The Luck of the Ghostwriter

by Noreen Wald

  As if Maura O’Hara’s daughter would ever eat that. I ordered melon, scrambled eggs, and French fries. With ketchup. Then he launched into a long, rambling monologue about his ferry ride to the Statue of Liberty earlier this morning.

  I tuned Rickie out, plotting how to turn this conversation back to Cat on Trump Tower’s Roof, which we were supposedly here to discuss. What writer doesn’t want to talk about his book? As the café au lait and crème caramel were being served, I decided to try again. And to be bold about it.

  The Carita connection hadn’t leapt off the pages. I could understand why Mom might have missed it. As I’d read about the two frolicking friends and the cat burglar’s visit, another pair of New Age writers had come to mind. But I still felt that it would be my best shot. “Carita Magenta claims—or complains—that your most intriguing chapter is really all about her and Venus DeMill. Any truth to that?”

  Rickie dropped his fork and pointed his knife at me. “Did that poor deranged woman Wanda Spades tell you that?”

  “No,” I said. His scowl startled me. “Carita herself told a friend of mine. These things tend to get around, you know.” I hoped I sounded surer than I felt.

  “Don’t believe everything you hear, bella.” His voice resumed its silky texture. “Magenta would sell her soul and Venus DeMill’s as well for a paragraph of publicity. Good or bad.”

  Though I didn’t doubt his assessment of Carita’s character, I figured Rickie had decided to rely on the nuts-and-sluts defense. “So then that chapter wasn’t based on Magenta and DeMill?”

  “As I said in the beginning, it’s fiction. Pure—or in those pages not-so-pure—fiction.” I almost believed him. “Now, bella Jake, tell me about you. What sort of mysteries do you write?”

  “Other people’s. I’m a ghostwriter.”

  The look that crossed his fine features could only be described as total disgust. My book-review brunch had come to an end.

  Fourteen

  Almost two o’clock and I still hadn’t heard from Ben. I stopped at an ATM on Madison Avenue on my way down to Eighty-sixth Street to grab a cross­town bus and withdrew fifty dollars, dropping my balance to an all-time low. Then I pulled out my cellphone and punched speed dial one, Ben’s office. “Homicide,” a familiar voice said.

  “Aaron, is that you? This is Jake, I’m trying to track Ben down.”

  “So your mother said. He’s making the rounds while I’m cutting through the paper chase. I know he had an appointment with the coroner and then planned on see­ing Mrs. Fione after that.” Aaron sighed. “The senator’s widow wants to make his funeral arrangements and is demanding that the body be released.”

  “Did Ben get my message? It’s really important that I speak to him.”

  “I don’t know when he’ll be back. Anything I can help you with?” Based on Aaron’s evasive answer, I gathered Ben had received my message but hadn’t considered it to be high priority.

  “Yes, you can tell Ben that…” What? What did I want Aaron to tell Ben? That Hunter couldn’t be the killer because I’d come up with several other motives? Ben might be better informed than I was regarding all of the suspects’ motives, means, and opportunities. Any­way, I’d been thinking that Ben’s first choice, Rickie Romero, could be the correct one. Since I kept changing my own opinion, what were my conclusions worth? “Never mind, Aaron, just tell him I called. Maybe Ben can stop by with you tonight. Even if it’s only for a few minutes. Thanks.” I hung up before he could ask me any more questions.

  Boarding the bus, I asked for a transfer, shut off my phone, and took a seat behind a teenage boy traveling with a portable entertainment center. Hard rock, blaring at a deafening decibel level, had accompanied me down the aisle. ‘Turn that down!” the driver yelled. Several passengers applauded. The kid surprised me and obeyed. As we drove past Central Park’s old police station, I felt discouraged but determined, feeling that somehow, Hell’s Kitchen held the answer.

  I had a long wait for the downtown bus on Columbus Avenue. Sunday schedule, I assumed. The rain started again and my umbrella swayed in the wind. If a cab cruised by, I’d grab it, cost be damned. But every pass­ing taxi that I hailed either held a passenger or sported an off-duty sign. Fifteen minutes later, wet and wind­blown, I boarded a crowded bus.

