“She could have dyed it,” the woman protested. “Besides, Lily always wore sunglasses like that, and she often wore a scarf.”
Jerry passed the photograph to Charlotte. It showed a young woman wearing oversized sunglasses and a silk scarf tied under her chin. All that showed of her hair was her dark brown bangs. She was holding a container of some kind of beauty product, and reading the directions.
Charlotte passed the photograph back to Jerry.
“Do you still have the photo of her I gave you?” the woman asked.
Jerry swiveled his chair around to face the filing cabinet behind his desk. Then he opened a drawer and pulled a photograph out of a file. Holding it in one hand and the snapshot in the other, he compared the two.
“See?” the woman said.
After studying the photographs for a minute, Jerry handed the first one back to Miss Archibald. “To tell you the truth, Miss Archibald, I can’t make anything out of this photograph.” His glance shifted to Charlotte. “This woman could be anyone from Jackie Kennedy to Charlotte Graham.”
Charlotte struggled to suppress a smile.
“Maybe you can’t tell, but I can tell,” Miss Archibald objected, her chest puffed out with self-righteousness. “I raised Lily. She was like my own daughter. I would recognize her anywhere.”
Charlotte studied the photograph that Jerry had passed to her. It showed a stunningly beautiful young woman with a flawless complexion; long, wavy, red hair; and large, dreamy, green eyes. She was sitting on a lounge chair. “She looks like a statue of an angel that we saw at Omega Studios,” Charlotte said.
Miss Archibald looked at Charlotte, seeming to notice her for the first time. “The model for that statue was Lillian Archibald, who was Lily’s mother and my sister,” she explained. “Lily was the spitting image of her mother. In fact, I’ve never seen a mother and daughter who looked so much alike.”
Jerry leaned forward in his chair and looked Miss Archibald in the eye. “You say that she may have recognized the name. But what about you? You raised her as if you were her mother. She might not have rushed into your arms, but don’t you think she would have shown a glimmer of recognition?”
Miss Archibald slumped back in her plastic chair.
“Ergo, she is not your niece,” Jerry said.
“Please, Chief D’Angelo,” she begged.
“Miss Archibald,” Jerry said, his patience fraying, “what is it, exactly, that you would like me to do?”
“I followed her home.”
“You followed her home,” Jerry repeated with a look of annoyance.
Miss Archibald ignored him. “She lives in a two-family house at 33 Liberty Street in Corinth, and her name is Doreen Mileski. I got her last name from the mailbox,” she added.
Jerry ripped off a sheet of paper from a memo pad and wrote down the name and address. “And her first name from the mail in the mailbox,” he said.
Miss Archibald nodded.
“Do you know that tampering with the mail is a federal offense?”
The woman sat there, implacable.
“I repeat my question. What would you like me to do?”
“Find out more about her,” she replied. “Where she came from. I know the police can get previous addresses. How she ended up here.”
“Miss Archibald,” Jerry continued, his tone more gentle now, “even if I had the resources to do what you ask, I wouldn’t pursue this. A snapshot of a woman whose face is almost fully concealed is not enough evidence to prove that your niece did not drown in Cozumel two and a half years ago.”
Miss Archibald pursed her lips.
“Also, I cannot go around spying on private citizens for no good reason other than a remote resemblance to a dead person.”
“What about the perfume?” she asked.
Jerry shrugged. “Coincidence,” he said. “A vivid imagination.”
“I was debating whether I should come here,” Miss Archibald said. “That’s why I waited over a week.” Picking up the photograph, she put it back into her handbag, and then rose to leave. “I guess it was a waste of time.”
The hope had drained from her face, leaving her looking old and pale.
Coming out from behind his desk, Jerry steered her gently toward the door. “I’m very sorry,” he said as he showed her out.
“This is the third time she’s been in,” Jerry said after she had gone. “The first time was last August; the second was last month. Plus, she keeps calling. She’s an annoyance, but I can’t be too hard on her. I feel sorry for her. She raised the girl and her brother after their parents were killed in an airplane crash. She devoted her life to them. It’s hard to let go.”
