S.O.S.

by J. Fallenstein

  “The light?”

  “Yeah. I was in the attic—you know, the cottages up there? My parents are remodeling one of them.” He motions out the big picture window. “And I saw a light sending the S.O.S. code: three short flashes, three long, and then three short. I saw it two nights in a row.”

  “Why didn’t you simply alert the authorities?”

  “Well, what if it was just an electrical short? I mean, I’d feel totally stupid then.”

  “Indeed. So you saw this flashing and you went to investigate.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And what, pray tell, did you find?” Miss Schneider’s eyes widen. The cat stares at him from her lap.

  He shakes the young girl’s image from his mind. Miss Schneider will probably think he’s using the madwoman tale to get out of trouble.

  “Well?” Miss Schneider presses.

  “A girl!” he says finally. “There was a girl up there.”

  Miss Schneider slowly nods. The cat closes its yellow eyes.

  “And what did this girl look like?”

  He shuts his eyes and pictures her. “She had on a white shirt and a long skirt. And her hair was up in this poofy bun thing.”

  “Ahh.” Slowly Miss Schneider rises from the chair.

  “You don’t believe me.” He looks at his hands. He’s been gripping his knees so hard his knuckles are white.

  “What was she doing?”

  He shudders at the memory of the image in the window. “Sewing, maybe? There were flames.”

  “I never believed she had found work in the city,” Miss Schneider says as she walks slowly to the far wall. “But I was just a little girl, what did I know?” She stops at a small desk and opens the front. “No one believed me. I saw the light flashing that night—I told Papa later, but he dismissed me.” She pulls a small piece of paper from the desk. “What else did you see?”

  “The flames . . . And a man.”

  “A man?” She walks slowly back to her chair, carrying a black-and-white photograph.

  “Yes. He looked familiar.”

  Her head jerks to look at him. “Familiar? How so?”

  “The article!” That’s where he’d seen that face before. “I’m working on a paper about workers’ rights, so I did research on Schneider Wearables. I saw his picture in a newspaper article about the new factory.”

  Miss Schneider hands him a yellowed photo of a girl.

  “That’s her!” Tyrell says. “Who is she?”

  Chapter 10

  A harsh north wind blasts the house, rattling the windows and sucking sparks up the chimney. Miss Schneider’s head tilts, and the cat’s black tail flicks as the glow of fire plays on her face, making her look young and then old. Miss Schneider holds the photo a few inches from her face.

  “She played with me at the factory,” she says. “I was born in 1922. My mother died of complications after my birth. My papa, Max Schneider, thrust himself into his work. He was always traveling, finding new sources of cotton and thread and the latest machinery.”

  “And Max—I mean, your papa, what was he like?”

  “Dedicated. Punctual. Driven. He wanted to be successful.” The cat paws around in her lap and lies down, purring.

  The image of the man in the reflection forms in Tyrell’s mind. He looked so angry, so insistent. And the girl had such a look of . . . fear—that’s what it was—in her eyes.

  “How driven?” Tyrell asks. “Did he have a temper?”

  Miss Schneider turns abruptly to him. “He was driven. But fair. A bit of penny pincher, mind you. Now, if you want to talk about a temper we need to talk about the manager—oh, what was his name?” She raises her hand to her forehead. “That’s it. Zinn. Mr. Zinn.”

  “A temper? What do you mean?” The wind blasts the window again. Tiny bits of ice clatter against the glass.

  Miss Schneider grimaces and strokes the cat. “I had a dog, just a pup, and one time it jumped up on Mr. Zinn. That man kneed it so hard in the chest the dog collapsed. I asked him why, and he said he said he didn’t want paw prints on his suit.”

  Some of the words from the letter come back to Tyrell: Ms. L said they meant “the boss is mean.” He clears his throat. “So, your papa, he worked the workers hard?”

  Miss Schneider folds her hands on her lap. “There were quotas, yes. The company made a lot of money. It was efficient.”

  “And he spoke German?”

  “Yes. He could communicate with the workers. They liked him.”

  “And Mr. Zinn?”

