Escape Artist efm-2

by Ed Ifkovic

  “I’m sorry, I…” The chief stopped, glancing at the blubbering August Schmidt.

  Amos Moss jumped in. “Mr. Lempke, we got here a suspect in Frana’s murder.” He pointed at Schmidt.

  Lempke looked at August. “This is your murderer? This man?” His laugh-a thin broken cackle, really-filled the hallway.

  Amos Moss yelled, “He had a key…”

  Caleb Stone held up his hand. “Mr. Lempke, we have more investigating to do…” A pause. “Maybe Mr. Schmidt can give us some answers about locked doors.”

  “Is no matter now.”

  “But justice…”

  Lempke actually spoke out the side of his mouth, and his face twisted into a hideous mask, contorted and crimson. “Justice is myth in this America.”

  I spoke out. “Frana deserves justice, no?”

  Lempke looked at me, a creepy smile on his face. “You is reporter, no? Live on peoples’ disgrace and anger and pain. Shame shame shame on you. Shame. Foolish girl. What you know of justice?”

  “Sir!”

  “Frana her mother planned send her back to Germany, put her in convent, maybe. Now she is dead girl. Is probably die in time. Maybe. She disgrace family with this boy, this man. Who knows? She talk crazy to family. She run to New York to be on stage and paint herself maybe and bring great disgrace, more so, to us. The way she die to me disgrace.” No one spoke. “Last night we find deck of cards in her room. Cards for playing games.” For some reason he pointed at me. “Forbidden, this pleasure. Like dancing. Like…”

  “Well,” I said cavalierly. “No one should die because of a card game.”

  Lempke’s eyes got hard, dull. “You think games is for little Catholic girl? She wants to pedal a bicycle. Like circus girl. The Virgin Mary she frowns in heaven. Our people cross themselves in this sinful America. She…” He waved his hands in the air. “Enough. Now a tombstone will keep her good.”

  Chapter Ten

  I returned home from work exhausted. The events at the high school-and the subsequent, manic conversations in the city room-made me tense, almost ill. Matthias Boon, back from Milwaukee and in a surly mood, had minimalized his failed mission. All three drummers had been released because all three, evidently, had no connection with the murder of Frana. Boon disagreed. The Milwaukee police force, he insisted, was staffed by an assembly of “bumbling magpies, speaking in tongues,” taking the word of one particularly smooth-talking, shifty-eyed drummer. Boon also wasn’t happy he’d missed the scene at the high school…and the questioning of Schmidt. “So you’re saying the German strangled her and hid her body in the storeroom?”

  “I never said that, sir.”

  “Lust, Miss Ferber. Think about it.”

  “I’d rather not.”

  Boon snickered as I turned away.

  I straggled home and was surprised to see Kathe Schmidt. When Fannie walked out of the back room where she and Kathe were cutting and sewing patterns, I whispered, “Why is she here?”

  “Her mother sent her over.”

  “Did you hear about her father?”

  “Of course.” Fannie was testy. “It’s all over town. Kathe told me about it, in fact. She says it’s ridiculous.”

  “Of course, it is. But shouldn’t she be home with her family?”

  “Caleb Stone sent her father home, so he’s sleeping now, she said.”

  “But doesn’t she want…”

  Fannie shrugged. “Imagine detaining Mr. Schmidt for murder! Have people in this town lost their minds?”

  “Yes, they have.”

  Fannie eyed me suspiciously and left to tend to supper. Over her shoulder, she told me, “We’re having goose with cranberry sauce.”

  When my mother returned from My Store, she questioned me. “Why is Kathe here?”

  “She had nowhere else to go, I guess.”

  “What does that mean? Don’t be sarcastic, Ed. Poor Kathe. The poor dear. When a family is suffering, daughters need to stay close to home. Everyone knows that.”

  Curious, I walked to the back sitting room, a small alcove where I liked to read my novels during the icy winter months, a drafty space that looked out on white-crusted stone walls. Now, Fannie’s dress patterns covered a pinewood table, and Kathe, her back to me, was bent over the narrow table, snipping away with scissors. I cleared my throat, but Kathe was slow to look up.

  “Kathe, I’m sorry about your father.”

