“And am I to come along?”
“Oh, yes. He wanted I should come by myself, but I insisted you must be there too. He just needed a bit of…persuasion. I have a feeling this meeting will be the one where either we convince the policemen that I am innocent and they should leave me alone, or they will get more serious about trying to prove I am guilty. And then I really will need a lawyer. So I am very much hoping we hear good news from your niece Sara, and that it is soon that we hear it.”
I was of course hoping the same thing.
26
It was not until 11:30 that morning that the telephone again rang. Mrs. K and I looked at each other anxiously. I picked up the receiver and again I said, “Hello.” This time I did not assume it was Sara on the other end.
But this time it was Sara.
“How are you, Auntie Ida?” she said cheerily.
I was not in such a cheery mood, but I tried to sound like I was. “I am fine, thank you; but Mrs. Kaplan and I are anxious we should hear what it is that your friend Florence found last night.” I was very much hoping that what she found would not turn out to be bupkis—nothing.
“Well,” Sara said, in almost a teasing way, “I think Flo has some news for you, but she wants to tell you herself. Is it okay if I put her on the line? Is Mrs. Kaplan there also?”
“Yes, she is here. Do you want I should put her on the phone?”
“Do you have an extension so that both of you can talk?”
“Well, yes, but it is in the bathroom—it is mostly for using in an emergency—but I suppose one of us could use that.”
“Good. You get Mrs. Kaplan on the other phone, and I’ll give the phone here to Flo.”
I would not, of course, have thought of suggesting that Mrs. K go and sit in my tiny bathroom to talk on the phone, although I assure you I keep it nice and neat and clean. It just would not have been dignified. So I handed the phone to Mrs. K, telling her that the burglar lady wanted to speak to her in person, and I went and sat on the seat of the place where one does one’s business and picked up the emergency telephone.
Mrs. K now said, “Hello, is this Florence?” And now on the other end of the line was a voice I did not recognize. It was strong and confident-sounding.
“Hello, yes, this is Florence, but please call me Flo. Is this Ida?”
“No, this is Rose Kaplan, and you can call me Rose. I think Ida is in the bathroom.”
“Oh, I’m sorry, should we wait for her to finish?” asked the new voice.
“No, no, you misunderstand,” I said. “I am here in the bathroom on the telephone. It is the only other one I have in my room here at the Home.”
“Oh, I see. Okay, then shall I go ahead and tell you about last night?”
“Please do,” said Mrs. K, perhaps sounding a little more anxious than she would have liked. But who could blame her? I was anxious too, and it was not me who was maybe being arrested tomorrow for theft, or worse.
“Well, you asked me to look for certain things in two of the rooms there at the Home, and as you know I was there last night.”
“Actually,” Mrs. K said, “we did not know for sure. We were hoping you had been here, but as we heard about it from no one, we assumed either you did not come, or you did your coming and going very quietly, without anyone, including us, knowing you were here.” I did not mention the noise we heard and how Mrs. K covered it over.
“Well, yes, that’s usually the general idea in my line of work. So anyway, I was there and I was able to get into the first of the two rooms in question from the outside, through the window.”
I was glad to hear this. I had not wanted her to be taking any big risks on our behalf, and I told her so.
There was for some reason a long pause at the other end of the phone, but then the burglar lady said, “No, of course not” and changed the subject, saying, “You might want to let your administrator there know that those old-style locks on the windows are pretty useless at stopping a determined professional from getting in. In fact, even a determined toddler could probably manage, although it might take him a bit longer.”
“Yes, certainly I will tell him,” Mrs. K said, “but please go on and tell us what you found when you entered the rooms.”
“Sure, sorry. I tend to ramble. Okay, so in that first room, I found the earring that you described. Your sketch was actually pretty good, and once I looked in the right place, I was sure I had found the right one.”
