Murder Among the Angels (8 page)

Charlotte nodded.

“The accident happened on the last day of their vacation, just before they were due to head out to the airport,” Jerry continued. “They had decided to take a last swim on a deserted beach, not realizing that it was infamous for its riptides. She was carried off by the undertow.”

“What about Dr. Louria?” she asked.

“He tried to save her, but he couldn’t reach her in time. He got caught in the current and nearly drowned himself. I suspect that Miss Archibald’s delusions, if you want to call them that, have been fostered somewhat by Dr. Louria’s actions after his wife’s death.”

“What do you mean?”

“From what I understand, he had a difficult time accepting the fact that his wife was dead. He made a number of trips to Mexico to make inquiries in the villages on Cozumel and along the coast of Yucatán about a missing gringa with red hair who might have washed ashore.”

But Charlotte was still thinking about the girl’s brokenhearted aunt. “Getting back to Miss Archibald …”

He nodded.

“Are you going to do anything about her request?”

Jerry picked up the piece of paper on which he had written down the name and address and looked at it for a moment. Then he stuffed it into his pants pocket. “I don’t know. If I have some spare time, I might make a few inquiries, just to get her off my back.”

Charlotte had picked up the photograph from Jerry’s files again. “She was a beautiful girl.”

“Gorgeous, from what everyone says,” Jerry said. He looked at his watch. “How about lunch? I’d still like to take you to Sebastian’s.”

“Sounds good to me,” Charlotte replied.

Sebastian’s restaurant was situated a mile or so to the north in a charming hamlet of dollhouse-like Victorian homes that Jerry said had been built to house the hundreds of artisans that Edward Archibald had imported from Europe to build his Utopian community. The hamlet, which was named Corinth, was the same place that Mrs. Archibald had given as the address for the Lily Louria look-alike. It was situated on a steep bank overlooking the Hudson, and, according to Jerry, had in recent years undergone a renaissance at the hands of yuppie defectors from urban life. Lured by the charm and low cost of the housing stock, the outstanding reputation of the local schools, and the magnificent river vistas, they had renovated the houses one by one, slowly turning what had been a down-at-the-heels blue-collar town into one of the most desirable communities on the east bank of the Hudson.

The restaurant was situated in one of these Victorian houses. Like most of the other houses lining the street that sloped steeply down to the river, it was small, close to the curb, and surrounded by big old trees and a cast-iron fence. But it stood out by virtue of the fact that it was painted a dark purple, trimmed with fuchsia and lavender. The windows were overhung with fringed purple awnings. It looked more as if it belonged on a Caribbean island than on the banks of the Hudson.

After parking in front, they walked up a brick path to the lavender door, where they were greeted by a tall, slimly muscular young man in chef’s whites, whose striking bone structure and slanting green eyes were accentuated by the lavender (to match the door) bandanna he wore tied pirate-style around his head, blond curls peeking out from the edges, and the gold hoop he wore in one ear.

He was dashing, romantic, and breathtakingly handsome, with tawny skin and a wide smile with perfect teeth. He reminded Charlotte of a young Tyrone Power, and … someone else, but she couldn’t think of who.

“Are you the maître d’ today?” Jerry asked.

“Only for fifteen minutes,” he said. “Larry’s late, and I’m filling in until he gets here. The usual table, Chief?” he asked.

Jerry nodded, and they followed him to a table by a window with a peekaboo vista of the sparkling waters of the Hudson over the roofs of the old houses that led like stepping stones down to the river.

Inside, the restaurant was airy and spacious, with mauve-colored walls and a long mahogany bar at the back. The wall around the mirror at the rear of the bar was painted with a mural of fat-cheeked angels carrying cornucopias of flowers, vegetables, and fruits.

After they had taken their seats, the young man handed them their menus, whose covers were decorated with a reproduction of a Renaissance painting of an angel. Paintings of angels also hung on the walls.

“Is it my imagination,” asked Charlotte as she considered the angel theme, “or does the maître d’ look just like the picture of Miss Archibald’s niece?”

“Her brother,” Jerry said. “Sebastian Archibald. I think the mother’s married name was Griffith, but they took the Archibald name when they were adopted by Lothian. It gets you farther in Zion Hill.”

