The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress (27 page)

The instructions were simple: report to the United States District
Court on October 29 prepared to give testimony regarding the last time she saw her employer. It was worded, in no uncertain terms, that her appearance was mandatory.

Maria read the summons one time. Then she stuffed the letter back into the bond paper envelope and folded it into thirds. As far as she was concerned, Amedia Christian did not exist. Nor would she testify before any grand jury.

RITZI
saw the postman sitting in the front row, his legs stretched out in front of him, tapping an envelope against the palm of his hand. He’d been watching rehearsal for ten minutes, a ridiculous grin smeared across his narrow face.

“Again!” the choreographer shouted. “Your timing is off, Ginger. What the hell are you looking at, Ritzi? Eyes on me, girls. One. Step. Two. Step. Kick. Kick. Kick!”

The entire company stood onstage, arms linked, practicing the last number, a rousing tune called “Take Me Back to Manhattan.” High kick. Deep breath. And then they belted out the last two lines of the chorus: “So take me back to Manhattan, that dear old dirty town!”

“Okay. That’s a wrap!” the choreographer shouted. He waved Ritzi over. “Since when did you start listing the Broadway Theatre as your primary residence, Ritz?”

“I don’t.”

He pointed to the postman in the front row.

Ritzi was not, in general, fond of sharing her address. Vivian’s apartment was unlisted. As was the phone number.

“You got a registered letter.”

She picked her way down the steps, apprehensive.

The postman jumped to his feet and thrust the envelope at her. “I need you to sign for this,” he said, and handed her a clipboard.

Had she looked at the return address first, she would not have taken the letter from him. “What if I don’t want it?” she asked after seeing the official seal of the New York district attorney’s office.

“Too late now—it’s yours. Sign right there.”

Ritzi took the pen and scribbled her name. She tore open the envelope and read the letter as though it were an obituary. In thirty days,
her testimony was required before the grand jury investigating Joseph Crater’s disappearance.

“I’M
very sorry about all this. You know that, right?” Simon Rifkind said.

Almost seven weeks after Stella placed that first panicked call to Joe’s old business associate, he had finally shown up at the lake house to offer his condolences and bring her news.

They sat in the gazebo, backs to the lake, sipping mulled wine. Stella wrapped her palms around the ceramic mug and sank a little deeper into Joe’s suit coat. After several moments of silence, she turned to Simon Rifkind. “I appreciate all you’re doing to help.”

“It was the least I could do.” He had the slick look of a professional politician. Dark hair greased back and a part so sharp you could see the white of his scalp. Pencil mustache. Small wire glasses. When he smiled, his teeth flashed large and white.

“I lied to the district attorney,” she said, “in the questionnaire he sent. Crain asked specifically if I’d received any money from Joe’s account.”

His shrug was indifferent. “You had bills to pay. And it was easy enough for me to collect Joe’s paychecks.”

Stella sipped her wine. Emma always went overboard on the cinnamon, but it was good nonetheless.

“This is a dicey situation, Stella.” He leaned forward, expression somber. “You have to be so careful with the information you divulge.”

“I just wanted you to know. That’s all. For when Crain comes snooping around. And he will.”

Rifkind tapped the edge of his mug with a fingernail. He plied Stella with a conspiratorial grin. “What do you know about Joe’s safe-deposit box?”

“Nothing apart from the fact that he had one.”

“Come now, Stella. You gave Crain permission to search it.”

“He asked for power of attorney last month so he could open the box. I never even saw it, much less put anything in there. That was Joe’s business.”

“Do you know what he used it for?”

“Safekeeping.” She dug at a chip in the mug with her thumbnail. “It
gave him peace of mind. Like having a will. Or life insurance policies. Joe was that sort of guy. Cross the t’s, dot the i’s.”

“Crain wasn’t happy that you wouldn’t turn over Joe’s key.”

“I don’t have one. Never did. If I had, I’d have sent it back with the damned power of attorney. Crain would not believe me if I told him my eyes were blue. He’d argue that I had them dyed just to spite him.”

“There is a standing belief in Crain’s office that you’ll exhaust yourself in the effort
not
to cooperate.”

“Nonsense. I’ll cooperate with anything that does not subject me to useless torture and notoriety.”

