“Where you been?” he said, more out of worry than anger.
“Just out and around,” I said, swiping my hat off my head and hanging it on the banister.
“You eat anything?” From the way he asked, I could tell it would be an inconvenience to feed me now. Truth was, I was starving. I’d only had some bread and milk at lunch. I’d been too nervous to eat much. My face must have given me away.
“C’mon then,” Pete said, patting me on the back, “there’s some sausage and bread.”
While I shyly fetched my meal to take to my room, Pete introduced me as his nephew. “He works at the Academy, too,” Pete said proudly, looking at Lester, who confirmed that with a nod. The others murmured their approval.
Pete told me they were part of a group the church was putting together—something called the Truth Society of Oregon—and they were going to put out their own pamphlets to counter ones like The Old Cedar School.
“Jack here’s a Lutheran,” Pete told me, “and Orville over there is a Methodist. They’re dobry ludzie—good people.”
I knew what Pete was telling me—that there were fine men out there who weren’t Catholic, but who were just as upset as he was about the School Question.
In as polite a voice as I could muster, I said I was pleased to make their acquaintance and asked Pete if I could be excused. He beamed a proud smile at me and nodded. As I turned to leave, he called after me.
“You have a letter,” he said. “I put it on the stair.”
A letter? I rushed around the corner and retrieved the envelope. Before I even saw the return address, I knew who was writ-ing—Esther!
My plate of food in one hand, the letter in the other, I raced upstairs as fast as I could. I was no longer hungry, at least not for food.
Esther’s letter consisted of two pages, both sides overflowing with her neat, sloping handwriting. I read the letter twice before eating and another two times after.
She was “so pleased” to hear from me. She’d been “sad to discover” I’d left town, and no one had known where we’d headed. “Julian’s sister thought Adam said something about an uncle in Oregon, though, so I wasn’t surprised to see that’s where you are now. Where is Adam?”
An odd question to ask—where is Adam? What had Adam told Julian’s sister before we left Baltimore?
“I am very happy to learn you will be returning soon,” she wrote. “Poppa says any young man willing to work hard can find a job here. If you write and tell me the train you will be on, I might be able to meet you. . .”
And finally, “Poppa and Momma both agreed you could stay in the basement room for a few weeks when you come back. They always liked you. I like you, too.”
It filled my heart to bursting. Esther liked me, and had the courage to write it. She’d had the courage to ask her parents to put me up, too. They saw promise in me. They saw a man.
But the letter contained troubling messages, too—ones I couldn’t quite figure out. It was clear Esther thought I was alone, that Adam either hadn’t traveled with me or was off on some other adventure. Why would she have that idea?
I thought back to what I’d written her. I hadn’t mentioned Adam in my letter except to say how well he’d handled our journey west. Most of my letter had been about how much I missed Baltimore and my friends and how I was planning on coming home “real soon.” Perhaps that’s why she assumed Adam was elsewhere.
I wished I could just pick up a telephone and talk to her. Even if we had a telephone, that would be impossible. It would use up all our money to make such a call.
I looked over at Adam’s bed, which offered no evidence he’d returned. His few belongings were gone. The only thing he’d left behind was Dad’s old watch. And that looked unintentional—the watch was almost hidden by his pillow. He’d probably gone back to the speakeasy, back to Lillian (while Rose still pined for him),and back to the “gang” who might lead him into who-knew-what kind of trouble.
Or maybe he’d taken my advice and gone to the chapel, where he could safely bunk out for the night.
Imagining him asleep below the church gave me some measure of peace. Although I hadn’t considered it before, perhaps staying in the church would have a positive effect on Adam, bring him back “home,” to where he used to be—optimistic, eager to take on the world, good.
I lay on my bed, the letter from Esther in my hands. I wanted to write her back immediately. But first, I had to figure out how to handle my next problem—contacting jewelers in the area to see if the jewelry had turned up there. If I could get to them before Officer Miller and the police did, the information would help lead me to the real thief. I didn’t trust Miller to do it.
