Killer Punch (9 page)

She sighed tragically, then brightened a little. “Ya know what, I'll pay for your Pilates machines, Gerda. Those things cost a freakin' mint! Ya can't afford them without some help, that's for sure!”

“Thanks,” said Gerda, still looking happy. “All I need now is Ursula to tell me how much rent she charge for this room.”

“You shouldn't charge her rent, Ursie,” Holly told the spa owner. “Everyone who comes in for Pilates will stay to get highlights or a facial. Your business will double by the end of the first week.”

“Okay.” The stylist shrugged, returning to Sophie's toes armed with a bottle of Chanel Pirate Red polish.

I was astonished. Within the space of five minutes, Gerda had outlined a business plan yielding her eight grand a month, with zero outlay of cash on her part. I was obviously in the wrong line of business.

No wonder I was heading for the Pack-­N-­Ship—­my antiques store was a complete dead end. My boyfriend John had gently suggested I start selling more items on eBay, which I kept meaning to do. I needed to spend less time with my friends, I thought, and more on making money.

“I'm heading to my new job,” I said, aiming for a cheery tone. “Bye, everyone!”

I was hoping the group would sense the self-­pity underneath my faux-­upbeat persona, but everyone was so excited about Gerda's Pilates studio that they barely even said good-­bye. Ursula was already up helping Gerda measure for how many reformer machines and yoga mats they could fit into the space, while Holly and Sophie were coming up with a list of moneybags friends they'd invite for the first week of classes.

“Fine,” I thought, gunning my Subaru. I might not have any money, but I still had my pride.

 

Chapter 14

M
Y
FEW SHREDS
of pride vanished quickly when Waffles and I opened the back door to the Pack-­N-­Ship, using a key Leena had dropped off in my mailbox on Saturday.

I rarely get packages, and since The Striped Awning's eBay sales aren't great, I don't ship them out much, either, and I'd forgotten the Pack-­N-­Ship's signature scent.

The place was built in the 1950s as a hot dog stand, and the low-­slung, shacklike building is undeniably cute, with a front counter where foot-­longs were once served, and a back storeroom that once held buns and mustard. Unfortunately, even though the building's been a mail facility for more than twenty years, tit still smells like hot dogs, especially when it rains.

“This will be fun!” I told Waffles as we eyed the dusty, dim storeroom. It looked like a bomb had gone off, which isn't a comforting thought when you're in a mail facility all by yourself.

The place was a complete mess. It looked like Leena hadn't sorted any incoming parcels for the past month, and she seemed pretty far behind on getting packages out the door, too. No wonder packages took so long to get to Bryn Mawr, or leave it. Dozens of boxes were stuffed in the back room where Ball Park franks had once turned on an automated spit.

Leena also can't resist tearing into particularly intriguing-­looking packages, then slapping a “Damaged” sticker on the box and taping it back up. Bootsie told me that Leena once admitted after one too many Miller High Lifes that she's always hoping she'll uncover some kind of crazy drug ring operating via her mail store. Apparently, that's how Leena justifies ripping open random boxes. This doesn't affect me often, but Holly and Joe, who are both big online shoppers, are outraged by Leena.

While Waffles sniffed around, I tried to make sense of the various sorting bins and pallets, which Leena had described as “Self-­explanatory! Any idiot could do the job!”

It
was
pretty easy work, I thought, as I turned on a tiny radio on Leena's messy desk, feeling pretty sorry for myself as I loaded packages into huge bins on wheels by the loading dock of the tiny building. There was a bin for outgoing packages under a pound, and then a pallet for larger local boxes. The other bins and pallets were for boxes headed to any zip codes south of Delaware or west of Ohio.

The inbound group of unsorted packages was smaller, since only packages that require a signature land at the Pack-­N-­Ship. Still, though, a ton of boxes headed to residents of our village were tossed pell-­mell near Leena's desk. ­People had to be wondering where the shoes, books, and barbecue sauce they'd ordered were! Two hours later, I had gotten through almost half the chaotic mountain of packages, and my self-­pity had reached an all-­time high. I mean, who else in town was stuck in a smelly storeroom on a Sunday afternoon?

Well, anyone who worked at the Publix, the hardware store, the Old Navy, and the Lowe's out by the mall probably were, but at least those places didn't smell like old hot dogs. I began to understand why Leena illegally rips into packages: Quite a few boxes were half open. There were gardening tools headed to my next door neighbors Hugh and Jimmy Best, and fishing equipment from Orvis ordered by Chef Skipper. Gerda had a tracksuit shipped to her chez Barclay. The Colketts had a bunch of packages from Ralph Lauren and Bergdorf Men's, which explained how they always looked so impeccable.

