“No, I can manage. Unless you want to carve?”
Dick puffs out his chest. “A manly job. Maggie usually has me mashing potatoes.”
Sadie grins at him. “Well, the potatoes do need mashing.”
“Dick, you carve the chicken. Tommy can mash the potatoes. I’ll just go wash up,” says Maggie.
Dinner is delicious. Despite the new face at the table, the conversation is more of the same: squatter camps, bank closures, political ineptitude. No one mentions the baby. By the end of dinner, even Archie is won over by Sadie’s charm. Maggie and Sadie clear, and Sadie brings in a plate of crescent-shaped cookies. The aroma of warm raisins is irresistible. Tommy is reaching for one before Maggie can stop him.
“What are these?” he asks, holding one up for inspection.
“Rugelach. A kind of cookie. They are my favorite. They have raisins and walnuts in them. But you can put all kinds of fruits and nuts. If you like them, I’ll make them with raspberry jam next time.”
“Mmm.”
“I think they’re a hit, Sadie,” Maggie says, nodding to the quickly emptying plate.
“There’s more in the kitchen,” Sadie says, glowing with confidence.
After dinner is cleaned up and everyone has disappeared into their rooms, Maggie tucks the last two rugelach onto her saucer and carries her coffee into the living room. The Inspector is waiting in his customary chair. She turns on the radio. Sadie had gone to bed after dinner, exhausted with the newness of it all. The light was shining under the door, so Maggie expects that she is reading. Good for her to put her feet up.
“Those look delicious,” Frank says.
“The whole dinner was delicious. It was a real luxury to come home to a meal like that, and a tidy house. I think I’m going to like having Sadie around.”
“Has she mentioned who the baby’s father is?”
“No, but I have my suspicions.” Maggie looks back to the kitchen and lowers her voice even further. “I think that Mickey and Edith are going to adopt the baby after it’s born. Whether it’s Mickey’s or not, I can’t say. But Edith’s been desperate for a baby. I could see her making these kinds of arrangements.” Funny she wouldn’t have told me. Then again, we don’t see each other as often as we used to.
“Have they tried to adopt?”
“Once. It didn’t get very far when the foundling home found out who Mickey Duffy was. Apparently, gangsters are not suitable father material. No, I think something private is more their style. And if it is Mickey’s, that’s probably why Edith didn’t offer to have Sadie stay with her.”
“It’s good of you to take Sadie in. She seems like a lovely girl.”
“I’m the winner here. A housekeeper is the answer to my prayers. You do realize that, if it’s Mickey’s, it’s also yours?”
“My goodness, I hadn’t thought of that. Maybe another little Geyer. With her expecting, have you had ‘the talk’ with Tommy?”
“Oh my goodness, no. He was too young when Fanny was having her babies. I suppose I’d better. That’s going to be awkward.”
“Maybe one of the lodgers could do it? He seems to be close to Dick. Although Dick might be a bit graphic,” Frank says, chuckling.
“Maybe I’ll ask Ron to do it. Sort of a fatherhood initiation. See how he manages. Families aren’t just movies and malted milkshakes. How did you make out at the cemetery? Do you think it’s the right place?”
“I’m certain of it. Maggie, I can’t begin to describe how powerful a moment it was. After all the years, all the decades of searching for my brother, and then to see him standing there.
“Oh my goodness, were you able to talk to him?” Maggie can feel the goosebumps on her arms.
“I tried to reach him, to talk to him. There was so much I wanted to say. But I stumbled trying to get to him and when I looked up he-- he was gone.”
“How incredibly tragic, Inspector. I know how important it was to you to discover where he was buried.”
“I was certain that the reason I had remained in Philadelphia was to find him so that he and my mother could rest in peace. That was my quest. But alas, here I sit, so obviously it was not. I do wish there were directions to follow. It would make it so much easier.”
“It’s like we’re working down some kind of cosmic list. We wouldn’t have found Bandit’s Cemetery and your brother without Mickey. And we know that Mickey is a great-great…” She looks at the Inspector.
“Let’s just call him my grandson. It’s going to be tiresome to do all the great-greats.”
“Maybe there’s a connection there, Inspector? There has to be a reason why Mickey is the one that led us to Bandits’ Cemetery.”
“It’s a powerful coincidence. However, like all investigators, I don’t hold much with coincidence. There must be a connection but, for the life of me, I can’t fathom what it would be.”
Chapter 44
W aking up at the Ritz, Mickey is at first puzzled. He lies in bed, his arm thrown over his eyes to block the sun, gradually remembering the events of the day before. His mouth is stale and fuzzy. His head is still buzzing. There was drinking; he remembers that. Eddie took them on a tear. Flashes of dames and booze, music somewhere. He tenses and then relaxes. He’s alone in the bed. He can hear people in the main room of the suite. He rolls over, pulls the pillow over his head, and sleeps.