I couldn’t cut work, though. Heck, there’d probably be more than the usual amount for me to do, with Lester a part of this Truth Society. My guess was that the Society would have other jobs for me akin to printing and distributing the archbishop’s letter. And I couldn’t do the jewelry job by phone—no one would lend me a phone long enough to make all the calls.
A page of Esther’s letter slipped to the floor. As I bent to pick it up, the idea came to me—I’d write to the jewelers. Writing was the best way to do it, after all. If I wrote to them, I could pretend I was someone else. I could pretend I was a collector or a jeweler myself, someone interested in fine things, and that way, unaware of my true motives, they’d be less likely to lie to cover up any possible wrongdoing.
I folded Esther’s letter and placed it in my jacket pocket, then rummaged around upstairs and found some paper. I started to write.
“To Whom It May Concern. . .” I began.
For an hour, I labored. I wrote five drafts of the letter before hitting on one I thought sounded good. I pretended to be a jeweler, writing on behalf of a very wealthy customer “eager to purchase a ruby and diamond set of earrings to wear to a fancy dress ball.” I signed my name “Alfred Baguette” because I thought it sounded important—I’d seen the word on a French bakery sign—and I included Pete’s address, asking them to write me back if they had anything like the jewels I described.
Now, all I needed to do was get the addresses of jewelry shops and pawnbrokers in the area. There couldn’t be that many. Maybe one of the jewelers in town would know.
Yawning, I got up and opened my door. The house was dark and quiet—the Truth Society was gone. Taking my empty plate and glass downstairs to the kitchen, I glanced at the clock above the table. It was nearly midnight! I had to get some sleep, but I had one last task to perform, a job that I looked forward to with sweet anticipation. I went back upstairs and pulled out some more paper. “Dear Esther,” I penned, “You have no idea how happy your letter made me. . .”
Chapter Twelve
After posting my letter to Esther the next day, I couldn’t help hoping I’d get another from her even before she had a chance to read my awkward note. But the postman didn’t have any more letters for me.
If I wasn’t looking for the postman, I was alert for Adam’s return. Every footfall outside the house had me scurrying to the window to see if Adam was back. And every time, I was disappointed. I had no idea where my brother had run off to. I hoped it was somewhere he wouldn’t get into any more trouble. And I hoped he’d come back eventually, after I’d cleared his name, so we could head home together.
My investigation was going so slowly I could scream. Each day, I looked through the newspaper for a story on Reginald Jones and the Portland Bank, hoping Vincent Briggs had come through once again. Tuesday, Wednesday, then Thursday rolled by with no story.
I had plenty to do in that time, though. On Tuesday afternoon, I walked into town and boldly entered the Benson’s Fine Jewelry and Gold establishment, acting as if I’d dealt in jewels my entire life. But when the starched and pinched man behind the counter treated me like a vagabond, ignoring my questions about other jewelry stores in town, my confidence was shaken. What did this man know about me and why did he so dislike me? I thought of the burning cross on
our lawn. Though I knew in my heart I was guilty of no sin for being a Matuski, I focused immediately on my failings. I was clumsily dressed. I hadn’t seen my brother slip away from me. While the jeweler didn’t know that last thing, I did, and after seeing that burning cross, any poor treatment made me feel my faults were obvious to all.
I felt this less after my second try, because this time, I fared better. I stopped in the Medlisson pawn shop, and there an elderly man with no hair and a thick accent spent a half hour giving me the names and addresses of a half dozen stores in the area. When he tried to sell me a pin like the one I claimed to be looking for, I feigned interest, still another lie to feel bad about.
Once I had the addresses, I had to copy my letters over and over again and mail them off. This made for an excruciatingly slow letter-writing day at the Academy, sitting on an overturned crate in the boiler room instead of measuring a broken window for a new piece of plate glass.
Lucky for me, Pete was very busy that week, hardly giving me a second glance as I rushed around on my various errands. He was meeting with his Truth Society a couple nights a week now, mostly at the school.
Even with all this activity, I was impatient. No story on Reginald Jones appeared in the Telegram. Vincent Briggs had let me down.
