The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress

Chapter Thirty-Nine





FINANCIAL DISTRICT, MANHATTAN, MONDAY, AUGUST 24, 1931



STELLA reported for work at eight. Unable to justify the cab fare, she’d taken the subway, and she was still unsettled as she walked through the intricately detailed lobby of the Transportation Building. One of the newer skyscrapers in Lower Manhattan, it had a masonry exterior with a charming stepped-back form. But it was the capped copper roof in the shape of a pyramid that set the building apart from its neighbors. It was lovely, and Stella was grateful to be there, as opposed to a retail store. Or, God forbid, the garment district. Her mother had objected, of course, had said she was too good for the job, that she should hold out for something more dignified. But Stella brushed aside the comment, noting that beggars couldn’t be choosers. She had brought this on herself, after all. So she stood tall, lifted her chin, and resumed the role of working woman for the first time in fourteen years.

“Name?” the receptionist asked when Stella approached the sprawling counter in the lobby.

“Stella,” she said.

The woman stared at her with an insolent expression, waiting for elaboration.

“Stella Clark,” she added. “I’m one of the new switchboard operators.”

She slid a long fingernail down a clipboard until she found Stella’s name, then tapped it as if to say, Here you are. She jutted the clipboard toward Stella. “Sign in.”

Stella scratched her name on the paper with a pen that was almost out of ink, then stepped around the desk and walked toward the elevator.

“Where do you think you’re going? The switchboard is in the basement.”

Stella pointed toward the ceiling. “I interviewed up there.”

“Yeah, well, you’ll be working down there.” She pointed toward a hallway off the lobby. “Stairwell is at the end. Don’t forget to sign out when you leave.”

Stella turned away from the elevator and the bright lobby and walked down the narrow hallway. She wouldn’t be working in a high-rise, after all, but in a dark, dank basement. The air seemed to close in around her as she nudged the stairwell door open and peered down the flight of steps. Flickering bulbs cast a cold gray light. Stella descended to the floor below, wishing she’d worn more practical shoes. She’d purchased the twenty-dollar heels two years earlier after seeing Joan Blondell wear them in Life magazine. They’d been a special order from Saks, and she’d had to wait three weeks for them to arrive from Hollywood. Stella had been so proud of the shoes, but since she’d left her apartment, they’d already rubbed a blister on her ankle where the strap buckled. She limped toward a solid metal door that read SWITCHBOARD. Stella pushed it open and stood, dazed at the chaos within.


Fifteen women sat on swivel chairs before a wall of lights and wires and plugs. Each wore a headset and a solemn face as she directed calls to the offices above.

An older woman with a brash voice and unkempt hair barreled toward her. Her name tag read LOIS, and she held a roster in the crook of her arm. “Are you Stella Clark?”

Stella winced at the fake last name she’d given when applying for the job. Her real name was too controversial. Too easy to reject out of hand. “Yes, I am.”

“You’re late.”

“It’s eight—”

“The Transportation Building opens for business at eight o’clock. Your shift begins at seven forty-five. Now get to work. The other girls have been covering your station.”

Stella received a glare or two as she followed the floor manager down the row to an empty station at the end. “Go on, we don’t have all day.”

She sat, only to find that her swivel chair was broken and her headset was taped together in two spots. Stella held it in place with one hand to stop it from sliding off her head.

“What are you waiting for?” Lois asked.

Stella glanced at the massive contraption in front of her. With all the cables and bulbs and coils of wire, it looked as though its innards were spilling out. “I don’t know how to work this thing yet.”

“If you’d gotten here on time, that wouldn’t be a problem.” Lois lifted the roster and put a small mark next to her name. “You’ll have to figure it out as you go.”

Stella’s throat tightened and her tongue felt dry. “How do I start?”

“Plug your headset in there.” Lois pointed to a small opening. “It lets the switchboard know you’re available.”

