I'd Rather Be in Philadelphia (17 page)

“Why would I be in the paper?” I asked.

“Why wouldn’t you?” He’d told me that I should point it out when he became incomprehensible so he could work on his pronunciation, but this wasn’t the time to mention that he’d compressed all of
wouldn’t
into a sound like being punched in the stomach might produce. I added
whunt
to the book of Mackenzie-speak and moved on.

“My name would not be in the paper because I haven’t won any awards or had an affair with a famous person.”

“Concernin’ the Tellers.”

“Come on, Mackenzie. There weren’t any reporters there, and I didn’t speak to anybody except the police.”

“Damn! I was right. I knew it was you! Damn! Paper said an unnamed woman found Wynn Teller’s body and called the police. My stomach cramps told me who that mysterious female had to be.”

I couldn’t tell if he was furious at not being listened to, or furious because he cared about me and somehow thought I was in danger.

“Do me a favor?” he said. “Explain how you knew exactly the worst possible moment to go there, precisely in time for a murder.”

“After a murder, which makes it less precise.”

He made a strangled sound, something between a moan and a yowl. “How do you get involved in these situations?”

Then he sighed heavily, shook his head, opened his arms and looked up again, frightening me anew until I realized he was doing the
Fiddler on the Roof
bit
with God one more time. “What’d they say when you told them?”

“Told them what?”

Another hand throw and heavenward glance.

“Tevye didn’t come from Louisiana,” I said. “Use your own ethnic gestures, would you?”

“What did they say when you told them about Lydia Teller?” His voice was overcalm. The tone you use with people whose eyes are spinning. “About Wynn Teller’s habits? About the book?”

“You said it was foolishness. Why would I bother
other
police professionals about it?” I hoped that zing to his expertise stung.

“And it was, wasn’t it?” he said. “Because he didn’t kill her after all. She killed him. And what a great alibi or defense she’s provided herself through that book. Through you.”

No. Impossible. Too convoluted and improbable that the timing should be so exact. Ridiculous. Too much was out of her control, including her life and ability to plan. All the same, given the people I’d alerted who could have then alerted Lydia, a case—false but convincing—could be made by a determined prosecutor.

“What’s this?” He picked up the large printed note. I’M AT SCHOOL.

“A little joke,” I said, somewhat frantically. “For Macavity.” The beast stopped tapping the kitty food cupboard for a moment. “You know how we spinsters treat our kitties like people.”

“But writin’ to him? ‘Make yourself at home’? This is the mos’ interestin’ document I’ve come across in an age.”

A little stomach jet spouted pure acid. Mackenzie’s dumb-Southerner act is donned to play to our prejudices while he hides what and how quickly he’s thinking. “‘Don’t wo’?” he said.

“It’s—it’s a mistake. It needs another O.”

“Don’t woo?”

“Hey, there’s a reason they call philanderers tomcats.”

“Amazin’. An’ I thought he never left the house. Never even wants to when I’m here.”

“Well, mostly, but—” I looked at my watch. “I should be—”

“Her car was in the garage, but she wasn’t there.” He’d dropped his good but not too smart ol’ boy voice.

My blood felt aerated, like seltzer. It was not a comfortable sensation. “I really, truly, have to be on my way.” I kept my voice low, trying to sound like my normally subdued and grumpy morning self.

He looked at his watch and raised one eyebrow. Many happier mornings we had calibrated precisely how much time remained before I had to leave. He knew it wasn’t yet.

“I care about you,” he said softly. I listed in his direction. I could do with a bit of caring about.

And then I heard, faintly, a creak. I coughed, trying to cover it. “Cold won’t go away,” I muttered. Stop, Lydia, I thought with all my power, hoping there was something to mental telepathy. Sit down on that step and wait. Think about God. Think about Anne Frank.

But she was thinking about a bathroom. There was a brief pause, then another creak.

Mackenzie took a deep breath. “Don’t wo,” he told me. A pretty feeble joke.

I wondered how I could have avoided this. Oiled the stairs? Given her a chamber pot? Thrown Mackenzie out? The creaks stopped. Perhaps she’d reached the second floor bathroom. Please, Lydia, I telegraphed, no hygiene. Don’t flush and don’t wash your hands after, no matter what Mama taught you.

