The Main Line Is Murder

by Donna Huston Murray

  "Just something totally awful I did." Unwittingly awful, but no less embarrassing. To kick off the Christmas break, in two and a half weeks on Wednesday evening, December 22, Rip and I would be entertaining the faculty again. Hoping to project a more jovial spirit than our first fiasco, I had dubbed the event the “Barneses’ Holiday Bash" on an invitation of my own design. To my extreme mortification, they had already been e-mailed.

  I groaned. Garry put his hand delicately on my shoulder.

  "Chelsea says the shower's cold."

  I winced. "Totally cold?"

  "Totally," Garry confirmed.

  Suppressing another colorful response, I hurried into the laundry room to check the hot water heater. A rusting white cylinder with a blue top and bottom like an enormous cold capsule, it now stood in a small lake of its own making. Some of the floor tiles curled at the edges in evil vinyl smiles.

  "Get dressed," I told Garry. "We'll shower at the school later."

  The phone rang. I sat down by the TV again, around the corner from the phone. Garry lingered, watching me curiously.

  "You going to answer that?" he asked.

  "I don't think so."

  Soon the answering machine on the kitchen counter allowed us to hear the voice. "This is Sylvia Smith. I've got a son in second grade..." she told our answering machine and us. Sylvia's son was traumatized, it seemed, which might or might not explain why Sylvia hadn't listened to my message very well.

  My son, at about four feet tall, looked down at me from a slightly higher angle. His beautiful green eyes met mine with more maturity than I'd ever before noticed. His hand reached out, but didn't quite touch my arm.

  "Poor Dad," he said. Then he dropped his hand and turned toward the stairs. The phone rang again.

  "We've got to get out of here," I called up the stairs.

  Chelsea, Garry, and I delivered Rip a packed lunch, hugs, and much sympathy. Sitting behind his broad desk, he looked dwarfed by adversity, a grown-up Dutch boy with little hope of saving the dike. "Give it up," I suggested.

  "Pretty soon," he replied.

  First the kids and I stopped at my favorite discount appliance store to buy a hot water heater. Then we cruised for a parking spot at the King of Prussia Mall. Ten minutes later a van left me a slot between a scrawny pin oak full of dead leaves and a certain corner of a certain department store. Luckily, despite the holiday bustle inside, the place was familiar enough that I didn't have to think too much about where to find what.

  Chelsea took forever choosing pierced earrings for her girlfriends while Garry and I did the comic book rack at a newsstand. In JC Penney's I found a tie for Rip and, in a stroke of brilliance, paid for it at the customer service counter rather than growing moss with the others lined up at the regular checkout.

  Waiting for the kids to come back from a "private" side trip, I spent fifteen minutes people-watching at the feet of an especially aloof mannequin. It felt quite peculiar, really, buying meaningless pretty things for the kids to give as Christmas gifts while my husband was struggling to preserve a school and, by extension, our new home. Uncharitably, I imagined the everyday concerns of the other shoppers to be trivial and foolish. Of course, I immediately realized I was being unfair, that I knew nothing of their concerns except that in spite of them these people were living their lives.

  Well, so were we.

  When we got home, the answering machine was full, but Rip had taken the phone off the hook anyway. He and Barney were asleep on the living room sofa in front of a Boston College football game. I turned off the sound and put on a tape of Dvorak's "New World" symphony. Personally, I find classical music pretentious and annoying, which is why it suited my mood. But mostly I thought it might give Rip a smile when he woke up. Two weeks ago I caught him rattling the windows with Rachmaninoff and conducting a football game with a Bic. Two weeks ago. Might as well have been last year.

  ON SUNDAY RIP activated the "phone chain," the prepared list of who called who in case the school was closed for snow, except this information was a bit less welcome. Rip firmly recommended that at least one parent accompany each student to school Monday morning and remain for a brief meeting. He also announced that a second meeting open to all parents and friends of Richard Wharton would begin at 7:30 PM in the auditorium. Questions would be answered by Rip and also by the school psychologist, followed by a brief memorial service for the deceased.

