The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress

Chapter Twenty-Six





PORTLAND, MAINE, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 15, 1930



STELLA slammed the phone down on the bedside table. “How could you be so foolish, Mother?”

Emma glanced up from her knitting, startled. She sat in a high-backed chair next to the window. The curtains were open, and she leaned toward the natural light for help with the intricate pattern. “What?”

“There was a reporter asking for me just now.”

“I didn’t give this number to any reporters. You know that.”

“That was the concierge. George Hall was here. They just found him nosing around the observatory.”

“Why are you angry at me? I had nothing to do with that.”

“That letter you mailed for me, did you put it in a hotel envelope?”

“That’s all they had downstairs.”

“It led him right to us!”

Emma dropped the knitting to her lap and pressed her fingers against her eyelids. “I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that.”

“Obviously not.”

A defensive note crept into her voice. “How did he come by that letter, anyway? It went to the maid. Why did George Hall have it?”

Stella let out a long, defeated breath. “Detective Simon must have taken it from Maria.”

“Why would she do that?”

“They’re married.”

“You can’t be serious?” Emma looked stricken.

“Joe and I helped him get the promotion to detective earlier this year.”

“And you just now remembered this?”

“Of course not. I thought it was very convenient that he got the case, and I didn’t want him removed. Which is exactly what would have happened if I’d told the NYPD that his wife worked for us. It was best to omit that particular detail.”

“Clearly he knows. And said nothing.”

“Protecting his wife, most likely.”

Emma squinted at Stella over her half-moon glasses. Her bright blue eyes narrowed into slits. “What game are you playing at?”

“It’s not a game, Mother. It’s self-preservation.”

“How do you know Maria didn’t give that letter to George Hall?”

“No,” she said. “I’m certain Jude intercepted it. Besides, we wouldn’t even be having this conversation if you hadn’t used the hotel stationery.”

“I don’t plan on apologizing a second time. I didn’t intend that error, but I can’t keep secrets I don’t know about. Take care of the details yourself next time.”

Stella threw herself on the bed and rolled onto her back. All the pieces of her carefully constructed plan were being pulled apart by centrifugal force, disintegrating into chaos. She was losing control. “Joe has ruined me.”

“The fact that you’re in a hotel with a concierge proves that you’re not ruined. You have a perfectly good home—no, make that three perfectly good homes—you could go to. But you chose to come here.”

“Both apartments are in Joe’s name. I show up there and I’ll be slapped with a subpoena before I can unlock the dead bolt. The cabin is mine, of course, but it’s not made for winter residence.” Stella glanced at her mother and wondered if that’s what she would look like in thirty years. Silver hair and watery eyes and thin frame. “Did you know Joe tried to sell it?”


Emma’s jaw clenched. “The cabin? You love that place.”

“He wanted the money for his political campaign.”

“Please tell me you didn’t let him?”

“I walked into his office one morning in April and he was on the phone with Owney Madden, negotiating the price. Twelve thousand dollars. I stood there, dumbfounded. He’d never so much as asked me.”

Emma said nothing, merely waited, her knitting piled on her lap.

“It was the worst fight we’ve ever had. We’ve been married thirteen years and he’d never called me names like that before. I can’t even repeat them to you, Mother.” A frost settled into Stella’s eyes. “But he forgot the deed was in my name. It took some maneuvering, but I got it back.” She glanced at Emma.

“Why the cabin? You have the apartment on Bank Street. And it’s empty.”

“We needed that apartment to keep his voting district in Tammany Hall, and we needed the Fifth Avenue apartment to live in. You know how he was about appearances. In the end, he emptied every savings account, cashed in every stock and bond, and collected life insurance policies and investments for his campaign. And every bit of it is in a brown leather satchel right here in this hotel. I found it all in the apartment when I went back in August.”

Emma’s knitting needles fell to the floor with a tiny clank. “And you couldn’t bother to tell me this?”

“It’s not something I’m proud of.”

“Nor should you be. But still, I deserve that much for gallivanting around the countryside with you.”

Stella swung her legs over the edge of the bed and met her mother’s bold gaze. “If they find Joe, it ruins everything.”

“Ruins what, Stella?”

“My life! Everything we built. Every night I spent alone. Every compromise I made for him. Every one of Joe’s affairs. Not to mention every penny we have. All for nothing!” Stella flung the words at her mother.

Instead of recoiling, Emma moved closer. “Your life—this life you’re screaming about—doesn’t exist. And if you don’t wake up and salvage the life you really do have—the one loaded with debt and scandal—you’re not going to have anything at all.”

Stella arced her back, the tendons in her neck drawn. She could feel the trembling in her spine and the tips of her fingernails digging into her clenched fists. “I have to try, Mother. I have to wait this out. If they find out I knew about Joe’s business dealings, they will freeze every asset we have and they will prosecute me. I will spend the rest of my life in prison for something my corrupt, philandering husband did. So you’ll have to pardon me for being unwilling to take the fall for him. I’m not leaving this hotel until Thomas Crain has finished his grand jury investigation. Only then will I go back to New York and attempt to clean up the mess Joe left behind.”