The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress (8 page)

“Don’t hurt the cookware,” Jude said. “It’s no match for you.”

Only then did she meet his gaze. She couldn’t help smiling when she saw his blue eyes, his hesitant dimples. “You’re late.”

Jude looked guarded. The words he chose were noncommittal. “Long shift.”

Maria set the spoon on the counter. She crossed the room in four steps and wrapped her arms around him. She kissed his cheek. Then his neck. “Come eat dinner.”

The small table sat wedged against the open window and was covered with the only tablecloth they owned. There wasn’t even enough breeze to startle the lit candle.

She pulled the platter of
bifana
from the warm oven and drizzled it with chutney. The meat surrendered easily beneath the knife, and she sliced several thin pieces for Jude and set them on his plate.

Maria watched him cut the tenderloin into strips, amazed at his left-handed dexterity. Writing, cutting, and eating all required a shift in posture for Jude that looked uncomfortable to her, as though he were tipping to the side to accommodate that left hand. He was fully immersed in his meal, while she swirled each piece of meat through the chutney and chewed more than necessary, trying to find the right question to ask.

Finally, Maria pushed her plate away, appetite gone, and looked out the window. On the street below, a group of boys played stickball during lulls in traffic.

“Do you know anything about Owney Madden?” she asked. “That gangster from Liverpool?”

Jude dropped his fork. He stared at her with suspicion, palms spread flat against the tablecloth. “Why?”

“He came into Smithson’s two days ago. And there was something really familiar about him, but I didn’t figure it out until today.” Not the complete truth, of course, but hearing Jude mention him at the Craters’ that morning kept Owney firmly cemented in her mind.

“You’ve seen him before?” He picked up his fork and stuck the tines through a raisin. “Where?”

“He was at one of the Craters’ parties.”

“Owney Madden was at the Craters’?” His jaw stretched tight.

She wanted to hear the truth from him. “Who is he?”

“A brutal son of a bitch. Gangster. Bootlegger. Owns Club Abbey. And the Cotton Club. Not to mention half the showgirls in this town. Among other things.” Jude gripped his steak knife, knuckles white, and cut a long strip of tenderloin. He dissected it into small pieces before taking a bite.

“I’ve never heard anyone talk that way. Like he spent his days on a fishing trawler and his nights on the dock.”

“He probably did.”

“Have you ever met him?”

Maria was startled at how level his voice was. How calm. How he chose such a careful answer.

“He’s not someone I want to know.”

She turned to the window to avoid the intensity in his gaze.

“Why was he at the Craters’?” Jude asked. His eyes had that curious slant she’d always loved. Until now. Now it unnerved her.

“Celebrating. Same as everyone else.”

“What?”

“Mr. Crater becoming a judge.”

He mopped a bite through the chutney. “What made you think of him?”

“Nothing, really.” She swallowed. “It just surfaced. You know, the way thoughts do.”

Jude threw his knife and fork onto the plate, and they bounced, then fell to the floor, leaving a blotch of chutney on the tablecloth. “Don’t lie to me!”

His voice was a slap. She recoiled. “What?”

“Did he come to their apartment? Did he threaten you?”

“What are you talking about?”

“Shit, Maria. Do you know what
bad news
that guy is? I could kill the Craters for putting you in the same room with him. And Owney for going anywhere near you.”

Maria yanked the
bifana
from the table and carried the platter back to the kitchen. Set it on the counter with trembling hands. “I have never seen you like this.”

Jude got up and stood behind her. “You gotta tell me if that guy’s been around.”

“You’re scaring me.” Maria placed her palm on the rosary where it hung between her breasts. Took a measured breath. “Why would I lie to you?”

He set his hands on her arms. Panic stretched his eyes wide. “You would if you thought it would protect me. I know you.”

“Is there something I need to protect you from?”

“It’s my job to protect, okay?
Mine
.” Jude loomed over her, shoulders rounded and the veins in his neck drawn tight with a frightening intensity. Maria stepped away, and he reached for her, imploring, but caught a fistful of blue rosary beads instead. Too eager, too desperate to make her understand, he yanked her toward him. The thin silver chain snapped in half, and beads went spinning across the floor, under furniture, against the walls. The crucifix dropped to her feet.

