Miss Kopp Investigates

by Amy Stewart

  If she did turn up, unannounced and uninvited, how would she be received? Would Constance be standing there, tapping her foot, demanding an apology?

  Because she wasn’t about to apologize.

  Every time she thought about expressing any remorse at all, it resurrected in her mind those old arguments between them, and she found herself, to her everlasting irritation, bickering with Constance all over again—but this time the argument lived only in her mind and ran around in circles, endlessly.

  In fact, all of her relations lived in her mind. Even when she tried not to think of them, she couldn’t push them away. Everything she saw, everything she heard, everything she did, was anchored somehow to her family.

  She’d hear a new song coming out of one of the music shops and think how annoyed Norma would be if she played that song at home.

  She’d see a pair of kid slippers in a window and wonder if Lorraine would wear them.

  She’d find a set of patterns for a layette and put it aside for Bessie’s baby.

  She’d read a story about a lady officer in San Diego who’d been hired to police women’s swimming costumes at the beach, and she’d think about how Constance would laugh at the foolishness of that.

  It was impossible to escape her family. They were her point of reference. They were the star by which she navigated, whether she liked it or not.

  * * *

  PERHAPS SHE KEPT after the Alice Martin case to distract herself from those thoughts, and to break up the monotony of Mrs. Doyle’s sewing room. Perhaps she wanted the company—not just of another person, but of another person’s problems.

  Whatever the reason, she kept after Louis Herman. She returned to the jeweler who’d given her the bad news about her emerald and asked him how a thief would go about selling stolen jewelry.

  “I hope you’re not getting into the business,” said Mr. Swan, clearly amused.

  “A friend has been robbed, but she’s afraid to go to the police owing to . . . well, difficult circumstances,” said Fleurette. “I only wondered if a man who had bracelets and pins and things to sell would come to you, or where he would go.”

  “If he was smart about it, he’d wait,” said Mr. Swan. “A professional’s going to give his goods a few months to cool off. And he’d take them out of town, or even out of state.”

  “Does that make such a difference?”

  “Well, it’s like this. If I suspected a man was offering me stolen jewelry for sale, I might speak to the Paterson police about it. But if the robbery had taken place in Pittsburgh or Chicago, what are the police here going to know about it?”

  “And you’ve seen nothing lately that might’ve been stolen?” Fleurette asked. “There was a heavy ruby ring, I believe, and a long string of pearls.”

  “Well, everyone has pearls to sell,” said Mr. Swan, “but no, there’s been nothing out of the ordinary. Tell your friend to go to the police regardless. They ought to have a report on file in case this fellow does turn up.”

  “I’ll tell her,” said Fleurette dispiritedly.

  For a few days Fleurette made the rounds of the jewelry shops, although she agreed with Mr. Swan that any jewel thief who knew his business would take his goods out of town. She went around to hotels and other places of temporary lodging for men, posing as a cousin, requesting only a forwarding address, but found no one admitting to a lodger of Mr. Herman’s name. This didn’t surprise her: he probably operated under several names at once.

  He was gone—of course he was. And where did that leave Fleurette?

  The fact that he’d broken into William Griswold’s office and used it to carry out his schemes seemed to be a matter that only Mr. Griswold could pursue, and if the man intended to do so, he certainly didn’t seem inclined to involve Fleurette.

  The match-book had yielded nothing, which was probably why it had been so carelessly left behind. The Black Cat was simply swimming in customers: everyone in Paterson stopped in at one time or another.

  There really was nothing left but for Alice to go to the police. Fleurette appeared at her doorstep on a Wednesday evening, when Arthur was away, to tell her so.

  Alice seemed glad to see her in spite of the fact that they had only this sordid mess in common. She invited her in and poured each of them a thimbleful of sherry, as if they had cause for celebration. But once Fleurette told all that she knew, and explained that the police were the only option remaining, Alice sunk into her chair, discouraged.

  “You know I can’t do that. Arthur would never forgive me.”

