The Body In The Big Apple by Katherine Hall Page Read Free Book Online Page A

soon? I will call. I promise. Couldn’t have done it without your help!”
    Big help, Faith thought somewhat despondently. She hadn’t even figured out who was blackmailing Emma. Didn’t even have a list. Probably her evil sister. Faith brightened at the thought. It made sense and it was fun to consider. Lucy, the girl you loved to hate. Lucy had been at college when all this was happening, but it was possible she’d have heard about the pregnancy. Emma had made a scene in Dr. Bernardo’s office, and that was the kind of gossip that got around.Faith was surprised she hadn’t heard about it at the time herself. Lucy had also been at the party and could have dropped the card in the hall where it was certain to be found. The blackmailer had to be someone who’d known that Emma would be there.
    She turned back to her work. She was chopping apples for the pork loin. It wasn’t for a party—or rather, not one that she was catering fully. The hostess had ordered it cooked as a full main course. Josie would deliver it with instructions for reheating late in the afternoon. It was a good dish, and when the meat was sliced, the apple and prune stuffing made a tasty little circle in the middle of the juicy meat. She served it with two side dishes: red cabbage, more apples, with a hint of onion and new potatoes that had been quartered and steamed, then sautéed in butter until brown and crispy on the outside. A city tired of cuisine minceur had been tucking into this comfort food with a ferocity. She paused and asked Josie, “Why is it New Yorkers always do everything in extremes? Fads, fashions, foibles—we’re so intense.”
    Josie answered promptly, “That’s easy. You put way too many people in one place and they have to start moving fast just to keep from getting stepped on, bumped around. The rest of the world has opinions, too, but they’re operating at play and New York is fast forward.”
    Made sense to Faith. They worked in companionable silence until the phone rang again. It was Hope.
    â€œI’m in like, maybe love,” she announced joyously.
    â€œAnd who might the lucky object of your affections be this time?” Faith asked, crooking the phone between her chin and shoulder while she continued to work. It could be a long conversation.
    For a sophisticated New Yorker, Hope Sibley was extremely naïve when it came to men, Faith had always found. In high school, her sister had gravitated toward the misunderstood loners, the unrecognized geniuses, the substance abusers. A budding Dr. Joyce Brothers, she was always on the phone saying “Uhhuh” and nodding so constantly that Faith had begun to envision her sister as one of those rear-window car ornaments, heads bobbing around like crazy on a spring. This phase had passed, yet still Hope often failed to vet a new beau with the same thoroughness, obsessive at times, that she turned on a potential stock option. Never one to intrude in her sibling’s life, and therefore ensuring a lifetime of closeness, Faith had felt compelled to have a little chat with Hope after observing her last heartthrob stuffing his pockets with the host’s expensive cigars at a party Have Faith catered in early November. She’d been discreetly hidden from his notice, gazing through a slight opening in the kitchen door. “So tacky, sweetheart,” she’d told Hope. “So not you.”
    Now Hope had found someone new. “Who is it and what does he do?” In a city where you were what you did, Faith tried to make a point of remembering to at least ask for a name first.
    â€œHis name is Phelps Grant and he’s a commodities broker. I met him at a party last weekend. We started talking and things just clicked, Fay.”
    For years, Faith had been vowing to tell Hope how much she disliked the nickname, but for years she’d been putting it off.
    â€œPhelps—prep school, right?