Body in the Big Apple

aren’t good at this. No one ever has the right change or can figure out who owes what, so it’s easier for me to pay, and besides, I want it to be my treat.” Emma had interrupted herself to settle the question of the bill.

Faith put her coat on and waited to find out what this 60

favor might be. It could be anything from helping her find that perfect little something for sister Lucy—some desk models of guillotines, “conversation pieces” leapt to mind—to breaking into Fox-Fuch’s apartment to be sure the photo and cards were gone. This had already occurred to Faith. And if Emma had a key, it would even be somewhat legal.

“There, that should be right.” Faith looked at the money tucked next to the teapot. If everyone tipped the way Emma did, the waiter could go to Acapulco for Christmas and Easter.

Emma pulled on her long suede gloves and put one hand on Faith’s arm.

“Will you go to the service for me? Daddy’s service? Knowing that you’re there will be the next best thing to being there myself, and you can tell me all about it. I wish I could go, but I can’t. There could be pictures, and soon everybody would be asking why I went.”

“Of course I’ll go. The Times had said Quinn, his agent, would be arranging a memorial service soon.

Tell me once you know when it is, in case I miss the notice.” This was not a big favor. This was nothing.

The big favor that Faith had already taken on—in her mind anyway—was finding out who was blackmailing her old schoolmate.

And going to the memorial service would be the first step in her investigation.

Emma left and Faith made her way to the rest rooms.

There had been talk of placing public conveniences like the coin-operated kind in Paris at various locations throughout the city, but at present one had to grab at any opportunity or go into a department store, which 61

invariably cost much, much more than any pay toilet—

in Faith’s experience anyway. The last time she’d dashed into Bloomies, she’d come out with a Jil Sander jacket—it had been on sale—and a Mary McFadden scarf for her mother—it hadn’t. The cubi-cles on the streets in Paris had occasionally failed to open, trapping the occupant, and Faith had resolved either to avoid them until foolproof or always carry a very long book—something like Proust—that she’d been meaning to read for years.

Returning, she again noted a man with his face buried in the Wall Street Journal a few tables behind where they had been sitting. The few other men in the cafe at this hour were older with, presumably, spouses or were younger with families. She looked back at him. He was leaving. There was something familiar about him, yet it could just be that they’d been on the subway together, or he could have been at any number of dances and parties over the years. Parties. That was it. He’d been at the party she’d catered last week. He was with the host and Michael Stanstead when they came into the kitchen. He must not have been a close friend of Stanstead or he would have said something to Emma today. Unless he was so intent on his reading that he didn’t see her. Or unless he felt he’d be intrud-ing. His presence continued to disturb Faith. What was he doing alone at the cafe at this hour? The market had just closed.

She walked out into the bitter cold and took a soft wool cloche out of her pocket, pulling it down over her ears. The hat made her look like a Gatsby girl and filled her hair with static electricity, but it was warm.

She stood on Fifth Avenue, glancing back over her shoulder at the huge tree at Rockefeller Center. It was 62

even more dramatic as the day drew to a close, its lights glowing like jewels against the dark branches.

On the other side of Fifth stood Saks on one corner, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on the other. God and mam- mon. The front windows at Saks were filled each Christmas with ever-more-elaborate moving figures—

scenes from The Nutcracker, Dickens, the Arabian Nights—glimmering, glistening fantasies. Shoppers filed by in long lines behind the velvet ropes, funneled at the end of the oohs and aahs into the Palace of Goods.

Worshipers at other altars across the street—those dedicated to Saint Anthony, Saint John, Saint Theresa— also moved in lines, walking slowly up the nave to gaze back at the rose window and ahead toward the lady chapel. Today, Faith decided to join this crowd. She crossed, darting between two cabs, only one of which, miraculously, honked at her, and climbed the stairs into Saint Patrick’s marble interior.

Instantly, she knew she had picked the right place and she walked quietly up the side aisle toward the altar, banked with row upon row of brilliant red poinsettias.

The cathedral was filled with a golden glow—tiers of flickering votive candles and interior spots created sudden pools of light against the early dark. The smell of incense mixed with that of burning candle wax and hung in the warm air. She slipped into a row and took a seat on one of the hard wooden pews. She had yet to be in a church—and she’d been in a great many of them over the years—with comfortable seating. She’d mentioned this to her father a few times, commenting that penance of this sort seemed at odds with modern religion. “We don’t beat ourselves with sticks, wear hair shirts, or put pebbles in our shoes. Why do we 63

have to sit on such unforgiving surfaces?” Once, he’d told her that if the pews were too deeply cushioned, he’d put his parishioners to sleep. Another time, he’d answered that it was simply a matter of economics.

Something else was always more pressing—disaster victims, the homeless, the poor, the leaks in the church roof. He’d got her there, yet she continued to secretly hope for a bequest from some eccentric who would stipulate the money could be spent only for the better-ment of congregational buns.

She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, the altar blazed before her. It was truly beautiful. She didn’t like poinsettias, opting instead for amaryllis, cyclamen, clivia, and hydrangea during this festive season, yet she would have been the first one to protest the absence of the traditional plants from Saint Patrick’s. Protest. That brought her back to Nate Fox—

and Emma.

It was difficult to sort things out. This last conversation with Emma had made one thing clear, however.

She had adored her lost and found father. What’s more, he seemed to have cared for her, displaying the postcards, her wedding photo—though in that case, Faith was sure Fox also got a kick from the irony of conser- vative Michael Stanstead in full nuptial regalia posed next to, say, Fox’s autographed copy of Trotsky’s History of the Russian Revolution.

Yet Fox, the devoted dad, had never tried to get in touch with Emma, although he certainly knew where she was all those years. Granted, he was on the lam, but if it had been his dream to see her, wouldn’t he have done something about it? Watched her incognito at the park with her nanny? Impersonated a waiter at her coming-out ball? Faith could think of all sorts of 64

soppy grade-B movie plots. Maybe he had had a deal with Poppy. Obviously, they’d decided it would be better for the child to believe Jason was her father. Only Jason didn’t love her. All those years of never pleasing him, never being what he wanted—and never knowing why. Emma had been physically abandoned by her real father, and the man she’d thought was her father had abandoned her emotionally and in a more tangible, economic way, although she wouldn’t have learned that until Jason’s death. Faith shuddered. She thought of her own father—and she was sure he was, since she had his clear blue eyes. Lawrence Sibley had been an impoverished divinity school student when Faith’s mother, Jane Lennox, had met him and been uncharacteristically swept off her feet. The two opposites had forged an indissoluble union. That’s a hard act to follow, Faith reflected as she heard the soft murmur of whispered prayers around her. No wonder I’m not married. Because when I am, it’s got to be for keeps.

Like Emma. Emma and Michael. In Emma’s mind, revealing to her husband what she was going through, had gone through, would be an act of betrayal, equal to something like adultery—a sin. Finally, in Michael, Emma had found a man who would not leave her.

Someone she could trust and she would literally die rather than destroy or even jeopardize that.

Once again, Faith was back at the beginning. There was only one thing to do. Find out who was blackmailing Emma. Put a stop to it—note to self: Have to work on this angle. Then Emma can live happily ever after and Michael will remain in blissful ignorance.