The Girl Is Trouble (7 page)

“When did you receive it?”

“After lunch yesterday. I usually go by my locker before returning to homeroom, but I wasn’t able to yesterday.” The way she said it, you could tell she considered this an unforgivable error on her part.

“Why not?”

“I … um … had…”—her voice dropped to a whisper—“… cramps.”

I felt for her. I’d spent many a moment between classes suffering through the same thing. “Is there anyone you know who might be angry at you who could’ve done something like this?”

Unlike Natalie, she didn’t rush to a no. She actually thought about the question as, I imagined, she thought about everything. “Dale Cornwell might.”

“Why’s that?”

“He and I are currently jousting for top of the class. Perhaps he thought if he upset me, it might affect my studies.”

It was hard to imagine anyone being that serious about academics at P.S. 110. Oh sure, at my old school, where everyone fought to get into a good college, it was common to see little acts of sabotage in hopes of improving your class ranking, if not by your brains then by your brawn. But those girls came from wealthy families who could afford college tuition. Perhaps that was the point. Harriet and Dale knew if they had any hope of furthering their education, they needed to be at the top of the class to attract scholarship money.

Of course, if the war was still going on by the time we graduated, Harriet wouldn’t need to worry about Dale at all. He would hardly need a scholarship if he was fighting in Europe.

“I’ll take a look at Dale,” I told her. The rest of the class was filing in and taking their seats. “One more question: Did getting this note make you consider dropping out of the federation?”

Harriet returned to her writing. “Absolutely not. I refuse to be defeated by something so cowardly.”

*   *   *

IRA’S LOCKER WAS ONLY
two away from mine. I found him there after school, searching the innards of a textbook page by page.

“Hi, Ira,” I said.

He looked up just long enough to see who it was, then returned to his searching. “Ah, yes—Natalie said you might have questions for me.”

His tone was considerably more welcoming than his girlfriend’s, not that that was saying much. German shouted over a megaphone was more pleasant than Natalie. “Is now a good time?”

“Sure, sure.” More searching.

“What are you looking for?”

“My geometry notes. Ah, there they are.” He plucked a piece of notepaper from the book. Bright blue ink and barely legible writing bled across the page. “So what are your questions?”

“When did you find your note?”

“Yesterday afternoon. About this time.”

“And you didn’t just have a note, right? There was also a news clipping?”

“Yes, from the day before’s
Times
. I confirmed it when I got home.”

“Why do you think they decided to give you the clipping and not the others?”

“Perhaps whoever it was wasn’t satisfied with the response to the other letters, so they thought that by adding the article they might get more of a jolt out of me.”

“Did it work?”

He shrugged, though it didn’t seem like he was dismissing the question. “Not really. I mean, I had read the article before, so its content was no more disturbing than the first time I saw it.” He spoke like a middle-aged man. I couldn’t imagine how Natalie and he had gotten together. She was the epitome of a snooty high school girl, and I would expect her to be so khaki-wacky that she spent every free moment looking for soldiers, not slumming with this poindexter. “Of course, it did alarm me that whoever this was was doing their research. It’s one thing to say anti-Jewish things out of ignorance, but cutting out that article seemed to imply that they really meant the things they said.”

I hadn’t looked at it that way, but he was right. This wasn’t casual racism that simply echoed the thoughts other people might have because they didn’t know any better. This person went out of their way to educate themselves about Jewish issues.

“Is there anyone you know who might have a grudge against you, or any of the other federation members?”

He closed his locker and tucked his textbook beneath his arm. “Michael and Natalie might not have been willing to come out and say it, but I will: your friend seems like the most likely suspect to me.”

“My friend?”

“Pearl. She’s obviously mad that we kicked her out of the group. That’s the one thing that all of us who received the notes have in common, isn’t it? Sometimes the most obvious suspect is the right suspect. Anything else?”

I shook my head, too startled to know what to say.

“Then if you’ll excuse me, I have a piano lesson to get to.”

