Slugfest

Fifty-five

Findthemnow.com found Lincoln Wrentham in Stilton, New Jersey, a small rural community not far from Philadelphia. He was listed with directory assistance as L. Wrentham. When I called it was only my mentioning Emma’s name that prevented him from hanging up.

“Is this Professor Lincoln Wrentham?”

“No one’s called me that for a while, but, yes, I am. What’s this about? Who are you and what do you have to do with my daughter?”

“My name’s Paula Holliday. I met your daughter in New York this week, sir, and I think she’s in trouble.”

The description matched, even as far as her propensity for storytelling.

Wrentham and Emma’s mother had met at an airport in Dallas. They were trapped in the Admiral’s Club after one inch of snow had halted flights in and out. All the business and golf magazines had been scarfed up by other stranded travelers and the only reading material left was a six-month-old copy of Parents magazine that neither wanted. They spent the next three nights in an airport hotel. “It was as typical a late-eighties meet-cute as you could get,” he said.

“We were both devoted to our careers and swore we didn’t want children, but that changed when we found out about Emma. It was harder for Judith, of course. She went back to work soon after Emma was born, but every time she had a professional setback, she blamed our marriage. My research was bearing fruit and I was offered speaking engagements and appointments all over the country. I started to take them. That led to some indiscretions and our eventual divorce.”

“I suppose I was a terrible husband. Judith was bitter. But I was a good father for as long as I had a relationship with Emma. She was nine when we split up. Judith remarried soon after and insisted on changing Emma’s last name to Franklin, her new husband’s name. I objected, but in the end she got her way. She’s a shrink. She was able to convince a judge it would be traumatic for a child of that age to have a different name from her mother and her stepfather. I only wanted what was best for Emma, so I knuckled under. Later on, I learned she told Emma that I’d wanted nothing to do with her and that’s why they changed her name. She’s poisoned that girl against me for years.”

At some point, the former Mrs. Wrentham read that the professor was developing a formula that could revolutionize farming and gardening: a foolproof pest repellent. She told Emma that her biological father stood to make a fortune and that the girl was entitled to part of it. It was her inheritance.

“Judith became obsessed with the millions she thought I’d make.”

“So did you discover a foolproof pest repellent?”

“Et tu, Ms. Holliday? Foolproof and safe are two different things. But it’s not ready for general use. The unintended ecological consequences could be disastrous. No responsible person would bring something into the market until it had been tested exhaustively.”

Clearly we were dealing with a person who didn’t give a rap about the unintended ecological consequences if they’d killed one or maybe two people to get the formula.

Emma had gone to see him about a year ago.

“I don’t know how she found me. I haven’t made a secret of my whereabouts, but we haven’t exactly stayed in touch. She asked for two hundred and fifty thousand dollars. I asked her what kind of trouble she was in, and she said no trouble—she joked that it was just back allowance plus interest.”

The girl seemed to think that would be pocket change for Wrentham, but despite what her mother had said, he claimed not to have it. He’d bought a small farm and set up his own research facility with the settlement the school gave him, and he lived modestly continuing to test his formula.

“Emma will inherit whatever I own at the time of my death, but if I dropped dead tomorrow, it wouldn’t be in the millions of dollars as she and her mother think I’m sheltering. I’m afraid I’ll disappoint them again,” he said. “Lately, I’ve felt she was very close to me. I just hoped that as she got older, she’d want to hear my side of things, perhaps learn to forgive.”

“Her proximity might have been more than a feeling, Professor Wrentham. Did you ever employ a young man named Garland Bleimeister?”

“I did. I hire seasonal employees to help with the gardens and bring produce to the farmers markets. Garland was with me for three summers. Good boy. Although I know he had his issues. He ran down to Atlantic City more than I thought a boy his age would. At first, I thought it was for women.”

“Sir, I’m sorry to tell you this, but Garland has been murdered.”

“I heard.”

“And Emma is somehow involved.”

He hadn’t heard that. Wrentham agreed to take the next available flight from Philly to Westchester Airport, where Lucy and I would pick him up.

“How do you know when the next flight is?” I asked.

“I can be there in—two and a half hours. I have friends.”

“He’s smart, single, straight, and has friends with private planes?” Lucy said. “If he can cook, I want him.”

“I didn’t ask. So Emma and Garland were a couple, but she keeps that from Daddy. Garland needs money and Emma thinks she’ll just ask Daddy, but that doesn’t work. And,” I said, “given her mother’s influence—some might say brainwashing—Emma thinks he’s holding out on her. She and Garland steal Wrentham’s formula and offer it to someone who’ll pay handsomely but keep their names out of it by claiming to have invented it himself. They don’t want a long-term relationship, just a nice, simple payoff. And who knows—maybe Emma thinks her father will never find out and she can go back to the well at some point in the future after she dumps Garland.”

“Isn’t that like kids nowadays?” she said. “No work ethic.”

“Their buyers—and it’s got to be either the SlugFest or the Bambi-no people—initially said yes and then must have reneged on their agreement to pay, otherwise Garland would be lying on a beach somewhere instead of on a slab at the morgue.”

“Who’s got the most dough?” Lucy asked.

“Neither of them is rolling in it. The SlugFest guy looks a little more prosperous, but looks can be deceiving. And Bambi-no looked like a mom-and-pop operation. What if the payoff was contingent upon one of them getting a fat licensing agreement at the show?”

“And Emma?” Lucy said.

My guess was she pulled the strings but stayed in the background.

“I think she sicced the cops on Jamal as a diversion because she was still trying to make a deal. She didn’t want the buyers arrested—even if they were killers—until she got her dough.”

“I can’t wait to meet this girl—preferably with a plate-glass window between us.”

“In addition to being an accomplished liar, Emma is a remarkable and gutsy young woman. Her father’s been called a genius and her mother is a vengeful psychiatrist. That could make you feel smarter than everyone else. Too smart to get caught,” I said. “Let’s hope she’s smart enough to not get herself—or us—killed.”