Body in the Big Apple ff-10

by Katherine Hall Page

  things like this; you can even hum a few bars of that other classic, “Mama said there’d be days like this”—will cause him to break up with you, too. But you’ll still have your money and will have saved even more on Doritos, which you know you eat when you’re depressed.”

  “Oh, Fay, life is so simple for you!”

  “What!” Faith exclaimed in astonishment.

  “Well, you always know what to do.” This was a complete revelation. Faith viewed her younger sib as the one with the Filofax lobe, the life plan. Faith tended to make snap judgments, go on a gut response . . . but it was true, when it came to questions of the heart, that she was quicker to ring in than her well-programmed sister.

  “True or not—and we have to talk—the question now is, What are you going to do?”

  “Dunno. Stall. Find out more about the company.

  Might be a good investment for me, too.” She perked up.

  “Hope!”

  “I’ll think about what you said. Got to run. Love you. Bye.”

  If there is a company, Faith thought as she ran a bath. That would definitely solve Hope’s dilemma—if she asked for a prospectus and none existed.

  She got into the fragrant, steamy water. Phelps Grant needed money. A lot of it. She’d never really considered him a suspect, but he was always there in the back of her mind with everyone else. He’d been at the party and could have left the card. He could have been at the first party, too; Faith had stayed in the kitchen that night. Then there was the second card. The one in the newspaper outside the Stansteads’ apartment 150

  door. The threatening one. Someone who looked as presentable as Phelps, particularly if he’d been there before, could easily get into the building. There were always times during the day when the doorman was away briefly. The Stansteads’ building had a rear entrance and stairs next to the service elevator. She’d noted them when they were catering the party. Having evaded the man at the door, you could avoid the one in the elevator by slipping into the rear and up the stairs.

  Where there was a will, there was a way. And Phelps definitely aspired to riches and power. He could be in the hole for any number of reasons—rent on a tony apartment he couldn’t afford, picking up the tab at Mortimer’s to impress a little too often, treating everyone to lines of the good stuff . . .

  She’d have to find somebody new for Hope after the holidays. It wasn’t the season to break up, although from the sound of it, Hope shouldn’t expect much in the way of a gift from Phelps. It was nice to have someone at the holidays. New York was so romantic.

  Twinkling lights everywhere. Red, green, gold—the city was swathed in the colors of the season. She added some more hot water.

  There was no sense in going back to Garden City, even if she hadn’t been literally thrown out of the real estate office. She wouldn’t be able to find out anything more about Todd Hartley there. She smiled. He’d have a hard time finding her. The car was registered to Jane, age fifty something. In the last years, her mother had grown a bit vague as to the exact number. There was nothing to link Faith Sibley to Karen Brown. She had nothing to fear from the man.

  She let her mind wander. Fox was killed to blackmail Emma. But did that really make sense? There was 151

  already enough to blackmail Emma about well into the next century. Why kill Fox?

  The apartment had been trashed. Maybe by junkies, as both Josie and Richard had suggested. But what if that hadn’t been the case? What if it had been somebody looking for something other than stereo equipment and jewelry?

  Something like a tell-all book. A magnum opus.

  Something that would blow the lid off—blow the lid off somebody’s secret. Somebody other than Emma.

  Richard’s book was going to blow a southern town sky-high. What was it with men—success had to be measured on the Richter scale?

  Faith suddenly decided she had to get into Fox’s apartment. Emma had a key. Surely the police would be finished with it by now. A key didn’t mean breaking and entering. She wanted to see the place for herself.

  See how it had been searched.

  And it was time to talk to Lorraine Fuchs again. Lorraine, the faithful companion. Find out if Lorraine knew anything more about that “very important book” Fox had been working on at the time of his death.

  Lorraine Fuchs had sounded thrilled that Faith—or rather, Karen—could drop by the next day.

