Body in the Big Apple ff-10

by Katherine Hall Page

“Plenty.”

  “Then I’ll make five. See you in an hour.” Faith sat down at the counter and looked at her doo-dles on the packing sheet of paper from the day before. She’d drawn thin lines from Emma to everyone else. The result looked like the wheel of an imported sports car. She stared at it some more and then started to crumble it up. She didn’t need it anymore. Case closed.

  But the case wasn’t closed. She still didn’t know who had been blackmailing Emma—and she was sure they’d try again. Then there was the big question behind everything else. Who had killed Nathan Fox and Lorraine Fuchs? And who had been at the wheel of the car last night? Could she be sure it was Harvey? Could she be sure of anything?

  The phone rang. It was Richard. Case in point.

  “Hi, know you’re busy, but I wanted to hear your voice.”

  When someone says something like that, it makes it hard to say anything next. Thou witty, thou wise—thou banal.

  “Well, hi there.” Brilliant, Faith.

  “How late are you working tonight? Could we get together?”

  “I have no idea. It’s dinner, but sometimes people linger. Certainly not before midnight.”

  “Then midnight it is.”

  Whoa, she thought. Last night, tonight? Tomorrow night?

  “I really have to get some sleep. I’ve—”

  “Sounds fine to me.” His voice was warm and the enthusiasm was neither over- nor underdone.

  “Okay, why don’t I call you when I’m leaving. The apartment is up on Central Park West.”

  “See you later.”

  She hung up, then realized she hadn’t invited him to her parents’. Somehow in the course of the conversation, she’d decided to—Phelps or no Phelps.

  Sunday morning dawned gray and cold. And brownish green. The only snow they’d have for Christmas was what was in store windows, and the unsightly mounds left by the plows that hadn’t melted yet and were serving as dog loos, with occasional garlands of trash. The apartment was warm, but Faith didn’t feel like leaving the nest of her bed. Not for a long time. Last night had been a disaster. She roused herself. Coffee. Much coffee. Maybe not a disaster, but certainly a downer. The dinner had gone well and she’d showered her cards like confetti upon the complimentary guests. One man had offered to put money in the business and had given her his card. Then she’d gone to meet Richard at the bar at the Top of the Sixes—666 Fifth Avenue, his choice.

  “The view used to be better. They’re putting up too many buildings in the city.”

  Faith had agreed. The restaurant had been a favorite of Aunt Chat’s when Faith was a child, and they’d celebrated special occasions there. She remembered one time when Chat had let Faith and Hope take turns wearing her new white mink stole—the tangible result of a whopping new account—all through dinner, apparently unperturbed by the catsup they were amply using to cover their fries. The Top of the Sixes was a man-made mountain aerie; they floated not above the clouds, but above the hordes. It had always been hard to come away from the windows to concentrate on the food. As Faith got older, she determined the view was the draw. Not necessarily the food.

  Last night, some of the old childhood magic had been present. For one thing, it was almost Christmas and the restaurant was filled with reminders—not only the decorations but also the guests. Everyone was a bit more dressed up than usual and the conversation sounded sparkling, even if proximity would have revealed it wasn’t. Carols played softly in the background. Faith had changed at work and was wearing a burgundy silk shirt tucked into matching velvet pants—a once-a-year kind of outfit she’d bought on the spur of the moment. She wore the Mikimoto pearl necklace Chat had given her for her twenty-first birthday. As she’d fastened it around her neck, she’d noted the way the beads shone luminously against her throat.

  She’d pulled her hair back.

  Richard was still celebrating. He’d spent most of the day with his agent. “Perrier-Jouët, don’t you think?” Faith had agreed. Not only were the Art Nouveau bottles lovely to look at, but the champagne was damn good, too. She’d settled into herself. Thoughts of Emma Morris Stanstead—thoughts of everything save the moment—had disappeared from her mind.

  “You’ve become very special to me, Faith,” Richard murmured. He was sitting next to her, as close as the chair would allow. He took her hand.

  “I want to give you something.”

  “Oh, no, Richard, you shouldn’t have,” she’d protested, happily aware that her bag was weighed down with the snow globe she’d bought for him.

