“Yes,” said Joanne. “She just died. I’m sorry, did you know Ruth? You look shocked. I’m sorry, Louis. Well, we all were shocked. Did you know her well? She just died, very suddenly.
“And even before that, well, Hugh had pretty much cut himself off from everybody he used to know. They had only the one child. He had to be institutionalized. You knew about him. Ruth had a stroke. It was completely unexpected. Shocking and very sad. Terrible.” Joanne finally fell silent.
“We’ve reached that age, Louis, where our friends start dying,” said Wally, smiling gamely, trying to keep the dreadful silence from settling in. “We’ve reached that age.”
During the long silence, Louis saw Ruth Chasen before his mind’s eye. “When exactly did she die?” he asked finally.
“It’s only been a week or ten days at the most, hasn’t it?” said Joanne.
“A week, maybe,” said Walter. “Maybe ten days. Let’s see: the memorial service was last Sunday.”
“Hadn’t she just come back from Paris, Walter? I think she had been in Paris.”
“She died of a stroke?” Louis kept his hands clasped beneath the table. The bouillabaisse sat forgotten in front of him.
“She had been to school in Paris as a girl, I think,” said Arlene. “I think she went there often.” Louis did not ask further. He did not want to betray too much interest. He felt his heart beating.
“How is Sarah?” Louis asked finally. His voice was steady, betraying nothing. It was an innocent question, a question he could ask, one that led nowhere. “Is anyone in touch with her?”
“We’re not in touch with her. But I saw her recently. She looked terrific. We talked briefly. It was in Georgetown. She’s lost some weight. She looks really good.” This was Joanne Muller, relieved to be speaking about the living. “She was going to get married again; a professor, I think; maybe you knew him. What was his name? I don’t think it worked out though. You probably knew that?”
“No, I didn’t know that. I’m sorry it didn’t work out,” said Louis. He did not ask about Michael and Jennifer, whether anyone saw them. He was afraid he might learn something any decent father would have known about his own children, like: “Jennifer is married again and has three children. Didn’t you know?” The occasional letters back and forth between his children and him were cool and impersonal. Michael seemed angry and pinched. He reminded Louis of himself as a young man. Louis wondered how it could be that, despite the vast distance between them for most of Michael’s life, the son could have come to seem so much like the father.
Jennifer too was bitter. She was back in Washington after a brief failed marriage to someone Louis had never met. And though she wrote to Louis regularly, just below the surface of her letters he heard recrimination and sanctimony. “Your life in France sounds idyllic—no family, no responsibility. What more could one ask for?” He had not seen Sarah or his children for ten years. He imagined Jennifer being slightly plump, wearing ill-fitting skirts, with her hair pulled back and no makeup, a version of the Sarah of long ago. His letters to them contained sober good wishes and sad, empty sentences about this and that.
XVI
SARAH ANSWERED THE PHONE. THAT LOUIS KNEW HER VOICE IMMEDIately from her hello startled him. He had expected that she would sound different than he remembered, or that her voice would have changed. But it was as if he had never stopped hearing it, as if hardly any time had elapsed since their last conversation.
“Hello, Sarah. It’s Louis. Morgon,” he added.
“Louis,” she said after a moment’s pause. “My God.”
“I am in Washington. I don’t get here often.” She did not speak. “I’m sorry to surprise you with this call. I should have written first.”
She laughed uneasily. “You have a French accent. You actually have a French accent.”
“Not, unfortunately, when I speak French. How are you, Sarah?” He wished he hadn’t said her name.
“I’m doing well,” she said, her voice already sounding warier, cooler. “I moved to a new townhouse. I have an endowed chair at George Mason. I’m a full professor now.”
“I know,” he said, feeling the conversation already beginning to go sour. “I heard from the children, about your townhouse, about the promotion. Congratulations on all of it.”
“Collective congratulations.” Was her laugh angry? He couldn’t tell.
“Sarah,. . . I wonder how you would feel about meeting somewhere for a cup of coffee.”