I went to my own locker and gathered my things. Poor Pearl. Why did she want to be part of a group like that? Michael seemed like a good egg, but the rest of them could go soak their heads as far as I was concerned.

“Are you ready to go get the death certificate?” Pearl appeared behind me, her arms full of the books she was planning to tote home.

“Are you sure you want to go?”

“Of course. And it’s not far. I looked up the address during study hall. It’s on Worth Street, off Lafayette.”

That was good. I had a feeling that Pop wouldn’t look too kindly on me if he found out I’d left the Lower East Side for this little mission. Not that he was going to find out either way. We headed outside, where the brisk fall air made us both reach for hats we’d stuffed into our pockets. I pulled on a soft wool beret. Pearl tied on a maroon snood.

“How did the interviews go?” she asked.

“Okay, I guess. I didn’t get much out of them.” I told her about Harriet’s competitor for top of the class and Natalie’s ex-boyfriend.

“I don’t know who Natalie dated, but I think you can rule out Dale Cornwell.”

“Why do you say that?”

“He’s like the male version of Harriet: very studious, very serious. I can’t see him carrying out a plan like this, not if there was any chance he could get caught and jeopardize his class standing.”

“But if the principal doesn’t care about the notes, maybe Dale wouldn’t have anything to fear?”

We passed an open garbage can, where the putrid scent of old food greeted us, despite the newspaper someone had placed on top of it. Pearl lifted the paper and wrinkled her nose. “SCHOOLS TO OBSERVE PEARL HARBOR ATTACK; Moment of Silence Monday to Honor Armed Forces,” blared the headline. Instead of reading it, she returned it to the can. “I think Mr. DeLuca would start to care if there was evidence of who was behind this. And I’m telling you: I know Dale. No matter how competitive he may be, he wouldn’t do something like this.”

“Fair enough. I’ll strike him off the list.”

“What about Ira?”

I wasn’t about to tell her that he had named her as a suspect. “He seemed a little cagey. And I eyeballed his handwriting. I don’t know if it’s a match, but he could make a killing drafting ransom notes.”

“Do you want me to get a sample of his writing?”

“Let’s hold off. It’s a lot more likely it’s someone outside the federation than someone in it.” If only Ira had seen that logic himself.

“What did he say when you asked him if this would make him leave the federation?”

“I didn’t ask him. I forgot.”

We turned down Broome, then crossed Canal Street. The sun was going down faster than I would’ve liked, so we quickened our pace. We arrived at the massive building at a quarter to five. Inside, we scanned a sign that indicated which office was located where. The building was packed with all sorts of divisions with peculiar names that dealt with health and welfare. Some were so new that descriptions were tacked beside them to explain what they did. “Nurseries for working women,” said one. “Nutrition during rationing,” said another. “Services for slow children,” read a third. The sheer number of offices made my head spin.

“Here it is,” said Pearl. “Second floor.” I followed her upstairs and around a corner until we arrived at a door marked “Office of Vital Records.” Directly beneath the title of the office was a hand-scrawled note that said, “We close promptly at 5:00 p.m. No exceptions.”

“Can I help you?” asked a woman so old I was surprised her own death certificate wasn’t among the drawers of files behind her.

“I wanted to get a copy of my mother’s death certificate. Her name was Ingrid Anderson.”

“Fill this out.” She passed me a form and a pencil. The form asked for the decedent’s name, birth and death dates, and city where the death took place. I scribbled quickly, constantly aware of the massive clock ticking away the minutes above her desk. “Here you go.”

She took the form and put it into a metal basket, where a stack of filled-out forms waited for her attention.

“We can wait,” I said.

“Not in here, you can’t. The certificate will be mailed in one week.”

“A week?”

She fanned her arm behind her, where row after row after row of file cabinets stood. “There are more in the basement. One week, maybe two, and then you’ll have your certificate.”

I did the only thing I could think of that might sway her in that moment: I started to cry.

CHAPTER

6

MY TEARS DIDN’T MOVE HER.
We left dejected. The only thing that had helped me make it through the day was the thought that at least part of the mystery of what happened to Mama might be cleared up. Waiting a week—possibly two—seemed absolutely intolerable.

