The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress (19 page)

“Mine? No. At least not
yet
.” She shrugged off her robe and hung it over the back of a chair. Her undergarments were small and sheer and expensive, revealing the hourglass suggested beneath her robe. She cleared her throat. “I might need your help later.”

“Might?”

Ritzi dropped a hand to her stomach. Patted once. “Depends on how these costumes fit in a few months.”

So cavalier, that movement. As though getting pregnant were as easy as catching a cold. Maria counted the years she’d been trying to conceive a child. How she often lay on her back with her feet on the wall after she and Jude made love. He laughed at her for that. But she heard once that it worked.

“It’s simple enough to let out a garment, make more room in the midriff,” Maria said.

“The costumes run small. The producers do it on purpose to keep us little. Nothing like the fear of popping a seam midshow to ensure you don’t eat. Needless to say, they are not accommodating to certain
situations
.”

Maria rearranged the pins on her pincushion. “I’m at Smithson Tailors in the afternoons. Let me know when you’re ready.”

“Thank you.” Ritzi put the cigarette to her lips and inhaled. She blew two long streams of smoke out her nose. “It took the costume designer three months to make these things. But some of the girls are losing their tail feathers on the high kicks. It’s embarrassing.”

“Shouldn’t be that hard to fix. I just need to reinforce the clasp.” The
dancers lined up in a row, and Maria knelt beside them, a seam ripper and a needle pinched between her lips. “Stand still,” she said. “I don’t want to nick you.” She sliced into the first costume with the small hooked blade until the clasp was exposed.

The costume designer had used the wrong thread. Maria dug around in her bag for a topstitch-weight polyester thread. By the time the girls were needed onstage, she’d replaced the clasps on all five costumes.

As the girls bustled from the dressing room, Maria grabbed Ritzi’s arm. “I can help you. Please let me.”

Chapter Thirteen

FIFTH AVENUE, WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 3, 1930

THE
drawer was empty. Where there had been four envelopes only days earlier, she saw nothing but wood grain and a film of dust. Maria slid the drawer shut and then reopened it, as though expecting them to magically appear. She pressed the stack of bills against her forehead and squeezed her eyes shut, lips moving in fervent cadence. She thought of Father Donnegal and his prescribed penance. “Count not my transgressions, but, rather, my tears of repentance. Remember not my iniquities, but, more especially, my sorrow for the offenses I have committed against you …” she whispered, palm resting on her heart.

A stillness wrapped around Maria, and what sounds reached her ears did so as though heard apart from her own body: her desperate exhale, water dripping in the bathroom sink, the rattle of a delivery truck on the street below, the creak of floorboards beneath her feet, the ding of the elevator down the hall, the metallic whir of the ceiling fan. She shuffled backward a few feet and dropped to the edge of the bed. Maria heard herself swallow.

On the bureau sat a small clock. It ticked away in the silence, and she watched the second hand move around the clockface. Once. Twice. Three times.

Maria was supposed to meet Jude for lunch. But after the shock of seeing that empty drawer, she struggled to remember when. Or where.

As a child, Maria had once stolen a piece of candy. Her father made her spit it out and carry it back to the store in her hand. She’d cried when telling the clerk what she had done. Her father hadn’t let her wash the stickiness from her palm for the rest of the day.
That’s what it feels like to steal
, he’d told her, closing her fist in on itself.
You wear it like a stain
. Indeed, her skin was tainted pink the following day, when he took her to confession for the first time. She’d begged him not to see Father Donnegal. Any priest other than the one who sat at their table for dinner on Monday evenings.

“Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Maria stuffed the cash back in the inner pocket of her purse and went to collect the cleaning supplies. She made quick work of the apartment. She straightened the bed. Mopped the bathroom floor. Scrubbed the toilet. Brushed lint from the drapes. The bookshelves in Mr. Crater’s office were dusty, so she took the books down one by one, wiped them, and cleaned the shelves. She tidied the room, turned off the lamp, and set the ceiling fan on low to circulate the air. Before leaving, she put Mrs. Crater’s favorite potpourri in the pewter bowl on the dining room table so the room would smell of lavender and bergamot. Then she grabbed her purse and went to meet Jude for lunch.

