The Case Against My Brother

by Libby Sternberg

  A short, balding man, he laughed before answering. “Which one? Southern Pacific, Union Pacific, the Cascade line, or the Red Electric?”

  “Uh. . .”

  “Where you want to go?” he asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, my confidence faltering. “No, I do know. Baltimore.”

  After consulting a schedule, he told me I could get a train to San Francisco that afternoon and switch to other trains from there.

  “Any other trains to San Francisco?” I asked.

  “One’s just about ready to leave,” he said. “Track 8.”

  “Thanks!” I shouted, turning back into the station.

  “Hey, kid,” he called after me, “you need a ticket to get on!”

  But I wasn’t getting on. I was just trying to find Adam. Gazing at the numbers above the doors lining the room, I found the one for Track 8 and ran for it.

  The huge train, hissing and rumbling, sat on its tracks. A few stragglers made their way through open doors, uniformed conductors helping them step on board.

  I scanned the full length of the train. A figure near the end caught my eye. There he was! A bundle in one hand, tan cap on his head—Adam! I still had time.

  Running forward, I called out, “Adam, wait! Adam! Don’t go!”

  The train hummed and hooted. Noise filled the air. He hadn’t heard. He placed his right foot onto the train, handing his ticket to a conductor. My legs pumping, I sped toward him, screaming at the top of my lungs.

  “Adam! Wait! Adam!”

  As he made the final step onto the train, he sensed or heard me, and turned toward me, his face twisting into a mask of confusion.

  I halted. It wasn’t Adam. It was some other fellow.

  “You need help, boy?” a red cap asked me.

  Startled, I shook my head. “No, no thanks,” I said. Catching my breath, I watched as the long, heavy train puffed and screeched away from the station. I peered at the windows, hoping to see Adam’s face. If he was on board that train, I couldn’t find him.

  Feeling totally defeated, I shoved my hands into my pockets, my shoulders slumping and my mouth shaping itself into a grimace. I walked away from the tracks, back toward the station, trying to think of a new plan. By the time I reached the street, my energy and confidence were fading fast. I was beginning to feel it wasn’t possible, that everything was stacked against me.

  All right, if I couldn’t get Adam to talk to Briggs, maybe I could do the next best thing—gather enough information from others associated with the crime to help the reporter with his story. And when Adam finally contacted me, I’d be able to tell him the coast was clear.

  I slipped down a side street and headed home, first stopping at Jasluzek’s. We didn’t have a telephone at Pete’s house, but Jasluzek had one. He had let me use it to call Pete’s boss one morning when Pete was sick. I entered the store and stood before the counter as Mr. Jasluzek wrapped up a piece of chicken for a stout woman with a dark scarf tied under her chin. When she left, I looked out the door to see if Miller was still behind me. Sure that I was alone, I pointed to the telephone at the end of the counter.

  “Please, Mr. Jasluzek, may I use your telephone? It’s an emergency.” I wasn’t lying. My brother’s fate hung in the balance.

  With skeptical eyes, Jasluzek stared at me. Before he could answer, another woman entered the store, heading for the meat counter.

  “Just be quick about it, boy,” he said, turning to the customer.

  Standing by the counter, holding the cylindrical receiver in one hand and the phone base in the other, I got the operator to connect me with the Peterson household. Keeping my voice down so Jasluzek couldn’t hear, I asked to speak to Rose when a stiff-sounding woman answered the phone.

  “Whom may I say is calling?” the woman asked archly.

  “Carl—” I stopped before giving her my last name. After reading that stuff in the Cedar School book and hearing how Miller talked about us being “Bolsheviks,” I didn’t want her to know I was Polish. “A friend,” I said at last. “Just tell her it’s a friend.”

  In a second, a sweeter female voice came on the line. “Hello?” she said, sounding kind of shaky.

  “This is Carl Matuski, Adam’s brother. Listen, I don’t have a lot of time. I need to talk to you soon.”

  Soft as a whisper, her voice slightly trembling, she responded after a pause, “How is he? Is Adam all right?”

