The Main Line Is Murder

by Donna Huston Murray

  I borrowed the vet's lot, tiptoed through weeds damp with what I hoped was sun-melted frost, then hastily crossed between traffic to the bulldozed expanse of mud and tree roots. A gusty breeze mussed my short hair, and I smoothed it down with my fingers.

  Eddie Longmeier and the employee with whom he was speaking spared me a glance, but Longmeier finished what he was saying before waving the guy off.

  "Mrs. Barnes, what brings you all the way out here?"

  Michael D'Avanzo's son-in-law wore dusty twill pants and work boots, a blue chambray shirt with a black knit tie, and a red-and-black buffalo plaid hunting jacket. Under the obligatory white hard hat his pale eyes exuded a neutral amount of social warmth. He was of average height for a man, perhaps five-foot-nine. Beard stubble and weathered skin made him look worn rather than handsome.

  "Can we sit down for a minute?" Glancing around I noticed only one available spot, a pile of cement blocks waiting to become foundation. Today's project, apparently. Three rows aligned with string already stood about three feet tall on concrete footings. Beyond the bank's rudimentary outline a backhoe was poised to unearth an enormous tree stump. Everything remained moist from the overnight frost. Like a row of denim birds, four workers sat on a tree trunk eating out of lunch boxes.

  I tried the lumpy blocks, being careful not to rough up my wool skirt. Longmeier chose to fold his arms and stand between me and the distant men.

  "Something tells me this isn't about the gym." So far I was an interesting interruption to his day, one he would cut short if I took too much time.

  "Yes and no." I answered, resting my chin on my fist the better to gaze up at him. "The police been here yet?"

  "Yeah." He wagged his head as if the visit still puzzled him. "Is that what this is about?"

  "They ask you about your wife?" I had given a lot of thought to my approach, and I hoped I’d made the right choice.

  Longmeier's eyes sharpened their focus and his body braced. "No..." he said tentatively. "Why should they?"

  So Newkirk had pursued Randy Webb's fairy tale and nothing more—so far.

  "What's Tina have to do with this?"

  "In a way, that's what I'm trying to find out."

  "Go on."

  I hesitated. If Eddie was truly ignorant about his wife's behavior, what I was about to say might embarrass, infuriate, or even devastate him. Suddenly I was gratefully for the distant row of witnesses.

  "I'm pretty sure I know why Randy Webb tried to throw suspicion on you," I said, "but before I mention anything to the police, I'd like to hear your opinion."

  "Of what?"

  I tilted my head and looked up at him. "Have you ever noticed your wife flirting with other men?"

  "You're out of line, Mrs. Barnes. Way, way out."

  "Am I?"

  The contractor wheeled and huffed as if fighting for control. Then he glared at me, challenging me to back down. His men watched a moment, then looked away.

  Finally, Longemeier hooked his thumbs into his jeans pockets and crushed a lump of dirt with his boot. "Yeah, okay. You're right. Tina was a slut before I married her, and she didn't change. So what?"

  Reluctantly, I said, "I saw her flirting with both Randy Webb and Richard Wharton."

  To my surprise, Longmeier laughed. It was a dry, humorless sound directed at himself. "Good ol' Tina. No wonder Webb's anxious to make me look bad. Webb and Wharton. Wow. She really stuck her nose in the bees’ nest this time, didn't she?" His next laugh contained some pleasure.

  "You don't sound particularly upset."

  "Why should I? I haven't given a damn about Tina for more than a year. Just woke up one day and didn't give a damn. Told her that, too. We more or less ignore each other."

  I frowned, remembering my first meeting with Michael D'Avanzo. "Your father-in-law know that?" I asked.

  "Oh hell no. Why should we tell him?" I suspected no one needed to tell Tina's father, unless the couple deliberately hid their feelings to delude him.

  I shrugged. "No reason. So, if you don't mind my asking, why do you and Tina stay together?"

  He took a breath while his eyes strayed over the wasteland that would eventually become a bank. "Business hasn't exactly been booming recently. Perhaps you've watched the news?"

  "You can't afford to break up."

  "Got it in one."

