The Body In The Big Apple (16 page)

“I'm sure you have never been driven in your life by ‘naked greed.' That's what the judge said. Why he was so hard on her. He accused her of thinking she was above the law.”

Sadie nodded solemnly. “No, greed was never a problem for me. I never had enough to be greedy about. Not that I'm complaining. Abe and I had a good life. All the children went to college and are doing well. Maybe she did think she was above the law. Harry, of course Harry can't even think these days. You have to feel sorry for another human being. He spoiled her maybe. Too many fur coats. It went to her head. But above the law? There are a lot out there”—she pointed to the street—“who think that. And what about Mr. Fuchs when he was Nathan Fox?”

And what about Mr. Fuchs? Faith had momentarily forgotten her mission. A mission impossible, and she'd better get going. But Sadie was a smart lady. Nathan Fox
had
thought himself above the law. Maybe it wasn't the same kind of self-interest as Queen Leona's. Fox had used the old “for the greater good” argument to justify his actions. Always a chilling phrase.

Yet, self-interest was a good part of Fox's life, self-
aggrandizing in a way not dissimilar from Leona Helmsley's ad campaigns. What about all his enfant terrible books? Dinners at Elaine's—and his society matron groupies.

Sadie was still talking about the verdict. “She's appealing. I hope she has a good lawyer. What's the point? She didn't kill anybody. Take her money away. Send her here. There's an apartment on the first floor available. Let her live out her days as one of the little people. It's wrong to send old ladies to prison.”

“I can't argue with that.” Faith got up and began clearing their plates and cups. Sadie watched approvingly.

“I'm sorry. I have to be going,” Faith told her, slipping her coat from the back of the chair. Sadie got up, too, and put her hand on Faith's arm. She lowered her voice and, in a conspiratorial tone, asked, “You want to have a look at his place?”

“How? It's all locked up.” Faith couldn't believe this was happening. How was Sadie going to get her into Fox's apartment? A hidden door in the closet? Morph her through the wall?

“You can get onto the fire escape from Stella's, and it goes right past his window.”

The image of Stella, and maybe Sadie, too, as a Peeping Thomasina was almost too much for Faith. In days that weren't filled with any laughter, this one was rapidly becoming high comedy.

“Is Stella home?”

“Stella's always home on Mondays. We'll go up.”

Which was how Faith shortly found herself crouched on a cold metal grid, peering through the grimy locked window of Nathan Fox's apartment, the apartment where he had met his death.

The police must have taken various articles away, but Faith didn't have a clue as to what they were. The small room was a shambles. The card table where he wrote was overturned, the typewriter lying on its side. Clippings and papers from the file cabinet covered the floor. There was a cabinet over the sink. The door was open and it was empty, except for a saucepan. There was a plate and a glass in the dish drainer. The refrigerator door was closed. There were no postcards on it and nothing lay on the floor beneath. The grill at the bottom had been pried off. The oven door was open. It needed cleaning—since sometime in the forties. Directly opposite the window was a closet. That door was open, too. The hangers were empty and there was a pile of clothes on the floor. A flat pile. No picture of Emma and Michael. She couldn't see into the bathroom, but she'd seen enough to know how thorough the search had been. She'd also seen enough to know what the person—or persons—unknown had been looking for. The books that filled an entire wall in floor-to-ceiling shelves were virtually undisturbed. And they looked carefully arranged, separated by metal bookends into groups. If the police had picked them up from the floor, Faith doubted they would have replaced them so carefully. The only volumes that had been disturbed were the oversized ones. True, somebody looking for goods to fence wouldn't walk out with a stack of books, but they wouldn't search under the refrigerator, either, or go through the file drawers. Somebody had been looking for something specific—something the size of a finished manuscript.

If there was an outline where Fox had fallen, she couldn't make it out from this angle, but there was a clear space by the door. He'd answered it—expecting
whom? Emma—back for a pair of forgotten gloves? No, he'd have noticed them. Emma back with another treat? Who? Who was it who'd knocked—and entered?

“Are you all right, Karen?” Sadie was leaning out the window. “Don't get chilled.”

