The Body in the Boudoir

The Body in the Boudoir

A Faith Fairchild Mystery

Katherine Hall Page

Dedication

To Roger Lathbury

Orchises Press

Dear Friend and Publisher Nonpareil

Epigraph

And when two lovers woo

They still say, I love you

—H
ERMAN
H
UPFELD
, “A
S
T
IME
G
OES
B
Y
,”
FROM THE SHOW
E
VERYBODY'S
W
ELCOME

Contents

Prologue

T
he airplane cabin was almost completely dark, with an occasional pinpoint of light indicating a reader. It was blessedly quiet, too. All she could hear was the steady hum of the engines, reassuring and slightly soporific. No wailing infants, not even the usual hacking coughs that punctuated a long flight. Faith Sibley Fairchild pulled the thin airline blanket up to her chin and considered putting on the sleep mask thoughtfully provided as well. She looked at her husband, Tom, who had been deep in the arms of Morpheus the moment the lights dimmed after consuming dinner—steak tips with “seasonal” vegetables—with relish. He'd consumed her portion, too. She'd opted for the sandwich she'd tucked in her carry-on bag—a ciabatta roll with a light film of olive oil, fresh mozzarella, prosciutto, basil, and tomato—washed down with the not bad little bottle of Chianti the steward offered. After all, they were on their way to Italy. Faith had offered to pack food for Tom as well, but he'd insisted that he wanted “the full flight experience” and liked eating from “those little trays.” She sighed. Even after all these years with a wife for whom food was not simply a passion but a business, he still opted for Campbell's cream of mushroom soup over hers and Ritz crackers with peanut butter in times of stress.

He wasn't stressed now and she smiled as she moved closer to him. The earlier dubious food smells were gone, leaving one that she could identify as belonging to him and no one else in the world: a combination of Ivory soap, the slight citrus of his aftershave, and something ineffably Tom Fairchild. She kissed his cheek—nothing short of a sonic boom would wake him—and settled back against her seat. In the dark she could imagine that the two of them were alone. Alone enclosed in this silver cylinder speeding in an arc through the air, the ocean far below. He'd been the one to come up with the idea of a trip, a trip sans kids. A significant anniversary needed a significant marking, he'd said, and somehow it had all happened.

They'd been married in the first year of the last decade of the twentieth century. And now they were past the first decade of the twenty-first. Someone had once told her that as you got older time went faster and Faith did feel she had been propelled from one era—landline phones, snail mail, Cabbage Patch dolls—into the current one where kids had virtual toys and all ages communicated on Facebook “walls.” Yet, mostly, she didn't feel any older herself. But she was—and so was her beloved. A few streaks had turned his reddish-brown hair to cinnamon toast. Without these visible markings on the people around her—their parents, their two children, friends—Faith could almost sense that time stood still. That she would wake up back in the New York apartment she'd lived in before she was married, making a mad dash to get to work, while wondering when, and if, her prince would come.

When he showed up, he was not what she had envisioned, but in the end it hadn't mattered. Not at all.

Getting there had been a journey—she realized she was thinking in travel metaphors, must be the altitude. From their whirlwind courtship to the wedding ceremony a few months later under a clear blue sky, facing Long Island Sound, the ride had often been a turbulent one and there were times when she had longed for a route map.

To start, there had been the geographical differences between the two of them. Growing up in a small town on Boston's South Shore, where not only did everybody know your name but you were related to a sizable number as well, was as foreign to Faith's own upbringing on Manhattan's Upper East Side as if an ocean, not a state or two, separated the couple. Then there was Tom's job. She could move, he couldn't, so she'd left the Big Apple for the bucolic orchards of Aleford, Massachusetts. The geographical, and the other differences—he loved board games, she didn't; L.L.Bean met all his sartorial needs, Barney's hers—were smoothed out by time, and love.

No, the updrafts and downdrafts in the path from her engagement to wedding weren't caused by Tom, or Faith herself, but others—some with intention, some by chance. She thought of Francesca—they'd be seeing her soon in Tuscany—and the turmoil the then young girl had involved Faith in all those years ago. Beautiful, and Faith knew from a recent photo that Francesca was, if anything, more beautiful now, but the secret she had harbored was not. Faith felt her eyes start to close and a host of people, people she hadn't thought about in a long while, began to flicker through her thoughts. Great-aunt Tammy—larger than life—and her husband, Faith's great-uncle Sky, always so well turned out—and tuned out? Mrs. Danforth, so loyal, but not to Faith. Her nana, clinging to the proprieties of yesteryear despite what might be crashing down around her.

