26
As Dr. Steven Carter was opening his medical office, Laurie and Ryan were in the Bells’ penthouse on Fifth Avenue, a few doors up from the Metropolitan Museum. After the doorman phoned for permission for them to go up, a housekeeper let them in. While they waited in the living room, Laurie became distracted by the breathtaking view past the museum to the treetops of the West Side skyline.
When the Bells came in, they settled on the couch close to each other. They did not seem like the same angry couple that had confronted her at her office two days ago. They seemed polite, even friendly, and Laurie knew that was because they believed Ryan was on their side.
Dr. Bell immediately invited them to sit down. Ryan had done his homework and was ready with icebreaker conversation. He had learned that the Bells were friends with one of his law school professors. The law school professor’s brother had operated on Dr. Bell’s sister three years earlier. Cynthia interrupted the exchange by offering them coffee, which they both politely declined.
“So, Laurie,” Robert said, “Ryan told us last night that you’ve changed your mind about Martin’s case, but wanted to speak to us before moving forward.”
Laurie saw no reason to tell them that Kendra, not Laurie, had been the one with a change of heart. “Yes, I wanted to make sure we were on the same page about the nature of our program.” She gave them the usual introduction she provided when she initially approached family members about cooperating with the show. She emphasized the studio’s desire to unearth new or overlooked evidence and the potential for the show to provide some kind of closure if not final answers for the victim’s family members. “At the same time,” she added, “we are a news program, and we approach each case with the same journalistic standards that any reporter would use. That means we’ll be sensitive to your feelings as Martin’s parents, but ultimately must remain objective. We’ll report the full story, no matter where that leads us.”
“Of course,” Cynthia said quickly, nodding in agreement.
Dr. Bell was less convinced. A worried look crossed his face. “You don’t think Kendra did it, do you?”
Laurie chose her words carefully. “We don’t form those kinds of conclusions until we have the evidence to back them up.”
“So go find the evidence,” he snapped.
Ryan leaned forward in his chair to get a word in. “Trust me, Dr. Bell. I have seen Laurie in action. Her ability to put together a case rivals the very best FBI agents I worked with at the U.S. Attorney’s Office. If there’s evidence to be found, she’ll get it.”
“My point,” Laurie clarified, “is that we don’t decide on the conclusion first and then tailor our investigation to suit that narrative. We go in with an open mind, which means exploring all potential theories and suspects. And of course that will include Kendra. But being objective means that we can’t let the victim’s family members—even parents—run the show.”
Cynthia watched as her husband’s gaze moved between Ryan and Laurie.
Finally he said, “We understand.”
Laurie was surprised when Ryan pulled two participation agreements from his briefcase, already filled out for their signatures. As Dr. Bell signed on the dotted line, he made yet another pitch of his theory that Kendra was guilty. “I’m sure she still has the ability to be very charming,” he warned. “We were quite fond of her when they first got together. But you didn’t see her back then. She obviously has a very ill mind. She got her hooks into our son, and the minute she had him locked into the marriage, she turned into an entirely different person.”
“Did you ever consider the possibility that she might have had postpartum depression?” Laurie asked, recalling Kendra’s explanation for her deterioration after her children were born.
“Psssh,” Cynthia said, brushing off the theory. “Why would anyone be depressed about having such beautiful children? I was at my utter happiest when Martin was a little boy.”
“Surely, Dr. Bell, you are aware that many women don’t have the same experience,” Laurie persisted.
“Please. A little depression is one thing. Kendra was completely out of her mind. Poor Martin was absolutely miserable. He knew he’d made a terrible mistake marrying her.”
“What makes you say she was out of her mind?” Laurie asked. She remembered Kendra saying that Martin had been “gaslighting” her by telling others that she was crazy.
Cynthia was eager to answer. “Martin confided in us that Kendra had had a ‘mental breakdown’ and was growing more and more paranoid. She even accused him of cheating on her and trying to alienate her from Bobby and Mindy by hiring Caroline. For heaven’s sake, the only reason Martin hired that nanny was because he didn’t trust Kendra with the children alone. He was afraid she might just burn the house down—whether an accident or not! Thank God we insisted on an ironclad prenuptial agreement before the marriage.”
“If the agreement was so solid, why didn’t Martin just get divorced?”
“He was trapped because of the children,” Dr. Bell said wearily. “His primary concern was for Bobby and Mindy. He stayed for their sake. He had even conferred with a divorce lawyer to assess the likelihood that he would be able to retain full custody of the children if he were to leave Kendra. But you know how it is: he’s the man, and she’s the stay-at-home mom. There were no guarantees, and he wasn’t willing to risk it, and neither were we. Martin was our only child, and so Bobby and Mindy are the last of the Bell bloodline. They must remain within the family.”
“And you think Kendra was aware that your son had met with a divorce lawyer?”
“I’m certain she must have known,” he said. “That’s why she killed him.”
“And you still don’t think she’s capable of raising your grandchildren?” Laurie asked.
“Capability is no longer the issue,” Cynthia said adamantly. “First of all, she’s never even with them. She’s off working again, even though she gets more than enough money from the trust under the will to live quite comfortably for the rest of her life. We think she only keeps the nanny around so she doesn’t blab whatever she knows to the police. And more importantly, how would you feel if the person who killed your son was raising your grandchildren? It’s a matter of justice.”
Laurie could tell that she would never get the Bells to see even a sliver of a possibility that Kendra might be innocent.
