Chapter 30

Cynthia was on her way home that night, still thinking about the strange coincidence of Genevieve Sadlers’ death. She felt there had to be some connection between Jeff’s articles and his mother’s death, yet Cynthia and the Lower Merion officers who had gone to the house could see nothing to raise their suspicions. Perhaps the medical examiner would find poison or a large dose of sedatives in her blood, she thought, almost wishing that could be the missing link. But at this moment it seemed unlikely, and she wondered if all she could do was wait to see what terrible thing would happen next. At Cynthia’s request, McDermott had arranged a guard for Sir Gregory, who had agreed to start rehearsals again the following Monday and resume the concert season. The orchestra players were understandably very nervous. The next program was already sold out, and Alice wasn’t sure whether it was the ever-popular Dvorak “New World” Symphony, or an audience curious to find out if all of the orchestra members would survive the concert.

A couple of days went by, everything more peaceful than it had been in several weeks. The news media was occupied with Genevieve Sadlers’ death, all accounts using terms such as “presumed to be an accident,” or “believed to be accidental.”

Genevieve’s attorney confirmed that she had not specified any burial arrangements, but requested cremation, stating in writing that she did not plan to spend eternity in a box. Jeff, Debbie, and Genevieve’s friends pulled together a large and ostentatious memorial service. The fact that the service took place in a Main Line Presbyterian church was ironic, since Genevieve hadn’t set foot in decades - not since her marriage, in fact. But it seemed fitting to a woman of her means, and more than 500 people who knew her, or knew of her in social circles, turned up.

Just before the service, Genevieve’s attorney approached Jeff, shaking his hand, offering condolences, and stating that her will should be read as soon as possible. He suggested gathering at the house after the small funeral luncheon that would include Jeff, Debbie, the attorney, and six of Genevieve’s closest friends, as well as Debbie’s parents. Debbie’s sister went to the funeral but decided not to attend the luncheon, instead going home to relieve the babysitter who was watching her son. Debbie was glad they had not brought along her bratty nephew.

Debbie wore the new dark blue suit that Genevieve had bought for her on their shopping trip. It seemed appropriate, and Debbie thought of it as her tribute to Genevieve’s good taste. She was happy with the way it fit. Debbie felt classy and well-dressed, even if Genevieve hadn’t approved of her size 12 figure.

The minister gave a eulogy that was over the top, Debbie thought, singing Genevieve’s praises as a mother and friend. She couldn’t wait for it to be over, and she cried, just as she had practiced, in a quiet and controlled way. At one point, Jeff put his arm around her. She looked up and saw that his eyes were red.

Debbie’s mind wandered at one point in the service as she looked at the ornate urn on the altar. Jeff had selected a large brass urn with a mother of pearl design, and paid nearly $400 for it. All of Debbie’s aging aunts and uncles had been buried, and the idea of cremation was completely foreign to her. She had to stop herself from smiling as she remembered reading a novel in which the main character had put some of her despised mother-in-law’s ashes into a cake that she served guests after the funeral, never telling them the truth. If I were an evil person, I would do that, Debbie thought. She brought herself back to the eulogy, and squeezed out a few more tears. Luckily, crying and laughing, in their extremes, can look similar, she remembered.

Debbie had little patience with the luncheon that Genevieve’s friend had organized in the stuffiest restaurant she had ever seen. The food was dreadful - chicken with a horrible thick white sauce, small peas, and mashed potatoes that were lukewarm - and Debbie was glad there were bottles of wine on the table, as she refilled her own glass several times. Debbie’s parents sat with her, showing endless sympathy and treating her much like a child who needed their constant care and affection. They were kind and loving to Jeff. Now that he had no parents, they would probably attempt to step in as surrogates. It was all nauseating to Debbie.

Finally the ordeal was over. Jeff and Debbie went back to the house for their meeting with the attorney. He turned up half an hour late, his brown leather briefcase crammed full of Genevieve’s papers. Her will had been revised many times over the years, and he had every revision with him, in case any questions were raised. The final document, however, had been completed just two weeks before her death. In it, Genevieve left one million dollars to the Barnes Foundation, and the rest of her estate, worth $50 million not including the house (estimated at another $10 million) “to my beloved son, Jefferson, who made my life worth living.” Jeff’s trust, valued at $8.5 million at the time of her death, would now become completely available to him.

