The Girl Is Trouble (23 page)

That explained their odd behavior that weekend, how my every move was monitored. What would I have done differently if I’d known what Mama was up to? Would I have tried to stop her? “Shouldn’t the meeting have only taken a few hours, though?”

“She needed more time to convince Haupt that her … enthusiasm was genuine. She called us not long after the appointed meeting time and told us that she was going to spend a few days with some friends, which we knew was code meaning that she would be with Haupt. She claimed all was well and she wanted to make sure that you were cared for in her absence.” Mama had called? They’d never told me that. What I wouldn’t give to have heard her voice for myself, one last time. “We didn’t like the change in plans, but from her tone it sounded as though she didn’t believe she was at risk. Her hope all along was to ingratiate herself with Haupt, get the information she needed for the OWI to take the case, and then leave.”

“And the money?”

“She assumed from the beginning that it would be easy to retrieve it. Honestly, she didn’t care. I think that if she could’ve gotten Haupt arrested and ensured your safety, she would’ve gladly lived the rest of her life as a pauper.”

It was all so impulsive and risky. And why? Because of me. Because Mama was terrified they would do something to hurt me. “When did you know things had gone wrong?”

“We were never comfortable with any of it, but by New Year’s Eve we were in a panic. I talked to the OWI again, but their energies were being directed at potential threats leveled against the Times Square celebration—they couldn’t do anything to assist me until the New Year. I went to Yorkville myself and tried to find her, but I didn’t know where to look and no one wanted to assist someone who clearly didn’t look like they belonged. So we waited and hoped that all was well, even though we knew it most likely wasn’t.”

“Aunt Miriam knew about all of this?”

“Oh yes. There was no way I could’ve suffered through all of that without her.”

Then why betray her now?
I almost said, but I bit my tongue. “What do you think went wrong?”

“I’m not sure. It may have been a trap from the very beginning. Ingrid knew they had been following her before Pearl Harbor. I’m sure it must have continued well into December. After your father was injured, she grew careless. She started going to synagogue.” We both did. “My guess is they found out she was a Jew and killed her for it.”

Poor Mama must’ve been so scared. And so angry that she allowed herself to walk into an obvious setup. But then that was how she was: for all her intelligence, she was a woman ruled by her allegiance to Pop and me. She would’ve done anything to protect either of us.

“Why did you let the police declare her death a suicide? They had to know it wasn’t.”

“Stefan Haupt was a very powerful man, Iris. He had plenty of police in his pocket. I’m certain that he paid them off to prevent any scrutiny that might come his way. It was terrible to let people believe the lie, but I didn’t know what else to do. If I told people the truth and it got back to Haupt that someone had knowledge of what really happened, he would know that your mother wasn’t the only one aware of what he was up to. That would put you back in danger, and perhaps Miriam and myself. So I let the lie stand, hoping that Haupt would believe that any danger he was in had died with Ingrid.” He ran his hands through his hair, and I saw for the first time how all of this must’ve eaten at him over the past year. “If there is any consolation, the OWI did shut down that branch of the Bund before they were able to do anything.”

“Because of Mama?”

“In a sense. Hincter kept detailed notes about the meetings, which were discovered after his murder, including a list of who Haupt’s followers were. Haupt was forced to go underground and the authorities were able to gain enough information from those included on the list to prevent a number of bombings and other events the group had been planning.”

I let it all sink in. Mama was a hero. If she hadn’t worked for Adam, if she hadn’t gotten close to Haupt, if he hadn’t killed Hincter to force her hand, many more people might be dead. It was a comfort, I guess, that her death did some good in the end, though I’d be lying if I said that I would’ve gladly sacrificed her for all those unnamed lives.

Besides, Haupt was still out there.

“How much does Pop know?”

Uncle Adam swallowed hard. “You must understand how fragile he was when he came home. I wanted to protect him.”

“How much, Uncle Adam?”

“He knows your mother continued her involvement in the case, but he doesn’t know why. I told him about Karl Hincter when the case began, and he knew the Bund was involved, but we never told him about any of the other parties. As far as your father is concerned, I insisted that your mother keep working on the case, even after he begged me to make her stop.”

