A Pain in the Tuchis: A Mrs. Kaplan Mystery (14 page)

So Mrs. K and I are sitting reading in the lounge the next morning—you have noticed that we spend a lot of time in the lounge, but it really is the most comfortable place to read or sip our tea, or both together—when again I have the feeling someone is watching us.

This time I turned around quickly, or as quickly as a person built like me can turn, and I could swear I saw a man who had been standing behind a decorative screen—it hides a wastebasket—quickly turn and walk away. I could not tell who it was, but from the little I could see from the back, I could say for certain that he was short, heavyset, and balding. That describes a lot of people of my acquaintance.

“Excuse me a minute,” I said to Mrs. K as I got to my feet. I did not want to bother her with what was probably my overactive imagination, but I was sufficiently curious to do a tiny bit of investigating myself. I walked to the front desk and asked Joy Laetner, the morning receptionist, if someone of this description had come in recently.

“Sure did,” Joy said. “I didn’t recognize him, so I had him sign in.” She indicated the sign-in list on the corner of the desk. I looked at it and there it was, on the last filled-in line, the name of the strange visitor:

“Fred Herrington.”

That evening was the play to which Isaac Taubman had invited Mrs. K. It was Friday evening,
Shabbos,
and ordinarily we would all be at services. But Mrs. K and I, as well as Taubman for that matter, are not so religious that we will not miss services if there is something else important to do.

Mrs. K and Taubman were to leave by taxi at about seven-thirty. At seven o’clock she called me on the telephone and asked me to come over to her apartment. “I would like you should give me your opinion on something,” she said.

I wondered on what my opinion was wanted, so I went right over. I knocked on Mrs. K’s door and walked in, as I usually do. She was in her bedroom, standing in front of a full-length mirror.

“What do you think, Ida?” she said. “Is this the right thing for tonight?”

Now you can be sure this was not the first time Mrs. K had gone to a play in the evening. In fact, she and I frequently attended concerts or plays together, although we usually preferred afternoon matinees. She had never before asked my advice on what to wear.

I moved closer to get a better look at her dress. As I did, I sniffed a scent I did not recognize.

“Rose, are you wearing a new perfume?” I asked.

“No, no, it is only some toilet water, and I have had it around for a long time. My daughter gave it to me. I just haven’t worn it before.” This would have been Mrs. K’s daughter Rachel, who is married to a doctor.

“Well, it is quite pleasant. Not at all like the aftershave or cologne or whatever it is men sometimes wear. You almost need a gas mask to get near them.”

Mrs. K laughed. “Yes, I often think they must take a bath in it, or maybe apply it with a fire hose. Maybe they cannot smell it themselves.”

“Then they must have no sense of smell. But do not worry, what you are wearing is very nice.”

“Thank you, Ida. And the dress?”

I looked at the pretty black dress with delicate flowers here and there. It really was quite becoming, which I told her. I had not seen it before.

“So you are ready for your date,” I said. “It has been a while since you have been on one.”

Mrs. K waved this off. “It is not a date, Ida,” she said emphatically. “It is merely two friends going to a play. It is no different than when you and I do the same.”

“Maybe,” I said, “but unless that reporter at the gay restaurant was right in what he first assumed, the fact that I am a woman and Isaac is a man makes it different.”

She laughed. “Let us not argue about it, Ida, because however you want to characterize it, it is still just two people going to a play. If the play is good, we shall have a good time. That is all.”

A few minutes later, as she was ready to leave, she said, “I do feel bad for Karen, though. I think you were right, that she wanted Isaac to invite her, and perhaps she resents that he invited me instead.”

“Oh, didn’t I tell you? I saw Karen earlier this afternoon and she looked quite pleased. She told me that at the last minute Ben Lowenstein had asked her to accompany him to the play.”

“Really? Lowenstein is, I think, the youngest man living here. Just in his sixties. And he is not so bad-looking either.”

“No, really quite handsome, I would say.”

“And Karen is quite pretty herself and only a few years older than Lowenstein. I am not surprised she is pleased. I am pleased too.”

“So now you have, what do they call it, a clear field with Isaac Taubman, yes?” I could not resist asking.

Mrs. K blushed just a
bissel.
“I meant I was pleased for Karen. I already told you, this is not a date, it is just two friends attending a play. Perhaps you would like to come along as a chaperone?”

We both laughed at that. If a lady and a gentleman in their seventies require a chaperone to keep them out of trouble, the world has indeed turned upside down.

“I would go along and protect you from Taubman,” I lied, “but as you know I am leaving in the morning to visit Morty for the weekend and will not be available for this important duty. You will just have to behave yourselves on your own.”

