The Main Line Is Murder

by Donna Huston Murray

  And yet. I wheeled Randy's chair back to his desk and used his phone to speed-dial his wife. Annie answered so tentatively that I felt sorry for her all over again.

  "At least you're picking up the phone," I remarked after identifying myself. "Things must be settling down."

  "Not really. I keep hoping it's Randy calling for me to pick him up."

  I sighed right back at her. "Next time maybe. In the meantime, I have a question for you."

  "There aren't any more envelopes around, if that's what you want. Everything else must be at the office."

  "No. Nothing like that. I'm trying to figure out what got Randy arrested, and..." how could I point-blank ask why he would have been wiping blood off his hands? And suddenly the words came. "Does Randy ever get nosebleeds?"

  "Sure. Especially in the winter when he has a cold. Why?" She sounded quite happy to tell me this.

  "Because a kid saw him using his handkerchief to wipe something red off his hands, and I think that's why he was arrested."

  "Gin. You're a genius. I found one of his hankies soaking in the sink last weekend, but I didn't think anything about it."

  This I doubted. More likely she was terrified that Randy was guilty and desperate to protect him.

  "Do you really think that's all they have on him?" she asked eagerly.

  "I don't know." Rip was still looking into that Bryn Derwyn, Inc. bank account. "When you spoke with Randy, did he say anything about evidence?"

  "No. Nothing."

  Probably his lawyer knew what the police had, and both men chose to shield Annie.

  "What did you do with the hankie?"

  "Finished washing it. Put it away. Why?"

  "Because I'm thinking if tests only showed Randy's blood on the handkerchief, maybe the police will buy the nosebleed story." Which, to my knowledge, Randy had not yet aired. He must be among those citizens who fervently distrusted our legal system. And at the moment, who could blame him?

  "But I washed it."

  "Tests still might pick up traces of his blood. What do you think about offering all Randy's handkerchiefs to Lt. Newkirk?" Of course, if Emily's impression was correct and there had been no nosebleed, such an offer might certify Randy's guilt. I tried not to dwell on that.

  "If you think I should," Annie enthused. "Sure. I'll call Newkirk right away. Oh, Gin. You're an absolute angel to help us like this. We owe you big."

  "Randy's not out of trouble yet," I reminded her.

  "Yes, but he will be. I just know it."

  While Annie eagerly built her straw castle with my idea, I considered that maybe Newkirk was right, that killers are rarely rational and are more than capable of vacuuming up hair and clothing lint with bloody hands. Except for one reassuring detail.

  I had noticed surprisingly little blood at the crime scene and none on the handle of the weapon. The only way Randy could have gotten the amount of blood on his hands that Emily described would have been to deliberately touch the back of Richard's head—a thoroughly repulsive thought, especially since such an action would have served no purpose.

  Several more minutes of stuffing envelopes both calmed me and completed the chore. If I ran the mailing through the postage meter myself, I could drop everything at the post office before I tried to find Tina Longmeier.

  Maybe she could give me her slant on the thing with her father. Maybe she'd even tell me why Randy Webb had all but accused her husband of murder.

  Worth a try.

  Chapter 29

  LEARNING TINA LONGMEIER'S whereabouts cost me a case of indigestion. Nobody answered her home phone, which would have been too lucky by half considering her out-and-about reputation. Although I could have asked her father, I preferred wait half an hour for seventh grade to dismiss for lunch.

  Nicky D'Avanzo seemed more amused than flapped when I approached him. All around us middle school kids jiggled and squirmed and yakked.

  "Any idea where I might find your aunt?" I asked.

  The young teenager finished collecting flatware on his gray plastic tray then fixed me with a sarcastic, half-smile. In front of him students wound through a doorway past steam tables and beverage coolers. Behind us lay the long lunchroom full of rectangular tables with brown plastic chairs. The few teachers there for supervision had the relaxed demeanor of prison guards manning the wall.

  "You eating?" Nicky asked me.

  Not on a bet.

  "Yeah, sure," I relented.

  "Hey, dude. Let the lady in. It's Mrs. Barnes."

