Green Monster (28 page)

Chapter Thirty-two

The rain had become a steady downpour, and puddles had formed in the green-painted rows and aisles when Sam and Heather exited the concourse and crossed the short metal bridge onto the Monster Seats section. Low-hanging rain clouds obscured the Prudential and John Hancock buildings beyond the stadium walls; to the right, they saw Lou Kenwood four rows below them, engaged in an angry conversation with his son.

Bruce noticed Sam and Heather as they approached, but didn't seem concerned about their presence. He handed the umbrella to Katherine, who held it aloft with her right hand while she pulled her patterned blanket closer to her chin with her left hand. Kenwood was now standing between his son and his wife, gripping the wheelchair and looking protective of Katherine. A row of green metal swivel chairs was separated from the edge of the wall by a short beverage counter, which came up to Kenwood's waist. Aside from a six-inch backsplash on the rain-soaked beverage counter, there was no other barrier between the seats and the field, thirty-seven feet two inches below.

“I'm glad you're here, Skarda,” Bruce said in a cheerful, almost sing-song voice. “You too, Heather. You should both see this.”

“See what?” Sam said. He and Heather slowly moved closer.

Bruce was definitely out of his mind. He was dressed in a Burberry raincoat, his neck protected by a purple scarf, with a short, blond wig covered by a broad-brimmed rain hat. He wore pants, but Sam noticed that his shoes were a pair of purple pumps that matched his scarf. His makeup was garishly applied, with purple eye shadow above his left eye, and green above his right. His lipstick was bright red and smeared hideously all around his mouth. The raindrops that hit his face caused mascara to streak down his face. Bruce looked like a man—or a woman—prepared to act upon the first insane idea that flashed across his tortured mind. Sam's gun was still in his suitcase, in the secretary's cubicle off the lobby, and he was kicking himself for not getting it out before they'd gone up to Lou's suite.

“He said he was going to push Katherine off the top of the wall,” Lou Kenwood said. “That's why I had to come out here. I couldn't let him do that.”

“He's not going to do that, Lou,” Sam said. “Get away from him.”

“What do you mean?” Kenwood said. He held his position between Bruce and Katherine.

“If he intended to toss Katherine over the wall, why did he wait for you to come out here and try to stop him?”

“Because he's a crazy fuck-up who's never done anything right in his whole goddamned life,” Kenwood said, barking the words into Bruce's grotesquely painted face. “Look at him. Look at him!”

“Yes, look at me,” Bruce said, laughing. “Don't you think I'm pretty, Father?”

“Shut up, you sick freak,” Kenwood said.

“Get away from him, Lou.” Sam took a slow step down the aisle toward them, hoping not to panic Bruce. “Back away.”

“Why? And let him hurt Katherine?”

“As if…you'd do anything…to stop him,” Katherine said, speaking for the first time in her halting, exhausted voice.

“You don't get it, Lou.” Sam took another step down the aisle. “You're the one Bruce wants to hurt. So does Katherine. They've been in this thing together from the start.”

Kenwood released his grip on the wheel of Katherine's chair and stared blankly at Sam as the rain splashed and dripped off his face.

“What?” Heather said. She grabbed Sam's sleeve and turned him toward her. “You never told me that.”

“It just hit me on the plane,” Sam said. “They both want to hurt Lou. That scam took money, planning, connections, and brains. They've been at it for over a year. You and I both realized that a punk like Frankie Navarro couldn't have put it together. But the more I knew about Bruce, the more sure I was that he couldn't do it, either. You saw his house—he didn't have enough money to keep the place from falling apart. He needed help, a lot of it, to pull this off. We figured he was getting tipped off by somebody close to Lou, but we assumed it was Paul.”

“I fired Paul when you told me to,” Kenwood said.

“You owe him an apology.” Sam took another step down the aisle. He was about four long strides from Bruce now. “So do I.”

“But Bruce said Paul was his inside source,” Heather said.

“Sure he did. But it wasn't Paul, was it, Bruce?”

Bruce cackled, as though Sam had told a tremendously funny joke.

“No, no, no,” he said, shoulders heaving. “God, I wouldn't work with some street scum from Southie. Are you out of your tree?”