Then there was Faith's sister, Hope, happy now, but so very troubled then.

And herself. Different hair. Definitely different clothes. And, she thought with a shudder, totally oblivious of the deadly threat that had been so close at hand. She wasn't a runaway bride, but almost a run-over one . . .

When she traveled by air, Faith always opted for a window seat, and she'd left the shade next to her open a crack, peering out into the darkness every once in a while. Now a faint light was beginning to appear at the horizon and she closed the shade. They wouldn't be landing for another two and a half hours; she could try to sleep until the flight attendants came by with cardboard Danish and something that looked like coffee. Despite what would be a strong need for caffeine, she'd wait for Italian coffee—espresso, cappuccino, caffe latte,
marocchino
. Italian food names sounded musical, operatic even.
Pomodoro,
porcini, osso buco, tortellini,
marmellata
—she was making herself hungry.

They were seated just behind a wing and the jet engines looked like small rockets, flashes of flame against the darkness. Flying wasn't as much fun as it used to be, what with removing shoes and the rest, but Faith still got a thrill at takeoff watching the world instantly miniaturize and then disappear altogether, hidden beneath that other world above the clouds. But she didn't want to venture higher—into outer space—although she would like to see the earth from there, the spectacular blue orb that we continued to threaten in so many ways. No, she wasn't about to suit up and head for the moon. She'd be afraid she might not be able to get back. Back to everyone and everything she treasured so intensely. Back to what had started with that wedding all those years ago. Their wedding.

It had been murder.

Chapter 1

“I
lost a client!”

Faith Sibley stopped filling a container with trays of bite-size crab cakes and moved the phone from the crook of her neck to her hand, slightly alarmed by her younger sister's uncharacteristic lugubrious tone. This was “lost” as in gone forever, not “lost” as in a momentarily misplaced toddler in Bloomingdale's or a houseguest boarding the wrong subway train.

“I'm so sorry, Hope. Were you close?”

“I thought so, but then you never know, do you? Not until it's too late to do anything about it.”

Noting that the tenor of the conversation had changed from emotional to philosophical, Faith replied in kind.

“That's so true—and sadly a reminder that we need to be more aware of other people's needs.”

“I thought I was! But it wasn't enough.”

Faith hadn't heard her sister express this much remorse since missing Apple's IPO at age eleven.

“When is the funeral?”

“Funeral?”

“Or are they having a memorial service?”

“Fay”—her sister had started using the nickname when they were in their teens and Faith had never found a nice way to tell her to stop. An attempt to call Hope “Hopey” only made it past her lips once before both of them were convulsed with laughter. “Fay, what are you talking about?”

“Your client's death. Again, I'm so sorry. How old was he, or she?”

“It was a he. He's forty-two, and although I'd like to kill him, he's very much alive. Alive and well with someone else, trailing his fat little account behind him.”

Faith stuck the phone back under her neck and started transferring trays of phyllo cups filled with a wild mushroom mixture into the container. Her catering business, Have Faith, had a big wedding reception uptown—she looked at her watch—much too soon.

“Sweetie, I'm still sorry. Very sorry. But I have to go. We have a wedding at Riverside Church.”

One of Hope's less endearing qualities was her single-mindedness. It was a quality that kept her successfully focused on climbing the rungs above her, but also meant that she often paid absolutely no attention to what her sister said.

“I called Phelps right away and he's as puzzled as I am.”

Phelps Grant was her sister's current beau, and as far as Faith was concerned the jury was still out, but without ever stating the policy, the two sisters, a year apart, had made a practice of never interfering in each other's love life.

“What more could I have done? Besides making money for him in this disastrous economy, I got orchestra seats for
Phantom of the Opera
during the holidays for his family—roughly half the population of someplace like Pittsburgh—which cost me a pretty penny, plus when I took him to lunch, it always had to be Windows on the World. Anyway, he called just last week to thank me for the tickets and said he was looking forward to a long and happy relationship together. ‘Long and happy relationship'—his exact words. And then today, a knife in the back!”

“I really have to—”

Hope had paused a nanosecond for breath but kept going.

“He, or rather his secretary, sent me a scarf from Hermès at Christmas, which I can't take back because I've already worn it twice. It's one I don't have, Flacons, you know, the dark background with the tiny perfume bottles, whimsical.”

“Hope! I do know and I'm very happy you got something out of it and we'll talk about your loss later. I have to go. Call me at home. I'm planning to sleep until Monday, when we have an MLK Day breakfast to do, no jobs tomorrow.”

