Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death (3 page)

“So just between you and me and the teacup, Rose,” I said, “what
do
you think happened? I mean, if Daisy's earring was really in the soup, how do you suppose it got there?”

She stared into the cup for a while like she was reading the tea leaves, which maybe she was. Just then Mrs. Bissela, who is a real
yenta
and inserts herself into everyone's business, wandered past. You can be sure that if what you say is overheard by Mrs. Bissela, it will be public knowledge before you can say
“Sha!”
It's a lot like talking on a party line telephone in the old days, or maybe it's like saying something on that Facebook thing everyone is talking on lately. (About the Facebook I wouldn't know, as I am what my son Morty calls a “very low-tech” person, whatever that means.)

Anyway, Mrs. K immediately changed the subject and inquired, “How is Morty?” As if she didn't know. But I understood and I answered he was fine, and we went on in this manner until Mrs. Bissela, finding nothing interesting in our conversation, continued on her way.

“Nu,”
I prompted Mrs. K, “so how do you think the earring got there already?”

“Well,” she said, “I am trying to think like Sherlock Holmes, whom as you know I admire very much from his books.” And indeed Mrs. K has probably read every story there is about Mr. Sherlock Holmes, some more than once. “So let us look at what we know for certain, and the possibilities about what we do not know.”

She consulted her little notepad and checked things off as she said them.

“We know that I won the contest and made the matzoh ball soup,” she said, “and that no one else is allowed in the kitchen when I am making the soup, in order that my recipe will stay a secret.”

I nod in agreement. “And so what are the possibilities for how the earring enters the soup?”

“First, and the easiest answer, I could have been wearing it and it fell off my ear while I was making the matzoh balls or the soup.”

“I suppose…”

“Only I wasn't wearing Daisy's earring, or any other earring, as anyone who saw me knows, so we can eliminate possibility number one.”

“No possibility number one,” I agreed.

“The next possibility,” she continued, “is that Daisy's earring was already in the matzoh meal or the eggs or the onions when I mixed them together. But while I did start with an open box of matzoh meal that I found in the cupboard, and I cannot say I looked inside the box for an earring, like it was a prize from Cracker Jake or whatever it is called, this seems to me unlikely, unless Daisy was using that box before me, and while wearing her earrings.”

“And we both know,” I said, “that Daisy has not cooked anything more complicated than water for tea since she got here, and if she did she certainly would not be wearing those precious earrings of hers, which she wears only when she is all dressed up and wants to show them off. To whom would she show them in the kitchen, the man on the Quaker Oats box?”

“Exactly. So what is left? I suppose it is possible—just barely possible—that the earring fell into the soup as it was being served. But I don't remember whether Daisy was wearing those earrings at the
seder,
and if she was I don't think she was wandering around looking into soup bowls and dropping her earrings into them.”

I had to agree with this also. “So where does that leave us?”

“I don't know about you, Ida, but it is leaving me with such a headache, I cannot think any longer. I am going to bed.”

And that is exactly what she did. With no further information being available, I did the same.

Things got much more complicated the next morning. Mrs. Kaplan and I were just finishing our breakfast—a little yogurt and some fruit for me, an egg and some matzoh for her—and still trying to imagine how that earring ended up choking Mrs. Finkelstein, when two men we had never seen before entered the room. One of them was tall and good-looking and built like that nice Inspector Dalgliesh who used to be on television. He had a pleasant, friendly expression on his face, like he was glad to be here and was just looking around in case his mother might want to move to such a place sometime. The other looked more like that Columbo person who also used to be on television
—only shorter and needing more ironing, if you know what I mean. He had thinning hair that he apparently forgot to comb and seemed sort of nervous, looking around like he expected someone to jump out at him and say “Boo!” any second. I nudged Mrs. K and indicated she should look in their direction, which she did. Any time a stranger comes in, it is an occasion for wondering who they might be; two strangers—
especially two such unusual strangers—
required twice the wondering.

As we watched, short and wrinkled went over to Mrs. Katz, one of the residents, and asked her a question. She pointed in the direction of Mr. Pupik's office. He nodded to tall and handsome and they both went back there and knocked on Pupik's door. It opened, they went in, and it was another fifteen minutes before all four of them came out and went into Bertha Finkelstein's room. Again they closed the door.

Meanwhile, Mrs. K and I were getting more and more curious as to what this introduction of new characters was all about. “They do not look like doctors, and they do not look like undertakers, and they certainly do not look like they would be Bertha Finkelstein's relatives,” said Mrs. K as they were closing the apartment door behind them.

“Who, then, do you think they are?” I asked her. “And what are they doing here?”

“I don't know, Ida,” she said, “but I will bet you bagels to blintzes that we won't like the answer when we find out.”

Several minutes later, Mr. Pupik, apparently having finished whatever it was he and the others were doing in Bertha's apartment, comes up to our table. This is something he never does just to be friendly, so we knew he had something on his mind. And he asked us if Mrs. K would mind coming to his office when we were finished eating. As it was again quite clear it would not matter if we did mind—she should come anyway—as soon as we finished Mrs. K pushed back her chair, stood up, and with a deep sigh said to me, “I wonder what it is Pupik wants from me now. Is it not enough that he implies that my matzoh balls killed poor Bertha Finkelstein? I did not sleep well at all last night worrying about this, and now he wants to go over it again?” She sighed once more.