  “It’s so important. I’ve thought of doing it myself, only I’m not a writer. Oh, maybe the odd pamphlet, but not a whole book! You were at the service. You heard Arthur. Nathan’s words were his legacy. But his life was, too, and you’ll be putting it into words!” Faith arranged to be there at 2:00 P.M., took down the directions, and felt like a heel.

  Next, she called Emma.

  “I want to get into your father’s apartment.” She 152

  came right to the point. It was the best way with Emma.

  “What! You don’t want me to go with you, do you?”

  “No, but I do need the key.” Faith thought they should assume that Emma’s movements were being closely followed, and the last place she should go was to Fox’s apartment. She wondered if the blackmailers had pictures of Emma on the day Fox was killed. Well, even if they did, there was no need to supply them with any more opportunities.

  “It’s best to do this sort of thing during the day. Less suspicious. I’d like to go over in the morning.”

  “You sound terribly professional,” Emma remarked admiringly.

  “It’s common sense—and television.” You could learn a lot from Cagney and Lacey.

  They arranged that Faith would drop by Emma’s apartment and pick up the key the next morning on her way downtown. “I have to go to a breakfast with Michael, and if I’m already gone, I’ll leave it in an envelope with Juanita,” she told Faith. “If I leave it with one of the doormen, Michael might be with me when he said something like ‘Your friend got the key all right.’ Then it would be ‘What key?’ and everything will be ruined. Michael and Juanita never talk.” Faith’s next call was to Josie.

  “It’s about time! I’ve been worrying my head off about you all day,” Josie complained.

  “Why didn’t you call? And what’s going on? You just saw me last night?”

  “Didn’t want to bother you. Maybe was taking a little nap myself. Yeah, I know,” Josie muttered.

  “But what’s wrong?”

  “You know. That phone call you got last week. The 153

  one we’re not talking about. I’m not asking any questions—not that I don’t want to—but when you’re working the way we are, you know when something heavy is going down. One look at you is all I need.”

  “I’m okay.” Faith wished she could add that everything else was, too, but she couldn’t lie to Josie. Besides, Josie would know the minute she saw Faith.

  “Any new jobs?” Josie asked.

  “No, but don’t forget we have a million party platters, some buche de Noël, and several main courses to do this week. I don’t know which is more work—a whole dinner or assembling all those for the do-it-yourselfers.”

  “I’ll be in bright and early. What do you want me to start on—pastries or pâtés?”

  Faith felt a little embarrassed. “I won’t be able to get there until later, and I have to be away for a while in the afternoon, but I plan to work late. I’m going to ask Jessica to come in. She can clean up and do some of the simple prep work—wash fruit, cut up cheese.

  Why don’t you start on the desserts?” Faith knew Josie preferred making bite-sized pecan tarts, tiny profiteroles, and white chocolate mini-cheesecakes to putting together the vegetable terrine, pâté de campagne, duck with armagnac pâté, and others that, along with an assortment of breads, went into that offering.

  They talked business some more; then Faith realized she’d better be getting ready for her date with Richard.

  “I’ve got to meet Richard in an hour,” she said.

  Josie voi
ced her approval. “I liked him. Good appetite. You can tell a lot about a man by the way he eats. This is good. If you’re with him tonight, I won’t have to worry.”

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  Faith was a little annoyed. She could take care of herself. “You don’t have to worry in any case.”

  “Whatever you say.”

  Monday morning, Faith breezed past the doormen, who were getting to be old friends, and went straight up to Emma’s apartment. She was anxious to get downtown, get a look at Fox’s apartment, then get some work done before she had to leave for her appointment with Lorraine Fuchs. Busy, busy, busy.

  It was sunny and several degrees warmer than it had been lately. People looked happier. Maybe there was something to this sunlight-deprivation business. After getting the key, Faith walked briskly to the subway entrance. Richard and she had been talking about the decade again last night at the Algonquin. Faith supposed every era had spawned a variety of popular notions—fads, even—but they seemed on the increase, and they seemed to be taken more seriously. Like the sunlight theory or the Yuppie fatigue thing. Then her own personal favorite—that an unmarried thirty-one-year-old woman was as likely to find a mate as she was to win the New York State Lottery and/or be awarded the Nobel Prize for anything.

