploded Bootsie.
She took off to eavesdrop on Jessica and the cook, and I looked at the valet parkers, who were all about nineteen and looked like they could use an extra ten bucks to buy beer with.
I bet I could bribe one of them to give me a quick ride home in Bootsie’s SUV. Or maybe I could walk. My borrowed shoes, though they had three-inch heels, weren’t all that uncomfortable, and the walk would take less than fifteen minutes. Unless I got a bad blister, which happens a lot with Holly’s shoes.
“Kristin?” I heard an elderly voice call from behind me.
Reluctantly, I turned around. It was my fussy neighbor, Hugh Best, in a pink sport coat. Right behind him was Mike, who was handing a numbered ticket to one of the valets.
“May I offer you a ride home, my dear?” Hugh Best wheezed gallantly. He gestured toward his ancient dark red Volvo, which was idling in Sophie’s driveway, a cloud of smoke bellowing from its rusty tailpipe.
“Thank you. That would be great!” I said, ignoring Mike’s raised eyebrows as Hugh scurried over to open the dusty passenger-side door and push aside a box of Kleenex, a pipe spilling tobacco, and a giant container of Metamucil.
“My brother is always leaving a mess in here,” he apologized.
I climbed into the car, determined not to look back at Mike. This was better than walking home in heels—probably—so who cared what he thought. “I like your jacket,” I told Hugh, trying to make conversation. “It’s very cheerful.”
Hugh had on old, well-pressed khakis, a white-and-blue striped shirt (slightly frayed), that pink sport coat circa 1968, and a silk ascot. He did look very gentlemanly, with his white hair combed back and his good posture. He had an appealing, courtly quality. And Hugh struck me as the type who hated to stay out past 8 p.m., just like me.
“And may I say, your dress is very attractive,” said Hugh gallantly, as we pulled out onto Dark Hollow Road. “This was quite an interesting evening.”
“That’s for sure,” I agreed.
“Actually, we don’t really support the symphony financially as much as we used to,” Hugh told me, looking a little embarrassed. “We, er, would, but our investments are down a little this year, so Eula Morris invited me and my brother as her guests.”
“I don’t support it, either!” I told him. “I’m only going because the hostess, Mrs. Shields, bought a lot of things at my store the other day, and she invited me.”
“Interesting decision, moving the party to the Shields residence,” Hugh said chattily, steering the old car carefully. “I’d originally planned to walk over to Sanderson for this fete, but then when all that happened”—he made a vague gesture toward the crime scene tape at Sanderson, which we were just passing—“I got a call from Eula about the change of venue. My brother had been planning to go, but when he heard at was at this Shields woman’s house, he ‘shit-canned’ the idea, as he put it. He doesn’t approve of flashy people. I, on the other hand, am open to new things and ideas.”
We turned into the Bests’ driveway next to mine, the car huffing and puffing up the little hill to their house, belching smoke. I noticed the last inspection sticker on the windshield was dated 1989, so I guess Hugh’s interest in modernity didn’t include keeping current with state car inspections.
The Best house was about as different from Sophie’s as you could get, though it was nearly as big. The brothers had lived in the beautiful white stucco Georgian, half hidden by hedges and old rose gardens, their whole lives. As the years went on and family members had died off, only Hugh and his brother were left. They occasionally appeared on the lawn to pull weeds and trim shrubs, but for the most part, I heard them bickering on their back porch more often than I actually saw them these days. They also listened to a lot of big band music, and songs by Ella Fitzgerald and Louis Armstrong often floated over the fence along with cigar smoke.
After Hugh’s confiding that he’d been at the party as a fellow freebie, it seemed clear that the Bests’ fortunes had indeed declined over the past couple of decades. No wonder their house was looking a little more rickety every year.
They belonged to the country club, too, and I always stopped to say hello if I spied them on the club porch or in the bar. My grandparents had been friendly with the brothers at one time, until Jimmy had had too many Scotches one night at the club and groped Grandma as she passed him en route to the ladies’ room, which had resulted in Grandpa temporarily banning the Bests from their house. Grandma had laughed it off—she had always been gorgeous, and continued to be so into her seventies, but Grandpa apparently hadn’t found it all that funny.
Hmm. I guess I was lucky that Hugh was driving me home, and not Jimmy the groper.
I thanked Hugh as I emerged from the Volvo, went in my gate, and opened my back door to Waffles, who’d heard the car pull up and was waiting like a Thoroughbred penned in the starting gate. He trampled me, Pamplona style, and dashed out the door, ears flying. I dusted off Holly’s dress, grabbed a leash, and went outside to find him. Apparently, I hadn’t latched the gate properly when I came in, because Waffles was out and tearing across the driveway toward the Bests’ front door, hot on the scent of Hugh, who’d already gone inside.
Waffles galloped up the front stairs to their screen door, and started scratching the door frame with his freckled paws and howling into the Bests’ dim foyer. “No!” I hissed at the dog, dashing through the holly hedge to grab his collar and drag him home.
“Back already?” I heard a voice yell from somewhere deep in the old house. “You freeloading bastard!” It was Jimmy, lambasting his brother. This was really embarrassing. Once again, Waffles had landed me exactly where I didn’t want to be.
“Waffles!” I shrieked, while the dog ignored me. I really should have sprung for that obedience class at PetSmart, I thought, racing up the short flight of porch steps to get my wayward hound.
Just as I reached Waffles, the dog let out a series of songlike howls that could be heard in Pittsburgh. Jimmy came to the door and opened it to peer out into the dusk. Unfortunately, I could see well enough to notice that Jimmy was nude.
Waffles, wagging, took advantage of the open door, ran inside, sniffed Jimmy in places that I’d rather not remember, then disappeared into the house.