The Death of an Ambitious Woman (7 page)

The Kendall house looked deserted. Ruth could hear the deep pong of the doorbell as it echoed through the rooms. No answer. She turned and looked across the sweep of lawn. There was movement by the smaller house on the left arc of the drive. Ruth set off on foot.

It was hard to tell what purpose the building had originally served. It was a three-story building with a dormered roof, built in the same era as the main house. Had it been a gardener’s cottage? A guest house? The door was ajar. Ruth pushed it open and walked through. What she saw stopped her dead in her tracks.

The house had been gutted and refitted so its interior space comprised a single room—extending out to the walls and up to the rafters that had hung in the original attic. The walls and sloping ceilings were painted a glaring white. Skylights supplemented the light streaming in from three stories of windows. The floor was an expanse of polished oak.

But it wasn’t the architecture that seized Ruth’s attention. Rising from the floor, in some cases almost to the ceiling, were five pieces of sculpture. Ruth wasn’t much for modern art, but her response was immediate, visceral. She felt as if she had been punched in the chest. The twisted hulks were abstract, and yet were unmistakably dinosaurs. Their frozen postures were so real; the immense beasts seemed about to break free and resume lives interrupted long ago. Each piece displayed an intense emotion. Ruth clearly understood their rage, terror, hunger, even the strutting self-satisfaction of the crested duckbill. The vitality of the sculptures was stunning, especially as Stephen Kendall portrayed it, shot through with decay. The dinosaurs’ gleaming outer skins melted away in spots, revealing torn canvas, jumbled wires, and quick glimpses of jutting metal frames. Even as the beasts ruled the earth, rot was in them, on them, the specter of extinction already present.

Ruth stood rooted to the spot where she had entered.

There was a noise in the rear of the building and Susan Gleason appeared. Tall, cool, dressed with the same bohemian elegance as yesterday, she made her way across the studio floor.

“Amazing, aren’t they?” Susan asked, husky-voiced.

Ruth groped for speech. “He does these?”

“Yes. This is what he does. At least, this is what he’s doing now.”

“Here?”

“Um-humm. The design work takes place over there.” Gleason pointed to the open shed addition at the back from which she’d emerged. “Everything else is done in this room. The sculptures are so large that they have to be disassembled to be moved and reassembled at the site.”

Ruth noted that the wall of the studio facing away from the main house held a gigantic double barn door. “He sells well?”

Susan Gleason didn’t answer right away. “He could. He will. He got a lot of favorable response to his work when he was quite young. His earlier work looked nothing like this. But he refused to capitalize on his success. His whole career can be summed up that way. Every time he achieves acclaim, he immediately sets off in a new direction.” She shook her head. “Stephen has a horror of repeating himself. He never follows the easy route. Take these pieces, for example. They’re too large for private collectors. That leaves museums and public commissions. Many museums don’t have the space, either. That’s why the show coming up at the end of May is so important.” A shadow of regret crossed her face. “I’ve recently had to change my gallery space. I just took possession of a wonderful old warehouse. The workmen are gutting it as we speak. Before the walls and floors go back in, there’ll be a brief period, three weeks only, when we can show all these pieces together, indoors, in New York.”

Ruth looked at the sculptures and then at the space they occupied. The dinosaurs’ expressions and postures played off one another. They’d be more compelling grouped together. And, being closed in with them heightened the sensation of being trapped with enormous, dangerous hulks. They would be interesting, even beautiful, displayed outdoors or singly, but in this room their power was enhanced by the interplay of form and space.

“The problem,” Susan continued, “is that Stephen isn’t ready for the show. He has one more piece planned and he refuses to show without it. And he won’t get any help. Other sculptors would have this place crawling with assistants and apprentices doing the scutwork, but Stephen does everything himself—design, welding, sanding.” Gleason’s hands fluttered outward toward the dinosaurs and then rested on her chest. “There’s just this tiny span of time when it’s possible to do this show. Then comes summer. No one will be in New York. Besides, I need the three months before fall to get the finish work done on my space. I can’t afford to have it empty for a longer period. And now this. He worked a little this morning, but when I came from the house, I discovered he was gone. He must get back to work.”

Ruth felt her hostility rise. Was this show more important than a dead wife, a grieving child?

