The Girl Is Trouble (6 page)

But then why would Pop have pictures of it?

He’d still been in Hawaii when she died, recuperating from his Pearl Harbor injuries in a naval hospital. They couldn’t delay her funeral until he made it home. That would’ve required embalming her, which, like her suicide, was a violation of Jewish law. Instead, Adam paid for Pop to listen to the service by telephone and invited him to speak a few words in her memory. The connection was lost before he could do that, the dial tone ringing through the synagogue like the bells that tolled in Whitman’s poem, the one we’d read in school about Abraham Lincoln’s funeral procession.

Maybe that’s why Pop wanted the photographs. He hadn’t been there when she died, nor when she was buried, and he needed the chance to see, for himself, what her last moments had been like.

Yes, people did strange things in their grief. That had to be it. I was looking at this all wrong. What had I really seen?

Mama dead in a hotel room, just like they’d said. Walls splattered with her blood. Sheets stained with the same. They hadn’t told me that part. And the weapon she had used to end it all? Why hadn’t I seen a gun?

If this was suicide, where was her weapon?

I swallowed hard, trying to stop the vomit once again. No, I’d been right before. This was a murder scene. And if I knew that, Pop had to know it, too.

How could he lie to me? All the energy I’d wasted on being angry at her, all the sleepless nights I’d spent wondering how she could be so selfish without giving us any sign until now—all of that was for nothing. My rage had been directed at the wrong person. And as for her selfishness, I had indicted her without evidence.

Mama hadn’t wanted to leave me. In fact, it was probably the farthest thought from her mind.

That was it—I couldn’t hold back my tears. Pop be damned. Let all the Lower East Side hear my grief. I wrapped my arms around my legs and rocked to the rhythm of my sobs.

Oh, Mama, what have they done to you?

I didn’t know yet, but I was going to find out.

CHAPTER

5

I WAS EXHAUSTED BY THE TIME
I arrived at school the next day. I’d thought about feigning illness and staying home, but the idea of being trapped in the house with those pictures propelled me out the door. I couldn’t face Pop or Mrs. M., and so I left before either one was up, leaving a note explaining that I had left early to study for a test.

It was a cold, drizzly day. In the distance trains blew their whistles in a mournful way that never seemed duplicated on sunny days. I thought about skipping school entirely, but the weather convinced me that this wasn’t the time to do that. Instead, I took a long, meandering walk to kill time, traveling streets I hadn’t been down before, past unfamiliar houses marked with stars that signaled that sons and fathers had gone to war. I abandoned using the umbrella halfway through my journey. I wanted the frigid rain to fall on me and bring me out of myself.

When I arrived at P.S. 110, Pearl was on the front steps huddled beneath her umbrella with an impatient look on her face. “Where have you been?” she demanded as I made my way to her. “I had to do the stakeout by myself.”

“I forgot,” I said, and followed her into the building. The floor was a mess of water and mud tracked in by everyone who’d entered ahead of us. I realized for the first time that I was soaking wet.

“Why didn’t you use your umbrella?” asked Pearl.

“I forgot,” I said again, not really hearing her question. “I need to dry off.” I ducked into the nearest restroom with Pearl fast on my heels. We weren’t alone. The mirrors were clogged with girls repairing their hair before their first class began.

“What do you mean you forgot? How do you forget to use an umbrella?”

I shrugged and removed a towel from the dispenser. I blotted myself dry as best I could while Pearl watched me. Based on the look on her face, you would’ve thought I was skinning an animal alive.

The bell rang and all around us people gathered their things and began heading toward class. I turned to do the same, when Pearl stopped me. “What’s wrong with you? I thought you were going to help me today. Yesterday you said you were happy to help out the federation.”

I was. But finding out Mama hadn’t committed suicide eclipsed everything. Who cared if someone was writing hurtful things and shoving them in people’s lockers? My mother had been murdered, and for some reason nobody cared. “I just have a lot on my mind. Pop dropped a big case in my lap last night.”

“But you’ll still interview everyone who got the letters, right?”