  The actual funeral was being held on Tuesday out in Pittsburgh, where Wharton still had some family; but it was clear that many people connected to Bryn Derwyn needed some more accessible closure. Perhaps no one more than Rip.

  Sunday, Chelsea and Garry woke up bickering like they usually do, so I determined that it was safe to leave them with Rip and do a bit of shopping on my own. Since I was so far from being in the spirit of the season, naturally I had tremendously good luck finding gifts. By four-thirty, both exhausted and refreshed with optimism, I drove home, locked my booty in the gardening shed, and staggered inside to fix dinner.

  "Whoo," I said, rubbing my hands and blowing steam. "Feels like Alaska out there."

  Rip looked at me and blinked. There were dark bags under his eyes I'd never seen before and a hardness to his expression. "What'd you say, babe?"

  "Dinner in an hour."

  He nodded and ambled into the dining room where he'd set up a temporary workstation. As I cooked, I could hear his computer click and beep. When Garry put on MTV to watch music videos, Rip shouted, "Read a book," and when silence didn't come quite quickly enough, he yelled, "Dammit, I said turn that off."

  My kitchen seemed to chill. This was not the man I married. My Robert Ripley Barnes was fun and happy and polite to his kids, even when they behaved abominably. His smile brightened rooms and his touch magnetized me. This new stranger sounded like a bitter, frightened man, and I hated whoever was responsible for creating him.

  While I stir-fried chicken, I mused about the oblivious days when we shook the contents of our wallets onto the table to see if we had money for a six-pack. Rip's biggest problem had been making Shakespeare palatable to the eleventh grade. Mine were morning sickness and toilet training a two-year-old with a demonic smile and the disposition of a terrier.

  Later that night, when Rip and I were in bed with the lights out, the covers pulled up, our breathing just easing down toward sleep, I referred to those salad years. "Do you miss...before?" I asked.

  "Yes," he said with a heavy sigh. Then he rolled away from me.

  The lump thickened in my throat, and tears trickled into my pillowcase; yet I resisted voicing the habitual, "I'm sorry." I just rubbed the crook of my husband's neck with my hand, then pulled it away and tried to go to sleep to my new mantra: It'll get better. It'll get better. It'll get better.

  Monday morning Rip showered and dressed with energetic resolve, wrapped an English muffin in a napkin, stuffed it in his overcoat pocket and gave me a lingering hug. He was behind his desk by 6:50 AM.

  I packed lunches as usual and saw the kids off to their bus, which stopped for them at the end of Bryn Derwyn's driveway. From my vantage point at our front door, I could see that the school's lots were full; Jacob had begun to direct cars onto the lawn. I considered standing in on Rip's delicate and difficult morning assembly, showing my support, listening to what the psychologist had to say.

  Instead I poured a mug of coffee and sat down in my silent living room. Barney lay with his paws across my feet and I absentmindedly scratched his ears. This was the first privacy I'd had since the murder. Rip would never miss me. I had delicate and difficult things of my own to face. Things I had been putting off.

  Last year an airplane crashed into a mountain in western Pennsylvania. Along with all the sordid details, newscasters mentioned that a team of psychologists had been dispatched to the scene. Odd, I thought. What could they possibly do to help?

  "Counsel the bereaved," Rip had pointed out. But that wasn't all. According to the newspaper, when the searchers could no
longer tolerate the horror of collecting body parts, they would stop and get themselves some counseling. Then, presumably, they could return to their gruesome job.

  The notion offended me. "I don't think I'd listen to anybody who hadn't done the work themselves," I remarked.

  Rip shook his head. "The psychologists aren't allowed to go," he explained. "If they did, they'd be useless to anyone else."

  Strange animals, we humans.

  Perhaps—eventually—I would benefit from being with a group, sharing my feelings with caring friends. Maybe even tonight. But for now I wanted to stare down the visions of bone shards and brain matter until they ceased to sicken me, until they became simply another by-product of life. I wanted to name every fear that threatened to gray my hair or sour my stomach or cause my hands to tremble. So I sat with my cold coffee and my warm dog and stared and shook and hugged myself tight. I rocked and whimpered and cried. I pounded my fist on the sofa cushion until Barney gave up on me and trotted away.