  “As fine as he can be, with the cops after him.”

  I heard her take in her breath like a gasp. “Does he. . . does he ask about me?”

  Come to think of it, Adam hardly ever mentioned Rose, but I imagined that was because of the burglary charge her family wanted to hang around his neck. Not wanting to hurt her feelings, though, I muttered a quick, “Sure,” then pressed my case. “Look, can you meet me somewhere?”

  After a moment’s hesitation, she answered. “All right. I can meet you at Meier and Frank’s Tea Room. Do you know where that is? At noon. Tell Adam I want to help him.”

  Chapter Seven

  Meier and Frank’s was one of the city’s best-known department stores. Located at Fifth and Morrison, it was a bustling place of commerce, with awnings over wide display windows facing the street, and at least ten floors filled with all sorts of goods—everything from gleaming perfume bottles and shiny toys to neatly-folded clothes. Its treasure-box of items just made me hurt for wanting them. I’d only been in the store once, right before Christmas the year before.

  When we’d first come to Portland, Pete had taken us there to pick out a holiday gift. I had the impression Pete had remembered almost too late that we might expect gifts on Christmas Day. It was a strange outing, filled with disappointment. I was still afraid of Pete, who hardly smiled, and picking out a gift for myself was not the treat I’d thought it might be. The store was crammed with last-minute shoppers, and as I looked around at what to buy, a sad realization hit me. There’d be no other gifts, no little wrapped packages under a decorated tree, like there’d been when Ma was alive. During that visit to the store, I kept thinking how different it would have been with Ma. Nothing Pete did could have made up for that.

  When I picked out a stiff new baseball mitt, Pete stared at the price tag and asked if I was sure there wasn’t something else I’d like. Adam whispered in my ear that maybe I should look for something more practical. I ended up picking out a plain cotton shirt with a soft collar, which made Pete smile.

  Now I raced past shelves of shirts, racks of women’s clothing, and displays of fine china and silver, and headed for the elevator that would speed me to the Tea Room. Today the crowds and atmosphere didn’t bother me. I had a goal.

  My self-confidence got rattled as I stared into the big restaurant on the tenth floor. Hushed and busy, it looked like a palace from a faraway land—tables with crisp white linens, serving trays pushed by silent servers, and potted plants filling out the room. Serving women in black dresses and filmy white aprons glided up to tables carrying silver trays. Men and women—mostly women—sat and smiled, sipping tea and eating things I wouldn’t even know the name of.

  A stately woman in black with a large purple pin and bunching lace at her neck approached me. Looking me up and down, she asked, “May I help you?” but didn’t seem like she wanted to help me at all.

  “I’m—I’m looking for someone,” I stammered. When she glanced at my cap, I belatedly remembered to take it off. Swiping it from my head, I looked beyond her, hoping Rose Peterson would see and rescue me.

  My wish was fulfilled. Just beyond a large fern at the entrance-way, a young woman stood and smiled at me. She mouthed my name and I nodded. With a shy wave, she beckoned.

  “There she is!” I cried out, walking right past the startled hostess toward Rose.

  I didn’t know what to do or say once I got to her table. She was beautiful. No wonder Adam had fallen for her. Her very presence made me aware of all my faults—how gangly and thin I was, how clumsy and awkw
ard I could be. Adam had this way of making you want to be liked by him. On more than one occasion, I’d seen him charm a lady into a shy blush. It didn’t surprise me he’d won over someone as pretty as Rose, or that she was smitten enough to meet with Adam’s brother on the barest introduction.

  Rose’s hair was short and wavy blonde, and she wore a suit the color of silvery clouds, with a blouse whose lacy collar spread around her neck and shoulders like a wispy bib. Her face was porcelain pink and her eyes crystal blue, and the way the collar framed her face made me think of pictures of angels on holiday cards, all rosy-cheeked and fresh.

  She made me think of Esther, too, back home in Baltimore. Not for the first time since I’d written my letter, I wondered if she’d respond.

  “Carl?” Rose said. Her voice was mellow, like velvet music.