“Why? Why let Pop believe it was all your fault? Why not just tell him the truth?”

“I know your father, Iris. If there was a chance that he could have exacted revenge on Haupt, he would’ve done it in a second, even if it meant killing himself in the process.”

CHAPTER

19

THE OFFICE TELEPHONE RANG
and Adam excused himself long enough to take the call. I was grateful for the reprieve. My world had been turned upside down and I needed to figure out how to reorient myself.

Adam was protecting Pop. Mama had been protecting me. And somewhere, out there, Stefan Haupt walked the streets a free man despite being a murderer.

Adam hung up the phone and joined me, this time with a glass of liquor in his hand. I had half a mind to ask him for my own snifter. “I take it you’re going to tell your father about all of this,” said Adam.

“Don’t you think he should know that you weren’t to blame?”

He swirled the amber fluid until it kissed the lip of the glass. “This isn’t about what he thinks of me. I’d love to have Art back in my life, but you have to consider what he’d do with this information.”

But there was a good chance Pop already did know. After all, he had the crime-scene photos and the surveillance photos of me. “Let me think about it,” I said.

He took a sip of the booze. “And your aunt?”

“You said she already knows everything.”

“I’m referring to what your friend Pearl saw.”

Oh,
that
. “A deal’s a deal,” I said. “You told me what I needed to know, so I won’t tell Aunt Miriam anything.”

“Thank you, Iris. I know you’ve been put in a very unfair position and I apologize for that.”

So he wasn’t the devil I’d imagined him to be in my mind—he was just a flawed man whose betrayal was much more personal than I’d originally feared. Was there hope for Pop and him? I hoped so, though honestly that was the least of my concerns right now.

“I think I want to go home, Adam.”

“Your aunt will be heartbroken. She had so much planned for you this weekend.”

“She already thinks I’m sick. I’ll come another weekend and make it up to her. But for now, I really want to be in my own house with my own thoughts. I can’t stay here and pretend everything’s all right.”

He considered this for a moment. I hadn’t intended it as a threat, but I think he took it that way: bow to me again, or I just might forget my promise to keep Miriam in the dark.

“All right. Shall we wait until Miriam returns with Pearl?”

I hated to abandon Pearl without an explanation, but my need to see Pop was so powerful that my heart ached. “No,” I said. “I want to go now. That way I don’t have to look into Miriam’s eyes and lie to her again.”

*   *   *

HE AGREED TO SEND
me home in a taxi by myself. I arrived at the Orchard Street house, tipped the driver with money Uncle Adam had given me, and hauled myself and my bag up the steps. My stomach grumbled with hunger and I realized I hadn’t eaten anything since the cookies I’d stolen from Lydia. The weakness I was starting to feel was real.

I unlocked the front door and entered the house, half hoping to find Pop and Betty in a lover’s clutch on the sofa. Unfortunately, the only thing there was the newspaper.

“Pop?” I called out as I walked from room to room. He wasn’t downstairs, so I headed up. “Pop? Mrs. Mrozenski?” The bedrooms were empty, each bed crisply made. It looked like Pop’s workmanship—the corners he learned at the Naval Academy. There was no reply as I paced the upper hallway. Where were they?

Betty’s. Maybe Pop went to Betty’s.

I picked up the phone and asked for Betty’s exchange. As the operator connected me, I hummed a prayer for Betty to pick up. “Hello?” she said.

“Betty? It’s Iris Anderson. I just got home and the house is empty. Do you know where your mom and my pop are?”

“I don’t have a clue about your pop, but Ma’s right here. Do you want to talk to her?”

I told her yes. There was a murmur of background noise before Mrs. M. came onto the line. “Iris. Is everything all right?”

“I came home early and was worried when I found the house empty. Do you know where Pop is?”

“No. I not see him since yesterday, when he tell me how sick Betty was.”

Betty was sick? She sounded fine to me. “Right. How is Betty?”

“She’s much better now, but your pop, he is worried yesterday and tell me to come to stay with her.”

