The Witch and the Borscht Pearl

by Angela Zeman

  Michael philosophically returned to the business at hand. “The autopsy results are in. You figured right. We found a supply of small tablets in his pocket in a square gold container. According to people who knew him, he habitually used saccharin tablets to sweeten his coffee or tea or whatever. He claimed to like the taste better than newer products. Well, instead of saccharin, the tablets were found to be digoxin—or as you called it, digitalis. For Solly, the tablets provoked a heart attack instead of preventing one.”

  “He offered them around the table, you know,” commented Mrs. Risk as she read through the small pages.

  I sucked in my breath in horror. “You mean we all could’ve died? Pearl took one! Remember?”

  Mrs. Risk looked up briefly. “Of course I remember. Michael, I feel sure it was her own medicine she took.”

  Michael nodded. “We don’t know yet if she was the source, but it is the same stuff. It might even have saved her life, the M.E. said, about the one pill she took. Guilty or innocent, it had to be a shock to her weak heart, seeing him die practically at her feet. And although Solly died from the dose he took, a person in normal health would have become merely sick. Everyone else at the table was basically safe, Rachel. A fatal dose is about fifteen or twenty tablets, and no one would take that much saccharin.”

  “So Solly was sick?” I asked. “But he looked fine!”

  “We called his doctor, Dr. Kevin Barger. Young guy, highly regarded Internist/Cardiologist. Solly had—” Gazing over Mrs. Risk’s shoulder at his notes, he read, “—procardia and renal insufficiency, which made him lethally susceptible to a minor amount of digoxin. He was on a daily dose of forty milligrams of Inderal three times a day, which translated for our purposes, means his blood pressure was pretty high. That’s the procardia. The four or five .25 milligram digoxin tablets he tipped into his coffee was enough to bring on a heart attack.” He glanced out the windows after a particularly deafening crack of thunder. I flinched. Rain began pounding the windows with renewed fury.

  “Digoxin stimulates the heart,” he finished.

  “What’s renal insufficiency?” I asked.

  “His kidneys worked poorly, dear,” said Mrs. Risk. “A common problem as one grows older. Kidneys eliminate toxins from the body, including medicine. When it eliminates medicine inefficiently, the potency of that medicine increases, as if Solly had taken more than the five tablets or whatever he took.”

  Michael continued, “Solly wasn’t in perfect health, but he took first class care of himself, Doc Barger said. He should’ve lived to be a hundred.”

  Mrs. Risk shrugged. “That evening, Solly was far too excited to notice anything. I remarked to myself at the time that he dropped tablets into his coffee twice. I assumed he’d absentmindedly forgotten he’d already added the saccharin. But now I realize, he probably noticed that the first few hadn’t sweetened his coffee.”

  She handed Michael his notebook, parting with it reluctantly.

  He stood, towering over us both. “This was a feast.” He yawned. “Sorry. Haven’t been to bed since yesterday. When I got to the hospital last night, they told me I missed you by seconds.” He sat back down. “Since I’m here, how about giving me a quick account of the evening?”

  We did. He took pages of notes, then flipped the notebook shut.

  “You’d better plan on getting to the Sixth Precinct to give your official statements no later than tonight.” He leaned towards me. “How about letting me pay you back for this wonderful lunch with a nice dinner somewhere? Anywhere you say.”

  I eyed Mrs. Risk wrathfully. “No thanks. You don’t owe me anything.”

  Michael sighed. “Owing has nothing to do with it. I’d just like a date.” He held up a palm, forestalling my protests. “I’ll be around when you change your mind.”

  He turned to Mrs. Risk. “The Jewish mortuary, Shevrosh Hills, will be picking up his body this afternoon.”

  “So soon?” I asked.

  “It’s Jewish custom to be buried as fast as possible, and the department likes to cooperate on things like that when we can. It’s been a slow week so I rushed the autopsy. The funeral will be tomorrow.”

  Mrs. Risk laid her hand on Michael’s arm. “The notebook. Thank you, dear.”

  He nodded. “Actually, I’ll be glad for your help. When you visit Ms. Schrafft—well, I’d like you to see if you can find out what’s going on.” He looked embarrassed.

  Mrs. Risk narrowed her black eyes. “She lied to you about something?”

