The Girl Is Murder (22 page)

“There’s an automat a few blocks from here,” said Josephine. “How ’bout we meet you there in an hour?”

“Why not walk there with us now?”

“Because I can’t keep my hands in your pocket all night. I need to pop by my house and get a hat and gloves.”

“How do we know you and your friend won’t stand us up?”

“You don’t,” said Josephine. She removed her hands from his jacket. “Ta-ta.” She waved goodbye to them, looped her arm in Grace’s, and then continued on her way.

I stepped into place behind them as they passed the newspaper kiosk. The sailors watched them leave and then headed in the opposite direction. Josephine was silent for half a block, then tossed a look over her shoulder to verify that the sailors were gone. Once she was sure they were, she removed a wallet from her jacket and flipped through its contents.

“Fifty dollars,” she told Grace. “Not bad.”

“I thought we were going to get dinner with them,” said Grace. She sounded irritated, though I don’t think it was the fact of Jo’s crime that bothered her so much as the change in plans it represented.

“I didn’t like the looks of them up close. All that talk about a cheap dinner. And how dare they ask our age.”

Grace pouted. “I can’t believe you stole from him.”

“I’m cutting out the middleman,” said Josephine. “Why go through the trouble of listening to their boring war stories for a free meal when we can just take the cash and run?” Josephine removed a pack of cigarettes from her other pocket. She tapped out two, put both to her mouth, and lit them like she was Humphrey Bogart. Once both had ignited, she passed one to Grace, who greedily sucked at the slim white tube.

“It’s probably his money for a month,” said Grace.

“If you feel so bad about it, why don’t you track him down and give him your take?” Jo removed a hunk of bills from the wallet and passed them Grace’s way.

“Don’t be stupid,” said Grace. But she took the money.

“You’re the one who’s being unpleasant. I’m just trying to have a little fun.” Josephine snapped her fingers as an idea occurred to her. “Speaking of fun, how about if we show up at the automat and rescue him by paying for his meal with his own money? Wouldn’t that be a scream?”

“Not really. Ten to one the minute he realizes his wallet is gone he’ll figure out who took it. I’m not in the mood to get arrested.”

Josephine rolled her eyes. “Fine. Then what do you want to do?”

“Meet someone to take us for dinner and dancing. Like we planned.”

They paused at an intersection.

I took a step backward and bent down to tie my shoe, worried that I was getting too close to them. As much as I wanted to hear how this argument played out, the last thing I wanted was to get caught.

“Iris?” Behind me, a familiar voice rang out. Two of them, actually—it was Bea and Bev.

I looked back toward Josephine and Grace. They hadn’t heard my name. They were too caught up in their own drama to pay attention to anything else going on around them. I spun around and smiled at the twins.

“Oh my gosh,” said Bev. “It is you. Are you visiting your aunt again?”

“Yes,” I said. So much for my disguise. I stood up, pulled the scarf from my hair and shoved it in my pocket.

“Grace said she saw you on Saturday.”

“She sure did,” I said. I tried to echo their polished enthusiasm even as I wondered what was fueling it. What had Grace told them about our time together?

“Are you looking for Grace?” asked Bea.

Grace and Josephine crossed the street. Their pace had picked up. Had they reached a decision about how they were going to spend their evening, or were they still arguing?

“No, I’m actually on my way home,” I told Bea. I was even less comfortable seeing them now than I had been during my first stakeout. Were Bea and Bev privy to the rumors about Mama? If they were, thankfully they were too well bred to drag my scandal into broad daylight. Which wasn’t to say that they didn’t regularly discuss me in the hallowed halls of Chapin.

“Grace said you’re going to get together again,” said Bev.

“Maybe. I mean, it depends on our schedules and stuff.”

“Believe me, it would be good for Grace,” said Bea. “We were so glad when she told us she saw you. I’m sure she told you about you know who?”

Who was
you know who
? Tom?

I shrugged to indicate that I didn’t know what they were talking about.

“Josephine O’Hara,” said Bev.

“Oh, right. Yeah, she mentioned her a time or twelve. I’m surprised those two get on so well,” I said. “Jo’s an upperclassman, right?”