  The next kin in line didn’t seem to care one way or the other.

  "So where do you think I should look?" I pressed Nicky. I had my tray and my utensils before I got a glimpse of what I would be eating: dried burgers and limp French fries.

  Nicky turned back to face me with his signature athletic swagger. "Whaddaya want her for?""Just a couple of questions."

  "Like what?" He collected his food, pushed his tray to the end of the counter where pay-as-you-go cafeterias would have had a cashier, then moved toward the condiments. Since I hadn't responded yet, he turned and questioned me with his eyebrows.

  "Like what?" he repeated loud enough to penetrate the din. Then he pumped ketchup onto his hamburger from a gallon jug while kids flowed around us like water diverted by rocks.

  "Why so protective all of a sudden?" I asked evasively. "I thought you didn't like her."

  He shrugged while a girl nudged him away from the ketchup. "My grandfather wouldn't want her hassled." My grandfather, not Gramps or Pop or any of the other more familiar—and less respectful—names kids were inclined to use.

  "What makes you think I'm going to hassle her?"

  Another shrug. "Aren't you?"

  "No."

  "What then?"

  Most of the kids had found seats and were already devouring food. The relative silence allowed me to speak in normal tones. "Now that I think of it, my questions are private. But I can say they don't have anything to do with you."

  "Aw, what do I care?" He finally knuckled under. "She's at All Things Bright and Beautiful."

  "That accessory shop in the mall? How do you know that?"

  "Because she co-owns it. She's there almost every morning."

  "When does she leave?"

  Nicky glanced over my head at a clock. "About one."

  So that was how I got my indigestion, washing down cafeteria food with chocolate milk driving to the mall like a trucker on amphetamines. Time was running out for me, and not just because I might not catch Tina Longmeier at her shop. Randy's Grand Jury hearing was tomorrow afternoon.

  All Things Bright and Beautiful stood between a shoe store and Pants Plus on the second floor of the original section of the King of Prussia Mall—the everyday "Plaza," not the adjacent up-scale "Court." After parking, I sprinted inside and upstairs then down the lengthy hallway to the right section. Then I caught my breath before venturing between tall, rotating racks of earrings to look for Tina.

  The shop had been decked out for Christmas with flashy sequins and rhinestones and faux pearls so colorful they probably glowed in the dark. Behind the counter a slender woman dressed in seasonal red and white wore ten, count them, ten, items of jewelry including earrings, necklaces, bangles, and rings.

  "Gee, if we wrapped up what you're wearing I'd be done shopping," I said.

  She chuckled once. Then she asked if I needed help.

  “Always,” I admitted. "Are you Tina's partner?"

  "Why, yes."

  "Is she here?"

  "Just missed her."

  "Damn," I said fervently. "Where does she usually park, do you know?"

  "It's a mall in December,” she pointed out. “Where did you park?"

  Right. Tina could be slipping behind the wheel of whatever she drove and heading for any of about eight exit areas with access to three expressways and a turnpike or several smaller roads that offered egress from this Mecca of free enterprise. No wonder car thieves used to arrive by the busload�
��until the cops started meeting the buses.

  "Listen," I said, putting on my most contrite, near-to-groveling-as-I-get demeanor. "I'm sorry I teased you about the jewelry. I get that way when I'm stressed out, and right now I've really got to talk to Tina about, about somebody who's in jail, maybe because of her. So tell me, do you have any idea where she went?"

  "Buy something."

  "Excuse me?"

  "Buy something while I think about it."

  The word extortion came to mind, but so did a vivid picture of Annie Webb baking rolls every day until forever, because in Pennsylvania a life sentence means exactly what it sounds like. I grabbed a comb with a puffy green velvet bow edged in gold lame.

  "Five bucks, plus tax." Tina's partner wore false eyelashes that made her blue eyes look fake, and her blonde hair was the exactly the type you never hoped to find clinging to one of your husband's sweaters.

  I paid the woman and waited. With no discernible haste she packaged the bow with tissue and slipped it tenderly into a miniature shopping bag with All Things Bright and Beautiful written in gold. She carefully counted change into my waiting palm, then leaned her elbows on the counter and said, "She went grocery shopping."

