by Amy Stewart
“Do you expect me to take up hems and track down estranged husbands at the same time?” Fleurette said, intending it as sarcasm, but Norma only nodded vigorously. “Once you strip those ladies down to their bloomers, they’ll tell you anything.”
“Then I’ll need a proper fitting room, with its own entrance,” Fleurette said, already imagining quite an elegant ladies’ lounge.
“And you’ll have it.”
“And we really should keep an office downtown. Just something small and smart, with our name on the door.”
“That will depend entirely upon revenue,” said Norma, ever the comptroller. “For now we’ll operate from the parlor. What we must have immediately is an auto, and it has to be something that won’t arouse suspicion. That’s when I thought of our quarter interest.”
They arrived just then, and Norma added, “Don’t any of you say a word to Mr. Griggs. I know exactly how to handle him.”
At the front door, they were met by Mr. Griggs himself, on his way out. Fleurette had never been to Francis’s place of work before and looked around the gravel lot eagerly for the automobile they’d be taking possession of. She expected an older model, something not particularly stylish and in need of a polish, but in fact saw no autos at all. Nonetheless, following Norma’s instructions, she stayed quiet and went inside with the rest of them.
Mr. Griggs seemed excessively delighted to see them and said, when they were settled in his office, “I see you’ve reconsidered my proposal, and brought the entire family this time. That’s just the way to do it. You must all think it over and be in agreement.”
“We won’t be making an investment,” said Norma—plainly, as she never knew how to say anything except in the most straightforward manner, “beyond our quarter interest.”
“Oh,” said Mr. Griggs, removing his spectacles and looking through them as if he’d misread her statement due to some blemish on the glass. “When I saw you, I thought, ‘Here’s Francis’s family, come to save us.’ We’re due to close, you see, by the end of the week. We simply cannot go on as we have.”
“That was apparent on our last visit,” said Norma. “Why bother waiting until the end of the week? Sell everything off, and we’ll take a quarter of the proceeds.”
Mr. Griggs looked affronted at that. “If you think I’m withholding anything of value from you, you’re mistaken. Nothing here is worth a dime. The building’s leased, the furnishings are old, you’ve seen the baskets, the delivery truck is a heap . . .”
Norma stood up as if everything was settled and said, “Fine. We’ll take the truck.”
Fleurette flinched a little at the word truck. Surely Norma wasn’t referring to the old delivery truck Francis used to drive? Mr. Griggs was right: it was a broken-down old heap, with an engine that only barely sputtered along, a high-sided wooden compartment in back that could haul baskets or donkeys equally, and room up front for only a driver and one uncomfortable passenger.
It was a horrible contraption, a real beast. Even Francis hated driving it.
Surely Norma couldn’t be referring to that truck.
Mr. Griggs had nonetheless developed a sudden attachment to it. He said, “You can’t go off in our vehicle! A quarter interest doesn’t entitle you to take whatever you like.”
“Unless you can produce a contract to the contrary,” said Norma, “we shall decide for ourselves what our quarter interest represents and take possession of it at once. You just said yourself that the business is of no value. I don’t see how you can object to us taking one worthless vehicle.”
There was a bit more wrangling, but Fleurette paid it no attention. She wandered outside, around back this time, and stood looking at the old contraption. She had to admit that there was some sense to it. Nobody looks twice at a shabby delivery truck. A detective needed to go about undetected. Even she knew that.
Soon Bessie and her sisters joined her, followed by the erstwhile delivery driver, Thomas Wells, whom Norma had engaged to drive the truck back to Hawthorne. But before he could step aboard, Fleurette jumped into the driver’s chair.
“It’s absolutely enormous,” she cried. “The pedals are miles away from my feet. I’ll never be able to drive it.”
“That’s exactly the point,” said Norma. “Constance will drive it, once Thomas shows her how.”
What happened to her glamorous black machine, and her chic hat to match? How could she possibly motor into Manhattan in this contraption?
“Bessie will ride alongside Thomas,” said Norma, “and the three of us can make do in the back.”
What was there to do, but to scramble on board and to take a seat along a wooden crate in the back of the truck, wedged between Constance and Norma? As the beastly machine rumbled to life, it occurred to Fleurette that she hadn’t felt the heft and warmth of her sisters alongside her since the funeral. Even in that moldy old truck, they smelled familiar, the fragrance of her childhood, the rice powder Norma patted around her neck and the coconut shampoo Constance smoothed through her hair.
Fleurette couldn’t help but settle in against them, and to give in to the ease that she only ever felt when she was alongside her sisters, as disagreeable as they might be. The knot that had been tangled inside of her all these weeks began to unravel. None of them spoke: they just bounced along, their knees and elbows rubbing familiarly against each other.
The Kopp Sisters Detective Agency. Already the name had a certainty to it, as if she’d known it all along.
