The Case Against My Brother

by Libby Sternberg

  The elevator sped us up to the third floor. When the doors opened, I was surprised to see a huge open room filled with desks and tables. I’d always figured something as important as a newspaper would have offices fit for a king, with a separate room for each reporter. But this wasn’t an office at all. It was more like one giant hall—a gymnasium filled with desks, covered with typewriters and piles of papers. The floors were littered with crumpled balls of all kinds of paper—lined notebook pages, typing paper, carbons, even newspapers. The air smelled dusty and stale, overlaid with a strong whiff of ink.

  But there were no people. That the room was empty didn’t seem to surprise or disappoint Gus. Still acting like a ringmaster of some sort, he shepherded us to a glass-enclosed office at the far end of the room.

  “Where is everybody?” I heard a small kid whisper. “They gonna tell us the paper’s shutting down?”

  Turning around and walking backwards, Gus explained, “On an evening paper, the reporters work early morning shifts. They’re done for the day.”

  They were done for the day, all right—all but one fellow who looked like a kid kept after school. I noticed him as we neared the office. Tall and skinny, he tapped away at a typewriter near the windows, a cigar hanging out the corner of his mouth. He had thin brown hair and pasty skin, and he didn’t bother to look up as we trooped by. His jacket and hat hung on a wooden hook by his desk. The clothes looked expensive—the hat was soft black felt, and the jacket was some new cut with a yoked back. I’d seen one in a department store window downtown. The phone on his desk rang and he picked it up.

  “Briggs,” he said in a voice that sounded like gravel. “Yeah, you said you were at the church bazaar the night of the murder, but I got a source says they saw you coming out of Blarney’s speakeasy two blocks from where the man was shot.”

  We were delayed while Gus went into the office to see if the publisher was ready, so I wound up listening as Briggs peppered the caller with questions that fit a police detective better than a newspaper man.

  A police detective. The hair on my neck stood up. Briggs was chasing down a story just the way the cops chased down a suspect. But Briggs didn’t seem content with easy answers. He was digging for more.

  A few seconds later, Gus introduced us to the publisher in the glass-enclosed office, but I kept looking over at Briggs’s desk. After typing for a few moments, he stopped and looked at what he’d written. Scowling, he reached for his phone. I heard him say, “Briggs here from the Telegram. Is Officer Reeves around?” And then he asked the officer questions in that very same tough tone of voice. He was treating the officer just the way he’d treated the suspect—with a heavy dose of cynicism. He didn’t take anything for granted, didn’t believe someone just because he had a title or wore a uniform.

  Or had a good American-sounding name.

  As the publisher spoke about how important we all were to “the Fourth Estate,” I kept glancing at Briggs, who was off the phone now. After pecking away on his typewriter for a few seconds, he leaned back and crossed his arms over his chest, as if unhappy with what he’d just written. His hand hovered over his phone, but he pulled it back, stuck his cigar in the corner of his mouth, and resumed typing.

  An idea began to form in my mind. The police weren’t the only ones who investigated crimes. Reporters like Briggs did, too. In fact, Briggs questioned both suspects and the police. He got the full picture—not just the one the police wanted to look at. Adam had said I was smart, and I was smart enough to know when I needed help from someone who knew how to investigate things.

  As we received our pay and a little tin pin stamped with the newspaper’s name, I kept my eye on Briggs, awestruck by his determination and energy. After typing furiously for a while, he pulled his paper from the carriage and read it, a smile spreading across his face. Then he headed for a desk at the other end of the newsroom, where he dropped his paper into a wooden bin.

  Maybe I could talk to him before we left. Maybe I could ask him to help me investigate the Peterson burglary case and get Adam off the hook. Maybe, maybe, maybe.

  “Any questions?” The publisher, a tall man with white hair and a squarish face, looked around the room at all of us newsboys. Nobody said anything. My guess was they were as eager to leave as I was. But just when it looked like we’d be dismissed, Briggs began moving. He was leaving! His coat over his shoulders, the cigar in his left hand, he was taking such quick strides toward the elevators that I was sure he’d be gone in a few seconds.

