The Witch and the Borscht Pearl

by Angela Zeman

  I flicked a glance at Mrs. Risk out of the corner of my eye, who glanced at me at the same moment. Solly’s thefts and his undermining of Pearl’s finances. Had Michael’s men dug it out?

  Mrs. Risk turned back to Michael and asked carefully, “Is this evidence more than circumstantial?”

  “Possibly. Heavily damning, even if circumstantial.” He poked a fork at his dessert, but didn’t eat. “Saturday—” he began, but I cut him off.

  “Saturday, what? You would arrest Pearl Saturday? In front of all her fans? On national TV? Before or after her show?” I demanded.

  “Rachel—” he began, grimacing.

  “The man said he can’t discuss it,” Charlie said sarcastically. Michael shot him a tired look.

  I bristled. “Why Saturday? How about Sunday? Or Monday? What’s so special about Saturday to you? It’s Pearl’s one hour of victory, the one hour she’s been working towards for months. Sixty very big minutes that can keep her alive in her profession for the rest of her life.” I found myself on my feet, shouting. Embarrassed, I shut my mouth and slid back down into my seat.

  Michael dropped his napkin on top of his untouched pie. “It’s hard enough, for Christ’s sake. I do what I have to do. You know I like Ms. Schrafft. But—”

  “What about Bella?” I asked, subdued now.

  Michael stared at me unhappily, sighed, and looked away. He said, as if unwillingly, “We’ve traced a single boat ticket to London, England, in 1965. London’s across the Channel from France.” He paused, then added, “Purchased in Velma Schrafft’s name.”

  “How the devil can you find out who bought a ticket twenty nine years ago?” scoffed Aisa Garrett. “I don’t believe it.”

  “Michael?” I felt like I couldn’t catch my breath.

  He said nothing.

  “He’s already gone far beyond his duty in telling us this much, Rachel,” said Mrs. Risk. “Calm yourself, dear. Michael, don’t worry. You have our affection just as much now as always.”

  I shoved my chair back and stood. “No, he doesn’t. What can a few days matter? She won’t escape. Where can a woman as famous as Pearl run? To Brazil with the ex-Nazis? If you interrupt her show, her live TV broadcast, Michael, they’ll never forgive her, all those people she made commitments to. She’ll starve. Thanks to Solly, she’s—” I realized that while it was still remotely possible Michael didn’t know about Solly’s ruin of Pearl’s finances I’d better shut my mouth. Then I thought, appalled, now I’m doing it. Keeping things from the police.

  Michael said coldly, “If Pearl killed Solly and we can prove it, it’s my job to arrest her at the earliest possible moment. It won’t matter whether she keeps Saturday’s commitments or not. Her future won’t be in show business.”

  I bolted from the room.

  Alone in the kitchen I clutched the edges of the sink and leaned towards the window. Water sheeted the small square panes and blurred my view of the naked brown stalks that were all that was left of the herbs and roses and other things Mrs. Risk liked to grow. The garden looked drowned. I felt a similar drowning inside me, a clawing panic against what smothered me. Fears. Anger. For me. For Pearl. So what if she was guilty. If she’d killed Solly, I had a lot of nerve to judge her. Two and a half years ago I’d plotted to poison my husband. I still felt justified, thinking of it. Not one shred of guilt. I was desperate, then. Desperate people, people in pain, we’re all just trying not to drown.

  An arm stole tenderly around me and I leaned back against a familiar warm chest. Charlie’s voice came softly in my ear, “Don’t cry, Rachel. Whatever’s best is what will happen. Michael doesn’t want to win her arrest, like a prize. He only wants to discover the truth.”

  “I’m not crying,” I stated as I surreptitiously blotted my tears on his sleeve.

  “My mistake,” he said. He turned me around and, pulling me firmly against him, he kissed me. Although it started as a sweet, soft consoling kiss, it gradually became reminiscent of the one he’d given me in my husband’s fishmarket. I lost all reason and will power and control over my legs, and he had to hold me tight to keep me from falling down. Finally, one infinitesimal millimeter at a time, he lifted his lips away from mine.

  My eyes fluttered open to stare into his golden hazel ones in astonishment. I tried to step away from him, but he showed no inclination to loosen his hold. “I hate crying,” I said, as if the kiss had never happened. Striving to sound matter-of-fact. Trying not to reveal the devastation his kiss had wrought. “Crying is—is weak.”

