The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress

Chapter Nine





FIFTH AVENUE, SATURDAY, AUGUST 23, 1930



MARIA stood outside the Craters’ apartment. She paused, then laid her hand on the knob and twisted. Locked. The key rested in her palm, but she pressed her ear to the door and listened. Mrs. Crater was not due back from Maine for another week. The apartment should be empty. But better safe than sorry. Convinced that all was calm and quiet within, she made the sign of the cross and let herself into the apartment.

“Superstición.”

She laughed a little. Perhaps Jude was right and crossing herself was no different from throwing salt over her shoulder. Or spitting three times in reaction to evil. Always the skeptic, he poked and prodded at her faith, searching for thin places where his doubt could push through. Had she possessed a handful of salt just then, she would have gladly tossed it. The lines between religion and superstition were tenuous at best. Today she would take either. Her last two experiences in this home had not been pleasant. Maria locked the door behind her.


She set her purse down and went straight to the master suite. Radio off. Bathroom empty. No one in sight. Maria exhaled for the first time since walking in.

The room looked exactly the way she’d left it the last time she was here. The bed was made and the room straightened. Legal books stacked neatly on the nightstand. Mr. Crater’s robe hung on a hook on the bathroom door. The only difference was the thin film of dust that lay across the furniture. It was undisturbed. Maria ran her finger over the bureau and looked at the mark of clean wood left behind. What had Jude hidden in there, she wondered. Maria lifted the red-and-gold brocade bureau scarf. The key stuck out of the lock, right where he had left it. An invitation.

Curiosity roared through her mind, and Maria could not take her eyes off that small gold key. She reached a hand out and let it hover in the air long enough for her to take a breath and decide. One small turn. She couldn’t help it. The lock clicked and she slid the drawer open. Four manila envelopes piled on top of each other, with Mrs. Crater’s initials written in jerky letters. Maria pulled out the first envelope and balanced its weight in her hand.

Red string was wrapped around two buttons, sealing the envelope. Maria sat on the edge of the Craters’ bed as she slowly unwound it, telling herself all the while to put the envelope back, to leave it alone. Even as her mind objected to the work of her hands, she pulled the envelope open. What could be so important that her husband was willing to violate his own conscience? She tipped the answer into her lap. Maria regretted her decision as soon as she saw the pile of money. Thousands of dollars were stacked and bound with string. She gasped and lifted one from her lap, fanning through the bills with her thumb.

Maria jumped when someone pounded on the front door. For one terrible moment, she thought her employers had returned and that she would be discovered sifting through their belongings. She stuffed the money back in the envelope and then locked it in the drawer.

Her palms were slick with perspiration and her pulse raced as she went to the door and peered through the peephole. The man on the other side looked as though he stood in front of a fun-house mirror: neck and legs stretched to a comical length, eyes abnormally large. She hesitated, uncertain. He didn’t appear threatening. Maria unlocked the door as he lifted his fist to knock again. She cracked it open but left the chain in place. She waited for him to speak.

“I’m looking for Joseph Crater.” The man was young and clean-shaven with a wide grin. Unusually tall. He seemed to quiver with energy, as though he might come bounding through the door at any second.

She cleared her throat. “He’s not here.”

“Do you know where I can find him?”

Maria wasn’t in the habit of telling strangers the location of her employer. But this was general enough. “In Maine. Vacaciones.”

He pulled a small notebook from a pocket inside his suit coat and scratched a few indecipherable lines. “When do you expect him back?”

“Who are you?” Maria said, suddenly cautious.

“George Hall, with the New York World.” There was barely enough room for him to stick his hand through the crack in the door.

She did not take it. “What do you want?”

“I’m usually the one who asks the questions. This is a nice change of pace. Mind if I come in?”

“Yes.”

“I promise I’ll only stay a minute. Have a look around.” Maria went to close the door, but he stepped back, palms up. “Hey, I’m sorry. Can’t blame me for trying.”

“I think you need to leave.”

“No one has seen your boss in weeks,” George said.

Her hand grasped the knob tighter. “He’s in Maine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.” Maybe. “We spoke on the fourth. He said he was going back there.” Fears rushed in on Maria. Jude. The cash in that envelope. The woman in Mr. Crater’s bed.

“Is that the last time you saw him?” George whipped his pen across the pad, quick, blunt strokes that almost tore the paper.

“Yes.”

“Did anything seem wrong? Was he upset?”

The image of her boss wrapped in a towel and dripping wet surfaced in her mind. “No.”

“One more question. And it’s not about him. I promise.” George smiled. His pen hovered over his notepad. “What’s your name?”