Charlotte was sympathetic too. She remembered how she used to see Linc Crawford, the only man she had ever loved, after he died. She’d be walking along, and there he would be. Her heart would do a loop-de-loop in her chest and then she’d realize with a pang that it was only someone who looked like him. After more than thirty years, it still happened from time to time.
“It’s especially hard to let go when you believe in angels.”
“What?” Charlotte asked.
“Have I told you about this community?” Jerry asked.
“No. Though you did mention that most of the inhabitants were members of some sort of religious sect.”
“Swedenborgians,” he said, and proceeded to tell Charlotte about the history of the community, and the Swedenborgian belief in a heaven populated by various hierarchies of angels.
“Then this Lily Louria is a relative of the founder.”
“The granddaughter,” Jerry said. He continued: “By and large, the Swedenborgians believe that it’s dangerous to try to see over to the other side, as they call the afterworld. But they admit that the barrier is sometimes lowered, allowing people to communicate with the angels.”
“And is this what Miss Archibald thinks happened to her?” Charlotte asked. “That her niece appeared to her as an angel?”
“At first, she did. Or, I should say, she was confused. She wasn’t sure if the young woman she saw was an angel, or a real person. If she had believed wholeheartedly that the young woman she saw was an angel, she wouldn’t have bothered coming to me. I don’t deal with angels,” he added.
“I would think that real people would be hard enough,” Charlotte said. “I wonder if you can photograph an angel?” she mused.
Jerry continued: “But after the second sighting, she was convinced she was a real person. And now, of course, she’s come up with the amnesia scenario.”
“How exactly did the niece die?” Charlotte asked.
“She was on vacation with her husband, Dr. Louria.”
“Is he a Swedenborgian?” Charlotte asked, thinking it must be hard to reconcile a belief in angels with a career in medicine.
“No. They met when he moved here. Most of the houses on the river side of River Road have been bought up by non-Swedenborgians. They’ve become too expensive for the locals.”
Charlotte nodded.
“The accident happened on the last day of their vacation, just before they were due to head out to the airport,” Jerry continued. “They had decided to take a last swim on a deserted beach, not realizing that it was infamous for its riptides. She was carried off by the undertow.”
“What about Dr. Louria?” she asked.
“He tried to save her, but he couldn’t reach her in time. He got caught in the current and nearly drowned himself. I suspect that Miss Archibald’s delusions, if you want to call them that, have been fostered somewhat by Dr. Louria’s actions after his wife’s death.”
“What do you mean?”
“From what I understand, he had a difficult time accepting the fact that his wife was dead. He made a number of trips to Mexico to make inquiries in the villages on Cozumel and along the coast of Yucatán about a missing gringa with red hair who might have washed ashore.”
But Charlotte was still thinking about the girl’s brokenhearte
d aunt. “Getting back to Miss Archibald …”
He nodded.
“Are you going to do anything about her request?”
Jerry picked up the piece of paper on which he had written down the name and address and looked at it for a moment. Then he stuffed it into his pants pocket. “I don’t know. If I have some spare time, I might make a few inquiries, just to get her off my back.”
Charlotte had picked up the photograph from Jerry’s files again. “She was a beautiful girl.”
“Gorgeous, from what everyone says,” Jerry said. He looked at his watch. “How about lunch? I’d still like to take you to Sebastian’s.”
“Sounds good to me,” Charlotte replied.
Sebastian’s restaurant was situated a mile or so to the north in a charming hamlet of dollhouse-like Victorian homes that Jerry said had been built to house the hundreds of artisans that Edward Archibald had imported from Europe to build his Utopian community. The hamlet, which was named Corinth, was the same place that Mrs. Archibald had given as the address for the Lily Louria look-alike. It was situated on a steep bank overlooking the Hudson, and, according to Jerry, had in recent years undergone a renaissance at the hands of yuppie defectors from urban life. Lured by the charm and low cost of the housing stock, the outstanding reputation of the local schools, and the magnificent river vistas, they had renovated the houses one by one, slowly turning what had been a down-at-the-heels blue-collar town into one of the most desirable communities on the east bank of the Hudson.