“But you would work with one of the richest women in America, even if you hated her. Somebody who sent you off to prep school, and summer camp, and then to college, keeping you away from your dad. Never letting you get close to the Red Sox.”

“Is this true, Katherine?” Kenwood said.

Katherine nodded. Lou sagged to one side, grabbing a seat back for support.

“Whose idea was it?” Kenwood said.

“Mine,” Katherine said. “I needed Bruce's…mobility.”

“I thought of the kidnapping,” Bruce said. He appeared indignant that his stepmother wasn't sharing the credit. It was clear that there was still no affection between them.

“Who decided to try to have me killed?” Sam asked.

“Nothing personal, Sam,” Katherine said. She managed a wan smile. “I didn't want Lou to…hire a private investigator…but Heather talked him into it. You were…inconvenient.”

“The guy on the boat was almost too good, wasn't he?” Sam said. He took another step closer. Bruce was beginning to look at him warily. “You got hit.”

“I did that…to myself,” Katherine said. “Down below…with my little gun. It didn't hurt much…and it threw you off…didn't it?”

“For a while.”

“How…where did you get the money?” Kenwood said to his wife. “It must have cost a fortune to put this thing together. I'd have noticed if you were spending that kind of money. So would Heather.”

“You did,” Katherine said. “But you thought it was…going for my treatments. I stopped. What was the point? It's emphysema, Lou. I was going to die anyway. I had more important things to do.”

“I don't understand, Katherine…why?” Kenwood asked.

“Because I wanted our life…to be about something more… than winning trophies,” Katherine said. “How many times…did I ask you about setting up a trust…a foundation in our names?”

“I wasn't ready,” Kenwood said.

“It might have escaped your attention…but I didn't have much time to wait. Each year you became more hesitant. There was always something the team needed…a free agent…a new section of seats…new suites…an outdoor mall…something that would add to your legacy…as the Curse Killer.

“You were going to get all the credit…there was nothing for me. I had no children…I gave all my time to you and the team…yet 100 years from now, there would be nothing bearing my name. It would be all Lou Kenwood.”

Rainwater flowed from the corners of her yellow hat, but Katherine was oblivious to the steady downpour.

“I begged you to establish…the Louis and Katherine Kenwood Charitable Trust. Eventually, I realized you would never do it…All you cared about was…beating the Yankees every year.”

“Katherine, a charitable foundation is a lovely idea for after we're gone,” Lou said. “But I have to think about the future of the club.”

“I worked as hard as you did…to make the Red Sox great again,” Katherine said. “I did the Jimmy Fund…I organized the reunions…I took care of Ted Williams when he visited…You got all the credit…but I deserved…my legacy, too.”

“So you blackmailed me?”

“If you paid the money, my half…would set up a foundation in my name…after we both died,” Katherine said. “I wasn't going to be…the forgotten second wife…of the great…the immortal…Lucky Louie.”

“And if I didn't pay?”

Katherine looked at Heather, but said nothing.

Still in a daze, Kenwood put his hand up to wipe away the rain that was plastering his silver hair to his forehead. At that moment, Bruce grabbed his father in a choke hold around the neck and pulled him between two of the swivel seats at the edge of the Green Monster. Kenwood fell back into the rainwater that had pooled on the beverage counter.

“Get back, Skarda,” Bruce screamed. “Get back! He's going over!”

Bruce was not a physically imposing man, but his stunned, elderly father was no competition for him in a wrestling match. Kenwood's feet left the ground as Bruce pushed him backward, his shoulders extending over the edge of the wall and the warning track below. Bruce stood up on one of the swivel chairs, then braced one of his purple pumps against the back of the chair and kneeled on the beverage counter for the leverage he needed to push his father all the way over the edge, while Sam struggled to get past Katherine's wheelchair and grab Bruce's leg. Bruce saw Sam lunging for him, and tried to tuck his legs underneath him while he pushed his father closer to the edge of the wall. But the counter was slick and wet from the heavy rainfall, and as Sam finally got his hand around a bare ankle, Bruce's other leg slipped out from under him and his weight pitched forward. Sam switched his grasp to Lou's leg just as Bruce let go of his father and tried desperately to grasp the low backsplash on top of the wall. There wasn't enough surface to hold on to, and the momentum taking Bruce over the edge was too great. His pumps scissored furiously but got no traction on the wet counter, and in an instant he had disappeared over the edge, screaming all the way down.

