The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress (34 page)

Sometime later, the steward knocked with an offer of hot coffee and pastries, and Stella pulled yesterday’s newspaper from an outside pocket of her satchel. She tucked the leather bag beneath her seat while Emma skeptically perused the stale selection of breads.

Once situated in front of the window with steaming coffee—heavy on the cream and sugar—and a glazed croissant, Emma asked, “When did the grand jury dismiss?”

“January ninth.” Stella unfolded the newspaper and pointed:
DISTRICT ATTORNEY THOMAS CRAIN SUSPECTS JUDGE CRATER’S WIFE COMPLICIT IN DISAPPEARANCE
. “He’s quite clever, actually. He waited until the grand jury was released. There was no evidence to proceed legally, so he took his argument to the papers. I’m on trial before the court of public opinion.”

“What are you going to do?”

Stella took a gulp of her coffee. She winced as it scalded the back of her tongue. “Clear my name.”

“And what of Joe?”

“He can fend for himself.”

“Except that he can’t.”

She sniffed her croissant and set it back on the tray. “That is convenient, no doubt.”

Stella turned her attention to the view outside the window. Hills and trees lay muffled beneath a coating of week-old snow. Little fissures spread out over the ground as the upper layer hardened to a crust and split open. Stella imagined the weblike cracks connected together in intricate patterns all the way from Maine to New York.

Just after noon, the train huffed to a stop at the 125th Street station, where an unusually large group of people waited on the platform, jostling for position. Emma was the first to understand their purpose.

“Lean back, Stella.” She nodded toward the window. “Those men have cameras strung around their necks.”

Stella drew away from the glass and counted. Fifteen reporters spread out along the platform, each wound up like a jack-in-the-box, ready to spring through the doors as soon as they opened. A particularly eager reporter had positioned himself right in front, knees bent and arms spread.

Emma heaved the kind of sigh that used to make Stella cringe as a child, tossed her knitting onto the seat beside her, and crossed the compartment. She locked the doors and returned to her spot with a grim expression.

The reporters filed in, and a few minutes later the train slid away from the platform toward Grand Central Terminal. Splurging on a private compartment suddenly seemed the wisest investment Stella had made in months.

“When this train stops, collect your things and walk straight out that door with your head held high. Hail the first cab you see. I’ll get the luggage.” The look Emma gave her was so fierce that Stella had no choice but to comply.

Three times during the short ride to Grand Central, someone knocked on the compartment door. And each time Emma answered with a dry and unconvincing Midwest accent. No, she did not care to give an interview about the condition of city transit. No, she did not wish to purchase a subscription to the
Herald Tribune
. And no, for the love of God, she did not have an opinion on the plight of workers in the garment district, certainly not one she’d care to share publicly, and would you mind leaving her alone to finish her coffee, she did pay extra for peace and quiet, damn it.

Not once in her life had Stella heard her mother utter a
gosh darn
, much less a full-blown
damn
. Her lips parted in shock.

“What?” Emma lifted one eyebrow in amusement and stuffed her knitting into her overnight bag. “We’re here.”

They collected coats and scarves and hats and bundled themselves until their faces were mostly hidden. When they stepped from the train,
neither turned to see if they were being followed. Stella ducked around a crowd of rowdy tourists and hurried up the steps to the main terminal. She resisted the urge to run or to whip her head around and search for the reporters. Instead, she kept walking until she stepped onto Forty-Second Street. She tugged her scarf over her nose and frantically hailed a cab. Her knuckles stretched white as she gripped the handle of her satchel, waiting in the backseat for her mother. Not long after, Emma exited the station with a porter pushing a trolley full of luggage, and the cabbie hopped out to help. As he slammed the trunk shut, a handful of reporters made their way onto the sidewalk. They craned their necks and peered through the crowd looking for Stella.

She turned away from the window. “Forty Fifth Avenue, please,” she said, and they slipped into traffic.

Fifteen minutes later, Stella was home. She tipped the cabbie generously after he unloaded the bags and hauled them into the elevator. It took them longer—without his help—to shuffle the bags down the fifth-floor hallway and into the apartment.

