A Pain in the Tuchis: A Mrs. Kaplan Mystery (4 page)

It took a few more minutes before either I or Mrs. K could put our thoughts together. I mean, how do you react when a sensible, respected woman, not just some gullible
shmendrik,
tells you something it is difficult to believe and asks you to believe it too? Do you let her swim by herself or jump into the water with her?

With both feet we jumped in, and now we had to paddle.

So Mrs. K telephoned to Dr. Menschyk and made another appointment to talk with him, like the time I told you about, when Rena’s cat was in danger of eviction. Fortunately, Menschyk is a gracious man who tries to accommodate others when he can, and such an appointment was made, for three the next afternoon in Mrs. K’s apartment. We told Fannie; she seemed pleased and relieved. It was understandable.

The next morning Mrs. K and I could not discuss Fannie’s situation during breakfast, because both Isaac Taubman and Karen Friedlander were there. Certainly it would be the worst kind of
lashon hara
to pass along the information Fannie had given us. But as soon as we had finished our breakfast (just a little oatmeal and some tea for me), we excused ourselves and made our way to the lounge. We plopped ourselves down on one of the soft sofas out of range of other ears and returned to the topic of Fannie and Vera.

“So, Ida, having had overnight to think about what Fannie told us, do you have any further thoughts on it?” Mrs. K asked.

“To tell you the truth,” I said, “I could not help but wonder, if Vera was right about someone wanting to poison her, and if someone did—I know these are very large ifs, but like I said, I could not help myself—then who might possibly have done it, and why?”

“Hmm, yes,” Mrs. K said. “And did you come up with any suspects?”

I sighed. “No, I could not think who it could have been. Or to put it another way, I decided it could have been almost anyone.”

“Yes, I’m not surprised. The problem with wondering who did it at this point is that we don’t have enough facts even to speculate. Who would gain from her death? Who might have wanted to kill her? For what reasons? And is this just a sick woman’s imagination?”

“So do you then have thoughts of a different kind?”

“Not really. I was thinking last night more about the question that comes before who did it—the one you skipped over, namely, what are the chances that Vera was in fact poisoned, given all the circumstances?”

“And what did you conclude?”

“The same as you, for the same reason: not enough facts. Who had access to her food or medicine? What made her suspect she was being poisoned? Taste? How she felt? Were there symptoms that would even remotely indicate she might have been poisoned?”

“At least this last thing we will learn this afternoon,” I said, “when we talk with Menschyk.”

“I hope so, Ida. If he cannot give us a definite answer, we are back to having no facts, and likely to stay that way.”

With Fannie’s problem put aside for now, I picked up a copy of
Hadassah Magazine
and began to read a story about some big medical discovery in Israel when Mrs. K taps me on the shoulder.

“I just remembered,” she said, “that I have not yet given Lily Lipman the package of
lokshen
I picked up for her at the grocery.”

“You bought noodles for Lily? Can she not buy them herself?”

“Of course, but the kind she likes they only have at one market, and I happened to be going shopping there last Tuesday, so I offered to buy them for her. I really should go and get them and take them to her.”

I nodded. “Maybe I’ll go with you,” I said. “I haven’t spoken to Lily lately, or seen her around much except at mealtimes. I might as well go and say hello.”

I put down the magazine and followed Mrs. K to her room, where she found the
lokshen
after a few minutes of searching (hiding under a box of matzoh meal), and we then headed for the Lipmans’ apartment.

Sol and Lily Lipman have one of the larger, two-bedroom apartments at the Home, intended for couples like them. It isn’t terribly spacious, but it certainly is bigger than the single-bedroom apartments like I and Mrs. K have, and it has a small but fairly complete kitchen.

Mrs. K knocked on the door. As we waited, we could hear what sounded like shouting inside, and a door slamming. We could also smell just a
shmek,
a whiff, of some pungent odor. Mrs. K knocked again, this time louder. More shouting, another door slamming, then everything went quiet and we heard footsteps approaching the door. Finally it was opened by Sol.

As soon as the door opened, we were struck by an almost overwhelming smell. It was as if someone had dumped a truckload of boiled cabbage in their apartment.

