A Pain in the Tuchis: A Mrs. Kaplan Mystery (7 page)

“No, no. I’m sorry. What I meant was could you tell us what you know about—what your impressions are—about the few people directly involved in the case, at least so far. That would include”—and he again flipped around in his notebook, glancing also over at the one Jenkins was holding—“Mrs. Gold, of course, as well as Mrs. Kleinberg, Mrs. Gold’s son, Daniel, and…well, and anyone who comes to mind who might possibly have had a reason to harm Mrs. Gold.”

“You mean any possible suspects?” Mrs. K asked. The tone of her voice had now changed a little. I could tell that she was becoming more enthusiastic. Being asked by Inspector Corcoran to suggest who had a motive to kill Vera meant she was playing a role in the investigation, almost an official role. Her Sherlock Holmes instincts—as I said, she is a great fan of his—were waking up. It is like I have seen on television that when the bugle is blown at a fox hunt, the hounds that have been acting lazy and uninterested suddenly perk up their ears and are ready to chase down the poor fox. Mrs. K’s ears were definitely perking. She was ready for the chase.

“Well, you could put it that way,” Corcoran said. “Now please understand that at this time, we don’t know whether Mrs. Gold’s death was an accident or intentional, just that it was not what you’d call natural. And I wouldn’t exactly say anyone with a grudge against Mrs. Gold was automatically a ‘suspect.’ But yes, if you know of people who might have had such a motive, I’d appreciate that information, so we could follow it up. Of course, no one will know you mentioned them to us.”

“And no one will get in trouble just because I mention them to you?”

“Don’t worry about that, Mrs. Kaplan. We realize many people might have disliked Mrs. Gold for any number of reasons, none of which necessarily makes them a suspect. But we do have to check them out, so to speak.”

Mrs. K seemed satisfied. “I am sure Ida and I would be pleased to be of help. In fact, we could give you a little list right now, because unfortunately Mrs. Gold was not what you would call the most popular resident here.” Mrs. K is so good at the understatement. “But we will do a little snooping around to see if we can add anyone else to the list.”

Corcoran laughed. “I’m sure you will, and that’s fine. But maybe you could give me some information now, so we can get started checking it out?”

So Mrs. K and I told the policemen what we knew about Vera, Daniel, and Fannie, while Jenkins took notes furiously, almost never looking up from his notebook. Mrs. K asked Corcoran for a little more time to consider the other persons, those who might be suspects.

“Of course,” he answered. “We’ll be conducting our investigation just as we ordinarily would, and your information will just give us additional insights that we might not otherwise learn.” He then thanked us, giving both of us a nice warm smile—which made up for the sour expression still on Jenkins’s face, although he did nod to us as he turned to go—and left the lounge.

Mrs. K and I looked at each other in silence for a minute. Then she said, “Ida, as Mr. Sherlock Holmes would say, ‘the game, it is afoot.’ ”

I don’t know about her feet, but it was pretty clear that all Mrs. K needed now was Mr. Holmes’s funny hat and the fancy pipe.

And maybe a tweed suit? Or is that Miss Marple who wears one of those?

We decided that a discussion such as we were going to have regarding possible murder suspects among our friends and fellow residents was best held somewhere other than where we all live, not to mention where Mrs. Bissela is always lurking. So we caught the afternoon shuttle that takes us downtown, where is our favorite place to have tea and to
shmooze,
the Garden Gate Café.

“Where are you ladies headed?” Andy, the shuttle bus driver, asked as we climbed up the steps and onto the bus. “Doing a little shopping?”

“Not exactly,” I said. “Could you drop us off near the Garden Gate Café, please? We are going for tea.”

“You’re sure you wouldn’t rather be dropped off at Mickey’s Tavern for a couple of beers?” Andy said, smiling. He likes to
kibitz,
that Andy.

I laughed, and not just because Andy made a joke, but because it made in my mind such a picture. I could see the two of us perched like large animals on high barstools, holding glasses of beer and
fressing
peanuts from a dish on the bar.
Oy,
there is more chance of finding a pig at the
seder
table!

Anyway, we found our seats and, after a few other residents had come aboard, Andy closed the doors and we were on our way.

As we rode, I asked Mrs. K whether she had as yet thought of a way to help Sol Lipman deal with Lily’s mother.

“Not entirely,” she said. “What I know is that it must be done in such a way that Lily’s mother leaves their apartment voluntarily. She must want to leave, and Lily must not have the feeling that Sol is kicking her out. Otherwise, there will be more trouble between them, if not now then the next time they have an argument, which knowing them would be very soon. Lily should not be accusing Sol of treating her mother badly.”

“You are right, of course,” I said. “So how will you manage that trick?”

Just then Andy put the brakes on quite suddenly, as some
shlemiel,
probably a
shikker
—a fool having too much to drink—swerved in front of the bus. We all fell forward and had to grab onto a rail, or onto each other, to keep from falling onto the floor. Andy always reserves these rare occasions to demonstrate to us the wide range of his vocabulary, and who can blame him? Someone on the bus waved their fist and shouted “
A khalerye
” (it is what Sol should not have said to Lily’s mother), and there were a few other Yiddish curses I will not repeat. If only Andy knew a little Yiddish he would have so many more insults to choose from.

