Body in the Big Apple ff-10

by Katherine Hall Page

  “I have a ton to do,” Emma agreed, lifting her cup for a refill.

  Realizing she’d been remiss in not giving a full account of the service, Faith described the event. Hesitating slightly, she told Emma about Lorraine Fuchs.

  As she’d suspected, Emma wanted to meet her at once and talk about her father.

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  “When things are a little more settled,” Faith advised, not wanting to muddy the waters any further. It was impossible to see bottom now, and if Lorraine was to learn of Emma’s existence, not having known previously, the waters might well silt up to deltalike proportions. For, if Lorraine knew, then Harvey would, and so forth, until the paparazzi outside Emma’s apartment building would be more numerous than at Jackie O’s and Princess Di’s combined.

  “In detective stories, they always try to figure out who benefits from a death, which should be fairly simple to figure out. If Fox made a will—and I’m not sure Communists do this sort of thing—it would have to be probated, and some lawyer—or Arthur Quinn, if he has it—will be coming forward one of these days.”

  “But Daddy didn’t have any money, not much anyway. Just enough to pay his rent, buy food, books, typing paper.”

  Faith suddenly had a whole bunch of questions and didn’t want to forget. “Remind me about the books and paper, but we’ve been overlooking something. How did he even get the small amount he needed to live on?

  He wasn’t getting any royalties. Lorraine has always done temp work, which can’t pay much. I suppose she must have supported them before they came to New York, and sympathizers may have sent her money. I’d like to get a list of those charities Fox stipulated as the recipients of his earnings. Could one have been Lorraine, a way of funneling the money back to himself?

  But the FBI would have checked each one thoroughly, so that’s out.”

  “How about Poppy?”

  How about Poppy, indeed? Easy enough for her to supply her ex-lover with cash now and then. It made a 104

  great deal of sense. Faith had left Fox’s service with the distinct impression that Poppy Morris had been carrying a torch of Olympic proportions for Fox all these years.

  “It’s a thought,” she said slowly.

  “Now, what about the books and typing paper?” Emma had a hectic flush on her cheeks and asked this eagerly. It was just like the old days, when they’d tried to get locked in the Metropolitan Museum after reading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E.

  Frankweiler.

  “At the service, his agent talked about a book, one that was to be published only after Fox’s death. Lorraine mentioned that he was working on an important book, too. What do you know about it?”

  “A couple of times when I visited him, he was typing. I could hear it through the door. It wasn’t a very safe building—the buzzer didn’t work and anybody could get in from the street door. I really wanted him to move, but he always said no one would bother an old man like him. He gave me a key, ‘just in case,’ he said, but I’m not sure what he meant, what the case would be. I always knocked, since there wasn’t an intercom and I didn’t want to disturb his work.

  That’s how I heard the typing. He was pretty good at it.”

  “The book, Emma, what was the book about?”

  “Some political thing, I imagine. He told me it was his magnum opus and the most fun he’d had in years.

  He kept it in a fireproof metal file cabinet. He was afraid of fire—said the building would go up in a flash.

  I gave him one of those small extinguishers, and he was very pleased. But he never said anything about when the book was going to be published.” 105

  “Did he ever talk about being afraid of anything else, particularly anyone else?”

  Emma shook her head. “It’s not the greatest neighborhood and, as I said, the building wasn’t secure. He was afraid of fire because of his books and papers, not because he was worried about himself. I always thought he liked living on the edge—in a funny way, liked being a wanted man, hiding out.” Which was what Arthur Quinn had implied. Well, thought Faith, whatever gets you off—although in this case, it was permanent.

  “It just doesn’t make sense. Without much of an estate, Nathan Fox was certainly worth more alive than dead to anyone who knew who he really was. Why kill him? Why not simply turn him over to the feds for the reward money?”

  “But only a handful of people knew who he was—

  me, this Lorraine Fuchs, Todd, but that was years ago.” Emma was right. It was a short list—so far. Faith could already add several names: maybe Harvey Fuchs—she hadn’t mentioned him to Emma yet—

  maybe Arthur Quinn, maybe Poppy Morris.