Sol did not look happy. You remember what I said about how opposite in appearance and temperament are—or I should now say were—Vera Gold and her sister, Fannie? Well, the same is true of Sol and his wife, Lily. And sometimes, nice, easygoing Sol can be found looking like he has lost his best friend, because high-strung, excitable Lily has gone off like
shmaltz
in a hot pan. (That’s chicken fat. You cook with it.) And more than once it is the bathroom where she locks herself. If their broom closet had a lock on the door, she would probably spend time in there also.

“Hello, Sol,” Mrs. K said, as we both tried to ignore the odor. “I have something for Lily. Is she home?”

Sol rolled his eyes. “Is she home?” he said. “You cannot tell? You think maybe it is I who is making boiled cabbage in the kitchen? And who is yelling like a fishwife when I complain?”

“Well, no…”

Sol laughed softly. “Actually, Rose, to be fair, it is Lily’s mother who is doing the cooking, and Lily who is doing the yelling.”

“Lily’s mother? I did not know she was visiting you. It must be a little crowded.”

Sol made a deep sigh before speaking again.

“Yes, Lily’s mother lives quite nearby, and Lily visits her often, but last month she ‘dropped in’ for a short visit. Dropped in? More like squeezed in, like a
tuchis
in a teacup
.
Not only is it crowded, she has been staying with us for almost a month now. You probably have not seen her because she almost never leaves the apartment.”

“Lily’s mother. She would be…would be quite elderly, I assume?”

“Over ninety. Yes, this is one reason she does not leave the apartment. And that is the reason I have to leave it.”

“I do not understand,” Mrs. K said, and neither did I.

Sol looked back into the apartment, then turned and said, “Listen, Rose, give me that package and I’ll leave it in the kitchen for Lily. Now would not be a good time to bother her. Then if you both have a few minutes, maybe we could go down to the lounge and, well, you could give me some advice, like you did when Lily got so upset over that…that book I bought.”

Sol was referring to a book called something like
Enjoying the Golden Years,
which Lily found opened to a chapter called “Sex After 65,” together with a bottle of those pills that the commercials say make men “perform better.” Anyway, Lily thought Sol was “sex mad” and was
shtupping
some
tsatskele
—you know, fooling around with some cute young woman—when really Sol just wanted to “reinvigorate,” as he put it, his relationship with Lily. It was quite a mishmash
.

“Certainly, Sol,” Mrs. K said, “if you think we can help.”

So the three of us moved to the lounge, Sol leaving his apartment quietly so Lily should not hear.
Oy,
what a way to live.

Once we were seated, Sol next to Mrs. K and me across from them, Mrs. K asked, “So Sol, what is the problem? Is Lily still locking herself in the bathroom?”

Sol smiled and said, “No, not this time, Rose. This time she says she has left me.”

Now, I realize it is not that unusual for a wife to leave a husband these days, or perhaps the other way around, though not usually after almost fifty years of marriage. But it happens.

“Left you?” says Mrs. K. “Didn’t you say she and her mother were just now in your apartment? And that her mother never leaves the apartment? Where did they go?”

Sol’s smile now was what you would call ironic. He said, “Go? No, you don’t understand. Lily is leaving me, but apparently I am the one who has to go. She says she will stay in the apartment. She and her mother.”

At least this is a new script for an old production. One way or the other, though, poor Sol seems always to be the victim.

“Let me get this straight,” Mrs. K said. “You say Lily is leaving you, but it is you who are leaving, because of Lily’s mother, who does not leave. Is that right?”

Now by this time, sitting and listening to this conversation between Sol and Mrs. K, I am getting totally confused. But I am patient, because I am confident Mrs. K will somehow clear up the confusion so that even I will understand. If not, I shall go and have a cup of tea and wait for Mrs. K to come and explain it to me.

“Yes, that is more or less the story,” Sol said. “Lily wants to leave me because she says I insulted her mother.”

“And did you insult her mother?”

Again the ironic smile. “Well, that depends what you consider an insult. I did call her a
kvetcher,
as she is complaining all the time; and maybe I did let slip an occasional
a khalerye
….”

“You wished the plague on her?”

“Not really; but, Rose, you don’t know what that woman has put me through.”

“What could a ninety-something-year-old woman do to you to make you, who I have never heard even raise your voice, say such things to her?”

Sol’s features changed so he was no longer smiling, even ironically. He obviously was thinking of all the sins of Lily’s mother.