  “But you’re divorcing him, aren’t you? Do you really need his forgiveness?”

  Alice groaned. “Divorcing him? How could I? I don’t have a penny to live on. I only ever thought of leaving him when I believed I was to inherit. Where would I go now? What would I do?”

  “But won’t he notice that the jewelry and things are gone? And what about the money you spent? Won’t he ask?”

  “Oh, he might, eventually. He doesn’t often question my spending.”

  “But the jewelry? Wasn’t some of it his mother’s?”

  “Well, it isn’t as if he snoops around in my jewelry box. I suppose if he does ask, I could just tell him that I don’t know where those things have gone.”

  “And if he suspects they were stolen? What if he wants to go to the police?”

  She shrugged. “Let him. I’m tired of thinking about it. It’s been exhausting, this business. I should’ve listened to that fortune-teller the first time.”

  Fleurette nearly fell out of her chair. “You never told me about a fortune-teller.”

  “Oh, didn’t I? I went to see her a few months ago. I was just miserable and out of sorts. A boy was handing out cards at the train station, and I took one. ‘Discover the Truth About Your Past, Present, and Future,’ it said. ‘Find Your Heart’s Journey.’ Well, I liked the sound of all that, so I went.”

  “And what did she have to say? What was her name?”

  “Madame Zella, I believe. Oh, she told me so much! She looked at my palm and saw right away that there had been a break with my family. She couldn’t have been more right about that. Did I tell you that when my father died, nobody even got word to me so that I might attend the funeral? Not that I would, after the way they treated me. The last time I spoke to my mother, she had the nerve to blame Arthur for us not having children. And she didn’t suggest it was because of—well, the usual reasons! It was because he’d lured me to the wicked city, and the city had ruined me.”

  “I don’t think it works like that,” said Fleurette. “People do have babies in the city.”

  “Well, of course they do. Madame Zella said that I must love Arthur a great deal to give up my family for him, but like I told her, he ignores me and runs off to the theater! I sit around this lonely old house, and what am I to do? He’s out day and night, and when he is home, he’s so tired he never wants to go anywhere. I thought my life would have some adventure to it, do you know what I mean? I imagined that someday I’d get out of this dull little bungalow, and live in a grand house with an enormous lawn and a view to the sea, and go to dances and parties, but nothing like that has happened, has it? Let me tell you something, Miss Kopp. Don’t ever dream of a grand life, because when you don’t get it, you just have to go on living anyway, and it’s awful.”

  Fleurette couldn’t help but shudder. Is that what she was to do, just go on living?

  “Did you say all this to Madame Zella?”

  “Oh, yes. Once she understood, she insisted on reading my cards at no extra charge. Everything the cards said was exactly right—that I’d lost my way, that I was destined for something greater but had been pulled away from it and couldn’t find a path back. She said that I had only to wait for a sign, that one was coming, and I would know it and would know what to do. She was right that something was coming, but it was only an enormous mess! I should go back and demand a refund.”

  Fleurette leaned forward, trying not to appear to
o eager.

  “Madame Zella,” she said. “Where exactly was her shop? Her parlor, whatever it’s called?”

  “She did call it a parlor,” Alice said. “It was right here in Paterson, on Pearl Street.”

  32

  AND SO IT was! Madame Zella’s Card-Reading and Palmistry Parlor sat at 617 Pearl Street. Just three doors down was the Black Cat. (Alice, having always come from the other direction, had never noticed the café and didn’t recall the name when Fleurette mentioned the match-book.)

  Fleurette stood across the street for the better part of an afternoon and watched the comings and goings at Madame Zella’s parlor. The clientele were all women, during the hours that Fleurette observed the place, mostly young and desperate-looking, some middle-aged and downtrodden, and a few older women, grim and stalwart, paying their visits as one might attend a church service.