  “I have a question!” I piped up, my head turning back toward the publisher. Gus beamed at me, probably proud that I wanted to learn more. “Who was that?” I pointed in the direction the reporter had gone.

  The publisher smiled. “That was Vincent G. Briggs, our ace reporter.”

  Vincent G. Briggs—I repeated the full name to myself, afraid I’d forget it. I might not be able to talk to him now, but I’d call him later. Yeah, that might be better anyway. I wouldn’t have to give him my name. I could just give him a “tip”—You know that Peterson burglary? I heard myself saying. Well, they’re after the wrong fellow for it.

  When I got home, Pete was rattling pans in the kitchen and preparing to make us something for dinner. Usually he just fried up some sausage or scrambled some eggs. Pete wasn’t much of a chef, and when he found out we didn’t much care for his cooking, he stopped trying. Most nights, we fended for ourselves, making sandwiches or eating cheese and cold leftover potatoes.

  “That you, syneczku?” he called when he heard the door creak open. Like Ma had, Pete still spoke with a Polish accent, and occasionally sprinkled in some Polish words with his English. I cringed, not because of his use of Polish, but because the words he used were more appropriate for a small boy.

  “Yeah, it’s me!” I threw my newspaper carrier in a corner by the front door and took a look upstairs. “Adam?” I whispered. Nothing but silence greeted me. Where had he gone? Would Pete know? Had Pete come home from his milk route, found Adam, and immediately taken him by the scruff of his neck to the police station to face his problem “like a man”?

  I ran upstairs and searched each of the three small rooms. No Adam. His clothes were gone, too. Racing back, I veered through the living room and beyond, to the back of the house and the kitchen.

  Pete stood at the stove, pushing a thin pork chop around in a frying pan. About six feet tall, Pete was all bones and no muscle. While most preferred the “toothbrush” moustache now, Pete sported a bushy one that drooped over the edges of his thin mouth, making him look sad and droopy. Today, his long, horselike face was unshaven, and his dark brown hair looked like it needed washing. When he heard me, he turned.

  “Didn’t know where you were, so I only made one of these,” he said, pointing with his fork to the pork chop. Looking at the meat and then at me, he said, “You can share it, if you want.” But from the regret in his voice, it was clear he was hungry. Hungry, but not angry. Adam must have fled before Pete came home and discovered him hiding out.

  “No, thanks. I’ll just have some milk.”

  “There’s some hard-boiled eggs,” Pete said as I walked to the ice box. Yawning, he turned the pork chop over. It sizzled in the pan. “Did you make them?”

  No, I hadn’t, but Adam must have. “Yup,” I said, pulling out the milk bottle. The rich cream was already gone from the top. Somebody had drunk it already. Where had Adam gone?

  “How’d you find time with your jobs?” Pete asked. He rarely asked me about my activities, so I knew he was trying to find out more.

  “Uh, I boiled ’em before I went to the Academy this morning,” I said. I poured myself a big glass of milk and grabbed a piece of bread from the white table.

  “That’s strange,” Pete said, “They were still warm when I came home about a half hour ago.”

  I didn’t say anything. I sat at the table, drank my milk, and ate my bread. Pete’s pork chop sure smelled good, and I was mighty hungry after running around so m
uch. I was tired, too. I’d been up before dawn and hadn’t had a chance to nap—as Adam had done. Now the fatigue of the day caught up with me, weighting me to the table as if a stone had fallen across my shoulders. My eyelids already felt heavy, and I wanted nothing more than to go to sleep. Pete came over to the table with the frying pan and placed it in the corner. Then he grabbed two plates, two forks, and two knives from a cabinet above the sink and a drawer beside it, and put one set in front of me.

  “You look like you need something hot,” he said. Cutting the pork chop in two, he gave me a piece before sitting down.

  “Thanks,” I said, not looking at him. Grabbing a fork, I dove in. It tasted good and I sopped up the juice from my plate with some of the bread. We ate in silence. Pete was busy reading some pamphlet, and it was making him angry. Every once in a while, he cursed under his breath and shook his head. “Lies, all lies,” he muttered at one point. “I cannot believe anybody believes this nonsense! Not in this country.”