Maria looked at the notes he’d scratched so far, furious with herself. She’d given him a story. None of the information she relayed could incriminate her employer or the girl he’d brought home or, most important, Jude, but it was still too much. There was no way her name was going in that article. She thought of the first name that came to mind. Her mother’s. “Amedia.” She cleared her throat, and then, “Mi nombre es Amedia Christian.”

Maria pressed her forehead against the door when the reporter left. Mr. Crater signed her paychecks. Mr. Crater was gone. His mistress was intent on getting rid of their illegitimate child, while she herself could not get pregnant. Jude was planting evidence and doing God knows what else. She went back to the bedroom and opened the bureau drawer. She removed the cash-heavy envelope.


IT took every ounce of Maria’s self-control not to run from the Craters’ apartment. She was flushed and uneasy, the money heavy in her purse. Maria started counting when she locked the apartment door. Fifteen steps to the elevator. Twenty-three across the lobby. Only once she was outside in that thick air did she start to tremble. But she took steady, measured footsteps the five blocks to Smithson’s. She did not hold the bell when she walked in. Did not raise her head. Her only goal was the small work area. Maria crumpled into her chair. A bead of sweat trickled down her rib cage, and she gave herself the freedom to place her hand over her heart. To close her eyes.

Had her father still worked for Smithson, he would have known with a single glance what she had done. But he’d long since gone blind and been forced out of his job. It was his failing eyesight that pushed her to master the art of stitching in the first place. What his eyes could not see, his fingers did. He counted her stitches with diligence, never letting her skip. It was a game they played in recent years, Maria sitting near his feet on the floor doing stitchwork as they talked. Adding or deleting stitches at random to see if he would notice. Then she’d hand the pieces over for inspection. Without fail, he’d call her out.

“Two missing on the inseam. Seven extra on the hem.”

“You shouldn’t have quit, you know. No one does this better than you.”

“I didn’t quit. I went blind. Besides, you do this better than me.”

“No.”

“Yes. You’re faster. More accurate.” He raised an eyebrow and turned toward the sound of her voice, one pale eye searching the space where he knew she must be. “Unless you miss on purpose.”

“Smithson should have kept you.”

“That man hated me.”

“He respected you.”

“Respect and profit are two different things, hija.” He patted her head. “And you? Does he like you?”

“He likes my work. But he pays me less than half what he paid you.”

Her father sat in silence for a moment. “El Smithson de los cojones.”

“Papa!”

“It’s true.”

“Perhaps. But I wouldn’t speak it out loud.”

“You think God doesn’t hear it if you don’t say it out loud?” He tapped her forehead with one long finger. “He hears everything.”


“Is that supposed to comfort me?”

“Depends on what you’re thinking.”

That was how it went with them, the banter, whenever they were together. Her marriage to Jude had strained their relationship to the point of breaking at first, but she learned quickly not to bring him on her weekly visits. Once or twice a year, at Christmas and Easter, was plenty. They all got along better if they pretended that Maria had not cast custom aside and married an agnostic.

“Maria.” She startled from the memory at the sound of Smithson’s voice. “To the fitting room, if you don’t mind. Mr. Madden is waiting for you.”

She blinked at him. “Oh. His appointment.”

“You forgot?”

“No. Just gathering my thoughts.”

“Why don’t you gather his suits and meet us back there?”

“Right away.”

Maria had just begun the stitching on one of the five suits. Three others were cut, and the last was only outlined in chalk on a bolt of gray English wool. She grabbed her sewing bag and went into the supply room. She lifted the five long cardboard boxes from a shelf. Each was marked with Mr. Madden’s name, measurements, order specifics, and estimated date of completion. Maria balanced the boxes precariously in her arms as she pushed the fitting room door open with her foot.

“Mrs. Simon,” Owney said with a nod, his accent blurring the words into one indistinguishable moniker: Missessimon.

“Sir.” Maria set the boxes on the platform. Her heart raced beneath the thin fabric of her dress, but miraculously her voice was steady. “Thank you for coming in again. I know it can be inconvenient. But we’re ensured the best fit if we can put you inside the garment before completion.”

His small, dark eyes darted across her face and body as though he were taking measurements of his own. “I don’t mind.”

Maria looked away. “If you would kindly remove your jacket and trousers, Mr. Smithson will assist you into your suit. I’ll step from the room.”

“There’s no need. I’m not shy.”

Maria shut the door behind her softly and leaned against it, struggling to regain her composure. She heard them speaking inside but could not understand the words. Maria took two gulps of warm air to steady herself. After counting to one hundred, she returned to the room.

Owney stood on the riser in his socks as Smithson draped the jacket over his shoulders. Little more than a blueprint, the basted suit still had clear chalk lines and was lightly stitched together so that adjustments could be made if necessary. They rarely were. Where other tailors often had to disassemble a suit to account for additional alterations, Maria did not. Only once had she been forced to recut a suit, and that was after a client gained ten pounds between fittings.