It was true that I would be visiting my son Morty and his family and staying overnight. I was looking forward to seeing my two grandchildren, who are already teenagers.

“I know, Ida,” Mrs. K said. “And I’m sure you will have a wonderful time. And while you are gone, I intend to spend a lot of time thinking very hard about Daniel’s situation. I am sure there is something important we are missing. There must be. If not, then Daniel is the guilty one, and I continue to believe that is not possible. So I must find another solution that, although it may be improbable, is the truth.”

And I was confident that she would discover the truth. But I was not as certain as she as to whether that truth would find Daniel to be innocent or guilty.
Chas v’cholileh!
God forbid.

I had a very nice time visiting Morty. He and his wife Joanne live in a spacious house in the suburbs, one of those newer kind that look like someone stuck two matzoh boxes together and surrounded it with a strip of
gehockteh leber
—chopped liver. Whatever happened to peaked roofs, bay windows, and pretty back gardens?
Nu,
it is their house, and they seem to like it.

Joanne, whose maiden name I believe was Livingston, is a very sweet girl. She is what is called a “Jew by choice,” a convert, and she acts much like so many of the people I have known who have converted to Judaism: she is, if I may say so, “more Jewish” than many who were born that way. She is the one in the family who insists on celebrating all of the Jewish holidays and who supervised the children’s Jewish education. She has been president of both their synagogue and the temple sisterhood. She is active in Hadassah and other Jewish women’s organizations. My friend Patricia Wilson, who is a Gentile, once told me it is the same when someone converts to Christianity. I remember her quoting someone who said that “there is no zealot like a convert.” She said the best example was the Apostle Paul, of whom I have of course heard. I do not know in what religion Paul brought up his children.

Morty and Joanne have two children: Michael, who is fifteen, and Aviva, who is seventeen. Michael is fast becoming a man, and he is already as tall as his father. He is good at sports, I am told, like playing football and baseball. And Aviva, she is growing up to be a real
krasavitseh,
a beautiful woman. They are good children, but like most teenagers these days, they seem always to have plugs in their ears, as if they are hard of hearing, with wires trailing down each side like thin
payess,
the long sideburns worn by Orthodox Jews, and disappearing into their clothing. And of course there are the smarty telephones, like the one Sara gave to me. Only they do not seem to use them for making telephone calls, but only for sending messages with their thumbs and listening to music in those things in their ears. And to take pictures. Pictures of everything.

I had brought along my new telephone, and they tried to show me how to do the “texting.” But my thumbs would not do what they were supposed to, and I usually ended up with words that looked like they were written in secret code. It used to be an insult to say someone was “all thumbs,” but my grandchildren were writing messages so fast it looked like they were indeed all thumbs, and so I guess that phrase is now more of a compliment.

Nu,
so of course the children were insisting on teaching me how to use my new telephone, even if my thumbs had to move much slower than theirs. They found it funny that I could not understand half the words they used in their messages, like “LOL” and “IMHO.” They also taught me lots of other things I could do with my telephone, like taking pictures, including those “selfies” that Sara had mentioned, recording voices, and even making movies. They showed me how to put what are called “apps” on my phone, little pictures which could do everything from reading those squares with the little squiggles you see everywhere to telling me how to get to
Yahupitz
by the shortest route. I did not see when I would ever need all those gadgets—it was like one of those knives with a hundred blades, the ones from Switzerland, where you only use about two or three of the blades ninety-nine percent of the time—but I pretended like I was as excited about having them as they were to show me.

Sunday afternoon I returned to the Home. As soon as I had unpacked and settled myself, I telephoned Mrs. K, on my regular telephone with the wire attached, to see whether she had gotten any further in our investigation of Vera’s death while I was gone. And to ask about her date with Taubman, of course.

“Yes, Ida,” she said, “in fact there is much for me to tell you. Why don’t you come over and I will tell you all about it.”

That seemed like a good idea, and soon we were sitting in Mrs. K’s living room sipping hot tea from Mrs. K’s lovely bone china teacups—oolong, I think, which she had bought on our last shopping trip, as all we get at the Home is Mr. Lipton.

“So how was the play, and how was your date with Taubman?” I asked. First things first.

“I’ve told you it was not a date, just going to a play together. And it was very nice, thank you. The acting was quite good, and the surprise ending was, well, a surprise.”

“And was Taubman a…a gentleman throughout?”

“He did not make a pass at me, if that is what you mean. Really, Ida, we are not sixteen years old anymore. You should not pretend we are.”

