I got out of the truck and limped toward the building. It was already hot and muggy, so I was sweating by the time I made it inside. Fortunately, the air conditioning was on. A couple of minutes later, I tapped on a wooden door with a frosted glass window. It had old-fashioned black painted lettering that read,
PROF. L. INGERSOLL.
Linda jerked the door open. Not having paid attention to her height on the driver’s license printout, I was surprised at how tiny she was. I mean, we’re talking the Munchkin Lullaby League here, because she couldn’t have been more than four-foot-eleven. The other thing I noticed immediately was that she was an emotional wreck. She wore a pink sweat suit that looked as if there were chocolate ice cream stains on the chest, her hair was unwashed and uncombed, and her eyes puffy and red.
She glared up at me and said, “Who are you?”
“I’m Bradley Lyon and I handle special investigations for the Massanutten County Sheriff’s Office. Sheriff Barron sent me. She was called away.”
“I’m not talking to you.”
Something told me that offering words of comfort would be perceived as being patronizing, so I said, “Professor Ingersoll, I realize you’re very upset and with good reason. The man you loved is dead, but I’m going to need you to behave like a grown-up for a little while.”
Her jaw jutted out a little. “Who do you think you are?”
“I think I’m one of the people trying to figure out who killed Frank. Look, I know this sucks and the last thing you want to do is tell some stranger about your adulterous affair with a married man. But lady, we’re running out of leads and I need your help.”
Linda stood frozen for a moment and then swiped at her nose with the back of her hand. Pulling the door open, she said, “Come in.”
Fifteen
I went inside and pushed the door shut behind me. Looking around, I saw that Ingersoll had obviously spent the night in her office. A small black suitcase lay on the floor and there was a wadded-up jade-colored blanket on the armchair near the window. Despite the air conditioning, there was the faint yet wonderfully pungent scent of curry in the air. That, combined with the Indian restaurant carryout containers in the trashcan, told me what she’d had for dinner last night. The rubbish also contained an empty pint carton of Ben & Jerry’s Chocolate Peanut Butter Swirl ice cream, which probably accounted for the stains on Linda’s sweatshirt.
Linda slumped into the chair behind a large cherrywood desk and, looking upward at the ceiling, sluggishly waved at a chair on the opposite side. “Sit down and let’s get this over with. I know you’re here because you found those letters. I’ll bet you and all the cops had a great big laugh. Look at me, the porn queen professor of UVA.”
“There’s a big difference between smut and genuine passion between a man and woman. What I saw wasn’t porn, and the only ones who read the letters besides me were my partner and the sheriff.” I eased myself into the chair.
“Does her indolent majesty know about them?”
“Marie Merrit? No, we didn’t tell her.”
“Why not?”
“At this point, there’s nothing to show they’re connected with the murder. Besides, Marie ended our interview kind of abruptly.” Ordinarily, I wouldn’t share information about another witness interview, but I decided to subtly exploit Linda’s contempt for Marie as a goad to induce her to speak further. Does that sound callous and manipulative? Welcome to Club Homicide. Check your compassion at the door.
Linda asked, “Tell me, how did she react when you told her that Frank was dead?”
“Surprised and upset, but not nearly as distraught as you are.”
“That’s because the only thing Marie will miss is being able to sit on her fat ass while Frank works two jobs.”
“But you’re going to miss him for a lot more than that, aren’t you?”
Linda turned to look at me and swallowed hard. “No one had ever loved him like I did. I was more of a wife to him than she ever was.”
“Marie didn’t say much about Frank. Could you tell me about him?”
“He was kind and intelligent and had a way of looking at things that made me laugh. And he was one of those rare scholars who could fire his students with a passion for history. Did you know he was a writer?”
“No. What sort of stuff did he write?”
“He’d had articles published in
Civil War Times
and he was about three-quarters finished writing a nonfiction book about Sheridan’s burning of the Shenandoah Valley.” Although I’m not a history fanatic, you can’t live in the Valley and not know about how the Union Army put most of the farms to the torch. It may have happened back in 1864, but there are local folks who are still angry about it.