Jeff was now an extremely wealthy man. Although Debbie was not specifically named in the will, she knew that she would share Jeff’s wealth. In an instant, Debbie had become a multi-millionaire. She thought that she would buy her parents a nicer home, help her sister get a place of her own, and put her undisciplined nephew into a private school. Jeff would not object to any of it. She was stunned to learn how many millions would be under their control now. Debbie could not imagine going back to her old job, even though she had been gone just a little over a week.

She had not thought much about Simon for a few days. Now, with this ordeal over, she could not wait to see him again. As soon as Jeff went back to work she could spend an afternoon with him. She would try to phone Simon later in the day to let him know she was dealing with “personal problems” and hoped to see him the following week.

Cynthia and several officers were spread throughout the church, and as soon as the service ended they slipped out and went back to the Roundhouse. Cynthia called the coroner, and was told there was nothing out of the ordinary about Genevieve’s death. She had taken a bad fall down a hard, and steep, flight of stairs and had cracked her skull at the bottom of the stairs. Damn, Cynthia thought.

On Monday, the orchestra began rehearsing for the concerts scheduled to begin Thursday night. The players assumed that they were probably safe during their rehearsals. Gregory Langhorne had spent the past few days either studying scores or staring at the walls. Without the constant challenge of being onstage, he felt lost. Jonathan had performances in California and the mid-West, with some time off in between. When Jonathan heard that the murders had continued, he decided that instead of remaining in Los Angeles he would spend his week-long break with his father in the elegant apartment Gregory had purchased in the Symphony House building after accepting the orchestra directorship.

They had a lot of catching up to do. Their reconciliation was still new, and the fact that it was accompanied by a series of ugly murders did not help. Now that the ‘Philadelphia Killer’ story had reached the London tabloids, there was one disturbing theory circulating that it was the fate of the Langhornes to be followed by murders. Gregory brushed it off, but Jonathan was furious when he received a copy sent to him anonymously, c/o the Los Angeles Philharmonic office. The headline read, “Music and Murder--Is There Really a Langhorne Connection?” On it was a carefully hand-printed note, in red, “Yes, there is!”

The story began: “Some people in the musical world are wondering why murders seem to follow the celebrated and notorious Langhornes. Most of the world remembers that both father and son were arrested and questioned in connection with the death of the actress Alina Harrison in 2005. Is it just a sad coincidence that they happened to be in Philadelphia together last month, or are the Langhornes linked, directly or indirectly, to a series of orchestra murders in the City of Brotherly Love? Is somebody trying to frame them, or do they simply have bad luck?”

The story went on to rehash Alina’s murder, and the eventual arrest of her estranged husband. Jonathan was doubly furious, since he was only held briefly and neither he nor his father had actually been arrested, as the article had falsely stated. After hitting all the British tabloids, the story spread swiftly around the world and landed, in a watered-down form, right on the front page of Philadelphia’s least tabloid of papers, the Philadelphia Herald-Examiner. At that point, Sir Gregory pulled rank, phoned the editor-in-chief, and threatened to sue the paper for millions. The next day, the editorial page featured a carefully worded apology from the staff of the newspaper for its tasteless and disrespectful story of the previous day, the first apology in the paper’s 150-year history.

The one person who paid serious attention to all of the stories was Cynthia Masters. Many times she had found that the answer was right under her nose. Despite her brilliance as an investigator, it had not occurred to her that there could be some real connection between the Philadelphia murders, the London murder, and the Langhornes. Could they really be the missing link? she wondered.

She called David Johnson. “Johnson,” she said, “something about this case is rolling around my brain. I need your help. Please come to the conference room.” It was hardly a conference room, but that’s what it was jokingly called by some of the police. A crowded room in the administrative end of the building, “operations” had a few desks, a bunch of hard chairs, a large chalkboard, and between the shelf units filled to capacity with homicide cases in brown expanding files (all expanded past capacity and stuffed in rows), there were a few walls where investigators tended to pin up sheets of paper while they were figuring things out. Cynthia had ordered a case of large post-it notepads, two feet by three feet, and often spread out several sheets, scribbling with various colors of markers.

