4
Eventually it was too intriguing and too easy to begin for me to turn it down. The fact that the murder had occurred so long ago also made it easier to accept. The family knew that Iris Grodnik was dead; they knew how she had been murdered. Nothing would bring her back. All they could possibly hope to gain from an investigation was answers.
I called Mel the next morning and said, “I need some information before I can seriously look into your aunt’s murder.”
“Anything, Chris. Mom and I will find out whatever you want.”
“I want the name of Iris’s friend, the one you said you met. And I’d like the name of the company she worked for and also the man.”
“He’s dead. I saw his obituary in the
Times
several years ago.”
“Well, see if you can come up with his name anyway. It’s so long ago, I expect no one’s left that remembers her. Did this friend of hers work at the same place?”
“I don’t think so. I think they were friends from childhood or high school. They went way back.”
“Was the friend married?”
“I couldn’t tell you. It’s possible.”
“I guess you wouldn’t know if she’s alive,” I said hopefully.
“No idea. But if she was Iris’s age, which she should have been, she’d be about seventy-five now, give or take.”
“Well, lots of people live to seventy-five these days, so let’s hope.” I looked down at the notes I had made last night while waiting for Jack to get home from law school. “The friend is the one I really want to talk to. She knew Iris well and she’s not part of the family. Her perceptions will be different; her interests won’t be the same as the family’s.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“The other one I want to talk to is your aunt Sylvie. Is she in good health?”
“Well, she’s old, in her eighties, but I don’t know that she’s in poor health.”
“Because I don’t want to bring on heart attacks when I ask questions. It isn’t worth it. The living have top priority.”
“I agree. If I hear of anything, I’ll let you know.”
“If it’s all right with both of you, I’d like to start with your mother, because you and she are the moving force here.”
“Sure it’s all right with me. I’ll call Mom as soon as I get off the phone and see what I can arrange. If she’s not tied up, I’ll get her out here this afternoon.”
“Whatever’s convenient for her, Mel. There’s no rush. All we’re trying to do here is lay some ghosts to rest.”
“OK. Anything else?”
“Yes, something very important. Someone will have to give me the address where the body was found. That’s the precinct that handled the homicide, and it’s just possible that the detectives on the case are still around.”
“Mom may remember. I went back to school before she was found, and almost everything I know after the seder is what my mother told me.”
“OK. I have straightening up to do. Give me a call when you’ve got something.”
“You bet.”
It goes without saying that Jack thought I was crazy. But like the good detective he is, his interest was piqued by the story, especially since it was an NYPD case. There would be a file on it that would tell me who had been interviewed, what the medical findings were, what suspects, if any, had been questioned. While the family’s recollections may have changed over the years, the documents in the file would not. Cross-checking would let me know who was most believable, if stories varied from one family member to another.
But I wanted to start with Marilyn Margulies because she was willing and eager and because I liked and trusted her. I didn’t have long to wait. Mel called back so soon after our conversation that I had scarcely begun my cleanup.
“Chris? You available for lunch? Mom’s ready.”
“Lunch sounds great. Give me a time and I’ll be there.”
“Let’s say twelve-thirty. I have to run out and shop and throw something together.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Don’t dress. I know Mom is a bit intimidating, but keep your jeans on.”
I laughed. “I don’t think of her as intimidating, but she does always look as though she’s on her way to somewhere special.”
“She is. Anywhere she goes is special. That’s how she looks at life.”
I thought it was a pretty good way to look at life, but I agreed to keep my jeans on. But just because I thought Marilyn Margulies was pretty special, I put on a new cotton knit sweater from my favorite catalog before locking up the house and walking down the street.
“How did you like our seder?” Mrs. Margulies said after we had kissed.
“It was wonderful, especially since Jack was mistaken for Elijah.”
“Well, we’re not likely to forget that very soon. Come, let’s have lunch so we can start our conversation.”