“What could she do, you ask. I’ll tell you what she could do. She takes up the only bathroom in the apartment for hours at a time—I don’t know what she does in there, but I always find there enormous pieces of underwear hanging on the towel racks and shower rod—so that I actually have to go down the hall to the public restroom just to
pish
! Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to say that. I mean to go to the bathroom.”

“Don’t worry, we have heard worse. Go on.”

“Well, she criticizes or complains about almost everything we do. Like she complains we do not keep kosher, which is true, but Lily and I have never kept kosher, and it was never an issue with us.”

“Well, I can understand that when someone visits who keeps kosher it is difficult when the host does not, because—”

“No, no, you don’t understand. She complains we do not keep kosher, but she does not herself. She claims she would, but she cannot get kosher food where she lives. She says she should at least get kosher food when she visits us.”

That woman has
chutzpah,
I am thinking.

“And does Lily also get upset at this constant
kibitzing
?”

“No, she gets upset with me for telling her mother to stop! And there’s more. Did you notice what our apartment smells like?” How could we not? “She cooks things that stink up our whole apartment, like borscht made from the beets
.
Or boiled cabbage. Or gefilte fish. I mean, I like to eat these things, but they should not be cooked in a small apartment like ours. Certainly not several times a week.”

“No, I can see your point,” Mrs. K said. I nodded in agreement. No one wants to have a
farshtunken
apartment, no matter how good the food tastes.

“The last straw was when she called me lazy, because I do not work. Rose, I am retired for ten years and have no need or desire to go back to work. But this crazy woman—this
meshuggeneh
—is making my life hell.”

“So was it your asking her to stop doing these things that made Lily tell you to leave?”

“Well, not exactly. Her mother was supposed to be staying with us for a few days, and now she’s been here almost a month. And all this time she’s been doing the things I’ve described to you. This morning, after she spent ten minutes criticizing what I was wearing—as if she was some kind of men’s fashion
maven—
I was fed up with it and I told her she will have to leave.”

“And that is when Lily told you to leave instead?”

“No, what she actually said was if her mother leaves, she goes with her. I guess I lost my temper and said, ‘Fine. You can both go.’ Of course, I didn’t really mean it, but then Lily starts crying and wailing, ‘
Oy vey iz mir,
where will we go? What will become of us?’ and, well, before I know it I am the one who is supposed to leave and Lily and her mother are to stay in the apartment with the borscht and boiled cabbage
.
”

At least he escapes the smell.

For a little while, we all were quiet. It is a Yiddish saying that a guest is like rain: good for a little while, but inconvenient if staying too long. It appeared that Sol was by now soaking wet.

Sol was looking down at the carpet, Mrs. K appeared to be thinking, and I was simply waiting to see if Mrs. K had any ideas for Sol.

She did. “Well, Sol, if you want a suggestion, I think you should stay away from the apartment for a day or two,” Mrs. K said. “I am sure you can stay in one of the guest rooms here at the Home. As you know better than I, when Lily is in this highly upset state, there is no point in trying to reason with her. I think she will cool off in a day or two, especially if you are not there to argue with.”

“And what then? I cannot live in the guest room forever.”

“Of course not. Perhaps by then I will have thought of some way to resolve your problem.”

Sol looked like he was thinking it over, but after all, what choice did he really have? He was not the fighting type. I had never seen him lose his temper, even when Lily went off the deep end. If he insisted on staying in the apartment now, not only would he be facing a very upset wife, but also her mother.

Two against one.

At three in the afternoon, after lunch and a little nap, I knocked on the door of Mrs. K’s apartment. When I entered, I saw that Dr. Menschyk and Fannie were both already there.

“Please, everyone, sit down,” Mrs. K said. Her apartment is, like mine, divided into a living room (or parlor, if you prefer), a bedroom, and a bathroom. In a corner of the living room is a kitchenette, just a small sink, a fridge, and a microwave oven. There is an electric kettle for making water for tea. The living room is nicely decorated, with a small wooden dining table with four padded wooden chairs on one side and a beige sofa with matching chair on the other, separated by a small glass coffee table. Mrs. K had pulled one of the dining chairs over for the fourth person. Menschyk first sat on the sofa, but when he saw that one of us ladies would have to sit on the wooden chair, he immediately stood up and insisted he be the one to take that chair. Such a polite man is Menschyk, a gentleman from the old school, as they say. I then sat on the sofa with Mrs. K, and Fannie sat on the matching chair.