“What about the library?” said Pearl.

I mopped my eyes with my scarf, though that did little to stop the flow of tears. The wetter I got, the colder I got, which made me shiver through each sob. “They don’t have death certificates there.”

“No, but they do have newspapers. They would’ve published information about her murder, right?”

In the days after Mama’s death, I couldn’t recall seeing a newspaper, not that that was so unusual. It was Pop who helped develop my interest in current events. Before then, newspapers were things street vendors wrapped food in.

The Seward Park Branch of the New York Public Library was on East Broadway, across from the park that gave it its name and only about five minutes from where we were. We rushed in that direction, uncertain what time the library closed. Fortunately, they were having a book drive, so their hours were extended beyond the norm. We hurried inside the massive redbrick, Renaissance revival building, which was alive with people checking out books, reading newspapers to catch up with that day’s war news, and donating their own worn copies of fiction and nonfiction titles to be sent to our boys overseas. Pearl pointed up the marble staircase, toward the reference desk. I followed her, taking the steps two at a time. As we reached the librarian stationed there, I decided to let Pearl do the talking. This was her domain, not mine.

“Can I help you?” asked a friendly-looking woman with a port wine stain on her neck.

“We’re doing a school project for the anniversary of Pearl Harbor,” Pearl said. “We were hoping to look at the newspapers from January 1942, to get a sense of the way the war was received in those early days so that we can compare it with the coverage going on for the anniversary.”

“You wish to look at every day from that month? And every paper?”

“Oh no,” said Pearl. “Just the beginning of the month. Say, between New Year’s Day and January 10. And only the New York papers. We want to see what the coverage was like after the holidays.”

She nodded, clearly impressed that we were taking on such an ambitious project. She wasn’t the only one. “Have a seat. I’ll get you what I can.”

We sat across from each other at a reading-room table and waited for what seemed like an eternity for the newspapers to arrive. I was starting to worry that this librarian would, like the woman at Vital Records, appear and declare that our task had a standard waiting time of two to four weeks. Fortunately, just as I was giving up hope, she appeared with an assistant. Together they deposited two stacks of newspapers on the table in front of us.

“Read in good health, girls. What you don’t get through today, we can set aside for tomorrow.”

We thanked them and quickly zeroed in on the issues from New Year’s Day to January 2. There was nothing in the January 1 papers, but on January 2 Pearl hit the jackpot toward the back of the front section of the
Times
. I moved to her side of the table and read over her shoulder.

WOMAN FOUND DEAD IN YORKVILLE HOTEL ROOM

A woman was found dead on New Year’s Day at the White Swan Hotel, East 86th Street, Yorkville.

*   *   *

THAT WAS IT.
There was nothing else. We combed the next few days’ worth of papers until we found a follow-up article.

YORKVILLE BODY IDENTIFIED; VICTIM ENDED OWN LIFE

The body discovered on January 1 at the White Swan Hotel has been identified as that of 36-year-old Ingrid Anderson. Mrs. Anderson, of the Upper East Side, committed suicide sometime on December 31, 1941, by taking an overdose of sleeping tablets. Mrs. Anderson, who was distraught at the news of her husband’s injury at Pearl Harbor, checked into the hotel on December 30. According to police, Anna Mueller, a chambermaid, discovered Mrs. Anderson after entering room 3C to clean it. Mrs. Anderson was the wife of Arthur Anderson, a Naval Intelligence officer.

I couldn’t breathe.

“Iris? Are you okay?” asked Pearl.

“He didn’t start the lie,” I whispered. I should’ve realized he couldn’t have. After all, Pop was thousands of miles away when Mama died. How would he have coerced Uncle Adam and Aunt Miriam into telling me she’d committed suicide? He most likely didn’t know about her death until after I did. So who was the first one to call it suicide? And why?

“Maybe the papers got it wrong. We haven’t seen the death certificate yet. Is it possible they changed their minds and decided it was a murder later on?”