The Passover Murder

by Lee Harris

  There were two messages on the machine when I got home. The first was from Eileen asking me to call back. The second was from Mel and she sounded funny. I called her right away.

  “Oh, Chris,” she said, her voice weary, “Grandpa died last night.”

  “I’m so sorry,” I said, the information making a ripple through my body. “I hope he wasn’t in pain.”

  “I don’t think he was. Mrs. Hires found him this morning. He died in his sleep. The funeral will be tomorrow.”

  “I’d like to go.”

  “You can follow us in your car. We’ll be going on to the cemetery. I don’t think you’ll want to do that. Come by at nine.”

  “I will. Will you be home today?”

  “Sure. Mom’s taking care of the arrangements and then I think she’ll pick up Aunt Sylvie. She shouldn’t be alone. It’s her last brother.”

  I didn’t comment. “I’ll pick up some dinner for you, Mel. I’ll drop it off later this afternoon.”

  “Oh, Chris, what a lovely thing to do.”

  “I learned about it from good people,” I said.

  I drove over to the kosher delicatessen that Mel had introduced me to and bought a little of this and a little of that the way she did. The salads looked wonderful, and their rye bread with seeds had a smell that would drive you crazy. I left with so many things that I needed a shopping bag.

  Mel looked pretty washed out when she opened the door, and when she hugged me, we both cried.

  “Stay for a while,” she said. “Hal’s gone to pick up Sylvie, and I’d love to talk about something else. It’s so sad. He wanted to see the flowers bloom.”

  “Some of the trees have started to leaf out. He probably saw them yesterday.”

  “I hope so.” She got up and went to the window. “You’re right. The willow is green and there are some green buds on the other trees. Maybe he did see them. Maybe it was enough.”

  We talked for a while, but it wasn’t about other things. Finally I said I’d see her in the morning.

  “Stay for dinner,” she said.

  “I don’t think so. There are some things I have to work out.”

  “I forgot. You’ve been looking into Aunt Iris’s death.”

  “We’ll talk about it another time.”

  I went home and called Eileen. She wanted to set up a time to meet with Taffy. I told her Friday would be fine and we left it at that. Then I called Shirley Finster.

  “In custody?” Shirley said. “You got Morris Gordon in custody?”

  “He killed Iris. I talked to him this morning myself.”

  “Oh my God.”

  “Did anyone in Marilyn’s generation ever know that Aunt Iris had a twin brother?”

  “Nobody. Not one person. He quit school when he was a kid. He was a troublemaker, not big trouble, just enough that he was hard to get along with. Nowadays they would say he has low self-esteem. Back then it was an inferiority complex. He thought everyone in the family got better than he did.”

  “Did you know him, Shirley?”

  “Sure I knew him. They went to the same school as me. Then one day something happened, a big fight with his parents, and he left. We’re talking sixty years ago, the nineteen thirties. It was the Depression. Maybe he had a dollar or two in his pocket, maybe less. Iris was a wreck. Whatever happened, she loved him. I never saw him again after that.”

  “But Iris did.”

  She took a deep breath. “She didn’t talk about it much, but I think he called her sometimes or wrote her a letter.”

  “She was giving him money,” I said.

  “I’m not surprised.”

  “Why didn’t he go to his brothers or his other sisters?”

  “What, and say, ‘Look, here I am after forty years. Can you give me some money now that I’m back?’ This man wasn’t even there when his parents died. He never called to see how anyone was, if they were sick, if he could do anything for them. You heard of the black sheep in the family? Morris was the original black sheep.”

  “Before the night of the seder she told him she wouldn’t give him any more money, that she was going to Switzerland and that was the end.”

  “No,” Shirley said. “It wasn’t the end. For Iris there was never any end.”

  “I guess Morris didn’t understand that.”

  “Then he was the only one, let me tell you.”

