How to Murder a Millionaire

by Nancy Martin

  He laughed again and slid a pack of business cards out of his wallet. They were bound together with a rubber band. He removed one card, and I took it without speaking. MICHAEL ABRUZZO. MUSCLE CARS, MOTORCYCLES, LIMOUSINE SERVICE. And in bigger letters, THE DELAWARE FLY-FISHING COMPANY.

  I put the card into my bag without taking note of the various phone numbers. A sick and twisted part of my personality wished he could have acted a teensy bit disappointed.

  But he was looking across the used car lot. “Who’s the nutcase?”

  I looked, too. Libby was arranging people for a photograph.

  “That’s my sister Libby,” I said. “She’s protesting your blight on the landscape.”

  “My what?”

  “She objects to suburban sprawl,” I explained. “She believes you have defaced open land by paving green space when you promised to put the ground to good use.”

  “I thought I was giving people jobs, creating economic growth—all that Chamber of Commerce bullshit.”

  “That’s one opinion.”

  “You agree with her?”

  “I’m a journalist now. I’m learning to be objective.” Trying not to sound too hopeful, I said, “You can have protesters arrested for trespassing, I think.”

  He didn’t have much enthusiasm for that suggestion. “And who the hell is that?”

  The protest grew by one more person when a silver BMW pulled in behind Libby’s minivan, parked, and Ralph Kintswell heaved his bulk from behind the wheel. He left the engine running.

  “That’s my brother-in-law, Libby’s husband, Ralph.”

  “What, is he going to a costume party?”

  “No,” I said. “He’s a Civil War buff.”

  Abruzzo laughed again. “The war’s over, buddy.”

  Ralph Kintswell, Libby’s second husband, was decked out in his usual formal wear—the dress blue uniform of the Army of the Potomac, complete with white gloves tucked into his sash and a sword slapping his thigh. Except the sash had slipped low on his General Grant-style potbelly. Ralph hitched up the sash and launched himself across the used car lot in Libby’s direction, his hob-nailed boots smartly striking the pavement. The expression on his usually cherubic face was pained.

  “He’s a very nice guy,” I said. “He protects Civil War battlefields.”

  “With the sword?”

  “No,” I snapped. “He’s a banker. He raises money and helps buy battlegrounds before they are developed into—well, into some kind of atrocity.”

  “Looks like he’s losing the battle with his cholesterol, though,” Abruzzo observed.

  “It’s the wool uniform. It gets very bulky.”

  “So what is he doing? Heading for Gettysburg later?”

  “He wears the uniform to formal occasions. Instead of a dinner jacket. Like some men wear kilts.”

  Abruzzo looked as entertained as a kid standing along a parade route as the bagpipers marched by. “This is a formal occasion?”

  “No, no, there’s a party later tonight. He’s probably on his way there.”

  “And people say I have an interesting family. You Blackbirds have us beat in spades.”

  Usually Libby had my brother-in-law jumping through hoops like a well-trained poodle. He was an amiable, steady guy who obviously loved my sister despite her frivolous temperament and formidable sex drive. But Ralph was the seventh circle of hell at family gatherings. How many times had I endured his incredibly dull retellings of battles fought long ago?

  “Hello, Ralph,” I called.

  He faltered in his march to Libby and waved meekly. “Hi, Nora. Sorry about this.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I called. “Everybody’s entitled to an opinion.”

  He sent me an apologetic smile and continued across the asphalt to his wife.

  The Intelligencer photographer had been waiting while Libby carefully posed everyone for the picture, but he started to get cranky when Ralph had to be fitted into the tableau and walked over to me. He looked about thirteen years old, wearing a too-large thrift store sport coat over jeans and a Metallica T-shirt.

  “Whaddaya want me to shoot?” he asked.

  “I don’t want you to shoot anything,” I replied. “I didn’t request a photographer.”

  “Kitty did. Any way you can speed things up? I gotta be at the Flyers face-off next.”

  I looked over at my sister’s merry band. “Do I get input on this?”

  He shrugged. “You’re the reporter on the scene.”

