The Body in the Boudoir (12 page)

Faith said good-bye, went to the car, and collapsed in the front seat for a moment.

What if she hadn't looked up?

A
ll Francesca had to go on was an envelope. It was addressed to Mrs. Augusto Oliver at 1740 Battery Avenue in Brooklyn, New York. It wasn't postmarked. There was nothing inside and the envelope itself had been crumpled.

“My grandmother found it. He must have meant to throw it away. It's all he left.”

This was the clue Francesca had shown Rinaldi. Faith doubted that the individual who wrote the address and the intended recipient were still at it—or even alive—but going there was the only thing she could think of to do, even though there were no Olivers listed at that address in the phone book. It was doubtful the detective had bothered.

Battery Avenue was in Bay Ridge. Bay Ridge immediately conjured up the image of John Travolta walking down the sidewalk at the beginning of
Saturday Night Fever,
those long legs, sexy disco shoes keeping time to the irresistible Bee Gees beat. A stable, family neighborhood. Faith knew this from a Norwegian-American friend who had taken her to the annual Norwegian Constitution Day parade one year, a remnant of a time when more Norwegians lived in Brooklyn than in Oslo.

Armed with a map, the two women set out, boarding the Fourth Avenue line's R train on Sunday afternoon, figuring that would be a time when people would be home.

It was Palm Sunday and Faith had taken Francesca to church with her so they could leave immediately afterward. The weather was beautiful, and when they emerged onto the street, the sidewalks were filled with pedestrians enjoying the first real spring day.

The address was a well-kept three-family attached brick house. A railroad flat from the look of it—those narrow apartments designed at the turn of the twentieth century to cope with the problem of urban overcrowding. The rooms were laid out like a railroad car, one behind the other off a long hall.

There were three separate doorbells. None of the last names beneath them was Oliver. There was no reply when Faith rang the first two and she pushed the third. The intercom crackled and a male voice asked what they wanted, adding if they were selling anything to please keep walking.

“We're not selling anything. My name is Faith Sibley and I'm here with my friend Francesca Rossi. We're trying to find out whether someone by the last name of Oliver who lived here in the nineteen forties and maybe later is still alive, and if so if you have an address.”

“I don't know the party in question. But come on up. I might be able to help you.”

They were buzzed in and heard a door at the top of the stairs open.

“I'm Benny—Benito Lombardo.”

He pointed at Francesca. “You look like a fellow countryman, or I should say, woman.”

Benny appeared to be in his forties. His hair was thinning, but the rest of him was a testament to someone's way with pasta. He was wearing a wedding band, so it was probably Mrs. Lombardo's.

“Sit. You want something? Coffee? The wife left biscotti. She went to church with her sister, and who knows when she'll be back? After they worship our Lord, they do a little, you know, retail worshipping.”

“Thank you,” Faith said. “We're fine. About the Oliver family. Did you ever hear of them?”

“I heard the name. My family has been here since the nineteen fifties. I was born here. Not in this very room, but at Victory Memorial. My mother could have told you what you want, God rest her soul. My wife and I moved in to take care of her ten years ago. The Olivers were gone by then.”

Francesca started talking to him in Italian and he looked serious. From her intensity Faith knew she must be telling him it was very important that she find Gus Oliver. He answered, got up, and patted Francesca's hand.

“I told your friend that my aunt still lives next door, and what she doesn't know isn't worth remembering. I'll give her a call. She doesn't answer the door. Her name is Maria Corelli.”

They all moved toward the door, which he opened. As they left he shook his finger at them.

“And you'd better not turn down
her
biscotti!”

The last thing they heard as they headed out was his laughter.

They didn't have far to go and were soon ushered into a cookie cutter of the house next door. One look at Signora Corelli told Faith that the woman had not been putting away much of either her own baking or her pasta. A good strong wind would carry her straight across the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge.

“Come in, come in,” she said.