“I don’t know how I would feel about it,” she answered. “Why?”
“I need to discuss something with you.”
“We can’t do it over the phone? All right. It’s so sudden and unexpected.”
“I should have written, Sarah. I’m sorry.”
They met at a coffee shop near his motel, which was also, as it turned out, not very far from her new townhouse. He stood to greet her as she came in the door. That way she would not have to search the room for him and then look startled when she found him. They shook hands. Sarah had become more beautiful. Her skin had wrinkles now, but the shape of her face had sharpened. Lines lay around her eyes and mouth and across her cheeks in such a way that her eyes appeared larger and more liquid, her nose finer, and her mouth and chin more delicate than they had been when her skin was smoother and fuller.
They talked uneasily about the children. Sarah didn’t see much of them, although all three of them lived around the city not far from one another. “They do not approve of me either,” she said with a tight laugh. “And, to be honest, I do not like being with them very much. Either of them. They seem old before their time. Do you intend to see them?”
“I don’t know,” said Louis.
“They support themselves and live their own lives. Jennifer talks about going back to school, but I doubt that she will do it. Michael’s illustration work is enough to keep him going. But, frankly, I don’t think he’s very good at it. His drawings seem overworked, tight, I think. But what do I know? He told me that you are a painter. He doesn’t approve. He seems to think you should be doing something more serious. Isn’t that sad? What must he think of his own work? They’re both old way before their time. Maybe they’ll grow younger as they get older.” She did not laugh. She looked at her watch. “What did you want to talk about?”
“I wanted to talk to you about Hugh Bowes,” said Louis. He cradled the hot coffee cup between his hands and watched her face.
Sarah’s eyes narrowed, her neck stiffened. “I haven’t seen Hugh Bowes for twenty years. And I can’t think of anything we might have to say about him.”
“You could be a great help to me,” said Louis. “I want your opinion about Hugh Bowes, about his personality, about his character, about something he may have done.” Louis told her the whole story beginning with the dead man on his doorstep. She listened in astonished silence.
When he had finished she looked at him for a long time before she spoke. “You actually think Hugh Bowes would kill someone and dump them on your doorstep in faraway France to avenge some perceived humiliation?”
“How did he act that morning after I left the house? What did he say? What did he do?” asked Louis.
Sarah cocked her head to the side and studied him for another long moment. “You’ve got some nerve, Louis, dredging up that crap after all these years, whatever fantastic scenarios you may have concocted. I haven’t thought about it for a long time, and I don’t intend to think about it now, just because you, the silent man, the reappearing man, suddenly treat me to a cup of coffee.” The other people in the coffee shop lowered their heads and pulled their newspapers closer. “You really are a son of a bitch, Louis,” she said as she remembered her own humiliation. Sarah got up and left the coffee shop.
At the public library, a librarian explained that the card catalogues and reader’s guides to newspapers and periodicals had all been replaced by computers. By typing in a word or series of words, you could instruct the computer to do a search of books or newspapers. Wit
hin seconds it would offer up a chronological list of works about the subject you had named. In the case of certain newspapers, like the Washington Post and the New York Times , you could get a list of all the articles in which the subject-word even appeared, whether it was the main topic of the article or not. The librarian beamed triumphantly at Louis, as if this remarkable technological advance were of her own devising.
At the blinking cursor Louis typed: Hugh Bowes. The screen went dark for a moment and then indicated that there were 749 entries from the most recent two years alone. “Change to database 1990–1994 for additional entries.” Louis started the search again and typed: Ruth Chasen. The computer offered 27 entries. He scrolled through the list and quickly found an account of her untimely death and, in the same issue of the New York Times, her obituary.
RUTH CHASEN DEAD
Secretary of State’s Wife Dies of Sudden Stroke.
CHEVY CHASE, MD; July 25—Ruth Chasen, the wife of Secretary of State Hugh Bowes, died suddenly this evening at their home in Chevy Chase. She was 59. Secretary Bowes found his wife lying on the floor of their bedroom. Emergency rescue workers called to the scene were unable to revive Ms. Chasen. She was taken to Walter Reed Hospital where she was pronounced dead of a massive cerebral hemorrhage. A memorial service will be held Sunday, July 30, at the Washington National Cathedral.