We settled ourselves back into our seats, but our talk now turned to drunken drivers and what should be done to them, and I had to postpone finding out how Lily’s mother would be made to leave.

Andy dropped us off as close to the Garden Gate Café as he could manage, and we had about two blocks to walk. We did not mind, as it was a pleasant day, not too warm or too cold, and a little walk does us good. We were looking forward to our tea and a nice bagel with a
shmear
—
nu,
the cream cheese is not good for us, but who can resist?—when we arrived at the café and had a surprise. There was a sign on the window of the front door that said in big red letters, “Closed for remodeling. We reopen next week. Thank you for your patience.”

Oy gevalt,
what to do now? Andy would not be back to pick us up for at least an hour, so time was on our hands.

“Well, Ida,” Mrs. K said, “what do you think we should do?”

“We could just look around, I suppose, shop in the windows.”

That did not appeal to Mrs. K, and to be honest it did not to me either. I know it is something people do, but why waste a lot of time looking at things one has no intention of buying?

“Perhaps then we could find another tea shop nearby,” I suggested.

“Yes, that would be best. But it has been so long since we went anywhere but the Garden Gate, I have no idea what else there is around here.”

We began looking around us. Something caught my eye.

“Look across the street,” I said. “It looks like a new café has just opened. I can’t read the name from here, but there is a big sign saying ‘Grand Opening,’ and it certainly looks like it might be a restaurant.”

Mrs. K looked where I was pointing and said, “You might be right, Ida. Let’s cross over and take a closer look.”

We walked to the corner and waited for the light to be green, then made our way across the busy street. The closer we came, the better we could see what kind of place it was that was having such a grand opening. And sure enough, it was a restaurant of some kind, because there were tables and chairs out on the sidewalk with big umbrellas over them, and on the door was a very ornate sign with curly gold letters saying, “The Purple Rose.”

“Look,” I said to Mrs. K, “it is even your name on the door.”

She laughed and said, “Then of course we must go in.”

We opened the polished wood door and stepped inside. “I think this is a much fancier place than the Garden Gate Café,” I said. “Look at the drapes and the white tablecloths.”

“Fancy schmancy. As long as they serve a cup of tea, who cares?”

A sign on a wooden stand said, “Please seat yourself.” It was a large room, with shiny wood panels on the walls and a red carpet on the floor. There was a long bar at the front and maybe a dozen tables, about half of which were already taken. We found a nice table near a window and, as the sign said, we seated ourselves.

“I wonder why we have not heard about this new restaurant opening,” I said. “Usually they make quite a hoo-hah about such things.”

“You’re right,” Mrs. K said. “We must have missed whatever announcement they made, and maybe it is too new to have been reviewed in the newspaper.” Actually, neither of us always reads the local newspaper, the
Citizen,
as there is usually just bad news we are better off not knowing about. But then we miss local happenings like this new restaurant opening.

Just then a waiter came over and handed us menus. They were crisp and new, just like the restaurant, as if they had hardly yet been opened. Maybe we were the first to use them. The liquid selections were mostly alcoholic drinks, but tea was mentioned and that is all we wanted. That and maybe a
nosh,
a snack, to go with it.

The waiter was certainly different from what we were used to at the Garden Gate. There we usually were waited on by a young blond girl or an older lady with curly brown hair who has been there as long as we have been visiting. The waiter who brought the menus was a very thin young man of maybe twenty with what you might call soft features and dark hair combed straight back. He was wearing a shirt made of some shiny material in many colors, with a black apron tied to his waist. For some reason the impression I got was that there was something a little different about him, but I could not say what.

“My name is Lawrence and I’ll be your server,” he said in a soft, pleasant voice. “May I get you ladies something to drink before you order?” I had forgotten that no one is a waiter anymore; they are all “servers.” Pardon me, but to me they are still waiters and waitresses.

“What kind of tea do you have?” Mrs. K asked. “That is really all we want, and maybe a toasted bagel?”

The waiter now looked just a
bissel
confused. He swallowed and said, “I’m sorry, but we just opened yesterday and this is the first time I’ve been asked about tea. Of course we have tea, but I’m not sure what kind. And a bagel…I don’t know about that either. I’ll just go and check and be right back.” He walked away looking somewhat embarrassed, but it is understandable that in a new restaurant it will take some time before everyone knows everything about the menu, and we didn’t mind that he went to ask. Meanwhile I got out a pad and pencil from my purse and pulled my chair closer to Mrs. K’s so we could speak privately.

“While we are waiting,” I said, “let us begin to consider what the policeman Corcoran asked.”

“That’s a good idea, Ida. So who is it that particularly disliked Vera? At least disliked her more than everyone else did? I do not think she was really liked by anyone, except perhaps her son and her sister. But most of us just ignored her. Who might want to do more than that?”

“Well, we could begin with Rena Shapiro,” I said.