  “It’s nothing.” He’d smiled.

  And it was. A cookbook. A nice one with glossy photographs. But a book. Impersonal.

  “You probably have a million of these, but you have to get ideas from somewhere, and this looked great. It’s divided by seasons. You can cook your way through the year.”

  Oh bliss, Faith thought, and decided to keep the snow globe for herself.

  After some more champagne, she had second thoughts. Men were notoriously bad at knowing what to give women as gifts. Her father was a case in point, appealing desperately to his daughters when those times of the year rolled around, and they were more than happy to save their mother from a blender—Dad’s idea for one Christmas—or a sewing machine—for Mom’s fortieth.

  She was just reaching into her bag, Richard nuzzling her neck in a decidedly pleasant way, when she heard him say, “I’m really going to miss you.” Say what? “Miss me? Why?” she said out loud.

  “I’m leaving the day after Christmas to finish the book. I’ve cleared my desk of all but the Stanstead profile, so I’ll be gone a month or two, maybe three. I will be back whenever he announces, and we can grab some time then, but for all intents and purposes—and I mean this most regettably—I’ll be gone until spring.”

  “Oh,” said Faith. She was not a fan of long-distance romances, especially one that was just getting off the ground, no matter how many stories up they were.

  She’d never been one to carry a torch—perhaps because there had never been anyone who had caused one to burn brightly enough. Why hadn’t Richard told her this before? He must have known last night. Clearing his desk meant forethought. But not a thought for her. She looked into his eyes. Yes, there was a little guilt there, embarrassment. Don’t worry, she wanted to tell him. I’m not going to make a scene. I’m not going to try to tie you down.

  “Oh,” she said, “that’s wonderful. The sooner you finish the book, the sooner it will hit the best-seller list.”

  “I knew you’d understand. Merry Christmas,” he’d said, clinking her glass with his.

  He’d taken her home in a cab. She had pleaded fatigue and the brunch the next morning to do. As she’d gotten out, he’d handed her her bag. “What do you carry in this thing? Rocks?”

  “Yes,” she’d said, smiled, and waved good-bye.

  “That’s it. See you tomorrow. You sure your mother’s oven is big enough for the turkey? I’d be happy to do it here and bring it over,” Josie offered. The brunch was a great success, especially the Big Apple pancakes [see the recipe on page 282], and they’d cleaned up quickly together.

  “I’m sure, although all she ever uses it for is to broil a nice piece of fish or, alternately, a nice boneless chicken breast. That’s what they eat—with a little salad or a few vegetables, depending on the time of year.”

  “This does not sound like the kind of clergy I know.

  Being God’s Go-Between is strenuous work, and they need more than a shriveled-up dry piece of chicken to do it. You bring your daddy over to Josie’s when I open and I’ll give him a real chicken breast—soaked in buttermilk, coated with my special seasoned flour, and deep-fried, with a crust as light as an angel’s wing.”

  “It’s obvious you’re going home soon. Your accent is getting deeper and deeper and you’re starting to talk like someone out of a Zora Neale Hurston short story.” Josie laughed. “Nothing wrong with that. Anyway, you need cheering up.” Faith had given her an
abbrevi-ated version of the last two dates with Richard. “I think it is positively wicked to dump someone at the holidays. The man has no class whatsoever,” Josie added, fuming.

  “I don’t think I was being dumped. More like put on hold.”

  “Same thing.”

  “Same thing,” Faith agreed glumly. This was a new experience for her. She had never been the dumpee—and she didn’t intend to let it happen again, no matter how many verses the man could sing, or how well. If she hadn’t been so preoccupied with Emma’s problems, she might have paid more attention to the signs Richard had been giving her. They’d been there.

  “I’m leaving, ladies. Merry Christmas to you both.” It was Howard. He’d delivered all the surplus food to an agency that fed the homeless. “I’d hate to be on the streets tonight. It is colder than a witch’s—toe. And with that, I’m off to start trolling my Yuletide treasure, or maybe it’s Yuletide carol. Whichever, I’ll be doing it.” What little family Howard had lived in California, but he’d often remarked to Faith that you could make your own families—and he had. The same group had been celebrating all the holidays, plus times in between, for years now.

