The Girl Is Trouble (8 page)

Anything was possible, but the idea sounded far-fetched to my ears. “If they did, it probably would’ve been in the paper.”

“Girls, we’ll be closing in five minutes,” said the librarian who helped us.

I hated the thought of leaving there with even more questions than I’d started with. It wasn’t fair.

“It could have been a trick,” said Pearl.

“What do you mean?”

“Maybe the police called it a suicide to get her murderer out into the open. By making them think the case was closed, the police might’ve been hoping the killer would’ve slipped up and said the wrong thing to the wrong person.”

She was clutching at straws. That wasn’t a theory: it was the plot of a movie starring Humphrey Bogart. But I was grateful for her efforts all the same.

“We’ll find out what’s going on, Iris. I promise.”

“Maybe that’s why Pop didn’t want to talk to me about this. Maybe he hit one dead end after another, too.”

“This isn’t a dead end,” said Pearl. “It’s just a roadblock we have to go around.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell her that sometimes they were the same thing.

*   *   *

I ARRIVED HOME
and found Pop’s office door closed. He was on the phone, cajoling some poor hourly worker into giving him information for one of several cases he was working on. I wondered if it was a job he’d intended me to take on after school and then decided to do himself when I failed to show up.

Frankly, I kind of hoped that was the case.

I dropped my books with a boom onto the cocktail table. As the sound faded, Pop’s door opened. “Where have you been?”

“The library,” I said.

He still had the phone in his hand, the cord stretched to its maximum capacity. “No, she’s here,” he said to whoever was on the other end of the call. “Thanks for the offer, though.” He limped back to the desk and put the receiver on the cradle. “What’s the rule if you’re going to be late?”

“To let you know.”

He charged the doorway once again. “Did that slip your mind?”

“Kind of.” I stared him down, trying to force him to read my thoughts:
Sorry for not calling, Pop, but I was a little preoccupied by the news that my mother had been murdered and that you weren’t the only one who insisted on calling it a suicide.

He receded, slightly, into the office. “Don’t let it happen again.”

“All right.”

He tapped his fingers on the jamb, seemingly debating whether to say more or leave it at that. “I’m giving you a pass tonight, because I know you’ve had a shock, but you only get one pass. Tomorrow, everything’s back to normal. Same rules, same everything.” He turned away.

“It seems to me I’ve earned at least two passes.”

He froze. “What was that?”

“Nothing.” What was the point in egging him on? It wasn’t going to solve anything.

He faced me again. “I’m going out for a while.”

“All right.”

He frowned. “Are you okay? You look pale.”

“I didn’t sleep well last night.” I hadn’t intended to make another dig at that
thing he wouldn’t talk about
, but I could tell he took it that way anyway.

“Try to go to bed early tonight. You don’t want to get sick.”

“Okay.”

He left the house and I lowered my head onto my lap the way we’d been taught to do for air-raid drills. Only it wasn’t blows from above that I wanted to protect myself from; it was the ones that were coming from inside my head that worried me.

“Iris? Is okay?” Mrs. M.’s voice brought me back to myself. I shot up straight and offered her a stiff smile.

“Just stretching.”

“Good. You give me scare.”

“Sorry.”

“You are sure there is not something more?”

“Nope.” The office phone rang. “I better get that,” I told Mrs. M. I made it to the desk on the fourth ring, and breathlessly announced that the caller had reached AA Investigations.

“Iris? It’s Michael Rosenberg.”

“Hi, Michael.”

“I heard you did the interviews today.”

“Yep.”

“Is this a bad time?”

“Um, kind of.” I wasn’t being fair. Just because Mama was on my mind didn’t mean Michael didn’t deserve my attention. “I mean no. It’s fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely.”

“Were you able to do the stakeout, too?”

“Pearl did one this morning, but we weren’t able to do it this afternoon.” My gaze passed over the contents of Pop’s desk. The stack of bills he needed to pay was still there, the corner of each invoice neatly lined up.

“Then I guess you missed it.”

“Missed what?”

“Whoever put the note in Saul’s locker.”