She pushed the long metal prong into the outlet, and within a few seconds lights on her board went from black to red and began pulsing. The girl next to her sighed in relief as a number of her calls transferred to Stella’s station. She stiffened in her chair, unsure what to do next.

Lois rattled off instructions for directing the incoming calls to their proper locations in the building. Stella tried to pay attention, but the rush of noise in her ears made it difficult. She could feel the panic rising in her chest. Her pulse quickened. The room suddenly felt warm and small, and she tugged at her lace collar.

“Take those stupid gloves off,” Lois ordered. “It works better with bare hands.”

Stella peeled the satin gloves from her fingers and tossed them to the floor. She tried to remember the instructions as she reached toward the closest blinking light. With a deep, rattling breath, Stella flipped the switch on her new life.





CLUB ABBEY


GREENWICH VILLAGE, AUGUST 6, 1969



It is a case which seems to have become the symbol of all men and women who have vanished. Every year on August 6, newspapers recount the story, often adding new touches or theories. Comedians use it in their acts. Many legends have sprung from it. A great number of them were, and still are, myths born of imagination.

—Oscar Fraley, preface to The Empty Robe





Jude is alone in Stella’s corner booth with nothing but an overflowing ashtray, a letter, and a lukewarm glass of whiskey. He picks up the drink, downs it in a quick gulp, and grimaces.

Then Stan is at the booth.

Jude glares at him, skeptical. “You water this shit down?”

“Ice melted.”

“Bull. What’d you mix it? Eighty-twenty?”

Stan grins. “Seventy-thirty. You saw her. She can’t handle a Shirley Temple, much less straight whiskey. I’m just glad we didn’t have to carry her up the stairs.”

“How long you think she has?”

“Three months. Maybe. She’s only lasted this long to piss you off.”

Jude sets the glasses side by side on the table. “I’ll miss that old broad.” He laughs at Stan’s sour expression. “Okay, maybe miss is a strong word. I’ll be bored without her. How’s that?”

“It’s time to let this go.” There is a deep sadness in Stan’s eyes as he looks around the bar. He rubs a spot on the table. Shifts from one foot to the other. “I got an offer on the place last month. Told them that I’d call back with a decision tomorrow. I just wanted to see Stella one more time before I made up my mind. Is that crazy?”

“No,” Jude says. It doesn’t seem crazy to him at all.

When Stan returns to the bar, Jude picks up the letter. He’s careful with the envelope, lifting the flap and easing out the pages with two fingers so they won’t disintegrate on the table before him. His hands feel thick and clumsy as he unfolds them.

Dear Stella,

I like to think that maybe, under different circumstances, we could have been friends. And I’m sorry that’s never going to happen. Accomplices will have to do.

I know we agreed that we wouldn’t talk about this again after our final meeting at the Morosco Theatre, but I wanted you to know how it ended. You deserve that much from me, considering the role I played in destroying your marriage.

No one ever guessed that I tipped off Samuel Seabury, or that you told me he would be in Atlantic City that weekend. I burned your telegram when I got it. Owney never said a word about the investigation to Crater. His mind was made up the second I planted that seed at Club Abbey.

Crater never saw daylight after August 6, but he didn’t die in the seats of the Belasco Theatre like we planned. He should have gone to see Dancing Partner alone that night. He should have met his end at the hands of Owney Madden during intermission. I made sure that the letter Maria delivered to Club Abbey had all the information Owney needed.

Jude’s heart gives a violent shudder, and he grips the edge of the table with one hand. His eyes keep going back to Maria’s name. He reads it over and over and tries to shake it from his mind. To refute what he sees. But he knows it is the truth as the letter continues.