Although I was in the bathroom and could not see Mrs. K when she heard this from the burglar lady, I could almost hear the sigh of relief she must have been letting out. I myself felt dizzy and almost fell over into the tub, but I managed to catch myself in time.
“Mazel tov!” exclaimed Mrs. K. “That is just what I wanted to hear. Now please tell me where you found it.”
“Well, it was pretty well hidden,” says the burglar lady. “It took me maybe ten minutes to find it. But when I looked on her closet shelf, way behind some sweaters, there was a small plastic bag there, and the earring was in that bag. Lingerie drawers and closet shelves are both common but poor hiding places, not difficult for a snoop like me.”
Mrs. K was silent for a moment, and then she said, “Yes, I will remember that. So did you find what I was looking for in the other room?”
Mrs. K had not shared her list of items with me before she gave it to Sara, so I was wondering to what she was referring.
Here there was a long pause again, and the burglar lady cleared her throat, and then she said, “Uh, I’m afraid there was kind of a hitch there.”
“A hitch? What is a hitch?” said Mrs. K. I too wanted to know. It did not sound good. Oy, was this another case of “good news/bad news”?
—
There was a silence on the phone, and then the burglar lady, Florence, she says, “You know, it might be better if I explained in person.”
“But I thought you didn’t want us to meet with you, only through Sara,” I said. It seemed to me she had been very clear about this.
“Yes, I know. But I’m sure I can trust you both to keep my little secret, just like Sara has.”
“That is not a problem,” said Mrs. K. “The fewer people who know I am meeting with a ganif, much less hiring one, the better. No offense intended.”
Florence laughed. “None taken. Why don’t we do this: If Sara can make it over to your place sometime this afternoon to pick you up, could you get away for an hour or so?”
Mrs. K put her hand over the phone and shouted to me, “That is okay with you, Ida?” I called back that it was, and so Mrs. K said into the phone, “That would be fine. But can’t you tell me now what you found?”
“I’d rather tell you the whole story, and not over the phone, if that’s all right.”
“If that’s what you want,” Mrs. K said. “Where shall we meet? Ida and I like the Garden Gate Café downtown. They have nice tea, and—”
Florence interrupted. “No, no. It’s better if we aren’t seen together. You know, just in case.”
I wanted to ask just in case what, and I’m sure Mrs. K wanted to also, but I think we both knew the answer to that, and Mrs. K just asked, “So where do you suggest?”
“I think either my or Sara’s apartment would be good. I’ll check what’s more convenient for her. Just a minute.” We heard some muffled speaking, apparently Florence talking with Sara, and then she comes back on the phone and says, “We’ll meet at Sara’s apartment. Is two o’clock okay for her to pick you up?”
“I think so,” Mrs. K said, adding, “Okay with you, Ida?”
I said it was, and then I remembered something that had been troubling me since my last conversation with Sara, and I decided I must ask the burglar lady a delicate question.
“May I ask you, and you do not have to answer if you do not want to: Did you happen to…to take away with you anything from this room? I understood this to be a possibility…”
Mrs. K, whom I never did tell about Sara’s ment
ion of the burglar maybe taking something for her trouble, asked, “What are you talking about, Ida?”
But the burglar lady on the other end of the line only laughed and said, “No, I left everything just as it was. Shouldn’t I have?”
“Yes, of course,” I said. “It is just that Sara told me you might want some kind of…some kind of payment for your trouble, being a professional person and all that. You might want to take away something with you.”
There was a long silence on the telephone, then the muffled sound of the burglar lady talking to someone there with her, who I again assumed was Sara. Then she laughed again, and when she caught her breath she said, “I see. Yes, Sara mentioned that, but I told her it wouldn’t be necessary. She must’ve neglected to tell you. No, I certainly wouldn’t steal anything from the ladies in an old folks’—I’m sorry, I mean a retirement home. That’s not my style. And besides, I agreed to do this job for you as a favor to Sara. People in my line of work can use a few good deeds to balance off the more, shall we say, questionable things we do. And it isn’t often that I have a chance to use my professional talents on what you might call the right side of the law. Or at least to catch a thief, instead of being one.”