  “You better watch out . . .” The Salvation Army Santa’s tape was starting from the beginning again.

  This time, Faith put the money for the check on the table and they put their coats on.

  When she passed him, Faith shoved a five-dollar bill in the pot.

  They were rolling out pecan shortbread cookies for an office party at one of the publishing houses when the phone rang. Faith grabbed it, hoping it was her grandmother, with whom she’d been playing phone tag since receiving the plaintive message about the closing of 106

  B. Altman’s—or “Baltmans,” as Hope had called it when she was little.

  But it wasn’t Granny; it was Emma. Emma sounding more frantic and flat-out terrified than Faith had ever heard her.

  “I don’t know what to do! You’ve got to help me!”

  “What’s wrong! Where are you! Emma, if you’re in any danger, you have got to call the police!”

  “No, no! Faith, I’m at my wit’s end!”

  “What! What is it!”

  “The caterer I hired for the Stanstead Associates holiday party tomorrow night has been shut down by the Board of Health!”

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  Five

  This was serious.

  “Michael thinks everything’s all set, and besides people from the firm, he always invites extras—people he wants to impress, important people. I’ve been calling every caterer in the city and everybody’s booked.

  I’m desperate!”

  Trying extremely hard not to feel slighted as a caterer, Faith worked to sound sympathetic. The important “extras” would no doubt be people essential to Michael’s political ambitions, and a wife who muffed a simple thing like an office party was not going to present herself as a strong candidate for pulling off state dinners.

  “I know Have Faith won’t be able to do it. Of course you’re booked, but do you know anyone who could possibly step in? It could even be an outfit from Jersey.” Emma’s voice trembled.

  Faith was enormously relieved. She should have had more faith. Emma assumed she was busy, as all the hot—and even not so hot—caterers in town were. And 108

  Faith was busy. She was doing a lunch tomorrow and an after-theater dessert buffet in the evening. Saturday night, she had two dinners and a cocktail party.

  “What time is it scheduled for, and is it dinner?”

  “Six o’clock, supposedly after work, but no one’s going to be working much on a Friday this close to Christmas. What we’d arranged was hors d’oeuvres, then a buffet of more substantial food and desserts. But it can all be scaled down. The most important thing is to have a lot to drink. At least that’s what Michael always says.”

  “I have a job, but not until later, and I think we can do both.”

  “You! But that would be heaven! I never dreamed you might be able to do it. Come over and take a look at the place. I don’t think you’ve seen it. I’ll give you a key and then you can come and go when you want.

  Oh, this is too good to be true! We’ll keep it simple—

  things everybody likes: foie gras, caviar, festive things.”

  Foie gras and caviar with toasted brioche and blinis being the Triscuits and Wispride spread of this crowd, Faith reflected. Obviously, money was no object, and it certainly did make things easier. She took down the num
ber of expected guests and a few other details from Emma, then began calling her suppliers. By the time Josie returned from a lunch break of Christmas shopping, Faith had the Stanstead party pretty much under control. She was happy to be helping Emma out, but even happier to have the opportunity to get a good look at some of the guests.

  Emma and Michael Stanstead’s rich young urban professional apartment, up in the Eighties between Fifth 109

  and Park in a grand old prewar building, owed more to Mark Hampton than Pottery Barn. Faith looked around the spacious living room. The walls had been covered in heavy damask silk with a slight woven stripe that was the color of bittersweet in autumn. In addition to the grouped collections of botanical and architectural framed prints, there was a striking modern oil by Wolf Kahn over the fireplace. The seating was chintz, but comfortable. Couches to sink into and curl up on.

