The Death of an Ambitious Woman (8 page)

While Mrs. Abbott was out of the room, Ruth considered her approach to the conversation. Her promotion was the topic she really wanted to talk about, but in Mrs. Abbott’s world you didn’t dive right in. First you made an offering, and nothing made a better offering than a tidbit about something that was going on in town that Mrs. Abbott, with her vast store of knowledge and her extensive network, didn’t already know. So Ruth led with the other topic that was so much on her mind these days.

“Did you know Tracey Kendall?” she asked when Mrs. Abbott reappeared.

“The woman from that terrible accident? I read about it in the paper.”

“Right now it’s looking like it was more than a simple accident.”

Mrs. Abbott’s eyes lit up. “Intriguing. I do know her husband, Stephen Kendall.When the New Derby Arts Council discovered we had yet another famous, or should I say semi-famous, artist living in town, we approached him about an exhibition. None of us had seen his work. Of course, when we did, we realized we could never show it. We couldn’t afford to move it, much less mount it. It’s quite affecting, though.”

“What’s your impression of him?”

“Charming, helpful, and such a deep, beautiful voice. He did suggest some artists to us and from time to time helped us out with contacts in New York. Truth be told, I think all the old ladies were in love with him, and, it being the Arts Council, so were half the young men.”

“Mrs. Abbott!” Ruth teased.

“Oh, pish. I will never understand why you young people get yourselves so worked up about the facts of life.”

“And Tracey?”

“Never met her. I guess she wasn’t much for town things.”

Ruth knew this was the worst thing Mrs. Abbott could say about a person. To her way of thinking, not being communityminded was as unthinkable as not bathing. But Tracey had a demanding job, a small child, and the social obligations required to support Stephen’s art career. Ruth understood that Tracey Kendall wouldn’t have had time for “town things.” For Ruth, “town things” were “work things,” or she wouldn’t have had much time for them either.

Mrs. O’Shea poked her head in through the door that led to the kitchen. “Do you two have everything you need?” she called out.

“Yes. Thank you, Mrs. O’Shea.” Mrs. Abbott answered.

Like everyone who knew them, Ruth was fascinated by the relationship between the women. Anna Abbott had been widowed early, a single parent before the phrase was coined. Alone with four children, she saw to their schooling, ran the household and half the town while reading her way through Virgil in the original. Through it all, Bridget O’Shea had arrived by bus every day, done the housework, the cooking, and some of the child rearing, and returned by bus every night to her house-painter husband and her own four children. Now, with the children all in their fifties and her husband dead, Bridget lived in a lovely, large apartment fashioned out of the mansion’s servants’ wing. In the summer, Mrs. O’Shea went to her daughter on Cape Cod, while Mrs. Abbott vacationed, surrounded by family, in the big house on the island off Marble-head. But October through June, every weekday, Mrs. O’Shea made her way to the main part of the house and went to work.

Anna Abbott picked another cookie off the plate and ate it with relish. Eighty-one years had not dimmed her appetite. “You’re quite taken with this Tracey Kendall thing.” It was a statement, not a question.

Ruth didn’t answer right away. “Yes, I’m taken with it. I don’t know why.”

“Really,” Mrs. Abbott’s eyes twinkled. “You don’t?”

Ruth knew the question was intended to provoke reflection, not an answer. She did identify with Tracey. She’d felt Tracey’s presence as a woman in the old clothes in the gym bag, felt her presence as a mother when Carson sobbed because his mother told him she was angry in the conversation neither of them knew would be their last. Now that Ruth was deeper in Tracey Kendall’s life, she saw other parallels. They both were driven to bring order to forces—be they financial markets or crime—others found unpredictable and punishing. Their methods were similar, too: analysis and organization, understanding of stories, and the ability not to fool themselves and to tell when others were lying.

Yet with all her ambition and intelligence, Tracey’s skills had failed her. She’d gotten herself into something terrible, something Ruth was sure was responsible for her death. Ruth had to admit part of her motivation for pushing this case forward, in spite of all she was risking, was that she needed to know what happened.

She changed the subject to the one that actually had brought her there. “The mayor mentioned the aldermen have some concerns about my appointment.”

“Ah, the Baines business? It’s no secret you and District Attorney Baines have an antagonistic relationship. I don’t pretend to know why.” Mrs. Abbott paused for quite a few seconds. “Fine. Don’t tell me. All Baines is saying is, he needs a chief he can work with. It isn’t so unreasonable. Aside from the fact that the criminal justice system has to function unimpeded, theD.A.’s endorsement is required for a lot of grant money your department depends on to balance its budget—state money, Department of Justice money and Homeland Security money. If Bob Baines chooses to direct those funds to other cities and towns in the county, you’re going to have big problems.”

