Take Out

by Margaret Maron

“They said not,” Albee said.

  They looked up as Tillie entered the squad room with a gray-haired woman who dabbed at her tear-swollen eyes with a wad of tissues.

  “Lieutenant, this is Mrs. Woods. She’s just formally identified our second victim. Jack Bloss was her brother.”

  Dealing with grief-stricken relatives was still the most uncomfortable part of the job for Sigrid, but she tried. “We’re so sorry for your loss, Mrs. Woods.” She gestured for Tillie to bring a chair. “Please sit down. Do you feel up to talking about him? Answering a few questions?”

  The woman nodded tearfully and Sigrid signaled for Hentz and Tillie to join them.

  “Can we get you something?” Tillie asked. “Coffee? Water?”

  Without waiting for an answer, Dinah Urbanska promptly fetched a bottle from the break room. When Lt. Harald didn’t dismiss her, she slid her own chair closer to them so she could hear.

  Fern Woods unscrewed the cap and took a sip of water, then set the bottle on the floor beside her. She took fresh tissues from the box that Sigrid offered and turned them over and over in her restless hands, shredding them as she talked about her brother, the shock of learning about his death, the disbelief that someone would poison him. Unlike her ex-sister-in-law, her words came hesitantly.

  No, she could offer no reason why someone might want Jack dead. Were they sure it wasn’t an accident? Or another heart attack? “He had a pacemaker. Maybe he took too many of his pills?”

  “We’re pretty sure it was in his food,” Sigrid said. “Someone gave him lasagna that had Coumadin in it.”

  “Lasagna? Jack’s last meal was lasagna?” More tears welled up in her eyes.

  “Yes,” Sigrid said, puzzled as to why that mattered.

  “Jack liked Italian food okay, but lasagna wasn’t one of his favorites. He didn’t care for tomato sauce, poor guy.”

  “Did you ever hear him speak of Charlotte Randolph?”

  Mrs. Woods nodded. “Not in years, though. Jack got me in backstage to hear her sing once when he was working at the Met, and he introduced us. Wonderful voice and not a bit snobby.”

  “Did they have an affair?”

  “Jack wasn’t married then,” she said defensively. “And neither was she.”

  “Did it last long?”

  She shook her head. “Things never lasted long with Jack, I’m afraid. My brother was a sweet man, Lieutenant, and he had many good qualities, but monogamy wasn’t one of them. Their affair was long over by the time he moved down to Broadway and met Mary and—” She gave them a startled look. “Mary! His ex-wife. Does she know about Jack? Did you talk to her?”

  “We did,” said Tillie.

  She managed a weak smile. “I can imagine what she had to say about him. But she wanted the marriage. Wanted to stop working. As I said, women never lasted long with Jack, but Mary played him like a trout. Wouldn’t let him put his hand up her skirt till he’d put a ring on her finger. We were both dressers on Skirts Ahoy, but actors didn’t like to use her if they could help it because she talked too much. It’s hard to stay in character if someone’s chattering in your ear like a magpie when you’re trying to remember your next lines while you change costumes. She was pretty, though, and sexy and after an evening of too many martinis, they eloped. He was ready to call it quits after three months, but by then she was pregnant. They stayed together twelve years for the sake of the boy, till they were both so sick of each other that—”

  Her eyes widened, then filled with tears again. “Jacky,” she whispered. “Mary was ready to have his IV tubes removed a month after the accident. Now she’ll get her way, won’t she?”

  She reached blindly for the box of tissues again. “I’m sorry. In his heart of hearts, Jack knew that Jacky was never going to open his eyes again. Never going to get up out of that bed, but he just couldn’t let the boy go. Maybe it’s best. Nineteen years and she barely visited him. And she certainly didn’t help with the expenses. Jack had a good pension from the union, but she got part of it in the divorce settlement and after the accident, it took almost every penny he had to keep Jacky in that nursing home.”

  She blew her nose and gave them an apologetic smile. “But this isn’t what you need to know, is it? You said Charlotte Randolph? I don’t think they’d been in touch for years. Why did he go see her?”