  What happened when they arrived was always the same. They would ring a little bell next to the door, a red curtain in the bay window would part, and Madame Zella’s face would briefly appear then disappear. The door would open, revealing a dark and shadowy interior. Only a glimpse of Madame Zella herself could be seen as each woman was admitted, but from what Fleurette could gather, the fortune-teller was as short as Fleurette herself, only rounder. She was stiff and slow-moving, and fond of enormous scarves and dark, dramatic velvets.

  Once her parlor was occupied, Madame turned around a little hand-lettered sign in the window, which Fleurette scurried across and read when she was sure she wouldn’t be seen. VISITORS ADMITTED, it read on one side. SESSION IN PROGRESS, PLEASE DO NOT RING, read the other.

  Not a single man was seen coming or leaving, and no one matching Louis Herman’s description walked by the parlor or the Black Cat.

  Nonetheless, Madame Zella had to be the connection to Louis Herman. She had to be listening to these women’s stories and slipping word of the most likely prospects to him.

  Now it was up to Fleurette to be the most likely of prospects. She stood across the street, her heart in her mouth, rehearsing her story. She couldn’t pretend to be destitute—these were swindlers, and they’d be looking for a woman of means—but she also couldn’t make it seem as if she were surrounded by sensible, intelligent people who would be suspicious of a letter from an unknown attorney. There could be no Norma in her story, nor anyone remotely resembling Constance. Imagine how quickly Madame Zella would bundle her up and send her back out on the street with the promise of love and babies in her future if she said that she had a sister who opened all the mail and scrutinized it for irregularities, and another who’d worked at the Bureau of Investigation!

  No, today Fleurette would be a war widow, with her husband’s insurance payment having just arrived, and her entire family back in Chicago, leaving her with no reason to stay in Paterson. The problem she would pose was this one: What was a young widow in her position to do with herself and her modest income, and perhaps (Fleurette added this, as an extra enticement) a small inheritance? Madame Zella would have the answer.

  When fifteen minutes had passed with no new visitors, Fleurette dashed across the street and rang the bell. She tried not to turn to the window in expectation of the fortune-teller yanking aside the curtain and scrutinizing her, but saw her out of the corner of her eye and knew at once that she would be admitted inside. If Madame Zella had any powers at all, it was the power to recognize a young, vulnerable, and not entirely destitute woman seeking guidance.

  The card in the window turned around and Madame Zella opened the door. “Come in quickly,” she said. “Don’t tell your business out on the street.”

  Fleurette rushed inside and found herself almost smothered by curtains: dark velvet curtains partitioning the foyer from the parlor, red and purple gauze curtains draped against the walls, and every window hung in layer upon layer of tasseled and beaded fabric. She calculated that she could’ve outfitted an entire chorus on Broadway, including several changes of costume, with the material strewn around the place.

  Madame Zella herself was, in fact, exactly Fleurette’s diminutive height, so that the two of them peered at one another eye-to-eye. It was impossible, in the dim light, to decide exactly how old the fortune-teller might be, nor was Fleurette able to gain any idea of her nationality, as she spoke in an ever-shifting accent that might be Spanish, Italian, Russian, or Brooklyn.

  “Dear girl,” Madame Zella said, clutching Fleurette’s hands in hers. “There is sorrow in your eyes, but I see hope, too. Come in and let Madame have a look at your palm. Put your dollar in the tin there, sign the guest book, and let me get you settled and then we shall see all.”

  Fleurette did as she was told, putting down a false name and Mrs. Doyle’s address in the book (she wondered if Alice Martin’s name was on those pages, but didn’t dare to look), and allowed herself to be led into a tiny room—again, formed by curtains draped from the ceiling, giving no idea of the walls or other rooms within—where she was offered a high and deep armchair, cushioned with tasseled pillows so enormous that Fleurette felt like a child nestled within it.

  She’d crafted such a fine story that she was eager to deliver it. “The reason I’ve come to you, Madame, is that my—”

  But the fortune-teller reached across the little table (adorned, just as Fleurette might’ve imagined it, with a candle inside a saucer and a globe of bubbled glass held aloft by a little footed stand) and put her finger to Fleurette’s lips. Fleurette smelled burnt tobacco and backed away at once.