  I lost any sympathy for her because the look on her shiny face was hardly what I expected, some softening, some weepiness, some helplessness. Some-vulnerability. No, Kathe looked mean and fierce, eyes hard as polished agates, lips pressed into a thin angry line. Scissors suspended in the air, she wagged their points at me and glowered.

  “What?”

  “Nothing.” Kathe dropped her eyes.

  “Kathe, are you mad at me?”

  “My father ain’t guilty of nothing.” I corrected the grammar in my head.

  “Well, I know that.”

  “Then why were you and the others there today…crucifying him? You and those people…”

  “I had nothing to do with it.”

  “Yeah, like you didn’t chase down Jake in the park and make him talk about Frana.”

  Well, true. “I’m a reporter. Frana Lempke-your friend-was murdered. I would think you’d want…”

  “You want my father to be guilty…”

  Outside, I noticed, it had started to rain, the heavy drops pinging and plopping against the window. For a second Kathe stared out into the rain; when she looked back at me, she appeared dazed.

  “You’re making no sense, Kathe.”

  She stabbed at the fabric with the scissors. Her shoulders hunched, tight. “Leave me alone.”

  “So your father is back home?”

  Kathe seethed, silent.

  Intuitively I sensed that only one subject would get Kathe talking. “What does Jake Smuddie have to do with this?”

  “What?”

  “Have you spoken to Jake since…since the park?”

  “No. He won’t talk to me. Guess whose fault that is.”

  “Well, he’s hurting.”

  “Maybe if you left him alone…”

  “Did you know that he was still pursuing Frana?” It was a cruel line, said deliberately.

  “I ain’t a fool. I had evidence.”

  “Evidence?”

  For a second the rain distracted her. Then she raised her chin and locked her eyes on me. “I knew he went there that night because Frana told me the next morning. The day she died, in fact. She tossed it in my face like a…a insult. She didn’t want him around because she was leaving Appleton with that man or something. But she knew how to hurt me. ‘Jake came to my window last night,’ she said. Just like that. Laughing. ‘He begged me!’ She laughed and said, ‘My uncle was gonna kill him.’ She thought the whole thing was real funny. You know, I couldn’t wait for her to get on that train with some old fool who’d use her and then abandon her on some New York street like a dirty rag or something. It ain’t right what she did to me.”

  “No, it wasn’t.”

  Kathe snorted. “Like you care, Edna.”

  “Of course, I do.”

  “You took Jake’s side.”

  “That’s nonsense.” A second passed. “Tell me, how did Jake react when he learned Frana was sneaking out to see some older man, if she actually did that.”

  The rain picked up, streaking the windows, turning the room chilly. I glanced outside, and Kathe followed my gaze. “He ain’t sitting in the park now, you know.” Then she added, “Of course, he knew about the man. I made sure to tell him. Me. God, even Frana told him. I could see he didn’t like that.”

  “But Jake was seeing you, Kathe.”

  She bit her lip. “He used me. I was the other pretty girl, but not the favorite. Second best. I was the dress”-she pointed to a pattern of fabric spread on the table-“that you wear, maybe not to the ball, but to a hayride. That’s what I w
as. You don’t care if it’s wrinkled a little and…and…” She faltered.

  “You still have feelings for Jake?” A blunt question.

  “No. Yes. I don’t know. I don’t think he’s nice to me and I don’t think…”

  “Kathe, certainly you don’t think he’d hurt Frana, do you?”

  A long silence. “He’s a football player.”

  “What does that mean?”

  She spoke in tinny, nervous voice. “He’s strong, ain’t he?”

  “Kathe, really.”

  Kathe, hands on hips, spat the words out, deliberately. “And he went to Ryan High School, ain’t he? He ain’t no stranger to those hallways.” She thought about what she’d said, arching back her head, and suddenly seemed happy with her words.

  “You’re accusing him of murder?”

  “No, no, I ain’t saying that.” She dropped her shoulders, ducking her head.

  A liar, I thought, a dissembler, a sloppy girl without moral boundaries. “Just what are you saying?”

  “You’re attacking me, Edna. Like you always do. You get me all rattled.” She looked outside. “Now I have to walk home in the rain.”

  “I’m merely…”

  “You just won’t leave me alone.”