The restaurant was situated in one of these Victorian houses. Like most of the other houses lining the street that sloped steeply down to the river, it was small, close to the curb, and surrounded by big old trees and a cast-iron fence. But it stood out by virtue of the fact that it was painted a dark purple, trimmed with fuchsia and lavender. The windows were overhung with fringed purple awnings. It looked more as if it belonged on a Caribbean island than on the banks of the Hudson.
After parking in front, they walked up a brick path to the lavender door, where they were greeted by a tall, slimly muscular young man in chef’s whites, whose striking bone structure and slanting green eyes were accentuated by the lavender (to match the door) bandanna he wore tied pirate-style around his head, blond curls peeking out from the edges, and the gold hoop he wore in one ear.
He was dashing, romantic, and breathtakingly handsome, with tawny skin and a wide smile with perfect teeth. He reminded Charlotte of a young Tyrone Power, and … someone else, but she couldn’t think of who.
“Are you the maître d’ today?” Jerry asked.
“Only for fifteen minutes,” he said. “Larry’s late, and I’m filling in until he gets here. The usual table, Chief?” he asked.
Jerry nodded, and they followed him to a table by a window with a peekaboo vista of the sparkling waters of the Hudson over the roofs of the old houses that led like stepping stones down to the river.
Inside, the restaurant was airy and spacious, with mauve-colored walls and a long mahogany bar at the back. The wall around the mirror at the rear of the bar was painted with a mural of fat-cheeked angels carrying cornucopias of flowers, vegetables, and fruits.
After they had taken their seats, the young man handed them their menus, whose covers were decorated with a reproduction of a Renaissance painting of an angel. Paintings of angels also hung on the walls.
“Is it my imagination,” asked Charlotte as she considered the angel theme, “or does the maître d’ look just like the picture of Miss Archibald’s niece?”
“Her brother,” Jerry said. “Sebastian Archibald. I think the mother’s married name was Griffith, but they took the Archibald name when they were adopted by Lothian. It gets you farther in Zion Hill.”
“It’s a small world up here, isn’t it?”
“It’s not midtown Manhattan, that’s for sure.”
“They look very much alike,” she said, remembering her observation about the androgynous face of the angel for whom their mother was the model. “Even down to the cleft chin. What does he think about his aunt’s delusions?”
“He’s sympathetic,” Jerry replied. “He went to angel school.”
“Angel school?”
“The Zion Hill School,” he explained. “It’s a parochial school for the Swedenborgian community. You probably passed it on your way up. It’s on the Albany Post Road, just before the Zion Hill Road intersection.”
Charlotte remembered passing the gracious, white-columned building.
“Built by Edward Archibald, of course, for the education of his own children. All the local children go there. From there, they can go on to a Swedenborgian college in Pennsylvania. They call it angel school because angels play a big part in the curriculum.”
Charlotte gave him a skeptical expression. She didn’t have much tolerance for religious fanaticism.
“It’s easy to make fun of the angel business, but angels are only one aspect of their beliefs, which are actually very complex,” Jerry said. “The religious focus is what makes this community unique. They view their religion as something you live, not just something you believe in.”
“You’re making Zion Hill sound very appealing,” Charlotte said.
“Actually, it is,” he replied, surprising her. “It’s a little paradise, to tell you the truth. Because they live their religion on a day-to-day basis, they’re extremely nice people.” He smiled. “A lot of what I do is PR for the community; their beliefs aren’t very well understood.”
“I should imagine that their belief in the afterlife would free them from a lot of the doubt and insecurity that plague the rest of us,” she said.
