An Eye for Murder

by Libby Fischer Hellmann

  Under the signature was a phone number. I poured another glass of wine. Ben Sinclair’s name wasn’t familiar, but we’d spoken to hundreds of people in dozens of neighborhoods during Celebrate Chicago. I should probably check with Brenda Kuhns, my researcher. She keeps meticulous notes.

  Still, I was curious why a dead man would have my name. Despite the show, I’m no VIP, and I couldn’t imagine how my life intersected with that of a solitary old man who died alone in a boarding house.

  The clock read four fifteen, and I couldn’t sleep. Maybe it was the wine. When alcohol turns into sugar, I get all geeked up. Or maybe it was the handful of chocolate chips I ate just before turning in. Or possibly it was a lingering unease about the letter. I rolled out of bed, checked on Rachel, and took the letter up to my office.

  My office used to be the guest room before the divorce.

  It’s not big, but the view more than compensates for its size. Outside the window is a honey locust, and on breezy summer days, the sun shooting through the leaves creates sparkles and shimmers that humble any manmade pyrotechnics. If you peek through the leaves, you can see down the entire length of our block. Of course, nothing much happens on our block, but if it did, I’d be there to sound the alarm—my desk is right under the window. The only trade-off is a lack of space for overnight guests.

  Works for me.

  I booted up and ran through my show files, using the search command for “Ben Sinclair.” Nothing popped up. I opened Eudora and did the same thing with my E-mail. Nothing. I E-mailed Brenda and asked if the name meant anything to her.

  I went into the bathroom, debating whether to take a sleeping pill. A fortyish face with gray eyes and wavy black hair—the yin to my blond daughter’s yang—stared back at me in the mirror. I still had a decent body, thanks to walking, an occasional aerobics class, and worrying about Rachel. But the lines around my eyes were more like duck’s webbing than crow’s feet, and gray strands filigreed my hair.

  I decided against a sleeping pill. Back in my office, I reread Ruth Fleishman’s letter, then logged onto a white-pages site, which promised to give me the address and phone number of anyone in the country. I entered Ben Sinclair’s name. A mouse-click later, fifteen Ben Sinclairs across the country surfaced, each with an address and phone number. When I tried Benjamin Sinclair, another six names appeared. None of the listings were in the Chicago area. I printed them out anyway.

  A set of headlights winked through the window shade, and the newspaper hit the front lawn with a plop. I yawned and shut down the computer.

  Chapter Two

  After Rachel left for school the next morning, I checked my E-mail and found a reply from Brenda. She’s either the most efficient person on earth or suffers from insomnia like me. She’d reviewed her files but had nothing on Ben Sinclair.

  Sipping a cup of coffee, I checked my Day-Timer. I owed a script to Midwest Mutual, one of my bread-and-butter clients, but it wasn’t due until the following week. I picked up the letter and dialed Ruth Fleishman’s number.

  “Hello?” The voice was somewhere between a bleat and a foghorn. I pictured a woman with too much makeup, dyed hair, and lots of jewelry.

  “Mrs. Fleishman, this is Ellie Foreman. I got your letter yesterday.”

  “Oh, yes. Thank you for calling. This entire situation has been so upsetting. I’ve had boarders over twenty years, ever since Maury died, of course, but I’ve never had to bury one before. It’s been a very stressful time.”

  Add extension nails. With bright orange nail polish. “I understand. But I’m afraid I don’t know Mr. Sinclair. In fact, I have no idea who he is. Or was.”

  “Oh dear. I was hoping you knew him.”

  “Why is that?”

  “Well, because of—well—we saw your show, of course.”

  “My show? Celebrate Chicago?”

  “That’s right.”

  I waited for her to say how much she loved it.

  “I can’t afford the really good networks like HBO or Showtime, see. Maury left me just enough to get by. So I make do with the basic cable.” Her voice had an annoying nasal pitch to it. “It was good,” she added. “Your show.”

  “Thanks.” For everything. “Did Mr. Sinclair say how he knew me?”