“Well, it was fun to watch, regardless. He stood around for half an hour while a mechanic chiseled open the box—the manager at the bank was none too thrilled with that—and then stormed out cursing you and all your descendants when the damn thing turned up empty.”

“Clearly a waste of breath, as I have no descendants.”

“The fact that I was present as Joe’s private attorney”—he gave Stella a sideways look and a small shrug, as if to say that he still considered himself to be so—“riled him even more. Almost wish I’d called the paper to photograph the entire thing.” Rifkind eased back and draped one arm over the rail. “Couldn’t have done that, of course. None of us had any idea what we’d find in that box.”

Stella did not meet his curious gaze. She stared across the lake to the opposite shore, where the maple trees blazed red and gold. She knew exactly what Joe had kept in that box but had no intention of telling anyone. Especially since the contents were currently in her possession. “What were you expecting?”

“I can’t say for sure. There are so many things left unaccounted for.”

“Such as?”

“His will, for one. It’s not been found in his office or at your home or in that safe-deposit box. I find that very odd. I know for a fact he had one written up a few years back. I signed as witness.”

“He never mentioned a will to me.”

“No reason to trouble you with those matters. Just be glad his legal house was in order.”

Was
. That word seemed to be settled among Joe’s friends and the law and the papers. Dead and gone, Stella supposed they meant. A given assumption.

“I should have known more about our finances. But he was happy to take care of that, and I was happy to let him.”

Simon Rifkind patted her shoulder. “That’s just the way things are, Stella. You take care of the home, he takes care of the money.”

She stiffened beneath his touch and would have liked nothing more than to throw the remainder of her wine in his face. She imagined how satisfying the purple stain would have been as it bled through and ruined what was obviously an expensive suit.

Simon stared into his mug, considering the dregs of cinnamon and cloves at the bottom, as he chose his next words. “There’s an issue with Joe’s finances.”

“Meaning?”

“The court has stopped issuing his paychecks.”

“They can’t do that!”

“They can. And they have. Last week.”

“No.” Stella shook her head. “Isn’t there something you can do?”

Simon placed his mug on the rail behind them and grabbed Stella’s hand. “Joe hasn’t shown up for work in weeks. It was only a matter of time. They won’t continue to pay the salary of a man who isn’t performing his duties.”

Stella forced herself not to yank her hand away; she couldn’t risk the offense it might give. “This is a special circumstance. Surely there’s a law you can cite? Request an injunction? Something?”

“I’m afraid not,” he said. “You’ll have to make other arrangements.”

She was about to argue that there was nothing else—Joe had supported them solely for thirteen years—when she heard the ring of a bicycle bell in the driveway, followed by a voice calling, “Western Union!”

Stella left Simon in the gazebo and slipped into the kitchen, grateful for the warmth and the reprieve. When she opened the front door, she was startled to see her regular telegraph boy. She peered down at him. His uniform was too large, cinched at the waist with a strap of leather with crude holes punched at irregular intervals, and the ends of his shoes were cut off, his toes dangling over the edge. But he was energetic and eager to please, and she couldn’t help liking him even though his appearance at her door often heralded bad news.

“Shouldn’t you be in school, Ezra?”

“School don’t pay, miss. Western Union do.”

“
Does
. Western Union
does
. And the fact that you’re ten—”

“Twelve.”

“—and don’t know the correct usage of that word proves that you ought to be in school instead of running telegrams.” She crossed her arms sternly across her chest.

It would probably take the child ten years to grow into his teeth, but when he did, they would certainly be one of his better features. Large and white, they stood in even rows on both top and bottom and were accentuated by a fetching dimple in one cheek. Right then, however, they gave him an impish look, a smile too big for his body, full of mischief. His bright blue eyes didn’t help, and she suspected that Ezra found himself in trouble more frequently than he deserved.

“For you, miss.” He handed her the telegram.

Stella unfolded the yellow paper and read as he waited for her reply. The message was short and blunt:

Mrs. Stella M. W. Crater

Belgrade Lakes, Maine

The New York County Grand Jury officially requests you to appear for questioning on October 29th in the disappearance of your husband, Supreme Court Justice Joseph Force Crater. This request will be followed by summons sent registered mail
.

