Running of the bulls

CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

6:26 p.m.

Helena Adams’ home was four houses to the left of DeSoto’s and almost directly across from Wood’s. It was three stories of bricks and shiny casement windows, black shutters pressed with winding ivy, a carved mahogany door with stained glass and reinforced, Marty suspected, with at least two inches of steel.

He looked down the street, toward the Park that was so close at the end of it, and watched the dozens of people rushing by on the sidewalk. They were either hurrying up Fifth or hustling to move down it. He pressed the glowing buzzer and waited while trying to clear his mind of the scene he’d just had with DeSoto.

“Those rodents are going to eat you, too, Spellman.”

As he played their conversation over in his head, there was a part of Marty that now thought DeSoto told him more about Wood than he’d originally thought. The man spoke in code. Who were the rodents?

A young Asian woman answered the door.

“Mr. Spellman?” she asked. By her expensive, fitted pale blue suit, Marty guessed she was Adams’ secretary.

“Yes,” Marty said.

“I’m Theresa Wu, Mrs. Adams’ personal assistant. We’re having tea in the library. Mrs. Adams would like you to join us there.”

She stepped aside so he could move past her, then closed the door and motioned for him to follow her down a cool hallway lined with delicate antique tables and paintings on the walls. Marty looked at the tables and saw without surprise the silver-framed, black and white photographs of film stars from another era. Most were signed with love or affection, and none were studio shots. These were from Adams’ personal collection. Somewhere, a central air conditioner whirled cool air into the room.

They turned right at the end of the hall and entered a library whose walls were filled from floor to ceiling with books.

At the far end of the room, where the light was flattering, sat Helena Adams. She rose from her seat to greet him. “Marty,” she said. “God, it’s good to see you. Please, come in.”

Except for her hair, which was now a shorter, elegant silver bob that hugged her famous face, she looked no different from the woman he’d spent an evening with two years ago, at a fundraiser for AIDS research. Tall and slender, still striking in her eighth decade, she had the kind of grace and elegance that could only be natural, not learned or practiced. He took her hands in his own and squeezed them gently. “Thanks for seeing me.”

“I had little choice,” Helena said. “Gloria told me this was important. Have you ever turned that woman down? Awful. All that tense silence. I don’t have that kind of courage anymore.”

But of course she did, and they both knew it. Throughout the 1940s, Helena Adams starred in nearly three dozen films, two of which earned her Academy Awards for Best Actress and turned her into a legend. Hollywood occasionally courted her, but Helena turned her back on them forty years ago to marry Cecil Chadbourne, the billionaire investor. In the few interviews she’d given since, she never explained why she gave up a career as promising and as powerful as hers was then.

“Theresa,” Helena said, turning to her assistant. “Would you please get this kind man some tea?”

“Of course.”

Helena smiled at Theresa and they watched her leave the room. “She’s a super girl,” Helena said. “I’d be lost without her.” She turned to Marty and asked him to sit in the embroidered chintz chair opposite her. “I’m dictating my autobiography to her,” she said casually, sipping from her own cup of tea. “Now that Cecil’s gone, I can finally tell everything. We’re nearly finished and I can say this, Marty-I’ve had one hell of a life.”

“I don’t think anyone would question that, Helena.”

But Helena shook her head. “You don’t understand,” she said gravely. “I’ve done things no one knows about. I know things about Hollywood and New York society that everyone is going to question-especially the FBI.” She raised her hands. “Oh, I can’t wait till they get their greedy paws on this book. That’ll be an especially trying day. But I’m old and I don’t care. Keeping secrets can be a terrible burden, don’t you think?”

He nodded.

“Yes, in your business, I thought you might. It can ruin you, make you give up your dreams, throw away your life for one that doesn’t matter. It can even make you marry someone you hate. I’m ending that cycle now. I’m telling the truth about both towns. I’m burning my bridges and I love it. It’s something I should have done years ago. This is my ‘60s liberation five decades later. I’ll never eat lunch in either town again.”

She smiled at him, mysterious as ever. “You’ll have to read my book to know what I’m talking about, dear. I’m being vague on purpose. Part of my charm, I’m told, this vagueness of mine. Cecil told me that just before his accident.”

