The Girl Is Trouble (29 page)

“What do you want me to do about it?”

“Help her out. You owe her that much.”

“How do you figure that? I don’t remember asking her for a favor.”

I stared at him, unable to reconcile the Benny who’d helped me earlier in the week with the angry boy before me. “Why are you acting this way?”

“This is how I am. Take it or leave it.”

“No it’s not. You’re kind. You don’t drink. You do the wrong things for the right reason.”

He laughed at me, but there was no joy in the sound. “Boy, do you have a lot to learn. Remember how you lied to my friends and me about who you really were when your pop was poking around a few weeks ago? Well, guess what—the shoe’s on the other foot.”

I left the shelter and rushed away from his building, hot tears squeezing from the corners of my eyes. By the time I made it to Orchard Street, I could barely see a foot in front of me from crying so hard.

That was probably why I didn’t notice the man standing on the front stoop.

“Hello, Iris.”

It was the man who’d been there the week before, the one who’d said Stefan said hello. Instinct told me to run, but my feet were too slow. Before I could move, he’d wrapped a hand around my wrist and opened his coat just enough to show me a gun.

A scream died in my throat. I’d seen enough movies to know what he was telling me: if I made a peep, he would shoot me.

“Do you know who I am?” he asked.

I shook my head, afraid that even answering out loud would cause retribution.

“My name is Mr. Haupt and I’m an old friend of your mother’s.”

This was Stefan Haupt? But what about the man at the White Swan?

“It looks like my name is ringing a bell,” he said. “That’s good to know. Where is your father?”

“I-I don’t know,” I said.

“That’s a pity. I was hoping that we could resolve this without involving you. He did something very foolish over the weekend. He killed an associate of mine, who was hoping to do the same to him. Had he taken his punishment like your mother did, there would’ve been no reason for me to come here like this. Is your landlady home?”

I nodded, because it was more likely than not.

“Then I guess we go to Yorkville and wait for your father to find us.” He pulled me off the stoop and toward a car parked at the curb. I looked toward the house, hoping Mrs. M. might see me, but the blackout blinds were already drawn. I tried to go limp in his arms, but he was far stronger than me and, even without my help, was able to pull me the ten feet from the house to his automobile.

Just when I thought all hope was lost, a voice called out my name. “Iris!” Haupt turned to look, and I saw my opportunity and wrenched free of his hold. I stumbled and slid across the street, landing behind a mailbox. A gun fired and I was certain that it was Haupt trying to cut me down in my path, but when I peered around the mailbox to see where he was, I found him crumpled behind the car. His blood mingled with the new snow, turning the road scarlet.

Who had done that?

I looked toward where I’d heard my name being called and spied Benny frozen in his path. Benny had shot Haupt? But if he’d had a gun, it was no longer in his hand. I looked the opposite way up the street and saw Pop limping toward Haupt’s body, his revolver clutched against his body.

It was Pop. Pop had shot him.

I left my hiding place and ran to him. He caught me, fighting to maintain his balance on the slick sidewalk. “You’re okay?” Pop asked, four or five times, until I began to think it wasn’t a question, but a chant: You’re okay. You’re okay. You’re okay.

“Yes. I’m fine.” My tears returned, only now they weren’t for Benny and his lies.

“Thank God. I’m so sorry, Iris. I followed him from Yorkville. I figured he was coming to try to ambush me at home. I never imagined that you’d arrive here when he did.”

“It’s all right,” I said.

Haupt stirred on the ground. His gun had fallen beside him, and he stretched his arm as far as he could to try to reach it. Pop left me and, with his own gun extended, approached Haupt. I cringed, waiting for a second shot to fire and for the light to go out of Haupt’s eyes. Instead, Pop kicked Haupt’s gun into the road, then lowered his own weapon to his side.

Sirens exploded in the distance as the police, roused by our neighbors, rushed to join us. As the first red light pulsed down the street, I took in Benny, who had finally reached my side.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

“I wanted to tell you that I’ll do what I can to call off Rhona. And I wanted to say I’m sorry. I didn’t mean what I said.” He took in the scene as the cops pulled to the curb and retrieved Haupt’s gun. “What just happened?”