All right, then, I thought. Staring out the kitchen window one afternoon, I spread newspapers out before me, searching for the story, but I couldn’t focus, thinking instead of missed opportunities. Reginald Jones might be gone soon, and I’d never learn the truth about him. Slamming my hand on the table, I made a decision.
If Briggs wouldn’t get the story, I would.
The next day, I checked in with Lester and was relieved to find he had no work for me. I immediately headed to the Portland Bank before he could find a task or two to fill my day.
Portland Bank was a giant vault sunk into the ground on the corner of Fifth Avenue. Inside, it felt like a mix between a church and a library. Gleaming marble floors, the smell of wood, and hushed voices greeted me as busy men scratched on papers behind gilded grilles. This wasn’t my world, and I immediately felt uncomfortable, as if all eyes were on me. I found myself tiptoeing across the floor, trying not to make any unnecessary noise, or any noise at all. Taking off my hat as I approached a teller’s window, I felt so out of place that I expected a guard to haul me off any second. I wasn’t even sure what to say to the teller, or how I’d say it. I didn’t know what I’d do if they wouldn’t tell me anything, or if they asked me a question I couldn’t answer. I should have had a plan. Once again, I was without a rudder.
The man behind the marble counter, tall and thin with skin the color of a mushroom, stamped some papers and set them aside before glancing at me through the gold-painted grille work. His reddish hair looked hastily combed, and his neck bulged over a high starched collar.
“Yes, may I help you?” he asked in a pinched voice.
Clearing my throat, I responded, “I’m. . . I’m looking for someone. A Mr. Reginald Jones.”
He snapped a ledger closed with a whack that reverberated throughout the lobby. “There is no Reginald Jones here now,” he said forcefully, looking beyond me for another customer. But I was the only one in line, and he’d just said something very interesting. He’d said, “now.” No Reginald Jones was there now. It could mean he had worked there—something I already knew from Lillian and Adam—or it could mean he was just out today. Why not just say Reginald Jones used to work here?
“Look,” I said in a sad voice, as helpless as I felt, “I really need to talk to him. I know he worked here. It’s about an account he managed for my great aunt. . .”
The man’s face relaxed from impassive rigidity to confusion. Tapping his fingers on his ledger, he frowned. “Maybe I can help you,” he said. “What was your aunt’s name?”
“No,” I lied, “only Mr. Jones can help.”
The clerk still did not offer up any news about Reginald Jones’s whereabouts. “You see, he used to make out her records personally. . .” I had no idea what I was saying or even how bank accounts worked. I just wanted to know where Reginald Jones was.
But the man, eyes widened, seemed convinced. “He handled her account personally?” he said. “Let me see. . .” He looked over his shoulder for help, then walked to a nearby teller. For a minutes or so, they whispered back and forth, until the other pointed toward a desk where a tidy-looking fellow sat.
The man at the desk had hair the color of wheat, and his small eyes looked out from behind rimless spectacles. In his right hand, he turned a new fountain pen over and over, not realizing his fidgeting was causing the pen to leak. Eventually, he grasped his error, spotting the ink on his clean fingers, and his even features contorted into a glare, the right corner of his lip rising in disgust. Carefully pulling a handkerchief from the pocket of his neat gray suit, he wiped his fingers, never looking up at the teller who’d come to talk to him.
The teller nodded my way and the gray-suited man stared at me, his brow furrowed. He asked the teller a question, but the teller just shrugged. The suited man nodded and stood, walking over to a wooden railing that separated the desk area from the lobby. He motioned me over as the teller returned to his station.
“I understand Reginald Jones handled your aunt’s account,” he said, smiling. Smelling of peppermint and pipe smoke, he extended his hand. “Perhaps I can help you. My name is Bernard Peterson.”
