Joanne's lips pressed together like a stern grandmother's. Her eyes softened toward me then tightened in concentration.
Because I was blowing my nose on a tissue from the box on her desk, I almost didn't hear the next thing she said. "Mr. Longmeier's station wagon might have been there."
"What did you say?"
"I said Mr. Longmeier's station wagon could have been here and I wouldn't have given it a second glance. He's always around talking to Kevin. If it was here Friday..."
"Yes!"
Joanne jumped from the force of my exclamation. "Yes, it was here. I saw it myself. Oh, Hank, you're wonderful." I grabbed her shoulders and kissed her soundly on the cheek.
"You're sure Eddie was here?" her words challenged me, but her face glowed with reflected joy. "You're sure I didn't put the idea in your head?"
"Of course you put it in my head. I mean you reminded me. I saw it myself, and there was something odd about it, too." But that particular memory refused to surface without assistance. If I thought it might help, I would have begged the first hypnotist in the phone book to put me under.
"Thanks, Hank. Gotta go."
I waited expectantly at Ruth the Receptionist's lobby altar, too het up to speak.
"Jacob is in the gym," she informed me.
"Thanks, Ruth, I'll remember you at Christmas." I'd do better than that; I'd recommend her for a raise.
Eddie Longmeier's station wagon had been here. I could almost picture which parking slot it had been in, two or three from the far end facing the school, near my yard, almost directly in front of the hall which housed the business office, development office and Community Room. The question now was why hadn't anyone actually seen Eddie Longmeier?
Jacob was up a twelve-foot stepladder doing something to a basketball net. He seemed annoyed that his fingers were not functioning up to his expectations.
When I called him, he aimed his annoyance at me. "What! Oh, Gin. I thought you were one of the kids, you know, to tell me something else broke. What can I do for you?" He climbed down as he spoke.
"Important question." I paused to let that sink in. "What time did you chain-bolt the exit near our house last Friday?"
The maintenance supervisor's head jerked slightly when he realized I referred to the afternoon of the murder. He rubbed his chin whiskers thoughtfully and rocked on his heels.
"The police should have asked that, eh?"
I nodded. Although not knowing the school routine, they wouldn’t have known to ask.
"Lemme see. I drove the wrestling team to Friends Central and back." He shook his head, no doubt calculating how much the early weekend traffic had held him up on the Schulykill Expressway. "Late. Maybe twenty after four."
Probably after the murder and just before I discovered the body. "You see anyone in the hall? Anyone at all?"
The man shook his bald, dark-fringed head. "Nobody. Not even Randy or Kevin, which surprised me a little. But hey, it was Friday..." He watched to see if I reacted to that, but I didn't. To my mind, at least until proven otherwise, Randy had gotten a nosebleed and went home early. Kevin, according to his account, had slipped out of his office to deliver some new easy-readers to Patrice's locker, and maybe stopped to take care of some business in other parts of the school while he was at it.
"Did you see Eddie Longmeier around that afternoon?"
"Umm, no."
"His car?"
"No. Sorry."
I thanked the busy man and trudged back toward the lobby.
Why might Eddie Longmeier have been here? To see Kevin regarding plans for the new gym?
Kevin glanced up from the piles of papers on his desk like a bear peering out from the depths of his cave.
"Did Eddie Longmeier come to see you last Friday afternoon?"
"No. Why?"
To avoid a premature explanation, I fibbed and said Joanne thought she saw Longmeier's station wagon. "I just wondered who he could have been here to see."
Kevin shrugged. "Not me."
“You getting enough rest?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
"I wish," he lamented.
So he was sleeping poorly, too. I wondered if we had the same reason.
Back in the lobby I slumped into a stuffed chair, rested my head on the cushion, closed my eyes. Ruth was kind enough to ignore me.
Stressed out and exhausted, I once again ran through the afternoon of the murder–detail by detail, inch by inch. I had spoken to Joanne, greeted Emily, proceeded to the Community Room, unloaded some shelves. I had gone to the Faculty Room to borrow a Dustbuster.
