The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress (18 page)

Only after he’d gone to the bathroom and left her at the mercy of Leo’s roaming gaze had she convinced him to leave. At three in the morning, Grand Street was deserted. Even the streetlamps looked exhausted, dim and sputtering in protest, as they shuffled back to their Orchard Street apartment.

“What’s that?” Maria asked in response to a long string of mumbling. She peered up at the distressed look on his face.

“Said he’ll bleed me.”

“Bleed?”

“Pay up. Earn my keep.” Jude tried to laugh but only produced a strangled bark. He pointed his finger at Maria’s face in some forced imitation. “ ‘Job comes with strings, you know. One day they’ll be pulled. Prepare to dance, Pinocchio. Or your family pays.’ ”

He went on like this for several minutes before she realized he was trying to relay some conversation he’d had. “Who said that?”

“Mooney,” he said, and shook his head. “Rooney.” Jude tried again, forcing tongue and mind to communicate. “Mulrooney.”

“The police commissioner?”

He belched in affirmation, and she stopped right there in the middle of the sidewalk, turning him to face her, a steadying hand on each of his shoulders. “When?”

“Tonight.”

At six o’clock, Jude had stood on a platform with ten other offers during a promotion ceremony. She’d watched Commissioner Mulrooney hand him the detective’s badge that finally got Jude off the vice squad. They both gave wooden smiles amid the press flashbulbs. Maria had been overwhelmed with pride, imagining how she’d seek out the papers the following day to save the headlines and show them to their children years from now:
A CROP OF NEW YORK’S FINEST!

At one point in the evening, she’d noticed Mulrooney ease Jude away from the crowd. They’d had a private conversation at the back of the room. Jude had looked so serious, so stoic. And she’d assumed that he was overcome by the opportunity, humbled to be singled out by such an important man. But now she wondered if she had misread the exchange. Perhaps it was not congratulations but stipulations that Mulrooney imparted to her husband.

Jude crushed her lips flat with the same finger he’d pointed at her earlier. “Shhhh,” he said. “ ’S’all off the record.”

Her mind lit on one thought after another, realizations so scattered and erratic she felt drunk as well. The favor she’d asked of Joseph Crater. Jude’s promotion. Mulrooney’s warning. Jude drinking himself under the table.

This was her fault.

She’d opened Pandora’s box. He was no better off as a detective than he was on the vice squad.

It was March and still cold enough for both of them to be in long coats. And though their breath had been swirling before their faces the entire walk home, Maria only then began to feel truly cold.

She reached up and set her hand against Jude’s cheek. “I’m so sorry.”

He leaned into her palm and rubbed against it like a kitten. The movements made him stumble forward, and she had to throw her weight against him to stop him from flopping to the ground. “Home it is,” she grunted.

Maria steered him down the street, around the corner, and into the entrance of 97 Orchard Street, one of the nicer tenements in the highly populated immigrant section of Manhattan. She did not undress Jude or yank back the covers, merely deposited him as gently as possible onto their bed. She did take his shoes off, however, and then lay beside him, fretting until both mind and body surrendered to exhaustion.

When Jude woke at noon the following day, he remembered nothing, not how much he’d had to drink or who had been with them at the bar or their conversation on the way home. Maria would have been tempted to write it all off as the intoxicated ramblings of an inexperienced drinker were it not for his reaction when she asked about his conversation with Mulrooney at the ceremony.

“It looked like he was saying something really important,” she said.

That conversation, he clearly remembered. Jude’s face settled into the controlled, emotionless expression he reserved for her mother and her repeated attempts to convince him that converting to Catholicism was the only way to save his soul. “Nothing to worry about,” he said. “Mulrooney was only making sure I fully understood the obligations of this new job.”

EMMA occupied herself with cooking breakfast while Stella thumbed through Joe’s address book, searching
for any associates who might know his whereabouts. Most didn’t answer so early on a Sunday morning; those who did couldn’t tell her where he might be. As Stella left Joe’s office, a swift knock rattled the front door.

“Shouldn’t you freshen up before answering that?” Emma called from the kitchen.

“Why?” Stella glanced down at the wrinkled navy dress and the stockings that sagged a bit around her ankles.