We went into the kitchen, where Mel had made the table look festive. She had platters with salads, slices of smoked salmon, and some wonderful breads. Linen napkins and crystal wineglasses made it look like the feast I knew it would be.
“Wine, Mel?” I said. “I’ll fall asleep taking notes.”
“You always threaten, but you never do. A glass won’t hurt, and Hal just bought a case of this. It’s a burgundy and he thinks it’s wonderful. Sit down.”
We did and she poured. “Marvelous,” her mother said. “Oh, Mel, this is wonderful. Tell Hal to get a case for us. Daddy will love it.”
I had to admit that I liked it myself, my palate, dormant for so many years, finally awakening to the good tastes in life. We spent a pleasant half hour eating and talking about ourselves and our families, leaving the topic of the day for later. Finally, a little after one, we retired to the family room to begin.
“I’d like to ask you about your father,” I said, settling in a chair.
“What can I say? There’s nothing good, but he’s bearing up very well. He’s known about this for a while, but he didn’t want to worry us. That’s the way he’s always been.”
“Where does he live?” I asked.
“With my sister in New York. I invited him to move in with us years ago, but he said he liked the city, that he was a city boy and he didn’t want to live in the country. My sister lives in an apartment in Manhattan, and that gives him the chance to walk in the city. But he’s never given up the old apartment, the one we all grew up in. And now he says he wants to go back and die there.”
“Is it still furnished?”
“It’s pretty much the way he left it a couple of years ago. The furniture is all there, my mother’s china, the old seventy-eight records, the rugs. I don’t want him to go back, but if he insists, we’ll have to go along with it. He’s likely to walk out of my sister’s apartment one day and take a taxi home. That’s the way he is.”
I didn’t blame him and I told her so. Then I took out my notebook and turned to a fresh page. “Tell me what you remember of Iris, from as far back as you can.”
“Well.” Mrs. Margulies gave me a small smile and sat back. She was wearing a two-piece knit dress in a fine black wool with a little white around the hem of the skirt, the round neckline, and the edge of the sleeves. Several thin gold chains hung around her neck, and I could see gold on her right wrist and on several fingers. Some of the rings, I recalled, were antique and very beautiful, with the kind of work one doesn’t see much nowadays. By contrast, her daughter and I wore wedding rings and little other jewelry.
“I think she was always everyone’s favorite aunt,” she said. “She wasn’t more than twenty years older than I and she lived with my grandparents—that’s my father’s parents—when I was growing up. So whenever I went to see my grandparents, I would see Aunt Iris. The others were gone. They were older, they got married, they moved out. But Iris stayed for a long time. I think she must have been in her thirties before she left home.”
“Was there a problem when she left?”
“These are things I wouldn’t know,” Marilyn Margulies said. “My father would know because he was her brother. I have to tell you I come from a family that felt it wasn’t proper to tell children stories about the older generation, and that continues to this day. I’m sure my father knows gossip about people who are long gone, but he would never tell me because I’m a child.”
“I know about things like that, Mrs. Margulies. My own family also kept secrets in much the same way.”
“Chris.” She leaned forward in her chair. “You must call me Marilyn.”
“OK.” I smiled. It would make things easier, and I was happy to be part of her circle of friends. “So she left at some point and got her own apartment. Did she have a roommate?”
“Oh, I don’t think she ever lived with anyone. She didn’t have to. She could afford her own place, and I think she liked keeping house. My grandmother helped her when she got started. I know this because when Aunt Iris died, many of my grandmother’s things were in Iris’s apartment.”
“Then your grandparents probably weren’t upset that a single daughter left home before she married.”
“I don’t think so. And if they were, they came around.”
“Tell me about her work.”
“She was the world’s greatest secretary. She worked for one man for years and years. It wasn’t her first job, but it was her longest and the last one. She was always there when he needed her and he was good to her. I think he once paid her way to Europe for a vacation.”
“Do you think there was anything romantic between them?” I asked.
“You mean like an affair? No, I wouldn’t think so.”
“Why not?”