  Faith handed him a brightly wrapped present. “Put it under your tree.”

  “Thank you, love. Yours is in your big pocketbook.

  I hid it there. Open it whenever you like. Check yours out, too, Miss Josephina.”

  Faith had gotten him a camel-colored cashmere muffler at Barneys. Howard was not above brand names.

  “You’ll have to wait for yours until tomorrow,” Faith told Josie. “It’s not wrapped.” Nor were any of the other presents she’d gotten for friends and family. She was so used to doing this chore in the wee hours of Christmas morning, after the Christmas Eve service, that it had come to seem part of the day, a tradition.

  Wrap presents, fall asleep. Wake up, open them.

  “You sure you’re okay here? This thing with Richard hasn’t bummed you out too much?”

  “I’m leaving soon to go across town to my parents.

  And no, the thing with Richard hasn’t gotten to me, and I think it would have by now if it was going to—that’s a mouthful, but you know what I mean.” Faith was surprised. She really wasn’t that upset. Maybe the cookbook had some good cookie recipes. She needed new ones. They often served cookies and fruit. Maybe fruit cookies? A Big Apple cookie [see the recipe on page 284]—a cookie with an attitude?

  “I know what you mean—and count yourself lucky.

  You didn’t go spending a fortune on some Christmas present for him. I did that once—beautiful gold-filled pocket watch. I was fool enough to give him his first.

  All I got was a black lace garter belt, and you know who that was a present for. Picked his pocket next date—last date, too.”

  When Josie had gone, the kitchen felt unusually empty. Faith had taken down the posters and charts she’d put up on the walls when Have Faith moved in.

  She allowed herself a nostalgic moment. The new place was bigger, brighter, yet this had been her first place, and it would always be the most special.

  She packed the equipment she needed to cook tonight and tomorrow into a large zippered bag. The only thing she couldn’t find was her strainer. She had two of them. They were essential for sauces—metal and shaped like a dunce’s cap, not mesh, but solid.

  They had wooden pestles to push the food against the small holes. Josie must have packed them. Then Faith flashed on the party at the Stansteads’. Hope in the kitchen, fooling around with the equipment; Faith taking the strainer and pestle out of her sister’s hands, shoving it out of the way on the counter. The Stansteads’ apartment was close to her parents. She could stop by for it, say Merry Christmas—and return all of Emma’s keys, too, very discreetly if Michael was home. She went to the phone and called. No answer, which was what she’d half-expected. They’d be at the Morrises’ or the Stansteads’, dividing their holiday time.

  She sat down again, feeling ever so slightly triste.

  Christmas Eve. It would have been nice to have had somebody. She thought of all the couples she knew—happy and unhappy. Hope was bringing Phelps, which left Faith paired with her grandmother. They’d had an uproarious lunch at a much-denuded Altman’s, where Mrs. Lennox had regaled her granddaughters with tan-talizing tidbits of past scandals—most of the chief figures long gone—interspersed with department-store remembrances of things past: percale sheets like silk, the divine hats, and the only china department with all her patterns. Definitely Granny was a great dinner partner, yet the holidays were one of those arklike times, when you felt a bit peculiar if you were a female zebra, say, without a matching male striped creature at your side.

  If there was still no one home at the Stansteads’, she’d stop anyway and get the strainer. The only thing resembling one at her parents’ was an ancient colander, and it would never do to strain the shrimp sauce for the fish mousse. She’d saved some of the mousse from the luncheon the day before, but you had to make the sauce up fresh.

  No more sighing. No more looking back, she told herself. She had a terrific business and there were a dozen men out there in Gotham who would be more than happy to dance attendance—or more. And there was always that one she hadn’t met yet. It wasn’t Richard. Even before last night, she’d known that. But he existed. It was simply a question of time.