  “Mr. Zinn spoke only English. I remember she told me he was always yelling at them in English. ‘Hurry, hurry,’ he’d say.”

  “What happened to him?”

  “Oh, after they moved to the new factory Mr. Zinn and Papa parted ways.”

  The girl, the letter, the keys, Mr. Schneider, Mr. Zinn—somehow they were all connected. “So your papa ran a sweatshop?”

  “Not my papa.” Miss Schneider raises an eyebrow and her voice grows stern. “He hired quite a few recently arrived Germans, but to give them opportunity, like he had.” Her eyes narrow. “It was not a sweatshop, young man. He paid them a fair wage.” She raises a bony finger at him. “Papa was born in Germany and proud of it. He even hired a governess to speak German to me. But why are you so interested in all of this?”

  “Because I think,” Tyrell says, “that someone did die in that fire—it was that girl. Maybe your dad knows—I mean knew—something about it. Maybe he was . . . ”

  The cat screeches and darts off Miss Schneider’s lap. “Papa? Involved in her death! That’s preposterous. I will not have you trespassing and then defaming my papa!” She slams the photo onto the table.

  “But there was a man. I saw his face . . . from the article . . . and the fire—your dad never reported the girl missing!”

  Miss Schneider’s gray hair shakes as her voice rises. “The nerve of you, insulting my papa.” She snaps up the business card and then the phone and dials. “Hello? Yes, Officer, it is Miss Schneider. I’ve decided I would like to press charges.” She glares at Tyrell. “Yes. Yes. I see. I understand. No breaking, no vandalism. I see. Community service sounds appropriate.” She hangs up the phone, and her icy glare freezes on Tyrell. “Are you ready to tell the truth?” she asks.

  Tyrell’s mind races. “I am telling the truth! I saw the flashing light, and I saw someone. And I bet you’ve seen it too!” He pops up from the chair. “You believe me. You know that girl! She worked for your dad, and then something bad happened. And you know something about this. You’re hiding something!”

  Miss Schneider’s face is taut, her eyes large and fearful, but she waves at him dismissively. “There won’t be any need to look into this matter anyway. That building is coming down the day after tomorrow.”

  A wave of nausea rushes over him. Miss Schneider knew the girl, saw the signal, but for some reason she is trying to cover it all up.

  Chapter 11

  It is nearly two in the morning when Tyrell finally falls into bed. He sleeps deeply until just before dawn, when he doesn’t quite wake up but isn’t quite asleep either. Someone is in his room.

  He tries to open his eyes, but he can’t move. Through the slits in his eyes he watches the girl at the desk writing a letter.

  “What?” he gasps, desperately trying to sit up and see her.

  She turns to him. “Der Ofen,” she says.

  With a sharp gasp he bolts up, throwing off the comforter. But his room is empty, the girl gone. Dust swirls in lazy rivulets in the stream of light from the window. He stands and walks to the desk. What is she trying to tell him?

  Just before eleven that morning, he goes down the narrow stairway to the kitchen. His mom and dad are sitting at the table, coffee cups in hand. A platter with syrup and a single pancake sits in the middle of the table. His mom eyes his dad and then him, as if to say, Don’t talk about it now.

  “How did you sleep?” she asks, a sharp edge in her
voice.

  “Okay. I guess I overslept.”

  Dad sets down his coffee cup. “Not getting chilled again, are you?”

  Tyrell does feel chilled, not to mention exhausted, but staying home with an angry mom doesn’t sound like a good plan either. “I’m fine. I have to go in. I can’t miss any more or . . . ”

  “Or you could fail,” his mom says.

  “Yeah, that.” Tyrell pulls the last pancake from the plate and eats it.

  *****

  As he gets out of the car at Middleton High the wind picks up. It is sharp, like a slap in the face. His mom drives off, and he tucks his hands into the pockets of his sweats. His fingers wrap around a soft piece of paper: the crumpled ten-dollar bill. Yes! He has just enough time to buy a cinnamon roll in the cafeteria before next period.

  “What’s this?” the lunch lady asks as she takes the bill.

