Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death

by Mark Reutlinger

  As I was daydreaming about this, and also looking to see whether there might be a single diamond earring displayed somewhere nearby, a sharp voice behind us said, “Ladies! What are you doing here?” I was so startled my heart jumped, and I can tell that Mrs. K was also surprised. We both turned around to see that standing behind us was Frank. He must have returned to the shop while we were not noticing. He is a tall young man, and he was smiling, but I was not sure whether it was in a friendly way or not.

  Unfortunately, I did not have an answer ready for his question, and my mind raced with possible excuses for being there. Of course, I have no more use for a wedding ring than for a trombone, maybe less. But Mrs. K thinks faster than do I, because she said very coolly, “Hello, Frank. I have an old pin that I no longer have a use for, and I was curious what Mr. Rosenkrantz might give me for it. And are you likewise selling something to Mr. Rosenkrantz?”

  Frank did not answer immediately, but the smile left his face. He said to Mrs. K, “I really think that’s my business.” Then he seemed to realize he was being rude and said, forcing a smile, “Actually, if you must know, I’m looking for a good used trumpet, and I saw one in the window that I wanted to check out.”

  “Oh, do you play the trumpet?” Mrs. K asked.

  “A little. I’m thinking of taking lessons.”

  He looked uncomfortable, like his trumpet playing was a subject he did not wish to discuss with us, and he quickly added, “Well, I guess I’ll see you later at the Home. I hope you get a good price for your pin.” He nodded to both of us and turned to leave. Mrs. K said “Thank you” to his back. I think she was about to say something else, but instead she just watched as he headed for the door, pausing to take from the counter his hat, which is probably what he had returned for. Without looking back, he left the shop, the bell tinkling after him.

  Just then Rosenkrantz saw us and came over. He is a tall, wiry gentleman of maybe seventy with thinning hair that is blond—no doubt only as long as he remembers to color it—and combed to the side. He has bright blue eyes and he had a big smile on his face, the look of a man who enjoys life and likes to kibitz with the ladies, which I have heard he does frequently. He was wearing a dark blue suit that could’ve used a bit of a pressing, but that was hardly noticeable next to his bright pink shirt and purple tie. I assumed he must not be married, as no wife with any saichel—common sense—would let her husband leave the house dressed like from a Polish wedding.

  Rosenkrantz nodded politely to me and said to Mrs. K, “Rose, how nice to see you. To what do I owe?”

  “It’s a long time, Isaac. How are you?”

  “I can’t complain, thanks. Are you here to sell or to buy? Or just to say hello?” Rosenkrantz had a definite twinkle in his eye.

  “Well, to be honest, I was just wondering if you could tell me, did Frank Nelson, who just went out the door, did he sell you something?”

  Rosenkrantz looked a bit sideways at Mrs. K, and in a conspiratorial tone of voice he asked her, “Is there a reason you want to know this?”

  “Let us just say Ida and I are curious about this.”

  “Ah, curiosity. It is a tricky thing. I’m afraid I cannot tell you anything in detail. I suppose I can say that…that he and I did not end up doing any business. Is that a satisfactory answer?”

  “I suppose it will have to do,” said Mrs. K. It was apparent she was disappointed about not finding out what it was that Frank and Rosenkrantz did not do business over, but it was also apparent that she would not be learning any further details from Mr. Rosenkrantz.

  “So may I show you one of these beautiful rings? Even if you buy them only for the diamonds, they are a metsieh—a real bargain.” When he said this, it occurred to me that someone buying a single earring like Daisy’s could only be doing it “for the diamonds,” so it was unlikely we would see it on display, at least in one piece.

  “Thank you, no,” said Mrs. K. “But if I should ever decide to get married again, I will surely keep you in mind.”

  “Well, Rose,” he laughed, “I’m flattered, but I’m already married.” So much for my theory—maybe it is his wife who has the bad taste.

