18
Kendra began apologizing for her boss the second he left the restaurant. “As you can tell, he’s my loyal advocate. Thank God for him. He was the only friend I managed to keep after Martin was gone.”
“Pardon the observation, but it seems like maybe he’s interested in being more than just a friend and advocate?”
Kendra waved off the comment. “Steven? Oh, nothing of the sort. Even when we were on during our med school on-and-offs, we were mostly study buddies.”
“He literally said you might’ve gotten married if not for Martin.”
“That’s his attempt at humor. Trust me, it’s purely platonic. Look, I’ve been a widow for five years and see him almost every day. If he was nursing an old crush, I think he would’ve acted on it by now.”
Laurie decided to let the subject drop for now, but made a note to find out more about Dr. Carter. “He certainly had a lot to say about Martin. Infidelity? Lawsuits? You didn’t recall telling him that?”
“The affair, yes. I told him all about it. No one else believed me, because Martin had them all convinced that he was such a doting husband to his poor incapacitated wife.”
“But you said you didn’t remember mentioning the lawsuits.”
Kendra shrugged and said it was a long time ago, but Laurie could tell that something about the situation was still troubling her.
It was time for them to get down to the most important question at hand. “Kendra, if you didn’t kill Martin, who did?” Before Kendra even began to respond, Laurie scribbled the name Steven Carter in her notes.
“If I had to guess, the affair started right after Mindy was born. Between his medical practice, networking, and keeping the Bell name on the lips of the social scene, he had always kept a busy schedule. But where most men would have made an effort to be home with their beautiful new baby daughter, Martin was even scarcer around the house. More glaringly, he’d ignore me when I asked where he’d been. He didn’t even care enough to lie by then. He’d just stare at me with disdain and then walk away in silence.”
Laurie had no way of knowing if the account was true, and Kendra didn’t seem to realize that any negative portrayal of Martin as a family man only enhanced her motive to kill him. “I can’t imagine how infuriating that would be,” Laurie said.
“If I pressed him about my suspicions, he’d tell me I was going crazy. And then he told his parents and all of our friends that I was jealous and paranoid, accusing him of cheating for no reason at all. So by the time I reached out to them for support, he had already turned everyone against me. Did you ever see that old movie Gaslight?”
“Sure, with Ingrid Bergman,” Laurie said. The film had been a favorite of Laurie’s mother, so Laurie knew it was a 1940s-era adaptation of a play written by Patrick Hamilton. It had also been adapted previously in England, but most Americans were referring to the later version with Ingrid Bergman, Charles Boyer, and a young unknown named Angela Lansbury.
The film was about a new bride whose husband slowly manipulated her into believing she was going insane, by hiding her belongings, staging the sound of footsteps in the attic, and arranging for the home’s gaslights to dim and brighten for no apparent reason. All the while, he told his wife that these oddities were figments of her imagination.
“That’s what being married to Martin Bell was like. He was gaslighting me, trying to make me sound like a crazy woman to everyone who knew us. But I wasn’t making up stories. A woman knows when her husband is being unfaithful. The truth is that Martin wasn’t the kind of man who could be on his own. He was always in a serious relationship—two other very successful women before me. In retrospect, I think he married me because I was the one whose career would never match his.”
“You were in medical school. You were planning to be a doctor.”
A wave of sadness came over Kendra about the future she never got to have. “All I wanted was to be a good pediatrician—not a superstar. My point is that Martin needed a woman in his life. And even after we started having trouble, I was still that person. But then something clicked, and I could tell his affections were somewhere else. I would bet my life on it. And Martin could be very charismatic. There’s a reason I married him so quickly. He swept me off my feet.”
Laurie remembered seeing him during his various television appearances and thinking to herself that he had the “it factor.” Alex had it, too. And look what ended up happening with us, she thought.
Kendra continued to build her case. “Everyone suspects me because no one else would want to hurt Martin. But if he was turning on the charm for another man’s wife? He wouldn’t be the first paramour to be murdered by a jealous husband.”
“Do you have any thoughts about who the woman may have been?”
“Thoughts?” Her eyes widened. “I’m absolutely certain it was Leigh Ann Longfellow.”
The name hit Laurie sideways. “As in the wife of Senator Longfellow?”
“As I said: I’d bet my life on it.”