“Christine, it’s Gary. Call me when you get this.”
She hit “Save” and moved on, in no mood to deal with Stephen’s agent. To her dismay, the message that followed was also from Gary. His voice sounded oddly strained. “It’s me again. Please call me back so I know you’re all right.”
Was she all right?
Christine blew out a sigh. She appreciated him checking on her, but it was hard to say what constituted all right these days. She jabbed the button again. This time Gary’s tone bordered on urgent.
“Christine—Jesus. Where the hell are you? I’ve been trying to reach you for two days now, and all I get is this damn machine. Call me as soon as you get this. We need to talk.”
She rolled her eyes as she checked her watch. She had time for only one phone call before she had to leave, and it wasn’t going to be about book advances and movie rights. She needed—no, she deserved—to at least know the name of the woman who had died with her husband.
She dialed Connelly’s number from memory—after four failed attempts she knew it by heart. Not that she expected to catch him at his desk. He was always out on some investigation when she called, or in the middle of an interview. Today proved no different.
The woman who answered the phone informed her briskly that Detective Connelly was out of the office and promptly shunted her off to his voice mail. She left another message for what it was worth—the fifth by her count—and hung up. Maybe it was just coincidence that he was never available, but part of her wondered if he was purposely dodging her calls. Perhaps he’d learned more than he wanted to and was trying to spare her the truth. If so, he was wasting his time. That ship had sailed.
Christine checked the time once more and picked up her purse. She had a husband to memorialize. But first, she was going to have to navigate her way through the mob of reporters at the gate.
Her palms felt sticky as she backed the Rover out of the garage and down the driveway, then reached for the remote clipped to the driver’s side visor. She thought Stephen was just being paranoid when he’d insisted on installing a perimeter fence and security gates—to keep out crazed fans and curiosity seekers, he’d explained—but now she was grateful. Though she doubted he had foreseen a time when the curiosity seekers would turn out to be members of the press clamoring for a glimpse of his widow.
The furor began the moment the gates began to slide back, reporters with notepads and cell phone cameras held aloft squeezing through the opening like a colony of fire ants. Apparently they’d seen the memorial notice in the Herald and were hoping to grab a quote as she left the house. The Rover lurched backward as she goosed the accelerator. She held her breath as she continued down the drive, eyes focused straight ahead as she inched past the gaggle of leering faces. Just a few more yards and she’d be home free.
She was about to breathe a sigh of relief when a meaty fist pounded on the driver’s side window. She hit the brakes with a strangled yelp, glancing up in time to see a man in a red L.L. Bean parka plaster a newspaper against the glass. Suddenly, horribly, she understood. The reporters weren’t here for a quote about Stephen’s memorial. They were here to get her reaction to the grisly image staring back from the front page of the Examiner—the empty eyes of Stephen’s Jane Doe.
THE NAKED AND THE DEAD: MYSTERY BLONDE PULLED FROM STEPHEN LUDLOW’S CAR
The earth shifted as Christine stared at the headline, a slow, shuddering quake that only she seemed to notice. As if sensing her dismay, the reporters’ questions ratcheted up, swelling from hungry clamor to full-blown frenzy. Frantic, she cast about for some route of escape, only to find herself hopelessly cut off from both the road and the open garage door. She was going to have to make a run for it.
They rushed her the instant her foot touched the driveway, like a pack of gulls after a toddler with a french fry. There was no scurrying for the front door. No scurrying anywhere. Instead, she was forced to elbow her way through the crush, eyes fixed desperately on the front door. If she could just get inside and bolt herself in, she’d be safe. But the reporters knew it too and collectively wedged themselves between her and the front steps, so that her only choice was to brave the gauntlet.
Lowering her head, she plunged into the fray, muscling past faces that seemed to blur into a single, greedy entity bent on blocking her path. She was nearly sobbing by the time she reached the front door, so shaken she almost dropped her house key. She had lost her scarf somewhere in the press, and the top button on her jacket was hanging by a thread, but she didn’t care. All she cared about was reaching sanctuary.