“Because—well, Iris wouldn’t do that. I’m sure she kept her social life separate from her work.”
I was somewhat amused at Marilyn’s instant shooting down of my little balloon. It was pretty clear that she had no idea what Iris’s social life was all about, if she had one, but the thought of her aunt engaged in something illicit was too repugnant to consider.
“What was her social life like?” I asked, since the matter was on the table.
“Well, she spent a lot of time with her family and she had a good friend from childhood that she saw a lot of.”
“Did she date?”
“I think so.”
“Did you ever meet anyone she went out with?”
“There was one man—what was his name? He used to visit her at her apartment and sometimes he came to my grandparents’. Mr., Mr.… If I think of the name, I’ll let you know.”
“He was the only one?”
“The only one I ever met, but I’m sure she went out.”
“What about this old friend? Do you remember her at all?”
“Oh yes. Her name was Shirley, Shirley Finster, I think. I used to see her a lot. Do you remember her, Melanie?”
“I met her a couple of times. But only when I was a child. By the time I was in my teens, I don’t remember seeing her anymore.”
“You know, you’re right. I wonder if anything happened or maybe Shirley just moved away. Maybe she got married and moved out of the city.”
“Do you remember seeing her at Iris’s funeral?” I asked.
“Mm. That’s a good question. And I don’t remember.”
“Were you at the funeral?” I asked Mel.
She shook her head. “Mom didn’t want me to come. She was afraid it would upset me. I stayed at school.”
“It would have been too much for her,” Marilyn said. “Just living through that terrible night when Iris walked out was bad enough.”
“Tell me about that night,” I said.
“The seder,” she said reflectively, taking a deep breath. “It was as usual as every seder I’ve ever attended, which means a lot of things happened that were typical of my family and probably don’t happen in anyone else’s family.”
“Like what?”
“Like the usual squabbles about who would sit where. We never had enough room at the big table for everyone, so we put the children at a separate table in another room. Sometimes the older ones didn’t want to sit with the younger ones and sometimes the little ones wanted to be with their parents and we would play a kind of musical chairs until we had everything settled. Then there were always the latecomers and my father would get angry because we wanted to start on time, and I don’t think we ever started on time in my whole life.”
“I remember your father looking at his watch at eight and saying he’d been promised an eight-o’clock start.”
“See?” Marilyn said. “Nothing changes. And although I can’t really tell you what happened and what didn’t happen that night, I’m sure most of those things went on and Pop got angry because we were late and someone probably showed up fifteen minutes after we got started and made Pop angry all over again.”
“Uncle Dave was late,” Mel said. “I remember. Grandpa was furious.”
“Uncle Dave is always late. He’s never learned how to be on time in his life. And he never will.”
“What about Iris?” I asked.
“Oh, Iris was there early. She was helping Mom in the kitchen.”
“Were you there when she arrived?”
“I don’t think so,” Marilyn said. “I think she was probably there most of the afternoon and I came later.”
“So you didn’t see her hang up her coat or put her pocketbook down.”
“No. I’m sure she was there when I came.”
“Do you remember what she was wearing?”
“Not really. I think she had an apron on when I got there and I just didn’t notice later when she took it off. But I can tell you she always dressed well, and for a seder she would have worn something very nice, probably new. She was a beautiful woman, tiny, perfect figure; clothes looked like they were made for her.”
“How did she act that night?”
“The same. It’s hard to separate out that seder from all the others, but you can believe that after she disappeared, we all gave that night a lot of scrutiny, and I couldn’t remember anything that seemed different or unusual. I told that to the police. Do you remember how our seder began, Chris? With the four questions?”
“I remember very well. All the children asked them.”
“The first question is: ‘Wherefore is this night different from all other nights?’ I must have asked myself that question a thousand times in the weeks and months that followed. What was different about that night? What was different about Iris? What was different about the people at the table? And the answer was always nothing. It was the same as the year before and the year before that. What was different was that Iris walked out of the apartment when she opened the door for Elijah.”