  “Ten dollars, right?” he says. His mouth waters as he eyes the sweet, buttery cinnamon roll.

  “This doesn’t look right.” She holds it up to the fluorescent light. “No, something isn’t right with this.” She hands it to him and takes back the plate with the roll.

  “Wait, what?” Tyrell holds the bill out.

  “See?” She pulls another ten-dollar bill from the register and holds it up.

  He lifts his bill next to hers and studies them. He’d been so excited about the letter that he never really looked at it. The back of his bill is greener than the other, and it shows an old Model T car. He flips the bills over. The front of his bill is dark, the ink almost black, but the same Alexander Hamilton face appears in the oval in the middle. But underneath that on his bill it says Will pay to the bearer on demand TEN DOLLARS.

  “See what I’m saying?” The lady plucks her bill back. “It’s not right.”

  He glances at the date: series of 1928. The bill and the letter are both from the same year as the fire. He must get to Ms. L and find out what the letter says.

  “Ty!” Ms. L says from her office when he walks in.

  “Did you translate that letter?”

  “What? Oh, yes. I printed it out for you.” She pulls a sheet of printed paper from a stack on her desk and hands it to him, along with the letter. “The date is blurry, but it’s nineteen something.”

  Dear Mother,

  I have found work! Elsa, another girl, told me about a sewing job out west. I took trains and trains and then a boat and now I am here, at the Schneider Wearables Factory, near the town of Middleton. It is beautiful here, very green with trees and lakes, like Bavaria. I sew dresses. I am not very good with the machine because I always sewed by hand before. The boss is mean, and he yells at us in English, always to work faster. If we do not meet the goal, then we must come to the factory after dinner, sometimes until after midnight, and sew. I am slow, so I will have to stay tonight. It is cold and dark in the factory at night since the oven is off, and my fingers move slowly. But tonight I will bring a candle and I will sew faster. Elsa leaves tomorrow for another new job in the big city of Seattle. We girls all stay together in a small cottage. There are many of us, but since there is no heat here, it is good for warmth. I play with the young girl here. She is much like our little Marie. I am sending you this ten dollars, and I will send more. Worry not, Mother, I am well.

  Love, Helga

  “What happened to her?” Ms. L says when Tyrell sets down the letter.

  “Something bad,” he mumbles.

  “Why do you say that?”

  The girl at the desk and in the factory, it has to be her—Helga. “There was a fire in the factory,” he says. “The paper said no one died, but I think someone did. I think it was Helga.” He lifts the letter. “Do you have more copies of that fire article?”

  “Sure.” Ms. L goes to her computer and clicks a few keys. The printer hums as papers spit out. “This one?” She hands him the Schneider Factory fire article, and he scans it.

  “Here.” He points. “September fourteenth, that’s the date of the fire and also the date of this letter.”

  “That’s why you think this Helga died in that fire?”

  “That and something else. I know it.”

  “Have you talked to anyone else about this?” Ms. L says.

  “No. Well, I did mention it to Miss Schneider.”

  “You saw her! Why didn’t you say something?”

  “She’s accusing me of trespassing. I think I’m gonna have to do community service.”

  “Trespassing?”

  “I went to the factory, and she saw me somehow and called the police. If I go back I’ll get arrested, and they’re demolishing the factory tomorrow. Now we’ll never find out what happened. Yeah. I’m screwed. And I probably have community service.”

  “Community service isn’t that bad.”

  “You only say that because you don’t have to do it.”

  “Maybe. By the way . . . ” Ms. L turns. “Was she in her wedding gown?”

  “It was a long white thing, but maybe it was a nightgown?”

  *****

  Tyrell can barely concentrate in chemistry while all of the puzzle pieces float through his mind and connect. Helga is slow at sewing on the machine. It’s very cold up there and her hands freeze, so she brings a candle. Something in that bin catches fire. But she doesn’t leave. Why doesn’t she open the window? Because of the bars. Why doesn’t she run out? The door is locked. The scissors!

  “She was trying to get out!” Tyrell blurts.