“You do not have to be sixteen, or even sixty, to have a
kush,
a little smooch, with a handsome man. You are never too old, in my opinion.”

Mrs. K sighed. “Yes, you’re right, Ida. But in this case, there was no smooch, just maybe a polite squeeze of the hand when he took me to my door. But I will be honest: if he had tried a smooch, I would not have screamed for help or given him a
klap
on the
kop.
But he did not, and that is just fine.”

“And will you be going out with him again soon?” This was beginning to sound promising. Not that I was trying to make a marriage for Mrs. K—I am not a
shadkhen,
a matchmaker—but only that it had been a long time since either of us had really socialized with a person of the opposite sex. Unless you consider my experience with Motorcycle Moishe socializing, and I would rather you did not.

Mrs. K smiled, a little like that smile on that Mona Lisa lady, as if there was a secret behind it. She said, “Let us just say he has asked if we might go together somewhere else in the future, and I have said yes. We shall leave it at that.”

“
Mazel tov.
So now what is it you did while I was away?” I asked.

“First, tell me about your visit. How are Morty and the family? The children are well?”

“Very well, thank you. The grandchildren are growing up so fast! And they know so much more—about everything—than we did at their age. It is a bit scary.”

“I know what you mean. But that is just the way of the world now, I suppose.”

“Yes, I suppose. Anyway, I learned more about using my new telephone. And seeing everyone reminded me I must update my will. I have not done so since Michael and Aviva were very little, and my lawyer warned me then to be sure to have it looked at every few years, because if the family situation changes…But enough about that. Tell me what you were up to.”

“Well, it was a very eventful weekend. It began Saturday morning. When I was taking my vitamin pills.” I have seen Mrs. K’s assortment of vitamin pills, and they cover most of the alphabet. “I had this little idea, a—what do they call it, the fancy name—an epiphany. And the rest of the day I spent trying to follow this idea to see where it might take me.”

“Following it how?”

“Oh, a lot of snooping. And questioning. First I had a long talk with Daniel.”

“About what? About his mother?”

“No, not exactly. You might say it was a professional consultation. I wanted to know certain things about medicines.”

“And then?”

“And then I telephoned to Inspector Corcoran. I did not think he would be working on Saturday, but I took a chance and he was indeed in his office.”

“What did you want from Corcoran?”

“Do you remember Hannah telling us about this cousin, Erik? And how she knew he was quite a heavy gentleman?”

“Yes, I think she said Vera had shown her an old picture of their family and he was in it. Wasn’t that it?”

“Yes, that’s right. What I wanted from Corcoran was that he should find out whether that picture was among Vera’s possessions after her death.”

“Would not her family have taken all of her belongings by now?”

“Yes, you would think so. And I asked Daniel whether he had seen it. But he said he had not, and that the police were holding certain of Vera’s things while they investigated, and they had not yet returned everything. So that is why I asked Corcoran if he had, or could locate, that picture.”

“But he said we should not be asking any more questions, that we should stay out of the case. Was he willing to help you with this?”

“I will admit he was reluctant at first, but I think he realized he would not be doing his job properly if he didn’t at least consider evidence that showed up after he already made an arrest, even if the police did not themselves find that evidence.”

“And he said…”

“He said he didn’t know, that he didn’t recall any photograph, but then he had not been looking for one. And once I described it to him, he said in light of the report of a heavyset man snooping around Vera’s room that afternoon, and our telling him about the cousin, perhaps it would be a good idea to try to find a photograph of someone it might have been.”

“I suppose they have gotten some kind of photograph of him from the prison? Do they not always take, what is it called, a ‘mugshot’ of new prisoners? At least that is what they do in the movies.”

“Yes, I suppose so, but people look different in different situations, do they not? Would you have recognized yourself from the pictures they used to take for your driver’s license? When you had one, that is?”

I laughed. “I see what you mean.”

“And I wanted to see that photograph of Vera’s family anyway. I thought it could be very useful.”

“So Corcoran agreed it was a good idea to find the photograph?”

“Yes, although he did not sound happy about it. He said he would see if they still had it. And frankly I did not care why he thought it was a good idea, as long as he found it and let me see it.”

“And did he find it?”

“I don’t know yet. At least he hasn’t told me so. But I’m hoping he will by tomorrow. If it is not with Daniel, and if Vera still had it—and that is a big if—it must be with the police.”

“So, Rose, it sounds like you had a successful day of snooping. I am sorry I missed it.”

“Do not worry, Ida. There is much more left to do.”

And as I soon found out, there was.