CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Constance answered her door still wearing the pale blue terry-cloth robe. "I hoped you'd come back," she said. "With the phones out, I had no way to reach you without wandering the halls on a stormy night."

"You were smart to stay put." Tom walked into her room, and I followed. "Have you remembered something?"

"More like decided to come clean about something."

Tom cocked an eyebrow. "Oh."

We sat in our previous places, Tom in the desk chair, me on the bed, and Constance in the leather easy chair. "But did you come to tell me something?" she asked.

"You first," Tom shot back.

She settled herself, shifting a little and pressing her hands together as if in prayer, but then placed her clasped hands in her lap. "I wasn't entirely honest with you before." She wiggled again, her physical discomfort mirroring something going on inside. "Many years ago, I lived with a man who told me his name was Kenneth Clark." She responded to Tom's raised eyebrows by hurrying onward. "It lasted several months, then we broke up."

"Kenneth Clark," I clarified. "Not Kendall Clarkson."

"He was the same man." Constance said it without hesitation.

"The nature of your relationship was—" Tom suggested.

"Romantic," Constance said. "We were lovers."

"How long ago was this?' Tom asked.

Constance cast her eyes heavenward, remembering or calculating. "Nearly forty years."

"Why did you break up?" I asked.

"The usual reasons. We weren't made for the long haul."

"Have you seen each other since?" I wanted to know. "Maybe through Zoey?" He was clearly something to Zoey.

"I haven't seen him from that day to this. When I spotted him at the cocktail hour, you could have knocked me over with a feather. I mean that literally. It would have taken very little. I felt like I was going to fall down anyway. I had no idea he was going to be here. I didn't think he had any connection to Zoey, who wasn't born when he and I were together." She closed her eyes for a second and then opened them again. They were enormous and truly gray, not the light blue people sometimes called gray. "But Zoey says she doesn't know him either. Have you found out why he was here?"

Constance hadn't been in the room the second time we talked with Zoey and didn't know that Zoey had admitted to meeting the man.

"Not as yet," Tom answered. "When you and Mr. Clark or Clarkson were together, did he tell you anything about his connections? Children, siblings, nieces, nephews, anyone who should be notified of his death?"

Constance didn't hesitate. "Never. He didn't have children. At least not then. I understood he was estranged from his family." She paused and then added, "I believe Clark may be his original name, in case you find that helpful."

"Yes, thanks, we may," Tom responded. "You've already said you talked to him at the party. Your conversation with him seemed heated, at least on your side. That doesn't seem like a reaction to an amicable parting forty years ago. What upset you?"

Constance hung her head. "You'll think I'm silly." She spoke into her lap. "He didn't recognize me." A bright red blush crept up the white skin of her neck. When she lifted her head, her cheeks were blazing. She cleared her throat, a delicate ethem. "When I spotted him at the cocktail party, I walked up to him and asked how he was, like a civilized person. I had the next question planned out in my head: how did he know Zoey, or Jamie, but I never got to it. He put his hand out and said his name, ‘Kendall Clarkson,' like we'd never met. I wasn't fooled. I said to him, ‘Ken. It's Constance. Marshall. We lived together for eight months.' He looked at me and said, ‘I'm certain not.'

"I know I've aged, but then so had he, and I recognized him instantly. I thought, even if I look different, once I tell him my name, he'll make the connection. But he continued to stare at me like he'd never seen me in his life. ‘You are mistaken, madam,' he said, all formal. Then he tried to make a joke. ‘You must have lived with my doppelg?nger.'

"I said, ‘Cut the crap, Ken.' I was furious. ‘I know it's been some years, but I will not have my history erased. I don't care what you're calling yourself now. You may have a new name, but that doesn't mean you have a new history.' " Constance stopped talking and breathed in heavily through her nose. "Sorry."

"Don't apologize." I imagined running into Chris on some day far in the future and having him look right through me, claiming all we had, all we went through never existed. I would be furious, too.

"As I understand you," Tom said, bringing us back to the task at hand, "when you lived with him, the man was Ken Clark. Today he told you his name was Kendall Clarkson, correct?"

Constance nodded.