  “Excuse me?” his teacher says. They’re supposed to be balancing equations.

  “He locked her in! The keys! Who had the keys?” Helga wasn’t reported missing because whoever had locked her in would get in trouble. He’d just read that after the Shirtwaist Fire, stricter employee safety laws were enacted to prevent such tragedies. So someone must have hidden the body. But where? In that room? Or in the chest? It wasn’t burned, so it was moved in there later, after the fire. That had to be it! If I can find that key, I can open the chest.

  “Tyrell—” the teacher starts, but then the bell rings and Tyrell bursts out into the hallway.

  He has to get to Miss Schneider before it’s too late.

  Chapter 12

  “What’s on your agenda for tonight?” his mom asks later, while she’s cooking dinner. She sounds suspicious. She lifts the lid off the pot on the stove, and steam rushes up. Three pork chops sizzle in a skillet.

  Tyrell shifts and looks at the food on the stove. “I might head down to, um, do some more research on my civics paper around six.” He waves in the general direction of the mansion. His mom would absolutely lose it if she knew Miss Schneider had decided to press charges against him. “I’m going to interview Miss Schneider.”

  “The old woman in the mansion?” his dad asks as he sits down at the table. “One of the nurses said she walks around that place in her wedding gown.”

  “I think it’s a nightgown,” Tyrell says.

  “Interview?” his mom says and stabs the chop with a fork.

  “Yeah. I’m hoping she’ll tell me the history of the factory.”

  “Really?” Mom’s voice is uncertain. “I thought we were all done with that.”

  “Nope. There’s one more thing I need to look into.” Tyrell puts on his jacket. The keys are still somewhere on the second floor. Someone tried to hide them because they opened all of the factory locks, even the chest. One more piece of information and the whole story will come together.

  He puts the letter and the ten-dollar bill into his backpack. Then he walks down the lane to the mansion and presses the doorbell. Somewhere deep inside a gong sounds.

  The door clicks and opens.

  “You?” Miss Schneider says irritably.

  “I know what happened.” Tyrell lifts the ten-dollar bill and the yellowed letter.

  Miss Schneider closes her eyes and makes a face as if someone has fed her bitter poison. “If you intend to drag my father and the Schneider name through the mud, young man, I
suggest you cease and desist.”

  “No, that’s not my plan. But there is a mystery here, and I think you want to know what really happened to your friend Helga as much as I do.”

  Her mouth forms an O and her hands go to her face.

  He steps forward. “So, can we sit?”

  Chapter 13

  Miss Schneider leads him to the red velvet chairs. They sit, and the black cat circles his chair, tail up, yellow eyes staring.

  “Tell me, who was it that made the girls sew faster, meet a quota?”

  She turns from him, wringing her hands as she says softly, “Papa had goals. He was driven.”

  “Your dad was there—at the factory—making the girls work faster. You said he was punctual and demanding.”

  She nods. “Yes. He went every day.”

  “And night. He was there at night too?”

  Her pale blue eyes catch his. “No,” she says slowly. “He was home at night. For dinner with me.”

  “Every night?”

  “Most nights. When he wasn’t traveling.”

  “And the night of the fire, he wasn’t home?”

  “That’s true.”

  “So where was he?”

  “He was in Seattle.” Miss Schneider sounds certain. “He was so worried about the fire—and that it might spread to the mansion—that he came home as soon as he heard.”

  “And when did he get here?”

  “The first train in the morning.”

  “Can you prove it?” Tyrell has to be sure.

  “Am I on trial, young man?”

  “No. But we are trying to solve a murder.”

  “He came home that morning. I am sure of it. He was in Seattle. There was an event. I imagine he signed some papers with the dates.”

  “The fire was on the fourteenth of September, 1928.”

  “I have the files. If there was a contract signed it will be there.”

  Tyrell believes her. It would have been impossible for Max Schneider to have been in Seattle that night and also have been in the factory in time to lock Helga in. That leaves only one suspect. But he has to be sure.

  Tyrell pulls out the yellowed letter. “I found this.” He hands it to her. “You speak German, right?”