After you went to Maine for the summer, Maria and I continued our monthly meetings in the restroom—just like we arranged that first night in April. We coordinated everything, down to what she wore and when to arrive that night. She wanted no part of this—you know that—but she was the only one who could have delivered that letter to Club Abbey. If either of us had taken it, Owney would have known it was a setup. He had to think it was a tip from someone who didn’t want Crater to testify before the Seabury Commission. He had to think Crater was arranging a deal for clemency. And in the end, Maria understood it was the only way to protect Jude. Crater would have followed through on his threat to have him killed. Jude was becoming a liability. Knowing that was all it took for Maria to do her part.

Our plan would have worked if Dancing Partner hadn’t been sold out that night. Owney would have finished him off. We would have all gone on with our lives, and you would have gotten the insurance money. But when Crater couldn’t get an extra ticket for me, he changed the plan and had the cabdriver take us to Coney Island. That’s when everything went wrong. There was supposed to be a body and a scandal and headlines. His disappearance ruined everything.

I’d like to say that Crater went quickly. Or that it was merciful. But that’s not the truth. They beat the hell out of him that night. But he was still alive when they dragged him from the hotel room. My guess is that his body will never be found. Owney Madden doesn’t leave loose ends.

The fact that I got pregnant was an accident. You never knew that, and I kept it from you. And I’m sorry. It just felt so cruel to throw that in your face as well. The only one who knew was Maria. She found out early on, and I would have given the baby to her—I swear I would have—if Owney hadn’t killed Vivian Gordon before I could deliver. She was set to be Samuel Seabury’s key witness. Viv would have blown the scandal wide open. Her testimony would have brought the whole racket down. We were fools to think Owney would have ever let it happen. We were fools to try this in the first place.


I’ve hated Crater since the day I met him. But now I hate myself for having a part in this. If I had the choice today, I wouldn’t do it. Not for you or for anyone else. I don’t know how to live an entire lifetime knowing that I helped kill a man. I don’t know how, but I have to try. The hope of a normal life is all that I have left.

Tell the cops if you want. But know that I don’t plan on ever being found.

Sally Lou Ritz

Jude only reads the letter once. He presses against the booth and squeezes his eyes shut, only to see Maria’s name etched against his eyelids. The one piece of evidence he needs to settle this case bears the name of his wife. Reveals her part in this mess. Maria, now dead thirty-seven years and buried beneath a maple tree on the outer edge of Calvary Cemetery in Queens. She did this for him.

Jude tears the letter in half, then in quarters, and rests it on top of the ashtray. He pulls Maria’s lighter from his pocket. It’s scratched and tarnished, and the striker only works sporadically. Two flicks of his thumb, and a small mound of flame licks the air. He cups it in his hand for a moment and then touches it to the letter. Jude expects to feel regret as he feeds the paper into the flames, but it’s relief that consumes him.

It’s over.

Maria’s lighter is warm, and he presses it to his palm, drawing her memory into himself. Then he sets it back in his pocket and watches the confession turn to ash, taking the truth with it forever.





AUTHOR’S NOTE





Even though this novel is based on true events, it is a work of fiction. My attempt was to show what could have happened to Judge Crater, not necessarily what did. Though no longer front-page news, it is a case that once obsessed a nation and, out of respect for those who still follow it quite seriously (and believe me, there are many), I would like to note a few things about the story within these pages. I compressed some of the time frame and took creative license with a handful of dates and details. I did so for the sake of space and narrative drive. A few examples: The New Yorkers actually began rehearsals in November 1930, not August. Ladies All wrapped on December 13, not earlier in the month as I suggest. Stella’s deposition for the letters of administration and the request for her husband’s death certificate actually happened on two different dates. In neither instance was Simon Rifkind her attorney. Although a real character and associate of Joseph Crater’s, he is presented here as a composite of the numerous lawyers Stella worked with over the years to settle her husband’s estate. I believe that one lawyer in a novel is more than enough. Some of what you read here may be different from what you’ve read elsewhere. This account is nothing more than my own speculations, the fiction I created from the bits and pieces of truth Joseph Crater left behind. My personal interest in the story lies in the fact that someone knew what happened to him yet chose not to tell. My job was to ask who that person (or persons) might be and what they had to hide. That said, here is what I know for sure about Club Abbey and the people mentioned in this novel.