  At least now I understood why both Tina and her husband kept her father in the dark. If he knew, he would have had little incentive to throw two million dollars’ worth of business his son-in-law's way, and both the Longmeiers obviously welcomed that money.

  "You won't tell Michael? No, of course not. Without Michael D'Avanzo, you don't get your gym."

  I neither agreed nor disagreed, although I knew of no reason to involve myself in their family politics.

  Longmeier's stare seemed to penetrate my skin. "Why are you really here?" he asked.

  I was happy to give him an honest answer. "Because I think Newkirk has it wrong, and while he's stumbling around in the dark, he's ruining the school."

  "I see." The contractor's smile was smug and not particularly attractive. "Not very different are we?"

  He meant we were both whores when it came to D'Avanzo's money, and I resented the implication just as much as he intended me to. Yet trying to clarify the differences in our motives would be tantamount to acknowledging their similarity.

  "It depends," I said instead. "Did you kill Richard Wharton?"

  That surprised a snort out of him. "Over Tina? That's good. Really good."

  I stood up, ready to leave.

  "Hey, wait," Longmeier delayed me. He stepped closer and brushed my arm, looked into my eyes. "Just to put your inquiring mind to rest—I did not kill Richard Wharton. Not over the gym, and not over Tina. So I would appreciate it if you didn't give the police any more ideas."

  "What if they find out about Richard Wharton and your wife?" I asked.

  The contractor looked straight into my eyes. "If I thought Wharton and my wife were having an affair, which I had no reason to suspect until now, I wouldn't have done anything."

  I raised an eyebrow.

  "Why?" He snorted again. "Because Tina D'Avanzo-Longmeier is punishment enough for any man. And now, Mrs. Barnes, I suggest you be careful crossing the street." He swept his arm toward the humming traffic.

  I assumed he meant that literally.

  Chapter 19

  BILLIE HOLIDAY WASN'T among the CDs in the glove compartment; and after speaking with Eddie Longmeier, everybody else seemed too damn cheerful. I drove back to Bryn Derwyn in silence.

  My main reason for confronting Michael D’Avanzo’s son-in-law had been to gauge whether he knew anything about his wife and Randy Webb or Richard Wharton. Although he admitted that Tina fooled around, he denied knowing anything about either of the men in question. But what else would he say? One was dead and the other had been arrested for his murder.

  If Eddie had been truthful—a rather big if—he didn't care at all about his wife, which definitely tilted the scale toward her having an affair with somebody. Why not Webb or Wharton? Why not both? Her husband practically gave her permission. Unless, as he suggested, she gave herself permission long before Eddie quit caring.

  Had he killed Wharton over his wife? I still had no idea.

  Back at the school I noticed Jeremy Philbin shuffling across the lobby and decided the dreaded mailing could wait a little longer. Jostling through a swarm of students, I followed the algebra teacher around a corner and down a hallway.

  “Jeremy,” I forestalled him. “May I have a minute of your time?”

  "Listen, Gin dear," Philbin said as if I were a juvenile. "I've got tests to finish grading and a splitting headache. Could we do this later–July, perhaps?"

  We had halted just outside the Faculty Room, that haven of soft seats and hot coffee tucked into a quiet corner. Through the door's window I could see that only Sophia Mawby had been using the long mahogany table, and she appeared to be leav
ing.

  I held the door open. "Now suits me best," I said cordially.

  Long, long ago Jeremy probably had been an obedient child. With abject resignation he went inside and threw down the papers he’d been carrying. He poured himself black coffee from the table on the right, then settled into a blue sofa next to the window. The pinch of pain between his eyebrows looked quite genuine.

  I turned the wooden chair vacated by the now-departed Sophia so that Philbin and I sat knee to knee.

  "Got my hair done yesterday," I fibbed. "Like the color?" My hair was the same nutmeg red it always was, but he probably wouldn’t realize that.

  "Lovely," he said without sincerity.

  "And guess who I ran into at the hairdresser's."

  "Eliza Doolittle?"

  I smiled tolerantly. "Emily Walker."

  Philbin squeezed his eyes closed.