“I think that’s why she likes Grace,” said Bev. “She figured out she was top dog of the underclassmen and made a beeline straight for her.”

“So I take it you two aren’t in her band of admirers?”

“Please,” said Bev with an eye roll. “She’s a scholarship student.” She made the word
scholarship
sound like a terrible disease, like polio. Being on aid was usually the kiss of death at Chapin. When we first discovered that Mama’s money had run out, Pop offered to look for funding to pay for my schooling. I nixed the idea. I knew word would get out that my family could no longer afford the school and along with it would come the cooed remarks that everyone liked me just the same and don’t worry, my secret would never get out.

Except it always did. Those girls whose families had experienced reversals of fortune became social outcasts. At least the girls who’d always been on scholarship knew they were different and didn’t expect to fit in. For the rest of us, there were constant digs that the only reason you were there was because everyone else’s parents could afford to pay for them and by golly you better be grateful for that.

There was no way I would have let them do that to me.

“Does Grace know that?” I asked.

“She just found out,” said Bea. “Can you imagine? Josephine takes the subway to campus each day. The
subway.
”

Did she mean that thing I was getting ready to board to go back to the Lower East Side? How shocking.

“So have you met any cute boys this year?” I asked.

“Not really,” said Beatrice. “Besides, who has time? Between studying and extracurriculars, we hardly have a moment to eat.”

And they certainly didn’t have time to travel across town to visit their aunt, she seemed to be saying. I decided to take a shot in the dark. “Grace seems to have made the time,” I said.

“Don’t tell me that’s still going on,” said Bev.

“I heard she dumped him,” said Bea. “After the
incident.
”

“Thank God,” said Bev. “I would’ve died of embarrassment if I were her.”

“Do tell,” I said.

Bea stepped toward me and lowered her voice. “She was going with this boy from one of the public schools. Or at least
he
thought so, anyway. One day he showed up at Chapin wanting to talk to her. And the way he was dressed—”

“In a bright red suit,” said Bev. “Like he was a colored boy. And he had those flowers.”

“Carnations,” said Bea. Couldn’t he afford nicer flowers with the money he’d made from the locker thefts? Or had that money been used for something else? “She tried to breeze past him, but he kept calling out her name in that accent of his. It was just awful. I mean, it’s one thing to be attracted to a boy like that, but to be seen in public …”

“Oh, come on—it was kind of sweet,” said Bea.

“Are you off your nut?”

“Remember what the note said.”

“There was a note?” I asked.

“He dropped it,” said Bea. “It was a love letter. Diana Fox found it and by the next morning there were copies all over the school.”

“And what did it say?”

Bev fluttered her lashes, obviously not seeing the romance her sister did. “‘I can’t live without you. I’ll do anything for you. You’re Juliet to my Romeo.’ It just went on and on. The most notable thing about it was that he actually spelled everything correctly, though I’m sure someone helped him with that. I really thought it was going to ruin her for life. Girls were quoting it for weeks.”

“When did this happen?” I asked.

“About a month ago,” said Bea. “Of course, eventually everyone stopped talking about it, Grace being Grace.”

“The gossip may be gone, but the relationship could still be on if Grace told Iris about him,” said Bev.

“She barely mentioned it,” I said. “I’m sure the only reason she said anything to me is because Tom and I go to school together. She probably wanted to warn me that he was bad news.”

“Lord and butler,” said Bev. “You go to school with him? You poor thing.”

“He’s not so bad.”

They exchanged another look. Judgment had been rendered: Grace may have been able to resurrect her reputation, but I was a lost cause.

“How’d she meet him, anyhow?” I asked. “She never told me.”

“Who knows?” said Bea. “I’m sure Josephine had something to do with it. She’s always dragging Grace to unsavory places. I’ve heard they’ve even gone to USO dances in Brooklyn.”

I was half tempted to tell them about my night in Harlem just to see them faint. “I’m surprised Tom gave up on her so easily. He’s pretty persistent from what I’ve heard. There was a girl he dated in public school who practically had to get the police to step in to get him to leave her alone.” Poor Tom. It was bad enough that they were dragging his name through the mud; did I have to invent stories about him now, too?

Bea shrugged. “All I know is one day he’s showing up at Chapin, and the next day Grace is gushing over how she won’t have to worry about ever seeing him again.”

