Body in the Big Apple

parents’

hearts. Bunch of bullshit, if you ask me. There was a man, of course. If he’d a been a Teamster, she’d a learned to drive a rig; a bookie, she’d a run numbers.

That was Lorraine.”

Faith knew she was right.

“The cops are taking their sweet time, as usual. I’m going in if they don’t come soon. It’s freezing out here,” the woman complained.

“I hear it’s bad all over the country,” Faith commented. Weather. A nice safe topic, and the nation was gripped by the most intense cold in decades. She knew it would take wild horses to drag the neighbor away from the scene, no matter how low the temperature dropped. She was the ghoulish type, someone who not only slowed down to look at an accident but pulled over and stopped.

Faith began to walk up and down to keep warm. She wanted to leave, yet she knew she couldn’t. She didn’t want to draw any attention to Karen Brown at all, and this woman was sure to point out who had found the body.

“Haven’t seen too many, have you? You look kinda sick.”

“Not really.”

“This is nothing. Harry was so eaten up by cancer at the end that even the undertaker had to look away, but 194

they can do wonders. He was a beautiful corpse.

Everybody said so. Of course, my father was the best-looking one. People still mention it to me. So natural, you’d think he would sit up and climb right out of the coffin. People were pinching him to make sure he wasn’t being nailed in by mistake.” Thankfully, the police arrived before she could go into further detail—and Faith knew she would have.

They got right to work. Another car pulled up. It was the medical examiner. “Bumper crop today,” he said cheerfully, buttoning up his heavy black wool coat to his neck.

He waved the neighbor away. She had risen from her chair and had been crouching by his side, next to the body.

She joined Faith, who was standing at the end of the driveway. “Any note?” one of the officers asked.

Faith shook her head. While they had been waiting, she’d ignored the 911 directive and looked in the car, thinking the manuscript might be there, opening the trunk, even the glove compartment. She had, in fact, told the neighbor she was looking for a note.

“She seem troubled lately? Know of any previous attempt?”

Before Faith could say anything, the neighbor took over.

“She’s been real depressed since her mother passed—moved in to take care of her—and lately she’s seemed worse. I saw her yesterday, and she couldn’t keep from crying. Out here on the sidewalk. She’s got a bum for a son, and I’m not surprised she took this way out. She didn’t have a thing to live for.” The police took it all down and appeared satisfied.

They were zipping Lorraine’s mortal remains into a 195

body bag, and Faith looked away. Another image that would haunt her for the rest of her life.

The officer turned toward her. “Anything to add?”

“I didn’t really know her that well. I think she was a bit depressed, but I wouldn’t have said she’d take her own life.”

“Well, you really didn’t know Lorraine, then, did you?” The neighbor snapped. “She’s always gone to one extreme or another, and she’s done it this time.

Maybe she just meant to get Harvey’s attention. It would take something like this to get him to even look her way.”

Once more, the woman had the Fuchs family to a tee. She told them where Harvey lived and that the last time she’d seen him in the neighborhood had been on Monday. “Rides a Harley. He’s hard to miss.”

“Where’s the key to the house? You called from there, right?” an officer asked.

Faith had given the keys back as soon as she had returned. It was hard not to. The woman had had her hand stretched out. Now she slipped it off the ring and gave it to the police. One of the officers went inside.

“I got to get to an autopsy,” the medical examiner said, walking past them on his way to his car. He stopped. “Bring her in, but I don’t think there’s any doubt here. Carbon monoxide poisoning. Classic suicide.” He looked over at Faith with sympathy. “She didn’t suffer at all. She got drowsy and slipped away.

One of the ones I brought back described it as feeling like all his cares were floating away from him and then he fell asleep.”

“If I’d gotten to her earlier, could I have saved her?” She gave voice to the fear that had been plaguing her since she’d dragged Lorraine’s body from the car, a 196

shiny 1975 Ford Galaxy that must have belonged to her parents.

The man shook his head. “You would have to have been out and about in the middle of the night. I think she must have gone to bed, felt overwhelmed, and waited until no one was likely to be stirring. Say two, three this morning. Then she went out to the garage.

She would have been beyond help of any kind in an hour, hour and a half.”

They were taking Lorraine away, and there was no need for Faith to stick around. She was seized by an overwhelming desire to get back home, to get back to Manhattan.

“Is it all right to go now?” she asked. The officer looked weary.

“Yeah, we know how to reach you, right?” Faith nodded. She had given the false name and an address, and a phone number two digits off from her own. She was certain they would never be in touch.

The lies had come easily—at this point, she was even beginning to feel she was Karen Brown.

The ride back to the city was interminable. The train lost power several times, with subsequent starts and stops, flickering lights and darkness. It suited the day.

Faith wanted her aunt Chat’s party to be perfect. It was a swan song for the fabulous apartment in the San Remo, a swan song for the Manhattan chapter in Chat’s life—a lengthy and good read. It was also a swan song for the eighties—this hectic decade where fortunes had been made, lost, and made again. Chat had been a player, a rueful one, but still a player, and she’d sold her advertising agency for a very tidy sum.

She’d told Faith she didn’t want anything trendy—no 197

kiwi, no sushi, and definitely no quiche. Faith and Josie had decided to do a dinner buffet on a Merrie Olde England theme—except, Faith said, with edible food. There’d be roast beef—it had proved popular at the Stansteads’ and other parties Faith had catered—

but not overcooked in the traditional English manner.

She’d serve it with horseradish sauce or gravy and individual Yorkshire puddings. Chat, a devout An-glophile, was thrilled with the notion and insisted on her two favorites: angels-on-horseback and potted shrimp. She also ordered brussels sprouts. Faith was happy to comply, but for those who wanted their angels (oysters) cold and not wrapped in crisp bacon, she planned a large fruits de mer station. Potted shrimp and a large assortment of pates were fine, yet brussels sprouts were not what people wanted to see at a dinner party, even sophisticated New Yorkers. She wasn’t worried, though. She had a wonderful recipe that never produced leftovers. It was a simple one. The sprouts were steamed until just tender, then quickly sauteed over high heat in hazelnut oil with a dash of balsamic vinegar before mixing them with finely ground hazelnuts. It worked well with walnut oil and walnuts, too.

Josie was all for a suckling pig with an apple in its mouth, but Faith felt that was a bit too Henry VIII and decided to serve Scottish salmon with a light hol-landaise for the non-meat eaters. The staff would circulate with a variety of hot and cold hors d’oeuvres.

Chat had decreed that champagne and claret cup would be the only libations offered. “If they want anything else, they can go to another party.” Faith doubted anyone would, but she resolved to tuck in some British ale and a