“It looks good,” she said. “We will probably be able to finish this in two fittings instead of three.”

“You do good work.” Owney looked in the mirror and assessed his reflection.

The length, neck points, and cuffs of his jacket were all precisely measured, but Maria thought the trousers gapped a little too much at his waist. She pulled her pincushion from the sewing bag and knelt on the riser.

“Do you ever freelance?” Owney asked.

“Excuse me?”

“Do you ever accept work on your own time?”

Maria glanced at the scowl on Smithson’s face. “No.”

“So if I wanted to employ you for another project, I would need to go directly through Smithson here?”

“Yes.” She pinched the section of excess fabric at his waist and speared it with a pin. “Hold still.”

Owney watched her, a curious expression on his face. “Why are you wearing a maid’s uniform?”

Maria reached up and touched the cap on her head. She cursed herself. In her haste to get out of the Craters’ apartment, she had forgotten to change. A foolish oversight, as Smithson was not fond of her dual employment being known. It made him look stingy.

“Against my advice and better judgment, Mrs. Simon works as a domestic when she is not here,” Smithson said, as though the admission would discredit her tailoring skills.

“For who?”

What to say? That he had seen her twice before? Once with a tray of champagne at the Craters’ apartment. “If you’re not comfortable with my services, I’m sure Mr. Smithson would be only too happy to provide a more traditional arrangement.”

“Your services, Maria,” he said, “are a pleasure.”

She stepped away from the platform and stuffed the pincushion back in her bag. “The suit fits perfectly. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have one left to cut, and I need to begin if all five will be done by the beginning of November. Have a good day.”

“Can I watch?”

“What?”

“I’d like to watch you cut my suit. It’s not every day a man has a chance to see that.” Owney turned to Smithson and lifted one eyebrow, challenging him to object.

“Of course.” He glared at Maria. “I’ll help you get dressed, and we’ll join Mrs. Simon in the cutting room.”

Unlike the fitting room, the cutting room was all function and no form. A square room at the back of the shop with a long table and bright lighting, it boasted a collection of scissors rivaled only by Savile Row’s. None were allowed out of the room, and any employee caught cutting paper with them would be fired. Nothing dulled a pair of scissors like paper. To use them for that purpose was an act of sacrilege.

Maria collected the garment boxes and put all but one back on the supply room shelf. The last box she took to the cutting room. Inside was a bolt of fabric with irregular shapes marked out in pale chalk lines along one side. She rolled the fabric onto the table and smoothed it with her hand.

A few minutes later, Smithson and Owney joined her. “A demonstration, Mrs. Simon? Our client is very eager to witness this part of the process.”

“There’s nothing magical about it, I’m afraid,” Maria said. “It just takes a steady hand.”

The jovial Owney seemed to have vanished during the short trip to the cutting room, and for the first time, she saw the dark gangster whom Jude had warned her about. He stood beside her, arms crossed over his chest, brooding.

“Go on,” he said.

Maria lifted a pair of scissors from the shelf and folded the length of cloth in half. The chalk lines faced up, and she pressed the fabric flat with her palm. She made sure there were no ripples or folds in either layer. A deep breath. And then she cut the first sleeve. Normally, this was the simplest part of constructing a suit. But with Owney Madden standing at her shoulder, she struggled to keep her hand from trembling.

At one point, Smithson tried to offer commentary on the process, but Owney raised a hand to silence him.

After the second sleeve, she could no longer tolerate the silence. “You’ll see that I have allowed three-inch adjustments to the inlays for the main body seams,” she said, not looking at Owney for permission to speak. “They will be felled by hand, and the vent and front edge will be prick-stitched. You’ll notice special features on the finished product—namely, the slanted breast pocket, the left lapel buttonhole with a sewn flower loop, an inlay under the collar, cuffs with slit openings, cross-stitched buttons, and the reinforced pockets and gorge.”

Maria turned to explain that he would be hard-pressed to find a suit of this quality anywhere else in New York. But Owney wasn’t looking at the suit. He was staring at her.


“You work for Joseph Crater, Mrs. Simon,” he said.





CLUB ABBEY


GREENWICH VILLAGE, AUGUST 6, 1969



Club Abbey was owned by Owen “Owney” Madden. Madden, a Liverpool native, had been a gang leader in his youth, later a leading bootlegger, an occasional backer of Broadway shows (including Mae West’s Sex), and a fellow with a violent past.

—Richard J. Tofel, Vanishing Point





“I read your memoir,” Jude says. He leans across the table to where his coat hangs limp on a peg and pulls a slim book from an inside pocket. The coat has seen better days. So has the book. He lays it, scratched and dog-eared, faceup on the table and slides it toward Stella. The cover is plain: title in red, a byline—Stella and her cowriter—and a poor rendition of a jurist’s black robe.