But it was too late for that. Faith was already chilled. Chilled to the bone.

Lorraine Fuchs lived in Bay Ridge, not far from the Verrazano Narrows Bridge. The first thing she told Faith when she opened the door to her tidy brick house was “I watched them build the bridge when I was a little girl—the Verrazano, not the Brooklyn Bridge.” She gave a halfhearted laugh, yet what struck Faith was not the woman's attempt at a joke, but the enormous change in her appearance. She was positively unkempt. Both her turtleneck and slacks were wrinkled—as if she'd slept in them. But her red-rimmed bloodshot eyes weren't indications of a good night's sleep. Her hair hadn't been braided, and the result was truly scary. Faith was tempted to march her off to a decent stylist then and there, subtracting ten years from her age with the removal of a foot or two of hair.

“I didn't know how to reach you. I was going to tell you not to bother to come, but since you're here, you might as well come in.”

What had happened to the keeper of the flame? Her desire to help Faith with the “legacy”?

The house was tidy. Faith was sure Lorraine hadn't moved a thing since her mother died. The living room was papered with dark green leafy fronds. The matched set of sofa, easy chair, and ottoman sported the original nubbly dark brown upholstery. A bookshelf held the classics. A wedding picture, a graduation shot of Lorraine—with significantly less hair—and several sepia prints of a bygone generation stood framed on top of the bookcase. There was a window seat beneath the largest window, overlooking the narrow driveway and detached garage next to the house—its twin to the other side, with the repeat of Lorraine's house next to it. The whole street was the same—house, garage, garage, house—with an occasional low fence or folly such as a wishing well the only distinguishing features. Even the shrubs looked uniform. There was a shelf under the window seat, and Lorraine gestured toward it. It was filled with scrapbooks, folders, and boxes.

“There they are. His whole life. My whole life.” She began to cry.

“It must have been such a shock.” Faith tried to comfort the woman. She was glad she had her son left at least. “You must miss him terribly.”

Lorraine yanked her head up. “Miss him! That bastard! You want to write about him? You want to see scrapbooks? You want to see a book? I'll show you a book!” The woman was screeching. She ran to the shelf below the window seat and grabbed a thick manila envelope from the top of a stack of other items. These teetered, spilling out on to the floor. She kicked at them, waving the other parcel about. There was no address on the front of it, just her first name. ‘Be sure I'm really gone, Lorraine,' he said. ‘Wait till
the funeral, Lorraine—if there's a funeral. Then wait some more.' Well, I waited. Yes, I waited! For what? To find out just who he thought ‘Lorraine' was. That's what!”

With her tangled hair draped about her shoulders, she looked like a crazed twentieth-century version of Miss Havisham. The cause for the change between last night and this afternoon? It was obvious. Lorraine Fuchs had read Nathan Fox's magnum opus and blown her lid.

 

“Who the hell is this?” A young man forcefully pushed open the front door, sending it slamming against the wall, where the torn wallpaper and exposed plaster revealed that this was an habitual form of entry.

Everything about him was large. Tall, verging on obesity, but broad-shouldered, he had a mane of tangled, dirty hair that reached to his shoulders, mingling unpleasantly with his beard on the way. Something about the Fuchses and long hair, Faith said to herself. His jeans were fashionably ripped at the knee, and when he took off his leather jacket, he revealed a Kurt Cobain T-shirt and several tattoos—a large one of Woody Woodpecker in full Klan regalia on his forearm. None of them said
MOTHER
.

It had to be Harvey.

It was Harvey. “Harvey,” Lorraine mumbled in a voice that was both placating and awestruck, “this is Karen. I met her at…at the…last job I had. She's a friend.” The last sentence struck a pleading note. Faith was willing to bet Harvey wouldn't let his mother have a pet, either. Lorraine's luck with menfolk was on a par with Desdemona's.

Harvey walked past them, leaving his jacket on the
floor, and pushed open the swinging door into the next room. He appeared to take no notice of his mother's dishevelment or the mess on the carpet. He was back right away with a can of beer, his attention still elsewhere, his eyes blank, his face devoid of expression.