  “I need to know…”

  “No, you don’t. Maybe you think you do, but nobody ain’t made you God here.”

  “Kathe…”

  She slipped into German. “I should have stayed to home.” Zu hause. She tossed the scissors down, swiveled around, and snatched her jacket, cradling it against her chest. “Just tell Fannie I left.” I didn’t move so she had to walk around me, nearly dropping her jacket as she edged out of the room. She collided with Fannie, who was rushing in.

  “You’re leaving?” Fannie took in her furious face.

  “Your sister won’t stop asking me questions.” She swallowed a sob. “She’s treating me like a criminal.”

  I kept my mouth shut.

  Her wailing intensified. “I shouldn’t be treated this way in your home, Fannie. She makes me feel like I’m the one who murdered Frana. Frana was my good friend.” She choked out big sloppy tears, brushing by Fannie, and flew out the front door, slamming it.

  Fannie whirled. “Edna, how can you interrogate her?”

  “I merely…”

  Fannie cut me off. “Don’t play reporter in your own home.” She surveyed the unfinished dress pattern on the table and squinted at the wet windows; she was ready to cry.

  “Play?” I took a step back.

  “Whatever you do.”

  “I have a job.”

  “Not in these four walls you don’t.”

  We two sisters squared off.

  “Fannie, there’s been a murder in this town, and Kathe is somehow a part of it…”

  Fannie threw up her hand inches from my nose. “For heaven’s sake, Edna, you’re talking just like a character in a novel by The Duchess.”

  I didn’t step back. “Kathe is making accusations against Jake Smuddie.”

  “What?”

  “Accusing him of murder.” I was steaming. “She virtually called him a killer.”

  Fannie gave an elaborate sigh. “Edna, for Lord’s sake, are you writing a story in your head? Some melodrama…”

  A fight was brewing, one of our bloody battles born out of the nagging, grating resentments that scraped at our workaday life till it tore open; Fannie, the serene homebody who flounced around the house like a butterfly and me, the literalist, uncomfortable with idle time or pretty fripperies.

  Fannie hurled the first deliberate salvo. “Edna, the fact is that I overheard a few of your comments to Kathe. I was listening, purposely.”

  “So?”

  “And you seem to have forgotten how a person behaves politely in her own home. You do not harangue the guests. My God, you went at her like a dentist’s drill.”

  “She’s not a guest, she’s an employee,” I insisted. “And minimally competent.”

  “Even more reason to be kind…”

  “I need to get some answers…”

  “Perhaps you should not even be asking questions. Perhaps this is none of your business. Edna, this…job has turned you into a shrew.” Fannie drew her lips into a thin line. “You’ll do anything to disrupt this household.”

  “For God’s sake, Fannie.”

  “I mean it. You gallivant out there”-She pointed toward the center of Appleton, unseen-“and have allowed yourself to be…coarsened by life there. You’re not a man, Ed.”

  “And you’re not a lady, despite the finery.”

  “You’re jealous because I’m pretty…”

  “And I’m not?”

  She made a great show of chuckling. “Oh, please, Edna. In Cinderella, we know which sister you’d be.”

  “Yes, the intelligent one.”

  “Men don’t want intelligence.”

  My turn to smile indulgently, as if she were stupid. “Of course, they do. They just don’t know it. That’s why women have to be smart. They have huge jobs to do, starting with the men in their lives.”

  “No man seeks out a sassy reporter.”

  “You say it like it’s a perversion.”

  “No one’s going to marry a girl reporter,” Fannie finished. “Especially one that looks like you.”

  “Marriage is a trap women fall into, like children toppling into an unprotected well.” I regretted the words because I knew my father, sitting in the parlor, was hearing his daughters in battle again. I added, “For some girls,” but hesitated. I never liked to qualify my statements.

  My mother stood in the doorway, for a moment hypnotized by the rain battering the windows. Her voice was high pitched. “Enough of this. I deal with crazy housewives and smelly farmers all day long, and come home to warfare. Enough. The food will burn…the…” She closed her eyes and rubbed her temples. “Will you two come into supper? Stop this nonsense.”

  My father banged into the edge of the table, a purposeful gesture because he maneuvered his sightless way easily through the rooms. He was telling us something.