I paused when I got to the biggest package I'd seen all day—­a three-­foot-­by-­five-­foot box about twelve inches in depth, with a 90210 zip code for its destination. It weighed maybe twenty-­five pounds, and its size made it awkward to lift. Then I noticed the recipient's address: Viale, on Wilshire Boulevard.

Gianni's swanky new Beverly Hills restaurant!

The box was undeniably painting-­shaped, had been received on Thursday, and was more than heavy enough to contain an ornate frame and a Hasley Huntingdon-­Mews canvas worth two hundred and fifty thousand dollars!

Had Bootsie actually been right? Maybe Gianni had stolen
Heifer in Tomato Patch
, and was mailing it to himself via UPS Ground.

F
OR
SEVERAL MINUTES,
I gingerly poked at the package, trying to determine what its contents were. Leena had charged $50.75 to ship it, but as usual, she hadn't bothered to get it out the door and onto a westbound truck. I noticed there was no return address, either, and the label had been paid for and printed at home . . . which meant the box could have been dropped off in Leena's mail bin outside the hot dog stand.

Unfortunately, it was one of the few boxes Leena hadn't ripped into, so I called Bootsie.

“
T
HIS IS PERFECT
timing, because I just spent thirty minutes drinking pink wine with the Binghams at the club and talking about Maison de Booze,” Bootsie told me five minutes later, after she'd arrived via the back entrance and dragged the package over to the loading dock, where she was eyeing it with interest.

“The Binghams said they never heard of Mega Wine Mart—­they were contacted by a guy named Barry Tutto, who told them he wanted to buy the old garden store and turn it into Maison de Booze, which sounded so fabulous that they agreed immediately,” Bootsie told me. “They never met this guy Barry, but that their lawyer got an agreement of sale from him in the mail, and they happily signed. They think I'm joking about Mega Wine Mart!” she added, annoyed. “I made them promise to get me this Tutto guy's phone number. “Now, let's rip into this package, pronto!” she said, grabbing a box cutter from Leena's messy desk.

“It's a federal offense to open other ­people's mail,” I told her.

“That's mail fraud,” she told me confidently. “That's different.”

“Tampering with mail is illegal, too! Which I'm pretty sure you're about to do,” I told her.

“It's different these days,” Bootsie told me with complete assurance. “You don't abide by those ancient rules, do you? ­People send weird stuff through the mail, and it's gotta be checked by someone.”

“Yeah, but we don't think this is something dangerous—­we think it's Honey's painting,” I reminded Bootsie.

Bootsie dragged the package over to the back door and out onto the loading dock where she could see it better.

“What's more illegal—­stealing a pricey painting, or opening a teeny little package?” Bootsie shrugged. “Walt will probably give us an award. Plus, and I really shouldn't have to keep reminding you of this, I'm a
journalist
.”

“We should call Walt,” I told Bootsie, ignoring her flimsy I'm-­a-­reporter rationalization, which she falls back on every time she's about to do something illegal or ill-­advised. “Maybe he can get a court order, or whatever you need to seize mail.”

“You know what?” Bootsie told me. “I just remembered”—­here, she gave me a meaningful wink—­“that this package was already busted when we got here.”

She rifled through Leena's desk and slapped a “Damaged” sticker on the box. With that, she deftly made an incision at the very edge of the top left corner. She gently peeled open the corner flap, revealing layers of brown paper—­and then a gilt frame . . .

“I knew it!” screamed Bootsie.

Honestly, I was shocked. It looked like this really
was
Honey's painting. Bootsie was poised to keep ripping, but just then, a blue Ford Festiva bearing the Pack-­N-­Ship logo on the door rolled into the back parking lot, and Leena hopped out.

“Hey there, ladies!” Leena said cheerily. “Figured you might need a break right about now. Hey, Bootsie's here, too—­awesome! I picked up some baked Lay's and onion dip, and I've got an Igloo full of Miller High Life!”

W
HILE
L
EENA FLIPPED
open her trunk to grab her cooler-­on-­wheels, Bootsie dragged the package back up the loading dock, and shoved it into a corner, all at lightning speed. Meanwhile, I quietly hyperventilated and made small talk with Leena.

Leena herself rips open packages, but I doubted she'd be happy with Bootsie doing the same—­and especially under my watch, on my first day as mail sorter. I wiped perspiration from my damp forehead, wishing for the millionth time that Bootsie would hurry up and head to the Delaney family lakeside cabin in Maine, like she does each August.

