The Wife, the Maid, and the Mistress

Maria goes back to the Craters’ apartment, fearful of running into either Mr. or Mrs. Crater. Inside, she opens the drawer containing the manila envelopes; when she tips one into her lap, thousands of dollars fall out. 

Someone pounds on the front door, looking for Crater, but Maria tells him that the Craters are in Maine. He introduces himself as George Hall. He wants to look around, but Maria refuses. He asks if she’s sure Crater’s in Maine, and she says she is. He asks about when she last saw Crater and what he said at that time. When he asks for her name, she gives her mother’s: Amedia Christian. After Hall leaves, Maria thinks about how Crater signs her paychecks and he is gone, so she steals $500.

The money feels heavy in Maria’s purse as she walks to Smithson’s. Owney arrives to see the progress on his suits, and she sees the “dark gangster” Jude warned her about. Owney is most interested in Maria, and he eventually tells her that he knows she works for Crater.

In 1969 at Club Abby, Jude tells Stella that he read her memoir, which painted her as a victim. He hopes she will give him a confession now. She says Joe’s disappearance caused her a great deal of suffering. She lives in a nursing home now, dying of lung cancer. Jude asks about the envelopes she found and what was inside them.

The narrative returns to 1930. Stella returns to the apartment, but she wants to return to Maine in a few days. She finds the four manila envelopes in the drawer. The first contains $12,619 cash. Another contains Joe’s life insurance policies; the third contains his will, and the fourth a list of everyone who owns him money. Here, she thinks, is proof of his corruption. 

Stella recalls a dinner at home 10 years earlier. Joe told her to put on a nicer dress, and he reset the table with linen napkins, candlesticks, and their wedding china. He told her how important it was that they look the part if he was going to become a judge. He told her she must shop in the right stores, say the right things; he warned her not to act like one of those female activists who fought for women’s suffrage.

Jude promises to get Maria’s rosary fixed. They go to see a show at the Morosco Theatre, and she quickly identifies Ritzi in the chorus.

Stella makes phone calls, asking if anyone has seen Joe. No one has, and another justice tells Stella how imperative it is that they find Joe quickly. She heads to the Morosco Theatre to look for William Klein, Joe’s closest friend. Klein says he had dinner with Joe three weeks ago but hasn’t seen him since. Klein makes eye contact with a chorus girl who looks familiar to Stella, but the girl fades into the crowd. Stella asks for the ladies’ room.

Ritzi, still in costume, spots Stella Crater talking to Klein. She dresses quickly, then runs to the bathroom to vomit. Meanwhile, Maria tells Jude that she needs to visit the ladies’ room. From her stall, she hears the door next to her bang open and another woman vomiting into the toilet. They meet at the sinks a few minutes later. Suddenly, a toilet flushes, and Stella Crater emerges. When Ritzi sees Stella, she retches again. Stella offers her a mint and compliments her performance onstage. Stella also compliments Maria’s appearance before leaving.

Stella takes a cab to Club Abbey. Stan, the bartender, points out Owney Madden, and she asks for whiskey on the rocks, Joe’s drink. Stella confronts Owney, asking for the deed to her lake house back. When Joe gave it to him, he forgot that it’s in her name, not his. In exchange, Stella says she won’t tell police that Joe returned to the city at Owney’s insistence. 

When Stella gets home, she finds her mother, Emma Wheeler, waiting. Stella goes to the safe and deposits the lake house deed inside.

Jude is still asleep when Maria leaves for church. When she enters the confessional, Father Donnegal congenially slides the partition back and smiles at her. She tells him she stole money from her employer, offering a “thin slice” of truth when he asks why. He tells her she must return it, that truth is most important. She asks about what Jude spoke of when he visited the priest several weeks ago, but Donnegal will not say.

Maria remembers the night of Jude’s promotion, several months prior. He got very drunk and confessed that the new job came with “strings” attached. Maria understands the corruption behind the scenes and feels she has opened Pandora’s box: Jude is no safer as a detective than he’d been on vice, perhaps even less.

Leo Lowenthall and Jude visit Stella. Leo says he checked the hospitals and morgues, and Joe’s not there. Stella lets them look around. As they move toward the bureau where she found the envelopes, she pretends not to watch; Leo opens the drawer and finds it empty. He says he’s puzzled that Joe left nothing behind, and Jude looks troubled. The detectives leave, suggesting Stella return to Maine and promising to contact her if they find anything. Once they’re gone, she retrieves the bag containing the envelopes from under her bed.

Smithson tells Maria that Owney is sending a car for her; he wants Maria to do a custom tailoring job. Shorty Petak arrives and says that several chorus girls are having trouble with their costumes. 

When Ritzi questions Maria’s presence, Maria explains that she’s a seamstress and only works as a maid in the mornings. Ritzi says she might need Maria’s help with her costumes in a few months, and Maria tells Ritzi where to find her when it’s time.

Maria looks into Mrs. Crater’s top bureau drawer, but it’s empty. She brought the cash to return but cannot do it, so she stuffs it back into her purse and does the cleaning, intending to meet Jude for lunch. She hasn’t been comfortable with him since she saw him plant those envelopes, and he’s been so preoccupied that he hasn’t noticed. 

Jude brings fish and chips and tells her about his new case: Crater’s disappearance. He asks Maria what she knows, and she says only that people are looking for Joe. He asks if she spoke to the reporter, and she admits that she did; he warns her not to speak to anyone else. Maria feels ill, realizing that each is speaking in half-truths for the first time in their relationship. Jude says he has to go to Maine to get a statement from Stella.