“Mrs. Ludlow!” A woman’s voice suddenly rose above the din. “Do you know the woman they pulled from your husband’s car the night he died and were they involved sexually?”
A momentary hush fell as the mob waited for a response. When none came, the questions resumed.
“Can you comment on the fact that she wasn’t wearing any clothes when they pulled her from the car?”
“The police are still referring to the woman as Jane Doe. Can you tell us her name?”
“Do you know how long the relationship had been going on?”
“Have there been other women, or was she the first?”
Christine nearly wept as her house key slid home. By the time she pushed inside and shot the deadbolt, she was gulping back tears. She had no idea how long she stood there, too shaken to make her legs move, but suddenly she knew she was going to be sick. Panicked, she dropped her purse and scrambled for the kitchen where she retched over the sink until she was limp-limbed and quaking all over. She’d never been comfortable in crowds, but a mob of reporters hurling questions about her dead husband’s mistress was an entirely new level of discomfort.
After splashing her face and pulling a bottle of water from the refrigerator, she wandered back to the living room, careful to steer clear of the windows. Her purse was still on the floor. She bent to pick it up, then froze when she spotted a rumpled copy of the Examiner inside, no doubt the work of one of the reporters in the scrum.
Her hands trembled as she smoothed out the wrinkles. The photo had clearly been taken at the morgue. But by whom? And how had it ended up on the front page of a national tabloid? Jane Doe’s face stared back at her in grainy black and white, her once vivid violet eyes reduced to a nondescript shade of gray. It took all the strength she had to keep turning pages until she located the actual story: a grisly two-page spread along with another splashy headline:
CAN YOU IDENTIFY THIS WOMAN?
There were four additional photos scattered throughout the article, each more disturbing than the last. The first was an enlarged shot and very blurry, and yet there was no mistaking the crescent-shaped birthmark on the woman’s right breast, highlighted now with a circle of bright-red ink. The next two shots were of her face, one taken straight on, the other in profile. The last photo was a shot of her lying on the gurney, the polished toes of her right foot peeking obscenely from the sheet draped over the lower half of her body.
The story itself was no better, full of dark implications and gruesome innuendo, though given the evidence, it was hard to draw any conclusion but the obvious one. Christine stared at the blackout boxes strategically placed over the woman’s breasts, certain their purpose had less to do with journalistic discretion than with heightening curiosity. Everything about the piece—the explicit photos, the celebrity name, the untimely death of a beautiful blonde—bore the distinct whiff of erotic tragedy, conjuring names like Mansfield and Monroe, as had no doubt been intended. Only this blonde had no name.
Though it was only a matter of time until the press learned her identity and went digging for the rest of the story. Battling a fresh wave of nausea, she reached for the TV remote and began surfing. It didn’t take long—only three clicks—to find Stephen’s face splashed across the screen. And hers. The picture was from their vacation in Barbados three years ago. How had they gotten it?
“Stephen and Christine Ludlow were married in 2008
” the Entertainment Tonight anchor was saying as a fresh round of photographs appeared on screen. “By all accounts, their marriage had been a happy one. But recent developments are raising questions about whether Ludlow might have been romantically involved with the scantily clad woman whose photos have now appeared in several tabloids. No identification was found when divers retrieved her body from Ludlow’s car. Authorities tell us the investigation into the woman’s identity is ongoing. Ludlow’s wife has been unavailable for comment. We’ll continue to keep you updated on this story as information becomes available.”
Christine clicked, then clicked again, running through the list of cable news channels. The story was everywhere. Different talking heads, different photos, but the gist of the coverage was the same. Iconic author dies while cheating on wife with mystery blonde. Only now the story wasn’t just about Stephen or even the Jane Doe. It had become about her too.