  26

  The funeral was short, and the room in the funeral home where it took place, very bare. Like the only other Jewish funeral I had attended, there were no flowers. The casket, made of a lustrous wood, was front and center but largely ignored. A rabbi spoke for several minutes about the life and family of Abraham Grodnik and then Marilyn’s older brother gave a short eulogy that came from the heart and was delivered with great difficulty. After a few closing remarks from the rabbi, it was over.

  I had signed the book and spoken to every member of the family whom I knew, so I slipped away quickly and drove back to Oakwood. Waiting on my answering machine was a message from Harris White. I called him back right away.

  “We’ve got what we need,” Harris said right off the bat. “He made a full confession.”

  I felt a pang of guilt. I should have told Marilyn. Maybe someone in the family would have gotten him a lawyer. “Is it substantially what he told me?”

  “Not quite, but it’s good enough. Of course, he didn’t mean to do it. He was going to his brother’s apartment to see his family for the first time in over forty years. But when he got there, his sister walked out of the front door and met someone. He watched, he saw the guy give her something and then walk away. He said he was planning to meet her the following afternoon in Queens. He never really admitted to us that she gave him money—I guess the guy still has some pride—but he said they got into a fight, he hit her, she died, and he had to dump the body. You and I know it was a lot more than that, Chris. He really bloodied her.”

  “And he stole her money and the airline tickets.”

  “Right. He’s a little fuzzy on some details like that, but thanks to his openness, we really have a case.”

  “Harris, his oldest brother died yesterday. I went to the funeral this morning. I want to talk to someone in the family about this. I don’t know what they’ll do, if anything, but this is a very difficult time.”

  “I understand. But I’ve got to turn what I’ve got over to the DA, and there’ll be an arraignment. If you think someone’s going to spring for a lawyer, I’d say the sooner the better.”

  “I’ll take care of it.”

  It was late when the Grosses returned home. I guessed they must have gone to Marilyn’s house after the cemetery. I waited so that Mel would have time to relax after the ordeal of this long day. Then I walked down the block and rang her doorbell.

  “Come on in,” she said. “What a day. We were at Mom’s till the kids couldn’t take it anymore. I brought home some cake. Hal and I are just sitting with our feet up and munching. Join us.”

  We talked for a few minutes about who had come, how far they had traveled, how many friends Abraham Grodnik had had, even at his advanced age.

  Then I said, “Mel, there’s something that can’t wait. It’s about Iris. We have her killer.”

  They both listened with shock and undivided interest. I left a lot out, but I made my point. Iris’s twin brother was in custody. When I finished, Mel said, “Hal, I hate to do this to you, but would you take Chris to Mom’s so she can make a decision? I think Chris is right. It can’t wait.”

  I protested that I could go myself, but Hal put his shoes back on and we got in his car and drove. Marilyn Margulies’s house, a twenty-minute ride from Oakwood, was all lit up and had cars parked up and down the block. We went in the open front door and found Marilyn in the living room talking to relatives. She gave us an odd look as she saw us and came over.

  “Chris has something that’s going to blow your mind,” Hal said. “Tell her.”

  Marilyn is a cool woma
n. She can handle catastrophes as though they were ordinary mishaps. But my story left her reeling. She kept asking me to repeat things, to explain things I hadn’t wanted to mention until a later time, but which she needed in order to understand the whole story. Finally she said, “Where is he?”

  “I’m not sure. He was taken to a precinct in Queens yesterday morning, but by now he’s probably been taken downtown to be booked at 100 Centre Street, the courts. I don’t know where he’s spending the night, but I would guess he’ll end up at Rikers in the next day or so.”

  She paled. “Does he have a lawyer?”

  “They’ll get him one.”

  She considered this. “He needs a lawyer, doesn’t he?” she asked Hal.

  “He’d be better off with a good lawyer.”

  “Do you know one?”

  “Are you sure you want to do this?”

