Mother Shadow

by Melodie Johnson Howe

  Claire and I sat in the back of the church. While an organ heaved and sighed sad chords, I pointed out the Kenilworths to her. They sat in the first pew. Sutton had his arm around Eleanor. Her thin shoulders quivered with grief. Judith sat as close to Brian Waingrove as his ungiving body would allow. The family doctor, the family lawyer, Aiko, and Maria sat near by. None of the other mourners looked familiar to me. Most of them, meaning the men, had an air of functional importance like city bureaucrats.

  “You don’t see Patricia Kenilworth?” Claire asked.

  “No. I had the feeling they wouldn’t want her at the funeral—or anywhere else, for that matter.”

  “Why don’t they get on with this? Or are they trying to give us an example of the limbo of eternity Ellis Kenilworth is experiencing?” she moaned, moving her long body uneasily in the hard, puritanical pew.

  A woman sitting in front of us craned her head around, screwed up her powdered face into a knot of disdain, let Claire take a good look at it, then turned back to the cross and the coffin.

  I concentrated on a stained-glass window. A white-robed saint with the most heavenly blue eyes and sexy, blond, surfer’s hair cuddled a fluffy lamb in the crook of his arm. He looked like a veterinarian I knew who lived in Malibu. I’d dated him for a while. Nothing serious.

  The minister appeared between the coffin and the pulpit. He wore a dark blue suit and a maroon silk tie. His thick, wavy hair was as white as Weber’s bread. I like my men of God to wear collars and funny hats and kingly robes, like the Pope. I want to know that I’m in the presence of a man of God. I want to know whom I’m talking to.

  When he spoke, his voice was as flat as the Midwest. “Those who trust in God shall understand the truth.”

  The oak doors opened. Sunlight plunged into the church, and with it came Patricia Kenilworth in tight-fitting black. A veil waved over her face like a dark mist. The diamond studs flashed. With her was a woman in a dove-gray suit; a wide-brimmed hat swooped down and covered her profile. Patricia hesitated, her body wavering, like an actress who has forgotten her lines. The woman in gray took her hand, and together they walked defiantly down the aisle. There was something familiar in the woman’s undulating walk. I was sure I had met her before.

  Claire whispered, “Patricia Kenilworth?”

  “In the widow’s weeds.”

  I had to give it to her—she walked all the way down to where the Kenilworths sat. The mourners stretched their necks for a better view. Whispers grew louder. The woman in gray forced the Kenilworths to stand as she and Patricia pushed into the pew.

  The minister managed to continue: “We cannot judge a man by his death. But we can judge a man by his life.”

  As the woman in gray moved into the pew, she turned and faced the congregation. I recognized her. I had spent many a lonely Wednesday night sitting on my bed, eating pizza, watching her on “Family Rites.”

  “Victoria Moor,” I gasped.

  “The actress?” Claire leaned forward.

  “I saw her yesterday getting her star on Hollywood Boulevard.”

  Slowly the whispers turned to coughs, as the minister gave a glowing account of Ellis Kenilworth’s life. Patricia Kenilworth was never mentioned. I sat and wondered what Victoria Moor was doing at Ellis Kenilworth’s funeral. The minister’s voice filtered into my thoughts.

  “And now we must surrender Ellis Kenilworth into Your tender, wounded hands, O Lord, where You can comfort and listen to his moaning soul. Let us pray. Our Father…”

  Moaning soul…I stared at the casket and I knew it was up to me to put Ellis Kenilworth to rest.

  When the service was over, I started to get up. Claire stopped me. “We wait till the family leaves.”

  The mourners moved cautiously down the aisle toward the coffin and the Kenilworth family. One by one they paid their last respects and filed out. Some took a last look at Kenilworth. Most took a last look at Victoria Moor. Soon they were gone, and only the minister, the Kenilworths, Patricia, and the actress remained. We stayed in our pew in the back of the church, watching.

  Eleanor Kenilworth rose shakily to her feet. Hard aquamarine eyes stared at Patricia and Victoria Moor. “How dare you come to his funeral! You have no right here!”