“I’ll give you some space,” Emma said once they’d deposited everything inside the apartment. “You settle in. I’ll go find dinner.”

No sooner had the apartment door clicked shut than Stella dropped her coat on the floor and went straight to the bedroom with the satchel. She pulled out the envelope with the cash. Her little retreat to Portland had cost almost a thousand dollars. But she’d need much more than that to stay afloat for the next few months. Stella chose five stacks of cash from the envelope—a thousand dollars each—and set them on the bed. The other six stacks she put back in the envelope. Then she turned the bureau key, yanked the drawer open, and stuffed the manila envelopes right back where she had found them months earlier. Stella took the cash she’d set aside to the safe in Joe’s office.

MARIA
and Jude strolled through Washington Square Park and kicked at the few remaining leaves. She stuffed one hand inside his pocket and the other inside her own. Jude found her fingers in the deep fold of his woolen coat and cupped them in his hand.

“Are you warm enough?”

“I’m fine,” she lied, squinting at the dark clouds above them. “But it’s going to rain. We should go home.”

“Not yet. Walk with me for a while.”

She wore her navy peacoat and a red scarf wrapped high around her ears, but they did little to ease the sting of cold on her cheeks. After twenty minutes of aimless wandering, she finally looked up at him and asked, “What’s wrong?”

“Stella Crater is back in New York.” He peered at the gray sky. “I regret taking that case.”

Maria’s dark eyes pooled with sadness. Enough. She was done with secrets and hidden meanings. She missed the marriage they used to have. And she loved him enough to speak the truth. Maria only hoped he would do the same. “Then you regret the wrong thing.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I was in the apartment that day, when you and Leo Lowenthall put those envelopes in the bureau drawer. I saw everything.” Maria stared at the new growth of stubble along his jaw, at the red patch of skin rubbed raw by the wind, at the angry set of his mouth. She was too tired to lie any longer. “I looked in them.”

“What?” The word came out strangled. “Why didn’t you tell me then? Why are you telling me
now
?”

She thought of Leo Lowenthall in the apartment that day. His whispered threats. The way she’d choked on her own fear at the mention of Owney’s name. “I’ve kept a lot of secrets lately. I’m sorry.”

He tugged at the brim of his fedora, forcing it lower. “Since when do we keep secrets from one another?”

“You tell me.”

Jude recoiled as though she’d slapped him. He pulled her hand out of his pocket and stepped backward to better see her, to understand this strange new development. He was unable to summon a response.

“I know they make you do things, Jude. Leo and Mulrooney. Others maybe. You told me the night of your promotion. You were so drunk.” The smile she gave him was absolution. “And scared.”

“I’m
still
scared.” Jude scooped her into his arms, crushing her face against his chest. He held her like she would be ripped from him then and there. “I’m going to fix this. I promise you.”

“There’s more.” Her voice was muffled by the wool of his coat. “That showgirl, Sally Lou Ritz?”

“Yes?” He tilted Maria’s face up to see her.

“I found her in Mr. Crater’s bed before he disappeared. That’s the
mistress you’re looking for. She’s pregnant with his child.” Maria paused, letting him take that in before she continued. “And she said we could have the baby if I didn’t tell anyone.”

Jude’s mouth hung open, but he couldn’t speak. Anger and betrayal and surprise fought for control of his face. “Please tell me she doesn’t have anything to do with those envelopes.” Every syllable landed like a hammer.

The pleading look she gave him clearly explained that was not the case. “I took some of the money. I regretted it right away. But when I went to put it back, the envelopes were gone.”

“What did you do with it?”

“I gave it to her.”

“Why?”
His voice echoed across the park, startling a group of pigeons nearby and sending them skyward.

“So she wouldn’t get rid of the baby. Enough money for her to live on and pay for the delivery. Enough to let her get back on her feet after it’s born.”