MARIA
found Jude beneath the memorial arch in Washington Square Park, his gray fedora obscuring his face, and two small packages, wrapped in newsprint, in the crook of one arm. He tapped a rolled-up newspaper against his thigh.

“Sorry I’m late,” she said, and flicked the brim of his hat with her finger.

Washington Square Park sat at the foot of Fifth Avenue. From where they stood, Fifth Avenue yawned open before them, a broad swath of pavement rimmed by skyscrapers, a canyon of glass and steel and stone.

“I hope you’re hungry.” He waved the packages in front of her face. “Fish and chips. Fresh from O’Malley’s Pub.”

Maria hadn’t felt at home with Jude since she saw him plant those envelopes. Everything he said and did now made her wary. And the worst part was that Jude was so preoccupied with his secrets that he hadn’t even noticed the change. She kept waiting for him to ask what was wrong, but the question never came. Maria had to consciously tuck her hand beneath his arm and let him lead her around the fountain and down one of the side paths into the park. She forced herself to relax, to lean against him and inhale the mild air. It was a relief after a month
of near hundred-degree temperatures. Brown-tinged leaves fluttered above them, a few falling to the ground and cartwheeling across the path, making little scraping noises as they went.

“This used to be a potter’s field, you know. Twenty thousand people are buried in this park,” Maria said. She pointed at a tall elm near the path. One of its branches stuck straight out like an accusing finger, while the others slanted upward in search of fresh air and sunlight. “That’s the hanging tree. It’s the oldest tree in Manhattan.”

“What is it with you and graveyards?”

“They fascinate me.”

“Dead people fascinate you?”

“No. The stories they leave behind.” She peered up at him. “Don’t you wonder who they were? What kind of lives they lived?”

Jude glanced up at the English elm—over a hundred feet tall—as they passed beneath its branches. “Not very good ones, if they were hanged to death.”

“Not
all
of them were hanged. Just the worst offenders. The rest were normal people. Like us. Mothers and fathers. Children. Sometimes I wonder if they came here on ships or if they were born in the tenements. This was the public cemetery, a poor man’s graveyard.”

Jude stepped off the path and led her toward a bench. He pulled her down beside him and set one of the packages in her lap. It was still warm, and the heat pooled on her legs. “Eat your lunch before it gets cold.”

The smells of fried fish and potatoes mingled with that of cut grass and browning leaves. She unwrapped the package and licked the salt from her fingers.

“Isn’t this sacrilegious?” Jude asked. “Eating in a graveyard?”

Maria paused, a potato inches from her mouth. She winked. “Let us not mourn the departed, but rather thank God that such men and women lived.”

“Is that a prayer or a benediction?”

“Both.”

“In that case”—he tapped his potato against hers—“amen.”

She grinned. There was the Jude she loved. Maria leaned over and planted a kiss on his cheek. It was cool against her lips, and she felt the beginning of stubble. “Thanks for lunch.”

They slipped into a comfortable silence as they ate, enjoying the call of birds and the feel of sun on their cheeks. After a moment, Jude tipped his head backward and looked up through the heavy oak branches that stretched over the bench.

“I got a new case,” he said. He unrolled the newspaper and pointed to the front page:
JUSTICE J. F. CRATER MISSING FROM HIS HOME SINCE AUGUST 6TH
.

There it was, the news of Mr. Crater’s disappearance in black and white. She scanned the article so quickly that she couldn’t fully make sense of the words. They registered in pieces, small details lodging in her brain:
last seen on August 6th … assistant says he cashed large checks earlier that day … bought a ticket for a Broadway show … acquaintances fear murder
. The byline was the last thing she read, but her eyes stayed on the name for several long seconds: George Hall.

“It’s him,” Jude said.

“Who?” She dared a glance at Jude, as though she’d been caught in her omission of the facts.

“Your boss. That judge.”

Maria couldn’t stop the hint of fear from slipping into her voice. “Yes.”

“Did you know he was missing?”

“No, I …” She took a deep breath and spread the paper flat on her lap, trying to remain calm. “I didn’t know this.”