  Patricia took the actress’s hand. “I told you we shouldn’t have come. Let’s go.”

  “No, Mother. I have every right to see my father buried.” Victoria Moor’s voice was firm.

  Surprised at what I’d just heard, I turned and looked at Claire. She slouched down in the pew, her hand resting on the handle of her walking stick, her face expressionless.

  “Please leave,” Judith begged. “Get out of our lives.”

  “That’s impossible now, isn’t it? Eleanor’s made it impossible,” Victoria said.

  Anger transformed Eleanor’s frail body to one of vigor.

  “You killed him! You killed him!” she repeated fiercely.

  “His own guilt killed him,” the actress snapped back. “And I’m glad it did.”

  Eleanor raised a black-gloved hand and slapped Victoria Moor across the mouth, knocking her hat off. Bleached-blond curls bounced voluptuously. Sutton and Judith didn’t move.

  The minister turned and looked at the coffin as if Ellis could see how unseemly his funeral had become. He mumbled, “Tragedy makes us do things we may—”

  “Stop using euphemisms! My son blew his head off,” Eleanor screamed.

  Waingrove leaped into action. “Take her out through the rectory. I’ll have the car brought around,” he commanded Judith.

  But she didn’t go near her mother. Brian looked at Sutton. He didn’t move, either. And I realized Sutton was afraid of his mother. As if reaching out to a snarling dog, he slowly, carefully, put his arm around her.

  “If only you could have just left him alone! If you could have just let him be mine,” Eleanor sobbed as the minister guided her and Sutton through the rectory door. Judith followed at a safe distance.

  Brian picked up Victoria’s hat and handed it to her.

  “Thank you, darling,” she said.

  “You could at least have told me you were planning to attend.”

  “Don’t talk to me the way you talk to Judith.”

  They stared at one another.

  “You’d better go and tell the driver to bring the car around. If I finish shooting in time, I may see you after the symposium,” she said.

  Brian sniffed the air and went out the side door of the church.

  The two women turned and faced the casket. Their backs were to us.

  “You were born out of love, Victoria. You must believe that.” Patricia took her daughter’s hand.

  “I was born—no, was created out of your anger.”

  “My despair. You’ll at least give me that.”

  “I wonder if Frankenstein created his monster out of despair.”

  “Stop it! You are a beauty. You are my beauty.”

  “I want to go, Mother.”

  The two women turned away from the casket and started up the aisle. They saw us. For a moment they froze, heads tilted at right angles. Both had their left hands raised to their throats. They looked alike. But it was more than a family resemblance—it was a surgical resemblance. Their tiny noses had been sculpted by the same plastic surgeon. Noses designed for display. Breathing was secondary. The green eyes, wide and lifted, gave them both a sly, startled look. The only difference was age.

  “Oh…it’s Ellis’s secretary…isn’t it?” Patricia said, peering nervously up the aisle at us.

  Claire and I stood. “Maggie Hill,” I said.

  “That’s right. So nice of you to come.” She took her daughter’s hand and moved toward us. “Do you have something for me?” she asked innocently.

  “We would like to talk to you,” Claire said, handing Patricia her card.

  She read it, then handed it to Victoria.

  “I usually know when I have an audience.” The actress handed the card back to Cla
ire.

  “Did you ever find your codicil?” Patricia asked me.

  “No.”

  “You have had a run of bad luck.”

  “Somebody else told me that.”

  “We’ll talk with them in the limo, Mother.”

  As we went outside, I took one last look at Kenilworth’s coffin. I thought I heard the moaning of his soul.

  The sun turned everything white. The few remaining mourners blurred in the glare. I put on my sunglasses, and slowly the world came back into focus.

  “People are looking at me, Mother. Hurry,” Victoria said nervously.

  “I’m trying, darling.”

  The mourners herded together and began to move slowly down the slope of lawn toward Victoria. Their somber gray faces brightened with the hope of touching a star. One woman already had her printed funeral service folded and ready for an autograph. She waved a pen at Victoria as if it were a magic wand.