  “Not a word, dear. Not even your name. Let Madame read the truth in your palm.”

  Fleurette turned over her hand and let the woman run her fingers across it. As a child Fleurette had been fascinated by palmistry but wasn’t allowed to have a book about it, as her mother considered it heresy and her sisters thought it nonsense. Nonetheless she once cut out a diagram of the palm from a magazine, with the lines and mounds indicated, and kept that scrap of paper hidden away for years, consulting it from time to time when she wondered what on earth was to become of her life.

  She was, in other words, familiar enough with the general methods and principles. She was not therefore surprised when Madame Zella said, “Your heart line is like a chain, which suggests a flirtatious and capricious nature. No man has ever entirely satisfied you.”

  Fleurette, forgetting for the moment that she was meant to play a part, said, “I suppose you’re right, although I wonder if it doesn’t also mean that my heart is weak. My brother—”

  Madame Zella glanced up sharply. “Nothing about your family just yet!” she hissed. “Your fate line shows a break coming soon. Have your palms itched lately?”

  They did just then, when the fortune-teller suggested it. “I do believe something’s about to change,” admitted Fleurette, “or I hope it will, now that . . . Well, I suppose you don’t want me to say. My prospects have improved, that’s all.”

  The fortune-teller looked up brightly. “Then we must consult the cards. This time, though, it is different. You must put your hands on the deck, so”—and she pressed a deck of cards, wrapped in yet another scarf, into Fleurette’s hands—“and you must speak aloud your question. The cards will answer the questions put to them, nothing more.”

  Fleurette closed her eyes and smiled slightly. What a delicious role it was, that of the naïve young widow about to be duped by an unscrupulous fortune-teller! She could put every bit of this scene on stage just as it was.

  “I never thought I’d be widowed so young, but I never expected to be a bride in war-time, either. Now, with my husband gone and buried in France, I’ve nothing to keep me in Paterson. With only a small inheritance and of course the widow’s pension, I feel certain I’m meant to go somewhere else and start again. But where? And what am I to pursue?”

  She opened one eye hopefully and found Madame Zella nodding vigorously, her face fixed in an expression of powerful concentration. “The cards have their answer!” she cried, and pulled them away from Fleurette. She began to
slap them down on the table, not bothering to exclaim over what was revealed or explain the mystical symbols.

  “Opportunity!” she called triumphantly, tapping on one. “But not in the way of love or family. It suggests business, or some means of profiting from one’s experience. Have you any sort of training, or a past line of work, perhaps in a family enterprise?”

  “The theater,” Fleurette said, taking the first idea that came to mind. “I was on the stage once, but had to give it up when . . .”

  She was getting too close to the truth, wasn’t she?

  “When you were married,” Madame Zella muttered. “Of course. It could be something to do with that. But this card suggests property, something tangible that could be sold or leased. Is there anything of that sort?”

  Fleurette almost mentioned the farm, but remembered that she was to play a part and answered, “Nothing at all. We’d only just moved to Paterson before my husband left for France. We—well, I—rent a little apartment. That’s all.”

  Madame tapped the card again before moving on. “It could mean war bonds, something along those lines.”

  “Well, yes, there are a few of those, of course,” Fleurette said. It was effortless, conjuring up war bonds out of thin air.

  “That’s it, then,” she said, and shuffled the deck again. “Here I see a suggestion of a relative trying to reach you. Have you lost touch with anyone significant? Anyone who might be eager to find you but doesn’t know how?”

  There it was! The long-lost relative with an inheritance to pass along, or a business opportunity, or an investment that couldn’t fail. Fleurette decided to make it easy for Madame Zella and her co-conspirator. “I’ve a much older sister from whom I’m estranged,” she said, “but I can’t imagine that she’d want to find me.”