As Mrs. K and I were sipping and discussing some local politics—one of the residents is a former mayor, another was on the City Council, and we get lots of “inside” information—we saw little Amy Bergman coming toward us, sort of furtive looking as if she was afraid she was being followed. I say “little” because Amy is like a faigeleh, a little bird: delicate, less than five feet tall and a bit stooped over, so she barely comes up even to my shoulder. Amy is also a bissel meshugge—a smidgen crazy, if you know what I mean. A nice lady, but one matzoh short of a full box.
Nevertheless, Amy is a good-hearted soul, and everyone does their best to tolerate her mishegoss. So when she approached us, we moved over and made a place for her to sit down. This she did, sitting next to Mrs. K (who was now in the middle), and immediately she put her hand on Mrs. K’s, looked around to be sure that no one was listening (I guess she did not count me, as I was definitely listening but she did not seem to notice), and she said in a low voice, “Rose, dear, isn’t it terrible about poor Bertha? And at the seder yet!”
“It is more than terrible,” answered Mrs. K. I was thinking that of course Amy could not understand just how terrible it was, as only I and Mrs. K among the residents knew that Bertha’s death was not of natural causes. I was startled therefore when I heard Amy say, “And they will probably get away with it.”
I am sure that Mrs. K was equally surprised, but she did not show it. She just said with an even voice, “I’m sorry, Amy. Who is ‘they,’ and with what will they be getting away?”
“Why, with doing in poor Bertha, of course.”
“And what makes you think anyone ‘did her in’?” Mrs. K asked.
“Oh, I heard them talking,” Amy said. Again she looked around; again she looked through me as if I was not there.
“Heard who talking?” I could tell that Mrs. K was becoming somewhat exasperated with Amy.
“It was for her money, you know,” Amy said.
At this point I was losing patience and I blurted out, much louder than I intended, “Do you mean that someone wanted to kill Bertha Finkelstein for her money?”
Both Amy and Mrs. K looked over at me as if I were a naughty child who had spoken out of turn. And indeed others in the lounge turned to see what the loud talking was about.
“Please, Ida,” said Mrs. K, “we do not want to broadcast this to the entire Home.”
I apologized and went back to just listening. But I was anxious to hear the answer to my question, even if I had asked it a bit too loudly.
“Yes, Amy,” said Mrs. K in a low voice, “is that what you are saying? That someone wanted to kill Bertha to get her money?” She said this not like someone who believed it, but like she was simply seeking information.
Amy nodded her head.
After waiting for a further reply and getting none, Mrs. K tried again: “And who is this who is wanting to kill Bertha?”
Amy looked around again, seemed satisfied the coast was clear, and said softly, “Her relatives, of course. It is they who will inherit the money. A lot of money.”
Mrs. K looked over at me and rolled her eyes. But to Amy she just said, “Which of her relatives? And how do you know this?”
Amy seemed about to answer, when Mr. Jacob Wasserman wandered over to the table near where we were sitting. (This is not the Mr. Abe Wasserman who, as I mentioned, was having himself a manicure and a good look at Tiffany’s bristen. We have at the Home two Wassermans: Abe, who is short and round, and Jacob, who is both heavy-set and quite tall. To avoid confusion we often refer to “Big Wasserman” and “Little Wasserman.”) It was Big Wasserman who was approaching. He picked up a magazine—I think it was the one from the AARP, to which everyone in the Home must belong—and, giving us ladies a polite nod of hello, sat down on the sofa across from us.
As soon as Wasserman was sitting down, Amy Bergman was standing up. Before Mrs. K or I could stop her, she was skittering through the lounge and out into the lobby, like a tiny bird flying to freedom after being released from a cage.
So much for finding out what relatives want to kill Bertha Finkelstein.
—
After a while Big Wasserman finished reading his magazine and, with another polite nod to us, he rose and left the lounge. It was getting close to dinnertime and he probably wanted to return to his apartment and get ready. We had to be doing the same soon, but first we had to discuss what we had heard from Amy Bergman.
“So what do you think, Rose?” I asked. “Is this just more of Amy’s mishegoss?”
“Most likely. But we cannot afford to ignore it completely. What if she did overhear something important? What if someone did plan to kill poor Bertha?”
“But you know how Amy is. Remember last year, when she was insisting that the bus driver was watching her? And then the gardener too? It is what they call paranoia, is it not?”
“Yes, you are right, Ida,” Mrs. K said. “But even if there is only a small chance that there is some truth in what Amy says…”
“So how do we find out whether it is truth or mishegoss?”
Mrs. K thought this over for a minute before answering, “I think I know how we can do that without too much snooping. At least by us.”
And that is how we left it. It was time for dinner.
18
It was not until Saturday afternoon, Shabbos, that Mr. Taubman got back to Mrs. K with her list. Apparently his son the policeman was not able to make the necessary look-ups until Friday evening, but when he was able it did not take long. I would have preferred that he did not do this for us on Shabbos, when Jews should not be working, but he is not my son, and besides this was like an emergency, was it not?
