Green Monster (9 page)

When Sam and Heather emerged from the stadium onto Yawkey Way, there were still fans milling around, mostly drunk and loudly celebrating the victory as they drifted toward Brookline Avenue and the T station in Kenmore Square. Take this away from them, Sam thought, and they'd find something else to get drunk and yell about—but it would never be the same as their unquestioning love for the Sox. They decided to get a bite and a drink at the Cask 'n' Flagon on Lansdowne before catching a cab.

“So you're really going out to the Kenwood house tomorrow,” Heather said.

“Yeah. What should I expect?”

“I don't know. I've never been invited.”

Chapter Ten

Kenwood's Lincoln was waiting for Sam in front of the hotel at a quarter after eight. Heather had called to tell him that the Dodgers were in the middle of a homestand. She'd booked them on an L.A. flight leaving Logan the next morning. Sam had been in Boston for two nights now, and already he was getting restless to leave. He hadn't accomplished much; he'd found no convincing evidence that the Series had been fixed, and he'd established a borderline-kinky sexual relationship with his client's assistant.

On second thought, not bad for less than 48 hours work, most of which was on the clock. But there seemed little left to do here, unless Heather wanted to do it on Old Ironsides.

“Good morning, Mr. Skarda,” said Paul O'Brien, who was waiting to open the back door of the limo. “Sleep well?”

Sam scanned Paul's face to see if he might have meant anything extra by that, but there appeared to be no hidden intent. Sam settled deeply into the black leather seat. There was a pot of hot coffee and a carafe of orange juice on the fold-down buffet shelf in front of him, and a Boston Globe in the magazine rack. Paul pulled smoothly out into traffic while Sam poured himself a cup of coffee and opened the paper.

“Paul, how long have you worked for Mr. Kenwood?” Sam asked.

“Ten years, sir.”

“What happened to his chauffeur before that?”

“I don't know. I think Mr. and Mrs. Kenwood drove themselves. But they were getting older, and then Mrs. Kenwood got sick.”

“Do you know anything about Kenwood's son?”

“No, sir. We—they—didn't hear from him. I never met him.”

“What was his first name?”

“Bruce, I think.”

“How'd he die?”

“Drowned in the Pacific—somewhere in California.”

“Did Lou go to the funeral?”

“No.”

Odd, Sam thought. Unless Bruce Kenwood had been in a monastery or a mental ward somewhere, you'd think he'd have wanted to stay in touch, just to try to get his piece of the pie. But the children of rich people were an unpredictable subset. Some grew up with a sense of entitlement, while others had a desperate need to prove that they could make it on their own. Sam knew both kinds, and didn't particularly envy either.

“Why do you think Bruce stayed away?”

“I really don't know. But I don't think he and Mrs. Kenwood—Katherine—ever got along.”

That would make sense. He'd resent his father's new wife.

“I think he got into some trouble—taxes or something,” Paul continued. “Then he died. The Kenwoods never talk about him.”

“What about your family, Paul?”

“Mine, sir?”

“Big Sox fans, I'd guess.”

“Oh, you know it,” he said, again dropping the formal veneer. “Me and my brothers—my brothers and I, we grew up goin' to Sox games. My dad was at Fenway for Game Seven in '67. He said losin' that game broke his heart. Then 1975 did it all over again, and the playoff in '78…hell, I remember that one. I was just a kid, but I can remember my dad cryin' when Yaz popped out to Nettles to end the game. But the '86 Series, when the ball went through Buckner's legs, that was the worst. It took him most of spring trainin' the next year to decide whether he was gonna watch the Sox anymore. Course, he did. Still never misses a game on TV, even after he got sick…”

“What's he got?” Sam asked.

“Alzheimer's. Pretty far along now. He didn't really know what was going on when the Sox beat the Rockies.”

“He must have loved it when the Sox beat the Cardinals.”

“Greatest moment of his life,” Paul said, his voice quavering. “Back then, he knew what was gonna happen to him. When we got the last out, he turned to my ma and said, ‘I can die happy.'”

Sam let a few moments of silence pass, then said, “Does he still watch the games?”

“Yeah. Every once in a while he asks if we've traded that goddamn Buckner yet.”