Ruth’s exasperation broke through her normally cool exterior. “Why does anyone listen to him? He’s just such an awful man. Do you know he calls me, ‘dear’ and ‘Mrs. Murphy’?”

Mrs. Abbott chortled appreciatively. “And you think he does it because he is a male chauvinist? I’m sure he is, but he does it to keep you off balance, to get you to doubt yourself and what you want. If you weren’t a woman, he would come at you some other way—your family, your ancestry, even some physical characteristic. Anything he can find to get to you.”

The sounds of aggressive dishwashing clattered from the kitchen. Evidently, Bridget O’Shea had decided it was time to stop fooling around and get back to spring cleaning. Ruth stood to go, thanking her hostess.

“You mustn’t let Baines undermine your confidence, Ruth,” Anna Abbott said at the front door. “If you act like the chief of police, you will be the chief of police.”

Ruth took Anna’s blue-veined hand carefully in her own and thanked her for the tea and advice, though she wasn’t sure it was quite that simple.

As Ruth turned onto Main Street heading back to headquarters, she could see a half-dozen satellite trucks gathered for the news conference, a surprising turnout. The press had been given the barest details. It must be a slow news day. Ruth’s stomach clenched at the sight of the trucks, but there was no point in raking back over her conflicted feelings. If the goal was to generate publicity to find Al Pace, then the more interest the better.

She steered past the trucks carefully. They were parked and double-parked in a checkerboard pattern along the street. Hulking, long-necked, metallic, they seemed oddly familiar.
Ah, yes,
Ruth thought,
Stephen Kendall’s dinosaurs.

Ruth met with the media in the roll call room, its usual haphazard arrangement of chairs placed in neat rows by Lieutenant Lawry. She read the prepared statement carefully. Al Pace, auto mechanic, resident of Derby Mills, missing forty-eight hours. She held Pace’s photo up for the cameras as Lawry passed it out to the group. They nodded politely and looked hopeful.

The moment of truth. Ruth took a breath and pushed the rest out. “Mr. Pace was last seen in the parking lot of Fiske & Holden, an investment firm in Truman Executive Park. In addition to his missing status, the New Derby Police Department believes he may have been a witness to the motor vehicle crash that took the life of Tracey Kendall. As you know, Mrs. Kendall died two days ago.”

That got their attention. Hands shot up.

“Was Tracey Kendall’s death not an accident?”

“Was foul play involved?”

“Is Mr. Pace a suspect?”

“Is he a person of interest?”

“You identified Mr. Pace as an auto mechanic. Did he work on Tracey Kendall’s car immediately prior to the crash?”

“Is Mrs. Kendall’s death being investigated as a homicide?”

Ruth skated around the answers as best she could. Without characterizing the cause of Tracey Kendall’s death, she reiterated that Al Pace was a potential witness, nothing more. “Mr. Pace is a husband and father. His family is concerned and needs to hear from him.” Ruth repeated the toll-free number and encouraged, “anyone who has seen Mr. Pace in the last two days or has knowledge of his whereabouts,” to call.

Then she thanked the gathered media and retreated to her office while Lawry waited for equipment to be packed and cleared the room.

By the time Ruth left headquarters, Lieutenant Lawry was gone. Lieutenant Carse sat at the front desk, bent over, focused on paperwork. In profile, Carse’s short brown hair emphasized the elegant angularity of her face. Ruth smiled at the sight. A lieutenant at thirty, officer-in-charge of the night shift at thirty-two, Carse’s career was off to a great start.

Ruth wondered to what degree Carse appreciated this. Did she ever feel amazed simply by being here as Ruth did? Ruth thought of herself as a member of a second generation. The first generation of women, who filed the lawsuits, fought the unions and held fast through the years of litigation, had largely been too old or too long in the narrow disciplines of juvenile officer, dispatcher or meter maid to benefit from their own hard work. Ruth’s generation had reaped those rewards, but their tests had come in the station house. They worked without role models to point the way and scrutinized each brother officer to determine his degree of hostility. Now the women Carse’s age took the jobs, the assignments, and promotions as their right and acted accordingly. Police work was still a male domain. Measured against an ideal, there was a long way to go, but measured against where they’d started, the progress was head-spinning.

“I’m going home,” Ruth called to Carse. “If anyone is looking for me, call me there.”