Fear and shame fought for control of his face. He trembled as he towered over her. “I’m sorry—”

She fell to her knees, scooping up the beads. She chased them across
the floor. When she counted them in her hand, over half were missing. Maria could not look at him. She cupped them in her palm.

“It was your grandmother’s,” Jude whispered.

Maria stumbled to her feet and moved toward the bedroom.

“I went to see Finn this afternoon,” Jude called as she reached for the knob.

It took a minute for Maria to register what he said, and then the atmosphere pitched sideways. “Since when do you go to confession?”

“I needed someone to talk to.” Jude sounded pained. He pinched the bridge of his nose. “It was a long, rotten day.”

In all the years they’d been married, Maria could not remember a single time that Jude had gone to see Father Finn Donnegal on his own. For the most part, he’d insisted on calling him by his first name—a liberty that the priest never seemed to mind. A patient man, Father Donnegal.

“What happened today?” She leaned forward a bit, expectant, hopeful that he’d tell her about those envelopes, about Owney, that he wouldn’t keep something of that magnitude from her.

He grabbed a handful of tousled hair and yanked. “Nothing … just … shit, Maria, it was just a bad day, okay?”

Maria stared at him with mournful brown eyes and then stepped into the bedroom and locked the door. She went to the bathroom and ran the tap so the rush of water would muffle Jude’s apology on the other side of the door. Maria climbed into the empty tub and held the broken rosary to her chest.

Chapter Five

BELGRADE LAKES, MAINE, SATURDAY, AUGUST 9, 1930

STELLA
dove off the pier into shallow water. She knew better, really, but there was no feeling like the caress of water against her skin. With a quick arch of her back and three kicks, she came to the surface and then swam freestyle deeper into the lake. Fifty yards from shore, she rolled onto her back and floated, her arms drifting wide. A sky stripped bare of clouds, so blue it seemed bottomless, stretched above her. If only they would meet, sky and lake, and swallow her whole.

Her bathing suit was scandalous. A strapless number in blue and white checks with a satin belt and a skirt so short it didn’t fully cover her derriere. She’d bought it this summer, intending to surprise Joe on their first swim together, to show him that she was still willing to be seduced. Stella had imagined the look of pleasure when he took in the bare expanse of leg and the hint of cleavage, had hoped he would take a renewed interest in her. It hadn’t happened, of course. Joe was gone again before she could model it for him. Back to his mistress.

Nature had not endowed Stella well up top. But she was long and lean with a small waist and clear blue eyes. Joe was fond of both. She’d turned more than her fair share of heads—including his, all those years ago. There was no reason for Stella to feel ashamed of herself, and yet she could not stop the insecurity from smothering her right there in the water. She was a fool for thinking a trashy bathing suit could mend a rift so deep.

Stella pounded her fist in the water. Squeezed her eyes shut. And pushed beneath the surface. She held her breath until her lungs burned and her lips began to tingle. Finally, she bobbed back to the surface and resumed her floating position.

A small family of loons rose from the shore with a squawk and flew low over the lake. They parted around Stella and then landed on the surface twenty feet away. She watched the female beat the water with her wings, proclaiming her displeasure. Stella glanced toward the cabin and saw a truck backing up to the water’s edge. A canoe was tied to the flatbed, candy-apple red and slick with varnish. All the greens and browns of her lakeside retreat were ripped open, exposed by that streak of color.

Irv Bean climbed from the truck, scanned the lake, and waved when he saw her treading water offshore. Stella returned the wave and swam back to the pier. She covered herself with a towel before crossing the yard. Dripping and embarrassed, Stella ran one hand along the glossy finish. She didn’t have to ask what it was.

Her birthday present.

“Joe ordered it for you. I’ve had it sitting in the storeroom for a week. Figured I’d go ahead and bring it up since I haven’t heard from him.” He looked at Stella, a little sheepish. “Hope I didn’t ruin the surprise.”

Irv tugged at one of the ropes harnessing the canoe in place and pulled until the tail end rested on the ground. He hoisted it onto his shoulders and trudged toward the dock, where he slid the canoe into the water with a splash, then stood back to admire.

“Sure is a beauty, ain’t it?”

“You haven’t heard from him?”