  An excited group of chatty, well-dressed little old la­dies, en route to a canasta tournament, exited at Seventy-eighth Street, and I slipped into one of their seats. Rain pelted against its windows as the bus crawled through the traffic, picking up and depositing passengers at every stop. This would be one long ride. I closed my eyes and considered the case.

  Of course, what I hadn’t learned from Rickie Romero could fill a book. One evasive, annoyingly charming, and no doubt dangerous man. Naturally, he tweaked my interest. I’d planned to find out about his arrangements with Wanda, how he’d dealt with Hunter Green, and what connection he might have had with Hell’s Kitchen. And, most importantly, his relationship with Holly Hal­ligan. How, why, and when had he become her heir? Instead, cagey and taking total control, Rickie had danced away from any uncomfortable questions and had led me up the it’s-all-only-fiction-isn’t-it path.

  Some other things had been nagging at me. For starters, a vignette in the Plaza lobby. Right after Carita Ma­genta had attacked Donald Jay, she’d engaged in a dialogue with Wanda Sparks, holding her back from her assigned task of retrieving Maurice Welch from his stool in the Oak Room bar. Since Wanda knew Donald Jay’s attitude toward employees disobeying his commands, what had Carita told Wanda to stop her dead in her tracks?

  Later, up in Gypsy Rose’s suite, she’d mentioned that Ashley Butler had told her someone had ghostwritten Carita Magenta’s color-me-comatose books. Could that be true? And if so, could that ghostwriter be Wanda Sparks? I made a mental note to ask Gypsy Rose for more details about Ashley’s and her chat at the Algonquin.

  And had Maurice been less loaded than he’d appeared to be? He certainly sobered up fast after the panel had been poisoned. Did his purchase of an Ashes Away cruise mean that a lifetime of booze, red meat, and wild women had caught up with him? Was Welch ill? Or was he, as Holly Halligan had urged all prospective passen­gers to do, merely planning ahead? After all, he’d sched­uled a date to marry Venus DeMill, hadn’t he?

  Finally, during the séance Holly Halligan had hinted of her own failed relationship with Maurice Welch. If that were true, when, where, and how had the romance started? And why wouldn’t the press have picked up on it? Any affair, during any decade, between those two scene-stealing, internationally known egotists would have been tailor-made for the tabloids. Had Holly kept a diary or a log of her loves? I’d ask Dennis. Could the poisonings have been a crime of passion? Would Mau­rice have killed Holly because she’d broken his heart? I eliminated that as a possible motive. Whatever his faults, Maurice Welch wouldn’t have killed two innocent peo­ple in order to avenge Holly Halligan’s rejection. Would he?

  I’d become so engrossed in death that Columbus had turned into Ninth Avenue and I’d missed my stop. Hop­ping off on Forty-eighth Street, I opened my umbrella and backtracked.

  The cross atop the Church of the Sacred Heart graced an otherwise bleak neighborhood. Urban renewal hadn’t hit Hell’s Kitchen. At least not where I stood on the intersection of Ninth Avenue and Fifty-first Street. Old- timers who’d lived there forever referred to this area of Clinton as “one stop above Hell’s Kitchen.” Despite those purists’ best efforts, the West Side, from about Thirty-ninth to Fifty-ninth, retained its better-known, hotter-than-hell nickname. In a way, I’d returned to my roots. Working-class Irish once had been Sacred Heart’s largest group of parishioners. My maternal grandfather had grown up two blocks away from here and had at­tended Sacred Heart grammar school, around the corner on Fifty-second Street. I’d just walked past his old tenement that Mom, as a committee of one, considered a landmark building and other his­toria
ns considered a slum, on my way from the bus stop.

  Today, few Irish families remained; the primary pop­ulation of the parish and its school consisted of more recent arrivals, including those from Puerto Rico, Cen­tral America, the Philippines, and Asia.

  I walked in on a wedding. The church’s curved pews were decorated with white and red roses and filled with happy people wearing colorful clothing and big smiles. The ceremony was in Spanish and the bride, a stunning, slim beauty dressed in yards of lace, with a matching mantilla draped over a crown of black braids, sauntered down the aisle as elegantly as a haute couture runway model.

  A large, rather stark canopy framed the altar, contrast­ing sharply with the aged, dark wood on the confessional booths’ closed doors, just as the modern stained-glass windows seemed incongruous with the curved wooden arches of the old choir loft in the back of the church. The interior had been redone in the sixties and much of Sacred Heart’s nineteenth-century charm and sanctity had been replaced with what one longtime parishioner had described to Mom as a less holy, more mod look.