I was relieved to hear this, as I am certain was Mrs. K. And my opinion of this Florence the burglar lady rose very much higher.
—
We hung up the phones and I joined Mrs. K in the bedroom, where is the other phone. I first made use of the toilet, since I was already there, and at my age, just being in a bathroom is usually enough suggestion to require it; and with all of the stress lately, well, you can imagine. When I entered the bedroom, Mrs. K was not looking happy, and I couldn’t blame her. Although the burglar lady had found part of the information Mrs. K was hoping to get, apparently there was some problem with getting the rest of it. A problem she didn’t want to discuss on the phone.
“So now we have to wait and see what is this ‘hitch,’ Ida,” Mrs. K said. “And we have to shlep over to Sara’s to do it. I just hope it is only a small hitch, because there is left only one small but important piece to the puzzle.”
I was never good at puzzles. It is an example of how differently Mrs. K’s mind works from mine, that she figures out puzzles in her head that I cannot even figure out on paper. But of course with this particular puzzle, who stole Daisy’s earrings and who killed Bertha Finkelstein, she needs all the help she can get.
27
At lunch neither of us said much, and we did not eat much either. Just a bissel lentil soup and maybe some corned beef. We were both on shpilkes, pins and needles, nervously waiting for Sara to come and pick us up and take us to the burglar lady.
Finally it was two o’clock, and only a minute or two after the hour Sara arrived. We were sitting in the lobby of the Home looking out the big glass front windows when an enormous car made its way up the circular driveway and around to the front door, where it stopped. It looked like one of those old cars like you see in magazine articles about the “good old days.” It was dark blue and had so much shiny metal on the front and side, with big rows of sparkly teeth in front, it looked like a fierce animal that was ready to leap on some poor smaller one.
To my surprise, though, it was Sara. Not the animal, but driving it. She stopped and got out of the car as Mrs. K and I got up to meet her.
“Am I late?” she said as she came through the big glass doors.
“Not at all,” said Mrs. K, “you are just on time. But what is that you are driving? I have never seen a car that big.”
Sara laughed. “Sure you have, just not in a while. Don’t you remember when they were all this big? It’s an old Buick that I inherited from my dad. I kind of like it, because it’s different, though it does guzzle a lot of gas.”
“I’m sure it does,” Mrs. K said, staring out at it.
“So let’s get started,” Sara said, and she took my arm and escorted me out to the big car, as Mrs. K followed. She opened the doors for us, as they were quite heavy and took some effort to pull and push. But inside there was so much room, it was like sitting in a nice soft chair in the lounge. I sat in front with Sara, and Mrs. K sat in the back.
It was not a long ride to Sara’s apartment, and because the car was noisy and Sara seemed to have her hands full steering it, we did not talk much, except to ask if Sara knew what it was her friend Florence wanted to tell us in person. But Sara just said it was better that Florence tell us, so we had no choice but to wait.
As I said, Sara, who is not a large woman—she has a nice, slender figure—had to make a big effort to drive this monster car, and there were a few times she seemed to come awfully close to the other cars or the side of the street. But she managed to avoid hitting anything, and I managed to keep my pisk closed and not be a backseat driver (although I could not help a quiet squeak or two when the near misses were on my side).
Soon we arrived at a bekovedik—respectable-looking—apartment building. Sara parked the car at the curb in front—I don’t know how she managed to fit it in, but she needed only two or three tries to do it—and got out. She came around to open the doors for me and Mrs. K, which I’m sure we appreciated. She again took my arm and the three of us entered the building through large glass doors that opened automatically when we stepped in front of them.