  He had us mashed together so close I could feel every muscle, every hollow of his body against mine. I didn’t think I could stand it much longer, but I also didn’t want to move.

  “Don’t think of it as crying,” he said. “Think of it as ulcer insurance.”

  “Umm,” I replied, unable to think clearly.

  Charlie finally murmured into my ear, “It’s not like Pearl’s alone.”

  That succeeded where my willpower had failed. The surging heat in my body cooled. “She is alone. We’re not there. One of her so-called friends stole the necklace. One of them might be Solly’s killer and is letting her take the blame. She has to realize that.”

  “No. All she needs to know is that you and Mrs. Risk love her. That no matter what happens, you’ll be there for her. Friends pick each other, they’re not born in the same family, so it’s even better than family. She knows that or she wouldn’t have sent you away like that. She was hurt and angry and she took it out on Mrs. Risk and you. She’s frightened that her sister is going to turn out to be the murderer. She doesn’t know, and right now she doesn’t want to know.”

  “See?” I pushed him away, hard enough to be successful this time. “It’s easier to stay by yourself. To keep from getting attached to people. Then nobody can hurt you.”

  “Are you speaking of Pearl, now? Or you?”

  I didn’t answer, but I couldn’t meet his eyes.

  He said, “I know that’s what you used to think. With your parents, and Ike, it’s understandable. But you don’t think that way anymore, do you? Look. The dining room is full of people who love you.”

  “Yes, Rachel. You wouldn’t want to isolate yourself from people who truly love you, because of past terrors. Look at Ilene Fox’s life as an example. Her joyless, lonely existence. It’s sad and unnecessary.” The familiar sound of Mrs. Risk’s voice increased my confusion. Kept me from turning around. I didn’t want to look at her right now.

  “Maybe you’ll feel better to know that regardless of Michael’s news, this case is far from over. I have other ideas.”

  “About what?” I asked ungraciously.

  “I happen to think that covering up Solly’s mistakes might have been an old habit of Pearl’s. You heard her admit that she used to need those around her to be ‘perfect’?”

  “So?”

  “So.” She sighed. “The past may just have caught up with Solly. I know nothing concrete to tell you, but I hope to discover more when we go to Krasner’s.”

  “You’ll be waiting too long, then!” I exclaimed, whirling to face her. “Saturday’s too late. By then, Michael will—”

  “We have no choice but to wait. Everyone’s out of reach because of the holiday. Even a witch can only do so much.” She walked back into the dining room.

  Charlie touched my shoulder, but I shrugged away from his hand.

  He also sighed. “You feel better, so now you don’t need me. Well, at least you stopped crying.”

  I frowned at him. “I told you I don’t cry. Charlie,” I hesitated.

  “What?”

  “Those things you said, how did you know?”

  “What?”

  “About Pearl. How she felt.”

  “Oh, about her knowing deep down you’d be there for her? Can’t take credit for that. While you were working today, I was here helping cook dinner. Mrs. Risk and I had quite a conversation.”

  “About Pearl?”

  “Yeah.”r />
  “About me, too?”

  His eyebrows lifted and I saw again his old sardonic smile. “Now what makes you think that?”

  He walked back towards the dining room, but I called after him, heavy with suspicion, “Did she ask you to go to Krasner’s with us?”

  “You kidding? Think she’d make that long drive in your dinky little car? Sure she did.”

  I turned again to stare unseeingly at Mrs. Risk’s sodden garden and groaned. “I want a cushion for that damned hump, then.”

  “Hey,” I heard his voice from the other room. “Guess what? Rachel’s really thrilled that you invited me to go to Krasner’s with you.”

  24

  I NEVER GOT MY cushion, but I didn’t ride in Charlie’s truck, either. Saturday morning a deep red four door Lexus sedan pulled into Mrs. Risk’s lane and Charlie stepped out, beaming. Beyond an appreciative murmur about Charlie’s initiative in borrowing it and Bart Peacock’s generosity in lending it, Mrs. Risk gave no notice to the surprise transportation upgrade—which was typical of her. It’s her shtick, as Pearl would say, to expect the unexpected—or at least to appear to. I think balloons full of Martian babies could drop out of the sky and she’d still be able to hold onto a convincingly composed facial expression. Understand, I’m not saying she wouldn’t be as shocked as the rest of us.