  Large easy chairs next to skirted round tables piled with books. The lighting from the ceiling was soft and supplemented by table lamps. Another painting, a por-trait of Emma as a child by Aaron Shikler that Faith recognized from the Morrises’ living room, hung between the front windows. The entire apartment had been tastefully bedecked for the season. Swags of white pine and holly and pots of deep crimson cyclamen trailed across the mantel. More pine was fes-tooned over the doorways with shiny red ilex, gauzy silk ribbons floating from the boughs. There were flowers everywhere. She went to adjust one of the blooms—a white amaryllis, faintly edged with red—

  that had fallen slightly to one side, away from a profu-sion of blossoms and greens in a large silver Georgian wine cooler. The flowers were replacing a Dale Chihuly glass bowl, normally on the pedestal. “Too horrible if someone knocked into it,” Emma had declared, cradling the fragile piece in her arms and putting it in one of the cabinets under the wall of bookshelves, which contained burnished leather-bound volumes, complete with an antique mahogany library ladder.

  There were small white French lilacs in the arrangement and their fragrance suggested spring sunshine, not the slate sky outside. Looking up, searching the 110

  heavens anxiously for signs of more snow, Faith pushed one of the drapes farther aside. The pale gold silk fabric was so fine, it slipped through her fingers like molten metal, not woven threads. She let it drop back into place.

  The room was perfect. There wasn’t a single jarring note. Usually, she thought of rooms as backdrops for the food, settings in which a meal, the main event, was served. This room refused to be relegated. Soon it would be filled with people. You wouldn’t be able to see the intricate pattern of the huge Oriental rug almost covering the parquet. The bowls of Christmas roses and other more elaborate bouquets would be shoved to one side, displaced by plates with scraps of food, empty glasses. Yet, the room would still dominate.

  Josie came in with a pyramid of fruit and stopped in the doorway.

  “Yes, I could live here. Oh yes. Wouldn’t ever have to leave. Could sleep on the sofa. I’m definitely going to have to get me a place like this.” They both burst out laughing.

  “Where do you want this?” She held the fruit on top of her head and did a passable Carmen Miranda.

  “On the buffet, next to the fruit knives. It’s meant to be consumed. The comice pears are perfectly ripe—

  delectable. I had one for lunch.” Besides the foie gras, caviar, and champagne, Faith had added a buffet with roast sirloin of beef with two sauces—creamy horseradish and portabello mushroom—garlic mashed potatoes, roasted winter vegetables, a pesto pasta frittata, and the obligatory salad of mixed baby greens. The desserts, an assortment of cheeses, the fruit, champagne, and dessert wines were at one end of the table; the main course occupied the rest. Howard, bless his 111

  heart, would tend the bar, set up in Michael’s study.

  Jessica, a graduate student at Columbia who was on Faith’s list of part-time help, would take care of serving the buffet. Josie and Faith would alternate keeping an eye on things in the kitchen and circulating with a few platters of hot and cold hors d’oeuvres. Josie had offered to do all the serving, knowing that Faith preferred to stay in the background, but Faith had refused. This was one party where she planned to circulate.

  Emma was thrilled. She dashed into the kitchen before the first guest arrived, looking spectacularly pretty in a lacy Geoffrey Beene slip dress. The lingerie look was big for evening wear this year, and some of the events Faith had catered recently looked more like slumber than dinner parties. But Emma didn’t look ready for bed—or rather, not ready for sleep.

  “Thank you, thank you, thank you! I told Michael about the catastrophe but that I was able to get a great replacement, and he says he remembers a party you did and you’ll be even better than Henri, whose food was getting too predictable. I wonder why he was shut down? I never thought to ask, but it doesn’t matter.

  Michael thinks I’ve done a terrific job, and now I have to fly. There’s the door!”

  Emma’s speech was delivered at the speed of light and she was in and out of the kitchen before Faith had time to ask if they should start serving the hot hors d’oeuvres right away. She made the decision herself and popped a tray of coconut shrimp in the oven.

  Emma’s kitchen contained state-of-the-art equipment—Viking range, Sub-Zero refrigerator, Calphalon pots and pans—but showed absolutely no signs of use.

  Faith was accustomed to this, but she noted that the 112

  Stansteads did stock some food—DoveBars, of course, milk, English marmalade, and orange juice. Somewhere, there were probably English muffins, too.