  I swore. I prayed. And finally I sobbed myself to sleep.

  Naturally, the phone rang. Thinking of the weekend, I nearly let the machine pick up, but no. I was revived now, emotionally bandaged and ready to return to that gruesome mountain.

  Rip's ragged voice made my arms feel hollow. "Okay if I come home for lunch?"

  "Sure. Absolutely." Since school had opened in September, he had not once been home for lunch.

  "Thanks, babe. I really need a break."

  I HEATED FROZEN Welsh rarebit and tossed a green salad. I even frosted some glass mugs for some non-alcoholic beer and arranged our best green dishes on bright red place mats. Winter clouds had shadowed the dining room despite my cheerful wallpaper, so I put out candles. Then I put them away and set the chandelier at a gentle level. You'd have thought I was preparing for a heavy date.

  Rip ate mechanically, unaware of my presence; he was scarcely aware of the food. As quality time went, a total bust.

  "How'd the morning session go?" I asked.

  My husband lifted his head. "I'm here, aren't I?"

  "Oh."

  Someone pounded on the door, and I automatically stood. Barney barked the deep threatening roar he reserved for sudden noises and twirled in a frustrated circle.

  "Don't answer it," Rip advised.

  The pounding repeated, louder than before. Barney became frantic.

  "But..."

  "Oh, go ahead. This day couldn't get any worse."

  Lt. Newkirk stood on the front step wearing a limp, charcoal-gray overcoat. His reddish mustache twitched and his eyes bore into mine.

  "Your husband is here," he informed me.

  "Yes, I know."

  "Speak to him, please."

  "Come in, Lieutenant," Rip called. "I want to talk to you, too."

  When Rip returned from shutting Barney in the laundry room, the two men stood ten feet apart on the living room carpet and locked eyes. Their arms hung loosely at their sides like Wild West gunfighters. Both appeared to be exhausted, and the day was scarcely half over.

  Rip fired first. "What was the idea of placing uniformed officers in the lobby this morning? I never gave permission for that."

  "They were there to help me. And I don't need your permission. I happen to be investigating a homicide."

  "And I'm responsible for the welfare of two hundred and thirty-nine students. Your men frightened the younger kids so much that several burst into tears. We'll be weeks settling them down thanks to your thoughtlessness."

  "You ever think that some of the kids might have been reassured by the uniforms?"

  "No I didn't. And if they were reassured, how do you explain them lining up halfway down the hall to meet with our psychologists? Hell, I already asked the extra two to stay all week. I might as well offer them a contract."

  Pacing, Rip raised a finger to forestall interruption. "Forty families were so upset they kept their kids home today." He stopped to point the finger at Newkirk. "...And some of those may never come back. We already lost five permanently. Permanently, Lieutenant. Parents pulled them right out." The finger wagged. "You keep on scaring everybody, we won't have a school left. Do you have any idea where that leaves all the people who depend on it?"

  "You done?" Newkirk asked. "Cause if you're done, I got a bone to pick with you."

  Rip stepped back, hands on hips, an irritated expression on his face.

  "I been talking to that fifth grade teacher again, the one was here the other night?”

  "Pamela Washington."

  "Yeah. You mind telling me why you didn't mention George Kelly?" Newkirk asked, shifting a foot. His hands flapped from thumbs tucked into his coat pockets.

  Rip's eyebrows raised and his mouth opened. His annoyance had diminished, but not his intensity.

  "I'm sorry, Lieutenant. I just plain forgot."

  "You report an abusive father, he storms the school coming after his son and his wife, and you forgot?"

  "All sorts of things like that go on around here. It's a school, for chrissake. What I forgot is that Richard Wharton was involved."

  Newkirk sucked his teeth and frowned. "So now that I reminded you, you want to tell me how Wharton was involved?"

  Rip sighed and gestured for Newkirk to sit down on the sofa. He took an opposite chair, and I took its twin.

  "From the beginning?"

  "From the beginning," Newkirk agreed.