“Here’s the thing. The theory is going around that the Langhornes have something to do with this...”

“You aren’t suspecting they are serial killers, are you?” Johnson asked.

“No, no. Of course not. But it is possible they are the inspiration, somehow? Look, they were linked to the same woman in London a few years back - Alina Harrison, the actress. They both loved her, and one or both had affairs with her. She and her driver both end up with their throats slit. The Langhornes were questioned at the time, but her husband appears to have committed both murders, presumably in a fit of jealous rage. From the police reports I’ve read, there was only circumstantial evidence. He was convicted, and he’s still in prison, still proclaiming his innocence and asking for a retrial.

“Gregory and Jonathan were estranged. Then somehow they managed to reconcile after five years. Gregory takes a position with the orchestra here, and when his son joins him as soloist, there’s a murder, and then two more. The mother of the music critic who is writing about these murders ends up dead, an apparent accident. So how are they all tied together? Are the Langhornes in danger? None of this is coincidental. I’m sure of it. But what are we missing?”

“What are the connections between the old murder and these? If there’s a connection, the actress’ husband is innocent! How many years did you say?” Johnson asked.

“Five, maybe six now,” Cynthia replied.

“Do you really think there’s a link?” he asked.

“Seems likely,” Cynthia replied. “Still in the hunch stage. But we need to find out.”

Cynthia looked thoughtful for a moment, then drew a large circle, with spokes like a bicycle wheel, and with the Langhornes in the middle. At the outer edge of the circle, Cynthia began writing the names of people associated with them who might have any close connection to them or to the investigation. Alina Harrison was attached to one end of a spoke, Jeff Sadlers to another, his mother to another, Alice, and the three murdered orchestra musicians, until there were only a couple of spokes with no names attached.

“Now,” Cynthia said, “we need to figure out how they might really be connected - in a way that could explain these murders.”

It was a start. It was the first time in three weeks that Cynthia felt there was any possibility of solving the murders. And she had a British tabloid to thank for this progress. That annoyed her royally. She would wait a few days, give Jeff some time after his mother’s death, before pressing him to learn how many people he had interviewed recently, and who they were.

***

To everyone’s relief, the orchestra got through the entire next weekend of concerts with no murder, not even a mishap of any sort. After the Sunday afternoon concert, the players were jubilant. As the last note of the Dvorak Symphony sounded, the audience members jumped to their feet and cheered. The conductor embraced the concertmaster, and the ovation went on a full five minutes, with many curtain calls.

Jeff was not there to see this moment, and when he heard about it he expressed sadness that he had missed the concert. He was still in mourning for his mother, and although it was now well over a week, he could not imagine returning to work. He was depressed in a way that Debbie had never anticipated. How can this be? she thought. He was acting as though she had been the best mother in the world. Truly, they had a major difference of opinion over this.

Debbie remembered learning in one of her psychology classes in college that it is not uncommon for a child to be connected in an addictive way to an abusive parent. Can that be the case here? Could Genevieve’s control of Jeff’s life have extended to the point of abuse? Could Jeff have become addicted to her control, and now unable to live without her and their sick relationship? The idea was frightening to Debbie. She could not imagine what it would take to break the cycle, now that Genevieve was dead.

Every afternoon, Jeff went to his mother’s grave and placed new flowers on them. The first two days, Debbie went along, but by the third day, the idea made her feel ill and she sent Jeff to do it alone. Now he was sitting at home, just watching television all day. He had always disliked television, except for films and the news stations. He hadn’t shaved or showered. He had not touched Debbie, other than to give her a quick hug and kiss. He seemed to appreciate her concern, and thanked her for it. “I know I will get back to normal soon,” Jeff said. “But it’s hard being without mother. I miss her so much.”

At the end of the week, Debbie could not bear Jeff’s misery any longer, and said she was going out to shop. She had already shopped while Jeff was at the cemetery, and had left the bags in her locked room, hoping she would find a way to pull them out without Jeff seeing when she got home. She stuck the key in her purse. She had purchased four bags of fruit and vegetables, and canned foods -items that could be thrown together quickly and would not spoil while she was out. She knew it was a little risky but decided to take a chance that it would work in her favor.

