“There’s another problem,” Cooper continued. “We don’t know who she is. There was no identification on her. She’s not a local girl, and I have no idea how she came to be in the car with Pollock and the other girl, also unidentified—she’s still unconscious. Do you happen to know anything about them?”
“I thought I recognized the injured girl,” said Fitz. “I think she was in the car with Pollock when he passed us on Fireplace Road yesterday morning. We were on our way to the Fishermen’s Fair and stopped to talk to Officer Finch when Pollock drove by, going way too fast, and she was in the backseat. Then I saw her again later, walking around the fair. I didn’t see the other girl’s face, but there were two of them in the car when it went by us.”
Just then the hall door opened and three people came down the stairs with Mrs. Williams. “These folks are here about the accident,” she explained.
A distinguished-looking dark-haired man, casually dressed in slacks and an open-necked shirt but with an air of elegance about him, stepped forward, shook Cooper’s hand, and nodded politely to the Fitzgeralds. Nita pegged him as Hispanic, but when he spoke it was with an English accent. He gave his name, a Spanish one.
“I am Alfonso Ossorio, a close friend of Jackson Pollock, as are Jim and Charlotte Brooks here.” He gestured to his companions, fellow artists who had known Pollock and his wife, Lee Krasner, for years. “I hosted a private concert at my home in Georgica last night. Jackson was supposed to be there, but he never arrived.” He paused, obviously distressed, then pulled himself together.
“We are here to help in any way we can. I’ve told Carolyn Williams that I’ll be responsible for the funeral expenses.”
Cooper thanked him, and introduced Nita and Fitz.
“These folks saw the accident happen. Pollock’s car cut right in front of them on Fireplace Road and crashed into the woods. I was just getting ready to take their formal statements, so if you and your friends will be good enough to wait upstairs I’ll be with you shortly.”
“Certainly, Doctor,” said Ossorio as he turned toward the stairs. “Oh, by the way, Jackson told me he’d be bringing two young ladies who were visiting him for the weekend. I understand they were with him in the car, and that one of them was also killed.”
Cooper was suddenly very interested. “Do you know who they were?”
“We do,” said Charlotte Brooks. “They came out to our cottage in Montauk late yesterday afternoon. Jackson was acting very strange, didn’t even introduce the girls, just brought them in, sat them in the living room with me, and hustled Jim out the door, said he wanted to see his new work.”
“I had to remind him that our studios were destroyed by the hurricane two years ago,” said her husband, “so I had nothing out here to show him. All the paintings I’ve done since then are in the city. Charlotte’s too. He had completely forgotten that. He seemed disoriented, sort of lost. I’m sure he’d been drinking, and I try to avoid him when he’s in that condition. But he said he wanted to talk, so we sat on the beach for a while. He didn’t say anything, just stared out over the water, and all of a sudden I saw tears rolling down his cheeks. I didn’t know what to do, so I just sat there and waited for him to move. Eventually he got up and walked back to the cottage, piled the girls into the car and left.”
“I guess he and Jim were out there for about half an hour,” Charlotte said. “So I tried to make the girls feel welcome. One of them, Ruth Kligman, I’d met before. Jackson had brought her to a couple of parties.” She frowned. “He was having an affair with her, and not making a secret of it. His wife, Lee, was furious. She’s no doormat, believe me—not the type to look the other way. She gave him an ultimatum, she said, her or me, and Jackson was shillyshallying. What a fool, to think he could keep Ruth on the string and still have Lee to manage his life.”
“What about the other girl?” asked Cooper.
“Oh, yes, sorry,” said Charlotte. “I’m getting off track. Ruth introduced her as Edith Metzger, a friend from the city. She embarrassed the poor young woman by telling me that Edith was also involved with a married man—her boss at the beauty salon where she works—and didn’t know how to handle it, as if I could give them advice on successfully managing adultery! I could see how uncomfortable Ruth’s remarks were making her, so I changed the subject.”
Cooper thanked Charlotte sincerely. “We had no identification for either of them, so you’ve been extremely helpful. As Mr. Ossorio mentioned, one of them was killed.” He said nothing about the cause of death. “Since you met them both, would you be willing to identify the body?”
Brooks put his arm protectively around his wife’s shoulders, but she had no need of moral support. She returned Cooper’s gaze steadily. “Of course,” she told him. “I’ll be fine, Jim, don’t worry.”
“I know you will,” he said, “but I’ll go in with you. I met them both, too.”
Cooper rose. “Just wait here a moment, please.” He took one of the lab coats off the hook, entered the embalming room, where the autopsy had been conducted, and closed the door.
Ossorio, who had been listening intently to Charlotte and Jim, finally spoke.
“Right after Lee left, Jackson brought Ruth to our place. Paraded her around the house like a tour guide, trying to impress her, and he succeeded. Ted and I just stood back and watched. Then we saw her again at Dorothy Norman’s a couple of weeks ago. She came in clinging to Jackson’s arm, tarted up like a Seventh Avenue mannequin, entirely inappropriate for a country house party. Frankly, I snubbed her. I have far too much respect for Lee to make polite conversation with some little homewrecker. Mind you, I can’t say Jackson was exactly solicitous to her. In fact he pretty much ignored her as well. She was painfully de trop.” He grinned maliciously. “I’d like to have been a fly on the wall when they got home. I’ll bet she gave him hell.”
“No sooner was Lee out of the house than he moved Ruth in,” said Charlotte, disgusted. “I don’t think he even waited until her ship had cleared New York harbor.”
In order to break their stalemate, Lee Krasner had decided to take a long-planned voyage to Europe, using the estrangement to make up her mind whether or not to divorce Jackson. Aware of her unfailing belief in his genius, as well as her frustration at his inability to work and the deep psychic wound caused by his infidelity, her friends had urged her to take the trip. It’s just an infatuation, they told her. It can’t last. She won’t be able to put up with his moods; she doesn’t have your patience. Don’t give up now, just let it run its course. By the time you return in the fall, they said, it will all be over.
What they didn’t mention was that Ruth was more than twenty years younger than Lee, attractive verging on beautiful, and blessed with a voluptuous body that she displayed to advantage, advertising her sexuality in ways that Lee no longer could. In the tiny avant-garde art world of her pre-Pollock days, Lee had been renowned for an alluring figure that compensated for a homely face, a vivacious personality and an air of self-assurance that, together with her obvious talent and commitment, made her stand out both socially and professionally.
Now, at age forty-seven, Lee had become a strident, smothering presence whose chief marital role was as her husband’s nursemaid. She was also making great progress artistically, having produced a series of innovative collages that earned favorable notices when they were shown in New York City the previous fall, while Jackson had not painted at all for more than a year. Who could blame him for catching Ruth when she threw herself at him?