Getting Old is a Disaster Part 28

"Yo, toots," he says. Now he's pulling her.

Back in bed, I find it difficult to relax. I can't even begin to process what just happened. "Maybe we should have taken some of those 'tranks,' too," I say.

"Nonsense," he says. "I'm better than a pill." With that, he puts his arm around me and I cuddle into him, grateful for the comfort he offers.

By ten a.m. we're gathered in my apartment for a late breakfast. My puzzled girls can't figure out why Jack and I slept so late, until I fill them in on the night we had with Enya. They need only to look at the circles under our eyes to believe it.

We are seated around the dining room table. With seven in that small s.p.a.ce, we are crowded together. But no one's complaining as Jack serves us all a wonderful vegetable omelet.

"Take lessons," Evvie tells Joe.

"I already memorized the recipe," he says, smiling at her.

Now it's my turn for eyebrows to go up. These are two self-satisfied apres-s.e.x type grins. Hmmm. I sure hope so.

As we dig in, Jack still standing, he says, "Let me try to sum up what we know so far about the two of them. Abe Waller moves in next door to Enya. Enya has nightmares about the camps."

Ida interrupts. "She started having nightmares before he moved in next door, even before the hurricane."

Joe says, "Premonition?"

I say, "Let's table that for a moment."

Jack continues. "They have conversations a few times."

Sophie jumps in. "It looked like a romance brewing like a teapot. Didn't it?" Sophie and Bella exchange nervous glances. I wonder what that's about. Sophie takes seconds of the eggs. Looks like nervous eating to me.

Ida says, "All it means to me is that having talked to someone who also survived the camps brought back her own horrible memories. She's never spoken about her experiences to anyone. She keeps to herself. Obviously she never got therapy. All that guilt-of-the-survivor pain building up for so many years. Now it's come to a head and she's having a nervous breakdown."

I say, "I'd agree with you, but she keeps repeating she recognized him by his eyes. Something about a scar around one eye. She called him by a name. I don't think it was a person's real name. Perhaps some kind of German t.i.tle? Der Der Bosewicht? Bosewicht?"

Jack pours refills of coffee for everyone.

Ida shakes her head. "Crazy talk. It's too much

to believe. Just by coincidence a German soldier from a concentration camp now lives next door to her? And for this sick fantasy, she picks on Abe Waller, a deeply religious Jewish man, for heaven's sakes."

There is silence for a few moments as the girls, while thinking, busily fix their coffee refills with their choice of low-fat milk and/or sugar.

Jack and I both say it in unison, "But what if-"

We stop, surprised at having similar thoughts, and he indicates I should go on. "What if it's true?" I can't believe I'm saying this. "What if he's not Jewish. What if-"

Bella drops her coffee spoon. It clatters to the floor. She looks horrified. She pokes Sophie, who pokes her back and says, "Shh."

"What!" Evvie says, annoyed. "What's with you two? You're like cats on a hot tin roof."

Always the literary one, my sister. Not that they know the reference.

Bella blurts, "That we rode in a car with . . ." She can't even say his name.

All eyes turn to the two now cowering women.

"Spit it out." Ida says, "Or you'll choke."

Bella is tongue-tied. Sophie is forced to talk. "You remember yesterday, we were off to Hada.s.sah. Denny was going to drive us, but Abe did instead. No big deal."

"You got into a car with Abe Waller?" Ida says, surprised.

"And?" Evvie says, annoyed. "What's with the two-second explanation? Why didn't Denny drive and why did Abe?"

Sophie, putting her hands on her hips, continues reluctantly. "Abe said a pipe burst in his sink and he needed Denny to fix it right away. And Abe asked where we were off to and then he said he was going to Margate, too, and gave us a lift. End of story."

I pick up the phone and dial Denny's number. Since he is our fixer-upper, I have his number memorized. Denny answers.

"Hi, Denny, it's Mrs. Gold." I listen. "Yes, I think Enya's much better. Thank you for asking. Just have a question. Did Abe Waller have a big problem with his kitchen sink yesterday? I heard it was flooding." I listen again. "Thanks a lot. Bye."

When I hang up, I say, "Denny said the washer came off. It took him a minute to put it back on, and there was never any flooding."

"Wow!" says Joe.

Bella shakes Evvie's arm. "What does that mean? What?"

Jack says, "It means that Abe might have taken the washer off himself and left the faucet running."

Sophie, arms still crossed, says, "So?"

Ida pokes her in the shoulder. "So it means he might have lied, and why do you think he might have done that?"

Sophie says, "I have no idea. You punch me again, I'm gonna punch you back."

Evvie says, "It could mean that he wanted to get Denny away from you so he could drive you to Hada.s.sah."

Bella is practically in tears. "How were we supposed to know that?"

Ida is next. "How come it didn't make you wonder? Abe is not friendly. He never talks to anyone, except for Stanley. Have you ever seen him have anything to do with any of us?"

Sophie says nastily, "Big deal. We needed a ride. He offered."

Jack says gently, "Bella, Sophie, try to remember what you talked about in his car. You did have a conversation, didn't you?"