I said, “I’m assuming you read it. Was it good?”
“Extremely. It was our secret, but he already had an editor at the University of North Carolina Press interested in it.”
“Wow. So, how long had you known Frank?”
“Just since last November. We met at an academic conference at William and Mary. Do you believe in love at first sight, Mr. Lyon?”
“Yeah, as a matter of fact I do.”
“It wasn’t as if he was this Greek god or something, but after we’d spent three hours together, I just knew he was the man I’d waited for my entire life.”
“Believe me, I understand. Did he feel the same way about you?”
“He used to tell me that he was in love with me before he ever met me, because I was the woman he’d always been looking for.”
“So, why didn’t you guys get divorces and start a new life together?”
Linda sighed. “I wanted to, but in the beginning Frank was incapable of it. He was like…How much do you know about World War Two?”
Uncertain of what direction the interview was now headed, I said, “The basics.”
“In the final days of the Third Reich, the SS guards abandoned the concentration camps, leaving the prisoners unsupervised. Most of the inmates were still in the camps when the Allied forces arrived. They made no attempt to escape, because they’d been conditioned to accept their captivity. That was Frank, at first.”
“Being sent to a concentration camp isn’t quite the same thing as an unfulfilling marriage.”
“Isn’t it, detective?” Linda fixed me with a challenging gaze. “Despite what was in those letters, Frank and I talked a lot more than we…did those other things. He’d been raised by an abusive and domineering mother and, like so many men, he married her spitting image.”
“Trying to earn the love he never got from mom.”
“Exactly. He’d been trained to be a servant and a victim for thirty-six years, but that was changing.”
“How so?”
“The longer he was with me, the more he saw and understood how wrong his life was with that bitch.”
“And he began to tell you he was planning to leave her, right?”
Linda’s eyes narrowed. “I know what you’re thinking: He was just saying that in order to keep our sexual relationship.”
I shrugged. “Sorry if that hurts, but it wouldn’t be the first time a guy did that.”
“That’s true, but you didn’t know Frank. He was going to leave her and soon.”
“I’ll take your word for it.” I leaned back in the chair and folded my hands across my chest. “So, if you don’t mind me asking, who did
you
marry?”
“My control-freak father, squared.” Linda closed her eyes and shook her head. “Jeff is a miniature Darth Vader, but without the charm.”
“What does he do for a living?”
“He’s a real estate developer, one of the biggest in the mid-Atlantic.”
“Did he know about your relationship with Frank?”
“He suspected something.”
“And what would your husband have done if he knew you were going to drop him like the payload from the
Enola Gay
, once Frank got up the gumption to tell Marie
hasta la vista
?”
Linda put a hand to her forehead in such a way that it briefly and seemingly accidentally covered her eyes. “I don’t know.”
She was lying and I realized I might be on the verge of developing a new and strong lead. I said, “You just called him Darth Vader and yet you don’t know how he’d react to some other guy stealing his wife?” When she didn’t respond, I continued in a voice I hoped sounded like James Earl Jones as the cinema’s most identifiable villain, “Linda, your sudden lack of candor is disturbing.”
She dropped the hand and glared at me. “I’ll tell you this just once: Don’t badger me.”
“Then don’t lie to me, because you aren’t very good at it. I’ll ask the question a different way: Has Jeff ever shown the potential for violence?”
“Sometimes.”
“Has he ever assaulted you?”
“No, just…well, we had a cat once…but…he said it was an accident.” Her brow wrinkled as she recalled the incident.
“So, along with despoiling the countryside, he abuses animals. Was he home on Saturday morning?”
“No.”
“Do you know where he was?”
There was a long pause before she answered, “He left at about eight and said he was going over to Waynesboro to look at some property for a housing development.”
“And as we both know, Waynesboro is in the Shenandoah Valley and less than thirty miles from the museum. Don’t tell me you haven’t wondered about that. Do you think Jeff might have killed Frank?”
“I don’t know.” She wiped at a tear in the corner of her eye.
“What time did he get home on Saturday?”
“Around one.”