Luckily, Leena didn't notice my mini-­panic, and within a few minutes, she'd cranked up the country music in her Festiva, cracked open the beers and chips, and was hosting a mini-­party with our legs dangling off the loading dock.

I relaxed a little. Beer is beer, even if you're drinking it outside a hot-­dog-­scented mail facility. Still, I was supposed to be working till four that afternoon, and it was only 3:35.

“I'm still on the clock, Leena,” I told the clerk, who was deep in a conversation with Bootsie about some Orvis hiking boots that Bootsie had ordered and that Leena had just happened to open by mistake and try on. “I'll just keep working till four.”

And tape that box back up
, I mentally added.

“Naw, you're done for the day! I'll pay you till four,” Leena told me with a dismissive wave of a baked Lay's.

“Personally, I mentally check out from work around noon,” she added. “By two when the counter closes, all I can think about is a nap and some Kathie Lee and Hoda on my DVR.

“Another beer?” she offered. “No? Bootsie, I know I can count on you!”

 

Chapter 15

O
N
M
ONDAY, THE
sun was shining, the sky was a brilliant blue, and my mood was jubilant as walked outside and looked at The Striped Awning from a customer's-­eye-­view.

I felt a surge of hope. I'd finished my second coat of Smashing Pink. The color was incredibly cheerful! I mean, who could resist entering an all-­pink store with an adorable basset hound looking out from the front windows? Plus I hadn't been party to mail fraud! And, my boyfriend would be home tomorrow from his vet clinic. Things were definitely on the upswing.

“The pink looks pretty good,” said Bootsie, who showed up with Joe at eleven-­fifteen.

“I just came from the Pack-­N-­Ship, where I was going to grab that box and take it to Walt,” she told me. “I told Leena I left my phone in the back room, but when I went back there, the package headed to Beverly Hills was gone. I checked every single bin—­which you did a nice job organizing, by the way.”

“Maybe it shipped out already,” I said hopefully. I'd had a chance to quickly tape up the incision Bootsie had made before we finally parted ways with Leena at five-­thirty the night before, and positioned the package to go out on the first truck today.

“I've been thinking,” I added. “That package could have been a lot of things—­maybe a mirror or a painting the Colketts picked out for the place. We don't know it was
Heifer
.”

“Well, thanks to you, we'll never know, because the package was stolen last night,” Bootsie informed me. “Leena's regional truck doesn't come until noon, and nothing was sent out yet this morning. Plus Leena admitted she forgot to lock up last night. So, someone grabbed the Viale package.”

Bootsie had called Walt to report the incident. Naturally, she'd bent the truth a bit in this conversation, telling Walt that she'd been helping me at the Pack-­N-­Ship when she happened to notice a damaged box with a gilt frame peeking out. Walt had promised to look into the missing package.

“Now I'm working full time on my Mega Wine Mart story,” Bootsie finished. “Something's funky with this franchise. There is no one named Barry Tutto in all of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware, at least according to the Internet!”

“Yoo-­hoo!” sang out Mrs. Bingham, popping into the shop at that moment. “Kristin, this pink paint is an absolute hoot! So cheerful!”

“Thanks so much,” I said, gratified that someone liked it.

“Fun,” agreed Mr. Bingham. “Can we take you all over to the club for lunch?”

“Did you find Barry Tutto's number yet?” Bootsie replied rudely, ignoring the lunch invite, which sounded kind of fun to me. “Because you and Barry Tutto are subjecting this town to the biggest and most environmentally unsound megastore for miles. We're talking forty thousand square feet of concrete retail eyesore!”

The Binghams, both in sky-­blue polos today and a jaunty pair of cat-­eye sunglasses on Mrs. B., stared at Bootsie for a minute, then burst out laughing.

“Bootsie, you are too much!” said Mr. Bingham. “You have to stop with that crazy story about a superstore. It's just going to be a tiny wine shop with free cheese.”

“No it isn't!” screamed Bootsie. “There's a huge billboard right over the golf course for the discount wine store. Look up when you get to the club!”

“That's not going to be on our old garden store property,” Mrs. Bingham said, waving a hand dismissively. “You're such a prankster! Not that I'd
mind
having discount wine in town.”

“Sounds fun,” agreed her husband. “Anyway, we looked all over, but Barry's number is nowhere to be found. And I can't ask my lawyer for it, hon,” he told Bootsie, anticipating her next question. “Every time I exchange one word with that gal, she charges me five hundred dollars. Well, bye, kids!”

