Free The Body In The Big Apple by Katherine Hall Page

been at any number of dances and parties over the years. Parties. That was it. He’d been at the party she’d catered last week. He was with the host and Michael Stanstead when they came into the kitchen. He must not have been a close friend of Stanstead or he would have said something to Emma today. Unless he was so intent on his reading that he didn’t see her. Or unless he felt he’d be intruding. His presence continued to disturb Faith. What was he doing alone at the café at this hour? The market had just closed.
    She walked out into the bitter cold and took a soft wool cloche out of her pocket, pulling it down over her ears. The hat made her look like a Gatsby girl and filled her hair with static electricity, but it was warm. She stood on Fifth Avenue, glancing back over her shoulder at the huge tree at Rockefeller Center. It waseven more dramatic as the day drew to a close, its lights glowing like jewels against the dark branches.
    On the other side of Fifth stood Saks on one corner, Saint Patrick’s Cathedral on the other. God and mammon. The front windows at Saks were filled each Christmas with ever-more-elaborate moving figures—scenes from The Nutcracker, Dickens, the Arabian Nights —glimmering, glistening fantasies. Shoppers filed by in long lines behind the velvet ropes, funneled at the end of the oohs and aahs into the Palace of Goods.
    Worshipers at other altars across the street—those dedicated to Saint Anthony, Saint John, Saint Theresa—also moved in lines, walking slowly up the nave to gaze back at the rose window and ahead toward the lady chapel. Today, Faith decided to join this crowd. She crossed, darting between two cabs, only one of which, miraculously, honked at her, and climbed the stairs into Saint Patrick’s marble interior. Instantly, she knew she had picked the right place and she walked quietly up the side aisle toward the altar, banked with row upon row of brilliant red poinsettias. The cathedral was filled with a golden glow—tiers of flickering votive candles and interior spots created sudden pools of light against the early dark. The smell of incense mixed with that of burning candle wax and hung in the warm air. She slipped into a row and took a seat on one of the hard wooden pews. She had yet to be in a church—and she’d been in a great many of them over the years—with comfortable seating. She’d mentioned this to her father a few times, commenting that penance of this sort seemed at odds with modern religion. “We don’t beat ourselves with sticks, wear hair shirts, or put pebbles in our shoes. Why do wehave to sit on such unforgiving surfaces?” Once, he’d told her that if the pews were too deeply cushioned, he’d put his parishioners to sleep. Another time, he’d answered that it was simply a matter of economics. Something else was always more pressing—disaster victims, the homeless, the poor, the leaks in the church roof. He’d got her there, yet she continued to secretly hope for a bequest from some eccentric who would stipulate the money could be spent only for the betterment of congregational buns.
    She closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them, the altar blazed before her. It was truly beautiful. She didn’t like poinsettias, opting instead for amaryllis, cyclamen, clivia, and hydrangea during this festive season, yet she would have been the first one to protest the absence of the traditional plants from Saint Patrick’s. Protest. That brought her back to Nate Fox—and Emma.
    It was difficult to sort things out. This last conversation with Emma had made one thing clear, however. She had adored her lost and found father. What’s more, he seemed to have cared for her, displaying the postcards, her wedding photo—though in that case, Faith was sure Fox also got a kick from the irony of conservative Michael Stanstead in full nuptial regalia posed next to,