  I could only see a little of the pamphlet. It looked like a story called The Old Cedar School. When Pete saw my interest, he slid it toward me and I started to read.

  It was a story, all right, but what a strange and ugly tale it was. It was more of the Sister Lucretia falsehoods, a fantastic story of a pioneer who helped build his town’s school. But his children grew up and sent their own kids to other schools, including a Catholic one like the Academy where I worked.

  But in The Old Cedar School, the Catholic school was called the “Academy of St. Gregory’s Holy Toe Nail,” where students learned stuff like “histomorphology, the Petrine Supremacy, Transubstantiation, and the beatification of Saint Caviar.”

  It was a crazy tale, and I laughed reading it, but Pete’s face was grim. Before long, I found out why—and my stomach turned. The author described a “Roman Catholic Bishop runnin’ out from the fir grove toward the school house, a wearin’ a long black robe an’ a manicurist’s lace shirt.” The bishop in the story helped burn down the public school, which the author described as “the last torch of liberty.”

  I couldn’t help myself—I cursed, and for once, Pete didn’t scold me. “No bishop burnt down a school,” I said. “I would have heard about that if it happened.”

  Pete frowned. “Nie,” he said in Polish. No.

  “Who wrote this story?” I asked, thinking it was probably the same folks who let a madwoman give speeches about nuns.

  Pete pushed his plate away and leaned into the table, his hands together in front of him. “It’s always the way.” He stared beyond me as he spoke. “It’s because people like to blame bad things on people who are not like them.”

  Blaming bad things on people who are different? Through the fog of my fatigue, an idea emerged. “That’s probably why the cops are after Adam,” I said, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice. I knew Miller didn’t like Poles, but maybe this whole school business was fanning the flames, making Adam’s bad luck even worse.

  “You’re a good boy, Carl,” Pete said slowly, as if searching for the right words, “and I know it has not been easy when twoja mamusia—your mother—was lost to us. . .”

  I looked at my plate and gritted my teeth. Pete was working up to something—something I didn’t want to hear. My breath came fast and blood pumped hard in my ears.

  “Adam’s had it hard, too,” he said.

  “Adam’s a dobry czlowiek (a good person) and you know it,” I insisted, using the Polish that Pete was comfortable with. I knew exactly what Uncle Pete was trying to tell me—that if Adam was in trouble, it was because things had been so topsy-turvy in our lives after our mother died.

  Pete sat up straight. “If Adam’s done something wrong, it’s not because he’s a Catholic or the son of Poles. Don’t ever forget that.”

  He scraped his chair back and took his plate to the sink. Then he headed for the stairs. “I’m very tired,” he said. “I’m going to lie down. Wash up those dishes, please.”

  Adam’s disappearance caused several problems for me. First, not knowing where he was worried me to death. I didn’t trust him to be as careful as I was, and I kept imagining him turning a corner and running straight into Miller’s arms.

  But I had another problem—what to do with my check. If Adam didn’t show up before the morning, Pete might ask me where it was, and I’d have to give it to him if there was a bill to pay. In fact, when he needed the cash, Pete usually asked for it as soon as I came home on paydays. Maybe he didn’t need it, or maybe he’d been too tired, or too distracted by that stupid Cedar School story, to ask.

  I was tired, too, and after cleaning up the kitchen, I went up to my room and fell asleep with my clothes still on. I’d only meant to close my eyes for a little while, but when I woke up, it was pitch black. Night had fallen. Rubbing my eyes, I wondered what time it was.

  From down the hall, I heard a soft click-click, followed by a hiss.

  In a flash, I was standing, my eyes darting this way and that, wondering what to do. I heard it again—this time a barrage of clicks and then the hiss. It was coming from the back of the house. Walking to the doorway, I considered waking up Pete, but then my sleepy brain focused on the sound and I figured it out. Someone was throwing pebbles at the back window.

  Click, click, click, the stones sounded. Then, “Pssst!”

