“If the Gordons have been taking Baker out looking at real estate they must have checked his credit,” Willy said. “Did you ask about that?”

“They did. Believe it or not, the Bakers are well fixed.” She attempted a smile. “Cordelia keep you busy today?”

“I never got up for air. A pipe broke at the thrift shop, and I couldn’t fix it until I turned off all the water. Good thing it was Saturday and there were no kids upstairs.”

“Well, that won’t be a problem soon,” Alvirah said with a sigh. “And unless my gray cells come up with something I’m missing, there won’t be a place for them anywhere.” She reached up and flipped on the microphone in her sunburst pin. Deftly she rewound the last bit of tape, then pressed the PLAY button.

Eileen Gordon’s pleasant voice was clear and easy to understand. “The last thing Mrs. Maher said was that now she could die in peace, knowing her home would remain pristine.”

“I swear that miserable word ‘pristine’ is the key,” Alvirah said as the dejected look left her face. “What is that expression Monsignor always uses when he’s suspicious about something?”

“‘Something is rotten in the state of Denmark,’” Willy replied. “Is that what you mean?”

“That’s it. In this case, though, I think there’s something rotten on the Upper West Side,” Alvirah said. “And I’m going to keep dropping in on the Gordons and talking to them until I find out just what it is. I think they’re good people, but still there’s something fishy about them just happening to be witnesses. Maybe they’re very good actors, and I’m falling for their baloney.”

“Talking about baloney,” Willy said, “let’s have an early dinner. I’m starving.”

They were going out the door at six-thirty when Monsignor Ferris phoned. “Kate was at Mass,” he said. “She told me you went to see the witnesses. How did it go?”

Alvirah gave him a fast rundown, assuring him she wasn’t giving up. Then, before saying good-bye, she added, “Has that young woman we saw yesterday been around again?”

“She was here twice today. This morning she came to Mass, then left during the sermon. She seemed to be in great distress over something. Then I spotted her at the five o’clock, but again I didn’t have a chance to talk to her. Alvirah, you said you thought she looked familiar. Any idea who she is or where you might have seen her before? I’d really like to try to help her.”

“I’ve been searching my mind, but so far I haven’t come up with it,” Alvirah replied regretfully. “But give me time. The thing is, I am sure I’ve seen her picture somewhere, but I just can’t place it.”

Two hours later, as she and Willy passed Carnegie Hall on their way home from dinner, she stopped in the middle of a sentence and pointed. “Willy, look. It’s that girl.”

A glass-covered poster for the Christmas concert included photographs of the artists who would be performing, including Plácido Domingo, Kathleen Battle, Yo-Yo Ma, Emanuel Ax and Sondra Lewis.

Alvirah and Willy went over to read the caption under Sondra Lewis’s picture. Even in this photo she appeared sad-eyed and unsmiling. “Why would a girl about to make her Carnegie Hall debut be so unhappy?” Willy asked, clearly puzzled.

“Obviously it has something to do with St. Clement’s,” Alvirah told him. “And I intend to figure out what that one’s all about too.”

When she had been very little, Stellina had asked Nonna why she didn’t have a mother like the other children. Nonna had said that Stellina’s mother left her with her Daddy because when she was born her mother became very sick and had to go to California to try to get better. Nonna said that her mother had been very sad to leave her, that she had promised if she ever got better she would come to see her. But Nonna also told Stellina that she thought that might never happen, and that she personally believed that God had called Stellina’s mother to heaven.

Then, just when Stellina was starting kindergarten, Nonna had showed her the silver chalice she had found in Daddy’s closet and explained that her mother’s uncle, a priest, had given it to Stellina’s mother, and that she had left it for Stellina. Nonna explained that the cup had been used to celebrate Mass and was blessed in a very special way.

The cup became a talisman for Stellina, and sometimes when she was just going off to sleep and was thinking about her mother, wishing so much that she could see her, she would ask Nonna if she could hold it.

Nonna teased her about it at the time. “Babies give up their security blankets, Stellina. Now that you’re a big girl and going to school, you decide you need one,” she had said. But she always smiled and never refused to let Stellina hold the cup. Sometimes in English, sometimes in Italian, and frequently in a mixture of both, she would reassure this wonderful little girl, the only real gift her otherwise worthless nephew had given her. “Ah, bambina,” Nonna would whisper, “I will always take care of you.”

Stellina didn’t tell Nonna that when she twined her fingers around the cup, it was as if she could feel her mother’s hands still holding it.

On Sunday afternoon, as she watched Nonna sew the blue veil she was to wear in the pageant, Stellina had an idea. She would ask Nonna if she could take the cup to the pageant and pretend that as the Blessed Mother she was giving it to the Baby Jesus.

Nonna protested. “Oh, no, Stellina. It might get lost, and besides, the Blessed Mother had no silver to give to the Baby Jesus. It wouldn’t be right.”

Stellina didn’t argue, but she knew she had to find a way to persuade Nonna to let her bring the cup to the stable. She knew exactly the prayer she would say when she brought it there: “If my mother is still sick, please make her well, and please, please ask her to visit me just one time.”

At Manhattan ’s 24th Police Precinct, Detective Joe Tracy expressed keen interest in the fact that Lenny Centino had once again resurfaced. He remembered Lenny from an investigation he’d been involved with a few years back. He hadn’t been able to tie him directly to the crime, which had involved the sale of drugs to minors, but he was certain that Lenny was one of the guilty parties.

Tracy’s partner pointed out that the rap sheet on Lenny was minor league-just a few breaking and enterings, penny-ante stuff-but Tracy was convinced that it was only because Lenny had not been caught.

“Sure, he served a little time,” Tracy argued, “juvenile detention twenty-five years ago, record expunged, but in my opinion he only learned new tricks of his trade. He was arrested a few times, but never indicted. We never could pin anything definite on him, but I always was sure he was distributing drugs to high school kids. I remember how I used to see him pushing his kid in her carriage all over the West Side. I heard later that the kid was just a cover-up-that he stashed his stuff in the carriage, right there with the baby.”

Tracy tossed his slim folder on Lenny Centino back on the desk. “Well, now that he’s back, I’m going to keep my eye on him. If I see him with that little girl, I may just bring him in. He’ll make a mistake eventually, and when he does, I intend to be there.”