“Sure, Chief.” Carse grinned.

At 10:15
P
.
M
., Ruth sat in her usual spot on the hand-me-down, pea-green couch she and Marty both hated but couldn’t afford to replace. Marty, in his big blue chair, clicked the remote through the stations that had ten o’clock news broadcasts.

“Where’s Baines?” Marty asked. “It’s unlike him to give up a chance to have his mug on the news.”

“I ran it by him,” Ruth answered. “He didn’t seem to think the disappearance of an auto mechanic added up to much.”

“Even one connected to Tracey Kendall?”

“I didn’t tell him about that, exactly.”

“Are you kidding, Ruthie? He’s going to blow a gasket when he sees this.” Marty’s brow settled into a worried frown.

At eleven, two other stations replayed the footage shot earlier at the New Derby police station. The third station, the one Ruth called the “Walk and Talk News,” had taken its cameras to the accident scene. There, in pitch darkness, a young reporter walked along the road and despite references to “the alleged car,” “the alleged victim,” and “the alleged stone wall,” made it perfectly clear that Al Pace had murdered Tracey Kendall.

“Ugh,” Ruth said to the TV.

As soon as the segment was over, the telephone rang. Ruth’s hopes rose. Could the broadcast have turned up Pace so quickly?

Marty answered the phone. “Your sister,” he mouthed. Ruth groaned and Marty responded with a warning look, pressing his hand to the receiver.

“What does she want?”

“Well,” Marty offered, “if history is any indication, she wants to tell you that she had a gigantic fight with a) her employer, b) her boyfriend, c) her roommate, or d) your mother.”

“Right now, actually, there is no employer, boyfriend, or roommate, and Mother is in San Francisco on a seniors’ tour.”

“Then I have absolutely no idea.”

Ruth laughed and felt her tension recede a little, just enough to handle talking to her sister. Thank God for Marty. He was so good with her mother and sister, so charming with the irresponsible women who were her only family. Marty handed Ruth the portable phone.

“Hi, Helen.”

“Ruthie? I saw the thing on the news about Tracey Kendall. It’s so terrible.”

“You knew Tracey Kendall?”

“Stephen and Tracey. Actually, the person I’m really close to is Stephen’s first wife, Rosie. Stephen was an instructor and Rosie was a student when I was in art school. Rosie and Stephen were still married, but Tracey was on the scene. In fact, we were all friends then. Rosie confided in me a lot because—”

As Helen talked, Ruth cast her mind back over the last twenty years thinking—art school? Art school? When was that? After modeling school? Before film school? Between engagements number one and two, or two and three? She tried to reconstruct the tangle of her sister’s life, but failed. How embarrassing. Her sister knew James and Sarah’s ages, birth dates, and clothing sizes. Helen even sent Ruth a happy little card every year on the anniversary of her last promotion. Ruth was always momentarily confused by the cards, because even she never remembered. Finally, Ruth had to ask, “When was all this?”

“Oh,” Helen answered, “you know, when I was in art school? Nine? Ten years ago?”

Ruth sighed. “Is this first wife still around?”

“Sure. Her studio’s in one of those loft buildings in the old mills. She’s pretty well known, at least around here. She’s gone back to her maiden name, Rosie Boyagian.”

“Are you still in touch with her?”

“I am. I’m going to call her first thing in the morning. I know she’s still friendly with Stephen and Tracey. This must be terrible for her.”

“Thanks.” Ruth felt suddenly tired. “It may be helpful.”

“It’s just so sad about Tracey. I know you’re used to this stuff. It doesn’t get to you anymore.”

Ruth’s mind flashed to the way her heart had felt like it would break as she held Carson Kendall in his sandbox, and to her reaction when she saw the stripped SUV. It did still get to her. Some of it, anyway. She’d just become adept at hiding it. But she said none of this to her sister. Instead they indulged in some idle gossip about their feckless mother, who had gone off to San Francisco without telling a soul.

“Honestly, she is too much,” Helen laughed. Then she asked after Marty and the children. It was almost midnight when Ruth got her to hang up.

The phone rang again immediately. Carse was on the other end. “He’s been spotted! Pace has been seen by several people in New Hampshire—Salton Beach. We’re working with their state and local guys to get the word out now.”

Ruth hung up after this call with a sense of satisfaction. Her gamble had paid off. Pace was in their sights. And, Fran Powell had confirmed his relationship with Tracey Kendall. Maybe once they had Pace, he would confess and her problems would be solved. Ruth went to bed and fell into a deep and dreamless sleep.