“Yes,” Mrs. K said, “I have never seen her so angry as when Vera told Pupik about her cat. And she has been angry ever since, refusing even to speak to Vera.”

“But of course it is difficult to imagine Rena deliberately harming someone, even Vera,” I said.

“Difficult yes, impossible no,” Mrs. K replied. “And I think we must include Hannah Bissela. She and Rena are very close, and you remember how upset she was at what Vera had done to her friend, making sure that absolutely everyone knew about it.”

I agreed. “And what about that poor fellow, what was his name, William something. The one who was waiting on Vera in the dining room when he accidentally spilled a little soup on her dress?”

“Yes, I remember. I think his last name was Johanson. No, Johnson. What a hoo-hah she caused. Called him such terrible names and he had to stand there and apologize and she just kept shouting at him. I never saw him serving after that day.”

“No, I believe they gave him another job working outside, because I have seen him sweeping the walkways and raking leaves, about which he never looks at all happy.”

I added William Johnson to the list.

“And then there is George Bennett,” I said. “The one who committed the terrible crime of putting Vera’s wastebasket back in the wrong place.”

Mrs. K laughed. “Yes. To Vera, anything that annoyed her was deserving of severe punishment. She had what you would call a short fuse, and it did not take much of a flame to light it.”

“No. And I remember how angry you said George was when you gave him that money.”

“He was. But angry enough to want to kill Vera? That seems unlikely.”

Nu,
unlikely or not, George joined the list.

Before we could continue, our waiter returned with a smile on his face.

“Okay, ladies, I think I’ve got it now. All we have is plain and Earl Grey tea and peppermint herbal tea. And we don’t have any bagels. Just toast. But that’s about the same thing, right?”

Oy,
the same thing? But what could we do?

“I’ll have the peppermint,” Mrs. K said. “And do you have a bran muffin?”

I was afraid he was going to run off again to check, but this time he smiled and said, “That I know. Yes, we have bran muffins. Would you like one?”

“Yes, please.” He then turned to look at me, his pencil poised over his pad.

“The same, please,” I said. Why complicate things?

As the waiter walked away, I looked around the restaurant, which now was becoming more crowded. I noticed something.

“Rose, do you see anything…anything different about the people in here?”

Mrs. K looked up from the menu, which she had been studying, and swept the room with her eyes.

“No, not really…well, yes, now that you mention it, Ida. I…”

But before she could finish what she was saying, a tall young man in a rumpled gray suit interrupted.

“Excuse me, ladies, my name is Bob Andrews. I’m a reporter for the
Citizen.
” He handed each of us a business card, which said just that. “Would it be all right if I asked you a few questions?” He sat down at the table opposite us—we were still sitting close together on one side—and took out a notepad as if we had already agreed.

Why in the world would a reporter want to ask us questions? I looked at Mrs. K, and she looked as puzzled as me. I put down my notebook.

“What kind of questions?” Mrs. K asked the reporter. “What about?”

“Well,” he said, “this place has just opened and our readers are interested in hearing about it.”

Again we looked at each other and Mrs. K shrugged her shoulders a bit and said, “So, go ahead and ask, but we have not had anything to eat here yet, so we cannot say if it is good or not.”

The reporter laughed. “Oh, that’s okay, it’s not the food I’m interested in. More the clientele. Tell me, do you ladies live together?”

More looks. “Yes, we do. We live at…”

But Mr. Andrews didn’t seem to care where we lived. He said, “Great. And how long have you had a…a relationship?”

Relationship? What kind of relationship? I was confused, but suddenly Mrs. K’s face lit up like a lightbulb had just gone on in her head. And it had.

“Ida,” she said, laughing and ignoring the reporter, “I now am just realizing what is unusual about this restaurant. Look at the bar and at the tables. Almost all the couples are both men or both women.”

I looked, and of course she was right. And although that is perhaps not terribly unusual, I could see that many of the couples were what you would call being intimate, like patting each other on the
tuchis
or giving a little
kush
on the cheek. And so that was what kind of “relationship” the reporter was asking us about? I am sure my face is turning very red when I realize this.

“Is this what you call a ‘gay bar’?” Mrs. K asked Mr. Andrews.

“Of course it is,” he began, as if we were a couple of
shlemiels,
but then he stopped and just looked from one of us to the other, in an embarrassed way.

“I’m so sorry,” he said. “Didn’t you ladies know? I mean, it’s been written up in the paper and all….”

“Yes, I am sure it has, but we do not always read the paper, or that part of the paper where these things are mentioned. But please don’t worry about it. It was just a bit of a surprise to realize what you were asking us.”

Just then the waiter returned with our order. Mr. Andrews got up to leave. “Well, I appreciate your understanding, and I’ll let you get back to your food,” he said.

He was about ten steps away when he suddenly turned around and came back to our table. I had barely had time to bite into my bran muffin, and Mrs. K was still taking her first sip of tea.

The reporter cleared his throat and said, “I wonder if you ladies would mind very much if I used our little meeting here in my story. You wouldn’t be identified, of course, in any way.”