She went to the corner store, where she knew there was still a payphone, and called Simon, relieved to find that he was at home. In ten minutes, she walked to his building, went upstairs and knocked on the door.

“Hello, gorgeous,” he said, pulling her inside gently and kissing her passionately.

“Oh, I’ve missed that,” she said. “Things are...well, you might say, bleak at home.”

“So much for your happy little marriage,” Simon gloated. He wrapped both arms around her. “I’ve missed you, and now I want to know more about you. Tell me everything.”

“What do you want to know? I was an elementary school teacher, but I’m on a 6-month leave. I used to sing in a church choir. I’ve been married two years, and my husband and I are going through a, quote, rough patch, at the moment. And what about you?”

“So that was your whole life in three sentences? I’m an artist, a painter. I work in my studio every day. I teach art to half a dozen people who have no talent but pay me well. I exhibit a few times a year, and one of my paintings is in a museum, although I’m not likely to be famous any time soon. I’m divorced and I broke up with my last girlfriend a few weeks before you breezed into my life. My surname is Edwards and I want to know yours before we find ourselves in my bed again!”

Debbie purposely used her maiden name, Stellar. If their relationship continued for a long time, she might tell him the rest of the story, but for now he knew enough.

“And what about your husband? What does he do?”

“He’s a newspaper reporter,” she said.

Simon purposely didn’t push her. He could see she had shared enough for one day. He had already poured two glasses of wine. This visit was to be a little different from the last one. He was surprised to discover that, in addition to his attraction for Debbie, he actually liked her. They sat on his couch and sipped wine. Instead of jumping into bed as they had done before, this was a slow seduction. They kissed, and he slowly, gently, undressed her one article of clothing at a time.

Debbie thought Jeff might wonder where she was, but for the moment she would not think about it. Simon stood up and led her into his bedroom. Moments later, they were both undressed and in bed. The last time, Debbie had felt only the passion of the moment, but now she was feeling something more for Simon. She cared for him. She felt tears rolling down her cheeks and into her hair, and Simon placed his cheek against hers and held her for a long time after they made love.

“Don’t leave,” he said, as she sat up on the edge of the bed.

“I have to go,” Debbie said. “I’ll call you tomorrow. I’ll come back if it’s okay.”

“If it’s okay?! I’ll be counting the minutes,” he said. “I...”

Debbie thought he was going to say he loved her. She could not hear those words, not yet. Instead, she kissed him once more, not giving him a chance to speak. Then she put on her clothes and said goodbye.

Debbie was back at home in ten minutes. She had been out for two hours, and she tiptoed in, hoping that Jeff would not question her. She was relieved to see he was not in the living room, and quietly unlocked the room where she had placed the grocery bags earlier in the day. She put them all over the kitchen counter, and went to look for Jeff. Only a small light was on in the living room, and she could see the flickering light of the television coming from the bedroom. The door was half open. She went in and saw Jeff staring at the set.

“Where were you?” he asked coldly.

“At the grocery store - I told you I was going there,” she replied. “What’s the matter?”

“You were out for two hours!” Jeff said angrily. “I was worried. What took you so long?”

“Well why didn’t you just call me? We needed a lot of stuff. The lines were long. I’m sorry - I lost track of the time,” Debbie said.

“I tried and your phone was off. Don’t do that kind of thing again,” Jeff said. “I’m not in a good state. I need you here.”

“OK,” Debbie said. “But I can’t stay cooped up here 24 hours a day.”

“Come to bed,” Jeff said. “It’s late.”

“I’ll be a few minutes. I have to put the shopping away, and take a shower.”

“Well, hurry up,” Jeff said in a harsh tone.

Debbie wished she had stayed longer with Simon, rather than rushing home to Jeff’s continuing misery. She put the groceries away quickly, and showered. When she got into bed, she put her head on Jeff’s shoulder. He was already asleep, and she was feeling tired. She wondered what direction her life would take now. She was thinking about Simon, trying to figure out how she would get back there tomorrow with Jeff watching every step she took. She would encourage Jeff to go back to work. She wondered how long he could wallow in his depression before taking the first steps out of it.