  I swallowed hard. “You must be Rose,” I said, twisting the edge of my cap in my fingers.

  With a lace-gloved hand, she gestured toward the chair opposite hers. I sat down.

  “I ordered some tea. Would you like some cake?” she asked, scanning the room for the server.

  “That would be fine.” When I scooted my chair into the table, my knees bumped hers and I immediately apologized. Her face and mine reddened and she looked down at the table.

  “How’s your brother?” she asked softly.

  I didn’t want to give out too much information about Adam, so I just said, “Fine, I guess.”

  Still not looking at me, she asked the same question she’d posed on the phone. “Has he spoken of me?”

  No, but he should have, for goodness’ sake. She was as pretty as a movie actress—prettier than most girls, in fact. If she’d been sweet on me, I’d have talked about her to anyone who would listen.

  “Yes,” I stammered, not knowing what else to say. “He says you’re real nice.” That was true to a point. While Adam had never said those precise words, his voice had betrayed his affection. My heart went out to her—here we both were, trying to fix Adam’s problems, when he might well be making more trouble for himself.

  Satisfied with my answer, she smiled.

  “I can’t stay long,” she said, pulling off her gloves, revealing pale fingers with rosy pink nails. They made me want to hide my own hands, with their grubby fingernails and calluses.

  “My mother will be meeting me in a half hour,” she said.

  I took that as my cue to begin, so I launched right into my explanation. “I need some information about the night the jewelry was stolen.”

  Immediately, she shook her head slowly back and forth. “We don’t know exactly what night it was stolen.” With watery eyes, she looked at me. “That’s part of the problem. Mother keeps those things in a special case, which she doesn’t check every day. When she went to transfer them into a new safe, she discovered they were missing.” She gave me a determined stare. “I don’t believe Adam took them. If he’d needed money, he could have just. . .”

  She didn’t need to finish. He could have just asked her for cash. She was so trusting, so eager to help. I wondered if she’d given him money on other occasions.

  “When was the last time your mother saw the jewels?”

  “The police asked the same thing,” Rose said. “And Mother told them she’d worn them to a dinner party three weeks ago.”

  Three weeks ago! Adam had only known Rose for two weeks! My foot started to tap with excitement. “Do you have any servants? Did any tradespeople come to the house?”

  She nodded. “We have a maid and a cook, but they’ve been with us since I was a baby. They’ve never done anything like this. Mother would never suspect them of it and neither would I.”

  “People sometimes fall on hard times,” I said, but Rose shook her head fiercely.

  “No. If they needed extra money, they’d ask for it. Mother has been very generous with them.” Rose shifted in her seat, and I could tell she was nervous about something. She kept frowning and opening her mouth to speak, then closing it again as if thinking better of it. We both remained silent as the server arrived with our tea, setting a teapot in front of us along with a plate of little sandwiches—some that looked like chicken and cucumbers, some rare roast beef, all with the crusts cut off the bread. I was hungry, but too nervous to eat. Besides, it was Friday—no meat is allowed Catholics on Fridays. After the server left, I leaned into the table again.

  “Anyone else? Any gardeners, roofers, handymen?”

  “No! None of those!” Rose said emphatically. As she sipped her tea, her hand shook. I drank some tea, too, eager to find out what she wasn’t saying.

  “All right,” I began again, “how about your brothers—are they hard up for money?”

  She smiled, not taking offense. “Evan’s a scamp, but he’s never been in any trouble. Besides, he’s been away all month visiting our grandparents in Eugene. And Bernard is. . . well, he’d never do anything to hurt Mother.”

  Not wanting to hurt your mother doesn’t always translate into honesty, so I pressed her for more information about Bernard.

  “Has he ever been in trouble?” I asked.

  She looked down, studying her fingers. “Bernard has moods, but that’s all.” Her face rose and her eyes met mine. “He served in France, you see—the war. He saw some awful things. He doesn’t like to talk about them. And he’s never been the same since.”