  “That’s not something you’ll have to worry about,” Richard had said, reaching for her hand. They were drinking Manhattans and Connick was playing Cole Porter—“Easy to Love,” to Faith’s delight and discomfort.

  “Which part?” Faith had asked.

  “The married part. You’ll be married long before your thirty-first birthday.”

  “What makes you so sure?” she’d asked.

  Richard had signaled the waiter for more drinks and 155

  the menu. “Because you’re the type. Aside from being very lovely and smart, you’re a head-over-heels kind of lady. And that’s irresistible.”

  It had been on the tip of Faith’s tongue to ask, “To you?” but for once she’d kept quiet. Maybe she wasn’t ready to hear the answer.

  Now, leaving the subway and walking along the sidewalk, she cast a longing glance at the Grand Dairy restaurant. No time for blintzes today. She passed the place where her father bought his pure English lisle black socks by the dozen and turned off into Fox’s street.

  The building was run-down. There was a small area in front, just big enough for a few lawn chairs, which would sprout in the spring, their elderly occupants passing time by watching what passed. The front door looked secure, but it opened with a push. Faith looked at the mailboxes. None of them had the name Fuchs.

  Emma had given her the apartment number. It was on the third floor, and she walked up the stairs, key in hand.

  It wasn’t hard to find the apartment. Not hard at all—with its bright yellow crime-scene ribbon taped across the door. And her key was worthless. The apartment had been secured by the police.

  “Can I help you, dear?” An incredibly short woman who looked to be in her eighties came out of the apartment next door.

  “I’m . . . I’m a graduate student and I’m doing my thesis on Nathan Fox, his life, his writings.” Faith fum-bled for words and quickly put the key in her coat pocket. “I thought maybe some of his neighbors might have had some contact with him.”

  “You’d better come in,” she said. “I’m Sadie Glickman. What’s your name?”

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  “Karen. Karen Brown,” Faith didn’t dare look the woman in the eye. She’d be lost if she did. It was a whole lot harder to lie to a little old lady than to someone like Todd Hartley. Fooling him had been exciting and fun, in a way—at least at the beginning. Reeling off whoppers to someone her grandmother’s age conjured up Dantesque visions of what might await her in the hereafter. I’m doing this for Emma, she repeated to herself. It was becoming a mantra.

  “You want something to eat, Karen? I have some nice pound cake.”

  “No, no thank you. This probably wasn’t a good idea. The papers said he kept to himself.” Sadie sat down in a chair by the window in her tiny living room and motioned Faith into another. The largest piece of furniture was a television set. Besides its function as entertainment, it served to hold more photographs than Faith had ever seen assembled in one place. “My family,” Sadie said, waving her hand.

  “Now that’s true—Mr. Fuchs did keep to himself. The police questioned me. A very nice young man.” She looked at Faith in an appraising way and Faith was tempted to pipe up, “No, I don’t have a steady.”

  “I was here when it happened,” she continued. “But when they asked, the only thing I could tell them was that I thought I might have heard a backfire then. Of course, I’d see Mr. Fuchs now and again on the stairs, in the hall, but Live and Let Live is my motto. There are plenty like him in the building. Stella—that’s my upstairs neighbor—she used to get a little smile and a hello out of him. She’s younger than I am,” Sadie said pointedly.

  Faith laughed.

  “Are you sure you don’t want some cake?” 157

  “Why not?” Despite the photo gallery, the woman was obviously lonely, and Faith felt she owed her something for the lies she was telling.

  They settled in with cake and tea. Faith heard about the achievements of various Glickmans and a great deal about Leona Helmsley, who had been sentenced the previous Thursday.

