Now Stokes was using his considerable upper-body strength to unload gurneys. The front door of the house opened and the tweedy detective appeared, giving the men a thumbs-up. Mac pushed the first gurney in alone while Stokes and Al waited, hunched over the second. When Mac was fully inside, the other two shoved their gurney across the threshold. But Stokes let go. He allowed Al to continue wheeling the equipment into the house while he stood in the rain like a statue. Why had Stokes stopped? Was he afraid of what he would see inside?
I tried to keep the violent images at bay by picturing Hugh at work in his old studio. I knew that scene so well, I could create it easily in my mind. Hugh wearing jeans and a faded blue plaid shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Three buttons open at the top, soft brown chest hair peeking out. Paint stains on his calloused hands. The boyish nape of his neck as he looked down at his palette to mix more paint. I could almost smell the turpentine. I suddenly missed being in the studio with him, posing for his paintings and sketches while he played Bach CDs on his ancient, paint-splattered boom box. I missed being his muse. I missed his making tea for us when we took breaks. He’d show me the new work, excited. When had I made him claustrophobic? He never told me he felt like that. I had to learn it from a critic’s review of a painting I never saw.
Stokes finally moved. He reached inside his windbreaker pocket, pulled out a pack of American Spirits and went to stand under an eave at the side of the house. Stokes smoked? That was odd. With Kelly such a health-conscious type, not to mention pregnant, she couldn’t approve. Maybe she didn’t know? I watched him light the cigarette, toss the match and take a long draw, as if it were the deepest breath he’d taken in years. As he exhaled, something caught his attention and his head jerked to the left. I followed his sight line.
Two jumpsuited men had come out of the house carrying what was obviously a large painting wrapped in clear, heavy plastic. Was it the de Kooning or the Rauschenberg? Or could it be one of Hugh’s paintings? And why were the police removing it?
The men walked it slowly and carefully down the path past Stokes. When they reached the crime scene van, the man holding the bottom of the painting used one hand to slide the van’s side door open. They both tilted the canvas and began brushing rainwater off the plastic before loading it in. The covering fell away and I recoiled instantly. Before they could put it back on, I saw Hugh’s Self Portrait with Pregnant Helene with two large, vicious gashes sliced into the canvas: one in the vicinity of Hugh’s heart and the other across Helene’s belly.
A shiver ran through me as I lowered the glasses, like dark tar seeping through my veins. Even at this distance, I could sense the rage in the gesture, the ferocious need to destroy. It was a horrible feeling. And how crazy was it that whoever committed the crime had the identical impulse I’d had?
Only they’d succeeded.
Shaken, I lifted the glasses to my eyes and searched for Stokes, but he wasn’t under the eave anymore. Instead I found Mac and Al bowed against the driving rain, pushing a stretcher loaded down with a bulky gray body bag on the path toward the ambulance. Was Hugh’s body in there? I couldn’t bear to think of him suffocating in that airless bag. I whispered a plea: “You’re smothering him. Unzip it.”
Unable to watch anymore, I closed my eyes and took myself back again. To the roof of our loft building this time. Late at night. The streets below empty except for a grinding garbage truck and an occasional shift-changing cab. The skyscrapers of Lower Manhattan sparkling around us like Oz. An older, white brick office building sitting directly across the street has its lights out and its blinds drawn. The office cleaners have finished vacuuming, mopping and taking out trash. Hugh has a 16-mm projector on a stand. He’s threading a reel of film, turning on the bulb. He picks the machine up and aims it at the building.
Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers appear. They’re at least thirty feet tall. Ginger, dazzling in a backless satin-and-ostrich-feather gown; Fred in white tie and tails. He’s singing, silky-voiced, as he floats her across a dance floor. Their cheeks touch. He’s in heaven, he croons.
The garbage men stare up from the back of the truck. They are mystified. We laugh in delight. We sing along. Hugh puts the projector down and grabs me for a dip and spin as the orchestra plays on.
I smell his musky scent. He is solid and strong. Playful. Alive.
Snap.
I opened my eyes. What was that?
Snap.
A breaking branch?
Crunch. Crunch.
Rustling leaves?
Someone was behind the blind. A hunter? The police? How bad would it look if they found me spying at the murder scene? Another snap—this one closer. What if it was the killer? What if a gun-toting, knife-wielding maniac was still out there?
Heart pounding, I threw on my trench coat, shoved the glasses into the pocket and climbed through the front of the blind. Crouching low, I made my way deep into the tall grasses by the shore, the muddy ground sucking at my Wellingtons, the long, wet blades lashing my face and soaking my pajamas, my hair. But the grass was good cover, thick and high. A wall of wheat-colored straw. Breathless, I stopped to wait for whomever was out there to leave. If it was a police officer, what story would I tell? Would he believe me if I said I was trying to cover the murders for the Courier? From here?
What if he discovered I was Hugh’s ex?
I tried to listen beyond my chattering teeth. Maybe it was only rain I’d heard before? Or a deer foraging near the blind?
I longed to stand—my knees and thighs ached from squatting. I parted a section of grass and scanned. No one there. It seemed safe to make a move back to the trail. I started to rise. Suddenly I sensed the reeds shake behind me. My muscles tensed. Something rustled very close by. I stopped breathing and heard a voice inside me say, Run!
Taking off like a rabbit, I thrashed through the seagrass and reeds, adrenaline pumping. I steered inland, kept running and finally emerged from the grass, panting and sweating, into a small clearing only partially obscured by some bayberry bushes. It was about thirty yards from the house.
“Hey!” a male voice whispered hoarsely.
I whirled to my right. Standing a few yards ahead, soaked to the bone just like I was, was Stokes.
Chapter Four
“What the hell?” Stokes rasped. “You can’t be here.”
Stunned to encounter Stokes, I’d almost forgotten about the police. I dropped to a crouch and crept back behind the bayberry bushes. I waved at him to follow.
“C’mere. Over here.”
Stokes looked at me dubiously. “Are you nuts?”
He might well think so. I’m sure I looked like I’d escaped an asylum. And we hardly knew each other. I’d done that interview with him and Kelly, chatted casually at the Thunder Bar and exchanged “hellos” if he showed up at the alley during our Pilates class. That was it.
“Please,” I whispered.
Stokes frowned and joined me in the bushes. Once we were safely out of view, he admonished me some more.
“This is a crime scene. No reporters. You’ll get yourself in big trouble nosing around.”
So he thought I was here to get a scoop for the paper. Good.
“It’s okay. No one saw me.”
I’d been lucky. The patrol must’ve been checking around the other side.