In the kitchen, she picked up the phone and punched in the number for the Clear Harbor police. This time, when the desk sergeant answered, she refused to be handed off to Connelly’s voice mail.
“No, I do not want to leave a message,” she barked irritably. “I’ve left messages. Five of them to be precise, for all the good they’ve done me. So what I need you to do right now is put me on hold and go find him. Don’t come back and tell me he’s in an interview or out on a case. I’m a case. My dead husband is a case. So unless you want me to come down there and camp out in the lobby, you’ll put him on the phone.”
There was no response, just a curt click followed by empty silence as she was put on hold. While she waited, she picked up her water bottle and pressed it to her cheek, then her neck, wondering what excuse she’d be given this time. She nearly dropped the phone when Connelly’s voice came over the line.
“Christine, I’m sorry. I’ve been swamped. As I’m sure you’ve seen, there’s been . . . a development.”
“Yes, I’ve seen,” she snapped. “I’ve seen that my driveway is so full of reporters I can’t get out to attend my husband’s memorial service. I thought you said you could keep things quiet.”
There was a long pause, then a gravelly rumble as Connelly cleared his throat. “There was a leak, Christine. It sucks, but it happens. If the brass ever finds out who it was, they’ll be fired, but at this point the genie’s out of the bottle.”
“The genie’s out of the bottle? That’s what you have to say to me after a reporter just stuck a half-naked picture of your Jane Doe in my face? That’s how I found out about the leak. Not a phone call—a mob of reporters on my front steps.”
“I didn’t mean it like that, Christine, and I’m sorry. But it all just blew up. The pictures are out there, and the media wants to know what we know.”
“And what do you know?”
There was another long pause, the sound of a heavy breath being let out slowly. “Unfortunately, not much more than we did the night of the accident. We got a few tips this morning after the photos broke. We’re checking them out, but in cases like this, you tend to get a lot of crackpots. So far there’s nothing concrete. Whoever she was, no one’s looking for her. At least not yet.”
“So what do I do? I live on a private road, and I can’t get out of my house. They’re practically camped out on my front porch. I can’t even close the front gates.”
“I’ll send a car around to move them off your property and clear the street. I can’t guarantee they won’t be back, but for now at least, we can give you a little breathing room.”
“And you’ll call me when you finally know something?”
“Christine.” His voice was annoyingly paternal. “Sometimes the best thing for everyone is to just move on, to remember the good times instead of dwelling on a lot of unpleasantness. A name isn’t going to change anything. Why not leave the police business to us, hmm?”
“Because we’re not talking about police business, Detective. We’re talking about my life. My husband. My marriage. My driveway. So please don’t condescend to me. The way I see it a wife’s right to know the truth trumps a friend’s desire to sweep his poker buddy’s indiscretions under the rug. Come to think of it, you didn’t seem all that surprised that there was a woman in my husband’s car the night he died.”
“Christine—”
“You knew, didn’t you? Maybe not her name, but you knew there was someone.”
Another sigh, this one weightier than the last. “I wasn’t sure, but I suspected. He’d let a few things slip now and then. Nothing specific, just . . . things. He never mentioned a name, though, and I never pressed him for one.”
“Of course not. That would be breaking the rules.”
“Rules?”
“The cheater’s club or whatever you call it. All for one and one for all. Isn’t that how it works?”
“Look, Christine, I know this hasn’t been easy for you, especially the way it all went down, but one thing I do know is that Stephen—”
“Don’t!” she snapped, cutting him off. “Don’t you dare say he loved me. That isn’t why I called, to have you reassure me that a half-naked woman in my husband’s car doesn’t mean anything. She means something to me. I think I have the right to at least know her name—and I don’t mean by reading it in the tabloids. It’s been a week, and honestly, I’m beginning to wonder if you’re not dragging your feet on purpose.”
“What is it you’re accusing me of?” The paternal tone was gone, replaced with a gruff wariness.