District Attorney Thomas Crain

“Care to reply, miss?” Ezra asked.

“No,” she said, and reached into her pocket for a nickel. “I do not.”

He dropped the coin into a cloth pouch and stuffed it in his pocket. Small wages for a hard job. The boy couldn’t make more than a few cents a telegram, but since he was over the minimum age of ten, the law allowed him to work. Ezra tipped his too-large cap. “Thanks.”

Without thinking, she reached out and straightened his cap so it no longer sat cockeyed over his face. “If you were my child, I’d have you in school.”

There was a flash in his eyes, the resentment of pity, and he jumped off the porch in one quick stride. Ezra tore down the driveway on his
bicycle and grinned back over his shoulder. The words he flung at her were so spiteful she couldn’t believe they came from such a young boy. “People say you can’t
have
kids.”

Stella wadded the telegram in her fist, angered by the cruel observation, and went back inside.

Rifkind had relocated to the living room. He crouched before the fireplace and stoked the dying embers. “Bad news?”

Stella threw the telegram into the coals and watched the edges of the paper gild orange and then ignite in a puff. “Is there any other kind these days?”

Chapter Twenty-One

BELGRADE LAKES, MAINE, WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 15, 1930

THE
first snowfall crept in during the night. Stella woke to plumes of frozen breath clouding the air above her head. The chill settled across her cheeks and at the foot of her bed, where she’d tugged the blankets away from the mattress. She pulled her knees up and curled into a ball, dreading that moment when she would push the covers back and plunge into the cold air.

The kitchen door banged open downstairs, and she heard Fred’s heavy footsteps and then the thump of wood dropping to the hearth. The metal grate slid across the fireplace. Paper crumpled. The strike of a match against sandpaper. And then another, followed by a muted curse. A whoosh of air up the flue as kindling ignited. Soon she smelled the acrid scent of burning newsprint and heard the crackling fire. Her room had not warmed so much as a degree, but the knowledge of a fire burning downstairs gave Stella the motivation she needed to climb from bed and find her clothes.

Gone were the days when she went downstairs barefoot. Before leaving her room, Stella fished a pair of Joe’s heavy socks from the drawer and pulled on her hiking boots. In the eighteen years they’d been coming to the cabin, they had never stayed until first snowfall. She hadn’t bothered to bring winter clothes. In hindsight, it seemed a terrible oversight, but Stella made the best of her circumstances, dressing in layers with her robe over top.

“Don’t laugh,” she said, catching Fred’s raised eyebrow.

“I’m too cold to laugh, Mrs. Crater.” He rubbed his palms together next to the fire.

“Thank you for doing that.”

“I’d like to say it was for your benefit, but I’d be lying.”

Emma shuffled into the living room and scooted one of the wingback chairs next to the hearth. “I didn’t pack for this,” she said.

“No need. We’re leaving tomorrow.”

Both Fred and Emma turned toward her, curious.

“What about the grand jury? I thought you didn’t want to testify,” Emma said.

They’d avoided the postman for a week, refusing to answer the door and sign for the registered letter. But he’d caught up with Stella two days earlier at Irv Bean’s while she shopped for groceries.

Stella sat on the stacked-stone hearth. “We’re not going back to New York.”

“What do you mean?”

“I think a little vacation is in order. But first we have to close down the cabin.”

For the remainder of the day, they packed and cleaned. Stella took the screens off the windows and put them in the hollow beneath the stairs. Emma set all the taps to drip so that the glacial air barreling down from Canada wouldn’t freeze and burst the pipes. They stowed dishes in the cupboards and dusted while Fred oiled the door hinges and set mousetraps. Emma attacked the floorboards with an energy Stella didn’t think possible for her eighty years.

After a lunch of soup and bread, Emma slipped back to her room for a nap while Stella sorted papers in front of the fire. Fred kept the fire going strong all afternoon in between running errands. He had not received his wages since the end of July. Nor had he asked for them. When Fred brought her the mail and that day’s newspapers, she asked him to sit. He waited patiently as she sifted through the letters. At the bottom of the stack was another letter from the district attorney’s office. Apparently, Thomas Crain was undeterred by her lack of response and was following up with a second grand jury summons. As if she could forget. Fred watched with alarm as she tore it into small pieces and fed it into the fire.