“It’s a small world up here, isn’t it?”

“It’s not midtown Manhattan, that’s for sure.”

“They look very much alike,” she said, remembering her observation about the androgynous face of the angel for whom their mother was the model. “Even down to the cleft chin. What does he think about his aunt’s delusions?”

“He’s sympathetic,” Jerry replied. “He went to angel school.”

“Angel school?”

“The Zion Hill School,” he explained. “It’s a parochial school for the Swedenborgian community. You probably passed it on your way up. It’s on the Albany Post Road, just before the Zion Hill Road intersection.”

Charlotte remembered passing the gracious, white-columned building.

“Built by Edward Archibald, of course, for the education of his own children. All the local children go there. From there, they can go on to a Swedenborgian college in Pennsylvania. They call it angel school because angels play a big part in the curriculum.”

Charlotte gave him a skeptical expression. She didn’t have much tolerance for religious fanaticism.

“It’s easy to make fun of the angel business, but angels are only one aspect of their beliefs, which are actually very complex,” Jerry said. “The religious focus is what makes this community unique. They view their religion as something you live, not just something you believe in.”

“You’re making Zion Hill sound very appealing,” Charlotte said.

“Actually, it is,” he replied, surprising her. “It’s a little paradise, to tell you the truth. Because they live their religion on a day-to-day basis, they’re extremely nice people.” He smiled. “A lot of what I do is PR for the community; their beliefs aren’t very well understood.”

“I should imagine that their belief in the afterlife would free them from a lot of the doubt and insecurity that plague the rest of us,” she said.

“Exactly. That and the Doctrine of Uses, which holds that everyone is put on earth for a specific purpose: that the individual fulfills a function for the community and the community for the individual. Between those two ideas alone, members of the New Church get a pretty heavy dose of peace of mind.”

Following Jerry’s lead, Charlotte opened her menu and scanned the listings under the appetizer column. She had just decided on seared foie gras with honey roasted onions when the daily appetizer special caught her eye. “Sing Sing ravioli?” she said, looking up at Jerry.

“Sing Sing Prison, now known as the Ossining Correctional Facility, is just up the river,” he explained. “The ravioli is Sebastian’s takeoff on the local specialty. It’s striped, black and white. The black part is made from shiitake mushrooms. It comes with a smothered leek sauce.”

“A gourmet menu with a sense of humor,” Charlotte said. “I love it.” She continued studying the menu. “Jerry, this place looks wonderful.”

“I thought you’d like it. Sebastian is a culinary genius. As a child, he watched cooking shows instead of cartoons, and was whipping up sauces in the kitchen when he was six. He opened Sebastian’s right after his graduation from the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park.”

“I noticed the three-star review from the
Times
,” Charlotte said. She looked around at the roomful of ladies wearing pearls and hats, and drinking Manhattans; the clientele reminded her of that of Schrafft’s in the 1950s.

“Hilltoppers,” Jerry explained in response to Charlotte’s survey of the dining room. “That’s what I call them: the people who live in the mansions that are tucked away in the hills of Westchester. They live in a time warp.”

“A good market for an upscale restaurant though,” Charlotte said.

Jerry nodded. “It’s a bit off the beaten track. But there’s a need. The only other decent place to eat in the immediate area is the country club, and you have to be a member to eat there.”

Sebastian returned momentarily to take their cocktail order, prompting Jerry to remark on the fact that he was filling the roles of both maître d’ and cocktail waiter, in addition to that of chef.

“Two people are late today,” Sebastian complained, with a disgusted shake of his head. “You just can’t get any decent help these days.” He smiled his breathtaking smile. “What can I get for you?” he asked.

Jerry ordered a Manhattan for Charlotte and a Campari for himself.

“It looks as if Sebastian’s is doing very well,” Charlotte commented after Sebastian had finished taking their orders.

“It is,” Jerry said. “Sebastian was rated Chef of the Year by his peers. But he won’t be here long. His ambition is to open a first-class restaurant in Manhattan, but you can’t just start off that way. You have to establish your reputation before you can get backers.”

“Of course,” Charlotte said.

“He’s looking for a suitable property now. He’s already raised most of the money he’ll need, and he’s borrowing the rest against an inheritance. It’s going to take three million.”