“I’m not accusing you of anything. All I want is a name. And the number or address of someone who might be able to tell me what was going on between that woman and my husband.”
“Look, I don’t have the information you want, but even if I did, I couldn’t share it with you. Victims have rights, Christine. So do their families. In other words, there are rules. And if we break those rules, we get in trouble. I’ve put in a whole lot of years here and put up with a whole lot of crap. At this point, all I want is to get out and spend a few years on a little sailboat down in the Keys. I’m not about to stick my neck out, not even for the wife of a friend. I know that sounds harsh, but I have to look out for myself here. Stephen’s death wasn’t a homicide, which means I’m not even the guy you should be talking to. If anything, it’s a missing-persons case, and it’s not even that since no one’s filed an actual complaint on her. Either way, it’s not my purview. Now I need to go do my job. I’ll make sure they send that patrol car around, but I’m sorry, that’s all I can do.”
And just like that Daniel Connelly was gone.
Christine was still leaning against the counter, wondering why she’d just been given the brush-off, when the phone rang. She pounced on it, hoping Connelly had changed his mind. Instead, it was Dorsey and Sons. In the mayhem, she had forgotten that Stephen’s friends and colleagues were at that very moment gathering to pay him tribute—and wondering what had happened to the widow.
As it turned out, she needn’t have worried. Apparently, the barrage of breaking news had whittled the number of mourners to an awkward handful. But then that really wasn’t surprising. Who in their right mind would want to look her in the eye now, let alone gush about what a great guy she’d married?
Using the vaguest language possible, she explained that she had been unavoidably detained and wasn’t likely to get there anytime soon. Mr. Dorsey, presumably one of the sons, was delicacy itself as he inquired about how best to proceed. In the end, she advised him to cancel the service but to go ahead with the cremation, which he had agreed to do in tones that could be described only as painfully polite. He hadn’t come right out and said so, but she was certain he’d seen the photos. Everyone had by now. Apparently the old adage was true—the wife really was the last to know.
Two hours later, Christine caught the sharp whoop-whoop of a police siren out in front of the house. She hurried to the living room window, peering out in time to see a Clear Harbor patrol car inching up the crowded drive, blue lights flashing. The officer stepped out a
nd began waving his arms, gesturing to the NO TRESPASSING signs posted at regular intervals along the fence. There was a brief bit of protest, but eventually the gaggle began filing toward the open gates.
Christine watched as the driveway slowly emptied, and one by one, the news trucks pulled away. When the last truck was gone, she stepped to the control panel in the foyer and closed the front gates, then returned to the window to double-check. She stood there for a time, staring at the empty street, trying to locate something like relief. For the first time in seven days, there was no one camped out in front of the house, no reporters lying in wait.
It took all the energy she could summon to drag herself up to the bedroom and shuck off her funeral clothes. She was thinking about the scarf she had lost somewhere in the driveway when she heard a clatter out on the terrace. Curious, she stepped to the doors and peered past her reflection, stunned to find a reporter pointing a camera at her as she stood there in nothing but a pair of panties.
Too alarmed to scream, she dropped to a crouch, dragging the duvet from the bed and wrapping it around her as she dove for the phone. On realizing he’d been discovered, the intruder abandoned his shot and scrambled for the stairs, stumbling briefly as he hurdled a patio chair, then streaked for the back fence. A moment later, he was gone.
Christine looked at the phone in her hand. Dialing 911 wasn’t going to solve anything. She had managed to scare off one intruder, but there would be more, climbing the fence, peering in her windows, rushing her car the next time she tried to leave the house. They would never leave her alone.
Unless she wasn’t here.
With an almost eerie calm, she stood and went to the closet, pulled on a pair of jeans and a faded Patriots sweatshirt, then dragged her old weekender from the top shelf. She wouldn’t need much: jeans, a few pairs of leggings, a couple of sweaters, her toiletry case from under the bathroom sink. And the contents of the safe.
When Never Comes Page 3