An obituary on the last page was accompanied by a photograph that must have been fairly recent. She was blond and pretty and smiling.
RUTH CHASEN
Ruth Chasen died suddenly at her home last night of a massive stroke. She was 59. Ruth Chasen was the daughter of Mathild Chasen, née Pendergrass, and Anhold Chasen, the renowned tenor. She was born in Manhattan and grew up there and at Quogue on Long Island where her parents also had a home.
Both their East Side apartment and their sprawling Hamptons cottage were often filled with visiting musicians, artists, and writers, so that Ruth “was privileged to frolic as a child in a sea of art and intellect,” as she once said in an interview in Vanity Fair magazine. During her teenage years, she often traveled with her father when he was on tour, visiting every part of the United States and many cities around the world.
She attended the Millbrook School in Millbrook, New York, and then graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor of arts degree with majors in French and philosophy from Mount Holyoke College. Having spent her junior year in Paris, she returned for a year of post-graduate study at the Sorbonne.
Upon returning to New York, she joined CBS as a news researcher but soon began doing news spots during the nightly newscast. “I was there when things opened up for women,” she said, “and the camera loved me. It was as simple as that. It was luck.” But to her colleagues at CBS News, Ruth was a brilliant and talented on-air reporter who was able to project both competence and glamour.
In 1964, she left New York and moved to Washington to marry Hugh Bowes, who was then an undersecretary of state. She continued to work in broadcasting, but no longer in the news. She was the host of a 1969 special “Women of the Peace Movement” and of a 1976 special “Three First Ladies,” both of which were broadcast on CBS. She was also a co-host of the weekly news show “Washington Speaks” which ran on public television stations around the country from 1976 until 1980.
Ruth Chasen gradually left broadcasting, as her husband rose in prominence. She devoted herself to charity work, helping to organize charitable fund-raising events. Her special interest was in charities that helped children. “Of course her arts, media, and political contacts were important,” said Thomas Jackson, one of her colleagues at the World of Children Foundation, “but her enthusiasm and energy are what inspired us all. She could not have children, so she regarded all the world’s children as hers.”
Ruth Chasen is survived by her husband, Secretary of State Hugh Bowes, by her mother of Quogue, and by her half-brother Robert Pendergrass of Paris, France. Her father Anhold Chasen sang with the New York Metropolitan Opera until 1958. He died in 1980.
Ruth Chasen had died on the same day as the man on Louis’s doorstep. Louis typed the name Robert Pendergrass into the computer. After a moment’s hesitation, the computer showed two entries: one was the obituary which Louis had just read, the other the Washington Post obituary which said, after mentioning Bowes and her mother, “She is also survived by Robert Pendergrass her half-brother of Paris, France.”
Louis read the other articles the library had about Ruth Chasen. He read the Vanity Fair interview. The interviewer had asked her about her life in Paris. She still went to Paris frequently, she said. She loved the city, for its culture, for its beauty, for the friends she had there. Louis searched the earlier databases, but learned little that was new and nothing that seemed important.
The announcement and then the description of the Bowes-Chasen wedding in New York did not mention Robert Pendergrass. Louis did not remember that Ruth Chasen had ever mentioned a brother, or that he had seen him at the wedding in New York. The computer offered no references when Louis combined the keywords Ruth Chasen and child, other than references to Ruth’s charity work. Maybe Joanne had been mistaken about the institutionalized child.
Back at the George Washington Colonial Court, there was a message asking that Louis call Sarah at her home. “Hugh Bowes lay there for a long time, I don’t know, maybe several minutes after you left. I remember, that though his eyes were squeezed shut, tears were seeping out and running down his cheeks the whole time. I stood and looked at him because he looked so strange. His body was completely rigid, like someone having a seizure of some sort. He was fat, but you could tell his muscles were all tensed. Then all of a sudden he let out a scream. But it was more than a scream. It was a howl, like an animal, and he howled long, while tears rolled from his eyes which were now wide open and looking everywhere but at me.”