  Mrs. K laughed also, and, with a last look around this remarkable shop, we left through the tinkling door. We had spent so much time in Rosenkrantz’s shop, not time we had originally planned to spend, that we were in danger of being late. We hurried as fast as two less-than-athletic ladies could, which is not very fast.

  Fortunately, we were just in time to catch our shuttle van, which was stopped across the street. We waved to Andy that we were coming, and we hurried to cross as soon as the light turned green. We did not want to be taking a taxi home, like Mrs. Bloom.

  Andy greeted us with his usual cheerfulness and asked, “So, ladies, did you do a little damage in the stores?”

  Mrs. K smiled back at him as he helped her into the van. “Maybe not in the stores,” she replied, “but we made some progress fixing the damage at the Home.” And when she was seated and I next to her, she took out her notebook and made one more entry before putting it away and settling back for the ride home.

  —

  This time we were seated facing forward, which we much preferred. It is easier that way to keep our balance when the bus jerks and bumps, which of course it frequently does. I noticed that Rachel was not on the shuttle bus this time. I mentioned it to Andy and asked him to wait a few minutes.

  “That won’t be necessary, Mrs. Berkowitz,” he said. “Mrs. Silverman told me when she was getting off the bus earlier that she has a lot of shopping to do and she’ll be taking a taxi back.”

  When I remarked on this to Mrs. K, she nodded but became thoughtful. After a minute, she turned and said to me, “Ida, we must try to do something to save poor Doreen from that terrible man. He is clearly taking advantage of her, and she does not have the nerve—or maybe it is the self-esteem—to stand up to him.”

  I could only agree, of course, but I didn’t see what it was that we could do about it. If her own mother was unable to get her to see what a mistake she was making, I didn’t think we, who were almost complete strangers to her, would have more success. Nevertheless, I was confident that when Mrs. K said we must do something, something indeed would be done.

  16

  “So now we have this long list of people,” I said to Mrs. K the next day, “but what do we do with it? Where do we go from here?”

  We were seated in the garden of the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors, where we had taken our tea on this warm and sunny afternoon. Mrs. K had her notebook on her lap and had been going over her entries, adding a note here and erasing one there. It was so pleasant out there, with the blue sky and little snow white clouds framing the climbing roses and bougainvillea, that I was not in the mood to think about thieves and death; but I knew that to Mrs. K it was extremely important that she be absolved from any part in either the theft of Daisy’s earrings or Bertha Finkelstein’s choking, and as soon as possible. I also knew that she did not trust the police to be in any hurry to absolve her—just the opposite, in fact—so she would have to do it herself, with my help of course. And about that I think she was right.

  Mrs. K looked down at her notebook and then up at me. “As a way to narrow down our suspects, I would certainly like to know whether any of the persons on our list has a criminal background,” she said, “such that they would be more likely to have taken those earrings.”

  “Once a thief, always a thief?” I replied.

  “Something like that. Only I mean it also in a larger sense: If in the past one person has demonstrated a fine character and proper conduct his whole life, and another has shown himself to be mean, dishonest, or unreliable, which would you first suspect of a particularly bad act later in his life? The mensch or the ganif?”

  This, of course, was easy to answer, so I did not bother.

  “I wonder if Isaac Taubman’s son Benjamin, the policeman, would be able to help us find out,” I su
ggested.

  “As it turns out,” Mrs. K said, “it is too bad he could not have stayed longer at the seder. People act differently when a policeman is around, especially if they have it in mind to commit a crime. But yes, that seems like a good idea. Of course, he might be willing but not able, if he does not have access to these criminal records.”

  “He should have. I remember when my nephew wanted to rent an apartment across town last year, he had to pay for some company to—what do they call it—‘screen’ him to make sure he had not moved out without paying his rent at his last place, or caused a lot of damage. And he told me they also checked that he didn’t have a criminal record. I remember being surprised they would go so far just to rent you an apartment. But if some nosy landlord can find out if someone has a criminal record, surely a policeman will have no trouble. And if he cannot, maybe we can just call the same company my nephew’s landlord called and tell them these people want to rent an apartment by us. Then we can find out anything we want to know about them.”