“You weren’t impressed?”

“It was two hundred and ten pages of unconvincing.”

“So you’re a better judge of the facts?”

“I have respect for the facts. That’s the difference.” He jabs a finger at the book. “You’re a lot of things, Stella, but weak and naive aren’t two of them. You come across as helpless in this thing. I’d even go so far as to say stupid. I know you better than that.”

Stella looks at the book for the first time since he set it on the table. Her eyes scan the title: The Empty Robe: The Story and Legend of the Disappearance of Judge Crater. “I suppose that means you don’t want me to sign it?”

“If you’re of the mind to sign something, a confession would be great. You can borrow my pen. Start with where to find the body.”

“Always so obsessed with the body. Haven’t you figured out there are more important things?” She flicks her wrist at him, irritated. “You really think I killed my husband?”

Jude plays with the end of his pen, sending a little clicking sound into the silence between them. “I’m certain you know who did.”

When Stella sighs, it sounds like gravel in a bucket, all rattle. She points a spindly finger at him. “Your problem is that you always rush things. You show up on a doorstep or slide into a booth and demand answers. But you’re no good at listening.”

A mound of ashes rests in the ashtray, and her supply of cigarettes has dwindled by half. They lay across the table like bleached railroad ties. She chooses one at random and rolls it between her fingers.

“Forgive me if I’m a little short on patience these days,” Jude says. “It’s been thirty-nine years.”

“You don’t have to remind me how long it’s been. For you, this was just a case. But it’s something I’ve lived and breathed and suffered through every day since Joe left.”

“Still playing the grieving wife? I thought you were long past that.”

“Lighter,” she demands.

Jude hands it over, and she wrestles with the striker, her fingers weak and curled in on themselves. Stella refuses when Jude offers to help. After a few moments, she succeeds in producing a spark large enough to ignite the fluid. The paper burns orange and then black as a thin trail of smoke drifts toward the ceiling. She puffs on the cigarette a few times and then hacks a wet cough into her palm.

“Suffering and grief are two different things. I don’t grieve my husband’s passing. But I do suffer the loss.”

“That’s not what you said in here. Convinced your writer well enough, by the look of things. He painted you as the ultimate victim.” Jude flips the book open and thumbs through the pages until he reaches the epilogue. He reads: “ ‘Because work is her only surcease, the single antidote to a sorrow which three decades settled upon but could not bow her slender but proudly squared shoulders.’ ” He chucks it back to the table in disgust.

“I think he fancied me,” she says. “Besides, it was his job to write me as sympathetic.”

“He failed. Did anyone actually buy that bullshit?”

“It went into several printings. The Saturday Review called it ‘absorbing’ and ‘fascinating.’ So, yes, quite a few people bought it.”

Stella pushes the ice cubes around her drink with the tip of one finger. Only two cubes remain, and they don’t have enough weight to clink against the glass when she pokes them. She fishes them out with her thumb and forefinger. Eats them. The four decades since Joe’s disappearance have not been kind to Stella, and the smoking in particular has taken its toll. Deep crevices around her thinning lips suggest a mouth too often puckered in anger or craving. Her teeth, once bright and white, are stained yellow, and they grind the ice cubes into shards.

“People wanted to know my side of things. So I told them.” Stella turns the book over and sets it facedown on the table. She slides it back toward Jude. “My publishers at Doubleday thought it would be a good touch to hire Oscar Fraley to write the book. He’d recently had all that success with The Untouchables, and they believed it would add a certain”—she waves her finger around, searching for the right word—“authenticity to the story, given the subject matter. Owney Madden and Tammany Hall and political corruption. The grieving widow gave it a human touch.”

“So the book was, what? A way to cash in?”

“We all have bills to pay. Some more than others. Do you know where I’ve been the last six years, Detective?”

“A nursing home in Mount Vernon.”

“I prefer to think of it as a retirement home, complete with medical care for the terminally ill.” She holds the cigarette up for his inspection. “My doctor found the tumors seven years ago. They took the first lung a year later. Seeing as how I don’t have another to spare, I figured I’d make my last days as comfortable as possible.”

The sound of the ice dispenser echoes through the bar, and before long Stan arrives at the booth, pitcher and tongs in hand. He drops six cubes into her glass, considers the untouched other drink, and does the same. The once-amber liquid now looks like weak tea. He retreats without a word.

“He’s attentive,” Jude says.

“He’s nervous. I’ve never had company during this—”

“Charade?”

“Ritual. Stan doesn’t know what to make of it.”

Jude has another theory, but he doesn’t share. It might infuriate her, and he needs Stella content. Chatty. So he spins the lighter in a little circle on the table with his thumb and chooses his words carefully. “I want to know about those envelopes. When you found them. And what was really inside.”