CLUB ABBEY no longer exists. The gathering spot for showgirls, mobsters, and corrupt politicians was owned by Owney Madden and was considered a “night club of sordid reputation” and a “white-light rendezvous.” Though Joseph Crater told his wife that he visited it only for political reasons, there is sufficient evidence to suggest that his motives were more carnal. We know that Stella Carter performed her ritual for thirty-eight years in Greenwich Village, but we do not know exactly where. I’ve taken creative liberties in locating Owney Madden’s nightspot farther downtown in the storied neighborhood where Stella’s own memoir tells us she performed it.


JOSEPH CRATER’S disappearance remains a mystery to this day. For more than eighty years, amateur sleuths and armchair detectives have attempted to discover what happened to him. Most likely we will never be certain of the truth. However, we do know that a set of human remains was found beneath the pier at Coney Island in the mid-1950s when construction began on the New York Aquarium. Authorities were never able to identify the remains, and they were sent to Hart Island, the world’s largest tax-funded cemetery, and buried in a mass grave. I like to think that he was found. We just never knew it.


JUDE SIMON is a composite of the many officers of the New York Police Department who have investigated Crater’s disappearance over the past eighty-four years. These officers are discussed in Stella Crater’s memoir, The Empty Robe: The Story and Legend of the Disappearance of Judge Crater, and in Richard Tofel’s Vanishing Point: The Disappearance of Judge Crater and the New York He Left Behind. However, none of those officers were married to the Craters’ maid. Jude’s character, as represented here, is drawn only from my imagination.


VIVIAN GORDON, the notorious New York City madam, was found garroted in Van Cortlandt Park on February 26, 1931. A truck driver discovered her coatless body, a crepe dress pulled up around her neck. Her silk stockings were ripped at the knees, and one of her slippers was missing. An eight-foot length of clothesline was drawn like a noose around her neck. She was scheduled to give testimony the next day before the Seabury Commission, which, among other things, was investigating the connection between the NYPD and an unprecedented judicial scandal. Gordon was to be the key witness.


GEORGE HALL was the first reporter to learn that Joseph Crater had gone missing. He broke the story on September 3, 1930, in an article in the New York World. By that afternoon, the story had spread to the Sun, the World, the Herald Tribune, and the Daily News, followed the next morning by the Times. Afterward, hundreds of articles were printed about Crater, the vast majority of which were a salacious mix of conjecture and traditional reporting. Hall never revealed the identity of his informant.


STAN THE BARTENDER is a creation of mine, inspired by an article on the yearly tradition at Club Abbey. At the height of the excitement surrounding Crater’s disappearance, a packed bar would join Stella in toasting her missing husband. They would raise glasses along with her and shout, “Good luck, Joe, wherever you are!” In later years, however, the tradition was forgotten, and she was alone in her penance. I thought it fitting to give her a sympathetic companion who remembered the glory days of Club Abbey.


DISTRICT ATTORNEY THOMAS CRAIN was denounced as senile and incompetent by the influential City Club of New York on March 7, 1931, after failing to get an indictment in the disappearance of Joseph Crater. Governor Franklin Roosevelt appointed a panel to examine the district attorney’s record.


SAMUEL SEABURY led the investigation to determine whether any judges in the state of New York had purchased their seats on the state supreme court. Joseph Crater disappeared before he could give testimony to the grand jury, Vivian Gordon was murdered, and several other key witnesses invoked their Fifth Amendment right. Despite attempts over several years to convict him, Martin Healy was acquitted three separate times. Although Seabury was unable to get a conviction, he did manage to become an “implacable enemy” of Tammany Hall. His investigations brought to light the inner workings of that political organization and forced its members to testify before various grand juries and public hearings. Whatever else he may have failed to accomplish, in his battle with Tammany Hall, Seabury put an end to business as usual.