Bella nods eagerly. She can handle that. "He wanted to know what was happening with the skeleton and we told him Gladdy was still on the case, and he said Gladdy is real smart and we said she sure is and she's at the police station right now telling Morrie what she knows. And then when we got there, he opened the door for us like a gentleman." She stops, out of breath.

"Oh, my G.o.d," says Evvie.

"The skeleton?" Joe says, surprised. "He wanted to know about the skeleton? And if he wanted to know about the skeleton, why didn't he ask Stanley?"

"Precisely why he got the girls in his car," I say. "He's already asked Stanley about it too many times. He didn't dare arouse Stanley's suspicion."

Ida mutters under her breath, "He went to the two weakest links."

Sophie glares at her. Bella hangs her head.

We all look at one another. The skeleton. No more coincidences. In my mind I can already connect the dots.

41.

The Skeleton Connection

We've gone back and forth on this subject ad nauseam and discussion is still going strong. The noise level is high. Everyone talks at once. Lots of churning emotion in the air. To move around and stretch their cramped legs, the girls remove the breakfast dishes, but that doesn't stop conversation-they use the see-through cut in the wall between kitchen and dining room. Joe moves into the living room area and stretches out on the couch, still close enough to keep up his share of opinions.

"You shouldn't have gone into his car," says Evvie. "Big mouths, both of you."

Ida adds, "And then you don't tell us about it?"

"Enough already," says Sophie, thoroughly disgusted. "You never would've cracked the case if we hadn't. So as far as we're concerned"-she puts her arm around Bella-"without us, you never would've made the skeleton connection!"

"Yeah!" echoes Bella, "we're the heroines here."

"Some heroines. You've put Enya and Glad in danger," Evvie says angrily.

Joe says, "We're close. We'll watch over Enya, won't we, sugar pie?" Evvie nods in agreement.

Ida adds, "And I'm sure Jack will take care of Gladdy."

I glance over at her, listening for her usual sarcasm, but I don't detect any. Maybe she means what she says.

Jack salutes Ida.

We're spinning out of control. I rap on the dining room table. "Enough with the bickering. Let's put our thoughts in order." Jack leans back in his chair, watching me trying, yet again, to keep the girls on track.

Evvie reaches in her purse for the notebook that's always there. "Okay, shoot. I'll get it all down."

"First," I say, "and most important-as far as everyone outside this room is concerned, Enya did not have an . . . episode. She has the flu. All that banging was a call for help. We need a cleanup crew to put her apartment back in some order. Anyone asks questions, repairs are still from the hurricane."

Ida comments, "Lucky you were the only ones to walk in and see the mess. Hey, what about Mary?"

Evvie says, "We can trust her to keep quiet." She glares at Sophie and Bella. "Unlike some others."

Joe says to her, "Don't start again."

"Okay, okay." Evvie backs off.

Ida paces. Everyone watches her do laps around the table. She says, "What did she say, his face was different?"

Evvie says, "That could have been because of the beard." She starts to do stretching exercises. And of course her shadow, Joe, leaps off the couch to follow suit.

Now Sophie moves into the living room area and jumps up and down in place. And here goes Bella, who has to copy her actions.

Evvie adds as she does neck rolls, "And she said that he was big and heavy."

Sophie says, puffing, "So he lost weight by the time he got here."

By now they are all moving in different directions. "Could we all stay in one place?" I ask. "You're making me dizzy. Do you want to take a break?"

Everyone hurries back to their seats. "No, let's keep on," Evvie says.

However, we do take a few minutes to refill coffee cups and water gla.s.ses.

"But Abe is Orthodox," Bella says.

Evvie says what I guess some of us are thinking: "What more evil way for a n.a.z.i to hide?"

We are quiet for a few moments, imagining the horror of that.

Jack asks, "What are your thoughts on discussing this with Stanley?"

Again everyone talks at once.

"He'll have a heart attack," says Bella.

"He won't believe us," says Joe. "Not in a million years."

"He'll go right to Abe and tell him!" Ida says. "Stanley will never forgive us."

I hold my hands up. "Okay, table that. We don't say anything yet."

Jack says, "Let's review our logic. The skeleton is unearthed because of the hurricane. Stanley a.s.sumes, by where the body was found, that it had to have been buried at the time the condos were built, in 1958. A worker, a guy named Johnny Blake, went missing, so it was deduced that it must be his body. First we suspect some kind of accident. The police tell us, no accident-his head was crushed- it was murder.

"Gladdy and Stanley go to Tampa and find out Johnny Blake died six months earlier than that fateful night, right off the dock near where he lived and his body was found, and buried at a nearby church. His sister, Lucy, says she believes foul play.

"The forensics lab reports what they discover from the bones. Their findings show that it couldn't have been Johnny Blake of Tampa, nor could it be the man posing as Johnny Blake here. However, because of Lucy's P.O. box number, we know for sure there is a definite connection. So now let's call this unknown man X."

I add, "Lucy also tells us the s.h.i.+p her brother was on came from Argentina."