“Sure,” I said. “We’ll talk about it over lunch.”

The worry left her face and was replaced with relief. “Great,” she said. “I’ll see you then.”

*   *   *

I HAVE NO IDEA
how I made it through that morning. Clearly I went to each class, sat in my assigned seat, and did a fine job of looking like I was paying attention, but the only things I saw were the photos of Mama burned like an imprint of the sun on my eyes, the only things I heard were Pop’s words echoing through my head like a song I couldn’t shake: “Iris, we’re not going to talk about this. Not now, not ever.”

Not now, not ever.

Not
now
, not
ever
.

By the time lunch arrived, I thought I was going to lose my mind.

Pearl was in our usual spot, dividing her attention between her sandwich and her pencil and paper. When I arrived she smiled up at me, then instantly changed her expression. “What’s the matter? You look awful.”

“I lied before. About Pop giving me a case. I found out something about my mom last night. Something really upsetting.”

“About the affair?”

The affair; I had forgotten about that. There’d been rumors that Mama was having an affair in the days before she died. That the affair might have been the reason behind why she killed herself. Pop had told me not to listen to the Upper East Side women who spread these tales—it was just idle gossip. But now that I knew he’d lied about how she died, I had to wonder if he wasn’t lying about why she died, too.

“Iris?” said Pearl. “Are you there?”

Before I could lose my courage, the whole story came pouring out of me. Pearl’s mouth hung open as I talked, her entire body still, as though she were worried that one single movement could cause her to miss something I said.

“Oh, Iris, I’m so sorry,” she said when I was done. “But why would he lie?”

“To protect me, I guess.” And from what? Did he honestly believe suicide and murder weren’t equally awful?

“Who killed her?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know if anyone knows. All he had were the crime-scene photos.” It wasn’t just the shock of learning that Mama had been murdered and that Pop had lied that unnerved me; I now knew nothing about how she met her end beyond what the photos told me.

“Where did she die?”

I didn’t know that, either. I’d been told a Yorkville hotel, but I had no idea if that was another fabrication. “I’m not sure.”

“But you’re going to find out, right?”

The task seemed insurmountable, but it didn’t have to be. Pop wasn’t the only one with information. If Mama had been murdered, there was a police file on the case. Newspaper articles written about it. A death certificate that provided the details about where, when, and how.

“How could I see her death certificate?” I asked Pearl.

“The Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Vital Records is there. They have all the birth and death records for the city.”

“And anyone can see it?”

“Sure.”

“Then that’s what I’m going to do first.”

Strangely, making a plan made me feel better. Once I had more information, perhaps it would become clear why Pop had wanted to protect me and why he was so determined not to talk about it.

“So tell me about the stakeout,” I said to Pearl.

“We don’t have to talk about that if you don’t want to.”

“No, I want to help. I promised you I would. I need to focus on something else right now.”

Pearl picked at the crust of her bread. “There’s not much to report. I watched the lockers in the upperclassman hallway this morning, but no one other than the owners approached them.”

“Maybe after leaving four notes, our suspect decided to lie low for a while.”

“Do you think you’ll still be able to interview everyone who got the letters?”

“Of course. I talked to Michael yesterday, so he’s done. Harriet Rosenstein is in my Geography class, so I’ll talk to her then. And my locker is right by Ira’s, so I can grab him after school. Who’s left?”

Pearl’s gaze shifted to where the federation sat during lunch. “Natalie.”

I followed her line of sight to the girl who’d greeted me so snootily outside the journalism office the day before. “I met her briefly yesterday. She seems like a real cold fish.”

“She’s not so bad,” said Pearl. “You just have to get to know her.”

I doubted that would change my impression. “Should we do a stakeout of the lowerclassman lockers this afternoon?” I asked.

“Probably … or we could go to the health department and see the death certificate.”

“You’ll go with me?” I asked.

“Of course.”

Natalie got up to deposit her empty tray in the bin.

“No time like the present,” I told Pearl.