Oops. “Apparently so. What did this one say?” I opened Pop’s drawer. There was nothing in there but a few pens and pencils and some paper clips.

“‘If the Germans can’t get rid of you, maybe I should.’ And there was a yellow felt star in the note with Saul’s name written on it.”

“Wow.” I closed the drawer and something caught my eye. A piece of pink stationery was facedown on the floor as though it had drifted out of a folder without Pop noticing. I bent down and picked it up.

“I know,” said Michael. “Our writer is making direct threats now.”

“How did Saul take it?” I picked up the page and turned it over. It was a note to Pop in pretty, feminine writing.

Art,

Kommen Sie häufig hier?

Are you impressed? I’ve been practicing!

Looking forward to this weekend,

Betty

“Iris?”

“Hmmm?”

“Are you there?”

“Yes. I’m listening.” But I wasn’t. All I could think about was that note. Why was Betty leaving Pop notes, in German, no less? And what were they doing this weekend?

I copied the German phrase onto another piece of paper and returned the original to the floor.

“… tomorrow, right?” said Michael.

“What?”

“You’re doing the stakeout tomorrow, right?”

“Yes. Absolutely. And I’ll talk to Saul.”

“Good. We’re counting on you, Iris.”

“I know. I’m sorry, but I’ve got to go. I’ll see you tomorrow.” I hung up and went into the kitchen, where Mrs. M. was stirring a pot steaming on the stove. “That smells good,” I told her.

“Is krupnik. Barley and vegetable soup with a little meat. Good on a chilly day.”

“You sure do know a lot of Polish recipes.”

“Is not just Polish food. I know Russian and German recipes, too.”

I was grateful for the segue. “You speak German, right?”

“A little.”

“Can you translate this?” I passed her the German sentence, written in my hand.

“What is?”

“Something I heard a woman say at the library tonight. I’m not sure I spelled the words right.”

“No. Spelling is good. A woman, you say? Are you sure?”

“Pretty sure. Either that or it was a very pretty man.”

She smiled and held the piece of paper away from the steam. “I ask because this is—” She struggled to find the word. “You know, when a man wants a woman to go out on a date with him.”

“You mean like a proposition?” I said.

“Yes! Is proposition. It means: Are you coming here frequently?”

I finessed her translation: Do you come here often?

“This is why I ask if you hear woman say it. Is a man thing to do, yes?”

“Maybe she was quoting someone else,” I said. “She laughed right after she said it.” I took the paper back and shoved it in my pocket.

“Ah, to be young again and told these sorts of things by men.” Mrs. M. shook her head sadly. “Is anything else I can help you with?”

“No, thanks,” I told her. She hadn’t cleared anything up for me, but I wasn’t about to ask her why her daughter was propositioning Pop.

*   *   *

I TOSSED AND TURNED THAT NIGHT,
too many new facts battling one another for me to have rest. Mama had been murdered, but officially it was called a suicide. Pop was in possession of a letter from Betty Mrozenski in which she wasn’t just flirting with him; she was outright hitting on him. In German. And apparently they had a date for this weekend.

What did it all mean?

Had Pop figured out why they had declared Mama’s death a suicide? The presence of those photos in the safe made me think he hadn’t. Was he still trying to solve the case, or after a year had he decided to move on?

And if he had, was Betty Mrozenski the reason why?

That would explain why she was at the house so much and why, even when exhausted, he offered to walk her to the subway station. Maybe it was also why he was so adamant about not talking about the photos with me: he was ready to leave them in the past and move on with his life. And he needed me to do that, too.

How could he be so selfish?

Mama deserved to have someone pursue what had happened to her. If the police declared her death a suicide, they clearly weren’t interested in finding out the truth. And if Pop was ready to move on with his life, he wasn’t game for it, either. So who was left?

Me.

CHAPTER

7

PEARL WAS WAITING FOR ME
at the corner of Orchard and Delancey the next morning. Her cheeks were red from the cold, her hand shivering as she struggled to hold her umbrella steady. Snowflakes danced between the raindrops, a hint of the weather to come. The first snow of the year used to excite me, but this year it was depressing. Winter was here. A year had passed since everything had gone so terribly wrong. And what did we have to show for it? A whole year without Mama. A whole year of doing nothing while the trail to her killer might’ve gone cold.