They took the same route out to Marblehead Neck that Kenwood used, hugging the shoreline on Route 1 through Revere, Lynn, and Swampscott, passing industrial areas, beaches, apartment buildings, and a few trendy restaurants and shops, with sailboats bobbing offshore and gulls swooping down for snacks. Traveling against morning commuter traffic, it took just 30 minutes to cover the 15-mile drive to Ocean Avenue, which ran across a narrow, sandy isthmus and connected Marblehead Neck to the mainland.

The Kenwood house was at the north end of the Neck on a leafy, two-lane road with homes isolated from the passing traffic by thick hedges and stone walls. The entrance to Kenwood's place was marked by two towering maples on either side of a gated brick driveway that concluded in a circle with a flagpole in the center, from which flew the American flag and 2004 and 2007 World Series Champions banners. To the left of the circle was a two-story, four-car garage in the same weathered, gray cedar-shake style as the main house, which had four chimneys and seemed to sprawl across the high point of the property like a series of smaller houses pressed together. A stone stairway led up to the main doorway, and Sam could see through the windows that the view from the back of the house was going to be spectacular—nothing between the Kenwoods and the rocky shore but a long, sloping green lawn, and nothing beyond that but France.

Paul went in ahead of Sam and announced loudly that they had arrived. Katherine Kenwood was in the living room bump-out, her wheelchair facing the wide bay windows that looked out over the jagged point that jutted into the ocean. The morning sun was sparkling on the calm water, and Katherine seemed reluctant to turn herself around and surrender the view.

The spacious living room, with hardwood floors, wood-beamed ceilings, and a stone fireplace, was furnished with sturdy-looking but obviously antique wooden furniture mixed with more comfortable and contemporary couches and armchairs. The living room was open to an adjoining study, with floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, a grand piano, a globe in a wooden stand, and a compass, a sextant, a maritime map, and other nautical knickknacks on the walls, all of it suggesting New England whaling days. The Kenwoods were relatively new to their wealth, but their house was a study in old-money taste.

“Let's go out to the porch,” Katherine said.

Paul gripped the handles of her wheelchair and pushed her through the open door that led from the living room to a covered porch with wooden floorboards. Three-fourths of the porch was sheltered by the overhang from the second floor, supported by shingled wooden pillars; the far end was open, and bathed in sunlight. Katherine was sitting in the covered side. Sam selected a white wicker rocker to sit in, facing the ocean.

“Bring us some coffee, would you, Paul?” Katherine said. “And bring my pistol out here. It's on the dining room table.”

Katherine looked even more striking in the daylight than she had in the owner's suite the previous night. Despite the lines around her eyes and the corners of her mouth, the natural light brought out the smooth delicacy of her complexion; the ocean seemed to reflect back to Sam in her deep blue eyes, and her fine, silver-blond hair rustled in the gentle breeze off the water. It wasn't difficult to see past the oxygen tube that ran across her upper lip and imagine why Lou Kenwood had left his first wife for this woman.

“This is a fantastic house,” Sam said, looking to get the conversation started.

“Everyone loves it.” Katherine's words and breaths were measured. “We looked for two years…before finding this place. I wish I never had to leave.”

Sam didn't know what to say to that. Katherine's condition seemed worse than it had the previous night. She wore a shawl over her shoulders and a blanket across her lap, despite the moderate morning temperature. While Sam was wondering how to sound consoling without conveying pity, Katherine reached under the blanket and pulled out a pack of cigarettes.

Paul returned with coffee and the pistol. He placed the silver coffee tray and the gun—a Beretta Bobcat—on the end table between Sam and Katherine, and pulled a light out of his pocket and lit Katherine's cigarette. Then he walked back into the house.

“Want one?” she asked as she inhaled.

“No, thanks. Does Lou know you're still smoking?”

“Of course. He has Paul buy them for me.”

“You didn't smoke last night.”

“Fenway is smoke-free, my dear.”

“Even for the owner's wife?”

“We must set a good example.”

“Does your doctor know?”

“Don't judge…until you're sitting where I'm sitting,” Katherine said. She took another draw and then slowly exhaled. “I haven't got much left…besides these. What about you? What are your bad habits?”

“I like a stiff drink, but I don't like being drunk. I haven't touched drugs since college. It's a control thing, I guess.”

“Not much, as far as failings go.”