LEO LOWENTHALL was one of many NYPD detectives assigned to Missing Persons File No. 13595. The case was quietly shelved less than a year after being opened and has been only nominally investigated since. The possible involvement of the NYPD in Crater’s death is a popular theory among those enthralled with the case. This theory gained credence in 2005 with the discovery of a letter written by a woman in Queens named Stella Ferrucci-Good. Found after her death, it claimed that Crater was killed by her husband, a former NYPD detective, and buried beneath the pier at Coney Island.



WILLIAM KLEIN was an attorney for the Shubert Theatre Corporation. He was, along with Sally Lou Ritz, one of the last two people on record to see Crater alive. There has been much speculation through the years as to whether Ritz was his girlfriend or Crater’s mistress. In their statements to police, both Ritz and Klein claimed to have been an item—a convenient fiction had they been trying to provide each other with an alibi. Regardless, both were adamant that they were with Crater at Billy Haas’s Chophouse—not Club Abbey—the night he disappeared. It is interesting to note that records show Crater and Klein visiting Club Abbey at least twice after the judge returned from Maine.


DONALD SMITHSON is a product of my imagination.


EMMA WHEELER arrived in New York City to comfort her daughter at the end of August 1930. According to Stella’s memoir, Emma was a constant source of comfort and companionship in the years following Judge Crater’s disappearance.


SIMON RIFKIND replaced Joseph Crater as a law secretary when he was appointed to the New York State Supreme Court. They were friends and associates. It is believed that he collected and deposited Crater’s paychecks for several months after the judge’s disappearance. It is not known whether he did this of his own volition or at Stella’s request. Regardless, authorities suspected that there was much about the Crater disappearance that he never revealed.


FRED KAHLER worked as a chauffeur for the Craters for three years. In the weeks after Joseph Crater’s disappearance, he was an invaluable source of information to Stella. She sent him to New York on at least one occasion to inquire after her husband’s whereabouts; his report back to Maine detailed his conversations with Crater’s associates and their insistence that he stop asking questions. Later that year, unable to pay him, Stella let Kahler go but gave him their car as payment for back wages.


FATHER FINN DONNEGAL is a another product of my imagination.


SHORTY PETAK was inspired by a good friend of mine. He knows who he is. And I hope he will forgive me for portraying him as such a lecher when he is, in fact, one of my all-time favorite people. I wouldn’t have allowed him in my wedding otherwise.


OWNEY MADDEN was an infamous gangster and bootlegger of New York City’s Jazz Age. He owned a number of speakeasies, including Club Abbey, and was a frequent financial backer of Broadway shows. He was exiled to Hot Springs, Arkansas, in 1935 after the murder of fellow gangster Vincent “Mad Dog” Coll. He died there, of natural causes, in 1965.


SALLY LOU RITZ, a popular showgirl and rumored mistress of Joseph Crater, was one of the last people to see him alive. She testified that she had dinner with William Klein and Crater at Billy Haas’s Chophouse the night the judge disappeared. She vanished from the public record shortly thereafter. The Charley Project, a database of missing-person cold cases, officially lists her as a missing person. Most of what is written about her here comes from my imagination.


MARIA SIMON was drawn from a single article by George Hall in the New York World. While it is known that the Craters had a loyal long-term maid who was in the apartment in the days after Joseph Crater vanished, no one was ever able to question her on the record regarding his disappearance. When interviewed by George Hall, she gave the name Amedia Christian. It is uncertain whether that was her real name. Her character in this story is a complete conjecture.