Historical Notes
LIKE THE OTHER books in the Kopp Sisters series, this one is a blend of fact and fiction. The Kopps—all of them, Constance, Norma, Fleurette, Bessie, Frankie Jr., Lorraine, and the departed Francis—were real people whose lives played out more or less as described. Feel free to take a look at the historical notes in the back of the previous novels for more detail about all of them.
Francis didn’t die in 1919. He died in 1923, at home, of a heart attack. It was around the time of his death that Constance, Norma, and Fleurette sold the farm and moved to Hawthorne. They actually lived two doors down from Bessie, not next door. The difficulties with his employer are all fictional, but he did work for a company that imported baskets from China.
Bessie didn’t have a third child, but it was true that she had a very young child. In real life, Lorraine was born in 1918. In my novel I’ve made her the eldest child, born in about 1907, because I wanted her to be around for the earlier events in the series. Frankie’s age is accurate. He was born in 1909.
The Kopps did form a detective agency. In newspapers it is referred to as the Kopp Sisters Detective Agency, although I haven’t found a directory or business listing with that name. (If anyone’s holding on to some Kopp Sisters Detective Agency stationery, you know that belongs to me and you’d better send it to me!)
The agency specialized mostly in divorce cases, and they worked on many such cases with John Ward’s law firm. Mr. Ward and his real-life partner, Mr. McGinnis, have been recurring characters in my novels, although their involvement has been, up to this point, mostly fictional. Now they assume their real role in the Kopps’ lives. I should emphasize that while Mr. Ward was something of a playboy in real life, I know very little about Mr. McGinnis’s real life at that age and have entirely invented his story.
The type of automobile the Kopps owned, and who would drive it, was a constant source of friction within the Kopp family. According to my conversations with relatives, and what I’ve found in newspaper coverage and other records, they employed a number of drivers over the years and got into their share of auto-related difficulties, all of which is still to come in future novels.
But there wasn’t always a hired driver. According to one family member, “Fleurette drove the car, Constance took the pictures, and Norma sat in the back and remembered everything.” So brace yourself—Fleurette will get behind the wheel eventually!
Another family member told me that Fleurette sometimes acted as “the bait” in divorce c
ases, which refers to her playing the part of the “professional co-respondent,” the woman posing in an adulterous embrace with a man wishing to get out of his marriage. While I have no direct evidence of her doing this work, I do have wonderful historical records to work from, including lurid tabloid interviews with headlines like “I Was the Unnamed Blonde in a Hundred New York Divorces.”
Other real-life details: I’m sorry to say that Fleurette really did lose her singing voice due to strep throat and gave up her theatrical career in her early twenties. Laura the parrot was real, but she’d actually been with the Kopp family since Fleurette was a little girl. She was a green Amazon parrot and quite a conversationalist. I’m collecting stories about clever things that these parrots can say and do, so if you have any experience with them, please get in touch!
Constance really did work at a department store at some point during this time, but it was Best & Co. in New York City, not Schoonmaker & Co. That was a real department store located in Paterson at 225 Main Street. All details about the store, its owner, and employees are fictional.
Robert Heath did not, unfortunately, ever serve in law enforcement or elected office again. He did run for sheriff one more time in 1919 and lost. He really did work for a company that sold pipe fittings and seemed to do similar such work for the rest of his life. I do know that he remained in the Kopps’ lives, because his name pops up from time to time in my records, but as far as I know, he and Constance never worked together in a professional capacity again.
I do a lot of video chats with book clubs, and many of you have asked me if Heath would be coming back after the war. This question came up so much, and so many of you wanted to see more of him, that I decided to give him a fictional part to play in the Kopps’ future—one that he might have enjoyed a great deal, had things worked out differently for him. As a police officer, he’ll be very useful to the Kopps in their detective work. He might also be a thorn in their side from time to time. Stay tuned.
Alice Martin is fictional, but her case is a composite of similar cases from the era. All the other divorce cases are also fictional, but in every instance I draw upon real-life divorce stories from those days.
“You Made Me Love You” was written by James V. Monaco and Joseph McCarthy in 1913 and was performed at the time by Al Jolson.
I’m aware of dozens of real-life cases the Kopp Sisters Detective Agency worked on, which is enough to see me through the 1920s. I hope you’ll want to come along. Stay tuned for the next installment, and please visit my website to see photographs, newspaper clippings, and more documentation about the real-life people and places behind these novels.
Visit marinerbooks.com to find all of the books in the Kopp Sisters series.
www.amystewart.com
About the Author
Amy Stewart is the New York Times best-selling author of the acclaimed Kopp Sisters series, which began with Girl Waits with Gun. Her six nonfiction books include The Drunken Botanist and Wicked Plants. She lives in Portland, Oregon.
For book club resources, online chats, and more, visit amystewart.com/bookclubs
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