  The long white limousine was parked in front of the Bentley. Boulton leaned against the side of the dinosaur, watching.

  “Follow us if needed,” Claire said to him. He nodded and got into the Bentley.

  Victoria’s chauffeur held the door for us. He reminded me of the muscle-bound guy painted on the rug-cleaning van. Mounds of biceps pushed against the dark sleeves of his jacket. Peroxided hair was cut perfectly. I could see only my own sunglasses in his reflective sunglasses.

  Patricia curled into the corner of the limo. Claire sat next to her. Victoria took the other corner. I got the jump seat.

  “Let’s get out of here. Drive till I tell you to stop,” Victoria commanded the chauffeur.

  We moved slowly away from the church. Facing the back window, I watched the Bentley follow us, and the mourners, teetering on the edge of the curb like tightrope walkers, stretching their necks for one last look at Victoria Moor.

  “I have a two o’clock call at the studio, so I don’t have time to wander aimlessly around Pasadena. What do you want?” she asked. The green eyes were as hard as emeralds.

  “Miss Hill’s apartment was broken into,” Claire said. “Nothing was taken. We think they were looking for Ellis Kenilworth’s suicide note. Your mother made her interest in that note very clear to Miss Hill.”

  “You’re accusing Mother of breaking and entering?” Victoria laughed. “Look at those nails. She can hardly open a refrigerator.” She held up Patricia’s soft white hand, displaying the long, pointed, mauve-colored nails.

  Claire smiled. “Yes. I see what you mean. It’s just that your mother made it clear that she would reward Miss Hill if she knew where the suicide note was.”

  “And does Miss Hill need rewarding?” Victoria asked, staring boldly into Claire’s eyes.

  “Call me Maggie,” I said. The three women ignored me.

  “I think it’s possible that by tomorrow or the next day at the latest we will be in a position to discuss the matter with you,” Claire said.

  I tried to keep my face passive while I wondered what the hell she was doing.

  Patricia leaned toward me. “You did take it. You had to. Even Eleanor said as much.”

  “Mother!” Victoria glared at her. “Why don’t we wait and see if they have it.”

  Patricia curled back into her corner. I could feel her cat eyes watching me through the wisp of black.

  “I’ve been dying to ask this question,” Victoria said. “Do all women private eyes carry a walking stick?” She had turned as chatty as a girlfriend, and like most girlfriends she didn’t wait for an answer. “I used to carry a walking stick. It’s true!” she added as if we’d questioned her. “When I was twenty I was raped.” She said this like I would say, When I was twenty I was an English major in college.

  “Victoria…don’t…” Patricia warned.

  “Mother, as usual, turned a terrible situation into a situation of opportunity.” The perfectly lined, painted, and glossed lips pressed together.

  “Please…” Patricia begged.

  The pink lips parted. “She decided that my rape would make great press. But she had to make my rape unique. I mean, what’s another rape, right? Of course she had the good taste to tone it down a bit. Mother decided that the story should be that the man tried to attack me and all I had to defend myself with was a tatty old umbrella. But I was successful in beating off my attacker. Actually, the man succeeded again and again…well, that’s another story. We had very little money, but she had a yellow suede outfit made up with a yellow suede walking stick to match. Then she wrangled an interview with this syndicated columnist. Four martinis at lunch and he’d print anything you told him. We told him that I always carried a walking stick because I was so distraught by this man’s attempted rape. You know—if a man tried it again, I’d hit him over the head with my cane.” Victoria laughed. Patricia cringed. I didn’t blame her.

  “Mother told him I had a polka-dot walking stick to match my polka-dot bikini. Do you believe it? A walking stick to match every outfit! The guy bought it—though I think we paid for five martinis. I was in every newspaper from here to some little town in Maine. Me and my walking stick, fighting off men because I was so sexy. So beautiful.”

  “It worked!” Patricia blurted. “You’ve worked. You’ve never stopped. You’re a star.”

  “Television star,” Victoria corrected.