  “Not that I know of—yet. But I’ve got that gut feeling that something’s going on and nobody’s talking. And I mean nobody. Her friends are keeping tight hold on their mouths. They’re a pretty tight-knit bunch and probably think they’re ‘protecting’ her, but all they’re doing is creating suspicion. See if you can make them all understand. The longer it is before we find something out—and we will find it out—the worse it’ll be in the long run. You could stop a foolish impulse before it escalates into something dangerous.” His eyes softened as he shot Mrs. Risk a glance, “That part about Ms. Schrafft owning a supply of digoxin. It’s a detail I can’t ignore.”

  Mrs. Risk murmured, “I know. Last night when I saw Pearl’s eyes so dilated I deduced at the time that it must have been from the tablet she’d stirred into her coffee. If you hadn’t already found out Solly had taken digoxin, I would’ve suggested you look for it.”

  Michael and I stared at her. I said, astonished, “You mean you guessed that soon what had happened to Solly?”

  Michael shook his head at me. “Don’t try to stay ahead of her, Rachel. It’s a lost cause.” He pulled on his overcoat before adding, “Almost forgot. When Ms. Schrafft accused her sister of stealing that famous necklace of hers—you know, that one they call the ‘Borscht Pearl’?”

  “Everybody knows about that,” I said. “So did she?”

  “What?” Michael turned to me, confused by the interruption.

  “Did Bella steal the Borscht Pearl?”

  Michael shrugged. “Don’t know. We may never know. Ms. Schrafft wouldn’t file a complaint so we couldn’t investigate.” He glanced at his watch. “I’m heading out to see Bella Fischmann now. She’s staying in Mr. Mansheim’s house in East Hampton.”

  Since Michael would pass Pearl’s house on his way to East Hampton, and guess how she feels about my driving and my car, she asked him to give us a ride.

  It took us about twenty minutes to navigate the four minute trip, and involved a lot of careful swerving around fallen branches. Michael pulled up as close to the door as Pearl’s circular drive permitted. As soon as we darted from the car, his battered police-issue Cavalier lurched into motion.

  “Hey, he’s too anxious to get away.” I twisted to keep the wind from stripping my navy pea jacket from my body. “What if she’s not home? We’ll have to walk home in this storm,” I shouted into the rain.

  “She’s home.” Mrs. Risk sounded amused at my worries and not at all discomfited by the storm. Her long skirt was becoming soaked but she faced the flying water as if welcoming a dear friend. The strands of her dark hair billowed wildly like long fingers making incantations and her cloak ballooned behind her. She looked unearthly, very strong and ageless. No wonder people think she’s a witch. Not for the first time I wondered what the truth might be.

  I pounded on the door. To my relief, it opened nearly at once, although only four inches. A wrinkled, gnome-like, almost imperceptibly female face peered at us through the gap. A dim memory told me I’d seen her at Pearl’s birthday party.

  Mrs. Risk used a tone suitable for a casual social call. “Zoë Greenberg, isn’t it? Hello. Remember us from the birthday party? Mrs. Risk and Rachel. Could we come in?” The door immediately closed. “Rachel!” commanded Mrs. Risk.

  Before the latch could catch, I bumped the door wide and crossed the threshold.

  Zoë regained her balance with difficulty. Her features twisted with fury. “Whaddya think you’re doing?”


  She grabbed my arm with two knob-knuckled hands and, lowering her head like a small bull, braced to push me back out through the door. I flicked her away, making room for Mrs. Risk to enter. Then I slammed the door shut since nobody else seemed to notice the rain drenching the hall rug. The silence and the ensuing warmth were delicious.

  “Where’s Pearl?” asked Mrs. Risk in a tone much kinder than I would’ve used, and dropped her basket onto the rug with a finality. We were staying, that was clear, even to Zoë.

  5

  TREMBLING WITH FURY, ZOË literally spat into my face: “The chutzpah! I’m calling the cops!”

  “The police brought us here,” I declared to stop her tirade, but Mrs. Risk directed a look of terrible wrath my way so I shut my mouth. Ooops.

  “Oooh they did, did they?” snarled Zoë. She looked us up and down. I could’ve dried myself in the heat of her contempt. “Well, they wasted your time. Nobody’s here but me, not that it’s any of your business.”

  “Oh, Pearl is here,” said Mrs. Risk. She strode toward the living room, moving Zoë out of her path by mere force of personality.