  Mrs. K laughed at this. “I think your nephew had to give his permission for the company to do this screening of him. I do not think any of the persons on our list will give us their permission. In fact, I am pretty sure it would also be against the police rules for Benjamin to do this for us; but it is too important not to at least ask him.”

  —

  That evening after supper, Mrs. K and I made our way to the lounge, where she hoped to have a chance to speak with Mr. Taubman privately. The lounge at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors is divided into two large areas by a set of tall bookcases, maybe six feet high. One side is the more noisy part, with a large television and tables to play bridge and other games. On the other side are sofas and comfortable chairs with magazine racks, where residents can talk quietly or read without having to listen to Oprah or an argument over how the cards were dealt.

  On this evening, as we passed through the more noisy part, several of the residents were watching what looked like that nice Jewish boy Seinfeld—it seems like he is on television several times a day at least. Over in the corner, that alter kocker Abe Wasserman was having himself a manicure from the lady named Tiffany who comes to the Home to do our hair or nails so we do not have to go to her shop, which for some residents is difficult. Abe will tell you he is very particular about his grooming, which is why he is so frequently getting his nails manicured from Tiffany. Anyone else will tell you that it is because of Tiffany, a nice young lady of maybe twenty-five, with long blond hair. She also is quite zaftig in the bristen—she has big breasts—of which she conceals very little. Oy, she could hide her handbag in her cleavage and no one would notice. And of course she leans forward and jiggles when she is polishing her client’s nails. So Abe, he sits and enjoys the view at the same time he makes himself “well groomed.” Nu, it is an innocent enough pastime.

  In the more quiet side of the lounge we saw that Mr. Taubman was sitting alone and reading. Mrs. K went over and sat next to him, and I took a seat a short distance away so she could speak with him in private. Taubman, as I was saying earlier, is a dignified and handsome gentleman of about seventy-five, with wavy silver-gray hair and a warm smile. He always sits or stands straight like a soldier—add some boots and maybe a baton and he would look like MacArthur. Of course, Taubman should look like a soldier, because he was one. He was high up in the military police at one time, and he would have become a policeman afterward had he not been injured and so not qualified. Instead he went back to school and became a successful businessman. “At least I made a lot more money in one year than I would have in ten as a policeman,” he once told me, “but it wasn’t half as exciting.” He is very proud of his son Benjamin, and now through him Taubman has become a policeman at last—like they say, vicariously.

  I could not hear the conversation, but according to Mrs. K, they made chit-chat for a few minutes, and then she asked him if she could have Benjamin’s telephone number. Taubman smiled kindly and said to her, “I am glad to give you his telephone number, but I’m curious as to why you would want it.”

  Now Mrs. K almost always tells the truth, except when it is extremely inconvenient; but she was uncertain whether she could tell Taubman the real reason she wanted his son’s telephone number. On the other hand, what else could she say was the reason? That she wanted to invite him to Shabbos dinner next Friday? That she wanted tickets to the Policeman’s Ball? So she took a chance and told him what we had been thinking—although without the details—asking him not to tell anyone else.

  After a minute thinking about this, Taubman wrinkled his brow and asked, “Don’t you think the police are capable of investigating this fairly? Do you have some reason not to trust them?”

  I suppose we should have anticipated that he would see things from the side of the authorities, and take some offense at the suggestion that the police department, of which his son was a member, could not or would not do their job properly. Anyway, Mrs. K was about to answer “no” to the first question and “yes” to the second, neither of which was sounding too good to her, when Taubman’s expression changed to what Mrs. K described as a kind of conspiratorial smile, and he leaned over and said to her in a low voice, “To tell the truth, Rose, while of course I would always trust my Benjamin, and I think Corcoran is okay, from some of the stories Benjamin has told me about the department, they could use a little help from you. And that Jenkins especially is not the brightest candle in the menorah.”

