The Body In The Big Apple (10 page)

“That would be fantastic. I'm so glad I met you today,” Faith said.

“Me, too.” Lorraine had eaten everything on her plate, not wasting a crumb. The older woman seemed so lonely that Faith felt a stab of guilt at the way she was using her. But when this was all over, she assured herself, Emma could meet Lorraine and they could engage in mutual Fox worship.

“I'm not sure what my schedule is, so could I call you?” she asked.

“Sure,” said Lorraine, digging out a ballpoint pen and writing her number on a napkin.

Faith tucked the napkin in her purse and put on her coat. She hesitated before asking one last question, but knew if she didn't, she'd be kicking herself later. “I
know it must be upsetting to think about, but who do you think killed Nathan Fox?”

Lorraine's washed-out blue eyes filled with tears. “I wish I knew. I wish I knew.”

 

When Faith got to work, Josie was up to her elbows in
coulibiac
of salmon and muttering to herself, “Why folks can't eat a good old Brunswick stew, I'll never know. Just wait 'til Josie's comes along.”

“We're not behind, but we're not ahead,” she told Faith, who was hastily changing into some work clothes.

“Any calls?”

“About ninety from someone named Emma. Left them on the machine, and we've chatted a number of times since. I believe it to be the concerned lady who didn't want to bother you at work. You recall?”

Faith did and raced to the phone.

Emma was home and picked up on the first ring.

“Emma, hi. It's Faith. I don't really have much—”

“Tell me everything. Were there a lot of speakers? Was it crowded? Oh, I should have taken a chance and gone. How about the press—were they there?”

“Yes, yes, and yes. I'll tell you everything tomorrow. We have to do a dinner tonight on Gramercy Park and—”

“Faith, I got a call. From them.”

“Oh God, Emma. You have
got
to tell Michael! What did they say? When was it?” If it was during the time of the service, that eliminated a whole bunch of people.

“I don't know when. It was on the machine and I didn't get back until around two o'clock. I left about ten. Hair, manicure, Christmas shopping, a lunch
meeting—it should be one or the other, a meeting or lunch.”

She was rambling on, her distraught voice making the prosaic words a litany of fright.

“Emma! What did they say!”

“‘We'll be in touch.' That's all. ‘We'll be in touch.'” Her voice was dead calm now, leaden.

“A man or a woman?”

“Impossible to tell. Strange, kind of squeaky, high-pitched.”

“Take the tape out and put a new one in. If I can convince you to go to the police, they'll want it, and meanwhile, I want to listen to it.”

“I erased it,” Emma said softly. “I'm sorry. I didn't think. I just hit the delete button.”

“Look, we'll meet for breakfast, okay? Don't worry about it. It was a natural response. What are you doing tonight? Is Michael home?”

“Yes, he's not going away again until January, and I'm going with him. Someplace in the Caribbean. And tonight? I think it's the opening of
Tru
—you know, Robert Morse doing Capote. No, wait, that's not right.” She sighed heavily. “I can't remember, but something. Michael knows.”

“Just don't go anywhere by yourself. Stick with him,” Faith knew that Emma wasn't going to take any solitary walks—not in this subzero weather and not when she was this terrified—but Faith was nervous. Easy enough to get the Stansteads' number. It was listed. At breakfast tomorrow, she'd try again to convince Emma to tell someone—maybe even Poppy. Meanwhile, Faith had many hours to fill with trying to figure it all out. A murderer and a blackmailer, or two separate crimes?

After arranging to meet at 8:30 the following morning at the Maximilian Cafe at Fifty-eighth and Seventh Avenue, Faith hung up and turned, to find Josie staring at her, a guarded, worried expression on her face. “Is this something you want to talk about? Because, girl, it sure sounds like something you
should
be talking about,” she said.

Faith pulled a stool from under the steel countertop and sat down, cupping her chin in one hand.

“I wish I could, but it's not my story to tell, and I've sworn that I won't.”

Josie came up alongside. She looked straight at Faith. “Remember I'm here. And I thought I had heard it all, but apparently…” She smiled and coaxed one from her boss. “Apparently, I was wrong. Just don't go starting something you can't finish. I need this job.”

“Me, too.” Faith gave her a hug. “Now, what are we doing for dessert? French apple cake? The host's allergic to chocolate, right?”

“Now, that's someone with a real problem.”

Yes, thought Faith—and Emma, uptown, opening her closet, laying out what to wear tonight for yet another dinner party, gallery opening, or benefit, would be ecstatic to trade for a problem like this.

 

Faith was drinking coffee, sitting by the window at Maximilian's, drumming her fingers impatiently on the red-checkered tablecloth. Like the coffee shop yesterday, the creperie was bedecked with garlands spelling out good cheer—except
JOYEUX NOËL
had been added, and here the poinsettias were real. Outside, a Salvation Army Santa was vigorously ringing his bell, the little red collection pot swinging merrily on its tripod. Saint Nick had a boom box and Faith
could hear “Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town” faintly through the glass. Every once in a while, someone would stop and slip some money in the pot. But only once in a while. Most people were streaming out of the subway and off the buses, single-mindedly heading straight for work, not so eager for the day's toils as to escape the freezing cold.

There were less than two weeks until Christmas. Faith wished the events of the last week either far into the future or far into the past. It was
Christmas
. She should be spending what precious little free time she had at Carnegie Hall listening to Handel's
Messiah,
going to see
A Christmas Carol
somewhere, hearing the Vienna Boys Choir sing “pa-rum-pa-pum-pum,” shopping and more shopping,
The Nutcracker
for the umpteenth time, of course—and not embroiled in crime.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry. No cabs.” Emma ordered coffee immediately, then glanced at the menu, adding, “An English muffin, butter on the side.” She looked at Faith. “I know it's a French place, but I like English muffins.”