"You told us the name was Kendall Clarkson when we spoke to you earlier." It was a statement of fact. There was no accusation in Tom's tone.

"I didn't intend to tell you any of this. Giving you the name he was currently using made more sense in the circumstances."

"And you weren't going to tell us because—" Tom asked.

"I find it embarrassing," Constance said, though she seemed a little more self-assured than she had earlier. "At the time, you were looking for his identity and next of kin. I have no idea about the next of kin, and it seemed to me what I knew about his identity would only add to the confusion."

"You didn't chat with Mr. Clarkson tonight about showing your artwork in his gallery," I said.

Constance shook her head. "No. That was a summation of the first conversation we ever had when we met at the original Getty Museum forty years ago."

We all sat for a moment in silence.

"Is there anything else you've failed to tell us?" Tom asked, not unkindly.

"No!" Constance was vehement.

"Thank you," Tom said.

"But why did you come here in the first place?" Constance asked.

Tom sat forward in the wooden chair, almost resting on his haunches. "I am sorry to tell you that we believe the man you knew as Ken Clark was murdered."

Constance's mouth dropped open. "How?" she asked. I could have sworn she was surprised, shocked even. But I hadn't spotted that she was lying earlier when Tom had.

"I'm sorry, but I can't disclose that at this time," Tom answered.

"Why?" She stuttered the word out. "Who?"

Tom brushed nonexistent crumbs off his pants. "We don't know. I don't suppose you'd have any idea?"

"I told you I hadn't seen him in forty years." Constance had got control of her voice.

Tom stood. "It appears the murder was planned and targeted. However, we're asking everyone to keep their door locked. Don't let anyone in unless it's Julia, or me, Jamie, or Pete," he added.

"Certainly." Constance seemed herself again.

Out in the hall, we listened for the sound of the lock. I wondered if I would ever feel the same way about that modest household sound again. "Where now?" I asked Tom.

* * *

Jamie and Pete came out of Dan Dawes's room. We moved to the second-floor landing, where we had a hurried, whispered conversation.

"Did your nephew tell you anything?" Tom's tone indicated interest, but not expectation.

"No," Jamie said, and behind him, Pete shook his head. "Nothing beyond what he told you. He was sitting next to the victim when he keeled over. They had traded pleasantries, nothing more." Jamie spread his fingers out, looking down at the backs of his hands. "He's family." Jamie opened his mouth and then closed it again and left it at that.

Tom picked up on that immediately. "You thought there was more he wasn't saying?"

Behind Jamie, Pete was rigorously shaking his head up and down.

"Yes," Jamie said, his voice even lower than the whisper we'd been conversing in. "We've been close all our lives, and he's my groomsman. I think you'd get more out of him than we did." That was a lot for Jamie to admit.

"He may not have told you anything more because there was nothing to tell," Tom said, ignoring Pete. "I want to talk to Lascelle before we double up on anyone. You told Dan it was murder, right?" Jamie and Pete nodded. "Good. Why don't you two talk to the waiter next?"

Jamie and Pete headed for Jordan's room on the third floor, while Tom and I knocked on Bill Lascelle's door.

Lascelle was still awake and dressed. He let us in with a look of mild inquiry but remained standing. Tom went through his spiel about possible murder, obviously need to know more, et cetera.

"Of course," Lascelle said, "but I've told you all I know."

"Why don't you take me through the entire conversation you had with Kendall Clarkson," Tom suggested, "sentence by sentence, word by word."

Lascelle stepped back, not exactly staggering, but clearly considering his options. He was quiet for a long time. In the end, he must have concluded that he couldn't sustain a lie over the length of making up an entire conversation. "You'd better sit down. This is going to take a while, though I doubt you'll find it valuable."

We sat, and so did he. "I wasn't entirely open before. I did know the man you tell me is dead, murdered. I didn't think what I knew would be at all helpful in discovering his next of kin, or whatever you told me your mission was before, so I kept it to myself."

"Now that it's suspected murder," Tom said, "everything matters."