A few hours later, he’s fully awake. He sits on the edge of the bed, head in his hands. Christ, Edith. What did I do? Blood. Henry was there. Were they together? No, I took Sadie to Maggie’s house yesterday. Yesterday? He shudders. He rubs his chin. Too many whiskers for overnight. What day is it? He hauls himself upright, pulling his suspenders up over his undershirt, and pads to the door in stocking feet. He pauses, listening. Voices. He opens the door.
“Hey, sunshine. Glad to see you’re among the living.” Eddie Regan grins at him from the couch. He’s been talking to a couple of the guys. Mickey shakes his head, trying to remember their names.
“What day is it?” Mickey croaks.
Eddie roars with laughter. “Oh, you are outta practice, Mickey. There was a time you could put enough away to make me blush.” Eddie nudges the man sitting next to him.
“What day is it?” Mickey scowls at Eddie.
“Tuesday. All day.”
Tuesday? He dropped Sadie off on Sunday. Two days? How was Edith? He rubs the back of his head and looks around the room. Too many people. Too many strangers. They don’t belong here.
“Everybody clear out. Now,” Mickey barks. He turns and goes into the bedroom again, closing the door. He can hear people leaving. He sits on the edge of the bed, exhausted. He notices that his knuckles are scraped. He rubs them, trying to remember. A fight? In a bar? There’s a knock at the bedroom door. Eddie pokes his head in.
“Everybody’s gone. Anything you want me to do for ya, Mickey?”
“Nah, just go already.”
“Sure thing, Mick. See ya later.”
Mickey sits listening to the silence. He needs a bath and a shave. And a clean shirt. And coffee. He goes out to the living room and dials room service. Having given his order, he sits down on the couch to wait. A bath and a shave and then he’ll put his life together again.
* * * *
Edith, legs crossed and one foot swinging, stares at the luggage at the front door. I’m not going down this road again. He had his second chance and he blew it. A black eye, poorly concealed with makeup, and a small cut near her lip, are the battle scars she wears. She puffs angrily on her cigarette.
“Can I get you anything, Mrs. Duffy?”
“Thank you, no, Hilda.”
“Will you be having lunch?”
“I’m not hungry.”
Hilda hesitates, and then goes back to the kitchen.
Yesterday, she’d called the locksmith and changed the locks to the house. She’d expected Mickey home Sunday night, and by Monday night knew that he probably wouldn’t be coming home that day either. It was a sim
ilar pattern he’d adopted during the Grand Jury investigation: carouse all night with that Eddie Regan fellow; show up at home to get cleaned up before heading out again. He’d eventually come crashing down. Something had happened at the Ritz two years ago, but Henry was mum. Good thing he was here on Sunday.
This morning, when Mickey still hadn’t come home, Edith had called the carpet installer and made arrangements to redo the carpet in her bedroom. When I’d picked white, I was expecting to deal with wine spills, not blood. I thought those days were behind me. And they are. Now.
Mid-afternoon, and the only thing that’s moved in the living room are the shadows along the wall. Edith raises her head, hearing a car pull into the driveway. She goes to the window and looks out. Mickey. And it looks like a new shirt. The dog’s been shopping. And not even a phone call to see if I were alive or dead. She grinds out the cigarette and goes to the powder room to scrub off the make-up around her eye. I want him to see what he’s done.
As she comes out, she can hear Mickey rattling the front door handle. Then silence. Then trying his key. Cursing. She waits, making him ring the bell.
Stepping around the suitcases, she opens the door. He steps back, looking at her, her eye, her lip. “Edith, Oh, God. I’m sorry. Did I do that?”
She turns, leaving him standing in the doorway. He comes in and shuts the door, glancing at the suitcases. “Going somewhere?” he asks.
“No. I’m staying right here.” She lights another cigarette, blowing the smoke to the ceiling. “You’ve not been taking those drops the doctor gave you.”
“I don’t like how they make me feel.”
“Then you go to the doctor and he gives you different drops. You don’t just stop taking them. How long has it been?”
“A few days.” Mickey comes in and sits down. Hilda comes out of the kitchen, and then backs in again when she sees him.
“You see what happens in just a few days?” Edith tosses her head.
“Did I do that?”
“Don’t tell me you don’t remember. That’s really lame, Mickey.”
“I don’t. I remember dropping off Henry’s gal and then driving home. There was a jerk on the road in front of me, and then nothing.”
“I’m not going to do this again, Mickey. I want you out. Gone.” She gestures towards the suitcases with her cigarette.
“You want me to leave?”
“I got no room in my life for a crazy man. Not anymore. The house is in my name, remember? Go stay at the Ritz. I’m sure you and that Regan fella can find something to do.”
Mickey can feel himself getting angry. He gets up and paces, hands clenched behind his back.
“What if I say I’m not going? You going to throw me out?”
Edith doesn’t back down. She jabs her cigarette into the ashtray, crushing it. “Look at yourself. You’re close to losing it again. Can’t you tell?” She turns to walk to the staircase. “I’m going upstairs, and you’ll be gone when I come down.”