  “Did you take pictures of the cars?”

  “Sure. But what about the protesters?”

  I considered my predicament. I could ask him not to make fools of my family and myself. Instead, he could take colorful shots of the cars and be on his way to the hockey game. But at last I said, “I’m new at this. Use your best judgment.”

  I’d surprised him. The kid grinned, apparently more accustomed to receiving orders than having his judgment trusted. “Yeah, okay.”

  He snapped a few more pictures of the cars and worked his way back over to Libby and company. With luck, the car photos would have more appeal than the protesters.

  Still beside me, Abruzzo said, “You could have saved yourself some grief just now.”

  I shook my head, summoning up what few journalistic ethics I had learned in just two weeks on the job. “It doesn’t matter.”

  “And who’s Kitty?”

  “Well, she’s not Glenda the Good Witch—let’s put it that way.”

  Pictures over, Ralph and Libby headed for the BMW. As I guessed she might, she began to pull the bandanna out of her hair. They obviously had a social engagement this evening. Their oldest son, Rawlins, newly licensed to drive, herded his siblings and the dog into the minivan.

  I was saved from further conversation with Abruzzo by the arrival of a sleek black town car that whispered up behind me as Libby’s family departed.

  “Here’s your ride,” said Abruzzo. “Where are you headed?”

  “Main Line,” I said.

  The driver of the car got out and proceeded directly to the right rear passenger door, which he opened for me. He waited, unsmiling.

  Reed Shakespeare was twenty-two years old, black, studious and with posture as perfect as a Marine drill sergeant’s. He was working his way through school by driving cars for Abruzzo, but heaven forbid he tell anyone exactly what he was studying. The first day we’d met, he told me he would not wear a chauffeur’s cap.

  “I’m not driving no Miss Daisy around in a stupid hat,” he’d burst out.

  “Nobody’s asking you to, Reed,” I’d replied.

  “Just so you know,” he’d said stubbornly.

  I wanted to tell him he’d seen too many movies, but Reed was touchy. I was still working on a way to make him smile.

  “Hey, Reed,” Abruzzo said, “car running okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “You know where you’re taking Miss Blackbird now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Looked at a map just to be sure?”

  With an edge of testiness this time, Reed said, “Yes.”

  I noted Abruzzo hadn’t had any luck getting the young man to loosen up either.

  “Okay, then,” Abruzzo said. He turned to me with a sudden and unabashed wistfulness. “You’ll call if you change your mind about The Lion King, right?”

  “Don’t wait by the phone,” I said.

  I got into the car and Reed closed the door. Through the window, I saw Reed look at his boss with something akin to pity.

  As the evening cooled, Reed drove me to the Main Line. He did not initiate conversation, drive over the speed limit or flip any rude gestures at aggressive drivers. He did make clear that he wasn’t my friend.

  In the silence, I took out my pad and pen and wrote up the story about the grand opening of Mick’s Muscle Cars. Usually I worked on a laptop, but in the car I found it was easier to write on paper. Later, I’d type my stories into a computer file and e-mail them
to my editor.

  When the paragraph was finished, I looked out the window.

  Philadelphia’s Main Line has long been the address of many old American families. One magnificent mansion after another housed people I’d known all my life. Families of bankers, corporate leaders, a few play-boys and a lot of inherited fortunes. As the car eased along, I saw that some of the estates showed their age while others had clearly benefited by the surge in the stock market in the late nineties. Those houses had new gutters or sandblasted facades just as their owners sported tummy tucks and dermabrasion.

  Rory Pendergast’s home stood on a slight rise, forming the crown of the neighborhood. Pennsylvania fieldstone walls and grounds landscaped by Frederick Law Olmsted surrounded a gracious Georgian home that looked like the set for a Katherine Hepburn movie. The intricate wrought iron gates, originally erected to keep out the riffraff, stood open tonight in welcome.

  Reed drove slowly through the gates and up the curving drive to the side portico. Gas lamps flickered golden light through the wisteria. Guests anxious to get to the bar had hastily abandoned several sporty cars on the front lawn. Ralph and Libby’s silver BMW stood among them. I could see more vehicles parked on the old polo grounds beyond the boxwood hedge.