  At that moment, Pearl appeared at the living room doorway. At the sight of us, Pearl straightened abruptly and produced a rakish grin from between quavering bluish lips. Mrs. Risk halted and I could tell that, beneath her impervious expression, what she saw alarmed her.

  They embraced, Pearl briskly patting Mrs. Risk as if she was the one needing comfort. “You worry so much about everybody,” she chided Mrs. Risk.

  At Pearl’s elbow the jazz singer, Ilene Fox, waited quietly, wearing a conservative, but elegant green suit.

  I nodded hello and said, “Vouch for us to the pitbull, would you?”

  Ilene’s dark eyes widened in a faint smile. “Zoë?”

  Zoë turned a sullen face away from us.

  Pearl smiled fondly at Zoë. “It’s not her fault. The last six hours have conditioned her to believe that all visitors are enemies. Zoë, darling, they were with us last night. And anyway, they’re always welcome here. You have to let them in from now on.” She turned to us with a wry laugh. “Would you believe it, Zoë arrived just this morning. Not because of Solly, she hadn’t heard, but to help with the upcoming show. Timing is everything, isn’t it?”

  She turned to re-enter her living room, beckoning us to follow. I saw Ilene try unobtrusively to take her arm, only to be flapped away.

  Upon reaching a long couch, she sank into its cushions with a gusty sigh. “Don’t worry, don’t worry. I look like hell but it’s all skin deep. I have my plastic surgeon standing by. I’ll be looking twelve years old by Hanukkah.”

  Mrs. Risk and I seated ourselves in chairs that faced her across a glass coffee table littered with copies of the New York Times, Variety, and Long Island’s News. Pearl’s house was composed of light woods and glass, mostly unremarkable furnishings dressed in white and pale blues—a cold style I considered mismatched to Pearl’s lively personality. Maybe it was restful to her after all that onstage glare and frenzy.

  Zoë began an agitated pacing behind our backs that raised the hackles on my neck. “She should be in bed,” she insisted to nobody specific.

  “What’s been happening?” asked Mrs. Risk.

  Pearl waved away our concern. “The police were here nearly all night. Various members of the press dropped by. And so called ‘fans,’ meaning the loony segment, have been phoning, sending telegrams, beating on the door. The usual vultures circling. Goes with the job. Except for the police, Zoë moved them all out. No idea what she told them. Probably better if I don’t know. The cops went when they felt like it, although she did teach them a little Yiddish, didn’t you, Zoë?”

  At that moment, the phone rang. Zoë let out a sharp exclamation and stopped short where she was. She trotted over to the phone, lifted the receiver, then dropped it back into its cradle unanswered.

  “Who was that?” I couldn’t help asking.

  “Gossip columnists, probably.” Zoë answered with a sneer. “Nobodies who flock around the rich and famous, as if fame rubs off.” She leveled an unblinking gaze at me, and then Mrs. Risk. Clearly we’d been lumped into that same category.

  Mrs. Risk’s obsidian eyes narrowed unpleasantly at Zoë. “Pearl is not the first, nor will she be the last celebrity with whom I’m acquainted. Nor is our friendship based upon her fame. More precisely, it exists in spite of it. Don’t speak like an ignorant schlemiel.” She crossed her long legs, flapping her wet clinging skirt towards the fire to dry it.

  “Oh, a gontser knocker,” Zoë said with teeth clenched.

  “A braggart—a person who thinks she knows everything,” translated Mrs. Risk to me with an amused twitch of her lips.

  Ignoring Zoë’s startled expression, Mrs. Risk looked directly at Pearl. “Have the police told you about Solly yet? About the digoxin?”

  Pearl nodded.

  “Leave Pearlie alone,” Zoë said in a hiss, her head pushed forward like a disgruntled reptile.

  Ilene leaned across Pearl and laid a hand on Zoë’s knee. “Why don’t we go make everyone some tea?” Her voice was low pitched and compassionate.

  “Lay off!” Zoë slapped her hand away. “Velma’s too nice to defend herself.”

  “Pearl has no need to defend herself from me. In fact, I’ve come here in her defense,” said Mrs. Risk.

  “Why? Are you judge, jury and executioner?”

  Ilene exclaimed, “Zoë!”