“Another odd thing. He sent flowers, through the secretary again—and okay, no mums or maidenhair fern, such an odd name—with the kiss-off note and at the end of it said he hoped I would feel better soon. As if I'd been sick. I was sick when I read it, but not before, so what could—”

“Hanging up now. Toodles.”

She could hear her sister sigh. Hope didn't like not knowing. She wasn't a control freak. She just liked, well, being in control.

“Bye, Fay. Have fun at your thing.”

Faith had been able to benefit from the late 1980s “Money's No Object” when she started the business and although there had been an Icarus-like plunge in the economy during this second year, she had been doing well enough to move Have Faith to larger quarters despite the recession. Yet Faith's sister still regarded her big sis's livelihood as something between a quirk and a hobby. Not a real job. For a real job you wore a suit and carried a Bottega Veneta “When Your Own Initials Are Enough” briefcase.

During the holidays, Faith had catered a number of events where her sister had been a guest. Manhattan was like a small village in many respects, especially the circles in which the Sibley girls traveled. Hope had registered surprise each time at Faith's checked chef pants, admittedly altered to a nice fit, and crisp white jacket.

Faith closed the container and observed the swirl of activity around her. It had been a hectic couple of weeks combining the move with a busy holiday season. There had also been some personal turmoil that she firmly pushed to the back of her mind.

“Okay, guys, about ready?”

Howard, her bartender, gave her a thumbs-up. He was not an aspiring actor, poet, or anything other than a bartender, he'd told her during his interview. He liked the flexible hours and the changes of scene. An office job or anything else repetitive was not for him. More to the point, he enjoyed creating new concoctions. She'd hired him on the spot, as she had her assistant, Josie Wells. Josie came from Virginia and had brought with her her grandmother's recipes for cornbread, hoppin' John, red velvet cake, and the best fried chicken in the world (a vinegar/water soak and evaporated milk in the batter before a vigorous shake in seasoned flour). She'd also brought a wicked sense of humor and down-to-earth practicality. Her goal was to open her own restaurant, Josie's, someday, which she'd made clear at the start, and she was taking courses at the New School in everything from Opening Your Own Small Business to Culinary History.

It didn't take long to get to the church, and soon her staff had unloaded the van. Everything was running smoothly—and on time.

Standing not quite at attention along the back wall, Have Faith's waitstaff was all set, black pants, fitted white shirts, and thin black ties. The exception was Faith's newest hire, Francesca Rossi, a young Italian woman from Tuscany who worked at Josie's health club and had recently taken the place of one of Josie's ever-changing roommate population. When Josie reported that Francesca possessed an uncanny ability to create terrific meals from a seemingly empty fridge and olive oil, Faith was definitely intrigued, and Francesca was now juggling two jobs ably. She would be at the buffet serving and had asked to replace the generic black jacket with a velvet one that sported discreet white satin lapels. Her dark hair was pulled sleekly back in a low ponytail. Her oval face and pale skin were more Modigliani than Titian, but Francesca was definitely in a class with all their models.

Everything except the food had been set up earlier in the church's Ninth Floor Lounge—the name belying the space, which was Gothic, not cocktail. Faith loved the Riverside Church, the 1930 Chartres replica that John D. Rockefeller had built overlooking the Hudson. Over the summer, she'd catered two weddings in the large South Hall, but the Lounge's smaller space was prettier, she thought, even without the spectacular views through the stone arches of the river on one side and the city on the other. The late-afternoon ceremony in the church's Christ Chapel would be followed by drinks and passed hors d'oeuvres in the Lounge before dinner.

She was picturing the jeweled carpet of lights the guests would see during the evening as she looked down through the windows at the deepening shadows in the streets. Turning back around, she let her eyes feast on the room in front of her—a warm glow in contrast to the view even without a fire in the baronial fireplace carved into one wall.

When Faith had checked the space earlier to make sure that everything was in place, she had been stunned. The bride had opted for a party planner her mother, a well-known Manhattan hostess, used instead of the caterer's contacts. The Lounge's architectural details had been transformed with yards of pleated white tulle and masses of roses, and hydrangea with a faint celadon cast to it. The roses ranged from iceberg white to warm pink, with a few nodding toward apricot to warm up the pale stone pillars. They'd lucked out with the weather, warm for January and no snow. January was an iffy month for a wedding, but the couple had wanted to take advantage of the three-day weekend. She was a native New Yorker, but he was from Massachusetts, which meant out-of-town guests. From what Faith had gathered, the groom's first introduction to his future in-laws was also one of his first trips to the Big Apple. It had been hard not to show her surprise.