  While directing the stowing of our bags in the trunk, she contributed a suit bag which she sharply commanded that we were not to fold or crush. That bag intrigued me. Did she actually own an evening outfit of some kind, something too delicate to fold? Black, of course.

  When everything had been arranged to Mrs. Risk’s satisfaction, she bid farewell to the disdainful Jezebel and we rolled down her lane, which the weak pre-dawn light made as dark, dank, and freezing as the inside of a worm hole.

  Pearl’s show wasn’t slated to begin until nine tonight, but Mrs. Risk wanted to arrive early.

  We took the Throg’s Neck bridge over the East River and crossed the Hudson by the George Washington Bridge, which brought us to northern New Jersey, at which point the sun surged into high power, promising a golden day, which cheered us all, I think. We needed cheering.

  A right turn by the map brought us soon to Route 17, aiming for upstate New York. The 1990s soon seemed left behind. Upstate New York was a revelation. Never had I ventured from Long Island and the five boroughs before. Gone were the rustic villages, plastic strip malls, industrial blight, and sky-piercing cityscapes.

  We passed antique gas stations with old pumps out front that appeared to still be in working order and ramshackle farm stands that had been boarded up for the winter.

  “Pearl once told me how the first European owners of New York, in order to entice settlement away from the city, awarded large tracts of the Hudson Valley and the Catskills to Dutch patroons. The only way poorer immigrants could acquire land was to rent or lease small parcels from a patroon. They paid rents with their produce.

  My eyelids drooped. In one corner of my consciousness, however, I could hear her voice rambling on.

  “Much of Sullivan County, where we’re headed, Rachel, was settled at the turn of the century by Jewish immigrants wanting replicas of their beloved farms left behind in Lithuania and Russia. However, the soil wasn’t nearly as productive, and the poor things nearly starved in the beautiful wooded countryside. In spite of this, all summer long, city relatives, in order to escape the baking pavements of the garment district, would ‘visit,’ burdening the already struggling landowners.”

  My mind snapped to attention, and my eyelids followed suit. I, too, was a struggling landowner.

  “From the first request for financial assistance from someone’s cousin or nephew, the Catskills bloomed into life. The landowners built rough little cabins with kitchens—kochelein, they’re called. From these modest rentals, elaborate establishments developed, resulting in Grossinger’s, Kutsher’s Country Club, the Tamarack Country Club, Krasner’s, the Nevele, the Pines, and hundreds more. Now, though, I think Krasner’s, Kutsher’s, and a handful of others are the only really big ones left from the old times, and they’re attracting more and more gentile business. Time changes everything, here as elsewhere.”

  I gazed at hundred year old stone and clapboard houses that tottered too close to the only slightly younger road. As we whisked past they seemed close enough to touch with my fingertips if I reached through the car window.

  Train tracks ran parallel with the winding road up and down the rolling hills. Now and then a freight train rumbled by, headed back to the city. Increasingly elaborate porticoed old mansions began to appear, gradually withdrawing from the roadside, and presiding over larger and larger lawns. Finally too grand to be seen, the houses disappeared and long stone walls began lining the highway, giving way here and there to detached carriage houses or arching gates. I saw a road sign proclaiming the town of Tuxedo. I exclaimed and pointed it out.

  “It’s where the tuxedo was invented,” said Mrs. Risk warmly. “At the turn of the century, wealthy urban residents spent summers on their country estates. They dressed for dinner every night, as was the custom of the day, but in the heat, the men rebelled against wearing the elaborate costumes with tails. Someone had their tailor simplify the outfit and the tuxedo was born.”

  “Don’t forget Benny Goodman’s ‘Tuxedo Junction,’” piped in Charlie, and he began humming it.

  “No, indeed. There it is.” She pointed out a rustic train station halfway up a craggy hill.

  A line of cars crammed the highway, although not enough to slow us intolerably.

  “How long until we get there?” I asked, yawning.

  Mrs. Risk said, “Back in the fifties, this little road had only one lane. It took four, maybe five hours to make this trip, the traffic was so heavy.”

  Now that I could relate to. Times had changed, roads had changed, traffic will never change.