  “Well, see, you have to understand. Mr. Sinclair didn’t spend much time outside his room. Except for going to the library, of course. He was old, over ninety, see, and he pretty much kept to himself. Not that he was a problem. He always paid his rent on time. Never made a fuss, either, even when we had that terrible storm and the power was out for two days. He didn’t have his own television, of course, so sometimes I invited him down to watch a show with me. But he did like to take Bruno out for a walk.”

  “Bruno?”

  “My dog. My guard dog. I need protection of course. Since the…the problem a few summers ago.” Rogers Park was the neighborhood through which Dan Thornton had run riot. “So you see, Miss Foreman…uh…it is Miss, isn’t it?” Somehow her voice sounded too eager. Could there be an unmarried son or nephew hanging around somewhere?

  “It’s Mrs., and I have a twelve-year-old daughter.”

  “Oh,” she said regretfully. It had to be a male relative. “Well, anyway. Where was I?”

  “You were watching Celebrate Chicago with Mr. Sinclair.”

  “Yes. I made a coffee cake that morning, and I was just slicing it up. I could tell Mr. Sinclair liked it. The show, I mean. Especially the part about Lawndale.” Lawndale, one of the neighborhoods we’d featured, is on Chicago’s West Side. During the ’30s and ’40s it was center of Jewish life in Chicago. “At the end, you know, when they say who made it and everybody who was in it—”

  “The credits.”

  “Of course, the credits. Well, when he saw your name, he got this look on his face.”

  “A look?”

  “That’s right. One of those—it was as if he knew you. And was surprised that he did. He said your name out loud.”

  “Ellie Foreman?”

  “That’s right. That’s what he said. With a kind of question mark after it.”

  “Go on.”

  “That’s it.”

  “That’s all he said? Just my name?”

  “He went upstairs right afterwards.”

  “He never said anything else, I mean, later on?”

  “I asked myself the same thing after…afterwards. But no, he didn’t. In fact, I forgot all about it, until I found your name and the picture.”

  “Picture?”

  There was a beat of silence. “It’s one of those old snapshots. You know, a black and white. The kind with the scalloped edges, of course.”

  “Of cour—What was the picture of?”

  “Well, dear, that’s what I was hoping you could tell me.”

  The area of Rogers Park that Ruth Fleishman lived in hasn’t changed much in fifty years. Small bungalows and two-flats hug sidewalks veined with cracks. Closer to the lake, regentrification is flourishing, but over here even the canopies of leaves fail to mask the quiet air of neglect.

  I parked and walked south to 4109, a narrow brick building fronted by a porch. Underneath the porch was lattice work, partially hidden by a scrawny forsythia bush. A few daffodils, braving the cold spring, studded the ground around it. I climbed three wobbly stairs and rang the bell. A large window covered by white curtains gave onto the porch. I was trying to peek through the gap between the panels when the door opened.

  Ruth Fleishman’s face was thick with powder, and her arms jangled with bracelets, but her hair wasn’t dyed. A brown bouffant wig in a young Jackie Kennedy style covered a seventyyear-old head. She was either a cancer survivor or an Orthodox Jew who still wore a sheitel. Most likely an Orthodox Jew. This part of Rogers Park has replaced Lawndale as the center of Frum life in Chicago, and she looked too vigorous to have suffered a round of chemo.

  As she led me through a cluttered living room, a mop of black and white fur on the couch lifted its head an
d sniffed. Then, as if deciding I was a new scent worth investigating, it jumped off the sofa.

  “This must be Bruno,” I said, as he ran up, his tail wagging so hard I thought it might fly off. “Your guard dog.”

  Mrs. Fleishman hiked her shoulders and eyebrows resignedly. I bent down to pet him. Part Beagle, part mutt, he ducked his head under my hand, forcing me to pet him. I ruffled his ears with my hands. When I stopped, he jumped up and pawed my pants leg, as if to say “I’ll decide when you’re finished.”

  “So. Come upstairs. I’ll show you his room.” Her voice made the thought of fingernails on a blackboard sound attractive.

  We climbed the stairs, Bruno trotting behind us. “When did Mr. Sinclair die?”

  “April twelfth.”

  “How?” I asked.