I left her side and joined Natalie at the counter, where she was placing her dirty dishes on the conveyor belt that would ferry them back to the boy enlisted to wash them in the kitchen. Her face was slightly pinched, as if she were smelling something rotten and unpleasant … which she probably was since we were standing by the trash can.

“Hi. Remember me?” I said.

“Pearl’s friend. The detective. Michael said you’d be talking to me.” While I should’ve been grateful that he’d prepared her for our conversation, I was too caught up in the way she’d said “Pearl’s friend,” like it wasn’t a casual connection, but a shocking political affiliation. I wasn’t friends with someone who used to be her friend; I was a Fascist. Or a Nazi.

“That’s right,” I said, matching her tone for tone. “You got a minute?”

“Just one.” She crossed her arms over her chest. I tossed a look back toward Pearl, who was picking up the remains of her own lunch off the floor. Someone had knocked into her and sent her meal flying. Poor Pearl.

“Looks like someone had an accident,” said Natalie.

I ignored her. “When did you find your note?”

“Yesterday after lunch,” she said.

“And what did it look like?”

“It was written in blue ink on standard notepaper. Didn’t Michael tell you all of this?”

“I like to hear it from the horse’s mouth. Is there anyone you might’ve upset lately? Someone who would have a reason to leave the note?”

“Of course not.”

While I might’ve agreed that the content of the note could never be justified, I doubted that Natalie’s record was clean when it came to upsetting people. In fact, something told me that she was the driving force behind getting Pearl kicked out of the federation.

“Are you dating someone?” I asked.

“That’s hardly any of your business.”

“It kind of is. I mean, if you just broke up with someone, that might prompt them to do something like this.”

Her jaw went rigid. “I go steady with Ira Rosenblatt.”

He’d received a note, too. “For how long?”

“Almost a year.”

“And before then who were you seeing?”

“A boy in my congregation who doesn’t go here.”

“And Ira? Did he ever go steady with anyone else?”

“Not really. Just a date here and there.”

“Who do you think might want to hurt the federation?”

She raised an eyebrow. “Isn’t that what we hired you for?”

Cold fish
didn’t begin to describe her. This fish was dead and had begun to rot. “Yes,” I said, “but it strikes me that you’re pretty astute. If you have any theories, I’d love to hear them.”

“I told Michael this was pointless. In case you haven’t noticed, being Jewish isn’t exactly a bragging point around here. We’re an embarrassment. But wait—you already know that, don’t you?”

Ouch. So that’s why she thought I wasn’t practicing? Because I had given in to peer pressure?

I decided it wasn’t worth arguing with her. It was clear that nothing I said would appease her, though part of me was dying to say
Last night,
I found out my Jewish mother was murdered, so your snotty attitude is
really
appreciated
. “Has this note made you rethink being in the federation?”

“It might have, but after Ira got his, I realized how stupid it would be to drop out now.” She looked at her watch. “Are we done?”

“For now. I might have other questions later on.”

She rolled her eyes. “If so, you know where to find me.”

*   *   *

I MADE IT TO GEOGRAPHY
a few minutes early to talk to Harriet. She was always there before anyone else, textbook and notebook in hand, just in case the lecture started early, which it never did. But Harriet was one of those kids who was obsessed with good grades. She was the top girl in our class, and you could already tell she was fixated on the thought of being our valedictorian three years down the line.

“Hi, Harriet,” I said. She was absorbed in writing a page of notes that looked like an exact match for the notes she’d already written. “What are you doing?”

“Rewriting my notes. It’s a study technique I use that helps me better absorb the information.”

As dull as the activity was, it did give me a chance to observe her handwriting. Her letters were wide and crisp, with the sort of flourish that would take me hours of practice to imitate. It definitely wasn’t the messy scrawl on the locker notes. I had a feeling Harriet couldn’t do anything sloppily.

“I was wondering if I could talk to you about the note you got?”

“Paul mentioned you might have questions for me.” She didn’t stop what she was doing. Unlike Natalie, she wasn’t exactly being rude; she just clearly had more important things on her mind. “Go ahead.”