by Ariel Lawhon
He struggled to segue into his next line of questioning.
“Does Judge Crater have any enemies? Someone who would want to harm him?”
“Joe was only on the bench four months. He didn’t have time to make enemies.”
“What about from his days as a criminal attorney?”
“You must understand that my husband was”—she paused, searching for a generic label—“a man of ideals.” Stella refrained from adding that most decent society did not share his particular brand of ideals. “He taught law for many years at New York University—that’s what he did before getting into politics. I heard him tell his classes, on more than one occasion, that every man, though he be found guilty, is entitled to a defense. I suppose he could have upset someone during that time. But if he did, I never heard about it.”
“How many guilty men did your husband defend?”
Stella stiffened at the insinuation. “A few made the papers.”
“And he made money?”
“We were comfortable.”
“You must have been, for him to get into politics. That takes deep pockets.”
“Joe was highly respected for his legal skills. He was encouraged to get into politics because of his talent and charisma. People were drawn to him, even the ones that didn’t particularly like him. That’s a rare commodity in politics.”
Jude tapped his pen against the small notepad. “Do you have any idea who your husband may have gone to see when he returned to the city?”
“None whatsoever.” Stella felt dizzy, both from the cigarettes and from the growing list of lies she would have to remember if Detective Simon came calling again.
“What about his activities? Any associates that he might have talked to?”
“Joe’s business was his own. He kept definite lines between his professional life and his private life.” Stella settled her cold blue eyes on Jude. “I only had access to one of those lives, Detective. I do not know why he returned to New York City.”
Stella unfolded herself from the chair and faced the lake as Jude scratched the information on his notepad. The late-afternoon sun warmed her cheeks, and a deep weariness wrapped itself around her.
“My chauffeur will drive you back to the station, Detective. You wouldn’t want to miss your train.”
Chapter Fifteen
FIFTH AVENUE, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 12, 1930
MARIA didn’t answer the door. She turned, considering, and then thought better of it. Her experiences at the Craters’ apartment in recent weeks had taught her to leave well enough alone. No more covering for her boss. No more reporters. No more surprises. So she stayed where she was, teetering three feet off the ground on a wooden step stool, wiping dust from the top of Mr. Crater’s bookshelves with a rag.
She’d taken to lingering over her work in recent days, trying to earn her paycheck—assuming Mrs. Crater actually mailed it. With Mr. Crater missing and Mrs. Crater hiding in Maine, there was no grocery shopping to do or fancy dinner parties to cook for. There were no trips to the cleaners or ill-fitting clothes to return to the high-end department stores they frequented. No laundry. No dishes. Maria was forced to get creative with ways to make up her time.
The front door rattled again with an insistent pounding. A short silence. And then a key turned in the lock.
Maria leaned forward to see the front door swing inward, followed by Jude’s partner, Leo Lowenthall. She climbed down from the stool and slipped back into her shoes. “Hello?”
Leo stepped into the office, accompanied by three NYPD officers. “You didn’t answer the door,” he said, offended.
“It isn’t my home.”
“No.” Leo eyed her uniform. “It’s your job.”
She looked at the key in his hand. “Where did you get that?”
Leo gave her a smug grin but didn’t answer the question. He strode across the office and thrust a piece of paper in her face.
“What’s this?”
“A search warrant.”
Maria plucked it from his hand and read the court order.
“We’ll start in here,” Leo said, pushing her aside.
She stood back as they began going through the papers on Mr. Crater’s desk. Drawer after drawer was opened, but not shut. They hauled books from the shelves, flipped through the pages, and tossed them to the floor until an entire library of legal volumes lay with cracked spines across the Oriental rug. At first she trailed behind them, protesting and attempting to keep the chaos at bay, but as Leo and his men spread across the apartment, Maria shrank back, appalled.
“Does Mrs. Crater know you’re here?” she demanded when she found him in the master bedroom, pulling clothes off the hangers and digging through the pockets.
Leo didn’t answer. He turned a red evening gown inside out, dropped it to the floor, and then kicked it out of the way. It landed in a crimson heap beneath the window. “How often do you work here?” he asked.
“Every morning when the Craters are in town. A bit less now that they’re in Maine.” Maria crossed the room and snatched the dress off the floor. “Can’t you be more careful?”
“Has anyone been here recently?” Leo lifted a pile of silk stockings from a blue satin bag and ran them through his fingers, searching for hidden objects.
How to answer that question? You. My husband. A naked showgirl. “Only a reporter,” she said. “And Mrs. Crater came back for a weekend.”
“You haven’t let anyone in?”
“No.”
“But you talked to that reporter?” Leo left the closet door open and clothing piled on the floor and moved toward the bed.
“Briefly.”
He yanked the coverlet right off the mattress. “Why?”
“Stop that!” She reached out and grabbed it from him. “You’re destroying the place.”
Leo swiftly turned on her, and Maria found herself shoved against the wall, staring up into his wide, dark eyes. His jaw jutted to the side, and he searched her face, appearing to relish the fear he saw there.
“Did he pay you?”
“Who?”
“George Hall.”
“Of course not!”
