The Body in the Boudoir (20 page)

Hope! Faith was very worried about her sister. She'd left right after dessert appeared and it had to be because she didn't want to waste a moment trying to discover what the recommended doctor's specialty was. And when Hope found out, Faith assumed she would be the first to know.

But know what?

A
s soon as the invitations had gone out, wedding gifts started to arrive, and some of those attending yesterday's tea had brought more. Faith had been raised in the send-a-thank-you-note-no-more-than-ten-minutes-after-receiving-the-gift school of manners and the next morning she was busy catching up before leaving for work. She'd written “Both Tom and I deeply appreciate the exquisite [fill in object name]” so often that she was sure she must be mumbling it in her sleep. It
was
lovely of everyone to think of them and she was extremely touched, but once more she thought how nice it would be to be married as opposed to get married, with all that entailed. Two more notes to go and she'd post them on her way uptown. The phone jolted her from her task. It was Hope.

“Any news?”

“Well, the word on the street, and I mean ‘the Street,' as in Wall, seems to be that I am suffering from chronic fatigue syndrome, also known as ‘yuppie flu' and ‘shirker syndrome.' ” Her bitterness was as strong as vinaigrette with too much mustard.

“What!” Faith had heard about CFS, considered to be a fad by an alarming number of people and a serious illness by others more knowledgeable.

“Yup, that's his specialty. I didn't call my own doctor. He might think I was avoiding him, consulting someone else. I called Becky Havers. Remember her? My class at Dalton? She's doing a residency in internal medicine at Mount Sinai. I figured if I said I wanted to find out what his specialty was for a friend, she'd assume it was me, so I told her it was for you. I mean, you're moving and you never really knew her anyway. I told her it was in confidence, don't worry.”

“Glad to be of help.”

She was, but she also wished Hope had come up with a better cover story. Manhattan was such a small village. She had to trust that Becky, whom she recalled as a skinny teenager with an overbite, took her Hippocratic Oath seriously.

“I'm really freaked out, Fay. How did all this get started? Obviously that's what the flowers and other stuff meant. Why? I asked myself. Well, I know why. Someone wants my job and all he or she had to do was whisper six little words to enough people—‘Don't you think Hope looks tired?'—to start a tsunami of rumors that ended with this diagnosis.”

“What are you going to do?”

“As soon as I get off the phone, I'm going to tell my boss that there's absolutely nothing wrong with my health and I will happily bring in a doctor's note to that effect.”

“Can't hurt. Used to work for gym.”

“Then I have to find some charity run and go around getting people to sponsor me.”

Running was how Hope kept in shape. She claimed it took less time than a health club. She'd entered the New York Marathon for the last six years, finishing with more than respectable times.

“Put me down and I'll spread the word, too. But, Hope, we have to find out who started this.”

“I know, I know. The problem is that in my biz, it could be just about anyone.”

They hung up, and Faith finished her thank-yous and walked out into the city, which was looking a little more grim today than yesterday.

Somebody was out to get her sister.

“T
here are four messages on the machine from somebody named Max for you,” Francesca said. “He sounds upset about something.”

“I'll call him right away. We met at the ICE and he started his company at the same time I started mine. He does mostly corporate work, has a steady job as the private chef for one of the large brokerage houses. Nice guy. He's probably just heard that I'm leaving the city, although I don't know why he'd make so many calls.” She played them back and they were all the same, terse, somewhat frantic-sounding messages to call him as soon as she could.

Crossing to the phone, she said to Francesca, “I haven't forgotten about going to New Jersey. Maybe Monday?”

“I know this has been a busy week for you, it's okay. Monday would be good. How will we get there? Train?”

“I'll borrow the car from my parents. We don't have the great railroad system like you do at home.”

Faith had thought about trying to find a phone number for Gus Oliver, but without knowing his daughter's married name, it would be difficult. And maybe arriving unannounced was a better idea in any case. Francesca was determined to find the man, but it might turn out that he didn't want to be found. They'd have the advantage of surprise.

She called the number Max had left.

“Hi, Max? It's Faith Sibley. What's up?”

“Thank God you called. My wife went into labor this morning. This is the pay phone at the hospital. It could be anytime. I'm going to be a dad!”

“That's terrific—and you'll be terrific.”