Francesca immediately started addressing her in Italian, and Faith followed them down the hall to the kitchen in the rear, where the smell of coffee and baked goods beckoned. She realized she was hungry. Somehow they'd forgotten about lunch.

Faith managed to say, “
Ma non parlo l'italiano.
”

“No problem! We'll speak English. Now,
mangia
—that you know, I'm sure.” She was as outgoing as her nephew, and Faith did not need to be urged to eat. In addition to several kinds of biscotti, there were
pizzelles,
those crisp waffle cookies with a trace of anise.

“I knew the Oliver family very well. We were all newlyweds here before the war and our men went off together. They were Italian, too, and at that time there weren't so many of us in this part of Bay Ridge. A lot of Norwegians. They had their own shops, newspapers. Good neighbors. I never had a complaint. We used to play cards with the Hansens. You think these cookies are something? You should have had hers. Melted in your mouth. And what she did for Christmas you wouldn't believe. Started in October, but I'm getting off the track. I do that a lot.” She laughed.

“So, the Olivers. It was Oliveri, but someone changed it. You're interested in Gus? A lot of us were!” She laughed again. “Like a movie star. That good-looking. People would mistake him for Victor Mature. Really.

“So the war is over and our guys came home, but Gus stayed in Italy doing something for the military, so he was the last. It was hard on Angela, his wife. At least she didn't have to worry about keeping food in her kid's mouth the way the rest of us did. They hadn't had any yet. She had a job working as a secretary to some big shot and always looked like a million bucks. Gus put a stop to that when he got back. He wasn't about to have people thinking his wife had to go out to work. Anyway, she'd get pregnant the moment he laid his pants across the bed, so it was just as well.”

“What happened to them then, Angela and Gus?” Faith asked, taking just one more cookie.

“Nothing much. Just life like for the rest of us. She died, and he didn't want to stay on in the apartment, so he went to Jersey to live with one of his daughters.”

“And when did he pass away?” Faith took a biscotti that was slightly smaller than the others. This cookie would be her last.

“Gus died?” Maria crossed herself. “I'm about the only one left of the crowd now.”

“No,” Faith corrected hastily. “I should have said do you know whether he's still alive or not? We don't know anything about him.”

“I had a card at Christmas. So far as I know he's alive and kicking in Verona. That's in Jersey,” she repeated, giving the word a slight inflection, as if she were speaking of another country, not merely a state. A state just across the river.

“Would you mind giving us the address? It's very important to Francesca.”

“So I gather.” She paused for a moment. “You're not planning to cause him any trouble? I always liked Gus.”

Francesca shook her head. “He visited my village often after the war and made a lot of close friends. Everybody wondered what happened to him. He must have been called away suddenly by the army. One day he was there and the next day not.”

Maria nodded. “I can understand. I've had people move from here and I never know whether they're still with us. Okay, I'll get my address book.”

She returned and gave them his address. Francesca wrote it down.

“I don't have a phone number for him and I'm not sure what his daughter's married name is, but my card to him didn't come back. If you do find him, tell him to give me a ring. On the phone that is.” She laughed some more. “My husband was a saint, but once is enough.”

On that note they left, promising to relay her message.

Outside Francesca gave Faith an impetuous hug. “You are a genius! I should have told you right away instead of going to that crook!”

Faith was feeling good herself.

“So, next stop Jersey. But it will have to wait awhile.”

“My family has been waiting for many, many years. A little longer won't matter.”

On the subway ride home, Faith looked over at Francesca, who was still glowing from their success. She sincerely hoped the young woman hadn't been lying when she'd told that nice old lady she wasn't going to cause any trouble for Gus Oliver.

“H
appy?” Tom had arrived just before eleven o'clock, having gotten an early start. They were back in the apartment after a day spent at various bridal registries and were about to leave for some much needed protein at Gallagher's.

“Sublimely,” Faith answered, noting that they seemed to have been designed by a cosmic being with a jigsaw. Her head fit perfectly on his shoulder.