We entered a fancy-schmancy lobby, with nice carpeting and glass tables on top of which were vases of flowers. Against one wall were two elevators, the doors painted gold. Sara pushed the button for “up,” and when the elevator came we got in and she pushed another button for her floor. Up we went, a little faster than my stomach would have preferred, and when it stopped (and my stomach caught up) we stepped out, turned left, and walked down a long hallway to Sara’s door.
The hallway in Sara’s building was different from that at the Home, being narrower and somewhat darker. But there were several brightly colored lines painted all along the walls, from one end to the other, which really made it seem quite cheerful. They could do with something like that by us.
Sara used her key to open the door and ushered us in. There was a small entrance hall decorated with brightly colored prints. A door probably had a coat closet behind it, and an opening opposite the front door led directly into a large, sunny living room. As soon as we entered the apartment, a woman who had been sitting on a sofa in the living room got up and smiled, although she did not come to greet us. The reason was obvious.
Now, the lady waiting for us was tall, athletic-looking, and quite attractive, with dark hair pulled back in a ponytail. She was wearing a pretty outfit of a yellow skirt and a light blue blouse. But the first thing we noticed about the woman was not her face or her clothes, but her foot. It was in a cast, and she was using a metal cane, like they give you at the hospital to use while you are recovering from something wrong with your leg.
I did not have to be Mr. Sherlock Holmes—or even Mrs. K—to make with the deduction that this cast was the burglar lady’s “little hitch.”
—
Sara introduced us to the lady with the cast, whose name was Florence Palmer. We all sat in the living room, Mrs. K and me on the sofa and Sara and Florence (who had asked us to call her “Flo,” but we do not know her that well) on big stuffed chairs facing it. On a coffee table between us Sara had kindly put out a bowl of mixed nuts, and she offered us something to drink.
“Yes, Sara, dear, a cup of hot tea would be most welcome,” Mrs. K said. I added, “For me too, if you don’t mind.” Sara went into the kitchen and came back a few minutes later with a silver teapot that I recognized as part of a set that had been in our house when her mother and I were growing up. I was pleased to see it was still in the family, and that Sara was thoughtful enough to bring it out on this occasion, as it is not the kind of thing young people these days like to use. She also brought some shortbread cookies, not my favorite (a bissel too rich at my age), but it is the thought that counts.
“Well,” Florence said after we were settled and sipping
our tea, “you can see that I had a little accident. Would you like to hear just about that, or the whole story of the other night?”
Mrs. K looked at me and I shrugged my shoulders a bit, so she turned and said to Florence, “Well, since we are here and I am quite interested in hearing all about how you found the earring, please go ahead and tell us the whole megillah.”
We all settled back, and Florence began her story.
28
“I’d already decided that going in through the front doors of the rooms was a non-starter,” Florence said. “Sara had told me there were handle locks and deadbolts. Not only were the two locks likely to be tough to open, even for someone like me who took a locksmith course as part of my ‘professional training,’ but the fact that the hallway was well lit and a public thoroughfare, in effect, made it too risky to operate there.
“That, of course, left the windows in back. Sara told me the number of windows from each end of the building to the ones that Mrs. Kaplan wanted searched, so that I would know which ones to enter. There was no other way to tell them apart, as they’re all the same size and at the same height, as you know.”
“Yes,” Mrs. K said. “Even we had to peek into a window and then count to be sure which rooms were ours.”
“Right. Anyway, I dressed in my usual work clothes—a jumpsuit, black on black, both fashionable and practical—and drove out to the Home hoping to get there just as the entertainment was starting. But I ran into traffic and arrived a little later than I wanted. That’s why I like to give myself plenty of extra time, for any unplanned delays. Anyway, I parked about a block away from the Home. When I got to the fence around the back lawn, I followed it until I found a dark corner where I couldn’t be seen. After checking around for other life forms, I boosted myself over to the other side. Unfortunately, I had chosen a poor spot to land, because there were rose bushes planted along the fence at that point, something I guess Sara hadn’t noticed.” She glanced at Sara, who looked slightly embarrassed.
Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death Page 11