  Her voice dropped. “They think he mixed up his Inderal and Lanoxin. I was out walking Bruno, and when I got back, Bruno ran upstairs and started barking to beat the band. That’s how we found him. Such a sad thing. He was over ninety, of course, but you hate to see someone leave this world before their time.”

  She opened a door at the front of the house. The air inside had a sour, musty scent. A double bed, the mattress stripped, was wedged against one wall. A five-drawer captain’s chest leaned against another. A small desk took up space under the window. The closet, aside from a few wire hangers, was empty, but several cardboard cartons were stacked on the floor.

  Mrs. Fleishman crossed to the window and opened it. A wave of frigid air floated in. “Everything’s in there.” She pointed to the cartons. “The first two are his clothes—I was going to give them away. His personal things are in the other.” Turning around, she saw me hovering at the door. “Come in, dear. They won’t bite.”

  Reluctantly I stepped in and helped her move two cartons aside. She gestured for me to sit on the floor. I sat crosslegged and raised the flaps of the third carton. A plastic bag closed with a twist-tie sat on top. Inside were a razor, a package of blades, shaving cream, and two brown plastic prescription bottles. I checked the labels. Lanoxin and Inderal.

  “Were these the ones—?”

  “No. The people who picked him up took them. Those must have been from an old prescription.”

  I studied the bottles through the plastic. “An accidental overdose, you said?”

  Mrs. Fleishman nodded. “He was supposed to take Inderal four times a day and Lanoxin once a day, but they look so much alike, it’s easy to get confused. It even happens to me. I keep a chart down in the kitchen. Of course, then I have to remember to fill it in.”

  I’ve glimpsed the decline that aging brings with my own father, who’s over eighty himself. But like most Boomers who cling to their youth, I’m more or less blind to the burdens of elderly people. Aging gracefully is an art form I’ve yet to master.

  Underneath the plastic bag was a stack of books, including an Artscroll Siddur, the Orthodox version of the Jewish prayer book. The others looked like they were from the public library. I lifted out Untold Stories of World War Two, The Nazi Doctors, and Shadow Warriors: Origins of the OSS. There were also a couple of le Carré paperbacks.

  “He took the bus to the library almost every day,” she said. “They opened a new branch not far from here.”

  I flipped to the back of one book. It was overdue by several months. I handed one to Mrs. Fleishman. “They need to be returned.”

  “Oh dear.” She sighed. “I hope they won’t make me pay.” Near the bottom of the carton was a beige metal box, about twelve inches square and three inches deep. It looked like it could hold fishing tackle. I lifted it out.

  “I couldn’t get it open,” Mrs. Fleishman said. “Why don’t you try?” I held it in my hands. “Oh, come on, dear,” she said conspiratorially. “Don’t you want to know what’s inside?” I bit my lip. The man was dead; I felt like a vulture. She took the box from me and jiggled the clasp with her fingers.

  It didn’t move.

  “You know, I might have something in my room.” She put the box down and walked out. I heard a door across the hall open and close. A minute later she was back. “Here.” She handed me a metal nail file. “See if this works.”

  “Mrs. Fleishman, I don’t know. I mean, I didn’t know Mr. Sinclair, and it seems—”

  “Don’t worry.” She waved her hand in the air, her bracelets jangling. “Mr. Sinclair doesn’t care anymore. And if there’s something inside that tells us who he was and where he came from, well…” She shrugged, as if no further explanation was necessary.

  Reluctantly I took the nail file. Using it as a lever, I tried to pry open the lock, but it didn’t budge. Then I inserted the pointed tip of the file and wiggled it around, thinking that might dislodge the clasp. It didn’t. Figuring gravity might make a difference, I turned the box upside down and repeated the levering action, but nothing shook loose.

  Mrs. Fleishman watched impatiently. Finally, she grabbed the box and threw it back in the carton. “I give up.”

  At the bottom of the carton lay a small gray velvet bag with a drawstring tie. I loosened the string and drew out a shiny silver cigarette lighter. An insignia showed the profile of a man with a jaunty hat leaning against a lamppost. On the back were three initials engraved against a blue background: S K L. I flipped up the cover and rolled the flint. Sparks flew.