The Dustbuster. There was something I wanted to remember about it, but whatever it was, it eluded me again.
I replayed myself in the Faculty Room, slow motion this time. I took the little gray vacuum out of its rack on the wall and did what I do to my own, which was wipe off the dog hairs adhered to the nozzle by static electricity. Except in this case, the nozzle had been covered with blue carpet fuzz and dust; and after I wiped it off, a row of scratches were visible along the top of the case. I remembered thinking that one of the teachers must have jammed it under a cabinet or low sofa or chair.
My eyes popped open. The lobby around me had filled with several students waiting for rides, or passing through on their way to Thursday afternoon's extracurricular activities.
Didi breezed in the front door. She came toward me ready with a hug, but stopped short when she saw my face.
"What's wrong?" she demanded.
"Wait," I said, keeping her at bay with my outstretched hand.
Didi stood perfectly still. I swear she even held her breath, she read me that well.
Friday afternoon fast forward. I went back to the Community Room. Kevin was gone. Randy asked me to return in an hour. I left the Dustbuster on the floor, went to hear the kids sing. Rip and Nora had their disagreement. Nora quit. Rip asked me to ask Didi to help.
Now I could glance at my best friend, acknowledge her presence. She stared back at me with her whole being. I shrugged out of my overcoat and handed it to her. Then I did the same with my blazer. It was going to be cold as hell outside, but that was what I wanted. I wanted everything the same—needed everything the same.
Didi accepted the coats in silence. I could feel her eyes on my back as I went out the door.
Just as I hoped, the outdoor chill propelled me into the past, to last week when I jogged through the cold Valley Forge winter to go home for Didi's phone number.
Without any curbing to protect the grass strip in front of the school's right front parking lot, cars often parked so far forward there was precious little sidewalk left between them and some low spreading dogwood trees. That was why, when school was in session, I usually walked home down the middle of the drive, crossing a few feet of grass to pick up the brick path to our house.
Today as I passed the rear bumpers of cars, I compared what I saw with my memory of Friday afternoon. Yes, a teacher's red van was in the same spot to my right. No, there was nothing in this slot to my left. In fact two spots had been empty, but two had been full before I came to Eddie Longmeier's muddy blue Subaru station wagon.
I crept up to the car in the station wagon's former spot on my toes, hugging myself from the cold, probably shivering, but scarcely aware. I was seeing the Suburu from behind, straining
to see it as clearly as I now envisioned the scratches on the Dustbuster, the scratches that had been absent from the ones Newkirk packed so carefully into his evidence box.
In my mind I saw a cover, a sort of gray window shade that matched the Suburu's interior, employed to keep prying eyes off the owner's cargo. That was the oddity, the cover. Eddie Longmeier used his station wagon for business. He carried paint and nails and trowels and rope and, yes, shovels and rakes and garden hoses back there. I had seen his car parked in roughly the same area dozens of times in the six months since we moved to the school, and on no other occasion had I seen his cargo covered.
While I stood
staring into my memory, cars pulled into the front circle, children climbed inside, and the cars drove away. The teacher who owned the red van came out, shouted, "Hi, Gin," started the van, and also departed.
My shivering developed into huge shuddering spasms, and still I stared at the trunk of the navy blue BMW that was parked where I was now certain the station wagon had been.
Soon, a woman and her teenage son, who was whining about going to the orthodontist, approached the BMW. The boy ignored me, walked around, and got into the passenger's seat. The woman watched me askance until she stood by her door, finally concluding that she would have to speak.
"Excuse me, miss," she said. "But we have to go."
I lifted my head to look at her.
"We have to leave?" she both explained and asked.
I registered what she meant, even intended to get out of her way, but then it came and I was so surprised that I shouted, "Yes!" and slapped my hands on her trunk.
"Hey!" the woman yelled. "Stop that. And will you please get out of the way?"