“I'll have a plain omelette and whole-wheat toast,” Faith said. She had the feeling she was going to need sustenance today.

“Any more messages?” she asked her friend as soon as the waitress left. The sidewalks were packed, but the restaurant was almost empty.

Emma shook her head. “If there's another, I'll save the tape.”

“There'll be another,” Faith said pointedly. “Do you have any idea, any idea at all who could be doing this?”

Emma looked woebegone. “I've thought and
thought, but the only person I can think of is Lucy. You know what she's like, and she's been even more horrid since I got married.”

“Jealous, of course. I would be more than happy to confront her with you.” Faith brightened. Something concrete to do.

The food arrived. Emma put a millimeter-thick coating of butter on her muffin. “But if I'm wrong, then she'll know things she didn't know before. We can't just say, ‘Are you blackmailing me, Lucy, and if so, cut it out,' without her wanting to know why, and then I'll never have a moment's peace again for the rest of my life.”

“Which you might not have unless you ask her,” Faith pointed out logically.

“But it's likely that if it isn't Lucy, she'll blackmail me over having something someone could blackmail me about.” Emma broke off a tiny piece of her muffin and raised it halfway to her mouth. “How can this be happening to me?” she asked in despair.

She was right—on several counts. The Lucy plan needed more thought. Faith patted Emma's hand, the one without the muffin. Her cuticles were even more ragged than before. “It's not about you, remember? Now, I need to know some things; then I'll tell you all about the service. It was everything your father would have wished.” Faith was sure of that.

“How did the blackmailers—although we don't know if it's more than one; the ‘we' could have been put in to lead you astray—anyway, how did you find out where to leave the money, and where was it?”

Emma sat up straight. She could do this. “I got a call. I was home. It was Sunday afternoon, and as soon as I answered the phone, a voice said, ‘Put the money
in a green plastic trash bag and leave it in the Dumpster at the construction site on Forty-eighth and Lex at five o'clock today. Take a cab and have it wait. Then leave. If you screw up, or tell anyone, Christmas won't be merry this year.'”

“Was it the same voice as the voice on the machine?”

Emma flushed. “I should have thought of that. No, it wasn't, but again, I couldn't tell whether it was a man or a woman with one of those Lauren Bacall-type voices, husky.”

“So, you took the bag and went to the spot.”

“Yes, first I had to go buy some trash bags. I couldn't find where Juanita keeps them.”

Faith was struck by something. “Wait a minute. This was Sunday. How did you happen to have ten thousand dollars in cash lying around?”

“I know you said paying them wasn't a good idea, but it seemed the simplest way to me, so I'd taken money out on Friday. Just in case.”

“Who could have known about it? Michael? Someone at the bank?”

“Not Michael. It's my own account. Technically, it's joint, but his name isn't even on the checks. It's just for my expenses. Anyway, I put the money under my lingerie, and of course I didn't mention it. It was a very busy weekend, lots of parties, and he had some kind of fund-raiser upstate that I didn't want to go to. I keep telling him ‘I think I'm coming down with the flu.' He's been very worried and made an appointment for me with our doctor, which I guess I'll have to keep, but I feel like a fraud.”

Once more, Emma digressed. The stress was loosening her hinges—hinges that weren't too tight to start.

Faith persisted. “Did you see anybody you knew at the bank? Was it a teller you'd recognize?” She couldn't picture Michael Stanstead rifling through his wife's panties. She had another thought. “Was Lucy—or anybody else—at the apartment during the weekend?”

Emma started with the first part of the question. “I remember saying hi to a couple of people, and I think it was at the bank—or it may have been on the way. The teller just looked like a teller. A man. He had to go and get some kind of approval. I think he was new. I brought one of those Coach saddlebags someone gave me once. Somehow, I thought it would be a bigger bundle. Anyway, I put the money in that. I was so nervous, I went straight home. And Lucy? Yes, she, Mother, and Jason came for drinks Saturday night with some other people. We were all going to watch Michael cut a ribbon at a YMCA. He cuts a lot of ribbons. I think this was a new media center for an after-school program. Poppy and Jason gave some computers or something, so that's why they were there. A darling group of children sang carols; then we all went on to a party at La Côte Basque.”

“Why was Lucy there?”

“Well, she's always around this kind of thing. She's very interested in the campaign. Of course she'd love to be married to someone like Michael, and it just makes her worse. She was with this man who works for Michael.”

“Okay, now was there anything unusual about the cabdriver? And what about at the Dumpster? Was there a car near it? There must have been people on the sidewalk.” It seemed like a very risky drop, and whoever had planned to pick it up would have had to be seconds away, watching Emma.

“The place was deserted. Remember how cold it was? And there wasn't even much traffic, not the way it would be on a weekday. The doorman got me a cab, so that was complete chance, unless this is all a gigantic conspiracy. The driver was from Haiti. I know because he was complaining about the weather. It's his first winter in New York.”

Maybe not such a risky drop after all. Social-service agencies had been sending vans around to move the homeless into shelters. One poor man had been found lifeless, huddled in a box over a nonfunctioning heat vent that had probably provided some warmth when he'd first discovered it. Not only would no one be working at the site on the weekend, but no one would be camped out there, either. And five o'clock was a dead time in the city on a Sunday, a lull between the day's activities and the night's festivities. Easy enough to stand in the lobby of one of the buildings nearby, or to duck down in a parked car, racing out to pick up the money as soon as Emma's cab turned the corner.

“No cars you recognized?”

“No, and I did look. The Dumpster was on Forty-eighth and there were
NO PARKING
signs all along where they're working.”

Faith finished the last scraps of her omelette.

“I really have to get to work,” she said, and signaled the waitress for some more coffee.

“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.

“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.