A chill passed through me. Was her choice of words standard sub-deb exaggeration, or was it a clue that whatever happened to Tom Barney was more permanent?

“I better go,” I told Bea and Bev. “My pop busts a gut if I’m late for supper.”

“We should get together sometime,” said Bev. “We miss you.”

“That would be swell,” I said. “Anytime either of you want to come to the Lower East Side, give me a buzz. Grace knows the number.”

They told me that they’d be in touch, but I knew better than to hold my breath. The Lower East Side was Mars, and I was now a Martian as far as they were concerned.

CHAPTER

16

I WAS LATE TO DINNER, but fortunately so was Pop. Mrs. Mrozenski sat by herself at the table, smoking a cigarette in front of a full plate of something that had been wrapped in cabbage and then cooked for hours in tomato sauce. “Sorry,” I said as I came in. “Things went longer than I expected.”

She wasn’t mad. Mrs. M rarely ever got mad. But I could see worry creasing her face. I wasn’t sure if it was fear that something had happened to me or concern about what punishment I’d face if I hadn’t gotten home before Pop had. And I knew she’d never tell me unless I asked her flat out. As nice as she was to me, she was an intensely private person. And while I appreciated that most of the time, there were moments when I wished there was at least one person in this house who didn’t keep their worries bottled up inside.

Her face seemed long and sorrowful. Had something happened to her son? Letters arrived regularly from him, snatched from the postman’s hand and whisked away to her room upstairs, where I imagine she read them in privacy. She never shared their contents, though I often saw a piece of V-mail sticking out of her apron pocket, and more than once I’d caught her rereading his missives like a page of Scripture you toted around and turned to when you needed reassurance.

She did so much for us: cooking, cleaning, putting up with delayed rent. And yet I never thought to ask her about her own life. “Are you all right?” I asked her.

She cocked her head to the right, as though she was trying to prevent her surprise at being asked the question from leaking out the other side. “They released new casualty numbers today for the Navy and the Marines.” She passed the newspaper my way. It was folded so that the article in question appeared on top: “14,466 Casualties in Sea Service.”

Not even a year had passed yet and we’d topped five figures, and that was for only a portion of the armed forces.

Surely the new, lowered draft age would pass now. And if that happened, every boy in the senior class could be gone in one fell swoop. Including Benny.

I pushed the paper away. “It’ll end soon,” I said.

“This I pray for every night.”

I dug into the meal with as much excitement as I could muster and was pleasantly surprised to find the cabbage full of meat and rice, delicately seasoned to better meet Pop’s and my unadventurous taste buds. “This is delicious,” I told her, hoping my enthusiasm seemed genuine.

“Is halupki. From my mother’s recipe.”

I cleaned my plate and dug into a second helping. Rather than letting my mind linger on how massive a number fifteen thousand really was, I forced myself to mull over my conversation with Bea and Bev. I could almost guarantee that the last thing those two were thinking about was the war.

“You are awfully quiet,” said Mrs. Mrozenski.

“I’m just tired.” I thought about talking it over with her, but given the enormity of what weighed on her mind, my problems seemed ridiculously lightweight in comparison. So Grace didn’t tell me about Tom. So what? It’s not like she valued my opinion anymore. But it was strange that everyone at Chapin knew about him and she didn’t say one word to me. Could it be that she wanted to keep up the illusion that she was superior to me and wouldn’t lower herself to trawl the Lower East Side for a boyfriend? Or had she figured out that Tom and I went to the same school and decided it would be wiser not to mention him to me?

But why would it matter if I knew they were connected … unless she was somehow responsible for his disappearance. I shook the thought out of my head. As much as Grace had changed—and I had to face that she was now a shadow of the girl I once knew—there was no way that I could believe she would physically harm someone.

We finished dinner, and still no Pop. Was he following a lead in the Barney case, or was there some new job demanding his attention? I went to my room to tackle my homework, which would take all of five minutes if I extended any kind of effort at all. I wondered how much work Bea and Bev were facing. The workload at Chapin was legendary, especially for upperclassmen. They wanted to prepare you for college. Chapin girls didn’t just go to university to meet men. They actually went to get degrees.