“Tell your friend to get out. Now.”

He hadn't raised his voice once since entering the house, but his flat monotone was terrifying. It was completely devoid of affect and Faith realized that this was true of the rest of Harvey, as well. He hadn't even glanced at her once. Never addressed her directly. The two women were objects, like the furniture in the room. He picked up the remote, put his feet, clad in heavy motorcycle boots, on the coffee table, and switched the television on, flicking through the channels until he came to MTV.

Faith had no problem with leaving. Lorraine looked as if she would have liked to go, too—at least for a cup of coffee. As Faith went out the door, Lorraine said good-bye, added something about Harvey being tired, then leaned forward and whispered, “Come back during the morning. Early. He never comes then. Come Wednesday.”

Faith nodded and thankfully made her way back to Manhattan. If every foray out of the city was going to be like the last two, she'd just as soon stay within the confines of the borough for the rest of her life. Maybe a trip or two to someplace like Provence, but definitely she was never going to live anywhere except the Big Apple.

 

Back at work during the rest of the afternoon, Faith struggled to shake off the sense of deep fear Harvey had provoked. Suddenly, all her other theories were
tumbling houses of cards. Whatever Lorraine knew, Harvey knew—and Lorraine knew where Fox had been living, probably knew about Emma. Most certainly after Emma's upstate visit. Emma's visit with Todd. Had it been Harvey on the other end of the phone? Faith hadn't heard enough to be sure. Had they pooled their knowledge and come up with the plot to extort money, a great deal of money, from Emma? It was hard to gauge Harvey's intelligence, but it didn't take much to be a blackmailer—and none at all to kill.

Josie and Jessica had had things under control, but Faith still worked at a fever pitch to get all the party platters and several buche de Noël done and delivered. Howard, who served as van driver when necessary, returned from the last load at six.

“Any changes in the schedule this week? Tomorrow night, we're on, Thursday night's your relative's party, right? Then there's the weekend. That's filled, yes?”

“No changes, but with more platters to do and several takeouts, it's about all we can handle until we move to the new place,” Faith answered, adding silently, Until I take care of this Emma business. Until my life veers from the schizophrenic course it's on.

The phone rang, and it was the lady herself.

“Don't be mad, but I had to give them their money again. Yesterday.” Uncharacteristically, she came straight to the point.

Faith's heart sank. It wasn't the money—though watching Emma bleed tens of thousands of dollars was gut-wrenching. It was another opportunity lost. If Emma had told her she was going to pay up, Faith could have lurked in the doorway of a nearby building
and watched the pickup. Watched Harvey—or Todd—search the Dumpster? She had to find out what time Emma had made the drop. She had to explain this all, but with her staff in full earshot, it was impossible now.

“Can you meet me for a drink? Or I could come by the apartment?”

“You can't talk now. You're working, of course! How stupid of me. I shouldn't have interrupted you!” Emma was contrite.

“No, interrupt me anytime, please. We're
all
”—Faith emphasized the word
all,
hoping Emma would pick up on it—“done here and just about to leave.”

“I have to meet Michael at the opening of Geoffrey Beene's new boutique. It's not that Michael's so interested in fashion, but they go way back. Mother Stanstead won't wear any other designer, and Lincoln told Michael he'll be there. Michael wants to talk to him about some fund-raiser.”

Making a swift and firm resolve never to call anybody “Mother” anything, except possibly when referring to the nursery rhyme, Faith tried to think when she could sit Emma down and find out what had happened. Both of their schedules were typical New York nightmares. Lincoln was Lincoln Kirstein, the cofounder of the New York City Ballet, and it sounded as if the Beene opening was going to be as luminous as the Milky Way. She wished she was catering it.

“How about tomorrow—lunch?” Emma asked. “It's my Doubles holiday lunch at the Sherry-Netherland and someone canceled at my table.”

Faith thought it was extremely unlikely that they would be able to chat about blackmail and murder at the private club's well-known and much-sought-after festivity.