“That’s a lot of risk,” Charlotte said.

Jerry, nodded. “He wants to compete with the best—Lutèce, the Four Seasons, Le Bernardin,” Jerry explained, “and that takes money. I have no doubt he’ll succeed. He’s a very ambitious guy, in addition to being very hardworking and very talented. And I speak from firsthand knowledge.”

“As an eater,” she said.

“Not as an eater,” he said. “As a
stagier
.”

“What’s that?”

“Someone who visits a restaurant kitchen and helps out the chef: a working visit. I come in to help sometimes on my days off. Sebastian puts me to work: chopping the vegetables, pounding the fillets, taking out the garbage. Whatever he needs.”

“I guess you could say that I’m a
stagier
in the police department then,” Charlotte said with a smile.

“Exactly,” Jerry agreed. “I’m a frustrated chef, just like you’re a frustrated detective. If I had it to do over again, I would have enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America instead of the criminal justice academy. Besides,” he added, “eating is important to me.”

“No kidding,” Charlotte said. No sooner did Jerry finish one meal then he started thinking about the next.

“That’s another reason why I wanted to get out of the spa work. Who wants to eat cuisine
minceur
all the time?”

Charlotte smiled. They were kindred souls, at least as far as their appreciation of good food went—though Charlotte was perfectly willing to leave the actual preparation to someone else.

Sebastian was back in a minute with their drinks. “I hear Aunt Lothian was in to see you again,” he said, as he set the drinks down.

“How’d you know?” Jerry asked.

“One of the waiters”—he nodded at a young man on the other side of the dining room—“saw her going in. Was it because she had seen Lily again?”

Jerry nodded, and Sebastian looked concerned.

“I’m worried about her,” he said. “Believing that she was seeing an angel was bad enough, but believing that she’s seeing Lily herself is even worse. Anyway, I just wanted to say that I’m sorry if she’s being a nuisance. I’m going to try to get her some psychiatric help.”

Jerry nodded. “If she’ll accept it,” he said. “She doesn’t strike me as the type to be amenable to that suggestion.”

“No,” said Sebastian. “It’s going to be tough.” He pulled out an order pad and asked them what they would like.

Jerry inquired of Charlotte what she wanted, and then passed the order along to Sebastian: “The lady will have the foie gras and the lamb,” he said. He also suggested that she try a glass of the house cabernet sauvignon—a suggestion with which Charlotte was happy to comply.

After Sebastian had left, Charlotte settled back with her Manhattan. She was just thinking how much at home she felt with the hilltoppers—after all, she lived in a time warp too—when it struck her that Jerry hadn’t ordered anything. “What about you?” she said. “I can’t believe you’re not hungry.”

“I’m just not ordering,” he said. He explained: “It’s Sebastian’s fantasy to be the kind of restaurateur in whom the guests have such faith that they trust him to send out exactly what they want. It’s what they do at his favorite inn in France. To keep him happy, I indulge him from time to time.”

“And does he always bring exactly what you want?”

“Always,” Jerry said.

Their appetizers arrived a few minutes later, served by a pretty waitress named Connie, who wore a short black skirt and a white button-down shirt, and whom Jerry appeared to know. To Charlotte’s astonishment, she brought Jerry an order of shad roe sautéed in butter and served on toast points, prompting her to wonder if it was her mind and not Jerry’s that the chef had read. “Is that exactly what you wanted?” she asked, wishing that she had had the foresight to follow Jerry’s lead. “Exactly,” he replied. As Charlotte had suspected, their minds were on the same track, as regarded food anyway and probably most other things as well. “How did he know?” she asked. “Experience,” Jerry replied. He explained: “I eat here often enough that he has a pretty good idea of what I like. Which is almost everything.”

But Charlotte didn’t regret ordering the foie gras, which was delicious. The conversation, which before the arrival of the food had centered on the topic of Jerry’s four daughters and their various careers, became more intermittent as their appreciation for the food wrestled with that for the conversation, and then died out altogether as appreciation for the food gained the upper hand. Nor would either of them have dared to break the spell of the eating experience by commenting on how good the food was. They were like concertgoers rapt in the spell of the performance.