  She stood up and reached next to the counter to turn off the overhead light. The list she’d made on the packing paper stared up at her mockingly. A challenge unmet. The names circled around Emma’s. Faith stared at them again. They almost seemed to move. Birds of prey. She picked up the pencil and drew a dark line across Nathan Fox’s name and then across Lorraine Fuchs’s. The two deaths. The two murders. They were out of the running.

  For murder, there has to be a motive—or at least a reason. Nathan could have been killed by a junkie.

  That would provide a reason. But Lorraine? Faith found herself sitting down again and gazing intently at the sheet. There had been a peephole in the door of Nathan Fox’s apartment. He would never have let a stranger in—and he had opened the door to his murderer. It effectively ruled out the robbery theory. Had there been time for a greeting? For the recognition of what he’d admitted into his home? Death. Or did it happen fast, right away? The door opened, the shot—he never knew what hit him?

  But the motive.

  She looked at the other names. Who benefited?

  What was the legal term? Cui bono. What did Nathan have? He had his manuscript. What did Lorraine have? The same thing. Arthur Quinn wanted it. But it would probably have made its way to him anyway—he’d have no need to kill for it. Who else? Poppy wouldn’t have wanted it published. “You know there’s nothing I wouldn’t do for my daughter— nothing.” Nothing she wouldn’t do to get her hands on something she thought would destroy Emma’s happiness, threaten her own? Poppy Morris a murderer? Extremely unlikely. Killer instincts didn’t necessarily translate into the real thing. And what about Todd Hartley and his respectably bourgeois new life? How far would he go to protect it? And Harvey? Harvey was available to the highest bidder.

  People kill for money. Neither Fox nor Lorraine had had any. They also kill for revenge. That might apply to Fox in some way, but Lorraine? Yet, people also kill to protect themselves, Faith thought with a start. To keep from being found out. Had Lorraine known who’d killed Fox?

  Means, motive, and opportunity.

  She stared at the names, crossed some out and willed the rest to sort themselves out, willed them to speak—send a Ouija board message, send one name flying away from all the others.

  And they did.

  “Opportunity,” she whispered aloud. “Opportunity.”

  * * *

  * * *

  * * *

  Traffic was heavy, and by the time she got across town, it was getting late. Her father had very noncosmopoli-tan notions of dining hours. Besides, he had to get to church. She was tempted to keep the cab, but the doorman had
his arm out for one, so Faith let it go. It was Christmas Eve, after all.

  “Merry Christmas, Bobby,” she said to him. “It’s okay. I have the key.”

  “Merry Christmas, miss,” he called back, helping the woman loaded down with parcels into the cab.

  Ever since she’d left work, Faith had been repeating the same thing over and over to herself: How could I have missed it? She’d been missing a lot lately. She wasn’t worried, though. She knew exactly what she was going to do. The elevator was in use, so she took the stairs, running up, filled with the kind of energy she hadn’t known for weeks. It was almost over now.

  Really over this time.

  She let herself in. The apartment was dark and empty. No welcoming fire. No hum of conversation.

  She walked down the hall to the kitchen. There was light streaming from beneath the door. She pushed it open and stopped.

  Michael Stanstead, assemblyman from New York City, clad in a long rubberized raincoat like cops wear over their clothes, was pressing his wife’s hand on the grip of a gun. The muzzle was in her mouth and she was tied to a kitchen chair with wide strips torn from a bedsheet.

  “Sorry, didn’t know you were into bondage. I’ll just be going now,” Faith said, trying to bluff as she backed out the swinging door. Tears were running down Emma’s cheeks, but she wasn’t saying a word. Faith wouldn’t have, either. Not with a Smith & Wesson stuck between her teeth.

  Michael whirled around. The gun was now aimed at Faith.

  “Get in here. And don’t move.”

  She took a step forward and let the door swing shut behind her. “How did you get in the apartment? Nobody called up!”

  Faith sincerely hoped he had distributed his Christmas largesse to the staff already.

  “They know me. I have a key. From when I catered your party,” Faith stammered.

  “Shit!” he screamed over his shoulder at his wife.

  “You give the fucking key to everyone!” A slight look of guilt crossed Emma’s face. One more thing she’d done wrong. She probably should have kept better track of the keys.