If Susan sensed the animosity, she gave no sign. “People in New York have been waiting more than five years for Stephen Kendall’s next show. This show will launch him finally, definitively, lucratively.” She regarded the behemoths reverently for another moment, then turned to Ruth. “You didn’t say why you came.”

“I was so absorbed by the sculptures, I forgot,” Ruth said. “I’m looking for Mr. Kendall. Do you know where he is?”

“No. I ate lunch in my room and when I came downstairs, the house was empty. Whenever I’m staying here, I try to leave the family some privacy. I work here in the studio, in the design area at the back, and try to take some meals in my room and retire early at night. Right now, I’m being especially careful.”

“Well, perhaps this will help a little. The medical examiner is ready to release Mrs. Kendall’s remains. He’ll need instructions. I came to let Mr. Kendall know.”

“I’ll tell him.”

“Thanks. Oh, and one other thing, Ms. Gleason. Were you and Tracey Kendall close?”

Susan hesitated before she answered. “No. We weren’t. I’ve stayed here about three days a month for years. You’d think we’d be friends, but the truth is, she was a very private person.”

Ruth had no trouble believing this. She wondered if anyone could be intimate with a creature as monomaniacal as Susan Gleason, a woman who stood here unself-consciously complaining about her client’s lack of productivity when his dead wife was not yet in the ground.

They moved toward the door. Susan gazed back at the studio space and its occupants. “You know, I envy you today,” she said to Ruth. “You only get to see them for the first time, once.”

Ruth left the Kendalls’ by way of the service road in the back. Immediately opposite the Kendall house was a mailbox labeled
Powell.
Ruth turned into the driveway, which rose steeply, angling back from the street and then widening in front of the house itself, a modern pile. Ruth ascended a long set of steps that brought her up to an undistinguished entranceway. She found the doorbell. Inside, a television droned.

Fran Powell came to the door looking much less put together than she had the day before. Her high-maintenance hairdo was in disarray and though her slacks and matching sweater were sleek and expensive, she was wearing an improbable pair of bunny slippers.

“Oh,” was all she said when she saw Ruth.

“Mrs. Powell, I’d like to talk to you about Tracey Kendall.”

Fran hesitated, but only for a moment. “Sure, c’mon in.” She turned her back on Ruth and moved unsteadily into the hallway. Ruth’s practiced eye assessed her drunkenness at the midpoint between life-of-the-party and unconscious.

Fran led the way into an enormous, antiseptic living room with giant windows framing a spectacular view of Derby Center off in the distance. She sat on the white leather sectional that dominated the room and motioned for Ruth to do the same. In another room, the TV still played. A chubby boy entered with a disk in his hand. “Mommy,” his voice was grave, “the DVD is broken.”

Mommy sighed loudly. “Did you press ‘PLAY’?” she asked.

“Yes.”

“Is the TV on channel three?”

“Yes.” His expression said,
Do you think I’m an idiot?

“Excuse me,” Fran said to Ruth, “but we seem to have an emergency on our hands.” Fran got up off the couch and moved carefully out of the room.

Ruth watched her go. The drunken Fran seemed like an improbable friend for the organized, ambitious Tracey Kendall. Then again, what is an appropriate response to your best friend’s death?
Maybe you’d react in the same way,
Ruth admonished herself, knowing full well she wouldn’t. She left alone the question of who, besides Marty, her best friend might be.

Fran returned. “Problem solved. Now how can I help you?” The question was solicitous, but Fran Powell still seemed guarded.

“You told Detective Moscone you were Tracey Kendall’s best friend.”

“Yes. She discovered me here when she was home on maternity leave. She’d wander across the driveway for refreshments and conversation. Later, when the boys got older, we’d stand in the road out here on summer evenings and monitor the tricycle races.”

That got Ruth past the troubling question of what Tracey Kendall and Fran Powell might possibly have in common. Ruth knew from experience when one has young children, proximity is a powerful incentive to friendship.

Fran leaned forward. “Stephen said something about you thinking that man, the mechanic, had something to do with Tracey’s accident.”

“We know he serviced Tracey’s car right before the crash. And we know he’s disappeared.”

“And that makes you suspect… what?”

“It’s not clear. Did you know the mechanic, Al Pace?” “No.”