I thought Bootsie's head might explode, but she eventually calmed down and went back to Googling on her iPhone.

“I couldn't find any Barry Tutto, and there's still no info online about the new megastore. It's almost like they're trying to stay under the radar, except for the giant sign. The press release lists an anonymous holding company as the owner of the franchise, and a generic e-­mail address, but no phone number or name of a contact person. And I've sent three e-­mails since yesterday, with no reply.”

“The Town Board of Supervisors is only made up of three ­people: Mrs. Potts, Jimmy Best, and Officer Walt,” said Joe. “Won't that group want to stop a huge wine warehouse from bulldozing a beautiful forest?”

“Any place that serves liquor is pretty much an automatic yes with the Board of Supervisors,” explained Bootsie. “Mega Wine Mart got approved a few weeks ago. Mrs. Potts told me that she didn't read the fine print, either, and when she heard about something called Maison de Booze, she voted yes. Anyway, they still gotta get it through zoning—­but it's a shoo-­in approval, too, because those folks love to drink.”

Bootsie dialed Town Zoning, but hung up a minute later. “The whole office is closed this week for a storm water management conference in Scottsdale,” she said. “They didn't even leave their receptionist on duty.”

Her phone dinged with a text, while Joe eyed my paint job more closely, removing a few of the tarps I'd draped around The Striped Awning.

“Gianni did get back to town on first thing Thursday morning, not on the late-­afternoon flight!” Bootsie crowed happily, reading from her phone. “Both the airline and his cameraman confirmed that he took a red-­eye from L.A. on Wednesday night and told Randy to lie about it if anyone asked him! Then Gianni disappeared all day on some mysterious errand—­which was probably sneaking into the club and grabbing
Heifer
!

“Right now, though,” she finished, “I'm making a visit to the headquarters of Mega Wine Mart, and I'll need you to go with me.”

“As much fun as that sounds, I'm staying at The Striped Awning,” said Joe. “I'm depressed, and this pink paint job isn't helping. Luckily, I just cleaned out my storage units, and I think I can save this place.”

Excitement soared within me, since I'd been concerned that my mini-­makeover wasn't quite working. Joe is honestly excellent at decorating, and when he's upset, only a project makes him feel better. If he worked his magic on The Striped Awning, it would look amazing!

“Er . . . there's one small detail if I go to Jersey with Bootsie,” I said, indicating Waffles, who was lying on his dog bed, staring hopefully at Joe, wagging. And looking totally adorable!

“Fine. He gets one peepee walk and a Milk-­Bone. That's it,” said Joe, reaching into his tote bag for some fabric swatches.

“Also, there are four dogs at my house that need a bathroom break at three,” I told him. “You know where the key is under the flowerpot.”

“Will you be done fixing this place up by Wednesday?” Bootsie asked Joe. “Because tomorrow's
Gazette
is running a page three story about the all-­new Striped Awning. I've also invited the whole town to a reopening party to unveil your signature cocktail,” she told me. “It's Wednesday at 5 p.m. I'll supply the alcohol and Triscuits.”

“Thanks!” I said gratefully.

F
IFTEEN MINUTES
LATER,
after a quick stop at the luncheonette where I'd been surprised to see Skipper manning the grill counter, and another detour to pick up Sophie and Gerda, we were back on the Atlantic City Expressway.

While she drove, Bootsie started removing her clothes—­at least the outer layer, which was an L.L. Bean tracksuit, which I'd thought was a strange choice for an eighty-­one-­degree day.

Underneath, she wore a red Pack-­N-­Ship shirt and a hideous pair of knee-­length shorts. The shirt wasn't much better—­a boxy button up with short sleeves and “Leena, Store Manager” inscribed above the jaunty Pack-­N-­Ship logo.

“I'm guessing there's a reason you're wearing a uniform,” I sighed.

“Absolutely—­big box stores are all about cheap shipping,” Bootsie told me through mouthfuls of an egg sandwich on fragrant multigrain toast.

“Did you tell Leena you're going to impersonate her today?” I said.

“I don't think I mentioned it,” Bootsie said, finishing half her lunch in four bites. “But she had a bunch of uniforms in the storeroom, so I borrowed one yesterday when you were moving Holly's packages into their own pallet.”

“Leena's going to think I took it!” I said, embarrassed.

“She probably won't even notice. Leena isn't real detail-­oriented,” Bootsie observed.

“Yum!” said Sophie, taking a dainty bite of her sandwich.

“Normally, I don't eat protein and carbs in same meal,” Gerda informed us from the backseat, “but today I cannot resist combination of egg and bread.”