  If Bernard had served in the Great War, that meant he was probably in his early twenties, still young enough to make stupid mistakes. A lot of young people were living it up, drinking and partying, dancing to wild music, or so I’d heard. I didn’t begrudge another man a good time, but it made me uneasy to see folks acting like there was no tomorrow. I still believed in tomorrow. And I thought Adam did too.

  Rose must have felt the same way about her brother. A rush of sympathy warmed me again and I actually reached over and tapped her hand. She smiled at me.

  “He sometimes went out with friends,” she continued, “and gambled.” Her voice became a low hush. “He had to ask Daddy for some money to pay off a debt. Daddy was so angry.” Straightening in her chair, she smoothed a stray hair off her cheek. “But that’s all done with now. He’s married and settled down, and has an excellent job with the Portland Bank. I doubt he even remembered where Mother kept her jewelry.”

  Nonetheless, I asked about her older brother’s whereabouts for the past few weeks. It turned out he had visited the house shortly before the jewelry disappeared, and something about that visit actually brought a tear to Rose’s eye.

  “What’s wrong?” I asked, wishing I had a clean handkerchief on hand, feeling somehow responsible for her tears.

  “Bernard and I had an argument the night he was in town—an argument about Adam.”

  My breath came fast and I sat up straight. “About what in particular?”

  “Bernard caught me. . . sneaking out one night to meet Adam.” She sniffled. “Bernard knew Mother and Father weren’t happy I was seeing your brother.”

  All the more reason to point the finger at Adam, I thought. Except for Rose, none of the Petersons seemed to like him, and would have been just as happy to have him out of their lives.

  “Why didn’t they like him?” I asked.

  She looked down again. “You know. . . all those things people are saying. My parents didn’t like me seeing a. . . a Matuski.”

  I sat back, the wind knocked out of me. I’d expected her to say he was shabbily dressed or didn’t have a good job. Or maybe even that he was too quick to tease. I was ready to defend those faults. But they didn’t like him for the same reason folks didn’t like St. Mary’s Academy and the girls who attended it. Adam was Polish and Catholic.

  “Bernard threatened to tell Mother and Father I’d gone out without telling them,” she said, wiping her eyes.

  “Did he?”

  “No,” she whimpered, “because a few days later, the jewels were gone and the police were after Adam. He didn’t want to upset them even more. He went back home
without saying a word to them about it—he just gave me a lecture.” She swallowed hard and looked up at the ceiling. “He shook his finger at me and said,‘I told you so,’ because he’d warned me that Adam was no good.”

  Even though I’d never met her brother, I could imagine what that talk must have been like. Adam was no good because he was a “Bolshevist,” a “papist,” a graduate from the “Academy of St. Gregory’s Holy Toe Nail.” The things I’d read in that pamphlet that had seemed so silly now made me feel sick.

  “Adam’s a good fellow,” I said, but it sounded weak. “And he’s not—” I stopped. He wasn’t what? A Catholic? Son of Poles? He was both those things. So was I. We shouldn’t have to defend ourselves because of them. I shifted in my seat. “You just told me that the jewels could have been taken a week before you even knew my brother.” I was angry that her family had been so quick to judge, and accuse, Adam.

  “No, no, you don’t understand,” she said, leaning forward and grasping my hand. “My mother hadn’t checked on the jewels for weeks, but they were there all the same. I took them the night I went out with Adam—I wore them!”

  I spent another fifteen minutes in the Tea Room with Rose Peterson after she disclosed the secret she hadn’t confessed to the police or to her mother. Adam had taken her to a speakeasy, and she wanted to impress him. So she’d sneaked into her mother’s room that afternoon, removed the jewels from their case, and worn them. Then, when she came back home, she was careful to put them back in the velvet case, exactly where she’d found them the day before.

  I found both good and bad in this story. I was disappointed to learn that the jewels did, in fact, disappear at a time when Adam was around, which added to the evidence against him. But other people, perhaps even some seedy types, had also seen the jewels. Revelers at the speakeasy must have admired them. And perhaps Rose, who’d worn them to impress Adam, had bragged about their value as well.