“I've got a temper. I got rough with some of the worst assholes when I was a cop—just because it made me feel better. I let the job get to me sometimes.”

“Ever marry?”

“No,” Sam said. “Close once. Probably would have been a bad idea.”

“That's been a while.”

“Yeah. It has.”

“Are you the workaholic type, Mr. Skarda?”

“Not exactly. I could let it go when I wasn't on duty. I played a lot of golf.”

He smiled at that, and so did Katherine.

“So I've heard,” she said. “You played varsity at Dartmouth.”

“How'd you know?”

“Lou had you checked out.”

“By Heather?”

“Isn't she a dear?”

Sam was on dangerous ground now. It would only be natural for Katherine to harbor some resentment toward her husband's pretty young assistant—after all, that's where Katherine came in. But she might not be pleased to suspect that Sam was having sex with her, either. Lou, Katherine, Heather, and Sam were supposedly the only four who knew what was going on, and the loyalties seemed to be divided on all sides.

“She has her good qualities,” Sam said.

Katherine laughed and changed the subject.

“So, how on earth did a Dartmouth man become a police officer?”

“My dad was a Minneapolis cop.”

“And your mother?”

“She was a junior high music teacher.”

“Interesting combination. I assume you're musical.”

“Guitar, a little piano.”

“Could you play something on our piano? It never gets used anymore.”

“If there's time. What about you? What's your background?”

Katherine told him that she was born and raised in Boston, an Irish-Catholic girl—Katy Kelly, in those days—whose father was a lawyer and whose mother stayed at home and raised seven kids. All of them lived and died with the Red Sox. She'd gone to Wellesley, did some modeling after college, and eventually got into retail. She took a job as a buyer with Kenwood Companies, and moved into the corporate office when Lou was still acquiring his fortune. Her family disapproved when Lou divorced his wife to marry Katherine, and they didn't really come around until Lou bought the Red Sox. Then all was forgiven.

“What's your take on the extortion plot?” Sam asked.

He studied Katherine's face while she thought of a way to answer. Lou was almost too emotional about his team to analyze the situation clearly. He doubted that Katherine's mind was similarly clouded.

“I take it at face value…until I find out otherwise,” Katherine said. Her breathing was becoming shorter. “We weren't supposed to even get to the Series. Nobody ever thought we'd sweep. It was exciting, but I remember thinking…that it was almost too good to be true. I guess this doesn't really surprise me.”

“Why not? Nobody's tried to fix a World Series for ninety years.”

“As far as you know, Sam. And if it's really been that long…another one was overdue, don't you think?”

“But the Black Sox fix was about a cheap owner and underpaid players. That's not what's happening here.”

She took a drag on her cigarette, snuffed it out in the ashtray that Paul had brought out with the coffee, and wheeled her chair toward the open side of the porch.

“Let's go out here in the sunlight,” she said. “I've spent 70 years protecting my skin. I don't think I need…to worry about that anymore.”

Sam followed her to the sunlit deck overlooking the sloping emerald lawn and the ocean. Katherine lit another cigarette and turned to look at Sam.

“My father told me the whole story…about the 1919 World Series,” she said. “Comiskey was a short-sighted miser. He low-balled his players every year at contract time…even though they were the best team in the league. There was no free agency. He didn't pay them because he didn't have to. It wasn't hard for the gamblers to find eight fools…willing to risk their careers for some extra cash. Ballplayers always grab for the easy money. I haven't met one yet who thinks more about his legacy…than the size of his house.”

“Money keeps a lot of people from seeing the big picture.”

“They were all suspended for life. Don't you think every one of them would have given the money back…if they could have stayed in baseball?”

“Sure, but they knew Comiskey was screwing them.”

“They also knew throwing games was wrong, but they got greedy,” Katherine said. She paused to inhale from her cigarette, then coughed. “Just because we're paying the Ivan Hurtados of the world $15,000,000 a year to play baseball…doesn't mean we've wiped out greed.”

“No, it doesn't.”

“It's in man's nature to want more. And it's especially in a pro athlete's nature. That's how they judge themselves…by how much more money they're making than the other players. It will never change.”

“I haven't noticed many owners worrying about their legacy, either,” Sam said. “Most of them just want to squeeze every dime out of the franchise.”