The Girl Is Trouble (22 page)

If I were able to get Adam to fess up, what would I do with the information? I certainly couldn’t go after Mama’s killer. And Adam had proven himself unwilling to do so. That meant that if I were going to do anything, I would have to tell Pop.

And what would Pop do with the information?

I shook my head and tried to focus on the words of the cantor. I was getting ahead of myself. Adam might not know much more than what brought Mama to the Yorkville hotel room. He and Pop might be on equal footing, and that meant there would be no reason to share what I’d learned with anyone but Pearl.

Service ended and we met Adam in the lobby, where a pamphlet entitled “This Is Your Job” was being distributed. Inside, it invoked the anniversary of Pearl Harbor as a good time to start committing yourself to the war effort by participating in salvage activities. After being introduced to various friends of Adam and Miriam’s in the congregation, we headed out into the brisk day and started toward the Plaza Hotel.

We hadn’t gone half a block when I feigned being woozy.

“Are you all right?” asked Miriam.

“I think … no,” I said. “I don’t think I can make it to lunch. I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t apologize, Iris. You can’t help being ill.” Miriam put a hand to my forehead and I waited for her to declare that my temperature was perfectly normal, as Adam had the day before. “We’ll all go home.”

“But Pearl was so looking forward to the Plaza,” I said.

Pearl did her best to look simultaneously disappointed by the change in plans and concerned with my health. “It’s all right.”

“Couldn’t you all still go?” I said. “I could wait here until you’re done.”

“Don’t be silly,” said Miriam. “You need to be in bed.”

“I’m not sure I can make it all the way back to the apartment.” This was the kicker: it was still the Sabbath and Miriam was devout enough that I knew she wouldn’t take a cab home. Adam, on the other hand, tended to be less Orthodox in his practices, as his business often demanded. I looked up at my uncle, hoping he would make the suggestion to escort me back so I didn’t have to.

He wasn’t picking up on my unspoken plea.

“I don’t want Pearl to miss out on the Plaza,” I said again. “She’s never been before, and who knows if she’ll ever get another chance.”

“I was kind of looking forward to it,” said Pearl.

“They have the most amazing tea cakes,” I said.

Miriam shifted her weight from foot to foot. Her desire to be a good hostess to Pearl was conflicting with her need to mother me. She turned to Adam. “Maybe you could take Iris back to the apartment and then meet us at the Plaza.”

“She can’t walk that far,” said Adam. He wanted his wife’s permission to take a cab. He could have an affair with another woman without a second thought, but violating the Sabbath required consent.

Miriam rolled her eyes. “Then take a cab. It’s not like you haven’t done that before.”

Adam hailed a taxi and agreed to meet them for lunch, provided I didn’t get sicker during the journey. I knew what that meant: he had no intention of joining them.

Yeah, well, I had no intention of his leaving me alone, either.

I got into the back of the car with him and feigned continued weakness as we pulled away from the curb and headed home. Miriam watched as we departed, a worried look pulling her face long and lean. I felt terrible about lying to her yet again. Hopefully Pearl would see to it that she enjoyed lunch without spending the whole meal concerned about me.

It was a small price to pay to get the truth out of Adam.

We reached the apartment and my uncle opened my door and helped me up to the curb. The doorman, recognizing my fragile state, helped us into the building and summoned the elevator.

“Almost there,” said Adam as each floor clicked by. These were the first words he’d spoken directly to me that day.

“I’m sorry you had to miss lunch.”

“No worries. I have work to do, though your aunt Miriam would have a fit.”

“Working on the Sabbath? I can’t imagine she’d forgive you for that.”

He winked at me. “It will be our little secret, right?”

The rage that had been building up inside me since reading my uncle’s notes was reaching its peak. So now I had to be complicit in his lying to my aunt? We reached our floor and I hung back while Adam unlocked the door and let me in.

“I guess you’ll want to lie down for a while,” he said. “Perhaps after a nap, we should call a doctor.”

“Perhaps,” I said as I removed my coat. I was losing my nerve. It would be so easy to go back to the guest room and lie down and forget about all of this for a few hours. But then where would I be? Back where I started with nothing to show for it. “Could I talk to you for a minute, Uncle Adam?”