  “She said he brought her the program from the night she went on for the star after the accident.”

  Mrs. Woods gave a crooked smile. “Oh yes. That famous accident.”

  “What do you mean?” Sigrid asked.

  “Nothing,” said Mrs. Woods. “Nothing.”

  This east-facing room on the third floor had begun as a nursery. The first time Orla had seen it, fresh paper, patterned in colorful Mother Goose illustrations, covered the walls and all the trim had been painted white. The windows had white shades and sheer white curtains. The crib, rocking chair, changing table, and chest of drawers were white enamel, and although the chest held diapers and a few neutrally colored outfits, everything else was bare. No cushions, no colorful accessories.

  “My wife wanted to wait until we knew which it was,” Benny DelVecchio had said, pointing to two large piles of shopping bags from various Midtown department stores. One pile held blue items, the other pink. “Send the blue things back and make this a room fit for a princess.”

  Although she had been hired two months in advance, Orla’s first day on the job had felt like a baptism by fire. Except for a driver who shared a room in the basement with DelVecchio’s bodyguard, there was no other help in the house. The cook and maid had either quit or been fired, so there was no one to tell her the lay of the land and she was too intimidated by her employer and the other two men to ask questions.

  Word had gone around a few months earlier that after years of trying and now nearing forty, the wife of Benny Olds was expecting a baby and a nursemaid would be required. Someone strong and unafraid of work.

  “And not pretty,” the crones of their community had whispered.

  The Orlano girl, they decided. She had been brought over from the old country ten years ago to nurse an elderly aunt who had never learned English. The aunt had died, the uncle had remarried, and the second wife wanted her out of the house. Almost thirty, with no dowry and no marital prospects in sight, she would make a perfect nursemaid for Sofia DelVecchio, they said.

  And Sofia had agreed.

  Although she had sailed through the first seven months with barely a touch of morning sickness, the last two months had been difficult, she told Orla, and the doctor had prescribed bed rest and no strenuous activity. Wrapped in a fluffy white comforter, she had interviewed Orla from the depths of a blue velvet recliner in the master bedroom on the second floor, which was where she received all her visitors now that she was no longer allowed to use the stairs.

  Orla’s competence had been vouched for by the crones. She was neat, and her voice did not set Sofia’s nerves on edge. More to the point, she was built like a fire hydrant, her wiry dark hair did not invite a man’s fingers, and those thick eyebrows could never be shaped into delicate arches.

  “My husband will let you know when the baby is born,” she said.

  “I could start now,” Orla said, eager to leave her uncle’s house where she was no longer welcome.

  “No! You will come when the baby is born and not a day earlier. I won’t have anyone hovering over me. Your salary will start today, though. Be ready to come when he calls.”

  Orla’s bags had been packed for a week when Benny Olds’s driver picked her up and deposited her at Number 409.

  Next day, he and his wife brought their daughter home to this room that Orla had decorated with the pink things, right down to the fuzzy pink teddy bear she bought herself.

  The baby, christened Aria Marie, refused Sofia’s breast, so it was Orla who got up in the night, who ran down the back stairs to warm the bottle and who gave her heart so completely that her dry breasts tingled when the baby cried.
Surely they would let down milk if she yielded to temptation and pressed that tiny mouth to her nipples, but she did not dare. Although Sofia usually slept through, Signor Benito would occasionally come up to the nursery in those early hours and hold out his arms to take over his daughter’s feeding.

  She was still fearful of the man during the day, but here in the dimly lit nursery, listening as he rocked the baby and crooned Italian lullabies, she could almost pretend that Aria was their child. She did not love him and she no longer wanted a husband, but this was a taste of what her life could have been and it made her love the baby even more.

  That sweet-tempered baby had grown into a sunny golden child, then into a happily married woman. When her own daughter was born, Aria had persuaded Sofia to let Orla come help with Laura for the first month.

  Orla loved the new baby, but her breasts did not tingle when Laura cried. No warming bottles for this one, though. To Aria’s delight, she suckled like a greedy little pig.