  “Look at this.” I held it out for Mrs. Fleishman. “I don’t have my reading glasses on, dear.”

  “It’s a lighter. And it still works.” I snapped the top back and inspected the initials. “The initials say ‘SKL.’” I frowned. “Shouldn’t they be ‘BS’?”

  “I would think so.” She knit her brow. “But, then, Ben Sinclair was a man with secrets.”

  “Secrets?”

  “When you get to be my age, you don’t ask too many questions. It’s enough just to spend time with someone. Mr. Sinclair never talked much about himself. Frankly, I had the feeling he might have had—uh—a shady background. If I hadn’t needed the money, well, who knows? But, like I said, he was a good boarder.”

  I ran my finger over the lighter. Maybe it belonged to one of his friends or a relative. And somehow came into his possession. I wondered how. There was a story here somewhere; everyone has one. That’s why I became a filmmaker, to help people tell their stories.

  “Which reminds me.” Ruth went to the desk and opened a drawer. “Take a look at this, would you?”

  She handed me an old snapshot, the sort that fill my parents’ photo albums. Shot with a wide lens, probably a Brownie, the picture was of a couple posing on a cobblestone path at the side of a bridge. Edged by a low stone wall, the bridge was flanked with statues and overlooked a building with the kind of tiled roof you see in European countries. On the far side of the bridge were more buildings, and in the background, high on a hill, the graceful Gothic spires and towers of a castle. A narrow river flowed underneath.

  The man in the picture was young, wiry, and compact, with dark, piercing eyes. He held a snap-brimmed fedora. The woman, dressed in a sturdy suit with padded shoulders, had thick dark hair piled on top of her head. She cradled an infant in her arms. Despite their stiff poses, the couple smiled into the camera.

  “Is this Ben Sinclair?”

  “I think so,” Ruth said, touching her brow. “The eyes.”

  I turned the picture over, hoping for a name or date but knowing I wouldn’t find anything. “When was it taken, do you think?”

  “Judging from the clothes, during the war. Or soon after.”

  Ruth plucked the bracelets on her wrist, moving one in front of the other. “I asked him when he first moved in whether he had any family, but he said no. I didn’t press it.”

  I handed the picture back. “Mrs. Fleishman, I did some research last night. I found a number of Ben Sinclairs around the country. I’ve got the list in my purse. Let me get it for you.”

  “Why?”

  “Well, you might want to call some of them. You never know. One of them may turn out
to know him.” A queer look crept into her eyes. Figuring she was concerned about the cost of calling long distance, I added, “There were only about twenty listings.”

  She shrugged and looked at the floor. I stood up and dusted off my hands. My reflection in the window, sharpened by the overcast outside, showed dark hair against light skin. Like the woman in the picture.

  “Hold on,” I said slowly. “Do—do you think I have something to do with this picture?” She reddened. “My god. You think I’m the baby in the picture.”

  “I…I wasn’t sure. We watched your show, and he seemed to recognize your name. And then, after he died, I found your name and the picture—”

  “And you figured I might be his daughter.” I gestured toward the snapshot. “A long lost daughter. Possibly from Europe.” Damn. Did I really look that old? “I’m sorry, Mrs. Fleishman. I was born right here in Chicago, well after the war, and my father is alive and well. I never knew Ben Sinclair.” Her face crumpled. “I knew it was a long shot.” Sighing, she dabbed her fingers on her wig, as if to soothe her nerves. “Well, I do appreciate you coming all this way. I’m sorry it was all for nothing.” She gazed at the cartons. Her eyes brightened. “Well, actually, there is something else. Could you do me just the tiniest favor?”

  “What’s that?”

  “I’d like his clothes to go to Or Hadash, but I don’t have a car, and they don’t pick up. Would you mind taking his things over there? It’s not far from here.”

  Or Hadash was the Jewish charity agency in Chicago. Figures. She’d just met me an hour ago, and she was already asking me to do her errands. I should say no. I’d done enough. I looked over; she was plucking at her bracelets, looking helpless and vulnerable. I glanced at my watch—barely three. Rachel wouldn’t be home from soccer until five. I sighed. “Okay.”