  “An old lady! An old lady like me! And they’re going to send her to prison for four years! When I say

  ‘like me,’ I mean, you understand, that we’re in the same time of life, not the same type of person.”

  “I’m sure you have never been driven in your life by

  ‘naked greed.’ That’s what the judge said. Why he was so hard on her. He accused her of thinking she was above the law.”

  Sadie nodded solemnly. “No, greed was never a problem for me. I never had enough to be greedy about. Not that I’m complaining. Abe and I had a good life. All the children went to college and are doing well. Maybe she did think she was above the law.

  Harry, of course Harry can’t even think these days. You have to feel sorry for another human being. He spoiled her maybe. Too many fur coats. It went to her head.

  But above the law? There are a lot out there”—she pointed to the street—“who think that. And what about Mr. Fuchs when he was Nathan Fox?”

  And what about Mr. Fuchs? Faith had momentarily forgotten her mission. A mission impossible, and she’d better get going. But Sadie was a smart lady. Nathan Fox had thought himself above the law. Maybe it wasn’t the same kind of self-interest as Queen Leona’s.

  Fox had used the old “for the greater good” argument to justify his actions. Always a chilling phrase.

  Yet, self-interest was a good part of Fox’s life, self-158

  aggrandizing in a way not dissimilar from Leona Helmsley’s ad campaigns. What about all his enfant terrible books? Dinners at Elaine’s—and his society matron groupies.

  Sadie was still talking about the verdict. “She’s appealing. I hope she has a good lawyer. What’s the point? She didn’t kill anybody. Take her money away.

  Send her here. There’s an apartment on the first floor available. Let her live out her days as one of the little people. It’s wrong to send old ladies to prison.”

  “I can’t argue with that.” Faith got up and began clearing their plates and cups. Sadie watched approv-ingly.

  “I’m sorry. I have to be going,” Faith told her, slipping her coat from the back of the chair. Sadie got up, too, and put her hand on Faith’s arm. She lowered her voice and, in a conspiratorial tone, asked, “You want to have a look at his place?”

  “How? It’s all locked up.” Faith couldn’t believe this was happening. How was Sadie going to get her into Fox’s apartment? A hidden door in the closet? Morph her through the wall?

  “You can get onto the fire escape from Stella’s, and it goes right past his window.”

  The image of Stella, and maybe Sadie, too, as a Peeping Thomasina was almost too much for Fai
th. In days that weren’t filled with any laughter, this one was rapidly becoming high comedy.

  “Is Stella home?”

  “Stella’s always home on Mondays. We’ll go up.” Which was how Faith shortly found herself crouched on a cold metal grid, peering through the grimy locked window of Nathan Fox’s apartment, the apartment where he had met his death.

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  The police must have taken various articles away, but Faith didn’t have a clue as to what they were. The small room was a shambles. The card table where he wrote was overturned, the typewriter lying on its side.

  Clippings and papers from the file cabinet covered the floor. There was a cabinet over the sink. The door was open and it was empty, except for a saucepan. There was a plate and a glass in the dish drainer. The refrigerator door was closed. There were no postcards on it and nothing lay on the floor beneath. The grill at the bottom had been pried off. The oven door was open. It needed cleaning—since sometime in the forties. Directly opposite the window was a closet. That door was open, too. The hangers were empty and there was a pile of clothes on the floor. A flat pile. No picture of Emma and Michael. She couldn’t see into the bathroom, but she’d seen enough to know how thorough the search had been. She’d also seen enough to know what the person—or persons—unknown had been looking for. The books that filled an entire wall in floor-to-ceiling shelves were virtually undisturbed.

  And they looked carefully arranged, separated by metal bookends into groups. If the police had picked them up from the floor, Faith doubted they would have replaced them so carefully. The only volumes that had been disturbed were the oversized ones. True, somebody looking for goods to fence wouldn’t walk out with a stack of books, but they wouldn’t search under the refrigerator, either, or go through the file drawers.