  Zoë said, “Look, lady. Velma told me about you, what people say you are. You want to do some hocus pocus on Velma’s behalf? Make her goddamned sister disappear off the face of the earth. Turn back time to last August, before little Miss Bella waltzed in here to screw up Velma’s life a second time. Then Solly’d still be alive,” Zoë finished with a dry sob.

  “Don’t say that!” Pearl exclaimed.

  “You think that Bella murdered Solly?” Mrs. Risk asked Zoë with interest.

  “No, she doesn’t,” insisted Ilene.

  Pearl pressed a hand to her forehead as if it ached. “Zoëy, Ilene, stop. Let me explain.” She took a deep shuddering breath. “My sister, the only family I have in this world, appeared suddenly at my house. You came to my birthday party, didn’t you? I’m too tired to remember, sorry.” When Mrs. Risk nodded, she added exhaustedly, “It seems like years ago, already.”

  “That party came just two months after we buried Marvin Steiner, too,” growled Zoë. She glared at Mrs. Risk. “Marvin was Pearl’s accountant. An old, good friend, and someone Pearl depended on, although not like Solly. Marvin died from heart problems, too. In June. Made Vivian a widow just before she died of boredom,” Zoë finished nastily.

  Ilene turned her face away from her in disgust.

  Zoë blurted on, “Thirty years. No postcard, no nothing from Bella, then here she is. Pah. She’d run off with Stanley Fischmann. Velma’s fiancé. They married in France. Then, about a year later, the shmuck must’ve decided he’d been shtupping the wrong sister because he killed himself, drowned himself in some French fish pond. If Bella didn’t push him in.”

  Pearl exploded into speech, “She did no such thing! And he didn’t kill himself, either. I won’t let you tell people that, you hear me, Zoë Greenberg? It was an accident. That’s all it was.”

  “That’s all she told you it was. You’re so gaga over having Bella back, you’ve forgotten what a mean selfish person she used to be. Still is.” Zoë had tears in her eyes.

  She turned to me and Mrs. Risk. “Their parents died when Bella was, what, 6? Velma was a child, herself, just 16. An auto accident, both parents killed at once, and no other family. So some women from our Temple took care of Bella after school, while Velma got a job in the Odeon, scrubbing floors, selling tickets, menial jobs. Velma had to quit high school. I was working at the same theater. That’s when we became best friends.

  “Velma bought every bit of food, put every stitch of clothing on Bella’s back, and skimped on herself to make ends
meet. Paid for it all with sweat and the skin off her knees. And couldn’t have been crazier about that kid if she’d given birth to her herself.”

  Pearl frowned, but let Zoë talk.

  Zoë went on: “That’s how Velma learned about show business, slaving twenty hours a day on her knees to feed her bratty sister. I was a dancer.” She smoothed her skirt across her wide lap ruefully. “Wouldn’t believe it now, would you? I wore heels high as stilts and looked fine, and slim. It was a handicap not being tall, but I was quick on my feet. Did line work when I could, any kind of dancing where height didn’t matter. Did ballroom exhibitions in the Catskills before I quit and became a costumer. I always made costumes for me and my friends. I was good, still am. I made all of Velma’s gowns and costumes for years.” She faced me defiantly as if I’d spoken a word of disbelief.

  “So what about Bella?” prodded Mrs. Risk.

  “Well, Bella grew up thinking she was more important than anybody in the world—she had her sister’s slavish devotion to prove it. By the time Bella was 16—”

  “She was beautiful,” said Pearl softly.

  Zoë huffed. “There’s things more important than a pretty face. Anyway Stanley was a house manager at the theater. He’d fallen in love with Velma and they were going to get married.

  “Velma’s beauty had always been her heart, and her character. Anyone knew her, loved her, just like that. Bella was glitz on a stick, a pretty face with sneaky ways. Okay, she was gorgeous. Came on to that poor gawky schlemiel, and he lost his mind.”

  Zoë jumped to her feet. She started pacing again, this time back and forth in front of the big picture window on our left. The storm pounded with tedious constancy on the other side of the glass. “Velma had big plans for Bella, starving herself to save for Bella’s college. Swore Bella’d never have to scrub urinals, like her. That was Velma. Pure, unselfish love.”

  She whirled to face us. “Those two ungrateful putzes nearly broke her. After they ran off, she couldn’t work, she hardly knew where she was. We, her friends, we rallied around, made her eat and put her back on her feet. She’d just begun performing as a comic when we heard news of Stanley’s drowning over there.”