  She looked as though she wasn’t. “He’s my father’s brother,” she said. “If he’s admitted his guilt, he’ll probably be convicted anyway, but maybe a good lawyer can make it easier for him. I think we should get one for him. He’s family.”

  Hal dropped me off at my house, and I ate half the Care package Marilyn had insisted I take home with me. Later, Jack finished it with gusto while I told him my story. With all the talk it was a late night for us. The only thing I didn’t tell him was that his sister was coming up the next day to have her face-to-face with Taffy.

  Eileen was bringing lunch, so there was nothing for me to do except blow away the dust and organize the living room. When I was done with that, I went into the dining room to put the papers on the table in some kind of order. That was when I saw it.

  There was a separate small pile of papers at one end of the table with a note in Jack’s hand on top. “Chris honey, Look this stuff over and let’s talk. Jack.”

  I pulled out a chair and sat down. There were estimates for a family room, a family room with a bedroom above it, both with a bathroom. There were also little handwritten notes from people whose names were vaguely familiar, one agreeing to help frame the rooms, one to do the tile work, one to do the wiring. I looked at all of it with awe. The bottom sheets were forms from a bank and they described a loan that would cover the construction. When I see numbers in five figures, I have a tendency to palpitate. Then I looked at what the monthly payments would be, and they looked a lot less formidable than I had anticipated. Two signatures were required. Jack had already signed on one line.

  OK, I thought. You promised to love and honor him forever. This is the other shoe dropping. Do it, Kix. Do it while you’ve got the nerve.

  I signed.

  Eileen arrived before noon, a large package held carefully in two hands. I took it from her and she gave me her famous grin.

  “I’m scared you-know-whatless,” she said. “Thanks for giving us neutral ground to dance around in. By the way, the packages marked ‘lunch’ should be heated. The rest are for you and Jack whenever.”

  “You’re too good to us, Eileen,” I said, taking the box into the kitchen and beginning to sort things out.

  “Does my brother know we’re doing this today?”

  “I haven’t breathed a word. He wants you to press charges and never see Taffy again outside a courtroom.”

  “I won’t do that—press charges. There’s too much history between us. But I think I’ve got down what I’m going to say and what I’m not going to say.”

  I didn’t ask her anything else. Our plan was to eat lunch first. Taffy was expected at one, and I was going to keep out of sight unless called, which I dearly hoped would not happen.

  When the timer rang, Eileen took everything out of the oven and we arranged things on the table. This meal was fish, fillets of sole rolled around a wonderful filling of mushrooms and other good things, and cooked in white wine. There were Eileen’s usual marvelous vegetables and rice with the kinds of flavors I appreciate but have no idea how to generate myself. And there was a loaf of fresh-baked bread that she had picked up this morning from the special baker she always used for her jobs.

  We talked about everything except Taffy while we ate. I told her Jack’s plans for the family room plus and she agreed it was a fabulous idea, that it would make the house different and special while keeping it essentially the same, whatever that meant.

  We got the dishes done well before one and I set up the coffeemaker, ready to push the button when the doorbell rang. By the time it was one, I was almost as nervous as my sister-in-law.

  “Just stay with me until she comes, OK?” Eileen said as we left the kitchen.

  “Sure.”

  “Where will you be? Upstairs? In the kitchen?”

  “I can be either place. In the kitchen I’ll hear everything. Upstairs I won’t. I’m happy in either place.”

  “I’ll think about it,” Eileen said, looking at her watch again. “When she gets here, I’ll make up my mind. I hope.” She grinned. “I can’t believe this is happening. I can’t believe I’m so scared.”

  “Just remember, you’ve done nothing wrong and you have nothing to apologize for. Whatever you decide, we’ll back you up. And that goes for Jack.”

  She stood and looked out the window at one-fifteen. The street, as usual, was empty. It was too early in the afternoon for kids on bicycles, and Pine Brook Road leads nowhere, so it isn’t used as a shortcut or conduit. It’s a sleepy street in a sleepy town, and that’s the way we all like it.