“I think you just did something good without expecting anything in return.”

He rubbed his chin. “Huh. Who would’ve thought I was capable of that?”

Me,
my heart sang.
Me!

*   *   *

AFTER THE POLICE
had come and taken Pop’s statement and hauled Stefan Haupt to the hospital, Pop and I retreated to the parlor with the cups of cocoa Mrs. M. had made for us. Despite the warmth of the fire and the sweet milk, I couldn’t stop shivering. Pop wrapped the afghan around my shoulders, and still I shook.

“That was the man who killed Mama, right?” I asked between chattering teeth. I needed to hear it from him, that things were really, truly over and that the right person had finally been captured.

“Yes. That’s the man.”

“You’ve been trying to find him for a while?”

Pop wiped away his milk mustache with the back of his hand. “I had hoped to. And then a few weeks ago he came looking for me.”

“And you hired Betty to work for you?”

He nodded. I didn’t need to hear any more, about how he needed someone to do the footwork that he himself couldn’t do, how he took a risk by putting Betty in a similar position to the one Uncle Adam had put Mama in.

The chattering moved through my body, sending my legs into convulsions. I was worried I would never be warm again.

“You’re in shock,” Pop said. “It’ll pass, I promise.”

“Why didn’t you kill him?” I asked.

“Don’t worry, Iris—he’s not going to bother us again. His friends on the force worked the uptown beat, not the Lower East Side.”

“I know, but—” How to articulate what I was thinking? If Haupt was here today, who did Pop kill at the White Swan? “Would you have killed him if I wasn’t there?”

Pop frowned. “Of course not. All I ever wanted was for him to be captured and punished. It was the only way anyone was going to learn the truth about what happened to your mother.”

“But if he’d pulled a gun on you first, would you have killed him then?”

He put his arm around my shoulder and rubbed my upper arm through the afghan. “I think I know what you’re getting at. This isn’t war, Iris. At war, yes, I would’ve killed him without thinking. But I’m not a soldier anymore. In the civilian world the only reason you use a gun is to maintain control. You don’t have to kill anyone to do that, but sometimes you do have to wound them.”

The shivering was waning. I relaxed against Pop. “Where were you on Saturday?”

“I told you—I was supposed to meet with a client who didn’t show, so I did some surveillance work instead.”

I found a loose thread on the afghan and pulled at it. “The safe was open. It looked like you left in a hurry and forgot to close it. And your gun was gone.”

He paused for a long time. I thought he was formulating another lie, but he surprised me when he finally answered. “Haupt contacted me. He wanted to meet me at the hotel where your mother was killed.”

“And what happened when you did?”

“Nothing. I didn’t go.”

“Why?”

Another pause, and I knew he was struggling with the best way to tell me the truth. “I was pretty sure I was headed into an ambush. Part of me didn’t care. I must’ve started down Eighty-sixth Street four or five times before changing my mind and walking away. I just couldn’t do that to you.”

I hugged the blanket closer. “You didn’t even go into the White Swan?”

“It probably makes me sound like a terrible coward, doesn’t it? In the end, though, it was the right thing to do. Someone was killed there.”

“Who?”

“The hotel owner. A man named Mueller.” Anna Mueller’s ex-husband, the man Benny and I had met the day we broke in. His was the face ruined by the bullet, the body lying unidentified in the morgue.

I’m sure my relief at the news that Pop never went into the White Swan must’ve shown. The more I thought about it, the more sense it made. After all, how would Pop have made it up the fire-escape ladder? Why hadn’t I heard his distinctive footsteps when the killer ran away? How had he managed to make it out of the building so quickly?

It was what my dream the night before had been trying to tell me.

And yet, if Pop didn’t kill Mueller, who did? I knew it couldn’t be Haupt: he said himself that he thought Pop was the one who’d killed his associate. So then who? Who else knew that danger was waiting for Pop at the White Swan?

Uncle Adam.

“You look like you still have something on your mind, Iris.”

I twisted the loose thread around my index finger, cutting the blood off until the flesh turned purple. “Mama’s death isn’t Uncle Adam’s fault,” I said.