“Then why give him those details? You wouldn’t even open the door for me, but you tell secrets about your employer to the first newshound that drops by?”
Maria tried to slide away from him, but Leo blocked her with an arm. She grasped Mrs. Crater’s red dress and the coverlet to her chest like a buffer, but he ripped them out of her clenched fists and threw them to the floor. He inched closer and tugged at a stray curl that had slipped loose beneath her cap. She jerked her head away.
“You’re very pretty, Maria,” he whispered. “No wonder Jude is always in a rush to get home.”
Maria turned her face from the warmth of his breath.
“Or should I call you Amedia? That’s the name you gave the reporter, right?”
The other detectives were spread throughout the apartment, opening cupboard doors and pulling things from shelves. She glanced at the bedroom door—only two feet away—but Leo forced it shut with the heel of one hand. He flipped the lock and turned his carnal gaze back to Maria. He blocked her in with both arms.
Maria pushed at him, panicked and angry, but he didn’t budge. “Let me go.”
Leo dropped one hand to her thigh and slid it around to grab her backside.
“Stop it!” She thrashed against him, but he pinned her to the wall with his torso.
“Word around the office is that you begged Crater for Jude’s little promotion. Did you do anything else for him? You look like his type.”
“Of course not!”
“Jude would have never gotten the job otherwise, you know. Too many damn scruples. You must have really made an impression on Crater.”
Maria could hear the pounding of her heart and the blood rushing through her ears. She tried to bring her knee up into his crotch, but her entire body was pinned by the length of his. The more she fought against h
im, the more her dress bunched and rose up her legs.
Leo’s fingers found her hemline.
“Don’t touch me.”
“What did you do with those envelopes?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. I swear to God I’m not.” Maria’s voice broke, and she tugged at the bottom of her dress. “Leave me alone, please.”
Leo’s breath was hot against her ear. “You think I didn’t know you were here that day? That I didn’t see you between the slats, hiding in the closet?” He wedged his elbow into the soft spot between her shoulder and breast. “What do you think Jude would say if he knew you were spying on him?”
Maria let out a sharp gasp of pain and tried to wiggle away.
Leo laughed. “You didn’t tell him, did you?”
“No.”
“Those envelopes are gone. You must have told someone. That reporter, maybe?”
Maria wanted to spit at him, to scream that she wasn’t stupid. That she’d been married to a cop long enough to know that people who ran their mouths didn’t last long in this city. “I didn’t.”
Leo lowered his elbow and studied her face. “And you’re not going to tell anyone, are you?”
“No.”
“Because if you do, you’re going to end up just like your employer. Missing. Or worse. Understand?”
Her answer rushed out in a panicked breath. “Yes.”
Leo stepped away and she stumbled forward.
“You talk about this to anyone, and poof!” He made a vanishing gesture with his hands. “You disappear. Owney can make it happen.”
“I believe you.”
“The thing is”—Leo reached out and patted her cheek—“Owney needs that husband of yours to do what he’s told. And if Jude finds out about our little chat, he might not want to take orders anymore. Do you see how that could be a problem?”
Maria stepped away from his touch. She wrapped her arms around her chest and blinked furiously against the tears that burned her eyes.
“So you keep this conversation between us. Because if Jude becomes a problem, I can make sure he gets the kiss-off as well. Got that?”
“I do.”
“Good girl. Now clean up this mess.” Leo unlocked the door and jerked it open. “C’mon, boys. Let’s make tracks. There’s nothing to find here.”
She heard them kicking things out of their way as they tromped toward the front door. It creaked open and then slammed shut so hard the wall rattled.
Maria waited for several long minutes, listening to her heart settle, and then tiptoed into the living room. The apartment was in shambles. Furniture overturned. Drawers emptied. The contents of every closet, cupboard, and cabinet jettisoned across the hardwood floor. Although they were careful not to actually break anything, it looked as though the apartment had been burglarized.
Maria closed her eyes and slid down the living room wall. She crumpled to the floor with a choked sob.
CLUB ABBEY
GREENWICH VILLAGE, AUGUST 6, 1969
Club Abbey was frequented by such like-minded criminals as Jack “Legs” Diamond, Dutch Schulz, and Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll. Judge Joseph Crater visited the club at least twice, and likely quite a bit more often than that.
—Richard J. Tofel, Vanishing Point
“I was sorry to hear about your wife,” Stella says, but the lines around her eyes do not fill with sympathy. She is a woman impervious to grief.
Jude turns from her platitude, picks at a splinter in the table with his thumbnail. He could tell her the number of years, months, and days since he laid Maria to rest beneath a white marble headstone, BELOVED engraved above her name. He could tell her this, but he doesn’t.
After a moment, he clears his throat. “She has a name.”
“I haven’t forgotten. I liked Maria.”
It’s been a long time since he has heard her name spoken aloud. It unsettles him. “I don’t want to talk about my wife. Especially with someone who has no regard for her memory.”
“What do you want, a eulogy? She was the maid.”
Jude’s fist lands like a hammer on the table. “She was my wife!” And a gifted tailor. His best friend. His lover. His conscience. He counts the roles she played, lays them out in his mind, innumerable, invaluable.