“Now that Skipper's running the place, the food's never been better,” Bootsie told her—­which was true. The combination of fluffy eggs, arugula, and a drizzle of olive oil and sea salt on multigrain toast was a huge leap up from the old breakfast specials.

“Skipper's instituted Breakfast All Day à la McDonald's, and the town response has been huge! We're doing a front-­page story on it this week,” Bootsie said. “Anyway, I ran into the Colketts there when I was getting coffee this morning, and got some info about that lady Nonna Claudia. They told me she hates Gianni! She's got some three-­year contract with him, though, so she has to keep working for him, and he pays her out the wazoo.”

As Bootsie headed east, she relayed a sad tale spun by the Colketts about how Nonna Claudia had been flown out the month before to work with the Gianni's California staff on pasta, and like the Colketts, she had been living in a swanky hotel suite paid for by the Food Network. But after a week, Nonna had informed Gianni she didn't like L.A.

“She finally convinced Gianni to send her back here from Beverly Hills to finish out the last months of her pasta contract. She's apparently saving money to go back and buy a farmhouse in Sicily. Or something,” Bootsie said vaguely.

“Does the luncheonette gig mean Skipper is done with the club forever, even when Gianni goes back to California?” I asked, concerned. There was no way that the tiny diner could ever match Skipper's salary at the country club.

“Right now, the club and Gianni aren't good topics to bring up with Skipper,” said Bootsie. “But I think he's looking at this as a temporary job. Anyway, I need you to find out who handles operations for Mega Wine Mart,” she told me, handing me her iPhone.

After some quick Googling, I gave her the name—­Chad Smith.

“We could kidnap him and beat the crap out of him,” suggested Gerda. “Then he tell you whatever you need to know.”

“That's a good Plan B,” said Bootsie. “Let's back-­burner that, and hope Chad likes tall blondes in uniform!”

M
EGA
W
INE
M
ART
'
S
corporate headquarters were in Atlantic City, in a new, glass-­fronted office building several blocks in from the ocean and the casinos.

The logo included a giant goblet of red wine, a bunch of neon grapes, and the company names in large block letters, and it appeared that the whole three-­story building was devoted to the dissemination of tasty discount intoxicants.

“Business must be good,” I noted, reluctantly following Bootsie inside the well air-­conditioned lobby, where a map was dotted with goblets that marked the location of each Mega Wine Mart from California to Florida.

I'd thought about staying in the car with Sophie, who had a call scheduled with her lawyers, but finally decided to go inside with Bootsie and Gerda. They just didn't seem like a safe pair.

If Bootsie's postal persona didn't work out, I could tell the Mega Wine Mart ­people Bootsie had recently gone off her meds against the advice of a team of medical experts, and drag her out as quickly as possible.

“I wonder if it's too late to get a piece of the franchise in Bryn Mawr,” mused Bootsie, taking note of another wall in the lobby that listed dozens of types of wine, champagne, and Prosecco carried by the chain. “This store's gonna
kill
in our town.”

“We're here to
stop
the franchise, remember?” I whispered to her.

“Oh, right. Well, if they go ahead with it, I mean,” she said, unperturbed, and walked up to the receptionist, clipboard in hand and toothy grin in place.

“Hi!” she told a bored-­looking girl behind a huge beige desk. “I'm Leena McElvoy, and I'm here to see Chad Smith.”

“Do you have an appointment?” asked the girl, who didn't look all that excited about her job, or about Bootsie's annoyingly upbeat persona.

“Absolutely,” said Bootsie. “We're from Pack-­N-­Ship Bulk Transport, South Jersey Regional Division, and I e-­mailed him last week.”

“Your shirt says ‘Store Manager,' ” pointed out the receptionist. “How come it says ‘Store Manager' if you're from Regional?”

“I got promoted,” said Bootsie. “And here's some free advice: Maybe if you put a smile on that puss, you'd get a better job, too.”

The receptionist, who was about 23 years old with a blond ponytail, stared Bootsie down for a long minute.

“My job might suck, but at least I'm not wearing a hideous red Pack-­N-­Ship shirt and unflattering Bermuda shorts,” the blonde said. “Bam!” she added, then dialed Chad, who appeared a moment later, a pleasant if confused smile on his face. He was somewhere in his late thirties, without much of a tan for a guy who lived at the Jersey shore, and was decked out in a Caesar's polo shirt and black pants.

“Chad! Hi!” said Bootsie, handing him one of Skipper's sandwiches. “Remember, I e-­mailed about bringing you some lunch and talking our great new rates for high-­volume ground shipping!”