  Mrs. K was much relieved by this intimation from Mr. Taubman, and she was especially pleased when he agreed to ask his son for the information on her behalf. She was not looking forward to asking the favor directly of Benjamin, whom she did not know well. So she and Taubman went over her notes and list of suspects. And Taubman appeared to be having a good time taking part in this investigation. Like I said, he wanted to be a policeman, and here was a chance to play at it for a while.

  They discussed the persons on the list and the chances that they were the guilty party. Although I still could not hear what they were saying, I could see it was quite a lively discussion. More than once Taubman’s eyebrows, which are quite bushy, went up as if he was surprised at something Mrs. K was saying. When they were finished discussing, Taubman took down the names that they agreed were worth asking his son to check. According to Mrs. K, it was the same list she and I drew up, except she had crossed off two names and added one more. It was, after all, just a series of guesses on our part.

  As Taubman got up and turned to leave, Mrs. K put her hand on his arm to stop him. “While you are at it,” she said, “there is one other name I should like to add to that list.”

  “Oh?” said Taubman, smiling good-humoredly. “Another ‘suspect’?”

  “Actually, no. It seems Rachel Silverman’s daughter, Doreen, has taken up with a man who Rachel believes is a bad person. Ida and I have reason to agree, as we have met him. Could you perhaps also have Benjamin check on him?”

  Mr. Taubman was now not looking so good-humored, and Mrs. K was thinking it might be because we had now asked one too many favors. But she soon found out that this was not the reason.

  “I don’t know whether you are aware, Rose,” Taubman said, “that a while back Rachel Silverman and I saw quite a bit of each other. Socially, if you know what I mean. We still go to an occasional play or movie together, although not as often. So I also know Doreen quite well. She is a sweet girl, but very innocent; if someone is taking advantage of her, I hope you can do something to help. I shall certainly try to get you the information you need.”

  “That is nice of you, Isaac,” said Mrs. K with a smile. “His name is Eddie Christensen. He may be the son of Molly Christensen, who used to be a cleaner here; if so I would like to know this also. Her name was spelled with two ‘e’s—I think they were Danish or Norwegian people—but if it is not her son, I do not know the spelling.”

  Mr. Taubman made a further note and put his list and pen away.

 
Mrs. K thanked him warmly, he gave her hand a squeeze, and with a little bow in the European style he walked off in the direction of his room. That Taubman can be quite charming.

  I should mention also that what Mr. Taubman related about himself and Rachel Silverman is not at all unusual. Just because we live in a “retirement community” and are “assisted with living,” we are not just a bunch of alter kockers, pardon my French, sitting and watching television with our mouths hanging open. (Well, some of us are, but that cannot be helped.) There is quite a bit of social interaction among the residents of the Home. Sometimes the interaction, it goes beyond merely “social”; but unlike young people these days, we do not talk about that sort of thing in polite conversation.

  Come to think of it, I should not have been surprised that Mr. Taubman was so willing to help, not only because of his past relationship to Rachel and because he has the instinct of a policeman, but, more important, because he has always shown quite a, shall we say, “social” interest in Mrs. K.

  It never hurts.

  17

  The next day, Thursday, Mr. Pupik told Mrs. K that the detectives would not be back until at least another week, as they had some business out of town. This gave us several more days to snoop on our own, before we found out if the police were still putting Mrs. K at the top of their list of suspects.

  In the afternoon, we were taking our tea in the lounge (it wasn’t very nice weather outside, too hot to sit in comfort). I was reminded of the nice tea selections we had at the Garden Gate Café and was thinking I should have bought some of those at the grocery while we were downtown. I decided to do that on our next shopping trip, but in the meantime it was back to Mr. Lipton. More important than the tea maybe was the chance for us to talk about something other than Mrs. K’s troubles, or anyone else’s. Or so we thought.