"Yes, yes. That's it," I said, punching the air and scurrying back toward Didi and my coat.
Cavorting giddily, waving my arms in the air, I probably looked totally out of my mind; but who cared?
If I was right about why—I also knew who.
Chapter 31
DIDI HAD RUN off to rehearsal; but since she stalks a story like a lioness hunts meat, I knew she'd show up later.
Avoiding an inquisition would be difficult, but it had to be done. If I successfully discovered which Longmeier was a murderer, I might never want to admit my role in the arrest. That made discussing my intentions now, even with Didi, unwise if not downright dangerous.
I bundled up in my blazer and overcoat and went home, grateful that Chelsea and Garry would be occupied helping Didi with her music program for at least another hour. Lying over the phone in front of them was out of the question; I didn't even relish doing it in front of the dog. That problem, at least, was easily solved: I opened the door, and Barney cheerfully went out for a romp.
Because of location, the first two Mercedes dealers I phoned should have been negatives; and they were. That left the closest to the Longmeiers’ home. Before getting the service department on the line, I carefully rehearsed my spiel. Then I took a deep breath and tried to relax.
"Hi, I'm Tina Longmeier," I said with a rough approximation of her voice, "and, and I feel so silly, but could you possibly help me with a problem?"
Tired and bored, the serviceman asked me to describe the problem.
"I need to know the amount of a check I wrote you a few days ago. I know it's silly of me not to have written it down, my husband hates it when I forget, but would you mind...?"
He transferred me to their cashier, a woman.
"I'm really very busy," she complained. "Can't you just phone your bank?"
"They’ve closed for the day, and the check probably hasn't cleared yet anyway. Please, I need to know my balance right now."
I apologized some more, and with a heavy sigh the woman asked, "What day did you write the check?"
"I think we dropped the car off last Friday." Actually that was what I wanted to know, whether the car had been there on Friday.
"Was the car ready that night?"
"I don't think so." Would a person who committed murder remember to pick up a car? "How about Saturday?" I suggested.
"Not here."
"Monday?" I offered hopefully.
"No, nothing."
"Tuesday?"
"Listen, I've got to go. Why don't you just wait and call your bank?"
I hung up with a scowl. Then I curled up in an armchair and wrapped my coat around my knees. My stint in the school parking lot had chilled me, but not nearly as much as my conclusions about Richard's death.
Barney batted the door, and I let him back in. Twilight had begun, so I plugged in the Christmas tree. Maybe the twinkling white lights would give passing rush-hour drivers a smile. For me, the tree was all about family memories.
"Hug?" I asked the dog, patting the carpet to invite him to curl up next to me on the floor. He complied. His golden brown eyes gazed at me fondly then slowly closed as I stroked his silky red coat. Following his example, I scooched down a little lower.
Could I prove my murder theory? No.
Did I have to?
Good question. I squinted my eyes and gave it some thought.
Maybe not. Not if I didn't go through Newkirk.
The cool fur on Barney's right ear slid through my fingers. He twitched the ear back into place, swallowed, and sighed.
Okay, so if I didn't tell Newkirk, how could I do this? How could I remain completely anonymous and still precipitate an arrest before tomorrow—before the Grand Jury could indict Randy Webb and, by association, Bryn Derwyn Academy?
I read somewhere about a half awake/half asleep state of mind called "alpha." In this very specific mind set, this particular place in our head, we did our clearest, most creative thinking. A famous inventor—Edison, if I remembered correctly—had a comfortable chair he used just to relax his mind. He balanced tin pans or something on his arms; so if he fell asleep, they would crash to the floor and wake him.
My decision set off no bells or clattering pans or even light bulbs. Rather I felt sad to the bottom of my soul. If maturity means doing what you believe you must, I was about to put on a couple of decades.
Yet if I brought it off, my plan would cause the right thing to happen. Only one man would know. He might hate me, but he would not expose me.
And if I was mistaken? The same man would consider me a fool, but privately; and my ego could accept that.