She stared openly at him and Marty had to wonder. Cecil Chadbourne died in a freak fall late last winter. Broke his neck after slipping on a patch of New York ice. Helena the widow had been too upset to attend her husband’s funeral. After all, right in front of her, she watched Cecil bleed out through his smashed head, take his last few breaths and die. Friends understood her absence, particularly when the business and entertainment media started camping outside her door. In an effort to get away from them, she flew to Paris to comfort herself in the lush confines of their apartment overlooking the Seine.

Theresa returned with a silver tea service. She put the tray down on the table between Marty and Helena, poured Marty a cup of the steaming tea, offered him milk, sugar, NutraSweet, the works, and then asked Helena if she would like another cup.

But Helena shook her head and waved her hand expansively. “I’m fine, dear, fine. Really, you’re like a well-paid, attentive nurse, rather than an assistant. Why don’t you sit down and join us? Mr. Spellman here is about to ask me to help him with something important-I can see it on his face-and I’m curious to know what on Earth that could be.”

Theresa sat in the chair beside Marty and crossed her legs. She was a fit, beautiful distraction with hair that dipped past her shoulders and a face that reflected intelligence and something else. A mild flirtation? She tilted her head and smiled at him, her eyes lowering a bit.

Helena straightened. “Well?” she said. “Come on, Marty, you know I hate suspense. What’s this all about? Somehow, you managed to get Gloria involved, so it has to be good if you were willing to go there. Are you reviewing one of my movies? Did you want an exclusive interview? Is that what you’re seeking?”

Marty looked away from the smiling Theresa Wu and said: “Actually, it’s about Judge Wood. Did you know her?”

Helena touched the diamond brooch fastened to the pocket of her white silk blouse and looked disappointed. “This is about that Wood woman?”

Marty nodded.

“Nothing else?”

“I’m afraid not.”

“Not even one of my movies?”

“You know I love your movies.”

“Obviously, not enough to review them. I read your blog, you know. The young people who leave all those enthusiastic comments should know about my work, don’t you agree?”

“I do,” he said. “‘Private Affair’ is coming out on Blu-ray next month. I plan to cover it.”

“That would be nice. And, you know what? It’s held up well. I was nominated for it, of course, but lost to that Crawford bitch when she started her smear campaign against me. Meanest person I ever met and there she was winning for being slapped across the face by that brat in ‘Mildred Pierce.’ Davis and I used to talk about her for hours. We’d rage against her. Bette would say that she wanted to snatch her bald, whatever that meant, though I expect it had to do with the fact that Crawford had trailers filled with wigs.” She waved her hand again. “But that’s all in the book and obviously my career isn’t why you’re here. Why are you interested in Wood?”

“I can’t say, Helena.”

“Not even to me?”

“Not even to you.”

She shrugged. “Well,” she said. “It was worth a try. Don’t you think, Theresa, dear? Always try. But I suppose it doesn’t really matter, anyway, because I know nothing about the woman. I told the police that this morning. A very tall detective with the bluest eyes I’ve ever seen came here to question me. Beautiful. What was his name, Theresa?”

“Hines.”

“That’s right. Hines. Those shoulders of his were incroyable. I wanted to make up things just so he’d stay, but that would have been illegal and I’ve broken enough laws in my life, as you’ll soon find out. So, I played it smart and told him the truth. I didn’t know her.”

And you also didn’t want to get involved in an investigation, Marty thought. Especially one of this magnitude. He sipped his tea, wondering how best to play this. Meanwhile, Theresa tilted her head to the other side and recrossed her legs.

“Whatever you say to me will be kept private,” he promised. “It’ll never come back to you. You will only ever be known as a source. I give you my word on that, Helena.”

“I’m sure you do,” Helena said. “But it changes nothing. I still didn’t know that woman. Like everyone else in New York, she kept to herself. Oh, there was a time when I tried to get to know her, but that was years ago, after she became famous for sentencing those men to prison for securities fraud. But it came to nothing.”

“Would you tell me about that?”

Helena shrugged. “It was Cecil,” she said dismissively. “He spoke about that woman every day for three weeks. When Wood became popular, he asked me to invite her to dinner. The stupid man was fascinated by her, had a little crush on her, wanted to know everything about her. But she never returned my calls or answered my invitations. The woman would have nothing to do with us. Nothing. It was as if we weren’t-us. You couldn’t imagine how that upset Cecil. He wasn’t used to being refused anything and went on about it for days.”