Jude had the look of a man about to be violently ill. “Sally Lou Ritz disappeared over a month ago, Maria. That money is gone. And so is she.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

FIFTH AVENUE, MONDAY, JANUARY 19, 1931

STELLA
would have welcomed snow—it had a soothing feel—but the rain made her angry. It came in a steady swell the night before, driving in from the North Atlantic, and seeped through the walls of the apartment, smelling of salt and despair. Cold gray clouds settled over the city, and she could see little but the glow of streetlamps and taillights out her living room windows. The streets below were filled with the honk of horns and the splash of water as cars veered into the gutters and sprayed puddles across the sidewalk. Pedestrians cursed in response.

Stella had debated her decision in the middle of that sleepless night but was dressed and ready before eight o’clock. The moment the hour hand settled on the Roman numeral, she picked up the phone.

“District Attorney Thomas Crain,” she said after being connected to his office.

“He’s not in. May I ask who’s calling?” The young woman on the other end stifled a yawn.

“This is Stella Crater. Please leave an urgent message for him saying that I have found important evidence in the disappearance of my husband. I’ll wait for his arrival at my home. He knows where I live.”

Emma stood in the kitchen, plaid apron tied around her waist and a whisk in one hand. Her eyes widened in surprise.

Stella set the phone down and joined her mother in the kitchen. She filled the teakettle with water and set it on the stove. “When they ask, you’ll tell them that I was bewildered when I opened that bureau drawer. That it’s the first I’ve seen of Joe’s will.” She dared a glance at Emma. “Or his money.”

Chapter Thirty

QUEENS, MONDAY, FEBRUARY 2, 1931

RITZI
woke to the sound of rain.
Strange in winter
, she thought as she dragged herself from a fathomless sleep. She did not know the day or time, only that she was hungry and that her back ached with a dozen pea-size knots. For twenty minutes, Ritzi lay in the single bed, staring at the cracks in the ceiling above her—lines on a road map that stretched in seemingly random directions, crisscrossing, colliding, and widening into highways or thinning and wandering off like dead-end dirt roads. The tiny room smelled of wood polish and old curtains. She burrowed deeper into the covers and peered at the rivulets of rain sliding down the window. From where she lay, Ritzi could see pale gray sky, broken by the stark, naked limbs of an elm tree that hung low over the window. Teardrops of frigid water clung to the tips of each branch.

Ritzi ran her tongue over her teeth, cringing at the taste, but didn’t push up onto her elbows until her stomach growled. She heaved her legs over the side of the bed and marveled at the size of her belly. She’d been a fool to think pregnancy was something she could hide. No corset could conceal this. Ritzi arched her back. Stiff muscles howled in protest, and she kneaded the heel of her hand against her spine, rubbing until she relaxed enough to stand. She eased into the small bathroom and brushed her teeth, relishing the taste of mint. Ritzi climbed into the shower and stayed beneath the hot spray of water for ten minutes, allowing it to soften the ache in her body. Never again would she take for granted what it felt like to be clean.

She remembered the filth of the lab coat against her skin as she fled the warehouse that night. She had bartered for the coat and her freedom,
and John took every dollar he could find in her purse, far more than the six hundred dollars she offered. Her life savings, and Maria’s bribe money, gone to a back-alley butcher. Ritzi slipped from the building barefoot and smelling of stale body odor and rancid chemicals. But she didn’t even make it around the building before Shorty Petak found her. He clamped a hand over her mouth, fingers digging into the soft skin of her cheek, as she peered around the edge of a trash can. His palm muffled her scream.

“You think Owney didn’t guess you’d try to escape?” he whispered, tucking her tight against his chest.

Ritzi tried to thrash her way loose, but his arms were locked immovably around her.

“Shut up,” he hissed into her ear. “Unless you really do want to die.”

And that’s when she heard the voices farther down the alley. Owney and John.

“What took you so long?” Owney asked.

“She’s a fighter,” John said.

Ritzi stilled in Shorty’s grasp, her heart beating wildly. She forced herself to relax, to breathe—slow, steady, consistent—through her nose. She strained to make out the conversation.

Owney sounded unconvinced. “You know I need proof.”

“Here. Her clothes. Shoes. Purse.”

“Why so much blood?”

“Like I said, a fighter.”

Could that be regret in Owney’s voice? “I told you to make it
clean
. Quick.” His voice rose and echoed off the narrow walls of the alley.