Irv had one of those faces that struggled to muster any expression other than jovial. Bright eyes and flushed cheeks and a wide grin. “Sorry, no messages for you. I’ll drive up right away if anything comes in.” He shrugged broad shoulders in apology. Then he tied off the canoe so it wouldn’t drift into the lake. “Best be getting back. Happy birthday, Mrs. Crater.”

Stella’s eyes filled with the canoe. Long after the sound of Irv’s delivery truck was replaced by the hush of afternoon, she hung by the water’s edge, wondering exactly what had happened to Joe.

Chapter Six

BELGRADE LAKES, MAINE, MONDAY, AUGUST 11, 1930

“I WANT
you to go back to New York and look for Joe.”

Fred sat at the kitchen counter, cup of coffee in hand, watching sheets of rain slide down the window. The rain had returned and with it Stella’s dismal mood. “You think it’s that serious?”

“I think it’s time we do something other than sit around and wonder. I want you to search everywhere you can think of. Especially the apartment. What if he’s in there …” Stella pulled at a loose thread on her blouse. “What if he’s dead?”

“Mrs. Crater, I don’t think—”

“This will get you in.” She pulled a key ring from her purse and set it on the counter. She pointed at a large brass key.

“You’re not coming?”

How could she answer that question? That she only wanted to know what had happened to Joe? She settled for the easiest explanation. “I need to be here if he comes back.”

“I’ll search for him,” Fred said. “I promise.”

“Write to me if you find anything.”

“Of course.” Fred picked his jacket off the floor and ducked out the door, arms over his face to protect from the biting wind. He was lost in the rain before she could see him run around the cabin toward the car.

When Stella was certain Fred had driven away, she went upstairs and dumped out the clothes hamper. At the bottom were the khaki pants Joe had worn to the Salt House. Stella turned the pockets inside out but found only the wrapper to an after-dinner mint. She stuffed the
dirty clothes back in and went to the closet. Joe’s dinner jacket hung on a peg inside the door. Stella reached into the left pocket and found his cigarettes—unfiltered Camels—and a matchbook with the Club Abbey logo. Stella grimaced. She’d never approved of Joe’s patronage of the speakeasy that the papers referred to as a “white-light rendezvous spot.” In Joe’s right pocket were two business cards: one for Simon Rifkind, a law associate of Joe’s, and the other for Owney Madden, proprietor of Club Abbey. Stella tapped the cards against her palm.

“So that’s who he called.” She changed into trousers and tucked the business cards into her pocket. Then she grabbed her raincoat and galoshes and marched into the storm.

“I DON’T
know what you were playing at the other day,” Donald Smithson said, laying an invoice on her work table. “But it clearly worked. He paid in advance.”

Maria lifted the sheet of paper and saw an order for five suits, along with a check for $750. “Owney Madden?”

“I will grant that your tactics were effective with him—perhaps due in part to his own lack of breeding—but it’s not a strategy that I want you to employ in the future. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Smithson placed his clipboard next to the invoice. On it was recorded all of Owney Madden’s measurements and his choice of fabric for each suit. “He will be back in two weeks for his first fitting. Let’s begin with the classic cut in charcoal wool. You know what to do.”

Maria watched Smithson return to his office. That was the closest he’d ever come to paying her a compliment. But the joy of being vindicated was dulled by the uncomfortable fact that she would have to see Owney Madden again.

IRV BERN’S
general store sat at the bottom of a wooded inlet a little over two miles away. But he had a telephone, which at the moment was the most important thing. Despite endless promises from the public works department, phone service had not yet made it to the Craters’ end of the lake, and they were forced to make
the trek into town to use the phone. Normally, this was not a problem, given the services of Fred Kahler. But Stella had something to say that she did not want him to hear. So having sent him away, she had no choice but to walk. What would have usually been a lovely trip beneath a heavy canopy of oak trees proved a lesson in misery. Although the branches protected her somewhat from the stinging rain, the little that made it through drenched her head and neck until rivulets of water ran down her spine. It took her an hour to hike down the hill, head bowed and hands tucked beneath her arms. The lights were on when she rounded the last turn in the gravel road. Sodden and dispirited, Stella trudged up the wide plank steps and pushed against the door with her shoulder. The shop bells above her clattered in alarm.