  “The only kind left,” Patricia snapped.

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. And Claire was sitting there listening and nodding her head as if she were attending a lecture on nuclear fission. Why didn’t she ask about Bobby Alt?

  “That’s really interesting,” I said. “But do you know a man—”

  “Actually, I carry a walking stick because I’ve had my female parts excised,” Claire said, interrupting me.

  That put a damper on the conversation. Patricia curled away from Claire. Victoria stared out the blackened window. I stared out mine. I used to think that they darkened the windows in limos so the public couldn’t see into the car. But now I decided it was to keep the people in the limo from seeing too much of the outside. The people who rode around in these cars needed reality tinted.

  “I wish I didn’t bleed,” Victoria said to no one in particular.

  “By the way, how long have you known Brian Waingrove?” Claire asked.

  “Mother went to one of his symposiums. He now manages our money.”

  “Does he manage the Kenilworths’ money?”

  “When he found out I was the daughter of Ellis Kenilworth, he tried to ingratiate himself with Father. I told him it wouldn’t work.”

  “Judith thinks she’s in love with him,” I said.

  Victoria’s glossy pink lips formed a smile. “If one road is closed to Brian, he always tries another. It’s what makes him so good with money. You can imagine how awful he felt when he discovered that the Kenilworths didn’t have any.”

  “They once owned the hotel where I reside,” Claire said. “I’d think their profits from that sale would have left them quite well off.”

  Patricia smiled. “They sold that monstrosity in the fifties. Nobody in the family ever worked. They had no concept of how to handle money. They made bad investments. Thirty-some years go by and you have no money left. Victoria and I are wealthier than the Kenilworths. Of course, we work for our money, and we never make bad investments.” She licked her lips as if she could taste the money.

  “So the coin collection is all they have left?” Claire asked.

  “The house…some jewelry…but according to Maggie they don’t even own the collection. She says Ellis willed it to you.”

  “Do you think Waingrove knew the collection was worth four million?” Claire tapped the top of her walking stick.

  “I’m sure. Why else would he bother with Judith?” Victoria asked.

  “I got the impression, listening to you and Waingrove in the church, that he’s more than just your business manager,” I said.

  “I allow him into my bed.”

 
“And you don’t care if he plays around with Judith?”

  “That’s just business to him,” Victoria said.

  “Very romantic.” I smiled.

  “I hope he breaks what’s left of her shriveled little heart,” Patricia said.

  “What do you think Ellis wanted me to discover for my four million?” Claire looked at both women.

  Patricia turned away and again stared out the window.

  “You’re the detective, not me. Pull over here,” Victoria commanded the driver.

  “Would you mind if your chauffeur helped me out? I’m still not quite up to snuff,” Claire said.

  “Of course. Mother gave Maggie our phone number, so you know where to reach us.”

  “We’ll be getting in touch.”

  Patricia turned from the window and faced Claire. “When?” Her hand reached out for Claire’s wrist.

  “Mother…” Victoria warned. Patricia recoiled.

  The car door opened. The driver helped Claire out.

  Patricia lifted the black veil and looked at me. “I wouldn’t trust the Kenilworths if I were you. Any of them.”

  “Does that include you?”

  “I’m not a Kenilworth.” Patricia jerked the veil back down over her face.

  “Come along, Miss Hill.” Claire’s voice was firm.

  Not having had my female parts excised, I crawled out of the car on my own.

  We stood on the curb and watched the white limo pull away, the mother and daughter two shadows in the backseat. Boulton pulled up and got out of the car.

  I turned on Claire. “What the hell was that all about? Why didn’t you ask about Bobby Alt? We didn’t learn one thing!”

  “Bobby Alt is coming to see us after he drops Victoria and her mother off at the studio,” she said, placidly looking up at a crazy-eyed chicken holding a deep-fried drumstick in its feathered hand. It smiled down at us maniacally from the top of a fast-food dump.

  “Where are we, Boulton?” she asked.

  “We just crossed from Pasadena into Arcadia.”