STELLA CRATER’S picture was splashed across the front page of every paper in New York when her husband was declared legally dead in 1939. As a result, she was fired from her job as a switchboard operator at the Transportation Building for fear she would bring “bad publicity.” Up until then, she had been known as Stella Clark. It has been speculated, but never proved, that she was in possession of information that would have led to her husband’s killers. She published a memoir in 1961 chronicling her side of the story. The Empty Robe, written with Oscar Fraley and published by Doubleday, sold well but was widely criticized as naive and melodramatic at best and purposefully dishonest at worst. In the thirty-eight years after Joseph Crater disappeared, she never missed her annual ritual. Even in death, she could not escape the shadow of her missing husband:

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 3, 1969

Died. Stella Crater Kunz, 82, former wife of New York State Supreme Court Justice Joseph Force Crater, the central figure in one of the century’s classic mysteries; in Mt. Vernon, N.Y. On the evening of August 6, 1930, the recently appointed justice stepped into a taxi after attending a Manhattan dinner party and vanished. A sensational manhunt followed, but failed to turn up a clue. Crater was declared legally dead in 1939 (Stella Crater remarried in 1938), but the case remains unsolved to this day.





ACKNOWLEDGMENTS





I once heard that in the ancient world men and women did not personally thank those who had done them a kindness. Instead, they went out in public, to the town square or the city gates, and they told others about the integrity of a friend or the promise kept by a brother or the kindness of a stranger. They honored their friends and family and neighbors by speaking well of them in public. It’s a pretty image, don’t you think? Well, I’m a modern girl so I tend to think that we ought to go about it both ways. But humor me for a moment while I publicly thank a few people for the book you hold in your hands.

This book would not exist if not for the following people:

Stella Crater. As fascinated as we are by the disappearance of her husband, Stella’s was the real story. She had the courage to live her life in public. And the dignity to keep her head held high when the world was falling down around her. We will probably never know the answers to many of the questions she left behind. But who doesn’t love a good mystery?

My early readers: Melissa Dick, Bonnie Grove, Joy Jordan-Lake, Christa Allan, Alli Fernberg, and Abbie James. They gave me sharp insight and treasured friendship. I would have quit a hundred times if not for them.

I won the literary agent jackpot with Elisabeth Weed. She’s wise and funny and charming. I couldn’t ask for a better guide to help me navigate the world of publishing. Thank you for the unlikely yes.

I owe so much to the publishing wizards at Doubleday. My editor, Melissa Danaczko, championed this book from the moment it landed on her desk. She continues to do so today and I’d be lost without her wisdom and insight. James Melia keeps me on track, on time, and in the loop. And he’s always up for a round of witty banter. Bill Thomas, Publisher of Doubleday, came up with the title and has supported this book from day one. Emily Mahon designed the cover and I’m not sure if there’s ever been a prettier book. My copyeditor, Amy Schroeder, has the patience of Job and the thoroughness of the IRS. She deserves a medal. And a vacation. Pei Koay designed the interior layout. She’s an artist in her own right. Todd Doughty, Judy Jacoby, and the publicity and marketing teams at Doubleday—geniuses all. And finally, I am so thankful for the Random House sales team who always speak of this book with an exclamation point.

I wouldn’t make it through a day without my friends at SheReads.org, Marybeth Whalen and Kimberly Brock. In truth, they are more than friends. They are sisters. The family I chose for myself.

And there were others who helped me along the way. My film agent, Dana Borowitz. Sarah Jio for introducing me to Elisabeth. My sister, Abby Belbeck, who isn’t afraid to entertain my children (a.k.a. The Wild Rumpus) when I’m in the writing cave. My mother, Emily Allison, for teaching me that story is the shortest distance to the human heart. Dian Belbeck. Reggie Coe. JT Ellion. Paige Crutcher. Melanie Benjamin, Caroline Leavitt, Karen Abbott, Lydia Netzer, Kelly O’Conner McNees, and Julie Kibler for your kind and gracious endorsements. All my thanks to the Master Storyteller, without Him I would be lost.


And finally, for the men in my life: my husband, Ashley, and our four sons, London, Parker, Marshall, and Riggs. Never, in all the world, has a woman been so lucky. I love you. I love you. I love you.