After dinner on Saturday, we had our Havdalah service. It is one of my favorites. To say goodbye to Shabbos, we light a special braided candle with many wicks (I do not know why, maybe to make it as bright as a whole menorah), pass around a fancy box with fragrant spices (it is called a besamim) for everyone to take a sniff, and of course there is a cup of wine. It is a nice way to say a new week is beginning.
After the service, Mrs. K and I sat down in the lounge and she looked over the list that Taubman gave her. She did not let me see it, because Taubman told her that this information was private and even he should not be seeing it. If it got out that his son was giving this information to Mrs. K (or even to his father), his job could be kaput.
I was curious, but I understood and did not complain. I just waited while Mrs. K examined the list, with many “hmms” and “tsk-tsks” and even an occasional “oy vey.”
And after maybe five minutes, she turned to me and said, “Even if I cannot let you see what it says here about particular individuals, I think I can tell you that I am surprised what some people have done in the past. You would never suspect it. Not that I hold it against them if they are good citizens now, but nevertheless it is a bit of a shock.”
“Yes, yes, but is there anything on that list that brings us any closer to who stole Daisy Goldfarb’s earrings?”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” Mrs. K said, while staring past me into space. Oy, she can be maddening sometimes!
“So what do we do next?” I asked. It was clear she was going to be mysterious about this list, so we might just as well get on with it.
“Sha, I must think about this for a minute,” she said. But it was more like another five minutes that she studied the two lists, hers and Benjamin’s, before she looked up and answered.
“There are some persons on this list who we might now say are more suspicious than the others. We also know that there are some on the list who are much less likely than others to have had the opportunity both to steal the earring and to drop it in the soup. Those persons, now that I see that they have nothing in their background to cause suspicion, they become so unlikely that in order that we don’t spend all our time chasing down wild gooses, I will cross them off for now and we can concentrate on the others.”
“So how many have you left on the list?”
I asked.
Mrs. K looked down at the pad again, then looked up and said, “Only three.”
“That is not so bad. And what do we do with these three?”
Here Mrs. K sighed and looked up at me a bit uncertainly. “I am not sure,” she said at last. “I know what I would like to do. I would like to know where is the second earring.”
“Of course. If we knew who had the second earring, then we would know that is the person who stole the first one and dropped it in the soup.”
“Not necessarily,” she said, which I did not understand. Perhaps she meant the person who stole the earrings and the person who dropped it in the soup might be two different persons, which didn’t make sense to me, or maybe there were two persons working together; but in any case I did not pursue it. When Mrs. K comes up with her theories, it is best not to question her too closely.
One way or the other, finding the second earring was important, and I wanted to know how she intended to do it, especially if I was to be part of the doing. So I asked her as much.
“The best way to find it, I think,” she said with another sigh, “would be to search the room where each person on our short list lives. If only we could get into their rooms…”
I’m afraid I rolled my eyes at this. “And ‘if only my bubbe had wheels, she would be a wagon,’ as my mother used to say. But we are not the police, and we cannot get a—what do they call it—a search warrant and go barging into their homes. Furthermore, I am quite sure that Benjamin, as nice as he was to get us this information, would draw the line at our asking him to enter and search these persons’ rooms.”
This was not, unfortunately, cheering Mrs. K up. She was just sitting and looking forlorn.
We were both silent for several minutes, thinking our own thoughts. Finally, I asked Mrs. K, “Do the three persons remaining on the list all live here at the Home?”
“Yes, one is on the staff but lives in during the week,” she replied.
“Well, then,” I said, “maybe I have an idea.”
19
“What kind of idea?” Mrs. K asked. She looked at me eagerly, like she was a drowning swimmer and I was a nice fat log floating by.
“Well,” I said, hoping I had not falsely raised Mrs. K’s hopes, “it will not help with anyone who does not live here at the Home, but only with the residents and staff who do live here.”
“What do you mean? Surely you are not suggesting that you and I break into their rooms and snoop around? What if someone caught us, with me already under suspicion for theft of those earrings? I can just see that nudnik Jenkins sneering at having caught me with the red hands…” Mrs. K was really working herself into a tizzy about this.
“Don’t worry, Rose,” I said, handing her teacup to her and waiting until she took a sip or two and calmed down. “I do not have in mind that we should break into anyone’s rooms. At least not ourselves in person.”
“Then in some other way?” Mrs. K was getting upset again, so I thought I had better explain.
“Here is my thought. Do you remember my niece Sara, who always comes to see me and brings a little present at Chanukah?”
“Isn’t she the one who used to work as a secretary for that Mr. Franklin the lawyer?”
“That’s right. A very nice girl, Sara. A shayna maidel, and a mensch. Well, hardly a girl anymore, I guess—she must be at least forty by now. Her mother and I were quite close, even though she was several years younger than me, so I saw a lot of Sara when she was growing up. I have not seen her much lately except once a year, but we have kept in touch by telephone and I still write to her mother.”
“So what about her?”
“Well,” I said, leaning toward Mrs. K with my voice very much lowered, “and this is just between you and me and the sofa, Sara once told me that she had a good friend—I do not recall her name, if Sara even mentioned it—who has a most unusual profession.”