  "Susan Kelly brought Christopher in for an interview this summer. He was a quiet kid, and we felt he was overwhelmed by the size of his current school. Four hundred students in one grade can bury a kid like him. So we accepted Chris for fifth grade, keeping him back a year to catch him up a bit, a common practice for boys transferring into private school. The idea is he's not going to feel a stigma because so many others stay back. Okay?"

  "Okay," said Newkirk.

  "But young Christopher didn't adapt quite as well as we hoped; and his teacher, Pamela Washington, began to keep an eye on him. One morning she caught Chris walking the wrong direction after assembly, just zoned out, not paying attention. So she hooked his arm to wake him up and sort of spin him to face the right way. Chris cried out in pain. Since just catching his arm like that shouldn't have hurt, Pamela took the boy straight to the nurse to get him examined. The kid was covered with bruises. You could even see the spacing of the father's fingers.

  "We hated the possibility of making matters worse, but we hated what the father was doing even more. So we reported it."

  "As you must by law."

  "Right, but as we feared, we knocked over a beehive. The wife, Susan, left Kelly because after we reported him, he became even more violent. Of course, once an incident is reported, the child is automatically protected by the county; but the mother had to seek her own legal protection.

  "So one morning Kelly parked his car out front and waited for Susan to bring Christopher to school. He 'stormed' up to her, as you said, causing quite a scene. Wharton was in my office, and we saw what was going on through the window. Richard ran out, physically intimidated Kelly—there was quite a size difference, and Kelly had already drawn a crowd, something I don't think he expected—anyway, he shook his fist and yelled a few threats and left.

  "Wharton shepherded Chris into school, counseled with the mother, and in about half an hour I saw them drive off in Wharton's car. Turns out Wharton talked her into a restraining order, and off they went to get one. Next thing I heard, Susan and the boy had moved to an unknown address and taken an unlisted number. She had to give me and my assistant the address—in confidence—in case there's ever a problem at school with Chris. But her husband no longer knew how to find them, and if he showed up here looking for either his son or his wife, he would have been arrested."

  "So Kelly blamed Wharton for the break-up of his family."

  "That's about it."

  "They never blame themselves, do they?" Newkirk mused.

  "Not in my experience."

  "So Wharton was the logical targ
et."

  "Guess so."

  Newkirk lifted himself off the sofa with effort.

  "Pardon me, folks. I got to go question another suspect." Before he turned toward the door he paused to inspect our dirty plates. "Whatcha got here? Cheese sandwiches?"

  "Sort of. Want some?"

  "Nah," he said. "Cheese don't agree with me."

  After he left, Rip placed his hands on his hips and reflected bitterly. "He doesn't give a damn about the school."

  Since my husband was swimming too hard to see the water, I mentioned the obvious. "That's not his job."

  "You got that right," Rip agreed. Then he armored himself with his overcoat and set off to do his.

  Chapter 11

  NOTHING COULD HAVE deterred the crowd that collected at Bryn Derwyn Monday night. Overhead clouds clamped us under a dome of black relieved only by cones of misty light dropped by the school's spotlights. Vehicles of all sorts overflowed the lots and littered the gloomy practice field like a junkyard on Halloween. Because of the planned memorial service, television crews were barred from entering the building, so the two opposing networks who chose to come huddled in separate dispirited clumps, occasionally stepping forward to pester the most accessible parents.

  Inside, the gently sloped auditorium contained few empty seats. Lighting was kept respectfully moderate except for the podium centered in front of the stage, which was little more than a platform. The speakers would be eye level with most of the gathering.

  Soon after eight, Rip tapped the microphone and said, "Ladies and gentlemen, we should get started. If you'll be seated, please?" A small flurry of activity ensued as people complied.

  Around the periphery I noticed a few print reporters poised over their notebooks. Also, Lt. Newkirk stood off by himself smoking a cigarette until one of the teachers scolded him and he briefly stepped outside to dispose of it.

  "Can we sit down there?" Garry asked, gesturing to a couple of empty seats halfway down the right side.

  I shrugged. "Sure, but I think I'll stay back here. Okay?" I was too nervous to sit still.