Elizabeth sat down, took the piece of paper that had fallen out of Lambert’s pocket from her purse, and put it on her desk. She stared at it for a few moments then unfolded it, smoothed it out and stared at it some more. The telephone number might not mean anything—nothing at all. It could be Lambert’s tailor or his barber or his tennis partner. But for some reason, Elizabeth had a strong feeling it was significant.
She sighed. Kaminsky was right. The only way to find out was to call the number and see who answered.
Elizabeth hesitated then reached for the telephone on her desk and lifted the receiver. Then she put it back down again. What was she going to say if someone answered?
She stared at the piece of paper some more.
Kaminsky walked by and the strip of paper fluttered in the breeze he created and threatened to drift off her desk.
Kaminsky stopped and looked at Elizabeth. He pointed to the telephone number.
“Do you want me to call?”
“No, no. I’ll do it.” Elizabeth smiled up at him.
Kaminsky raised one of his unruly gray eyebrows at her but walked past.
Elizabeth sat up a little straighter and took the paper in her hand. She read the telephone number again—Rhinelander 4-8864. She picked up the telephone receiver and held it to her ear, her finger poised over the dial.
Then she put the receiver down again. What on earth was she going to say to the person on the other end of the line?
She squared her shoulders and picked up the telephone receiver once more. She put her finger in the hole on the dial and rotated it, then watched as it shuddered back to zero. One by one she dialed the mysterious telephone number that had been in Lambert’s pocket.
There was silence, then the telephone on the other end began to ring. Brrrrrring. Brrrrrring. Elizabeth clenched the receiver in her hand as she waited, half hoping that no one would answer.
Finally the ringing stopped. There was a click and static came across the line as someone picked up the receiver at the other end.
“Hello?” It was a deep female voice with an accent that made the consonants sound soft—as if the person had a lisp.
“Hello?” Elizabeth said in return.
“Who is this?”
“Elizabeth Adams.”
“Are you in trouble?”
The question brought Elizabeth up short. Obviously this wasn’t Lambert’s tailor or barber.
“Yes,” she finally said. She held the receiver tightly to her ear, listening intently.
The woman whispered an address on Second Avenue in the lower Eighties.
“Ask for Magda Farkas. Five o’clock,” she added before abruptly hanging up.
Elizabeth had just managed to jot down the address the woman had given her. She stared at the telephone receiver in her hand for a moment, then finally hung up.
When Kaminsky asked Elizabeth if she’d reached anyone at the number on that piece of paper they’d found, Elizabeth had said no. She felt guilty keeping it from Kaminsky, but she had the feeling that it would be better if she met this woman alone. She still had no idea who she was or whether she had anything to do with Duff Lambert.
Elizabeth slipped out of the newsroom early, saying she had a headache. Kaminsky shooed her out the door urging her to go home and get some rest.
But instead of going home, she headed toward the Lexington Avenue subway. She took the train to the Seventh-Seventh Street stop then walked east to Second Avenue.
As she got closer to the avenue, she noticed a gradual change in the shops and restaurants. Now there were numerous green, red and white awnings and signs in the windows that read Palascintas, Goulash, Gesztenyepüré and Sweet Hungarian Paprika.
She found the address she was looking for—a modest brownstone with slightly crumbling front steps—near the corner of Second Avenue and Eighty-Second Street.
She pushed open the front door and stepped inside. The vestibule was clean with a small mat for wiping one’s feet. Elizabeth felt her hand trembling slightly as she pushed the buzzer for apartment 2A. She took a deep breath to steady herself and waited for the buzzer.
Elizabeth jumped when a young man pulled open the inner door and motioned for her to follow him up the stairs.
He was wearing a white shirt with slightly billowy sleeves and a black vest over it.
“Please,” he said, motioning for her to go through the open door of apartment 2A.
He had an accent similar to that of the woman Elizabeth had spoken to on the telephone.