  "We had a nice little chat. She says you weren't especially good at fixing things around the house. I could teach you a few basics. Sink washers. Weather stripping. Simple stuff. Maybe you could give me a call next time you need a socket replaced."

  Philbin cleared his throat. "Is there a point to all this?"

  "Yes indeedy. I was wondering if you strayed out of character the other night and put water in the gas tank of the school bus. Not too original, but effective in its way. I understand it's costing Bryn Derwyn about a thousand dollars if you include renting a replacement bus and disposing of the contaminated fuel."

  His gaze shot toward the bulletin board before returning to me. "Why would I do a thing like that?"

  "Oh, I don't know. Because you want to punish my husband? The school? You tell me."

  "I would never do any such thing, Mrs. Barnes. Even a dimwit should be able to figure out why."

  Stepping delicately into the insult, I said, "Why?"

  "Because, Ms. Barnes, I happen to like teaching."

  Probably true. “Okay, but...”

  “But what?”

  “...But that doesn’t mean you love the bureaucracy.” If he had vandalized the bus, now he’d been warned that I suspected him. If he hadn’t, I would cheerfully apologize.

  Meanwhile, a thought was tugging my ear. Once when I was doing some Mop-Squad work, I came into the Faculty Room to get a Diet Coke. While I drank it, I wandered around until I my eye caught the notices pinned to the bulletin board. Every one had been doctored up with sarcasm. Funny, nasty remarks. Same wit, same pen. I had stormed into Rip's office to report that his memos had been defaced and to ask if I could take them down.

  "Leave them," Rip told me. "It's their room, their bulletin board."

  Another sarcastic barb hung there now. I walked over and yanked the offensive message off its pin, then I held it next to a comment Philbin had written on one of his student's papers. The handwriting matched, and it occurred to me that I didn’t need to ask him anything more about Richard Wharton.

  Rip's initial changes to the school had been minor, with scarcely any tangible effect on the teachers. The only thing that affected Philbin personally was some bus duty and the addition of Computer Club to his after-school schedule, ridiculous reasons to wage a hate campaign against his employer but apparently enough for him. I could easily imagine how he would feel toward someone who gave him a better reason to hate them. Richard Wharton, for example.

  “We finished here?” Philbin pressed.

  I crossed my boots and locked my hands over the knee of my skirt. “Not quite. You don’t have an airtight alibi for the time of the murder, do you?”

  “Excuse me?”

  “That’s why you accused my husband, right?”

  The teacher's mouth opened to protest then snapped shut after he reconsidered. His bloodshot eyes narrowed with furious concentration.

  "Don't bother, Jeremy," I counseled the man. "If I behaved as badly as you did at the memorial service, I'd block it out, too. But you did give the cop who took you home quite an earful. Rip regrets that you don't like him very much, but you both know that isn’t really necessary.”

  Philbin's cheeks had gone deathly gray. Two matching veins pulsed visibly across his temples. His mouth trembled.

  And I deflated. Just like that. The inside of Jeremy Philbin’s head was too much of a mess for me. Somebody else was going to have to get inside there and put things in order–Rip, a psychologist, Newkirk.

  “Ooh sorry,” I improvised. “You’ve got tests to grade. I’ll let you get to it."

  I needed to finish writing, "Your help will be greatly appreciated," a few hundred times like the blackboard punishment teachers used to assign.

  If only that would make it true.

  Chapter 20

  WORKING IN SOMEONE else's office is an intimate thing. Sitting in another person's chair you learn how he orders his environment, maybe even see a portion of daily life through his eyes. You smell the brown residue left in his "Virginia is for Lovers" coffee mug, the pencil shavings in the waste basket, the lingering scent of his clothes, possibly even the soap he used to bathe.

  Randy Webb's office spoke of a solid Main Line upbringing. Parental expectations oozed forth from the Colby diploma nailed, no doubt with difficulty, to the otherwise empty off-white cement block wall. Male hormones, tastefully in check, pulsed inside the brass bookends depicting skis leaned against an immovable mountain. Inhibitions ordered the paper clips and rubber bands inside his drawer. Chewing gum and breath mints waited upon private vices, whether an occasional martini lunch or a hasty afternoon tryst. The wife and kiddies were nowhere to be seen. This was Randy's space.