Joyful news, but Faith was wondering why Max was calling
her
. They were close, but not that close.

“I'm desperate. I have a reception tonight. It's a meet and greet with some stockholders in the firm's private dining room. My sous-chef could handle it, but she's sick. Everything's all set. Food, and my waitstaff knows the drill. But I need a chef there. I heard you were shutting down and I thought maybe you'd be free. By the way, congratulations. Whoever he is, he's a lucky guy.”

Max sounded breathless. Maybe he'd been doing the labor-breathing thing with his wife.

“Shutting down,” there were those words again. Yes, she was free, as opposed to every other caterer he might have called in the city at the last minute, Faith thought. And with her fiancé out of town, she wouldn't have a date either.

“It would be a pleasure. Glad to help, and you don't even have to name the baby after me if it's a girl. You sure you're okay for staff?”

“Well, if Howard's available, maybe another bartender would be good. This is a cocktail crowd, not white wine—they really suck them up. And nobody can turn out martinis like Howard's.”

As well Faith knew. The firm taking over her quarters wanted him, as did a dozen other caterers in town, not to mention another dozen restaurants. He was basking in his popularity for the moment, having told her, “You have to understand what this feels like after always having been picked last for kickball.”

Max gave her further particulars and then suddenly said, “My God, I've got to go!” and hung up.

H
oward wasn't doing anything and was up for the job. They met early downtown to have a look at the setup.

And it was quite a setup. The top-floor private dining room had pocket partitions, which had been recessed, opening the area to its full size, the space alone guaranteed to impress. Plus Faith was pretty sure the Chippendale and other furniture weren't repros, nor were the Orientals on the floor. There were a few obligatory oils of the founders, but the rest of the artworks were landscapes and still lifes—investments that had accrued many times over in value since leaving Sotheby's or Christie's. There was a very faint smell of some kind of lemony polish that must have just been used—or it may have been the omnipresent, ineffable smell of money. A lot of money. Of course it was a million-dollar view, straight out to the Statue of Liberty. The full-service kitchen boasted top-of-the-line appliances and the guests would be drinking from Baccarat and eating from Wedgwood with sterling flatware, nothing vaguely commercial. Max's staff hadn't arrived yet.

“Since nobody's here, I'm going to explore, unless you need me. The men's room is probably the size of my apartment,” Howard said.

“Go ahead. There's nothing for you to do yet, but I need to go over everything. Max said they'd prepared yesterday and all that was left to do was heat the warm hors d'oeuvres and bring the cold ones to room temperature, but I don't want to have to send someone out for lemons or something else essential to your mixology once the guests arrive. I'll make sure all your garnishes are here.”

Faith began taking down serving platters. Max had also said the menu was in the kitchen, on the counter by the phone, next to a pad with reminders to himself. She was happy to see both items were there. And it was a great menu. Like Faith, he was avoiding the current craze for things on skewers—overcooked tortellini and cherry tomatoes were ubiquitous these days. And Faith didn't even want to hear the words “chicken satay” ever again. Instead he had a broad range of interesting choices. She might steal the tuna tartare on endive with enoki mushrooms, as well as the potato nests filled with crème fraiche and caviar—the crisp “nest” would make a nice change from a soft blini. He wouldn't mind sharing the recipes, she was sure. They had traded in the past. Past! She wasn't doing this anymore, wouldn't be for the foreseeable future. Still, she filed the ideas away.

Howard was back in a few minutes, sooner than she expected.

“Everything locked up?”

“No, just the opposite. There's a full gym and spa down the hall.”

Howard seemed to hesitate.

“Is your sister still seeing Phelps Grant?”

“Yes, why?” Faith was taking fondant blossoms that looked almost more real than real out of the fridge. She'd use them to decorate some of the trays. Max had also left some carved vegetables, large sprigs of herbs, and some banana leaves. “Oh, how stupid of me. This is his firm. I mean, he works here, not owns it.”

She wasn't surprised that Howard had remembered about Phelps. Besides being a bartender extraordinaire, he had a Rolodex of New York and beyond's
Who's Who,
with all their information implanted in a frontal lobe and never forgot a face or name.

“I think you'd better see this. But I warn you, it's not pretty.”