  The bride and groom held hands, lovingly gazed into each other’s eyes, and recited their vows in front of a young Hispanic priest. Father Fione was nowhere in sight. I decided to try the rectory.

  Suspecting Father Fione wouldn’t be averse to more publicity, I introduced myself as a writer, and an elderly housekeeper ushered me into a dark foyer, furnished only with a bench, an ancient, wooden umbrella stand/coatrack, a drooping potted plant, and a large crucifix.

  “Father’s in the den. I’ll tell him you’re here.”

  A comfortable olive corduroy couch was separated from two olive and white-print club chairs by a round oak coffee table. The pastor stood behind an old oak desk, covered with haphazard piles of paper.

  Joseph Fione, taller and slimmer than his brother but with the same thatch of thick gray hair and dark brown eyes, crossed the room to greet me and gave me a tight smile as he shook my hand. “Please have a seat, Miss O’Hara.” No Ms. for this man.

  “I’m so sorry about Senator Fione and I won’t take up much of your time, Father.” I almost started a school­girl curtsy that I’d learned long ago at another, very different, Sacred Heart school up in Carnegie Hill. “You must be very busy with the funeral plans.”

  “No, no, my dear, the Mass has been set for Tuesday at ten a.m. And Mrs. Fione is handling the burial ar­rangements. Now, what would you like to know?” My deference seemed to have paid off.

  I sat in one of the club chairs, keeping my feet close together and flat on the floor, continuing the convent-schoolgirl image. “Your quotes in today’s Times were most intriguing. I’d like to hear more about your child­hood. And the senator’s, too.”

  “What paper are you with, Miss O’Hara?” He’d been sitting, relaxed, in the other chair. Now both his voice and his body language stiffened.

  “I’m an author, Father Fione. This is research, back­ground for a book.” I wasn’t exactly lying to a priest; I might need the information I hoped to get someday, somehow, in some future project.

  “A biography of Charlie?” his brother asked.

  “Well, er, more of a nonfiction novel, if you would. In the style of In Cold Blood.” I cringed at my boldness and at how easily I misled.

  Father Fione nodded. “That’s an ambitious undertak­ing, isn’t it, Miss O’Hara?”

  “Dennis Kim suggested it.” A total lie. Dennis would kill me and I’d probably go straight to hell. And never get to see Zelda Fitzgerald, Emily Bronte, or Jack O’Hara. But that didn’t stop me. “He’s representing the cardinal with his new book, you know.”

  Warmth flooded Father Joseph Fione’s smile. “Ask away. Miss O’Hara.”

  “I do realize that discussing the senator’s death is painful for you, but I’d like to know if either Holly Hal­ligan or Rickie Romero had ever been part of his life. Doesn’t it strike you odd that someone tried to kill all three of them? There must have been a connection.”

  “A detective from homicide is stopping by in an hour or so; I’ll bet he asks those same questions. And my answer will be the same.” The priest shook his head from side to side. “Not as far as I know.”

  “What about when you were kids, here in Hell’s Kitchen? No family named Romero? No Halligans?”

  “None that I can recall. And my brother has never mentioned either Miss Halligan or Mr. Romero to me. Neither long ago, nor recently.”

  Modesty’s news bulletin from our postmortem at the Plaza suite flashed through my mind. Some of the sen­ator’s last words had been addressed to Holly Halligan. Only he hadn’t used that name. “How about Houlihan, Father? Did you grow up with anyone called Houlihan?”

  All his cheek color, as well as his smile, faded. “Why, yes. The Houlihan family lived in our building. But how could you know that?”

  I spoke gently.

  “I’m sure the police will be asking you the same thing. The senator definitely had met Holly Halligan prior to their panel appearance, and on the day of his death, he referred to her as Helen Mary Houlihan.”

  Father Fione stood.

  “The Houlihans only had boys. Three sons. All older than Charlie, Fatima, and me. Now, I’m sorry, Miss O’Hara, but there’s nothing more to discuss. I’d prefer to address this matter with the proper authorities.” I’d been dismissed.