  A wide stone staircase led from the portico up to the side entrance of the house. Two uniformed valets hired for the evening stood chatting on the steps, oblivious to the grandeur of the home. They wore baseball caps that read MAIN EVENTS, which was the name of a full-service catering company that staffed many social occasions on the Main Line.

  I gathered up my notepad and moved to get out of the car. Reed was quicker than the valet and arrived in time to open the door for me.

  I got out. “Reed, I’ve told you it’s not necessary to open the door. I’m perfectly capable.”

  “I heard you,” he said.

  “Well, thank you. When can you come back?”

  Stiffly, he said, “I’ll wait. I’ve got studying to do.”

  He was taking classes somewhere and used his spare time to catch up on assignments. “All right,” I said. “I’ll probably stay an hour. How do I look?”

  The question caught him off guard. “Uhm. Okay. I guess.”

  The valet said, “Good evening, miss.”

  I said hello and started up the steps of the Pendergast house.

  Rory Pendergast’s family had been relatively late arrivals to Philadelphia—after the revolution—and made their presence known first in get-rich-quick schemes and later through significant charitable work. Rory’s father built the house in a wanton spending spree at the turn of the twentieth century. Fortunately, he had the good taste to avoid building a huge, gloomy Victorian pile, and the house turned out to be Jeffersonian in grace and symmetry with rambling interior spaces perfect for entertaining—or playing hide-and-seek.

  For the party, the home had been decked out by RickandGabe, Philadelphia florists extraordinaire, in their usual exquisite taste. The double doors at the top of the stairs were pinned open by a pair of Chinese vases containing perfectly trimmed topiary. A copper tub of fresh flowers six feet high stood on the marble-topped table in the center of the entrance hall. A long expanse of Oriental carpet ran from the table down the hallway, punctuated by early American furniture that would render the Antiques Roadshow twins orgasmic.

  Before I could reach the top of the steps, however, I heard arguing. Staccato voices, sharp words.

  Two people burst out of a side room: a man clutching the elbow of a large, imperious woman.

  “I don’t care what you think,” the woman was saying. “You’re a fool.”

  I recognized Kitty Keough and instantly wished I were invisible. The man scuttling beside her was none other than Stan Rosenstatz, the Intelligencer features editor and our boss. “Kitty,” he hissed, “you can’t go around saying things like that about people. You’ll get us both fired.”

  “If anybody tries to fire me,” Kitty snapped, “they’ll regret it.”

  “Kitty—”

  “You think I don’t mean it?” She threw her car keys squarely into the chest of the startled valet. Then her glacial gaze landed on me.

  Stan caught sight of me, too, and stopped dead.

  Kitty said, “Well, if it isn’t Mary Sunshine herself. What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Hello, Kitty. I completed the assignment you gave me.” I spoke calmly and smiled, not quite paying homage, but polite. “The story’s written and ready for your approval.”

  She wore a full-length black satin skirt with a frothy white blouse that made her bosom look like the puffed-up breast of an exotic bird. Her very blond hair was upswept and lanced with her signature accessory, a feather. No matter what Kitty wore, she had a feather incorporated into her ensemble somewhere.

  From two steps above, she eyed me. “I didn’t tell you to come here tonight. What do you think you’re doing? Trying to beat me to the story?”

  “No, of course not. I’m a guest.”

  “A guest?”

  Her tone was insulting, but I fought my temper down. “Yes, I was invited.”

  Stan hurried down the steps to me. “Hi, Nora, nice to see you. Lovely evening—”

  “Stuff it, Stan.” Without taking her gaze from my face, Kitty dared me to lose my good manners. “Don’t take sides in this.”

  “Sides?” Stan forced a laugh. “What are you talking about? Nora’s just—”

  “I’m sorry, Kitty,” I said. “Perhaps I should have told you I was coming.” She came down a step and we were face-to-face. I could smell the wine on her breath. She’d had too much, revealed by the glassy look in her eyes. And the scars from her last face-lift hadn’t quite healed.