He led her down the lushly carpeted hallway, pile so deep it would silence a bear
and
a bull. Faith's heart was sinking. Whatever was behind door number two or three wasn't going to be an all-expense-paid trip to Hawaii or a brand-new car.

Halfway down the hall, Howard opened a door. It was the fitness area, and Phelps was getting quite a workout, every move reflected in the mirrors lining the walls. Neither he nor the young woman moaning, “Oh, Phelps! Yes! Yes!” in rapture beneath him heard the door open; Howard started to close it silently, but Faith flung it wide, sending it banging against the wall. The couple using a broad treadmill for that which it was not intended—it wasn't moving, for one thing—looked over, wild-eyed. Phelps pulled at his trousers and rolled off. It would have been funny if it hadn't been so depressing and infuriating. He tried to stand up and tripped.

Recognizing her, he said, “Faith! What are you doing here? I can explain everything! This isn't what it looks like!”

“I think it is, Phelps. You're doing to Jennifer, my sister's ‘trusted' assistant, exactly what the two of you have been doing to Hope.”

Chapter 9

T
here wasn't time to be gentle. As soon as Hope answered her phone, Faith said, “You've got a mole. It's Jennifer. Change the password on all your files immediately. And I'm really sorry, sis, but Phelps is your poacher. She's been feeding him your information.”

“That can't be! They don't even know each other!”

“I just caught them having a nooner, so I'd say they know each other intimately. I was worried about
your
pillow talk, but it was Jennifer's.” As she said this, Faith reflected that treadmills and the other spots the couple might have grabbed—they obviously couldn't be seen together—did not have pillows, but the concept was the same.

“Omigod! How could he do that to me? I introduced him to the guy who hired him. And Jennifer! That snake! Fay, I feel like such a fool!”

“We'll talk later. But I think little Phelps couldn't cut it and was getting pressured. He had to bring in some big fish, so he took your fish. And aside from what I suspect is just a case of evil personality, Jennifer is looking to land her own fish and saw Phelps as her ticket to Greenwich, Connecticut; a Gucci charge; and two point five children with straight teeth in private school. I realize I'm mixing a lot of metaphors, but you know what I mean.”

“But where are you? Phelps should be at work now.”

The notion that her boyfriend was not only fooling around but blowing off work was obviously compounding Hope's distress. How could she have misjudged him so totally? Didn't he live and breathe billable hours the way she did?

Faith explained and then said, “Max's staff is coming. I have to get off. I'll call you as soon as I can take a break. Now go do what you gotta do.”

T
he event had gone well, and when Faith returned to her apartment there was a message from Max on her machine. He was now the proud father of a bouncing baby boy, name still to be decided, but they were leaning toward Nicholas. His wife was doing fine. He thanked Faith profusely for stepping in and would call again to see how things went. There was also a message from Tom and he sounded excited. “Good news. Call me. I love you. Very much.”

She punched in the number that she suddenly realized was going to be
her
new number, the home phone at the parsonage. He was there.

“A meeting I had on Monday has been canceled, and Tuesday is clear, too. I thought maybe we could meet out on Long Island and you could finally get to show me the spot where we'll be pledging our troth. I can take the ferry from New London to Orient Point.”

“Oh, Tom, that's wonderful. Uncle Sky has been wanting us to come out. He'll be so pleased. I was going to do something with Francesca, but I know she'll understand. We can put it off to another day easily.”

They talked some more about the logistics and Faith asked, “Did your mother and your aunt have a good time here?”

“You know the old song, ‘How Ya Gonna Keep 'Em Down on the Farm After They've Seen Paree'? Well, change ‘Paree' to ‘New York City' and you'll get a vague approximation of how much they enjoyed themselves. I think they're going to be regulars on Amtrak.”

“I'm so glad, but not surprised. Your mother is a very special person. I watched her at the tea fitting in with everyone, all the while clearly having fun herself. I know you think I think New Yorkers are perfect, but if we have a fault it's that we tend to be a little jaded and often go to a party with low expectations. Your mom is the kind of person who goes expecting it will be great, so it is.”

“That pretty much sums her up. And, my beloved, she adores you, too.”