Chapter Thirteen
Bernard Peterson—Rose’s brother! She’d told me he worked at Portland Bank, but I’d imagined him in some big office upstairs in a velvet chair behind a desk the size of my room. I hadn’t counted on running into him now—yet another reason to curse my lack of planning. Though I’d suspected him ever since talking to Rose, I’d had no idea how to investigate him. Now I was staring right at his watery blue eyes. With thin lips, a weak handshake, and a suit that looked as if it was made of the finest silk, he was the embodiment of disinterested wealth. If you’d have asked me to paint a picture of a rich man, his image would have flowed from my brush.
He led me behind the railing to his desk, where he sat, placing his hands together in a steeple before his face. “Now,” he said as I sat across from him, “what’s your name, and what was your aunt’s name?”
It was cool in the bank, but sweat beaded on my brow. I couldn’t give him my real name! He’d know I was related to Adam. Thinking fast, I used the most upstanding name I knew, as much as I despised it.
“John Miller, sir,” I said in my best good-boy voice. Officer Miller.
“And your aunt?”
“My great-aunt, sir,” I continued. “Her name is Mrs. Miller.”
He smiled and leaned forward. “What’s her first name?”
Nothing came to me. I wanted to choose a nice safe name, nothing foreign-sounding, nothing that sounded Catholic or “Bolshevist.” Rose? Lillian? I couldn’t use those names. My mother’s first name had been Marie.
“Mary,” I said softly. “Mary Miller.”
Smiling again, he picked up a pencil and wrote the name on a piece of lined paper. Turning back to me, he leaned casually on the desk, but his foot, clad in an expensive-looking black leather shoe, tapped nervously on the floor. “What sort of dealings did she have with Mr. Jones?”
Looking around the room, I asked, “Where is he? If you don’t mind, sir, I’d like to talk to Mr. Jones.” I made sure to articulate “Mr. Jones” loud enough for anyone nearby to hear. It seemed to make Bernard uncomfortable.
“Mr. Jones isn’t here right now,” he said, his voice rising. But I knew he no longer worked here at all. Was Bernard trying to hide that? “You really need to tell me what the problem is.” He reached over and grabbed my wrist. Squeezing hard, he stared into my eyes. “What is it Jonesy did for your aunt’s account? Was it a loan?”
A loan? When I’d made up the story of a great aunt having an account at Portland Bank, I’d thought only of a regular old savings account—the kind Pete deposited money in
once in a while. He had a little book that showed how much he had and how much “interest” he’d earned on his balance. Why did Bernard Peterson think my made-up aunt might have taken out a loan? Maybe Jonesy had worked with loans specifically.
“Uh. . . yeah,” I improvised, “I guess. . . I. . .”
He leaned further forward and his voice became a whisper. His nails dug into my wrist and his eyes looked wild and desperate. “Whatever it is, I’ll take care of it. I’ll fix it. I’m sure it was an unintentional error. Jonesy made a lot of them. That’s why he’s no longer with Portland Bank.”
With his nails in my wrist, his face so close, and his breath so quick, I couldn’t think straight. Though we were surrounded by people, he could physically harm me in that cold, impersonal bank, and not a soul would care.
But while his grip on me was tight, his face was drained and his eyes frantic. He was clearly afraid of something—something this Reginald Jones had done.
With a quick yank, I pulled my arm away. “You’re hurting me, sir,” I said, raising my voice.
Looking around to see if anyone had heard me, he stood, announcing loudly and jovially, so all could hear, that he’d “look into your aunt’s account immediately.”
When he walked toward a row of cabinets, I wiped the sweat from my forehead. Once he discovered there was no Mary Miller with an account here, what would he do? Had I committed a crime? Could he turn me over to the police?
Glancing back toward the railing, I wondered if I could leap over it and escape before he came after me. But I had to know more about Bernard Peterson, and I needed to find out why mentioning Reginald Jones made him so nervous.
Bernard peered at records beside a row of tall arched windows near the wall. His face puckered into confusion. Maybe he’d already figured out I was fibbing. Maybe not. But it was only a matter of time before he did. Should I stay or run? I bit my lip and grabbed my cap. A phone rang at a distant desk and the murmur of customers carried from the front of the bank. In this sea of routine, any move would seem a crime. If I ran, it would have to be quick.
The Case Against My Brother Page 11