Mrs. K asked if anyone would like some tea or coffee. Fannie and I declined, but Menschyk said he had been running around so much with his calls that he had missed lunch and would not mind some tea. Fannie then said, “Well, if you’re making tea, Rose, I guess I could use some,” and so in the end Mrs. K made tea for everyone and brought in some chocolate biscuits as well.

When Menschyk had munched a cookie or three and washed it down with his tea, he said to Mrs. K, “Well, Mrs. Kaplan, what did you want to discuss with me?”

“Actually,” she replied, “it is not just I who wants a discussion, but also Fannie, Mrs. Kleinberg, here. Perhaps it is she who should explain.”

She then turned to Fannie and said, “Fannie, dear, please tell Dr. Menschyk what you told me and Ida.”

Fannie looked around, seeming a
bissel
nervous, but finally she looked at Menschyk and, after glancing over at Mrs. K, told again her story of Vera’s fear of poisoning.

When Fannie had finished the telling, Menschyk asked her, “So are you asking me to say whether or not your sister was poisoned? Mrs. Kleinberg, I can hardly…”

“No, of course not,” Mrs. K said. “All we are asking you, as the one who treated Vera’s sickness and who made the death certificate, is this: Given all that you observed, is it possible that Vera was poisoned? Or can you say with certainty she was not?”

Menschyk did not answer right away. I assume he was trying to remember all of the things he saw and heard surrounding Vera’s death. We all just sat quietly and waited.

After maybe a minute, Menschyk looked up and said, “I’m afraid I can’t give you a definitive answer. I wish I could. First of all, you’ll understand that I cannot reveal anything about Mrs. Gold’s treatment to anyone whom she did not specifically say could be given this information.”

I have heard of this problem, the “Hippo” law or whatever it is called—I am sure it was not named after such an animal, but it is something like that—and in fact once when I had a bad fall and was taken to the emergency room, the doctor refused to tell my niece Sara anything about my condition, even though she is my closest relative living in this area, until I signed a paper with lots of big words saying it was okay. Another job for the lawyers.

“Fortunately, Mrs. Gold did sign an authorization for disclosure to Mrs. Kleinberg, and I don’t think the fact that you two are here”—indicating me and Mrs. K—“with her consent creates any difficulty.”

“So you can tell us?” Mrs. K asked.

“Well, yes, but there isn’t much to tell. You asked me whether it’s possible your sister was poisoned, or can I say with certainty she was not. That depends what you mean by ‘possible’ and ‘certainty.’ In my opinion, as I stated on the death certificate, your sister died of natural causes. Does that mean it was impossible she was poisoned? No, although I would consider it highly unlikely. But there are poisons that mimic the symptoms of a natural death. So I cannot say that your sister’s death—or that of anyone who died under similar circumstances—could not possibly have involved poison. I can only say I see no reason, from what you have told me, to change my original opinion. When a seriously ill woman in her eighties dies with no apparent reason to suspect otherwise, we tend to assume she died of either her illness, old age, or more likely a combination of both.”

“But she seemed to be getting better,” Fannie said. “Doesn’t that alone make her death suspicious?”

Menschyk smiled. “Not really. Sometimes very sick people’s condition improves just before they pass away. It’s not terribly unusual. In any case, only an autopsy could answer your question with certainty.”

“You mean with an autopsy you could say whether she was poisoned?”

“Oh, yes. In fact, Mrs. Kleinberg, an autopsy with toxicology would be the only way at this late stage.”

“And how does one go about getting this autopsy?” Fannie asked.

“Well, if you are serious about pursuing this, it would require the consent of Mrs. Gold’s son. His name is Daniel, I believe?”

“Yes, it is,” said Mrs. K. “So you are saying without Daniel’s consent, even if Fannie—Mrs. Kleinberg—wishes to have such an autopsy, and even with Mrs. Gold having said what she said, there could not be an autopsy?”

“Yes, that’s correct. He is her closest relative and, at least under the laws of this state, the only one in a position to give the necessary consent. Unless, of course, there is a police investigation, and a court orders the autopsy.”

“Well, then,” said Fannie, “that should not be too much of a problem. I shall explain the situation to Daniel and ask him to give his consent. Will you be the one to perform the autopsy?”