Mickey grabs her arm, swinging her toward him. They glare at each other, daggers drawn.
“Don’t you dare touch me,” she hisses. He stares at her, evaluating, and drops her arm.
“Goodbye, Mickey.”
Chapter 45
A nother school day done. That chemistry test was brutal. Tommy climbs aboard the trolley car that will take him to his mother’s office. With Boys’ Central High School at Broad and Green on the far side of City Hall, Maggie’s office on Arch Street is on Tommy’s way home.
They’ve established a nice routine. Maggie has been working longer hours since Sadie took over the housekeeping. Most days, after school, Tommy goes to her office. He works on homework or reads until she’s ready to go home, and then they travel together. Sometimes, he stops by the library when he needs to do research, and then meets his mother at the end of her day. Sometimes he walks to the office, but doesn’t get there right away—there’s always something to see along Broad Street. Sometimes he just feels like goofing off.
Settling into a vacant seat on the trolley, Tommy stares out the window. Like most fifteen year old boys, he becomes aware of the girl seated in front of him. He’s noticed her before on the trolley. She’s pretty. I wonder where she goes to school?
Tommy climbs down and heads to the library. His mother will be done in an hour or so, and that gives him enough time to see if they have any books on Einstein. He’s going to write a report on him for one of his classes. He’s also going to give the report to Jimmy to read. Imagine not knowing about Einstein.
Book bag slung over his shoulder, he ambles along the street, looking at the merchandise on display. In the reflection off a store window, he catches a glimpse of the girl on the trolley. She’s walking behind him.
Don’t turn around. Don’t gawk. He hunches his shoulders and starts looking at the reflections in all the windows he passes.
She’s smiling, aware of what he’s doing. She swings her school bag.
At the public library, he pulls open the door and glances behind. She’s right there on the steps behind him. He holds the door for her to enter.
“Thank you,” she says. He’s rewarded with another smile.
“I saw you on the trolley.” Gack, I can’t believe I said that. What a moron.
“Yes, I catch it from school,” she says. “You have homework?”
Tommy nods. “Yeah, a paper on Einstein.”
“You looking for books by or about?”
“Sorry?” Tommy asks.
“Biographies, or physics books written by Einstein.”
“Oh, ah, both, I guess.”
“Come on then, I’ll show you where they are. My mother works here and I can find my way around the Dewey Decimal System pretty well.” She heads off into the stacks.
Tommy trails after her as she starts piling books into his arms. “This should get you started. We have lots of science books. And the books Einstein wrote on thermodynamics and statistical mechanics look interesting. Here are a few on photons,” she says, adding some slim volumes to the tower he’s balancing in his arms. Tommy anchors the stack with his chin. “There’s even some in German.” She pauses, giving him the once over. “I don’t suppose you read German, do you?”
“Erm, no,” he mumbles, buried behind the mountain of books. “No German.”
His arms full, she turns. “Let’s go sit at that table over there, and you can decide what you want to read here and what you want to check out. You can only have three on a particular subject. Although I could probably convince my mother that the biographies are different than the science books.”
Tommy beams. Wow. “Thanks.” He pauses. “What’s your name, anyway?”
“Cecelia. Cecelia Morgan. That’s my mother over there.” She nods toward a severe-looking woman wearing glasses. “I gotta go and let her know I’m here. Toodles,” Cecelia says, fluttering her fingers. And she’s gone.
Tommy sits behind piles of books, hoping to catch a glimpse of Cecelia again. He chooses which books to check out, and heads to the counter. Cecelia’s mother has a rubber date stamp raised.
“These are reference books. You can only have them for three days.”
Tommy nods. He glances behind the librarian and sees Cecelia’s smiling face in the Head Librarian’s office. Mrs. Morgan looks around, and Cecelia quickly lowers her head back to her book. Tommy grins.
He’ll have them back sooner than three days. He’s going to be a very frequent customer at the public library.
Chapter 46
I t’s unseasonably warm for May, even late May. The air is already muggy, and a thunderstorm threatens. Deciding that her office fan just isn’t up for the heavy duty job, Maggie uses the excuse to escape the stuffy office and heads over to the air conditioning at Green’s Hotel. Edith had called her at the office earlier that morning to set it up.
Maggie regards her friend across the table at Green’s. What the heck is going on? She looks like she’s going to crack and fall
apart any minute, and I’m sure that she’s concealing a black-eye. How many martinis has she had?
“It looks like you’ve been here a while. Sweetie, what’s wrong?” Maggie asks.
“It’s Mickey. I’ve kicked him out of the house. Finally, after all these years, he’s gone.” Edith gives a hard little laugh and gulps her martini.
“Edith, what happened? Are you all right?” Maggie gestures to her eye.
“Oh this? Yeah, Mickey and I got into it last Sunday. The day he dropped Sadie off at your house. He’d stopped taking his medicine and was ballistic. Crazy. Worse than before.”
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