me?” she asked in despair.
She was right—on several counts. The Lucy plan needed more thought. Faith patted Emma’s hand, the one without the muffin. Her cuticles were even more ragged than before. “It’s not about you, remember?
Now, I need to know some things; then I’ll tell you all about the service. It was everything your father would have wished.” Faith was sure of that.
“How did the blackmailers—although we don’t know if it’s more than one; the ‘we’ could have been put in to lead you astray—anyway, how did you find out where to leave the money, and where was it?” Emma sat up straight. She could do this. “I got a call. I was home. It was Sunday afternoon, and as soon as I answered the phone, a voice said, ‘Put the money
in a green plastic trash bag and leave it in the Dumpster at the construction site on Forty-eighth and Lex at five o’clock today. Take a cab and have it wait. Then leave. If you screw up, or tell anyone, Christmas won’t be merry this year.’ ”
“Was it the same voice as the voice on the machine?”
Emma flushed. “I should have thought of that. No, it wasn’t, but again, I couldn’t tell whether it was a man or a woman with one of those Lauren Bacall-type voices, husky.”
“So, you took the bag and went to the spot.”
“Yes, first I had to go buy some trash bags. I couldn’t find where Juanita keeps them.” Faith was struck by something. “Wait a minute. This was Sunday. How did you happen to have ten thousand dollars in cash lying around?”
“I know you said paying them wasn’t a good idea, but it seemed the simplest way to me, so I’d taken money out on Friday. Just in case.”
“Who could have known about it? Michael? Someone at the bank?”
“Not Michael. It’s my own account. Technically, it’s joint, but his name isn’t even on the checks. It’s just for my expenses. Anyway, I put the money under my lingerie, and of course I didn’t mention it. It was a very busy weekend, lots of parties, and he had some kind of fund-raiser upstate that I didn’t want to go to. I keep telling him ‘I think I’m coming down with the flu.’
He’s been very worried and made an appointment for me with our doctor, which I guess I’ll have to keep, but I feel like a fraud.”
Once more, Emma digressed. The stress was loosening her hinges—hinges that weren’t too tight to start.
Faith persisted. “Did you see anybody you knew at the bank? Was it a teller you’d recognize?” She couldn’t picture Michael Stanstead rifling through his wife’s panties. She had another thought. “Was Lucy—or anybody else —at the apartment during the weekend?” Emma started with the first part of the question. “I remember saying hi to a couple of people, and I think it was at the bank—or it may have been on the way.
The teller just looked like a teller. A man. He had to go and get some kind of approval. I think he was new. I brought one of those Coach saddlebags someone gave me once. Somehow, I thought it would be a bigger bundle. Anyway, I put the money in that. I was so nervous, I went straight home. And Lucy? Yes, she, Mother, and Jason came for drinks Saturday night with some other people. We were all going to watch Michael cut a ribbon at a YMCA. He cuts a lot of ribbons. I think this was a new media center for an after-school program. Poppy and Jason gave some computers or something, so that’s why they were there. A darling group of children sang carols; then we all went on to a party at La Cote Basque.”
“Why was Lucy there?”
“Well, she’s always around this kind of thing. She’s very interested in the campaign. Of course she’d love to be married to someone like Michael, and it just makes her worse. She was with this man who works for Michael.”
“Okay, now was there anything unusual about the cabdriver? And what about at the Dumpster? Was there a car near it? There must have been people on the sidewalk.” It seemed like a very risky drop, and whoever had planned to pick it up would have had to be seconds away, watching Emma.
“The place was deserted. Remember how cold it was? And there wasn’t even much traffic, not the way it would be on a weekday. The doorman got me a cab, so that was complete chance, unless this is all a gigantic conspiracy. The driver was from Haiti. I know because he was complaining about the weather. It’s his first winter in New York.”
Maybe not such a risky drop after all. Social-service agencies had been sending vans around to move the homeless into shelters. One poor man had been found lifeless, huddled in a box over a nonfunctioning heat vent that had probably provided some warmth when he’d first discovered it. Not only would no one be working at the site on the weekend, but no one would be camped out there, either. And five o’clock was a dead time in the city on a Sunday, a lull between the day’s activities and the night’s festivities. Easy enough to stand in the lobby of one of the buildings nearby, or to duck down in a parked car, racing out to pick up the money as soon as Emma’s cab turned the corner.
“No cars you recognized?”
“No, and I did look. The Dumpster was on Forty-eighth and there were NO PARKING signs all along where they’re working.”
Faith finished the last scraps of her omelette.
“I really have to get to work,” she said, and signaled the waitress for some more coffee.
“I have a ton to do,” Emma agreed, lifting her cup for a refill.
Realizing she’d been remiss in not giving a full account of the service, Faith described the event. Hesitating slightly, she told Emma about Lorraine Fuchs.
As she’d suspected, Emma wanted to meet her at once and talk about her father.
“When things are a little more settled,” Faith advised, not wanting to muddy the waters any further. It was impossible to see bottom now, and if Lorraine was to learn of Emma’s existence, not having known previously, the waters might well silt up to deltalike proportions. For, if Lorraine knew, then Harvey would, and so forth, until the paparazzi outside Emma’s apartment building would be more numerous than at Jackie O’s and Princess Di’s combined.
“In detective stories, they always try to figure out who benefits from a death, which should be fairly simple to figure out. If Fox made a will—and I’m not sure Communists do this sort of thing—it would have to be probated, and some lawyer—or Arthur Quinn, if he has it—will be coming forward one of these days.”
“But Daddy didn’t have any money, not much anyway. Just enough to pay his rent, buy food, books, typing paper.”
Faith suddenly had a whole bunch of questions and didn’t want to forget. “Remind me about the books and paper, but we’ve been overlooking something. How did he even get the small amount he needed to live on?
He wasn’t getting any royalties. Lorraine has always done temp work, which can’t pay much. I suppose she must have supported them before they came to New York, and sympathizers may have sent her money. I’d like to get a list of those charities Fox stipulated as the recipients of his earnings. Could one have been Lorraine, a way of funneling the money back to himself?
But the FBI would have checked each one thoroughly, so that’s out.”
“How about Poppy?”
How about Poppy, indeed? Easy enough for her to supply her ex-lover with cash now and then. It made a
great deal of sense. Faith had left Fox’s service with the distinct impression that Poppy Morris had been carrying a torch of Olympic proportions for Fox all these years.
“It’s a thought,” she said slowly.