  The weather had cleared up. In front of the church, the bride and groom were posing for pictures in bright sunshine. I walked south on Ninth Avenue, stopping at a bodega to buy a Cuban coffee, and sipped it at a side­walk table. Even Hell’s Kitchen had discovered the joys of al fresco dining—though the street smells were less than delightful. I called Modesty.

  “Jake, I’m in the middle of a chapter.” With her gothic novel at twenty-six hundred pages, did I expect her to be any­where else? “What do you want?”

  “Look, I need a favor, fast. I’m one step ahead of Ben Rubin and I want to stay there.” I appealed to Modesty’s baser emotions. I knew she’d want to be party to any scheme that outsmarted the police. “Can you bring up the obit and any articles on Charlie Fione? I’m sitting in Hell’s Kitchen. I need the address where he grew up.”

  “Give me a minute to save my stuff and I’ll pull up today’s Times.”

  I took another sip of my coffee—excellent—and watched the strollers. Then Modesty was back. “Listen, Jake, Too-Tall Tom’s over at Maurice Welch’s apart­ment as we speak. When he finishes there, he wants to get together tonight, okay?”

  “Yeah, I’ll call when I get home. Let’s try to meet around seven. Mom’s planning a Scrabble game with Aaron and Gypsy Rose. Ben may be stopping by, but I’m sure that will be a brief encounter... if it even hap­pens.”

  “Right.” I could hear the typing from Mod­esty’s keyboard. “Now here’s what you wanted. Fione’s obit says that the senator spent his childhood in a tene­ment on Forty-ninth Street between Ninth and Tenth. No address. I guess you could knock on doors. Say you’re the Avon lady.”

  I finished my coffee and touched up my makeup. Four doors east of Tenth Avenue, after striking out a dozen times, I found my source. An old lady dressed in purple sat in a red canvas beach chair on the stoop of a brownstone, her face turned toward the late-afternoon sun. Though both the house and the lady had seen better days, the latter had bright eyes, good posture, and an air of anticipation. Which, since she had to be ninety, seemed remarkable.

  “Hi,” I said, smiling. “I’m Jake O’Hara, a writer. And I’m wondering if Senator Fione might have grown up in this house.”

  “He did,” she said in a firm voice. “And a bold one he was, wasn’t he?”

  I nodded. “His brother too? I mean, was he bold as well?”

  “How many times did I tell Mr. Casey that Joey would wind up a priest? Forever twirling them rosary beads. The boy was enough to drive a body away from any devotion at a
ll to the Blessed Virgin Mother.”

  “Is Mr. Casey your husband?”

  “Was. Dead and gone these last fifty-five years.”

  “Sorry,” I said, thinking I sounded inane. The man had been dead for over a half century. ‘Tell me about the Fione family. Did you know them well?”

  “Having no children of my own, I used to babysit for Maria Fione. Charlie could be a real handful, but Joey and Fatima—her mother named her for the mira­cle—were good kids.” Mrs. Casey grinned at me. Her teeth looked real. “Except, between you and me, dearie, Joey was a religious fanatic. Always dressing up like a nun, you know.”

  “Mrs. Casey, did you know the Houlihans?”

  “I called them the hooligans! And I was right, wasn’t I? Two of them boys are dead of the drink. The third brother wound up in jail.”

  “They had no sisters? No one in the family was called Helen Mary Houlihan? This is really important, Mrs. Casey.”

  “No, didn’t I just tell you, there were three sons.” She pulled her heavy purple wool cardigan tighter across her chest. “It’s getting too cold, I’m going upstairs.” As she struggled to close the beach chair, I reached over and did it for her. “Wait a minute! I think Helen Mary might be the name of the girl who visited that dreadful summer.”

  “What summer would we be talking about, Mrs. Casey?”

  “That hot one, fifty-five years ago, the summer my husband died of cancer. A cousin came to stay with the Houlihans for the month of August. Terrible warm, it was. The worst August I ever remember. Anyway, my Michael finally died on the feast of the Assumption. The heat was hell and that young woman was even hotter. Trouble incarnate. Wearing tight white shorts and a hal­ter top. Teasing the fellows. And she should have known better; she was older than all the boys, had to be in her early twenties. I’m pretty sure her name was Helen Mary. Something bad happened and she left town, sud­den like, and returned home. Upstate, I think.”