He ushered her into a parlor where the curtains were drawn tightly over the windows, blocking out any light, and there were deep shadows in the corners of the room. The furniture was dark in color and so was the rug on the floor. A beaded curtain that separated that room from another was the only note of color. Elizabeth thought it gave the room a sinister aspect.
Her palms began to sweat and she was sorry she hadn’t brought Kaminsky with her.
The curtain rattled and a woman stepped through. She was middle-aged with gray hair scooped into a barrette and pinned to the top of her head. Her hands were large and manly. Elizabeth found herself staring at them.
She was wearing a dark skirt with a white blouse that had elaborate and colorful embroidery down the front and on the cuffs.
“Magda Farkas?” Elizabeth said.
Farkas nodded. She stood in the middle of the room with her stocky legs slightly apart and stared at Elizabeth. Elizabeth felt as if she was being minutely examined from her head to her toes.
Farkas waved a hand toward Elizabeth. “How far along are you?” she said in a gruff voice.
Elizabeth was startled. What on earth did the woman mean?
“Excuse me?” Elizabeth said.
“How far along are you?” Farkas repeated. “I won’t touch anyone after eighteen weeks.”
Elizabeth felt a chill run through her. It couldn’t be. She was horrified.
“Not that far, no,” Elizabeth said, hoping Farkas wouldn’t notice the quaver in her voice. Or would she put it down to nerves?
“Who sent you here?” Farkas barked at Elizabeth again.
Elizabeth froze. What should she say?
“Duff Lambert,” she said finally. “He’s my boyfriend.”
Farkas nodded, seemingly satisfied. She clapped her hands together.
“Ah, yes, Mr. Lambert. You are the girlfriend, no? He said you would come. Payment has been taken care of.” She clapped her hands again. “Now let us get a look at you.”
“Actually I’m not—I’m not here for that,” Elizabeth stammered.
Farkas drew her head back like a turtle retreating into its shell and stiffened her shoulders.
“Are you from the police?” she said, looking around her, her head swiveling furiously, as if she expected a squadron of officers to materialize out of thin air.
The young man had come back into the room and upon hearing Farkas’s tone, advanced toward Elizabeth, his fists clenched and a menacing expression on his face. Elizabeth jumped to her feet.
“No, no. Not the police at all. I wondered if you could tell me when Mr. Lambert was here?” Elizabeth opened her purse, pulled out a handkerchief and dabbed at her eyes pretending to cry. “He was supposed to meet me under our tree in Central Park.” She choked back a fake sob. “We carved our initials in it when we were only sixteen.” She buried her face in the handkerchief to give herself time to think.
“He never showed up,” Elizabeth continued, not daring to raise her face, which should have been wet with tears but was perfectly dry. “I waited until the sun went down. I was so cold—I’d forgotten my jacket in my rush to meet him. It was horrible.” Elizabeth broke into racking sobs.
She prayed she was fooling Magda Farkas. She wasn’t much of an actress. When the freshman class put on Antigone at Wellesley, she’d tried out for numerous parts and had failed to secure a single one. She’d been relegated to the Costume and Makeup Committee and had never even made it onto the stage.
“Are you not the girlfriend he arranged things for?” the woman said.
Elizabeth shook her head violently enough that her dark curls swished back and forth across her face.
“No. He has someone else.” She finished on a wail. “I found your telephone number in his pocket along with a note.” She looked up finally, her face still half-hidden in her handkerchief. “I suspected there was someone else, but I didn’t know for sure.”
“So you are not in need of my services?” Magda said.
Elizabeth shook her head. “No. I wanted to know who that telephone number belonged to. I thought maybe it was…hers.” She gave what she hoped was another convincing sob. “When did Mr. Lambert come to you? I want to know everything.”
Magda looked at her suspiciously, and Elizabeth quickly buried her face in her handkerchief again.
“It was a Sunday,” Magda said finally. The weekend before we had that terrible storm and all that rain.” She clapped her hands together again. “And that is all I can tell you. It is time for you to leave.”
Elizabeth nodded and gathered up her purse.