“No, that’s not one of the things I generally do. It would be someone like a pathologist. Of course, if it were the police who requested the autopsy, it would be the district medical examiner or one of his associates, and you wouldn’t need the next of kin’s permission. But I don’t think what you have told me qualifies for that kind of—”

“Wait,” Mrs. K said, interrupting Menschyk’s speech, which was becoming a bit long. “It just occurred to me that, because Daniel is extremely
frum,
he may not be so willing to give his consent.”
Frum
just means very religious. “He belongs to an Orthodox congregation that interprets Jewish law very strictly.”

“That’s true,” Menschyk said. “I’ve run into that problem in the past, and it will depend just how religious he is, whether he shares Mrs. Kleinberg’s concern, and so forth.”

“I don’t quite understand,” Fannie said. “What would be the problem?”

“The problem would be, Fannie dear, that in general, autopsies are not permitted by Orthodox Jews.”

“I didn’t know that,” Fannie said. “Why the hell not?” She was sounding a little distressed, or maybe she was just upset by the entire discussion, because she does not usually use such language, at least in front of us. She stood up and began to pace up and down.

“Our family’s never been that religious,” she said. “We’ve always been Reform. This sort of nonsense is one reason why.”

I should perhaps explain here that a Reform Jew is more or less at the opposite end of the religious spectrum from Orthodox. While we all read from the same Torah—you know, the five books of Moses in the
Tanakh
—and say the same prayers, in interpretation we are quite different. Orthodox Jews tend to follow the Torah’s
mitzvot,
or commandments, much more strictly, and believe me, there are a lot of them to follow. In fact, tradition says there were 613
mitzvot
in the Torah as handed down by Moses, including 248 things that you should do and 365 you should not do. Many, of course, are things, like to give to charity and not to commit fraud, that we all try to follow. Others, like keeping kosher in how we eat, are less widely followed by Reform Jews. But some
mitzvot,
or at least how they are interpreted—including the prohibition against autopsies—only the very religious follow. Suffice it to say, the more orthodox a Jewish person is, the more likely his actions will be subject to some kind of religious rules.
Nu,
it is the same in most religions, is it not?

But I am going on even worse than Dr. Menschyk. To continue, Mrs. K answered Fannie’s question: “The reason is, I believe, because of the biblical prohibition against disgracing or disfiguring a body and the requirement of a speedy burial. I’m sure you know that is why Vera was buried so soon after her death.”

“It also has to do with a prohibition against failure to bury the entire body,” Menschyk added. “At least that is what I’ve been told. I remember one time an autopsy was performed on an Orthodox person and certain organs were removed for examination, but they had to be preserved and re-buried with the body after the examination. There are some exceptions, of course, such as to save another person’s life, but I don’t think any such thing applies here.”

It was plain that this discussion was becoming too much for poor Fannie, with all the talk of carving up her sister’s body and all. She sat down again and put her face in her hands. She was not crying, but she clearly was upset and on the verge.

As usual, Mrs. K stepped in to help. She went over and put her hand on Fannie’s shoulder and said, “I’ll tell you what, Fannie. You go ahead and ask Daniel if he will give his consent. Maybe we are worrying for nothing. But if he does not, then I’ll go and talk with him. I probably understand the religious issue a bit better than you, so it will be easier for me to discuss it with him.”

It was interesting to me that Mrs. K now seemed to have taken on Fannie’s position that there should be an autopsy, although personally I still did not think there was much reason for it. I didn’t know whether she actually believed Vera might have been poisoned, of which there certainly was very little evidence, or if she was just taking Fannie’s part and pursuing the question as a favor to a friend who seemed in no position to do the pursuing herself. Mrs. K is like that.

Fannie looked up. “Oh, thank you, Rose. I know Daniel is very fond of you and I’m sure he’ll listen to what you say.”

“I am very fond of him also,” Mrs. K said. “Let us see what he tells you and go from there.”

We thanked Dr. Menschyk for his time and advice—I did not know whether we would be receiving a bill for same—and he and Fannie left the apartment.

“So, Ida, what do you think now?” Mrs. K asked.

“I think that you have stepped into a real puddle of quicksand
.
And I have a feeling it will not be so easy to step out again.”

I did not add that I could feel my feet sinking in as well.