  My face fell, then brightened. "So afterwards she has to go home. Where's home?"

  "You really think Tina put somebody in jail?"

  "I can't say—yet." We shared a naughty smile.

  "That's funny. That's really funny." Wisely, I pretended to share the joke, because Tina's partner immediately warmed up. She even drew me a map leading to the Longmeiers’ house.

  By the eighth turn I felt like a fly in a spider web, but at least the scenery was beautiful. Most of it anyway. The Longmeier house was tan stucco with a red tile roof, a style more often found in Florida or California. Icicle lights under the eaves made the place appear to be shivering.

  I parked at the end of the drive opposite the mailbox and listened to my stomach gurgle. I figured I could fake "perky" long enough to get in the door.

  Michael D'Avanzo's daughter drove a Mercedes, that nice scrambled egg color I admire. She steered around my maroon Nissan into the drive and thirty yards further to park beside the house. Then she popped the trunk and started lifting out grocery bags.

  "Tina! Hey, hi!" I called as I emerged from my car and started toward her. "Can I talk to you a minute?"

  She eyed me with annoyance. Beneath her long black hair glinted sizeable gold earrings that must have made the merchandise at All Things Bright and Beautiful sigh with envy. "We've met?"

  "Sort of. The copy room at Bryn Derwyn? I'm Rip Barnes's wife, Gin."

  "Oh yeah." She still had no idea who I was. Not surprising, considering the circumstances of our previous encounter. She turned toward her kitchen door.

  I grabbed a couple grocery bags and followed. "I need help deciding what to tell the police..." Tina halted for a beat. "...about you and Randy Webb."

  "I've got nothing to say." She unlocked her door and slipped inside.

  I hipped my way in beside her and set the bags I was carrying on a broad center island. The room’s impression was sterile white, broken only by stainless steel appliances and a potted avocado tree over in the corner.

  Tina Longmeier crossed her arms chewed her lip, no doubt wondering how to get me out of her kitchen.

  "Were you having an affair with him, too?" I asked.

  "Too?"

  My "too" had been a guess. But she a had picked up on it, so I took another chance and told her the police already knew about her and Richard.

  Tina paled, and a professionally manicured hand reached for the back of the nearest chair.

  To rattle her a little more, I began to unload a grocery bag: package of “homemade” pasta made in a factory, Tree-Free Tissues made entirely of recycled paper. It was almost as revealing as searching a drawer.

  "You're sure they know?" Tina finally managed to ask.

  "Positive." As soon as I told them. "So what about Randy? Were you having an affair with him, too? Is that why he killed Richard?"

  Red blotches that looked like an overdose of rouge or a rash appeared on Tina's cheeks. She sat on the chair, put her fist up to her mouth, and stared through a large picture window at two crows squabbling over an old apple.

  I continued unloading lettuce, recycled plastic kitchen trash bags, and a bottle of Tums containing calcium. "May I?" I asked. My stomach was so acidy I couldn't help thinking Fate had offered me relief.

  I rattled the Tums to get Tina's attention. "Mind if I open this? I had cafeteria food for lunch."

  Tina waved her hand in permission and I ingested two tablets in record time. They really do work fast.

  "So," I continued. "My question is, do I tell the police about you and Randy, or not?"

  Appearing to be in shock, Tina watched watch me begin on the second bag: celery, a red pepper, cilantro, a thing that looked like an anemic carrot, and a bag of red potatoes. On the white counter they made a beautiful pile of produce, something a Better Homes and Gardens photographer might assemble to lend this stark room a focal point. Outside the crows departed noisily, one close behind the other.

  "Randy and I...were...never an item," Eddie Longmeier's wife told me at last. "Whatever you heard simply isn't true."

  "Saw, not heard."

  She blinked. "I beg your pardon."

  "I saw you and Randy in the copier room at school. You looked like you'd just been in a clinch."

  "Oh."

  "What was that all about?"