  I sat back. Why disturb myself? This car, no milk truck, glided luxuriously across the ridges and bumps. Daniel was in my shop, making us more Holiday money than we’d ever dreamed possible. Bart, pleased with our Thanksgiving creations for the Inn, had ordered ditto Christmas items. I’d given Daniel his well-deserved raise, plus a bonus for his help with the designs for Bart. Daniel’s helpful friend had a car—and was female, Mrs. Risk had been right about that—and between them, they could handle anything the next two days would bring. Die-hard shoppers would be blessing the retailers with the holiday spirit of giving: giving rent, giving utility payments. ‘Tis the season! Plus, down-port Wyndham is fun on a sunny Saturday, no matter how cold or how busy.

  And here I was, like a big time lord of retailing, leaving the work to the ‘help’, cruising blithely through antique towns and elegant craggy scenery to keep a reservation at a famous resort. On Mrs. Risk’s tab!

  Charlie asked Mrs. Risk, “What if Pearl has us thrown out the moment she sees us?”

  “We won’t let her see us. But I don’t think we’ll find her roaming the hotel. My guess is, she’ll stay in her room until curtain time. I found out that she and Ilene are expected to arrive around two or three this afternoon, which is why I insisted on our dawn departure. We’ll precede her by a comfortable margin, make ourselves inconspicuous when she arrives, and then be at liberty to do as we please the rest of the day.”

  “And what does it ‘please’ us to do all day?” I asked worriedly. Her plan sounded unplanned.

  “It ‘pleases’ us to solve the riddle of the stolen necklace and to discover the truth about Solly’s death,” Charlie answered tartly.

  “Oh, and what’ll we do for the rest of the afternoon?” I said wryly.

  “Stop bickering,” commanded Mrs. Risk.

  “Yes. If you can’t control yourself I’ll leave you by yourself all day,” I teased Charlie.

  “That’s not much of a threat.”

  All of a sudden she pointed a finger and said, “Look there.”

  Obediently we looked.

  “Red Ap
ple Rest,” said Mrs. Risk with satisfaction, but unnecessarily. Billboard sized signs proclaimed the ramshackle rectangular building’s name, and that bus tours were welcome. Arrows pointed to parking areas with space for dozens of buses. “We’re halfway there! Pearl’s told me so much about this place! For decades, she said, weary comedians, singers, dancers, and musicians traveling home late Sunday nights stopped here for a jolt of caffeine and a blintz. Joan Rivers, Sid Caesar, Danny Kaye, Henny Youngman, Buddy Hackett, Jerry Lewis. And Pearl Schrafft. All those who got their big breaks on Borscht Belt stages and thousands of travelers driving to or from the Borscht Belt resorts.”

  Only a few cars occupied the vast parking area today. We glided by it.

  Later on, after transferring onto a newer strip of road, we crossed a lake, after which the landscape began to flatten out again. I rolled down the window an inch and discovered the air to be crisp and fragrant.

  Then we passed a sign proclaiming the coming of Pearl Schrafft on November 26th on Thanksgiving Weekend—Exclusively At Krasner’s! The image of Pearl laughing on the billboard was not only faded and tattered, but was the Pearl before weight loss. Solly must have had it mounted some time ago.

  No one in the front seat said a word, but they hadn’t missed it.

  More signs followed. Signs for the Nevele, which I suddenly realized was eleven spelled backwards, for something called Villa Roma, the Pines, Lake Louise Marie, Wolf Lake, Wanaksink Lake, Neversink River (optimistic?), Kiamesha Lake, upon which the sign declared the Concord could be found, and one for the now defunct Grossinger’s that looked decades old.

  An increasing number of signs advertised with mounting excitement the desirable features of Krasner’s Country Resort, and added explicit directions. Three more miles, a few turns, then Krasner’s appeared. Charlie would have pulled up to the broad cement front steps if fifty other cars hadn’t had the same idea at the time.

  Krasner’s, I discovered, was a glass and concrete collection of broad, low-ceilinged buildings, the newer additions connected to the original building by ramps and enclosed walkways as the guests’ needs expanded. The decor, although immaculately tended, remained firmly based in the fifties, and pink was a dominant color. The confidence with which kids raced in and out through the front doors (the teens strolled, being ‘cool’) testified that they knew they were welcome here. The relaxed faces of their parents testified that Krasner’s took care of their needs pretty well, too. Even the seniors and singles looked happy and expectant.