They talked some more, each loath to hang up, exchanging foolish nothings until finally Faith looked at the time and realized that she was keeping her fiancé from much-needed sleep. He'd confessed to her early on that his sermon-writing pattern was to wrap it all up by Thursday and then spend Friday agonizing over whether it was good enough, followed by rising at dawn on Saturday to completely rewrite the thing. Faith was rather in awe of the process. She regarded her father's weekly task in the same way, although he seemed to have his finished before the weekend drew nigh. Imagine always having a paper due. And one you had to read aloud. No way you could wing it—or get an extension.

Faith called Francesca and they debated going to New Jersey the next day or Sunday, but decided to stick to a weekday.

“Weekends are family time. On a weekday, an old man like that will be alone,” Francesca said.

Faith agreed and they settled on Thursday. As she made up her bed, Faith wondered why it was so important for Francesca to see him alone. Once more it struck her that she really had no idea what she was getting into. What was it that made tracking down Gus Oliver so important? Bringing greetings from people he hadn't seen for sixty-some years had always struck Faith as a little far-fetched.

She'd called Hope earlier during a lull in the evening. Max's staff was the veritable well-oiled machine and all Faith had to do was keep the food coming out. Hope gave her a report. The first thing she'd done was get one of the firm's techies to secure her files and help her change her password.

“He told me not to use my birthday, one, two, three, four, et cetera, or the beginning of the alphabet. Apparently, that's what most people do, and it's the easiest to hack. He said to stick a few numbers in and make them as long as I could reliably remember.”

When Hope had mentioned this, Faith thought, Not a problem. Her sister had been memorizing numbers—how much the DOW was up or down, especially—since she was a kid. The multiplication tables had been child's play and she'd never looked back.

While the guy was working on her computer, Hope had gone up to her boss's office.

“The moment I told him what had happened, it was like Vesuvius! I didn't know a person could erupt like that. He picked up the phone and called Phelps's boss. As we speak, Mr. Grant is looking for work someplace else, someplace like Guam. It's not just a question of never eating lunch in this town again, but never walking the sidewalks. A big no-no. Stealing somebody's wife or husband, maybe, but a client . . .
And
an even bigger sin, he got caught.”

Her voice trailed off in a satisfied sigh. There was occasionally justice in this world.

She'd then informed HR about the reason for Jennifer's immediate dismissal; the young woman would be entitled to an outtake interview with the firm, but she wouldn't be getting a reference from Ms. Sibley or anyone else.

“I had the pleasure of shoving all the stuff from her desk into a carton, and the techie is taking her computer to go through. She just might have been stupid—or arrogant—enough to have sent information to Phelps from here. I told the guy even one personal e-mail to Mr. Grant would be golden.

“Her desk had the usual, Fay, you know, tampons, breath mints, Tylenol, plus a ratty-looking hairbrush, but what was the final nail in the coffin was a little cache of the brand of condoms Phelps likes
and
his favorite chocolate bars. I mean, all the time I've wasted looking around for Godiva's dark chocolate with raspberry!”

Faith had made some sympathetic noises, while wondering about the way the other find had encroached on her sister's time, keeping her from meeting someone else—someone with a heart and a conscience.

The conversation had ended on a happy note. Hope told Faith she had taken scissors and neatly cut all the packets into pieces—a small act of revenge, but satisfying.

Faith sank into sleep. As she succumbed, the image of Phelps and Jennifer on the treadmill flashed in front of her closed eyes and she burst into laughter.

T
om had said he was going to get the seven o'clock ferry. The trip across the sound took about an hour and a half; the drive to The Cliff would take about the same amount of time. When Faith called her uncle he urged her to come the night before, and she did not take much persuading. She seriously doubted she would ever be able to change her biorhythms to match her soon-to-be spouse's. Since Tom would have his car, she took the train out and it was Tammy who met her at the station, driving the large Range Rover SUV that she referred to as her “whale” since the color she'd selected was Beluga Black, with all the bells and whistles. A luxury car with a leather interior that she insisted was for the “country.”

“Darlin',” she said once Faith was settled in the passenger's seat. “You haven't seen Sky for a couple of weeks and I don't want you to be upset. He'll be fine, but he's taking Danny's death hard, hard, hard.”

Tammy was a good driver—she'd once told Faith her daddy had let her drive on back roads since she could reach the pedals—but she was not a stickler for speed limits. The Long Island countryside, in the first blush of spring, dissolved into an impressionistic blur outside the car window.