  She stiffened as if she knew what I’d noticed. “I know the game you’re playing, Miss Blackbird. You want my job, and you think your relationship with Rory Pendergast can get it for you. Well, I’ve got a few years left, young lady.”

  Feebly, Stan said, “Kitty, don’t be an idiot. This is a team effort. We all work together. Nora’s on board to help us improve—”

  She swung around on him. “And you—you think you’re going to get the managing editor job just because Sweet Knees waltzes into my department?”

  “Sweet Knees?” I repeated.

  “Kitty—”

  She cut off Stan’s placating with a sharp gesture. “I’m out of here,” she said.

  The valet arrived with her car, an aged white Mercedes with a crooked front bumper. Kitty got into the driver’s seat and revved the engine before the valet had closed the door. Then she was off, narrowly missing the corner of the portico. Her vanity plate, I saw, read MEOW.

  “I’m sorry, Nora,” Stan said in the silence left behind like the cloud of her exhaust. “She’s temperamental.”

  “I know, Mr. Rosenstatz. That’s what makes her great at her job.”

  He looked relieved. “You’re a good kid. Call me Stan, okay?”

  Stan Rosenstatz could have been anywhere from fifty to seventy, with a thin frame, nervous hands and tufts of gray hair growing out of his ears. His dinner jacket was a size too large and had been hanging on a wire hanger too long. He looked as if he didn’t have much fun.

  I patted his arm. “Coming back into the party?”

  Stan shook his head and used his handkerchief to mop the perspiration from his forehead. “I’ve had enough hobnobbing for one night.”

  “You okay?”

  “Sure. Y’know, Kitty’s just blowing off steam. And she’s had a few drinks. Don’t take it personally.”

  “I’m trying not to. I can’t possibly be a threat to her.”

  “Well, you are,” said Stan on a rueful sigh. “But she’ll come around. You’ll get to like her, I’m sure.”

  I wasn’t the least bit sure, but I knew it would help Stan if I agreed. So I did, and added, “I’ll e-mail my story later tonight, okay?”

  “Sure. Listen, I appreciate you not coming to the office much yet. It keeps
the peace—you know what I mean? But don’t think you’re out of sight, out of mind. You’re doing good work, Nora.”

  I thanked him. He left, and I went into the party.

  A waiter from Main Events caught me just inside the doors. “Glass of wine?”

  “Thank you.” I accepted a glass and tried to put Kitty out of my mind. I wanted to enjoy myself. “Am I fashionably late?”

  He smiled conspiratorially. “People are just getting loose now.”

  I headed down the long carpet towards the party noise. The strains of a quiet jazz quartet soothed the underlying chatter of human voices. For the first time since my parents took a powder, I plunged into a party.

  The throng was a mix of newspaper people and Pendergast cronies, like old Heywood Kidd, the art collector, as well as some of the New Crowd on the Philadelphia social scene. Rory liked to have young people around, so I was well acquainted with many of the guests.

  I heard the distinctive laugh of my friend Lexie Paine and turned to see her staking out a corner with several eligible bachelors, probably telling Nasdaq jokes while they breathed her perfume and fantasized about her assets. We caught each other’s raised eyebrow signal. We’d meet at the bar as soon as she could get away.

  Rory’s downstairs rooms looked as if a florist’s truck had exploded there. More RickandGabe flowers competed for attention with the art collection, the furniture, the glimmer of crystal and the soft glow of leather-bound books. Someone had matted and framed a selection of newspaper relics that celebrated the long and happy Pendergast ownership of the Intelligencer. I avoided the crush in the center of the room and strolled along the display, looking at headlines from long ago when the first Pendergast got bored with selling whale oil and started up a newspaper. In a day when companies were bought and sold within weeks, a single-family ownership of a newspaper—even a slightly tacky one like the Intelligencer—for a hundred and fifty years was impressive indeed.

  Halfway along the display I heard footsteps on the main staircase and turned. Peach Treese came barreling down the steps and rammed straight into me. For a woman of unspoken age, she could move like a locomotive.