“Did it frighten you?” asked Louis.
“It scared the hell out of me,” said Sarah. “I got out of there as fast as I could. When I came back, he was gone.
“You know,” she added, “I saw him not too many years ago at a party at one of the embassies. I had forgotten about this.” She paused. “Our eyes met. But in the instant they did, his hardened, and it was as if he looked right through me. He didn’t greet me, didn’t speak at all.”
“Thank you for calling me back, Sarah. It was very generous of you to do it. And please don’t tell anyone about our conversation. Don’t even tell anyone you saw me. For your own safety. Just in case I’m right.”
XVII
RENARD AND ISABELLE WERE FINISHING THEIR LUNCH WHEN THE telephone rang. “I need a favor,” said Louis when Renard picked up the phone.
“I am not surprised,” said Renard angrily. “Where are you?” he demanded. But he knew Louis was in Washington. “What time is it there?”
“It is seven o’clock in the morning. Listen: find out what you can about somebody named Robert Pendergrass who lives, or lived, in Paris. He is Hugh Bowes’s brother-in-law. And see if there is a phone or address listed for Ruth Chasen, Hugh Bowes’s wife. If you don’t find it under Chasen, it may be under the name Ruth Bowes, or try Ruth Pendergrass.”
“Why should I?” said Renard. He was, after all, the police officer in charge. Isabelle gave him a look that caused him to turn his back to her and look out at the garden. “Tell me what you’ve learned,” he said into the phone, trying to sound more cooperative. He listened for a while and said, “I will call you.” He paused. “Yes, I wrote them down. All right: you call. Tomorrow at the same time.” He paused again. “She is fine.” Then: “A pork roast with rice and lentils in a tomato sauce.” Then: “It was. Be careful.”
“I have to go to Paris,” he said to Isabelle as he hung up the phone. “I have to find out about some people there. I’ll stay the night and be back tomorrow morning.”
“Is he all right?” she said.
“Hugh Bowes’s wife died on the same day as the man whose body turned up here. Louis sounded frightened.”
At his office Renard checked the national telephone directory and found a listing for R. Chasen on the rue Jacob in Paris. He found a listing for Robert Pendergrass on the boulevard Raspail. In his ancient and tattered Guide General de Paris, he found that both streets were near the Montparnasse train station, and they were close together, for which he was grateful.
He called Jean Marie. Jean Marie’s machine answered. His son had an answering machine. Renard knew the boy would never live in Saint Leon again. He told the machine that he was arriving in Paris on business, and that he hoped they could have supper together. He would call at the end of the day. “All right, Jean Marie . . . see you soon.” How did you say good-bye to a machine?
He looked through his phone directory and dialed the number for Julien Petitot in Paris.
“Police, Petitot.”
“Julien, it’s Renard in Saint Leon.”
“Jean Renard! Can it be?”
“It can be, and it is, Julien. How are you?”
“I had a heart attack, Jean.”
“That was two years ago, Julien. I know about the heart attack. You told me when we talked at Christmas.”
“We talked this past Christmas? It can’t be this past Christmas. What’s up, Jean?” Julien Petitot and Renard had known each other since they had started their police careers together at the national police academy. They had liked each other immediately. No one besides Petitot called Renard Jean, except for his mother.
“I need you to look into something for me,” said Renard. “It’s about a murder.”
“In Saint Leon?! Impossible! In that nest?” Petitot laughed. In fact, he had grown up in the village of Villedieu, which was less than twenty kilometers from Saint Leon and even smaller. But he had stayed in Paris after the academy, had married a Parisienne, and now they even took their country vacations in the Cevennes, where her parents had lived, and where she had inherited an ancient farmhouse. Renard and Isabelle had visited them there the summer of the famous heart attack.
A French Country Murder Page 12