  “Supper?” he called.

  We three Ferber women nodded.

  After a stony meal I lingered in my upstairs bedroom, trying to read that F. Marion Crawford romance that made no sense. Bejeweled countesses in elegant Roman society; whispered intrigues on the Via Venetto; drawing room infidelities and alliances. I looked around the room that I purposely kept Spartan, save for the rich velvet counterpane I’d sewn for the four-poster red oak bed. A hand-carved black walnut chair with plush leather seat occupied one corner, positioned so that I could look out on the backyard, directly onto the blooming cherry tree. On the dresser a lace antimacassar, given to me by Fannie last year.

  On the walls two pictures: one-a sepia-toned scene from a maudlin stage production of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, the scene in which Uncle Tom is pontificating to frail little Eva. I’d won the gilt-edged print as a prize for second place in the oratory contest in Madison three years ago. First place had been a gold chalice, engraved. This lackluster print reminded me that there was only one place I allowed myself in any contest: first.

  The second picture, also in heavy gilt-gold frame, was one I had purchased in an emporium in Chicago. I gazed on the glitzy chromolithograph each night before turning down the gaslight: a slender young girl with auburn hair stands alone on a cliff overlooking a vast periwinkle blue ocean, puffy white clouds in the sky. A breeze rustles her white dress. Her alabaster hand is reaching to the distant horizon, wanting to be somewhere else, out there, beyond the white-tinged horizon. The sentimental caption was a quote: Beyond the horizon is the world you dream of. Each night, glancing at the print, I asked myself: But is that true?

  Contemplating the print, I wondered what Houdini had seen in my eyes. What hunger? Imagination and concentration-cornerstones of a lifetime. The whole world could not confine him, yet I was locked inside these four walls. Bound by the geography of Appleton. On my bureau was
the clipped interview. I read it over and over, not out of vanity, but because I believed it held the clue to something I needed to know. Even as I became obsessed with Frana’s murder, I pictured Houdini on that street corner. Echoes of his voice stayed with me. And, I admitted to myself, thrilled me.

  A gentle knock on the door. “Edna?” My father opened the door. “Edna, let’s take a walk.”

  Quietly, I gathered my jacket and held my father’s elbow as we went downstairs and out the front door. I was pleased. So many nights, especially after the cutthroat skirmishes I had with Fannie, he chose me to walk with, the two of us strolling downtown. Tonight I’d expected him, actually, because supper had been stilted, heavy with frost. Fannie talked about the dress she was making, but my mother seemed distracted. No one mentioned Frana or the questioning of Kathe’s father. We avoided the story that so riveted Appleton. That angered me, though I chose not to bring it up. When I said Sam Ryan praised my Houdini interview again-he’d heard from subscribers-my mother said, sotto voce, “The praise of lesser men.”

  I had no idea what that meant but felt, again, that it was part of my mother’s dislike of my being a reporter, as well as her familiar championing of Fannie’s side when we argued. I kept my mouth shut.

  Slowly strolling with my father, holding his elbow, rarely speaking, we moved off North Street, down Morrison, onto College. I sensed my father had something to say because the gentle man, his body so loose-limbed and free, the Hungarian wanderer, tensed up, a tightness in the elbow. I waited.

  We strolled past the Lyceum. A poster in the glass-fronted display window advertised tomorrow night’s show. Houdini’s benefit. “The Master Escape Artist. See the Handcuff King in a Show to Benefit the Children’s Home. The Greatest Mystery Novelty Act in the World. Known in Every Country on the Globe.” I thought of the genial, humorous man I’d interviewed, and chuckled.

  “What?” my father asked.

  I recited the braggadocio of the poster and described the fuzzy picture of Houdini bound in chains, hunched forward, showing the camera a hard glassy stare. My interview, published, had been the talk of the visitors to the Ferber household. All the Ferbers, including my father, planned to attend the show. That had surprised me, this change of heart. He would see nothing of Houdini’s antics, but he said he wanted to experience Houdini. “This is an event.” Houdini’s show, of course, was a visual extravaganza, a magician’s sleight of hand punctuated by a rattling of chains and the whoop and holler of a frenzied audience. I dreaded it because I feared I’d be constantly leaning in, explaining, describing.