“Exactly. That and the Doctrine of Uses, which holds that everyone is put on earth for a specific purpose: that the individual fulfills a function for the community and the community for the individual. Between those two ideas alone, members of the New Church get a pretty heavy dose of peace of mind.”
Following Jerry’s lead, Charlotte opened her menu and scanned the listings under the appetizer column. She had just decided on seared foie gras with honey roasted onions when the daily appetizer special caught her eye. “Sing Sing ravioli?” she said, looking up at Jerry.
“Sing Sing Prison, now known as the Ossining Correctional Facility, is just up the river,” he explained. “The ravioli is Sebastian’s takeoff on the local specialty. It’s striped, black and white. The black part is made from shiitake mushrooms. It comes with a smothered leek sauce.”
“A gourmet menu with a sense of humor,” Charlotte said. “I love it.” She continued studying the menu. “Jerry, this place looks wonderful.”
“I thought you’d like it. Sebastian is a culinary genius. As a child, he watched cooking shows instead of cartoons, and was whipping up sauces in the kitchen when he was six. He opened Sebastian’s right after his graduation from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.”
“I noticed the three-star review from the Times,” Charlotte said. She looked around at the roomful of ladies wearing pearls and hats, and drinking Manhattans; the clientele reminded her of that of Schrafft’s in the 1950s.
“Hilltoppers,” Jerry explained in response to Charlotte’s survey of the dining room. “That’s what I call them: the people who live in the mansions that are tucked away in the hills of Westchester. They live in a time warp.”
“A good market for an upscale restaurant though,” Charlotte said.
Jerry nodded. “It’s a bit off the beaten track. But there’s a need. The only other decent place to eat in the immediate area is the country club, and you have to be a member to eat there.”
Sebastian returned momentarily to take their cocktail order, prompting Jerry to remark on the fact that he was filling the roles of both maître d’ and cocktail waiter, in addition to that of chef.
“Two people are late today,” Sebastian complained, with a disgusted shake of his head. “You just can’t get any decent help these days.” He smiled his breathtaking smile. “What can
I get for you?” he asked.
Jerry ordered a Manhattan for Charlotte and a Campari for himself.
“It looks as if Sebastian’s is doing very well,” Charlotte commented after Sebastian had finished taking their orders.
“It is,” Jerry said. “Sebastian was rated Chef of the Year by his peers. But he won’t be here long. His ambition is to open a first-class restaurant in Manhattan, but you can’t just start off that way. You have to establish your reputation before you can get backers.”
“Of course,” Charlotte said.
“He’s looking for a suitable property now. He’s already raised most of the money he’ll need, and he’s borrowing the rest against an inheritance. It’s going to take three million.”
“That’s a lot of risk,” Charlotte said.
Jerry, nodded. “He wants to compete with the best—Lutèce, the Four Seasons, Le Bernardin,” Jerry explained, “and that takes money. I have no doubt he’ll succeed. He’s a very ambitious guy, in addition to being very hardworking and very talented. And I speak from firsthand knowledge.”
“As an eater,” she said.
“Not as an eater,” he said. “As a stagier.”
“What’s that?”
“Someone who visits a restaurant kitchen and helps out the chef: a working visit. I come in to help sometimes on my days off. Sebastian puts me to work: chopping the vegetables, pounding the fillets, taking out the garbage. Whatever he needs.”
“I guess you could say that I’m a stagier in the police department then,” Charlotte said with a smile.
“Exactly,” Jerry agreed. “I’m a frustrated chef, just like you’re a frustrated detective. If I had it to do over again, I would have enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America instead of the criminal justice academy. Besides,” he added, “eating is important to me.”
“No kidding,” Charlotte said. No sooner did Jerry finish one meal then he started thinking about the next.
“That’s another reason why I wanted to get out of the spa work. Who wants to eat cuisine minceur all the time?”
Charlotte smiled. They were kindred souls, at least as far as their appreciation of good food went—though Charlotte was perfectly willing to leave the actual preparation to someone else.
Murder Among the Angels Page 6