“You look rumpled.”

“Would you prefer to answer it?”

Emma turned back to her poached eggs with a sniff.

Stella peered through the peephole, breathed a sigh of relief, and opened the door.

Leo Lowenthall stood in the doorway, hat in hand. “I heard the news, Mrs. Crater. I’m so sorry.” He motioned to a second detective. “This is my partner, Jude Simon.”

Stella led them into the kitchen.

“Mother, this is Detective Lowenthall with the NYPD. And his partner, Jude Simon. Gentlemen, my mother, Emma Wheeler.” They shook hands.

“Simon Rifkind called me yesterday and asked me to look around,” Leo said. “I’ve checked out all the hospitals and morgues, but there’s no trace of him.”

Detective Simon took off his fedora and ran his fingers along the brim. He glanced around the apartment expectantly, as though looking for someone.

“I don’t know what to do,” Stella said.

“There isn’t much you can do. Except wait.” Leo offered her a patient smile. “When did you get back?”

“Friday night.”

“And have you found anything here that might shed some light on where he went?”

“No. But I haven’t looked around much.” Stella had a hard time keeping her voice light and wondered if the truth was written across her face.

“Mind if we look around?”

“Please do.”

The detectives led Stella and her mother through the apartment, opening closets and checking coat pockets. They rifled through drawers
and inside cupboards but found nothing. After a while, their interest turned to the bedroom.

“Quite the clotheshorse, isn’t he?” Leo asked, thumbing through Joe’s closet.

Emma stood in the doorway, nodding her approval. “My son-in-law is a well-tailored man. Every bit the judge.”

“Does everything look in order, Mrs. Crater?” Detective Simon asked.

Stella joined them at the closet and took stock of Joe’s summer suits, mostly lightweight cotton and linen. She lifted a brown vest that seemed to have misplaced its companions. “There’s a brown pinstriped suit that’s missing. His favorite.”

All of Joe’s traveling bags were in place at the back of the closet, and most of his personal items sat on top of the bureau: a monogrammed pocket watch, a fountain pen, and a card case.

Leo wandered over to the bureau and inspected each of the orphaned items. “Does he usually carry these with him?”

“Yes.”

“Any idea why he’d leave them behind?”

“I have no idea about any of this,” Stella said as she watched Leo lift the edge of the bureau scarf.

He motioned to the small gold key that stuck out from the lock. “May I?”

“Certainly.”

His eyes crinkled at the corners. “No personal items in there?”

“My underwear is well hidden, I assure you.”

Stella sat on the bench at the foot of her bed as they moved toward the bureau. She feigned disinterest and plucked at the tassels on a throw pillow. They stared into the empty drawer. Leo tapped a squared-off fingernail against the wooden bottom. Jude popped the knuckles on his left hand one by one. Emma rummaged through a shelf at the back of the closet. Stella noted all of this in the silence that filled the bedroom.

“I’m a little puzzled,” Leo said after a few long seconds, “that Joe didn’t leave anything behind indicating his whereabouts.”

“I’ve spent the last month puzzled about a great deal more than that,” she said. Her voice broke on the last word, but no one seemed to notice.

An uneasy glance passed between the two detectives, and then Leo
shut the drawer. “Here’s the situation,” he said. “I don’t think anything should be done for the time being. Maybe you should go back to Maine? Let us look around a bit more.”

Stella tossed the throw pillow onto the bed. “Joe’s already been missing almost a month. And all I’ve done is sit up there and wait.”

“What if he comes back and you’re not there? Besides, I can keep you informed if anything happens here.”

Jude rested against the bureau, unease etched across his face. He watched the exchange but offered no input.

“Perhaps that
is
best,” Stella said.

Emma led the detectives to the door, Stella trailing behind. “If you don’t mind, I’m going to lie down. I don’t feel well,” she said. “Good day, gentlemen. Thank you for checking on Joe.”

Emma clicked her tongue. “But you haven’t eaten breakfast.”

“I’m not hungry anymore.”