“What
did
you know?”

“People were looking for him. That’s all.”

“What people, Maria?”

“A reporter.”
And his wife
, she thought, but didn’t say.

Jude took the newspaper from her and reread the article slowly. It ran thirty-three column inches and was heavy on the details. He settled on a section of the story and brought the paper a little closer to his face. He read out loud: “ ‘The Craters’ maid, Amedia Christian, saw the judge early on the morning of August fourth and was told to come back on the seventh, after he returned to his vacation home in Maine. She noted that when she arrived that morning the bed had been slept in recently and his suit was left on the floor but there was no sign of the judge.’ ” Jude’s face tightened into a stiff look of panic. “Did you talk to this reporter? Did you tell him this?”

“Not exactly. He embellished a bit. I didn’t mention the suit.” She
played with a loose thread on the cuff of her blouse. Gave him a halfhearted smile. “He knocked on the door one day and started firing off questions. I talked to him for a couple minutes.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I didn’t think it mattered.”

“Your boss goes missing, and you don’t think it matters?”

“Because I thought he was in Maine. With Mrs. Crater.”

Jude scowled at the paper. “Listen, you don’t need to talk to these people. None of them.”

“What people?”

“Anyone to do with Crater. His associates. His friends. You tell me if they start nosing around, understand?”

Fifteen minutes ago she was famished, but now the sight of all that food made her stomach turn. “Why? What’s going on?”

He held the paper in front of her face so the headline was only inches away. “ ‘Justice J. F. Crater
Missing from His Home
Since August 6th.’
Home
, Maria. Not Maine. Not work.
Home
. You work for him. You’re in his home all the time. I don’t want anyone thinking you’re involved.”

What little she’d eaten of her lunch sat like a brick in her stomach. “Why would anyone think I’m involved?”

“They won’t. Unless you give them reason to. I don’t want you near this case.” He waved a hand over the
New York World
. “And I sure as hell don’t want your name in the papers.”

“I didn’t give that reporter my real name.” She pointed to the article, where her mother’s name was printed in black ink. “When he asked, I lied.”

Jude gave his first real smile since they’d met for lunch. “Good!”

“It’s not good. I don’t like lying.” Not that it mattered now. Owney had figured out that she worked for the Craters. So much for discretion.

“It’s better this way,” he said. “Trust me.”

Trust had never been a question between them. It was natural and understood. But for the first time in ten years of marriage, they sat together offering half-truths and hidden meanings, neither going so far as to lie outright, but both certainly skirting the edge.

Maria picked at a potato with one thumbnail and chose her words carefully. “It’s a weird coincidence, don’t you think? You get this case, and I work for Mr. Crater?”

Jude stared straight ahead, into a thicket of trees on the other side of the park. It was several long seconds before he answered. “
Coincidence
is an understatement.”

“Does anyone else at work know I’m the Craters’ maid?” She searched his face for signs of deception.

“Leo.”

“What does he think about you getting the case?”

Maria was certain he spoke the truth when he turned to her with a pained expression and said, “Leo recommended me for the case. Commissioner Mulrooney agreed.”

“Why?”

“They said it would be a good test for me, a way to prove my commitment to the job.” He crushed her against his side and buried his face in her hair. He held her tighter than usual. “I have to go to Maine and get a statement from Crater’s wife.”

Maria pulled away. “Please don’t.”

“I don’t have a choice.”

Chapter Fourteen

BELGRADE LAKES, MAINE, SATURDAY, SEPTEMBER 13, 1930

FIVE
thousand dollars. That’s how much the New York Police Department offered in reward for information leading to the whereabouts of Joseph Crater. Stella glared at the missing persons circular, studying the black-and-white photo of her husband. Joe, with his pursed lips and high collar and severe part, stared right back at her from the page. She sat on the edge of the pier, toes in the water and hands stuffed into the pockets of Joe’s dinner jacket, fiddling with the half-empty pack of cigarettes and matchbook she’d found weeks earlier. Stella had taken to wearing the jacket when she retreated to the pier—always in the late afternoon and usually for hours at a time. It still smelled of his aftershave, and the satin lining felt cool against her bare arms.