  Tina untied the sash of her coat and shrugged it off onto the back of the chair. Underneath she was wearing a black turtleneck and a long, narrow skirt, also black. Black was in fashion this year, but the absence of further jewelry suggested that she was discreetly in mourning.

  For Richard Wharton, her murdered lover. Now that Tina had confirmed my suspicion, all sorts of possibilities stepped forward.

  "Randy. Copy room. When did you say this happened?"

  "Early fall. September."

  Tina stood and rubbed her arms. Some of her confidence had returned and with it the sensual body language that went so well with her close-fitting clothes. Although to be fair, over her figure most men would consider overalls inviting.

  Her face suddenly brightened. "Now I remember. Randy, well, he somehow found out about Richard, and I was, you know, trying to keep him from, from telling Eddie."

  "I see." She had been bribing Randy with implied sex to keep her husband from finding out about Richard.

  "You ever have to deliver?" I asked.

  Her mouth fell open. "No. No, of course not."

  "Randy just dropped the whole thing?" I said skeptically. "You sure?"

  The red blotches returned with a vengeance. "Eddie never said anything." Yet I could tell she was no longer certain her husband didn't know about Richard. She sank back onto the chair, this time staring at the wall next to the door. I imagined that she was seeing visions of her husband bashing her lover with a shovel—she looked that ill.

  "So Randy really had no motive to kill Richard, as far as you were concerned."

  "No." Her voice was distant, weak.

  "Great. That's great. So you'll tell that to the police?"

  "No!" That answer was loud enough to back me up a step. "Eddie..."

  "...would find out for sure?"

  "Yes." Weak again.

  "Come on, Tina. Eddie told me himself you and he don't care about each other anymore. What's the big deal? The police have Randy in jail, and he doesn't belong there."

  "Maybe he does."

  "Maybe he doesn't."

  The blotches threatened to turn into hives. Tina's long fingers opened and clenched, opened and clenched. It was time for me to show myself out.

  BEFORE PUTTING my car in gear, I took a minute to contemplate Tina Longmeier's kitchen.

  I'd done it again, the same thing I've caught myself doing before. When I was watching the crows, they were all I saw; they might as well h
ave been on big-screen TV. When I was focused on something inside the kitchen, my field of vision included the avocado tree but ended abruptly at the window glass. Ever since I noticed this habit, I've been trying to break it, trying to appreciate the outside view in the context of the inside decor and vice versa.

  In Tina Longmeier's emotionally charged kitchen, once again I had failed to take in the picture as a whole. It was an error I could not afford to repeat.

  Chapter 30

  My nervous bravado expired before I got back to Bryn Derwyn, leaving me with a feeling of desperate urgency bordering on depression.

  By the time I entered the school lobby, I was angry—angry that I felt so helpless, angry that even though Randy and Tina had not been lovers it didn't mean he hadn't killed Richard, angry that the more I learned the more I needed to know.

  So what if classes were still in session. I needed information—right now.

  "Where's Jacob?" I barked at Ruth.

  "I'll beep him," she replied, scarcely raising an eyebrow at my abrupt demand.

  "Be right back," I told her.

  I burst into Joanne's office. She stood behind her desk speaking on the phone, so I used some extra volume. "Could Longmeier's Mercedes have been parked here last Friday afternoon?"

  She had taken the phone away from her ear. Now she told the caller, "I'll get right back to you. Something's come up."

  To me she said, "What's...?"

  "Just answer me, please. Did you see the Longmeier's Mercedes in the parking lot last Friday afternoon?"

  The older woman shifted on her feet, rested her fingers on the desk top, and pressed her lips together.

  "I really can't say...I was working, you know, but if I had to guess I'd say no."

  "What makes you think that?"

  Her eyes flicked on and off me like a bird perched too close to the cat. "I had the feeling they were ordinary cars," she said. "Ones we always see. Not strangers. Lt. Newkirk asked me this..."

  "I know, and I'm sorry to ask you again, but I'm very worried, and this is important." To my surprise, my eyes filled with tears, and my words hit some obstruction in my throat. Phase Three: utter frustration.