He looked at the mantel clock. Did he seriously just do that? “Of course. Why don’t we sit?” He took his place in a large leather wingback chair and waited for me to do the same.

“I’d rather stand,” I said.

“I thought you were ill.”

“And I thought my mother committed suicide. It looks like both of us have been misled.”

*   *   *

I’M NOT SURE
how long I stood there waiting for him to respond to my pronouncement. However much time passed, it was enough for my legs to grow rubbery.

“What did your father tell you?”

“Nothing. I found out on my own. And last night I learned that Mama was working for you.”

He wordlessly stood up and walked into his office. I thought that might be his way of dismissing me, but moments later he returned with my camera in his hand. “I’m assuming you would like this back?”

“Thank you,” I said, taking the Brownie.

“I found it under my desk. The first rule of breaking in is to never leave anything behind, the second is to return everything to the way you found it. In the future, I recommend relocking drawers and cabinets after you open them. And since I’m dispensing advice, while it was very clever of you to bring along a distraction, you might want to teach Pearl the art of subtlety if you decide to continue employing her.”

“Thanks, but I’m not here for your praise. Or your advice. I want to know what happened to Mama.”

He returned to his chair and clasped his hands. “You read the file. You know everything I know.”

“Your notes stopped on December 26. I want to know what happened between then and when her body was found.”

He sighed heavily. “You and me both, Iris. I’m afraid there’s nothing to tell you. She asked us to watch you—we thought she wanted some time alone to get ready for your father’s return—and then on New Year’s Day we were contacted by the police and told she was dead.”

“Why did they call it a suicide?”

“Because that’s what it looked like. The police make do with the information they have available to them.”

I stepped toward him, cutting the distance between us in half. “But that’s
not
what it looked like. I’ve seen the crime-scene photos. It was clearly a murder. And even if it wasn’t, you could’ve told the police what you knew. At the very least, you could’ve put them in touch with the Office of War Information. Why didn’t you?”

“Because it wouldn’t have made any difference.”

“I think it’s because you didn’t want anyone to know how desperately you’d failed, Uncle Adam. You forced Mama to meet with Mr. Haupt and to turn over her money to gain his confidence. When things went terribly wrong you didn’t want to be blamed for it, so you let the suicide story stand, only Pop was too smart to buy it.”

“Is that what your father thinks?”

“I don’t know what’s in Pop’s head. I figured this out on my own.”

“You’re a very clever girl, Iris, but I’m afraid you’ve made a leap of logic. I may have made mistakes, but I certainly didn’t force your mother to do anything. Nobody could.”

Even though his expression hadn’t changed, I knew he was lying. He had to be. “She was in love with you. She kept that letter from you, the one where you begged her to end the affair.”

He laughed, God help him. He sat there and laughed at me. “Your imagination is getting the best of you. Your mother and I were colleagues only. There was never a romantic relationship between us. Now, I suggest you go to bed and at least pretend, for your aunt’s sake, that you haven’t been lying to her this entire weekend.” He stood up and headed toward his office again.

I followed him. “She should be used to it by now.”

“What was that?” He paused at the doorway.

“Pearl saw you last night. Kissing Mrs. Pollock.”

He couldn’t have been more surprised if Mama had just walked into the room. “She misunderstood, that’s all.”

“Who am I going to believe, my uncle with his history of telling tales, or my best friend, who’s never done me wrong?”

Pink tinged his cheeks. “All right. Things have been strained between your aunt and me. This past year has been difficult for all of us…”

I crossed my arms. The room suddenly seemed unbearably cold. “And it’s bound to get more difficult when Pearl tells Aunt Miriam what she saw.”

Rage lit his eyes. For the first time in my life, I was afraid of my uncle. “What do you want from me?”

I could feel tears wanting to appear, just like they had the day I’d tailed Jim McCain. To steel myself against them, I focused all my energy on clenching my toes. “I want the truth. About Mama. If you give me that, then Aunt Miriam doesn’t need to be the wiser.”

“I’ve told you the truth.”

I grabbed his sleeve to show him that I wasn’t going to back down. “No, you haven’t. Why did she go to see Mr. Haupt? Why didn’t you do anything to help her? You had to have known she was in danger when she didn’t come home after a day passed. Why did you let the police call it a suicide?”