“And what is this profession?” Mrs. K asked. “Is she one of those mystic persons who can see through walls? Will she look into a crystal ball and tell us what is in the rooms?”
“No, no,” I assured her. And here I lowered my voice even more, not wanting that any of the snoopy ladies sitting nearby should hear. “She is by profession a burglar—she breaks into people’s houses and takes things!”
“A burglar!” exclaimed Mrs. K, so loudly that I had to put my hand over her mouth and say “sha!” before we attracted attention.
“Yes,” I said quietly, “and apparently she is good at it. And so I am just thinking, if we could convince my niece Sara to talk her friend the burglar into helping us to search the rooms of the people on that list…”
At this Mrs. K looked skeptical. In fact, she looked at me like I was a little meshugge. And I have to admit that when I heard myself actually say this to her, it did not sound like as good an idea as when it was still in my head.
“Are you suggesting,” Mrs. K said, now in a whisper, “that we hire a real burglar to break into and search these people’s rooms?” And here she indicated the list in her lap. She sounded indignant that I would even suggest such a thing.
I was not surprised she was indignant. After all, it took some chutzpah to imply that a proper lady like Mrs. K would stoop to committing a crime against another person, even to save herself from trouble such as she was in.
“Well, not exactly hire,” I said. “More like ask a favor.”
“And just why should this burglar person do us, perfect strangers, such a favor?” Mrs. K asked. And it was a reasonable question.
“I hadn’t thought of that. But I suppose she would be doing the favor for Sara, and Sara would be doing it for me, and I would be doing it for you.”
To my surprise, Mrs. K now looked as if she was actually considering the possibility, which just shows you how badly she wanted to get to the bottom of this mishmash, this mess she was in. “Yes,” she replied, “but even so, that is an awfully big favor for us to ask your Sara, and for her to ask her friend the burglar.”
I had to admit she was right about that. But we finally agreed that there was no harm in asking, so it was at least worth a try.
“I will telephone to Sara right away,” I said, “and we shall see what we shall see.”
20
I left Mrs. K making more notes on her list and went to my own room. There I looked up Sara’s telephone number. It took me a while to get up the nerve to phone, because I wasn’t sure how she would react to being asked such a thing, or for that matter how I would ask. “How is your mother, and by the way could we borrow your burglar for a while?”
But at last I convinced myself that Sara and I were close enough that she would understand, or at least forgive me for asking.
I dialed and I was much relieved that Sara answered the phone. One cannot very well leave such a message on one of those blabbing answer machines! It would be like entrusting a secret to the town yenta!
“How are you, Sara? This is your Aunt Ida,” I began.
“Auntie Ida! How nice to hear from you. What can I do for you?”
This was the difficult part, of course. “Well, Sara dear, it is a little hard to explain. Do you remember telling me that a friend of yours was a…was engaged in…took things from people’s houses for a living?”
Sara laughed. “You mean my friend Florence? Yes, that’s right. Why?”
“Well, you see, dear, my good friend Rose Kaplan, whom you have met a few times when you were here at the Home…”
“Yes, I remember Mrs. Kaplan. A tall lady, very nice, and very sharp as I recall.”
“Yes, that is her. Now if you are sitting down comfortable, let me tell you why I am calling.” And I proceeded to tell Sara the whole story about Bertha Finkelstein’s strange death in the matzoh ball soup, Daisy Goldfarb’s stolen earrings, and how the police now suspected Mrs. K of both. Sara did not interrupt, except with an occasional “uh huh” or “no kidding,” and I had no way to know if she was understanding the pic
kle that we were in. Finally, I got to the difficult part:
“And so, Sara dear, Mrs. K and I are wondering whether you might ask your friend…your Florence…whether she might be willing to…well, to snoop around a little in the rooms of these three individuals who are left on Mrs. K’s list. Just a look around, you understand, to see if certain items are there.”
I was holding my breath for Sara’s answer. I would not have been surprised if she had said that she wouldn’t think of suggesting such a thing to her friend. So I was greatly relieved when she said, “You know, that’s not such a bad idea. Of course, I don’t know what my friend Flo will think of it. It’s easy enough to suggest such a thing, but we wouldn’t be the ones taking the risk, would we? And what’s in it for Flo? Wouldn’t it be like asking a mechanic to fix your friend’s car for free?”
I had no good answer for that. Neither Mrs. K nor I have much money, barely enough to hire a professional mechanic, much less a professional thief!
“Flo might,” Sara continued, “say that she’ll do it, but if she finds something particularly interesting while she is, as you say, ‘snooping,’ and she happens to leave with that something in her possession and neglects to tell us about it…”
It was maybe a good thing that Sara couldn’t see me, because I probably looked shocked when I heard this. Of course there is a big difference between snooping and taking! I was torn between my wanting to save Mrs. K from those policemen, and the fact that I have always been a good law-abiding person, as has Mrs. K. (I do not count things like maybe sometimes keeping the extra change when the cashier makes a mistake in my favor, which I always consider is just their way of making up for the times when the mistake is in their favor.)
Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death Page 8