  At twenty-five after I said, “Did you tell her how long it would take to get here?”

  “To the minute. And my directions were perfect. There’s no traffic at midday. She must have just left late. Damn.”

  I felt her anger and frustration. It was as though Taffy, having the upper hand, wanted to keep control by making all the rules and then breaking them to suit herself.

  At twenty-five to two Eileen said, “Maybe I should call.”

  “Don’t,” I said. “She has this number. She has this address. Don’t give her the satisfaction.”

  “You’re right.”

  “Shall I put the coffee on? We really don’t have to wait.”

  “Good idea.” She went toward the kitchen. “I’ll do it.”

  The aroma drifted into the living room and I went to pour, checking the front window first. There was no sign of Taffy. Eileen followed me to the kitchen.

  “I’ll cut the cake. I hope you like it. You didn’t have much lunch. I have an excuse, but you don’t.”

  “Maybe I’m just as nervous as you.”

  We carried cups and cake plates back to the living room and sat. The phone rang and I jumped, looked at Eileen as though to ask whether to answer my own telephone, and then went to the kitchen to answer.

  “Chris, it’s Marilyn.”

  “Hi, Marilyn. How’s it going?”

  “We’re expecting people again this afternoon for a while and then we’ll take a break till Sunday. Hal got an attorney for—” she hesitated “—my uncle.”

  “That’s very kind of you.”

  “It sounds as though he made such a full confession, there’s not very much the lawyer can do, but maybe he can have Morris put away somewhere instead of going to prison. He’s an old man and I don’t think his health is very good. From what I hear, he hasn’t done much to keep it.”

  “I appreciate your calling. I’m sorry I had to burst in on you yesterday with this.”

  “You did the right thing,” Marilyn said. “It was urgent. We’ll get together after a bit and sit down and you’ll tell me the whole story.”

  I promised I would and went back to the living room. It was almost two.

  “I don’t know what to think,” Eileen said. “Is she being mean or did she get lost or did she have a change of heart?”

  “She didn’t get lost.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  We sat until two-fifteen. Then Eileen stood. “I think I’ve gotten the message,” she said, looking almost ready to break into tears.

  “Wh
y don’t we take a walk? We can keep an eye on the house. If she shows up, we’ll just dash back.”

  “That sounds good.” She went to the coat closet and took out her coat while I went for my keys.

  Outside it was sunny and cool but milder than it had been. Spring was really here. Down the block the willow near the Grosses’ was bright green. We walked slowly and I started to talk about Iris Grodnik. Eileen kept looking back toward the house, but she was fascinated by the story and kept asking questions. At the far corner, we turned and slowly made our way back. When we reached the house it was past two-thirty.

  “That’s it,” Eileen said. “She’s not coming. It’s over. She’ll never know what I was going to say. I’m going to set up a new partnership with Mom.”

  “Eileen, that’s a great idea.”

  “Mom’s always helped out when we needed her and refused to take anything for it. Now she can be a full partner. When she decides to retire, I’ll make another decision. But that’s a long way away.”

  “I love it,” I said. “And I bet your mom will, too.”

  “It’ll work out because I have my own place. I don’t think I could work with her all day and go home with her every night. But this is the perfect arrangement. Do me a favor, Chris. Don’t tell my brother about today. He’s always right, and sometimes it just kills me.”

  “He’s not always right,” I said, trying to keep a straight face. “I remember about six months ago he made a mistake about something. It was small, but it was a mistake.”

  Eileen giggled like a child.

  “You know,” I said, “I really owe your friend Taffy a debt. I was thinking of her and her sister’s problem the other day when I was working on the Iris Grodnik murder, and it put me onto something that was very important. Although you didn’t say so in so many words, I knew Taffy’s sister was pregnant—I assume Taffy was setting her up somewhere to wait for the baby—and that made me think that Iris’s boss’s daughter might have been pregnant, too, kind of the same story sixteen years later.”