New York City was not simply the city of her birth but the city she adored. She'd been to Paris, London, Madrid, Rome, even Boston—surely the groom had been to that city, and how could he possibly prefer paltry Boston Common to Central Park's acres? Yes, she'd enjoyed exploring all those other cities—she'd done Boston in a day—but whenever she'd stepped off the plane, or train, back home, she felt not a sense of relief but a sense of excitement. She could never live anywhere else.

Granted, her upbringing hadn't been that of a typical New Yorker, if such an animal existed. Her father was a man of the cloth, with a large congregation in a church that was also, like Riverside, a landmark, but on the east side of Manhattan. Jane Sibley, née Lennox, was descended from those canny Dutch who'd made real estate history with a few baubles and beads. The family had remained rooted in Manhattan ever since. Quickly deciding that the impoverished divinity school student she'd met through his sister, a fellow classmate at Barnard, was a similar once-in-a-lifetime chance, Jane had said yes, but . . . The “but” was the stipulation that he find a parish in the city—she didn't care where so long as she recognized the zip code—and they invest as soon as possible in their own place. Jane didn't know what sort of parsonage the future might hold, but she knew she wanted to be able to move the furniture around when she wished and paint the walls purple should the spirit move her.

By the time Faith was born, her mother was making a quiet name for herself as a real estate lawyer—“quiet” since the Lennoxes, especially Jane's mother, belonged to the school that believed mention in the press should be restricted to marriage and death. The Upper East Side bargain duplex Jane had pounced on as soon as Lawrence accepted the call to his current pulpit was as far from Mosses from an Old Manse as one could get while still sporting a turned-around collar.

Hope had followed almost a year to the day after Faith, and there the Sibleys stopped. Accommodating in all respects to the wife his secular side unabashedly worshipped, the Reverend Lawrence Sibley would not budge on the family tradition, established not long after Noah stepped on dry land, that called for Sibley girls to be named Faith, Hope, and Charity, in that order, subsequent female issues' names unspecified. The oldest male in each generation was Lawrence, followed by Hosea and Luke. Faith had questioned her father and various other Sibleys as to the origin of the male naming tradition. “Lawrence”? The other two, overtly biblical—yes—but where did her father's name, and all the Lawrences preceding him, come from? No one had ever provided a satisfactory answer. The conundrum was an indicator of the insatiably curious little girl she'd been—and still was. It was the type of question she used to mull over first in Sunday school and then in church to entertain herself during the boring parts.

Despite the spacious apartment—each girl had a room of her own—and location—steps away from the park, also Park and Madison—growing up as a preacher's kid, a PK, resembled growing up in a fishbowl, no matter how holy the water or attractive the tiny decorative castle. “Is she old enough for makeup?” “Do you think it's wise to let two young college girls go to Europe on their own?” Quite polite people who would never ordinarily make comments about others in public felt entitled by membership in the congregation not only to comment but also advise. “Faith, you seem to be having trouble finding your path, not like Hope. Did I hear she just got another promotion? How about teaching? You'd be so good with small children.” Or worse, “My adorable nephew is in town. The one who just finished Harvard Law. I know you two would hit it off.”

Smile, just smile. Think about converting to Buddhism and definitely repress the impulse to hit the speaker.

It was true that Faith took longer to “find her path” than Hope, but Hope had been reading the
Wall Street Journal
all her life, moving rapidly from
Pat the Bunny
to
The Little Engine That Could
and from there to the Dow Jones. After college, Faith had returned to the nest, where she had in fact spent most weekends, and embarked on several months of serious socializing, becoming a regular on the Hampton Jitney. By the end of August, her mother's unsubtle hints left on Faith's pillow—jobs circled in the newspaper, a copy of
What Color Is Your Parachute?
—were having the opposite effect intended. Faith felt even more lethargic and depressed about her future. She had no idea what she should do. There was no clear path that she could see. The last straw was when her dear father left a copy of Robert Frost's poems open to “The Road Not Taken” next to her place at dinner—she was eating at home for the first time in a week and they were having the usual, a variant of a nice piece of fish or a nice piece of chicken and a little salad. Jane Sibley still fit into her wedding dress and the one she'd worn when she came out.

Faith had been annoyed and embarrassed. “Two roads.” Great. Yet, as the meal progressed and she listened to her mother talking about the real estate boom and Hope talking about the stock market boom and her father not talking much, but presumably thinking about some sort of celestial boom, she made a decision. She would take the road “less traveled by,” and she wouldn't talk about it. Not yet.