“How come you have nothin’ to say about the Tellers this mornin’?” Mackenzie lounged against the newel post and smiled a big, bad grin.

He had changed for the worse these last few days. Jinx had contaminated him. I busied myself around the room, loudly putting dirty cups in the sink, opening the closet for my raincoat.
Anything that made noise and covered upstairs noise. But I understood the futility of my actions because I understood Mackenzie’s relaxed stance. There was no way out of the house except past him. He could afford to be casual about it.

“By the way,” I said in as bright a voice as I can manage on a single shot of caffeine. “I was wondering about you yesterday.”

“Me?” The eyebrow went up again, endearingly.

“I was wondering if perhaps your C. and your K. stood for Carl-with-a-C and Karl-with-a-K? Perhaps your parents were really, truly, enthusiastic about that name?”

“You’re not even close, and how come you didn’t tell the police about the book?”

“The other twofer that occurred to me was Constantine Konstantine. Could that be it?” I was so sure that wasn’t it that I didn’t need to hear his answer, which was one reason I asked it. My ears were already sticking up and out like Bugs Bunny’s as I again heard the tentative squeak of a floorboard. So much for telepathy. I kept my eyes on my feet because they wanted so much to look up, see what was happening. Philadelphia realtors think these authentic, wide plank floors that predate the house’s indoor plumbing are a selling point. They might be, but they are also geriatric cases that moan and groan about everything.

“It
is
Constantine!” I squealed, doing my best floorboard imitation. “And don’t old houses make a lot of noise?” I squeaked. I believed in complete honesty between partners, but not, perhaps, absolutely all of the time. Certainly not now.

“I’m still not clear why you didn’t tell the police.” A great chunk of his attention was aimed up the stairs.

“What would I have said? I don’t know who shot Wynn Teller.” I spoke loudly, hoping Lydia was listening.

That got his focus back on me. And his disapproval. His mouth turned down, like a have-a-rotten-day button might, and he took a deep breath. “You were
eager enough to tell everybody about the book. Why not the police?” His voice was low and still, in deliberate, smug contrast to mine, which now rose still higher.

“I had nothing to tell them! Lydia Teller didn’t kill her husband!” I was nearly shouting now.

“Your cold’s left you a little deaf.” Slowly, lips exaggeratedly forming each word for hard of hearing me, he recited a variation of my own list, much to my increasing depression. “She’s missing now, but was there to make him dinner. And…” I knew he was going to say what I didn’t want to know. “And it appears, according to this morning’s news, that the late Wynn Teller was shot with an unusual, old-fashioned caliber, and, by incredible coincidence, Mrs. Wynn Teller happens to own antique pistols and revolvers.” He folded his hands across himself. Case closed.

“I know it sounds bad, but—” I blared, but then I stopped because my Klaxon voice hadn’t covered a wooden squeal that was unmistakably the sound of a human foot on a quaint Colonial staircase. And there it was, encased in a shoe and topped by a leg.

“And you’d be Lydia Teller, wouldn’t you?” Mackenzie spoke with great gentleness.

“Leave her alone!” I said. “This isn’t your business and it didn’t happen in your city or your turf and she’s been bullied enough!”

C.K. looked startled. “What’d I do?”

Lydia stood straight. “I was listening.” Her voice was low and composed, a dignified contrast to her livid bruises. “This is something I’m doing of my own free will. Me. For once in my life, I’m doing exactly what I want to.”

“What does that mean? What are you saying? What are you doing?” Knowing the situation was completely out of my hands and knowing also that I had at least partially created it, I was filled with terrible, directionless energy. I understood the insane movement of trapped birds.

“I’m turning myself in,” she said, as I knew she was going to. “There’s no point hiding out this way, putting you in danger.”

“I’m not in any—”

“I was thinking upstairs. Even before this…gentleman arrived. I’ve been lying and hiding for half my life. I don’t want to do it anymore. I want to stand up for myself publicly. I want to tell what my life was. I’m tired of keeping secrets and being ashamed. If other women can read about it in the papers, maybe they’ll be smarter and stronger and quicker than I was. And all those people who would never listen would finally have to. Maybe I was too ashamed to say it loudly enough. Now I will.”