  Those were happy, peaceful years. Aria came into town at least twice a month to shop, to see the latest plays, to play cards with Sofia after dinner and to help Orla tidy the kitchen after her mother went to bed.

  Her death had brought so much grief that Orla was now ready to admit that having Laura here was a good thing. Already she had shaken up their routine.

  On Saturday, while Orla stripped the room and Sal painted the walls—Aria had banished the Mother Goose paper when she turned eight—Laura had coaxed Sofia into shopping for new furniture. It was the first time Sofia had left the house for pleasure since the funeral and the outing seemed to have done her good.

  “Spending money’s always fun, isn’t it, Nonna?” Laura had teased.

  “Especially if it’s someone else’s money,” Sofia had said dryly, but it was clear that she had enjoyed herself.

  Fresh linens for the bed and bath had been delivered only that morning and as Orla slipped a pillow into a crisp new pillowcase, the front doorbell rang.

  Orla sighed and started for the door, but Laura was halfway down the stairs by the time she reached the hall.

  “I’ll get it, Nonna,” she called to Mrs. DelVecchio, who was in the living room, half dozing over a book.

  The white-haired woman who stood on the top step was a stranger, but her smile was so warm that Laura immediately smiled back. Smiled with approval, too, at a woman who seemed comfortable with both her age and who she was. Her expensive haircut and stylish clothes flattered without trying to pretend that the body they covered was a size four and forty years younger. There was something familiar about her, though, something to do with the way she carried herself, that air of command.

  Like Nonna, was Laura’s subconscious thought.

  “Hello,” the woman said. “Is Mrs. DelVecchio in?”

  “Is she expecting you?” the girl countered.

  “Tell her it’s Charlotte Randolph.”

  Laura’s eyes widened in surprise, but before she could react, she heard her grandmother say in an icy voice, “Show her in, Laura.”

  Laura held the door wide and the stranger passed her, then paused just inside the front room.

  Mrs. DelVecchio sat like a queen in a massive chair of intricately carved wood that faced the door.

  “Charlotte,” she said flatly.

  “Sofia,” the woman answered. Impossible to flatten the music still in her voice.

  “Shall I bring you some tea?” asked Laura. “Or some of Orla’s lemonade?”

  “No,” said Mrs. DelVecchio without asking her visitor. “Nothing. Close the door, Laura, and go back upstairs.”

  CHAPTER

  18

  Sigrid leaned back in her chair and gazed at Jack Bloss’s sister with such skeptical gray eyes that Fern Woods had to look away.

  “Did your brother say it wasn’t an accident?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  The woman hesitated for a long moment, then gave a sigh of capitulation. “Marta Constanza didn’t trip on those metal steps. Someone pushed her.”

  “Your brother?”

  “No! Jack would never do something like that. He saw it happen, though. He was up on one of the catwalks when some guy he’d never seen before started up the steps as she was coming down. Jack said that from below, it looked like he’d missed a step accidentally. Even Constanza herself thought it was an accident, but from where Jack was standing, he thought the guy deliberately bumped her. Especially since he kept going and never stopped or looked back even though she was bleeding and people were yelling for an ambulance.”

  “And he didn’t tell anybody at the time?”

  Mrs. Woods shook her head. “His fling with Charlotte Randolph was over, but they had stayed friends and he was happy for her big break, especially when she got that great review the next day. No one else was questioning the fall and he didn’t want to rain on her parade.”

  “So it could have been a real accident?”

  “Maybe.”

  “But you don’t think so?”

  “I wasn’t there!” she said tearfully. “I don’t know! All I know’s what Jack said.”

  “Which was?”

  “She had a new boyfriend, a big-time mobster. Jack always wondered if maybe he’d sent somebody over to take out Marta Constanza since Randolph was her backup cover.”

  “Did he say who the mobster was?”

  “Not that I remember.”

  Sigrid glanced at Sam Hentz, who was looking thoughtful.