All eyes in the bar turn toward the commotion. Stan goes rigid and overfills a stein of Meister Bräu Lite. Suds slosh onto his hand, and he wipes it on his apron, but he never looks away. He gives the drink to his customer without a glance and leans over the bar, elbows resting on the varnished surface, straining to hear their conversation.
“Pity I didn’t tell you back then that I knew,” Stella says. “It would have been fun to watch you squirm.”
“You’re lying.”
“You think I’m stupid? That I didn’t know you two were married? She practically danced through the apartment when you made detective.” The corner of Stella’s mouth twitches with a repressed smile. “Maria was my insurance policy. I figured if you got too close to the truth, she would be handy collateral. Fortunately for her, I never had to play that card.”
“You couldn’t have used her, if that’s what you’re getting at. Maria wasn’t for sale.”
She snorts. “Like you?”
“Being for sale and being under duress are two different things.”
“A convenient distinction after all these years, don’t you think? It was my understanding that you volunteered for those little errands. Pocket a little extra cash. Grease the wheels for Owney. Everyone’s happy, right? Except your wife. I imagine she didn’t take kindly to realizing her husband was on the payroll of a gangster.”
Jude recoils at her words. “I didn’t volunteer for anything.”
“That’s right, it was Maria’s doing.”
“What do you mean?”
“She came to us. Asked Joe to put in a good word for you. Ambitious, that wife of yours.”
“No.”
“There’s no way you would have ever made detective without a little help. I’m the one that pushed Joe to do it. For Maria.” A small admission of affection, tossed at him like a bone before a starving dog.
Still, he can’t accept this, shakes his head, argues. “I don’t believe you.”
Stella runs her fingers down the rope of pearls around her neck. Small, seedlike pearls at the top grew larger until the centerpiece: a grape-size saltwater pearl in the middle. Stella spins it around the string with her thumb.
“No one got anywhere those days without help. Everyone owed favors. And there were always layers of corruption. Hell, the well-oiled machine of Tammany Hall ran on bribery. You want a place in the club? You pay your dues to Owney Madden, and he puts in a good word with whatever politician he has in his pocket. But now you’re beholden to Owney, and he has an agenda of his own. So when your indiscretions upset the balance, you go missing and the middlemen blackmail a gumshoe to leave some discreetly hidden envelopes in your apartment.” Stella gives him a sharp, wicked smile. “I am curious to know which bothers you more: that you planted evidence in my home or that your wife couldn’t keep her sticky fingers away from it?”
Jude whips his head back and forth in short little bursts of anger. “You don’t get to talk about her—”
“Five hundred dollars. I wasn’t expecting to find our life savings drawn in cash and tucked in a bureau drawer, but I did know how much was missing. Down to the dollar. What’d she do with it, anyway, Detective? Go to Coney Island and blow it at the craps table?”
Jude swallows the rage that simmers at the back of his throat, calms himself by pressing his hands onto the wooden seat. “It’s a funny thing about that money,” he says, when he’s sure there won’t be a growl in his voice. “You’d be surprised how many hands it went through before reaching its unsavory end.”
“Nothing surprises me anymore. Especially when it comes to money and corruption and Joe�
�s disappearance.”
“There was this showgirl that your husband knew. Went by the name of Sally Lou Ritz.”
“Ritzi,” Stella says. Her expression is ambivalent, a subtle shifting around the eyes and mouth between anger and hurt. “What of her?”
“I interviewed her a few days after Joe made the papers. She was a real firecracker.” It’s Jude’s turn to be cruel, and he flings the words at her like shrapnel. “No wonder your husband was so fond of her.”
“What does Ritzi have to do with that money?”
“When it comes to this case, Ritzi has to do with everything. But you already knew that, didn’t you, Stella? I imagine you’ve spent a whole lot of time thinking about Sally Lou Ritz. And hating her.”
Stella drops the pearls back to her chest, considers her lack of curves, the way her dress hangs limp where it should be stretched over the fullness of breasts. “Joe had a thing for brunettes,” she says at last, as though this admission explains everything.
Chapter Sixteen
BROADWAY THEATER, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 15, 1930
RITZI slipped into the dressing room in search of a bandage. Two hours of rehearsal on swollen feet resulted in a dime-size blister at the back of her heel, and she’d taken the opportunity to skip out early and have a few minutes to herself. She kicked her shoes off and shrugged out of the skimpy rehearsal dress, digging around the supply cabinet until she found a bottle of Gold Bond and a bandage large enough to cover the back of her foot. The powder stung as it settled into the raw blister, and her face twisted in pain. She recoiled at her own reflection: stretched, gaunt. Wrung out.
Her rehearsals for The New Yorkers had begun a month earlier, turning an already busy schedule into a grueling merry-go-round of rehearsals in the day and live performances of Ladies All at night. Two different theaters. Two different plays. And a world of things to remember each time she stepped onstage. To make matters worse, The New Yorkers required a double role: the supporting part of May the prostitute and a filler in the chorus line. The Ritzi of the chorus lines was seductive and coquettish. But the Ritzi who played May in Cole Porter’s musical was sad and lonely and appealing for entirely different reasons. Of the two roles, she much preferred May.