As they went from place to place that day, she had told Tom about Francesca's quest, and she was happy to note that he didn't tell her she shouldn't get involved. Involved was what she did. He did, too, of course, otherwise he would have holed up in an ivory tower and just written about God.

“What are you thinking about, future Mrs. Fairchild?”

“You. Us. And how much I don't want you to leave. You?”

“Same. Plus the image of a rare slab of beef too big for the plate, although I'd forego even that if you say the word, and stay in with whatever you have in your fridge.”

“You'd get terribly hungry,” Faith said. Tom had still not cottoned on to the fact that although she was a caterer, her own provisions were Spartan in the extreme. He was assuming she had the makings of a four-star repast. What she had in her larder was enough for breakfast plus some wine, crackers, and cheese.

“Let's go.” She was getting hungry now with all this food talk, and Gallagher's creamed spinach was the kind of dish she imagined she'd crave when pregnant.

They did, eventually, but not immediately. When she was finally grabbing a jacket, Faith thought to herself that while she had shared everything about Francesca and all sorts of other things, she hadn't mentioned the fact that she had almost been beaned by a very large chunk of stone and that this was no Chicken Little story. On one level she didn't want him to think the house was unsafe for the wedding—Tammy was having a structural engineer go over the place—and on another, a more basic level, she didn't want him to worry about her. Now or ever.

J
ane Sibley picked her daughter up at work Easter Sunday evening. Have Faith had catered an Easter brunch and a cocktail party that had nothing to do with either the Resurrection or pastel bunnies, although from the way the crowd was drinking, pink elephants were making an appearance. Faith and Jane were on their way to The Cliff for a tasting appointment with the caterer the next day.

“Get the car blanket from the backseat, darling, and get some rest,” Jane said after Faith had joined her. “I'll drive. You must be exhausted.”

“I
am
tired,” Faith admitted, reaching for the army blanket, a relic of her father's service during the Vietnam War. It had become the car blanket in her childhood sometime and she welcomed its warmth. It was magically soporific and she knew she'd be asleep soon. Her mother was a good driver, although she pushed the speed limits knowing that every time she'd been pulled over, she'd only received a warning. She'd once told her daughters that the day she got a ticket would be the day she'd know she'd lost her looks. They'd been amused at the streak of justifiable vanity; Jane Lennox Sibley had always been a beauty.

“It must be hard. Starting to pack up the business. You've been such a marvelous success,” Jane said.

Faith thought about her mother's comment for a moment. Josie was coming soon for some of the equipment the caterer who'd be taking over didn't want. She was on schedule for Josie's opening and Faith planned to be there. Today's events were among the last scheduled for Have Faith, and she'd be devoting herself full-time to getting married and moved by mid-May.

“It
is
hard—and the days are rushing by—but seeing Tom last week made me want them to rush by faster.”

Her mother nodded. “I remember feeling that way, too. I couldn't wait to get married.”

“I'm glad Marian will be able to come down for Nana's tea. It feels a bit odd to be marrying into a family that you and Dad haven't met. Well, you did meet Betsey . . .” Faith's voice trailed off.

“Yes, I did meet Betsey, and you have your work cut out for you there. She wants Tom to marry that other girl. The neighbor. It was so obvious.”

“I know, and the funny thing is that I'm pretty sure Tom has never thought of her except as one of the guys.”

“Men are so clueless.”

Faith laughed. “What a thing to say! Not Daddy!”

“Him most of all. You've seen the way certain unattached females in the congregation bring him his coffee at coffee hour and a plate of treats, hinting not so subtly that they could be a much better helpmate than the one he saddled himself with, and they might be correct, but encumbered he is and he's not getting out of it.”

Faith had a sudden flash of what lay in her future and decided to take a nap until they reached their destination.

“T
hat's odd,” Jane said. “I thought Tammy was here. Sky is away on business.”