  “When we found your brother, he had close to five hundred dollars on him. He had just come from seeing Miss Randolph and he knew she was writing her autobiography. Would he blackmail her to keep quiet about that accident?”

  “No! Jack was a good man. He wouldn’t do that. I’m sure he wouldn’t.”

  “Even though he needed money for his son?”

  That made her pause.

  “For Jacky?” Her eyes filled with tears again and she reached for a fresh tissue. “For Jacky, he might.”

  “Well, well, well,” said Hentz when Tillie had escorted Mrs. Woods from the squad room. “Charlotte Randolph and Benny Olds.”

  “She did tell us that he used to come over and ask her to sign his opera programs,” Sigrid said dryly.

  “I bet he got more than a signature,” said Lowry.

  Elaine Albee rolled her eyes. “So that five hundred was maybe the first installment to keep Bloss from wrecking her book?”

  “Or to keep him happy till he’d had a chance to eat the pasta she gave him?” asked Urbanska.

  “See what you can find out,” Sigrid told them.

  Taking the stairs two at a time, an excited Laura Edwards burst into the bedroom as Orla smoothed a final wrinkle from the bedspread.

  “Charlotte Randolph, Orla! She’s down there with Nonna! They know each other!”

  “Who?”

  “Charlotte Randolph. She used to be an opera singer. Famous!”

  “Puttana!” Orla snarled, making a rude arm gesture.

  Laura was startled. She didn’t know the word, but she had seen that gesture. “Orla?”

  “What does she want? Why is she here?”

  “I don’t know. Nonna told me to close the door and come back up here. Why? What’s going on? Do you know her, too? Why don’t you like her?”

  “It’s not my place to like or not like.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. “Do this one thing for me, cara mia. Don’t upset your nonna by asking questions.”

  She spoke so pleadingly that the girl said, “All right. But only if you tell me why.”

  “Will you promise not to tell?”

  “I promise, Orla.”

  “Signor Benito loved your nonna, truly and deeply. This you must believe. But he was a man of many appetites. Opera. Women. So—”

  Laura was wide-eyed with excitement. “Charlotte Randolph was his mistress?”

  “You will not speak of this.”

  “I won’t. I promise. Poor N
onna…but, wow! Charlotte Randolph!”

  Downstairs, Sofia watched as Charlotte walked over to the framed pictures massed on a side table and picked up a formal family portrait: Benny and Sofia with two-year-old Aria on his lap. “She had his curls, didn’t she? Was that her daughter who opened the door? She’s a blonde, too.”

  “Why are you here?” Sofia asked, reaching for the picture.

  Charlotte handed it over with a smile and sat down in a nearby chair. “I’m writing a book. The story of my life.”

  “So?”

  “My whole life.”

  Sofia leaned back in the chair and waited for the blow.

  “Benny was a part of my life. You know that.”

  Sofia nodded wearily. “I always knew you would not keep your word.”

  “If you and I were the only ones left who knew, I would have, but Jack Bloss was there and saw it all.”

  “Who?”

  “The man who died beside your nephew.”

  “Godson. Matty was my godson, not my nephew.”

  “Whichever. Jack Bloss knew that Benny sent someone to cause that accident. He wanted money to keep quiet.”

  “So? This Jack Bloss? He’s dead now, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, he’s dead. But did the story die with him? I doubt it.”

  “So?”

  “There are many stories I could tell about Benny, Sofia. I shall tell only that one. And I want something from you in return.”

  “You’re taking everything and you want more?”

  “I’m not your enemy and I don’t want to hurt you.”

  “Ha!”

  “Don’t laugh. I mean it. Everyone knew that he slept with many women. He was no more faithful to me than he was to you. But you were his wife. The mother of his child. I won’t write anything to hurt that. He adored you.”

  “And you bewitched him.”

  “The music bewitched him, not me. He thought we were living in a Puccini opera.”

  “A soap opera,” Sofia said scornfully.

  “Possibly. Nevertheless…”

  “Nevertheless,” Sofia mimicked as she faced her old rival. “So what exactly will you write about my Benito?”