“It's always very noisy and gay. Nobody will pay any attention to what we're talking about.”

Emma could be right. Faith had certainly been to enough gatherings of this sort to know that people barely listened to one another, let alone a conversation on the other side of a table. The important thing was to see and be seen.

“All right. I can take off for lunch, but I may have to leave early. Meet you there.”

“You're an angel, Faith. See you.”

Faith wasn't sure what was particularly angelic about going to lunch, but then every encounter with Emma from the very beginning had had unintended and often incomprehensible results, so lunch with the members of the Doubles Club and their guests should be no different.

She decided to call Richard. The idea of going back to her apartment alone was unsettling. Here, with her staff bustling about her, she'd had a hard time keeping Harvey's face from her mind. Home alone, the image of this poster boy for sociopaths would be a waking nightmare. Besides, tonight would be her last free evening for a while, and she might as well make the most of it.

“Got anything special on for tonight? Sweet Richard?” Josie asked as she was putting on her coat. Josie herself was determined to remain unencumbered until she got her restaurant going, but she'd explained to Faith that that didn't mean she had to take any vows. She'd changed from her work clothes and looked terrific in a deep claret-colored velvet sheath that brought out the rosy glow in her warm brown skin. She wore her hair very short—“Don't want to fuss with it,” she'd said. It fit her head like a cap, em
phasizing her high cheekbones. When she did have her restaurant, she was going to be as much of a draw as her food, Faith predicted.

“If Richard's busy, I may go to a party.” People, noise, safety in numbers.

“Go to the party,” Josie advised. “Things are getting entirely too intense lately.” She raised her eyebrows in an unspoken question—a question she knew Faith couldn't answer.

“You may be right.” She'd get dressed up and lose herself in a merry holiday party. It was decided. She could even drop in on the Beene opening. Mother Stanstead wasn't the only one who favored the designer.

But first she tried Richard. Richard
and
the party would be perfect. He was home.

“I left a message for you at your apartment,” he said. “Didn't want to bother you at work.”

“Bother me. Really. If I can't talk, I'll tell you.”

“Okay. Anyway, can I see you tonight? I have to leave town for a few days and won't be back until the weekend.”

“I was about to call you.” Why was she relieved that he was leaving town? One less thing to think about? Or was it getting harder and harder not to confide in him? Or, she admitted reluctantly, was it that she had no idea how she felt about him and wanted some time apart?

“Nice words. What had you planned to say?”

“The same thing. Except I'm not leaving town.”

“Excellent—on both counts.”

They arranged to meet at the party and then think of what to do afterward once they were together.

Faith went home and tried on several different out
fits before settling on a black velvet coat dress that flared slightly at midcalf. It had a small black lace insert at the bodice. It looked festive and elegant. She pulled her hair back. Richard liked the nape of her neck. He was going out of town for a while. Damn. She was going to miss him, wasn't she? She sprayed on Guerlain's Mitsouko, put on her coat, and went off to the party.

 

At eleven o'clock, Richard and Faith were walking down Fifth Avenue, which was by no means deserted. There had been a break in the cold spell and the warmth from the day's sunshine seemed to linger in the air. Strolling down Fifth, or any number of other avenues, was one of Faith's favorite things to do. Especially at this time of year, when every window was filled with glittering enticements.

Richard, like Faith, had grown up in the city. It was one of the things they had in common—an unabashed love of New York.

“Where did you go to see Santa?”

“Macy's, of course.”

“Of course, but then here at Schwarz's with my grandparents for good measure.” Faith didn't think her grandmother had ever been in Macy's—or any other large department store other than Altman's.

At the giant toy store, every day was Christmas, Hanukkah, and your birthday all rolled into one—the one in your dreams. As usual, the windows were filled with outrageous toys—huge stuffed animals, dolls with designer wardrobes, and kid-size working models of their parents' luxury cars.

“I had a car you could really drive.” Richard's face was almost against the glass. “Foot power. If you ped
aled like hell and were on an incline, you could pretend you were doing five miles an hour.”

“Maybe Santa will bring you one of these—except bigger.”