  Faith walked from the kitchen down the hall, past the front door and foyer, and into the living room, which was already buzzing with conversation. The holiday season was adding glitter to what would be a sparkling group at any time of the year. Well dressed, well coiffed, they did indeed look like beautiful people. A subtle smell of expensive perfume filled the air.

  The women were wearing more jewelry than usual.

  Just as their sisters under the skin pinned a rhinestone Christmas tree to a coat collar or hung tiny Christmas ball earrings from their earlobes, these ladies had un-earthed their Judith Leiber minaudières and Tiffany di-amonds by the yard. They formed a seamless whole with their surroundings, and Faith felt as if she were watching an exceptionally well-staged and -costumed play.

  She started passing the tray and dispensing napkins.

  Michael’s study was off the main room. Setting up the bar there seemed to be working, freeing up space in the larger room for mixing and mingling.

  Looking about, she was reminded that her role as employee made her virtually invisible. All her senses were heightened—particularly sight and sound. She was acutely aware of everything going on in the room.

  Her first thought was that there were no surprises—

  yet.

  It was no surprise to see Poppy holding court, back to the fireplace, bathed in what was the kindest light of the room. It was no surprise to see Jason Morris, either, who was sitting in a large wing chair off to her side, watching his wife with an expression of tolerant 113

  amusement. Faith remembered him now. A large, florid man in bespoke suits, with patrician good looks that had once been much, much better. He looked all of his years tonight, especially compared with his wife.

  Faith remembered Emma’s recent description of her mother’s current attitude toward Jason, “But now she is fifty and he is seventy.” It was no surprise to see Lucy, dressed in those dreary lawyerlike clothes from Brooks—navy blue suits, skirt not too short, white blouse, maybe a fabric rosette at the neck. No jewelry except a very expensive watch. In deference to the hour and occasion, Lucy had chosen a black evening suit and the rosette was black satin. She’d inherited little in the way of appearance from her mother, certainly not her glorious red hair.

  She was a wheat-colored blond, thanks to Daddy, tall and large-boned, but with the athletic body of a would-be partner who regularly hits the squash court, letting the boss win, but not by much.


  And there were no surprises in her greeting to Faith.

  “You must all be so proud of Hope. I hear she’s taking the city by storm. And what are you doing with yourself these days? Waitressing?”

  Resisting the temptation to tell the bitch to take a flying leap, Faith smiled and moved the shrimp just out of Lucy’s reach. “I own the company that’s catering the party tonight.” She took a step away.

  “How, well, how very unusual,” Lucy said, smiling nastily. “And here I thought you were merely one of the help, but then again . . .” She let her words hang in the air like industrial waste. She didn’t need to finish.

  She didn’t need to say, “But then again, you are.” Letting it hang there was so much more fun.

  Faith moved sister Lucy to the top of the list of peo-114

  ple who might be blackmailing Emma, as well as to the top of the list of those who might have murdered Nathan Fox. She’d happily move Lucy to the top of more, but two was all she had at the moment.

  She went back for another tray, and when she returned, studiously ignored Lucy on her rounds. It was impossible to escape the voice, though. “I’m sorry,” Faith heard her say without a note of regret, “I really can’t get worked up about where to put the homeless. Long Island, wherever—so long as they’re not in my face.” No surprises. But yes, surprises.

  First, Hope walked in and sister bumped into sister.

  She was looking particularly gorgeous in an ivory satin blouse and short black velvet skirt, her dark hair loose.

  The hose on her shapely long legs had little rhinestones at each ankle. Hope must be in a whimsical mood tonight, Faith noted.

  “What are you doing here?” Hope asked.

  “I was about to ask you the same thing. You haven’t started moonlighting, working for Stanstead Associates, have you? Where would you get the time? And I’m catering this thing. Just ask Lucy.”

  “Of course I’m not working for them, but it might be fun someday. They’re an exciting bunch. No, Phelps invited me. He’s a good friend of Adrian Sutherland.