  I cleared the one long table under the broad, drafty window so I could stuff the envelopes standing up. The hamburger I had eaten while driving bulged against my waistband when I sat down anyway.

  With a total of four enclosures I developed a left, right, left, right pattern that allowed me to collate and stuff with maximum efficiency. There wasn't much mental stimulation after I worked that out, so I reverted to the stupor writing the note on the letters had induced.

  "I just can't believe it," a voice behind me remarked.

  I wheeled toward the sound so quickly I knocked a stack of finished envelopes to the floor.

  "Sorry," Kevin Seitz told me. He hurried around the desk in the cramped quarters to help pick up the mess. Our proximity under the table made us both squirm, so he just as hastily returned to his doorjamb.

  "What can't you believe?" I asked.

  "Randy. Do you think he did it?"

  "Not really. How about you?" It struck me that my response was based mostly on instinct. Randy Webb remained a stranger to me, at best an acquaintance. I knew far more about the young man now standing in the doorway, and either one could have killed Richard Wharton for reasons well beyond my comprehension. I hugged my arms close to my body, scrunching my shoulders up to shield my neck.

  Kevin shook his head the way he had in Little League when he missed a fly ball. The gesture both warmed me to him and woke me up.

  "I don't know, Gin. He could have."

  "Hell, you could have. But you didn't." Did he? The police had not worried much about his vague alibi, but it still worried me.

  "Nope. But I sure hope it wasn't Randy either."

  "Why?" Had they become friends working next door to each other?

  "Because I'm not sure I have it in me to try to save another business." On the surface he sounded totally self-involved, but knowing his background I understood his perspective. He'd chosen to work at Bryn Derwyn because he needed an upbeat experience to offset his father's bankruptcy and subsequent suicide, events he had tried to prevent but could not. Now he was suddenly thrust into a comparable situation. If too many students withdrew, Bryn Derwyn would be as impossible to save as his father's building-supply business had been. Kevin's therapy could potentially turn into his problem all over again.

  "You won't be doing it alone this time," I reminded him. No honest business manager could make or break a school single handedly, and a dishone
st one was probably fairly easy to catch.

  Kevin shrugged his beach boy shoulders and pouted until his dimple showed. Then he backed out the door and slipped into his office. I knew because I heard the door shut.

  I wagged my head and sighed. I could do without Kevin's pessimism; my own was quite enough, thank you. It was after one-thirty. If I worked a little faster, maybe I could finish my chore and go home.

  To be certain Kevin and I had picked up all the fallen envelopes, I checked under the table once again. Back along the wall below the radiator cover was a page of white paper. Bumping my head in the process, I crawled under the table until I could reach it.

  A receipt from a printer. Not knowing where it belonged, I set it on the desk. However, something about it piqued my curiosity. I gave it a closer look.

  The receipt was from Audubon Offset Printers for 250 letterheads and envelopes, probably a minimal order for that sort of thing. Maybe it was for something special, a one-time school event, or stationery with Kevin's name and title that he didn't expect to use often. Normal enough stuff. Except something looked wrong. "Paid," it said. Then "11/14" and the year.

  Suddenly I knew what was missing. The few times I had noticed invoices in the work Rip brought home, they always had a "Received" stamp and the date, plus the initials of the person responsible for approving the purchase. That seemed to be how Kevin knew to pay the bill. This invoice simply said "Paid." Also, old invoices belonged in Kevin's files, not Randy's.

  I shut the door and picked up the phone. When the print shop answered I explained that I was calling from Bryn Derwyn and there was some confusion about invoice #10598. "Could you possibly describe that job to me?"

  The third person the operator referred to me could. "Got a sample right here somewhere." A drawer rattled on its rollers, some papers were shuffled, and finally the woman came back on the line. I realized I was gripping the receiver like a hammer.

  "'Bryn Derwyn, Inc.' and a post office box number for Paoli, dark green lettering on white bond. Is that what you need to know?"

  "Yes, thank you. We were confusing this with another order and didn't know which one we paid. You have been paid, haven't you?"