“What did you mean about Caroline blabbing to the police?” she asked. “You think she knows more than she lets on?” From all reports, Caroline called 911 immediately after finding Martin’s body. She not only vouched for Kendra’s presence inside of the home at the time of the shooting, she was also the one who told police that it had taken several minutes for her to rouse Kendra from sleep, even though she was telling her that her husband had just been murdered.
“I’m absolutely certain that Caroline was covering for Kendra,” Cynthia insisted. “She’s jittery and nervous whenever she’s in our presence. I’m sure the guilt is eating away at her. She’s holding something back. Even if Kendra is guilty, Caroline cares about our grandchildren deeply and is convinced we’d fire her if we ever got custody. We have tried to let her know that we would want her to stay on.”
“We’ll be speaking further to Caroline, I promise,” Laurie assured them. “But before we go, I’m afraid we also need to raise two subjects that might make you uncomfortable. I’d rather be direct with you.”
“Fair enough,” Dr. Bell said, shifting in his seat. “What do you need to know?”
Laurie sensed she was still walking on eggshells as far as the Bells were concerned, so she decided to start with what she thought would be the less explosive of her two questions. “Your son’s estate settled a few lawsuits that were pending against his medical practice. We were hoping to know the details.”
“Absolutely not,” Robert said, not even considering the request. “We only settled to protect Martin’s good name. After he died, those money-grubbing lawyers had the nerve to up their financial demands, because he was no longer around to defend himself. It was sickening. We personally added money to the settlements offered by the insurance company to get the plaintiffs to sign nondisclosure agreements. We are bound by the contracts as well, so I’m afraid we can’t give you information about them, even if we wanted to. Trust me, though: there’s no reason to believe the lawsuits are at all relevant to our son’s death.”
Laurie would feel much better if she were in a position to make that call herself, but she couldn’t see a basis for persuading them to violate a legal agreement. She’d have to find another way to get at the details of the lawsuits. She made a mental note to ask Alex about the nuances of nondisclosure agreements.
“Very well then,” she said, conceding the point for now. “The other issue is one you alluded to earlier. Martin told you that Kendra had accused him of being unfaithful.”
They both frowned at the memory. “It was absolutely untrue,” Cynthia snapped. “Frankly, Kendra was lucky that the Longfellows didn’t sue her for slander based on the allegation. He was right on the verge of being named to the vacant Senate seat.”
“So you knew that Kendra was suspicious of your son’s relationship with Leigh Ann Longfellow?” Ryan asked.
“Of course,” Cynthia said. “You have to understand: we’ve known Leigh Ann since she was a little girl. Her mother, Eleanor, and I are still dear friends, part of the same bridge group that gets together for cards when schedules permit.”
Robert interrupted. “Her father, Charles, was one of the wizards of Wall Street before his passing a few years ago. An excellent family by any measure.”
“In any event,” Cynthia continued, “when the friends would get together, the older kids would keep an eye out for the younger ones—that kind of thing. So to Martin, Leigh Ann was a kid-sister type. Then they were working together on the alumni board. They were several years apart, but both went to the same prep school,” she explained. “So Martin immediately told us when Kendra first leveled the ridiculous accusation. He was afraid that Kendra’s rantings would become public. He didn’t want Leigh Ann or her parents to hear about the whispers from someone else. He was deeply embarrassed. We handled it the only way we knew how.”
“Which was?” Laurie asked.
“I called Eleanor,” Cynthia said. “I told her that Kendra was going through a difficult time. That she was . . . ill. And that it was manifesting itself in the form of a bizarre obsession with Leigh Ann, and that we were doing everything we could to contain the problem. But no matter how much Martin tried to reassure Kendra, her paranoia only seemed to grow. She even called us at one point, begging us to make him stop the affair—which of course was a figment of her imagination.”
“But how can you be absolutely certain of that?” Ryan asked. “My apologies for raising the possibility, but I know I haven’t told my mother and father everything I’ve done that I wasn’t proud of.”
Laurie realized that Ryan was in a better position to press this particular point than she was.
“We knew our son,” Cynthia said firmly. “He was not the type of man to cheat. And we know Leigh Ann, as well as her husband, the senator. It’s true love, and a true partnership. He’s an extremely talented politician, but Leigh Ann is the one with all the contacts. She was the one who pushed him to run for the state assembly and then managed his campaign behind the scenes. And she’s whip smart; if you ask me, she’s the brains behind the whole operation. They each think the sun rises and sets on the other. The whole notion of her and Martin as a couple is crazy.”
“And you don’t even need to take our word for it,” Robert added. “We happen to know that the police looked into Kendra’s claims after Martin was killed, and we were assured there was nothing to it. There was no affair. Martin and Leigh Ann went to the same prep school and were organizing the auction dinner together; that’s all there was to it. And to the extent Kendra was trying to insinuate that Leigh Ann’s husband—now our senator, for God’s sake—was involved in the murder, it makes no sense. Both he and Leigh Ann were in Washington, D.C., the night Martin was killed.”
“It’s still so embarrassing that they were dragged into this at all,” Cynthia said, shaking her head. “Please don’t let Kendra repeat this nonsense on air. We don’t want to see our son dragged through the mud.”
Cynthia brushed away a tear, and Laurie reminded herself that the reason these people had been pulling every string they could was out of love for the son they had lost. They were now trusting her to handle his case responsibly. “Thank you, both of you, for letting us look into your son’s case. I promise I’ll do my very best.”