What was Pop up to? Why would he want Mrs. M. out of the house, too? “Okay, thanks.”

I hung up and went back to the parlor. That day’s newspaper had been folded so that the front page faced up, though it was clear someone had been through its contents. That meant Pop had been there at some point that morning. Amid the latest war news was an article entitled “Pearl Harbor Bared.” The brief piece warned that in tomorrow’s
Times
there would be a detailed pictorial look at the events of Pearl Harbor as a way of commemorating the anniversary. I set the paper aside and went into Pop’s office, looking for a clue as to where he may have gone. The desktop was wiped clean, the top drawer contained the same assortment of office supplies and the lone business card I’d found in it before. The bookcase to the left of the desk was neat and dust-free. The only thing that seemed slightly out of place was a glass. A quick whiff told me that it had contained liquor.

So Pop had been drinking. That was his right. A man could drink in his own home. Alone.

So why was my stomach clenched in fear?

I spun in the office chair, hoping the change in perspective could lift my anxiety. As I completed my rotation, my eyes landed on the open closet. It wasn’t the only thing ajar. The safe was open, too.

I perched before it and studied the contents. It looked like he’d been through it in a hurry. The once neat pile of folders was smeared into a fan, making it hard to see if anything was missing on first glance. Hard, but not impossible. One thing was clearly gone: Pop’s gun.

So Pop had been drinking. And his gun was missing. And he’d sent Mrs. Mrozenski and me away for the weekend. No, he hadn’t just sent me away: he’d sent me to my next of kin. And he’d read the paper that day where the subject of the Pearl Harbor anniversary was front-page news. And just days before, I’d caught him crying before the safe as he looked at the photos of Mama. And he’d been consulting with another detective, perhaps with the intention of passing his clients on to him. And when I last spoke to him he’d told me to have fun and said that he loved me.

Wait—what was I thinking? Pop wouldn’t …

The doorbell rang. I jumped at the sound. Once I registered where it was coming from and what it meant, I left the office and entered the foyer. Fear weighted down each footstep until it felt like I was slogging through snow. What if it was the police coming to tell me that Pop was dead? How would I ever recover from that?

“Iris? It’s me.”

It wasn’t the police; it was Pearl. “Oh, thank God,” I said as I opened the door. She was alone. The taxi that had escorted her from the Upper East Side pulled away from the curb and disappeared.

“What’s the matter?”

Did I dare say it? It was such an absurd thought, and yet try as I might I couldn’t get it out of my head. The words came out in such a rush that it seemed like they’d converged into one single word, with the same stark meaning. “IthinkPop’sgoingtokillhimself.”

“Slow down. Start from the beginning.” She came in and deposited her bag next to mine. I took a deep breath and filled her in as best I could about what I’d discovered since arriving home.

“That doesn’t mean he’s going to commit suicide.”

“How would you interpret it, Pearl? He sent me away for a reason. I know he called Aunt Miriam and asked her to invite me to stay with her this weekend. And he got Betty to lie to her mom to get her out of here. All week I’ve been thinking that he didn’t care about Mama, or anything but this new relationship with Betty, but that wasn’t it at all. He didn’t want me to know what he was planning on doing.” I was beyond distraught. When I believed Mama had killed herself, there had been no warning signs, no way I could’ve stopped it. But this time there had been ample cues I should’ve caught and didn’t.

“But why would he leave the safe open?” asked Pearl.

Boy, howdy—was that really the one detail she was going to latch onto? “Because he was in a hurry and forgot to close it.”

“But why would he be in a hurry? If he’s killing himself, what’s the rush?”

Strangely, that irritated me. It was like she was criticizing Pop for not going about killing himself in the right way. “Who knows what’s in his head? Maybe he was worried I’d come home early and wanted to leave before that happened.”

Pearl put her hands on my shoulders. “Listen to me, Iris—if he took his gun and left so fast that he forgot to close the safe, he did it because he was in a hurry and needed the gun to protect himself. The only other time he left the safe open was when you found the photos of your mother, right? He wouldn’t make that mistake again unless he had to go somewhere fast.”

She had a point there. “Maybe. But where would he be going?”