“Did you ever notice anything unusual in Wood’s behavior?”

“Like what?”

“You two were neighbors,” Marty said. “You must have seen her coming and going at some point.”

“Well, of course, I did,” Helena said. “But that was hardly an everyday event.”

“Doesn’t matter,” Marty said. “You saw her. You were able to draw conclusions, even if you were unaware of it at the time.”

Helena looked away and finished her tea. She fingered her brooch and said nothing. Theresa Wu shot him a concerned glance, which Marty ignored. Like Emilio DeSoto, Helena knew something. He saw it the moment she turned away from him.

“Come on, Helena,” he said. “This is important. Did you ever see anything unusual? Wood leaving late? Or maybe coming home drunk the next morning?”

“Now you’re describing half of New York,” Helena said, but it wasn’t with any real conviction. She turned to the window beside her and looked across the way. The reporters were packing up and leaving Wood’s home. Helena watched them go and her thin, narrow shoulders drooped a little. She sighed. “Oh, all right, Marty,” she said. “I’m too old for this and you’re too good. Yes, I know something. I was even considering putting it in the book, but I give up. I’ll tell it to you.”

She looked at him, her eyes suddenly and surprisingly hard. “But this goes nowhere. If it comes back to me, I’ll deny it all and make you look a fool. People believe old women like me. It’s one of the few treasures of being my age, this universal belief that the elderly are too sweet to lie. And even though I haven’t made a movie in decades, I haven’t lost my bag of tricks. I’m still one hell of an actress. Understood?”

Marty understood.

“When Cecil died, I had trouble sleeping. He was a big man in every way-this home became a vacuum without him in it and I wasn’t used to the silence. So I would wander around the house at all hours. I’d read or I’d phone friends in Europe or I’d watch television. Sometimes, I’d even turn on the radio and listen to music while thinking about the past and all I gave up for one man.

“One night, about a month after Cecil’s death, I was standing at my bedroom window thinking about that piece of ice that killed him when I saw a car pull up in front of Wood’s house. It was big and black and expensive, the kind of car you’d expect in this neighborhood, the kind of car Cecil would have bought for himself.”

“What time was this?” Marty asked.

“Late,” Helena said. “Past three.”

“In the morning?”

“Yes. It was winter and it was cold.”

“Could you see who was inside the car?”

“Just let me talk, Marty.”

He listened.

“No,” she said. “I never saw who was inside that car. But when Wood came rushing out of her house and swung open the passenger door, I saw from the interior light that the car was filled with people.” She lowered her voice a notch. “And all of them were naked, just as Wood was.”

Theresa excused herself and left the room.

Marty watched her go and felt the moment stretch. At first he wasn’t sure he had heard Helena right, but of course he knew he had. He thought of Wood’s tattoo, of the date smeared in blood above her bed, of her missing head, and wondered again where all this was leading. “She came out of her house naked?” he asked.

Helena nodded.

“You’re certain of this?”

“I think I know a naked woman when I see one, Marty. Kendra Wood wasn’t wearing a stitch of clothing. And neither was anyone in that car.”

Later, as Marty was leaving, it was Theresa Wu who stopped him in the entryway.

She pressed a manila envelope into his hand and said in a quick, nervous whisper, “Early yesterday morning, while Mrs. Adams was still asleep, I saw this woman leaving Judge Wood’s home. I’m positive it was her. I’d know her anywhere.”

“Who is it?”

“You’ll see. And you mustn’t tell anyone I told you this. I’ll deny it all, just like Mrs. Adams. Neither of us wants a scandal right now. Neither of us can afford being connected in any way to this. But you’ll look into it, won’t you? I think she might be involved in what happened to Judge Wood. She was carrying a large box when she left that house. She looked frightened. Terrified. But there was something else on her face-rage, I think.”

Wu opened the door and asked Marty to leave. “Mrs. Adams mustn’t know,” she began in earnest, but Marty never heard the rest. By then, he had already opened the envelope and shaken out the paperback book Wu had placed inside it.

He turned it over and looked at the photo on the back cover. And when he did, his skin shrank away in chill.

The familiar, scarred face of Maggie Cain was smiling back at him.