I extricated the edge of my skirt from under Barney's head, wrote a note about my whereabouts and what I had planned for dinner, then fished my car keys out of my purse.
Thomas Edison probably didn't own an Irish setter, and I'm certainly no genius.
We work with what we have.
Chapter 32
THIS TIME I phoned Michael D'Avanzo's home, because now I needed to find him. He was at La Firenze, no doubt surprising his chef with a rare weeknight visit.
Discreet lights well back on the sloping lawn set up the white-columned restaurant like some suburban Philadelphia Parthenon. Although it was just past five on a Thursday night, the parking lot was respectably filled. Inside, a glance into the bar revealed a mixture of business types, both male and female, networking to the full extent of their expense accounts or their abilities, whichever came first. My summer luncheon in the private room with Richard Wharton's hand on my leg seemed to have occurred at a different place—in a different lifetime.
Tonight a dark, clean-shaven maitre d’ in a tuxedo snapped to attention behind his podium. Beneath my feet the same mosaic warrior poised for battle.
"Madam?" the maitre d’ pronounced with an excellent smile.
I smiled back. "I'm not here for dinner. I just need to speak to Michael D'Avanzo for a minute." The man signaled a waiter to watch his post then disappeared around a corner and down a hall, polished shoes clicking all the way.
Soon a second man emerged from the same direction, his eyebrows raised in anticipation of my approach.
"I understand you wish to speak to Mr. D'Avanzo?"
"Yes."
"Regarding?" the man inquired.
"It's a personal matter. My name is Ginger Struve Barnes." Then, before his face could become the proverbial stone wall, I hastily added, "Why don't you just tell Mr. D'Avanzo Gin Barnes is here and let him decide whether he can spare me a minute?"
Barrier #2 stiffened his shoulders, looked down his nose, and sniffed. Then he turned on his heel and stepped back around the corner.
A moment later Michael D'Avanzo burst into view, his palms spread in welcome, his voice booming hello. He was wearing that delicious lime fragrance again.
"You must forgive Mario his concern for my time, Mrs. Barnes..."
"Gin," I corrected him.
"No. No thank you...Michael." I glanced around at the employees deliberately looking away while their ears strained to catch every word. "Is there somewhere...?"
"Of course. But you're sure a little Bordeaux would not be welcome at the end of a hard day?" Like a suitor mentioning an intimacy, D'Avanzo alluded to my sampling of his wine last night after driving Nicky home, a scant twenty-four hours ago.
"Do you have an office?" I asked.
"Yes, but to escort a beautiful young woman, alone, into my very personal space...I'm sure Mario would not approve, nor I suspect would your Rip? We shall go this way." He guided me in a firm but polite fashion through a large archway and to the far right of the largest dining area, a lengthy rectangle that spanned the back of the building. Off-white, oval-backed chairs padded with deep rose surrounded both large and small round tables. Brocade swags softened the edges of three walls of waist-to-ceiling windows.
Between the windows and my stage nerves, I decided not to remove my coat.
D'Avanzo leaned his elbows on the table and unconsciously rubbed the joints of his hands. No one dined within fifteen yards of us, but neither of us spoke above a murmur.
"A beverage, my dear Gin?" he implored. "For appearances?" Clearly, he suspected that our conversation might be unpleasant, the real reason, perhaps, for the public arena.
I nodded my assent.
A wave of his hand brought us a dusty bottle of merlot. We waited in silence while the wine steward went through his routine. D'Avanzo grunted his approval, the steward poured generously, and my host finally settled back in his seat.
He opened his lips to say something, but I spoke first.
"I think your son-in-law killed Richard Wharton."
D'Avanzo's face colored, and he hastily loosened his tie. Then he stood, lifted my elbow with a grip even firmer than before and marched me through a smaller arch, down a short hall, around a corner, and into a roomful of walnut and red leather, clearly the much-protected private office. He slammed the door with his foot.
The Main Line Is Murder Page 18