"Indeed." Lascelle cleared his throat and began. "A decade ago, I was persuaded to exhibit several pieces at Clarkson's gallery. I was initially skeptical. I'd never heard of Clarkson, and no one else I talked to had either. But his gallery was a beautiful space in the Arts District in LA. My work would look amazing in it. I had newly signed with an agent, who had gotten me the gig and was wildly enthusiastic. I wanted to keep him onside. I had a reputation in the community and a successful pottery business, much like Zoey's. This was to be my first foray into the fine art market.

"The show was, to all appearances, a success. On opening night, there were little ‘sold' stickers by every piece. Everyone who was anyone was there. There were lots of rich buyers and press. I was overjoyed."

He shifted in the chair. "But when my agent approached Clarkson for payment, nothing was forthcoming. At first, Clarkson said he was waiting for people to arrange to pick up their pieces and pay him. Then he said the money was tied up in some kind of bureaucratic tangle; there was sales tax to be paid and so on. I knew I wouldn't be getting all the money. The gallery and the tax man and my agent would get their cuts, but the amount that would come to me was meaningful. Maybe not materially—my commercial business was very successful by then—but in validation of my work and the direction I was taking.

"It became clear, eventually, that no money was coming. I flew to Los Angeles and drove to the gallery myself. All I found was an empty loft. No one could find Kendall Clarkson or the gallery. I never got paid.

"When I saw Clarkson at the party tonight, I was surprised, to say the least. I never knew he had any connection to Zoey. I didn't approach him at first. I couldn't think of what to say. I was angry. He had disappeared with my money. But it was ten years ago. I'd long ago given up on the money and decided to forget about the whole incident. Lesson learned.

"When I did finally approach him at the cocktail party, he didn't acknowledge we had previously met. We started chatting comfortably enough. Why are you here, who do you know, and so on. I said I was an old friend of Zoey's and would be playing guitar at the wedding."

"What did he say?" Tom asked.

"I remember because the way he expressed it was slightly odd. He said the bride had invited him. Not that he was a friend of Zoey's. I know she doesn't have any relatives. But that she had asked him to come."

"And the conversation from there?" Tom prompted.

"I couldn't let it go. I did bring up the money. I said, ‘I haven't forgotten what you owe me.' "

"How did he react?" I asked, fascinated.

"He claimed he didn't remember me. Or the show. Or my work."

"Did you think he was lying?" I asked. "Or, in your opinion, had he genuinely forgotten?"

"I could see he might have forgotten me. We only met three times. When I staged the work for the show, at the opening, when I came by the next day, floating on air because everything had sold. Ha! But he couldn't have forgotten the show. Or my agent bugging him twice a week for payment for months."

"What is the name of your agent?" I asked.

"Derek Quinn was representing me at the time. We've parted ways since."

Derek Quinn, who was currently upstairs in a bedroom with his girlfriend.

"Did the nonpayment from the victim contribute to your breakup with Mr. Quinn?" Tom asked.

"The vic—" Lascelle's brow furrowed, but then cleared. He smiled. His teeth were crowded on the bottom, and one of the front ones stuck out slightly. "I always think of myself as the victim," he said. "The mess with Clarkson may have contributed to my leaving Derek, but it certainly wasn't the only reason. The break didn't come until two years later, in any case."

Bill put his elbows on his knees and steepled his hands together. "Derek was pretty green when I went with him. I'd always represented myself, but he had great contacts in the industry for licensing my work on the commercial side. For the fine-art thing, the truth is we were both inexperienced and probably na?ve. I listened to Derek even when my gut told me not to. I shouldn't have."

"Have you spoken with Mr. Quinn about Mr. Clarkson at any time today?" Tom asked.

"I haven't spoken to Derek at all. I was surprised he was here. I had no idea he and Zoey had kept in touch. He was firmly in her past by the time she worked for me. And tonight, he stayed close to Zoey, from what I observed. I didn't want to enter that scrum."

"Is there anything else you haven't told me?" Tom asked.

"Absolutely nothing," Lascelle said.

"Thanks." Tom stood, and so did I. "You see the importance of locking your door," he added.

Lascelle rose and then saluted. "Aye, aye, sir. You'll have noticed it was locked when you came along this time."

"I did, and I appreciate it," Tom said, and we left.