Sam pulled Lou Kenwood to safety, then both men peered cautiously over the edge of the Green Monster. Bruce's twisted body lay far below them on the wet warning track, face up, the neck bent in an impossible angle. His purple shoes had both come off on impact and lay a few feet away. Sam turned back toward the seats, but Lou kept staring at his son's body.

“I didn't want it to be like this,” Kenwood said, his voice choking as he finally turned away. “I thought he was dead. I'd made my peace with that.”

And now it was going to get worse for Lou Kenwood.

Sam glanced at Heather, wondering when she intended to tell Kenwood about Alberto Miranda. She had not gone to the edge of the wall to look down at Bruce's body; instead, she merely stood in place a few feet away and hung her head in silence. Sam knew that in every way, Heather must be feeling like an outsider now to this family that she had once hoped to join—the cause of much of their pain, and the bearer of even more bad news for one of them.

No, this was not the time for Heather to tell Lou that she was leaving him. Anyone could see that.

“I need…a cigarette,” Katherine said.

Her hands and her head were visibly shaking. Sam watched as she put her hands under her blanket. The beauty he'd thought he'd seen in her just a few days ago seemed to have vanished. Before him now was a wet, withered, bitter woman with nothing on earth to live for.

He watched her pull out her cigarettes, and then reach under her blanket again for a lighter.

“What do we do now, Lou?” Sam said, looking at the owner.

Kenwood just shook his head. He glanced back at the field behind him, knowing that he had no idea how to explain to the press why his son had fallen from the top of the Green Monster to his death.

“I don't know,” he finally said. “Heather?”

Both turned to look at her just as they heard the crack from Katherine's Beretta Bobcat and saw Heather crumple to the ground from the bullet that tore through her heart.

Sam lunged toward Katherine's chair, afraid she might shoot again. Instead, she held out the gun and handed it to Sam.

“You were right, Sam,” Katherine said. There was a hard, satisfied glint in her eye and a wet, unlit cigarette dangling from her lips. “If you put it…in the right place…it only takes one.”

Sam turned away from her and joined Kenwood at Heather's side. Blood had seeped out of Heather's chest wound, and he knew even without checking her pulse that she was dead.

“Get an ambulance,” Kenwood said. “Call 9-1-1. Sam, call the police!”

Sam pulled out his cell phone and dialed 9-1-1. When the dispatcher said an ambulance was on the way, Sam took the phone away from his face and said, “Lou, are you sure you want the police now?”

“Yes,” Kenwood said. He stood up, looking at his wife in stupefied disbelief. “Yes, call the police.”

Sam's call was routed by an emergency dispatcher to the Boston cops. There was nothing else to do but wait for the squad cars and ambulances to arrive.

“I'm not sorry, Lou,” Katherine said.

Kenwood sat down in one of the swivel seats with his back to Heather, hanging his head and holding his temples.

“Why, Katherine? Why?”

“Because she was going to end up…with everything,” Katherine said. “The house, the boat, the team…you. You ignored my idea…my legacy…you were going to give it all to her.”

“I don't understand,” Kenwood said.

“She was willing to ruin you before you married Heather,” Sam said.

Kenwood looked up slowly, staring first at Sam, then at Katherine.

“What are you talking about?”

“You and Heather would sink every dime…back into the team,” Katherine said. “Then someday you would be gone…and Heather would have what I never had…The chance to run the best team in baseball…A dynasty…She'd spend all the revenues on the Sox…pleasing the fans…improving her image…

“Sooner or later…she'd marry some slick hunk in a suit…they'd have kids…and God knows who'd end up with the team…Meanwhile, I'd be totally forgotten…nothing to say I'd ever been a part of it…nothing of me…”

Lou walked up to Katherine, put his hands on either side of her wheelchair, and lowered his face close to hers. She flinched as though expecting Lou to strike her, or scream at her, but instead he spoke to her with the quiet sadness of a bewildered old man.