Kendall sighed and set down the note on the zigzag, nursery style blue and white wood unit that Cindy had used as a dressing table, then turned towards the bathroom.
She leaned over Cindy’s body, bending down first to try to find a pulse at the wrist, then reached out as though to turn up the face, but recoiled: Cindy’s eyes bulged and her tongue protruded, her face swollen and discoloured. Kendall shut the shower door and walked out.
She stood in the centre of the room, breathing deeply to steady her nerves. She looked at the note again: very Cindy. But that was all finished with now, in the past. She shifted her gaze to her future, hanging in front of her in the form of a large Andrew Wyeth canvas on the wall...
Jose heard a single cry and looked at his wife. He was about to go into the bedroom when the door opened. Kendall almost pushed him out of her way as she hurried towards the master suite, stopping halfway along the passage to stare at another painting. She was breathing hard, and cried out again before she pushed open the doors to the master suite.
‘Go downstairs both of you, just go downstairs.’ She slammed the door after her.
Jose looked at his wife in confusion. ‘Do as she says, Jose.’
‘But shouldn’t we call someone? She’s dead in there,’ he said, pointing to Cindy’s bedroom. Suddenly there was a crash, and they heard a scream, as Kendall hurtled out of her ex-husband’s bedroom, her face flushed and her eyes wild.
‘Who else has been in this house? You’d better tell me, Jose. I want to know who has been in this fucking house, do you hear me?’
Jose was halfway down the stairs, but looked up to see Kendall leaning over the banisters.
‘Who has been here? Tell me.’
Juana answered from the bottom of the staircase. ‘No one, Mrs Nathan. I swear to you, no one but the police and Cindy.’
‘Has Feinstein been here? Any of his people?’ Kendall sprang down the stairs to stand, trembling with fury, in front of Jose and gave the man a sudden shove. ‘I want to know — tell me who has been here!’
Jose lost his footing, stumbled and clung to the rail. ‘No one, Mrs Nathan, I swear to you.’
Kendall held her head between her hands, repeating, ‘Oh, my God, oh, my God, no... No!’
Juana and Jose watched as Kendall ran from room to room like a woman possessed, screaming and shouting incoherently. She smashed ornaments, knocked a piece of sculpture to the ground, dragged two canvases from the walls. The couple were so scared they ran to the kitchen and shut the door. They stood listening to Kendall’s shouts and screams, and the thumps and crashes as she continued moving through the house. Then there was silence, but at least ten minutes passed before she walked in.
‘Call the police — call whoever you want, but you’d better call somebody and tell them about Cindy.’ Kendall made towards the back door.
‘Aren’t you staying, Mrs Nathan?’
Kendall opened the back door without even turning around. ‘No, I hope she rots in hell.’
The door slammed shut after her, and they heard the jeep rev up outside and roar into the road. Jose crossed to the telephone, and Juana looked at him, all distress gone from her face and her features set.
‘Who’s going to pay us what we’re due now?’
Chapter 7
Lorraine knew something was up as soon as she saw Decker’s face.
‘Cindy Nathan died last night.’
‘How?’ she asked, without emotion.
‘Found hanged in the shower. Looks like suicide — she left a note and, according to the guy at the house, the police aren’t treating it as murder, for the present at least.’
‘Jose called here?’
‘Yeah, about half an hour ago — phone was ringing as I walked in.’
‘What else did he say?’
Decker ran a hand through his hair. ‘Odd, really — I don’t think he knew why he’d called here. Said his wife suggested it. They both want to talk to you. I said you’d call when you got in.’
Lorraine pursed her lips. ‘I think I’ll do one better — I’ll go and see them. But first get me Jim Sharkey on the phone, would you?’ She changed her mind. ‘No. Ask if Lieutenant Burton will speak to me.’
As she closed her door, Decker knew immediately, from her lack of reaction to Cindy’s death, that something was troubling her. Her mood was abnormally flat, and she had deep circles beneath her eyes.
Lorraine was thinking rapidly. Why had Cindy committed suicide, if, in fact, she had? The girl hadn’t shown any signs of considering suicide, even just after her arrest when she had been under most strain, but perhaps alone, day after day at the house, the prospect of the trial had overwhelmed her. If she had killed her husband, maybe suicide had seemed like the easy way out or, at least, preferable to prison. But what about Kendall Nathan: Could she be involved in some illegal activity to do with the art market, and had killed Cindy, or had her killed, because she had found out? That seemed too far-fetched to be true, but there were the art works, which Kendall had so insistently declared were hers. Could Kendall have imagined that she would stand a better chance of claiming them, if Cindy was dead? She must have known that she would not inherit anything in Cindy’s place, and the collection would now most likely be shipped off to Milwaukee — Lorraine could not stifle a smile at the prospect of millions of dollars’ worth of modern art hanging on the walls at Cindy’s parents’ five and dime. Unless she had left it to someone else? Lorraine wrote herself an immediate memo to do three things: find out the exact terms of Harry Nathan’s will, if Cindy had made any provision in respect of her property, and to check out where Kendall Nathan had been when Cindy Nathan died.
Decker walked in, put some fresh coffee and bagels down on her desk, then tilted his head to one side. ‘You seem kind of low.’
‘Well, maybe I am. Let’s face it, we just lost a big client.’
‘That’s all, is it?’
She snapped, ‘Yes, that’s all, and stop looking at me like I got two heads. Some days you don’t feel so bright, and this just happened to be one of them. You call Lieutenant Burton?’
He told her that Burton’s line was busy, and he would call back. ‘Anything else you want me to do?’
She tried to think straight. ‘What about Sonja Nathan?’ She made another mental note to find out what Sonja got out of the estate.
‘I cancelled the flight — since we don’t have a client, there’s no point in wasting either her time or your money going out there. You want me to do anything else?’
‘Not right now. Oh, yeah, pack the tapes up and send them to Lieutenant Burton. The PD wants them.’
‘They’re welcome to them, I’ll do it straight away. Did you walk Tiger? ‘
‘YES. NOW get out and leave me alone.’
Lorraine sipped the coffee: Decker could really get on her nerves. The intercom light blinked.
‘Lieutenant Burton, line two,’ Decker said briskly, and Lorraine picked up the phone.
‘Mrs Page?’ Burton enquired.
‘Yes, speaking.’ She assumed her most businesslike tones. ‘I’ve asked for the Nathan tapes to be sent over to you, though I understand that may be unnecessary now.’
‘Word travels fast,’ he said softly.
‘She was my client,’ Lorraine said icily.
‘So what can I do for you?’
‘Excuse me?’
‘I’m returning your call, Mrs Page.’
‘Oh, I just wondered if you could tell me any details. I understand there are no suspicious circumstances — is that so?’