“And when he got home, was there anything about his behavior or attitude that, in retrospect, strikes you as odd or suspicious?”
“No.”
“Which doesn’t change the fact that you think Jeff is capable of murder. It’s got to be scary as hell living with someone like that. Is that why you’re staying in your office?”
“Yes.”
“How does Jeff feel about that?”
“He alternates between begging me to come home and then yelling at me to pull my head out of my ass.”
“Well, isn’t he a silver-tongued devil? You did the right thing, but you need to find someplace to stay where he can’t find you.”
“I know. Please tell me something. How did Frank die?”
“All I can say is that it happened very fast and he probably didn’t feel any pain. Trust me, you don’t want to know any more.”
Linda pressed her lips together to stifle a sob. “Thank you. When is his funeral?”
“I don’t know yet. Would you like me to call you when I find out?”
“Please. I’ll give you my cell phone number. Is that all you needed?” Tears were running down her cheeks, but she kept a stoic face.
“No, unfortunately I have a few more questions. Did Frank ever mention any problems at the museum?”
“Just that he thought he was going to have to quit because of the budget cuts.”
“Did he ever talk about being physically abused at home?”
“By Marie?”
“Men are victims of domestic violence far more frequently than most people guess.”
Her reddened eyes widened with sudden fury. “Oh my God, could she have killed him?”
“There’s absolutely no evidence she was at the museum.” I raised my index finger in warning. “And I’d strongly advise you to both stay away from her and not call her.”
“Why?”
“Because you’ll make it that much harder to catch Frank’s killer. Is that what you want?”
“No,” she grumbled.
“Besides that, we’re following up on other leads that aren’t connected to Marie. Which brings me to his phone call to you on Saturday morning at…” I flipped the notebook open. “Eleven-fourteen. Why did he call you at the office on a Saturday?”
“I told him to. The spring term just ended and I was cleaning out some things. Besides, it was safer,” said Linda.
“Because Merrit’s number wouldn’t show up on your home phone.”
Linda nodded.
“So, what did you and Frank talk about?” I asked.
“He called to cancel our…time together. He’d planned to close the museum at about noon and we were going to meet for a few hours.”
“At a motel?”
“No, on the front lawn of Monticello,” she said wearily. “Of course, at a motel.”
Knowing the sarcasm was merely to camouflage her grief and anger, I ignored the jibe. “What did Frank say?”
“That there was a major problem at the museum and that he wouldn’t be able to make it.”
“Did he tell you what sort of problem it was?”
“Something about finding counterfeit artifacts at the museum. The fact is, I didn’t believe him. I thought Marie was having one of her regular migraines and he’d been roped into doing the grocery shopping or something. That happened sometimes.”
“Actually, he was telling the truth. Did Frank say anything else?”
Linda wore a haunted look. “Two other things. The first was that he’d already talked to the curator, who was on his way to the museum.”
“Neil Gage?”
“I think that was his name. Anyway, Frank said it was a huge mess and he didn’t know how long it was going to take to straighten it all out.”
“And what was the other thing?”
“That he’d finally decided to leave Marie and that we could begin looking for a home of our own. And do you know what I told him?”
“What’s that?”
“That he was just saying that to placate me and that I was tired of all his empty promises. I was mad. I didn’t mean it.” She looked disconsolate. “Those are the last words he heard me say and I’ll never forgive myself for that.”
“Look, I hate to ask this, but if I don’t a defense attorney will: Where were you the rest of that morning?”
“After hanging up on Frank, I went home.”
“Can anyone confirm that?”
“The Charlottesville police.”
“Interesting. How’d they get involved?”
“After about forty-five minutes, I realized there wasn’t any point in sitting at home stewing, so I decided to go shopping. I went out to my car and found that some creep had poured acid all over the hood,” Linda was fuming. “The paint job was completely ruined.”
“That Chrysler out there?” I nodded in the direction of the parking lot.
“It’s a loaner. My car is a PT Cruiser and I took it to the dealership after the police left.”
“So, you called the cops and they came to your house to take a report? Were there any witnesses to the vandalism?”