Magda said nothing as Elizabeth walked toward the door, but before the door closed, Elizabeth heard her whisper something to the young man.
Elizabeth stood on the sidewalk for a moment and took a deep breath. It looked as if Lambert had been arranging an abortion for someone and while Elizabeth wasn’t much of a gambler, she figured the odds were good that it wasn’t Nancy Vance.
And if it wasn’t Nancy Vance then the odds were very good that it was Noeleen Donovan.
But if Lambert was in Manhattan meeting with Magda Farkas on that Sunday, then he couldn’t have also been on Long Island when Noeleen was killed.
So while she may have solved one mystery—the father of Noeleen’s baby—she wasn’t any closer to discovering who Noeleen’s killer was.
Elizabeth’s family’s apartment wasn’t far so she decided to walk. The sidewalks were crowded with people returning home from work or dashing to the store for a missing ingredient needed to make dinner. The atmosphere at the end of the day was convivial—festive almost.
She headed west then turned onto Madison Avenue and headed south. A darling pair of fur-trimmed winter boots caught her eye in a shop window, and Elizabeth stopped to admire them. She was about to start walking again when she noticed someone out of the corner of her eye. A young man was staring into the window of a millinary shop next door. It was the young man who had let Elizabeth into Magda Farkas’s apartment.
Was he following her?
Elizabeth began walking again. She walked for a block then stopped and looked in another shop window, pretending to admire the Miriam Haskell tan, coral and chartreuse dress clips on display. She glanced behind her. The young man had disappeared.
Had he merely been sending her a warning? The very thought made her go cold all over.
Helen pounced on Elizabeth before she’d even taken off her hat and coat.
“I have to talk to you,” Helen said, playing with the strand of jet beads around her neck.
Elizabeth sighed. She was tired and had been hoping to put her feet up and read until dinnertime. Besides, she suspected she knew what her mother wanted to talk to her about. News traveled fast in society circles and Elizabeth had no doubt that the particular morsel her mother was referring to had sped from one ear to another with the speed of light.
They went into the sitting room and Elizabeth took a seat by the fire that was burning in the grate. She held her hands to the crackling flames. She hadn’t bothered to stop to put on her gloves and her fingers were cold.
Helen sat opposite Elizabeth, her legs together and tucked demurely to the side. She smoothed the skirt of her plum-colored dress over her knees and cleared her throat.
“What’s this I hear about you and Phillips?” she said finally.
Elizabeth raised one eyebrow. She had the feeling Helen had intended to broach the subject in a more subtle way, but had been unable to contain her anxiety long enough to beat about the bush.
“I don’t know,” Elizabeth said. “What exactly did you hear?”
Helen wet her lips. “Vivian Hicks told me that she heard from her daughter that Phillips had proposed to you but that you turned him down.”
Elizabeth crossed her legs and Helen frowned at her.
“That particular tidbit is true at least,” Elizabeth said. She was relieved that the nasty rumor Phillips was spreading about her hadn’t reached Helen’s ears.
“Won’t you reconsider?” Helen said, fingering the beads around her neck again.
“Why ever should I? I’m not in love with Phillips. I’ve told you that.”
Helen pursed her lips. “I hope this doesn’t have anything to do with that unsavory character who called for you the other evening.”
Elizabeth laughed. She couldn’t help it.
“Sal Marino is a detective with the New York City Police Department. I would hardly call that unsavory, would you?”
“But, darling, you know what I mean. Surely you can see he’s simply not our class? I understand you might feel a certain…attraction toward the man. He has the looks of one of those matinee idols—an Errol Flynn or a William Powell.” A small sigh escaped Helen’s lips. “But that sort of attraction doesn’t last. What does last is a union with someone from your own set. Someone who understands what’s important.”
Money? Elizabeth thought to herself. Status?
At the same time, she knew Helen meant well. Besides, she had no intention of marrying Sal Marino. They’d shared a meal a few times—that was all. And that was all it would ever be.