“We should have put the visit off. I can still call Tom.”

“Oh no, he'd hate that worse than anything, and I'm counting on you and all the wedding talk to cheer him up. He put Danny in the ground just yesterday, so it's all very fresh. Wanted to be alone. Well, there was a man from the cemetery to dig a hole, but I gather he went off to another part and left Sky to himself. Danny wasn't a churchgoer, so I suppose whatever he said is all the service she's going to get. Now, when it's my turn I want a lot of wailing and rolling around on the church carpet with everyone draped in yards of black. Lots of hymns. Maybe a choir. And a really good party afterward. I have the instructions all written out, attached to my will. I'll be planted next to Wade, down home. Sky doesn't mind.”

There was a small cemetery in the village nearest The Cliff, and the Walforts had a plot there. Faith knew this was where Sky had wanted Danny interred and intended to be himself, rather than at Woodlawn, the garden cemetery in the Bronx where there was a much larger, and grander, family plot complete with a McKim, Mead, and White memorial. It was hard to believe the Bronx was farmland in 1863 when the cemetery was founded, but walking through it now, past the beautiful monuments among the flowering trees and shrubs, was a step back in time.

“Your people will be my people.” Ruth's famous Old Testament words. Faith supposed she'd be buried in Massachusetts, an odd thought—so far she'd only been there a handful of times—but her demise was a long, long way away and she intended to go at the exact instant Tom did. The idea of life without him was unbearable.

“And we're having a slight disagreement about the housekeeper,” Aunt Tammy said. “I love her to death—she's from Kentucky! But Sky wants to replace her with some old friend of Danny's. A Mrs. Tingley, oh, that's not right, but something like that.”

She hit the brakes. A chipmunk was crossing the road. Tammy braked for animals. It didn't interrupt the flow of her conversation.

“Poor Danny was so old I had to keep asking the cleaners to do more and more. And this woman is even older! No, I'm putting my foot down.” She sped up slightly. “It's my house, too, although you wouldn't think so. I told him he could take her salary out of my money, not his. That may do the trick.”

They pulled into the drive and Tammy parked behind the house.

“There he is, looks like he's walking to the barn. Go after him. That's a good girl.”

Faith got out and opened the rear door to get her overnight bag. Tammy grabbed her arm. “Leave your things. I'll take them.” Faith looked down at her aunt's hand, large, like the rest of her. Her long nails were painted scarlet and she had a strong grip. For a brief moment the hand looked more like a talon.

Faith obediently trotted off, thinking about Tammy's words, “It's my house, too.” She realized she had always thought of the house as Uncle Schuyler's—and the rest of the family's. Yet it was Tammy who kept the place running, that was now clear.

Her uncle heard her approach and stopped to wait for her. She was shocked at how much he had aged since she'd seen him last—the day after the murder. He had seemed to be dealing with everything as well as could be expected. She remembered that he'd even made one of his terrible rhyming jokes, but she realized it was adrenaline and the reality of what had occurred hadn't set in. It had definitely set in now. He hadn't shaved this morning, and maybe not yesterday either. Schuyler Walfort was fastidious about his appearance, and this more than anything signaled the depth of his grief. His eyes were watering and Faith did not think it was due to the stiff breeze blowing across the field.

“My dear. Good of you to come. And the bridegroom cometh also.” He took her arm.

“I'm so sorry about Danny—it's still very hard to believe,” Faith said. They had all slipped into the habit of the nickname that never would have crossed their lips when she was alive. “Have the police made any progress?” She knew she would have heard, but she thought talking about it might help. He shook his head.

“I'm afraid this is fast becoming what they call a cold case. Matt has been in touch a few times, but I think that's because I sponsor the police and firemen's ball every year. No, that's too cruel. He does care, but apparently home invasions, even deadly home invasions, are all too commonplace and almost never solved, after this amount of time has passed, unless by chance.”

“We can still hope. They could get careless, or greedy. Pawn the jewelry and nabbed on the spot.”

He smiled wearily. “It won't bring her back.”

“I know,” she said, “but maybe we should get everyone together to pool information. The police did say there had been other break-ins at the time. I'd be happy to help organize a meeting. Find out whether there were things in common—lawn services, delivery people looking for an address. We could present any findings to Detective Willis.”