  It was Adam!

  In my stocking feet, I ran to the empty back room and pushed up the heavy sash. As soon as the cold night air hit my face, I heard his voice.

  “Took you long enough!” he said from below. “Open up the door. I don’t have my key.”

  I practically flew downstairs and let him in the back door.

  “Look, I can’t stay,” he said, his voice hushed but nervous, a far cry from the cavalier attitude he’d shown the day before. “Miller came by yesterday when you weren’t here. He was banging on the door something fierce. I had to hide in the furnace room.”

  “In the coal bin?”

  “No,” he laughed, looking at me like I was crazy to suggest it again. “I just stayed away from the windows. I was in the furnace room an hour until I was sure he’d left. Then I figured I’d better be on my way before Pete came home because I knew Miller would be back. I took some eggs.”

  “I know,” I said.

  “Where were you? Did you get the money?”

  I explained how Gus had set up a tour of the newsroom and how I’d run into Miller myself on my paper route. Then I fished my paycheck out of my pocket and handed it over.

  “You gotta cash it,” he said, handing it back. “I thought that’s what you were going to do.”

  “Didn’t have time. I was hurrying to get home.” And then, of course, I’d fallen asleep. I’d failed him. We stood awkwardly in the shadows of the kitchen, and I had the sense Adam was waiting for me to come up with an alternative plan.

  “You can hide out here tonight, and I’ll cash it for you in the morning.”

  “No, Pete’ll ask you for it. Probably even wake you up before he heads out.”

  He was right. The rent was coming due. Pete was always short when the rent was due.

  “I’ll. . . I’ll tell him I lost it!” I whispered. “I was going to tell him that anyway.”

  “He’ll just tell you to get another one, and get them to stop payment on the first check. No, you’ve got to tell him you cashed it. Spent it on the way home.”

  “On what?”

  “The movies, a craps game, a gift for a girl—I dunno.” He sounded frustrated with me, but I knew he was tired and let it go. “Pete’ll beat the crap out of you.”

  “That’s not what I’m worried about. I’m worried about coming up with a story he’ll believe.” I wondered what time it was. I was still sleepy and not thinking straight. “Look, you’re going to have to keep hiding until tomorrow. Where’d you go before?”

  “Nowhere special.”

  “Pete won’t check on us before he heads out,” I said. “Go upstairs and lie down.”
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br />   As Adam breezed by, I smelled something on his breath that made my blood run cold.

  It was the woody odor of whiskey.

  Chapter Six

  Adam reeked of the stuff. He must have been drinking all night. Prohibition had made booze illegal. Was he trying to get in trouble?

  The liquor on my brother’s breath that night sparked a change in my outlook. It wasn’t the drinking that bothered me so much. It was the sense that he wasn’t trying anymore. For as long as I could remember, Adam had always been the optimist, showing me in word and deed that things could and would get better—that the next day could exceed the promise of the last. But now he seemed to be daring the world to strike him down, gambling with both our futures.

  I had selfishly relied on his good disposition to see me through my own blue moods, I realized. Not for one second had I thought how hard, and tiring, it must have been always pushing me along the path of life. I was already tired—and I’d only been the problem-solver for a short time now. He had to have been worn down. I hoped to God it wasn’t too late for me to make it up to him—to at least give him some of the support he’d given me.

  Even so, I was scared I would fail. Maybe I was too “scrawny” to keep him on firmer ground. I needed another Adam to help me save him—not even Vincent G. Briggs would be enough. I was a smart one, Adam had said, but I didn’t know if I was the right kind of smart—the way an animal is smart, sensing danger in the air from miles away.

  An unease settled over me, making my skin prickly and my breath fast. I found myself wishing I could hurry everything along so I could tell if something would thwart my plans and I could adjust accordingly. I wished I could snap my fingers and have this “ace reporter” start making phone calls and talking big, like I’d heard him talking the day before, to solve my brother’s case. I wished I could keep Adam out of more trouble. I wished I felt as confident as I had in that newsroom. I wished Adam and I could start planning our move back East.