I protested, pleaded, told her she was the prime suspect and this was going to make it worse. “I know,” she said with infinite calm.

“I have to warn you, ma’am,” Mackenzie said. “Even though it’s not my jurisdiction, I may be obliged to come forward with evidence. This is a capital crime.”

“What’s this? Are you reading her her rights?” I couldn’t believe any of this.

“So mind what you say in front of me,” he continued. Then he looked at me. “I’m not arrestin’ her.”

“I don’t like hiding,” Lydia said. “I don’t want any more bad secrets. I’m going of my own free will.”

“I’ll be glad to drive you there,” Mackenzie said softly.

“I’m sick of feeling guilty.”

“There’s no reason to! She didn’t do it, Mackenzie! You didn’t do it, Lydia!”

She looked puzzled by my outburst. “I know that. That’s what I feel most guilty about.”

Fourteen

I GATHERED UP MY FAILURE WARNINGS. I WAS THE ONE WHO DESERVED ONE. And not a warning, either. A notice of failure.

If I’d never opened the book, never determined to find the underliner, never drummed Lydia Teller’s name into Mackenzie, a suburban murder would have been of peripheral or no interest to him. If I hadn’t popped up on the Teller doorstep immediately after her husband was shot, Lydia would have had time to think things through, even to escape—and not into my car and not into my arms or those of my conscientious policeman-caller. Without me, she would have had a chance.

With not much of a stretch, one could say I had set her up and directed suspicion her way, and intensified whatever troubles she had. And so I said it. Over and over, walking to my parking lot and driving the brief stretch to school, until a clear message was etched on the crevices of my brain.

You created this mess. What are you going to do about it?

Somehow, I had still managed to arrive at school early enough to retrieve my daily ration of stupid reminders. Today’s had to do with failure warnings, of course, and with misuse of the copy machine. Plus one notice that said a Miss Glenda Carter of TLC had called—yesterday afternoon, I noticed, possibly around the time I’d been chatting her up in person—to say I’d forgotten to leave my recommendations and résumé and would I please drop them off at my earliest convenience? She still wanted them. The business was, after all, a partnership. Teller-Schmidt Learning Centers. Mr. Schmidt was presumably still alive. Perhaps tutoring, like showbiz, goes on.

Helga watched me with her witchy scowl. I watched her back. I knew things about her now. I knew about the
ogzmic
file.

There was sufficient time left to repeat my miserable mantra.

You created this mess. What are you going to do about it?

I thought of something I could do. A start. I ducked into the entryway’s pay phone and called my brother-in-law.

Sam isn’t a criminal lawyer, but with his mild variety of annoyance, he reluctantly agreed to find out what could be done.

I headed for the teachers’ lounge, exchanging weather pleasantries en route with the ever-smiling Latin instructor, Caroline Finney. Season in, season out, Caroline and I establish that we like each other and are civilized by speaking of the weather. We also establish our differing personalities through this code. I complain about meteorological imperfections and Caroline finds something heartening about whatever is given to her—hail, blistering heat, floods, or blizzards. Today, I said it was nice to be finished with rain, but it was a little too windy for me.

Caroline replied, “
Nihil est ab omni parte beatum
.”

“What did you say?”

“That nothing is an unmixed blessing. And Horace actually said it two thousand years ago.”

Once inside the lounge, I decided that Neil Quigley could have taken a few sparkle plenty lessons from Caroline. Every day, he looked more like Norman Bates, thin and tightly strung as a high C piano wire.

“Morning,” I said.

His hand trembled as he gulped coffee, holding his cup as if it contained a magic elixir that might save him. “Neil,” I said quietly, “last night—”

He twitched. “What about it?”

Edie Friedman entered, looking tremulous and expectant, as if her One True Love might be lurking in the lounge. I wanted to shake her. The last few days had made what happened or didn’t between men and women incomprehensible. I didn’t know what to make of the evidence. Cruel marriages, like Wynn and Lydia’s; and plagued marriages, like Neil’s; and delusions of romance conquering all, suffered by Edie and whoever wrote the dating book; Sasha and her schizophrenic social life; and even me. And C.K. And Jinx.

Edie looked a little tired.
Love Story
had been on cable last night, she explained, looking acutely wistful. She poured herself coffee and left for hockey tryouts.