“Iris—”

“No, listen to me, Pop. He tried to get Mama to drop the case.”

“It’s nice of you to defend your uncle, but he’s admitted what he did.”

I left his side and approached the radio, where Mama’s photo still sat. I removed the note from inside it and passed it to Pop. “Read this. Adam lied to you. It was Mama’s choice to meet with Haupt, not his. If you can show Haupt mercy and he’s the one who actually killed Mama, Adam deserves that and so much more. Please. Think about it.”

Pop read the note in silence. When he was done, he shoved it into his pocket, wiped his eyes dry, then went into his office to call his brother.

*   *   *

POP IS LETTING ME
work for him again. I’m no longer being subjected to tests, but I am being limited to office work until he’s certain that there are no associates of Stefan Haupt’s out there lurking about. He’s also met twice with Uncle Adam, though I’m not sure things will ever be completely resolved between the two of them. Michael and Benny kept their promise and did their best to defend Pearl from the federation and the Rainbows. The rest of the student body hasn’t been so kind, but Pearl is holding up surprisingly well.

Pop and I celebrated our first Christmas with Mrs. Mrozenski and Betty. Mrs. M. gave me a new frame for Mama’s picture as my gift and I gave her the
Betty Crocker Cook Book of All-Purpose Baking
. We spent New Year’s Eve morning at Mount Hebron cemetery. It was the first time I’d been there since Mama’s funeral, when I’d tossed a handful of dirt on her coffin right after it was lowered into the grave. Pop, Mrs. M., Betty, Uncle Adam, and Aunt Miriam were with me, along with Pearl, to witness the unveiling of Mama’s tombstone and to eulogize the woman I so desperately missed.

The day was clear, cold, and beautiful, if a winter day in New York can be such a thing. As we recited the mourners’ Kaddish, birds that should’ve flown south weeks before joined us with their own sad song.

It was the second tribute to Mama that week. Days before, the
Times
ran an article describing the long, tangled history of Stefan Haupt and the trail of murder he’d left in his wake. While the police and the OWI refused to speak on the record about any specific crimes of which he was accused, the reporter quoted a number of unnamed sources who were aware of Mama’s involvement in the case and how Haupt had wielded his power to cover up her murder.

It wasn’t enough to remove the “suicide” label from her death certificate, but at least it proved to everyone that it was still possible to be good
and
a German. To some people, Mama will always be the woman who killed herself when her husband and daughter needed her, just like to some people Pearl will always be the girl who wrote those awful notes. The important thing is that those who matter most know the truth.

As we pulled the sheet from Mama’s headstone and revealed the Hebrew words that paid tribute to her life, I felt like we were finally removing a shroud that had covered her for the past year. It was so good to have her back again, to be able to remember her as she really was. And I know I’m not the only one who felt that way.

When the service was over, one by one we placed a rock on her headstone. I was the last one to do so. As I balanced my stone on the curved surface, I whispered at the earth beneath my feet, “You don’t have to protect me anymore, Mama. Pop will keep me safe.”

Text copyright © 2012 by Kathryn Miller Haines

Published by Roaring Brook Press

Roaring Brook Press is a division of Holtzbrinck Publishing Holdings Limited Partnership

175 Fifth Avenue, New York, New York 10010

macteenbooks.com

All rights reserved

The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:

Haines, Kathryn Miller.

The girl is trouble / Kathryn Miller Haines. — 1st ed.

    p. cm.

Summary: Late 1942 in New York City finds fifteen-year-old Iris helping more with her father’s detective business, as long as she follows his rules and learns his techniques, but her investigation into her mother’s supposed suicide gets Iris in big trouble—and not just with her father.

ISBN 978-1-59643-610-7 (hardcover)

ISBN 978-1-59643-826-2 (e-book)

[1.  Interpersonal relations—Fiction.   2.  Fathers and daughters—Fiction.   3.  Private investigators—Fiction.   4.  Conduct of life—Fiction.   5.  New York (N.Y.)—History—20th century—Fiction.]   I.  Title.

 PZ7.H128123Gii 2012