While Emma saw the detectives out, Stella returned to her bedroom and locked the door. Joe’s Victrola stood beside the window, and she turned it on low. The room filled with jazz music and the faint rustle of static. She peeled the stockings from her legs and tossed them in the hamper, along with her dress. Stella lifted her slip above her knees and knelt on the hardwood floor. She reached into the darkness below the bed, her back stretching with the movement, and fumbled around before pulling out the leather satchel. Inside lay the four manila envelopes she’d found in the bureau drawer. Each addressed to her in Joe’s handwriting. Each containing something that she could not let anyone discover.

Chapter Twelve

SMITHSON TAILORS, MONDAY, SEPTEMBER 1, 1930

“OWNEY
Madden is sending a car to fetch you, Mrs. Simon.”

Maria glanced up from her stitching. Donald Smithson stood beside her station, inspecting the work she’d begun on one of Owney’s suits. He nodded in approval.

“Why?” Maria never stopped sewing, but kept her eyes on Smithson. The mention of Owney’s name made her careless, however, and she pricked the tip of one finger with her needle. She jumped at the tiny surge of pain. “Is something wrong?”

“On the contrary. He’s very pleased with you. Requested that you do a custom tailoring job for him.”

“Sir, I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be running around the city with a client. Why doesn’t he bring the work in, and I can do it here?”

Smithson did not look up from her work. He turned it over. “Because the clothing is currently attached to the bodies of several chorus girls. We can’t very well ask them to accommodate our schedule, can we?”

“What does that have to do with Mr. Madden?”

Exasperated, Smithson set down the material. “Our client is a financial backer of several Broadway shows. This one in particular is having an issue with a few costumes. And when a client is willing to pay double the going rate for custom work, we say yes. Understand?”

“Of course.”

“Good. Get your things ready. His driver will be here any moment.”

While she was debating whether to call Jude and let him know, a black Cadillac pulled to the curb, driven by a jumpy little man in a bowler hat. Smithson shooed her out the door before she could argue further.

The driver stuck out a hand. “Shorty Petak.”

“Maria Simon.” She shook it in reply.

Shorty helped her into the backseat and rushed around the car. He lurched into traffic as soon as his door was shut. “Hold on tight. Show starts in an hour, and several of the girls are having trouble with their tail feathers.”

She spent much of the ride gripping the door with her eyes closed. The massive Cadillac roared through the streets of Manhattan, swerving around vehicles, ignoring traffic signals, and blaring its horn. When they finally ground to a stop in front of an alley, Maria felt ill.

Shorty hurried to open her door and then escorted her across the alley and into the employees’ entrance.

“This way.” He led her down a broad hallway crammed with stage props: artificial trees, an assortment of rowboats, a dining table, and a stuffed grizzly bear. She felt as though she were passing through a storage room for bizarre dreams.

They ducked between a set of leafy palms and stepped into a large area backstage. He pointed toward a door. “In there.”

“I just go in?”

“They’re expecting you.”

Maria grasped her sewing bag and slipped through the door. A crowd of showgirls jostled for a spot in front of a long mirror rimmed by lightbulbs. Blondes, brunettes, and redheads laughed and elbowed one another. Most of them were topless, and Maria let out a small gasp of surprise. She looked away, but the room was filled with bare skin.

She watched the women prepare for the show. They helped one another into sequined tops and towering feathered headpieces. The costumes, though skimpy, seemed to take a great deal of dexterity to get into, and the women had a system in place that was fascinating. She wanted to examine the outfits to see how they were stitched together for such flexibility What kind of fabric allowed for that kind of movement? The dancers bent and stretched and kicked their feet above their heads as they warmed up, all of this in three-inch heels.

Maria cleared her throat.

A busty redhead looked up from her place at the dressing table. “Who are you?”

“The seamstress.”

She turned toward her friends. “Hey! Who needed their tail feathers fixed?”

A show of hands, and then several women went to grab costumes from the long racks against the wall. While they were gathering their things, Maria looked for another face.

“I thought you were a maid?” The quiet voice betrayed a hint of anger, and Maria spun around.

Sally Lou Ritz had her arms crossed over a blue satin robe, a lit cigarette dangling from the fingers of one hand.

“In the mornings, yes. It helps pay the bills. But this is what I do best.” Maria unpacked her sewing bag on the table and looked at Ritzi, uncertain. “Am I working on your costume as well?”