“Anyway, Ida, I would like you should come along with me this time, so I don't have to deal with Pupik by myself.”

Now our Mrs. Kaplan is no shrinking violet—or shrinking Rose, if you will forgive the pun—and she has proved herself more than able to take care of herself on many occasions, but now she clearly wanted some moral support.

“Of course I shall come with you,” I replied. “And you will see that there is nothing to worry about, and afterward we will both feel much better.” So we both walked down the hall into the office wing and knocked on Mr. Pupik's door. And what we found when we entered did not make either of us feel better at all.

Seated in Pupik's outer office at his conference table, which is round with six padded office chairs around it, were Dalgliesh and Columbo. They introduced themselves, and as Mrs. K suspected, they were not doctors or lawyers or family members. They were, in fact, policemen. Detectives, whose actual names we were told were Corcoran and Jenkins. Corcoran, the tall handsome one, was looking pleasant and impassive, and Jenkins was looking disheveled and jumpy, playing with a stack of pocket calendars that were on the table next to him. Pupik looked like he just got back from a funeral, although poor Bertha Finkelstein's memorial service would not be until the next day. Corcoran got up and offered Mrs. K a seat. Me, he just looked at, as if he expected me to perform a magic trick or do a little dance. Sit down, he clearly was not inviting me to do.

Mrs. K immediately turned to Pupik and said, “I don't know why you wanted me to come here, but I insist you let my friend Ida stay. I shall tell her whatever happens here anyway, so it will save me the trouble.” Pupik seemed about to protest, and Columbo/Je
nkins looked more sour than before, if that is possible. But Corcoran/D
algliesh, who was obviously the one in charge of the meeting, just smiled and said, “If that's what you prefer, Mrs. Kaplan, we have no objection. But I should warn you that what we have to discuss is of a…shall we say, delicate nature, and you may prefer a more private conversation.”

But Mrs. K was adamant, and she sat right down and announced to everyone at once, “Then let us stop this
kibitzing
and get to the point. I have other things to do today.” So I sat down on a chair off to the side to listen, while Mrs. K and the three men sat at the round table. And after a last glance at me, Corcoran began, addressing Mrs. K.

“I understand from Mr. Pupik here,” Corcoran said, indicating him with a nod of his head, “that yesterday he explained that Mrs. Bertha Finkelstein choked on a diamond earring that you identified as belonging to Mrs. Daisy Goldfarb, another resident of this institution.”
Oy,
such formal language he used, but I suppose it's because he had to explain things carefully so nobody would mistake what he was saying. Anyway, he went on like this, speaking pleasantly, as if he was just discussing with us the weather:

“Furthermore, the earring in question appears to have been in the soup that Mrs. Finkelstein was eating, and that was prepared by you.”

Mrs. K nodded, as so far there was nothing new in what the policeman was saying.

“Mr. Pupik tells us,” he continued, “that he was going to talk with Mrs. Goldfarb and ask her if she knew how her earring could have gotten into Mrs. Finkelstein's soup. But before he could do that, and just a few minutes after you left his office, Mrs. Goldfarb came to Mr. Pupik's office to report that sometime after she returned to her room the previous evening, she noticed that her earrings were missing.”

“Had been stolen,” interjected Mr. Pupik, never one to leave well enough alone.

“Well, yes, apparently that's what she said,” Corcoran admitted, “and it certainly does look that way. She described the earrings that were stolen—mis
sing—and they would seem to be the same ones that ended up in your soup—”

“You mean,
one
of them ended up in the soup, unless you are saying someone else found one in their matzoh ball,” Mrs. K said, interrupting Corcoran.

“I stand corrected,” Corcoran answered with a smile. “The same earrings of which one ended up in the soup and, unfortunately, in Mrs. Finkelstein. Anyway, at that point Mr. Pupik decided this might be a matter for the police, and that is why Mr. Jenkins and I are here.”

Pupik nodded, as if satisfied that he had done his duty and deserved a pat on the back. He seemed to be enjoying himself.

“This does put a different light on the situation, as you can see,” said Corcoran. I did not see, but apparently Mrs. K did, because she nodded as if he should continue. And he did.

“What that means to us,” and here he looked at Jenkins, “is that whoever caused that earring to end up in Mrs. Finkelstein's soup, or in the dumpling in her soup—”

“Matzoh ball,” corrected Mrs. K.

“Matzoh ball,” agreed Mr. Corcoran. “Whoever caused the earring to be in the matzoh ball in Mrs. Finkelstein's soup, or in the soup itself, is probably the person who took Mrs. Goldfarb's earrings in the first place. Whether they were trying to hide it or simply accidentally dropped it we do not know, of course.”

At this point there was silence. We were all digesting what Corcoran had just said. But any way you swallowed it, it sounded like he was implying that my best friend Rose Kaplan not only had caused poor Bertha Finkelstein's death, but maybe had stolen from Daisy Goldfarb the diamond earring she used to kill her.

Oy Gotenu!
It seemed like it was Mrs. K, not just poor Bertha, who was in the soup.