He closed his eyes tight and I could tell he was squelching whatever impulse he had to strike out at me. When he opened them I saw resignation: he had been cornered and he knew there was no way out but the truth. “All right,” he said. “I’ll tell you why she did it: because of you.”

My voice faltered. “What do I have to do with it?”

“Haupt knew about you. He followed your mother. He saw her taking you to school. After Pearl Harbor, her desire to help with the case waned—your father was the only thing she was thinking about. She didn’t want to upset him.”

“Why would she worry about that? Did Pop know she was working for you?”

“It was his idea.”

I was shocked, so shocked that I couldn’t hide it. Pop had known she was doing this all along?

“Why don’t you sit down, Iris.”

I did as he said before my legs gave out entirely.

“I can tell you’re surprised,” said Adam. “I was in the habit of writing to your father about cases, getting his opinion when things were difficult. He’d always been an excellent investigator. When things took a challenging turn and I realized I couldn’t continue the case without assistance, I wrote to him asking for ideas about who could help me. Name after name turned me down, and when it looked like I was never going to find someone to assist me, Art suggested that your mother might be able to help. She’d worked with us a handful of times before. She was very clever, your mother. Extraordinarily observant. And so seemingly innocuous that she could get anyone to tell her anything. And of course her familiarity with Yorkville and being a fluent German-speaker would be a tremendous boon. At the time we thought it was nothing more than an embezzlement case, and knowing how bored your mother was, your father saw no harm in letting her tail Karl Hincter to find out what he was using the money for.”

“But what about once you found out he was funding the Bund? How did Pop feel about that?”

“He saw danger. A lot of danger. And he demanded that your mother stop participating in the case. I didn’t know that at the time—he didn’t let me in on the argument until he began to fear that she wasn’t listening to him. That was when he asked me to step in and tell her that I didn’t need her anymore.”

“But you didn’t.”

Adam leaned toward me. “No, I did. Think what you want of me, Iris, but I always had the utmost respect for your father. If he didn’t want Ingrid involved anymore, then I had to heed his request. I begged her to stop. When she refused my visits and calls, I wrote her a letter telling her that she needed to stop for your father’s sake.” The letter. It wasn’t a lover ending an affair; it was an employer firing his assistant. And she’d saved it as proof, if she got in over her head, that it wasn’t Adam’s fault. He’d asked her to stop working, just like Pop told her to. Her choice to continue was her own. “Your mother refused to listen, though, and continued meeting with Hincter and Haupt. So I went to the Office of War Information, hoping they might take over the case. I thought by doing so, she’d be content knowing things would be followed to the end and we could obey your father and discontinue conducting the investigation on our own. Of course, it didn’t work out so well. The OWI needed more information before they would agree to act, and your mother was determined to give them what they needed. But then Pearl Harbor happened and she finally realized that the last thing in the world she needed to be doing was upsetting your father. So she stopped working on the case. Haupt kept contacting her, though. We had dangled enough money in front of him that he was determined to get your mother’s financial support. And I imagine he was very concerned that he had let her in on as much of their plans as he had. She kept putting him off and telling him it was a bad time to meet. Then, on Christmas, a package was delivered to her containing photos of you. The note that accompanied the images made it clear that if she didn’t turn over the promised funds your safety could not be guaranteed.”

The photos. Pop had the photos. I’d seen them in the safe, only I thought they were new surveillance photos, not pictures of me taken back when I was at Chapin. Did Pop know what they meant and what role they’d played, or were they, like the crime-scene photos, just another piece of the puzzle he was hoping to put together?

“I told her she should go to the police or the OWI and get their assistance. Before she could, a second package arrived containing another photograph: this one of Hincter. He’d been killed. The message was clear: if she didn’t do as Haupt asked, Hincter’s wouldn’t be the only blood on her hands. She agreed to meet him in Yorkville on December 28 and to bring with her the money she had pledged. Unfortunately, by this point Rheingold and Valentine had decided they couldn’t risk losing any more money, so she withdrew her own funds. And she asked Miriam and me to take you in and make sure of your safety until her return.”