“There was another note,” said Pearl by way of greeting.

“I know. Michael called me last night. How did you know?” I closed my umbrella and joined her beneath hers.

“Paul, of course. He couldn’t wait to tell me that you and I had missed another one. Was Michael mad?”

“Not really.” Was he? I was so distracted for most of the conversation, he could’ve been busting my chops and I’m not sure that I would’ve noticed. “I told him we’d stake out the lockers this morning and I’d talk to Saul as soon as I could.”

Pearl had spent the evening looking at her maps of where the lockers were and trying to pinpoint where the note-writer would most likely strike next. There was no clear pattern. He wasn’t alternating male then female or lowerclassman then upper. Nor could Pearl find any other connections that might make his next attack easy to predict.

“I think the best thing for us to do is to split up: you take the upperclassman hallway and I’ll take the lower,” she said, passing me the map of the lockers for my designated spying location.

“All right.”

For the first time since we’d met at the corner, she took me in. “Are you okay?”

“I still have yesterday on my mind.” I could tell she was embarrassed that she hadn’t thought to ask me about it since launching into her theories about the lockers. “I’m starting to think that Pop has moved on and doesn’t care what happened to Mama.”

“Why?”

As we passed onto school property, I told her about the note that was plaguing
my
household. “I think Pop is seeing someone. Romantically.”

“Who?”

“Betty Mrozenski.”

Pearl knew Betty. She used to babysit Paul and her. “Wow. Betty’s … um…”

“Awfully young,” I said.

“Nice, I was going to say nice.”

Yeah, I thought, but I knew what you were thinking.

“How do you feel about it?”

“Not good. Mama hasn’t been dead a year. And for all we know, her killer is still out there.”

“Just because he’s seeing someone doesn’t mean he’s given up on her,” said Pearl.

“I’m not so sure about that.” I took a deep breath, worried that if I didn’t pause for a moment, I would find myself in the same dark place I’d been early that morning. “I think our next step is to go to Yorkville and visit the hotel where she died. I have to talk to the chambermaid who found her. Anna Mueller. I have to find out if the lie started with her.”

“Who says this Anna Mueller even works there anymore? This was a while ago.”

Two men struggled to bring a ladder into the front doors of the school, maneuvering their way through the morning crowd. Michael appeared and helped to direct them down a clear path. We squeezed past them and watched as a third man joined them, toting a large box. “We won’t know until we go there, will we? Besides, I want to see the place with my own eyes.”

“We can’t go there,” said Pearl.

“Why not?”

“We just can’t.”

“That’s not enough of an answer.”

“We can’t because … there are Germans there.”

“My mother was German.”

“Not that kind of German. You know what I mean.”

I did, unfortunately. Pearl wasn’t willing to travel, as a Jew, into a predominantly German neighborhood, where certain ideologies lingered in the shadows like rats looking for homes inside walls. Where someone like our note-writer would feel at home.

“We’ll go during the daytime,” I said.

“That won’t matter.”

“We’ll be together. Please. Think about it.”

“I’m sorry, Iris. I just can’t.” Her eyes watered. I knew her fear was real, but that didn’t make it any less frustrating. “Please don’t be mad at me.”

I wasn’t mad, I was sad. It appeared the only two people I could rely on had completely abandoned me.

*   *   *

NOTHING HAPPENED DURING
our divided-up stakeout. I watched the lowerclassman lockers until right before the last bell rang, but no one except the proper owners of those lockers ever appeared. I wasn’t surprised. With the men installing what I learned was fire prevention equipment, there were far too many witnesses for our note-writer to risk striking again.

During my first period—Personal Hygiene—Mr. Pinsky, our saliva-stricken instructor, lisped that a representative from the American Social Hygiene Association would be giving a presentation entitled “Hygiene During War,” a topic that set off a titter of whispers that the real topic was venereal disease. We weren’t the only class that would be listening to the lecture. Several others would also be congregating in the auditorium.