“Did Tracey ever mention him?”

Fran Powell stared at the ceiling. “No.”

“You’re sure? Take a moment to think about it. Pace’s friends suspect he was having an affair.We’ll find out with whom sooner or later.” Ruth still wasn’t entirely sold on Moscone’s affair theory, but Fran Powell’s hesitation made her push harder. “Mrs. Powell, you say Tracey Kendall was your best friend. I know you think you’re protecting her, but if you know anything that would help us understand what happened to Tracey, you owe it to her to tell me. I’m asking you again. Did Tracey ever mention Al Pace?”

Fran Powell held her head in her hands. “Yes,” she said, so quietly Ruth strained to hear.

“What did Tracey say about him?”

“They were sleeping together. She was having an affair.” Fran pulled her head up. “Is this really necessary? Does Stephen have to know?”

After the interview, Ruth sat for a moment, car idling in the drive. She was surprised by Fran’s revelation about Tracey and Al Pace. She just couldn’t make sense of the two of them as a couple, and there was something she distrusted about the drunken Mrs. Powell. But in twenty years, Ruth had seen all kinds of unaccountable behavior. A rich lady sleeping with her handsome auto mechanic was the least of it. And they finally had confirmation of a relationship between Tracey and Pace that could be a motive for murder.

Ruth glanced at her watch. She could return to headquarters, but for the third time that day, she resisted. The press briefing on Al Pace’s disappearance was in less than two hours and she didn’t want to use the time between now and then to jump into the other things, the non−Tracey Kendall, non−Al Pace things that would come at her if she returned to her office. Lawry would call if there was something important, as would Mayor Rosenfeld or Marty.

Ruth pulled out of Fran Powell’s driveway and steered her car not toward Derby Center, but toward Anna Abbott’s house, less than a half-mile away.

Anna Abbott’s house, a well-constructed 1920s copy of a Federalist mansion, was two blocks from the Kendall house in Derby Hills. When Ruth pulled into the circular drive, she saw that all the first-floor windows were opened wide. Ruth yoohooed at the unlocked front door and walked in. Three rooms were visible from the impressive center hall and in every one the rugs had been rolled up, the heavy drapes pulled down, and the furniture moved to the center of the room. By next week, these rooms would be sporting “summer” rugs, slipcovers, and curtains. At eighty-one, Anna Abbot spring-cleaned in the manner of her Victorian grandmother.

Ruth followed a series of bumps and thuds through the massive living room into the library beyond. There she found Mrs. Abbott, and her “helper,” Mrs. O’Shea, busily rolling up a winecolored Oriental carpet. They were both decked out in work dresses, aprons, and colorful kerchiefs. From the back, it was difficult to tell which woman was which, although Ruth’s suspicion, quickly confirmed, was that Bridget O’Shea was the one who had traded in her sturdy work shoes for cross-trainers.

“Hallo,” Mrs. Abbott said, pulling herself upright. “Mrs. O’Shea, we have company.”

“Chief Murphy,” Bridget O’Shea cried, “just in time for tea.”

Anna Abbott looked over her shoulder at the library clock. “Ah, indeed it is.”

Mrs. Abbott was an impressive woman, though at this point in life, her presence was more chemical than physical. She was Old Boston through and through, the daughter of a Brahmin, widow of a Brahmin and mother of a gaggle of Brahmin. She was also president of the New Derby Board of Aldermen, chair of the Police Chief Search Committee and one of Ruth’s greatest fans. When the old chief had started bringing Ruth around, making introductions, Mrs. Abbott took to her immediately. It amused Ruth that both Anna Abbott and Mayor Rosenfeld viewed her as their own creation. They argued over who had seen her first, like parents bickering about which side of the family contributed a child’s best feature.

Mrs. Abbott led Ruth through the living room, the central hall, and the paneled dining room to the bright, windowed breakfast room off the kitchen. Somehow, Bridget O’Shea had beaten them there and set the glass table for two. Mrs. Abbott excused herself to wash up and Mrs. O’Shea appeared immediately with a tray that held the tea things and a plate of butter cookies. Unexpected guests were always received graciously at Anna Abbott’s house (though there might be some spirited commentary about the breach afterward), and tea was served in china cups even on spring-cleaning days.