Donna Andrews - Chesapeake Crimes - This Job Is Murder!

“Nice to meet you. I’m Saul,” he said as we shook hands. His accent sounded Eastern European. “Terrible thing that’s happened. Just terrible.”

“Dad witnessed the accident,” Marjorie said. “None of the rest of us were home,” she added quickly. A bit too quickly, if you ask me.

“What did Mr. Goldenblatt trip on?” I asked Saul.

“My kitten,” Lauren, the youngest girl, said, her gaze glued to the feline in her arms. “Squeaker didn’t mean to do it!”

“I’m sure she didn’t,” I said. Especially since I didn’t buy the story for a minute.

“Come,” Saul said, as he grabbed a pretzel from a bowl on the counter. “I’ll show you where it happened.”

He wheeled himself toward the front of the house, munching, the wooden floor creaking underneath. “I’m sure the rabbi meant well in sending you over,” he said when we were out of earshot of the kitchen. “But I think it’s best if the girls don’t dwell on this.”

He stopped by the front door, clearly wanting me to leave. But I had a job to do.

I turned to the long staircase. “Is this where Mr. Goldenblatt fell?”

“Yeah.” Saul rolled up beside me. “The kitten came out of nowhere. Bruce was on his way up, tripped, and fell to the bottom. Poor Lauren’s been blaming herself. I really wish she wouldn’t.”

“It’s her cat?” I asked.

“Yep.” He nodded. “For good now.”

“What do you mean?”

“Lauren only got the kitten a couple months ago. Bruce was terribly allergic. He wanted her to take it back to the pound, but Lauren’s attached to Squeaker. She desperately wanted to keep her. Marjorie told Bruce he should keep trying the allergy shots, though to be fair they weren’t working.” He shrugged. “So now the girl has no father, but she has a cat. Not the best trade off, if you ask me.”

Me either. Now all the women in the house had a motive. The yelling in the kitchen resumed, something about chicken or fish. At least they weren’t considering pork.

“That must have been a horrible thing to see,” I said.

Saul stared at the floor. “Yeah, it was terrible.”

Was the old man covering for someone? One of them could have pushed Bruce down the stairs. Did the mother care more about throwing a fancy wedding and sending her daughter to an expensive college than she did about her husband? Or was the bride so selfish that she’d kill her father for the life insurance money? Or her sister with the nickname-was attending some impressive school that important to her? Or the youngest one? Did she choose a kitten over her father?

Sheesh. I’d like to believe none of them was capable of such a horror. Unfortunately I feared otherwise.

“You live here?” I asked Saul.

“Yeah, ever since my Estelle died five years ago.” He nodded at a room off the hallway. “Moved in there. It used to be Bruce’s home office, but he was nice enough to convert it into a bedroom for me.” He rolled closer. “Look, Mr. Bookman, I want you to know, these girls loved their father. And Marjorie loved her husband. I know how it must have sounded back there. So much bickering, especially at a time like this. But that’s just their way.”

I bent down so Saul and I would be eye to eye, and I laid a hand on his arm. “It must be hard for you, being the only man in the house. Now that Bruce is gone, you’re their protector.”

He nodded. “Not that I’m really needed. Marjorie’s a very strong woman.”

“Do you go to shul , Saul?” I asked, rising.

“Synagogue? Of course, on the High Holy Days. It’s not so easy getting around with this chair, but I manage. We’ll all go together next week for Rosh Hashanah .”

“A time to ask for forgiveness of sins.” I began pacing. “There are many sins in this world. It can often seem confusing. If you’re trying to help someone you love-to protect them from the consequences of something they’ve done-is that a sin?”

Saul sat quietly for a moment. “I’d like to think that when God closes the Book of Life each Yom Kippur , that he considers everything a person has lived through and everything he’s done, not just one act. We all know good men can do bad things.”

“And good women.”

He stared at me, his lips curling. He wanted to tell me what happened. I could see it.

“Mr. Bookman,” he finally said. “I think you should go.”

“Go? Already?” Marjorie approached us with a plate of rugelach . “You just got here. And I haven’t even offered you anything to eat or drink.”

I wasn’t getting anywhere with Saul. Maybe I could work on Marjorie directly. I turned to her, selected a piece of pastry filled with raisins, and smiled. “A glass of water would be nice. Thank you.”

Saul wheeled to his bedroom, muttering to himself, while I followed Marjorie to the kitchen.

An hour later, my stomach was stuffed, my head was pounding from all the yelling, and I knew more about the impending wedding than anyone would ever want to know. (Apparently having the same vase and flowers at every table is out. Each table needs its own “pop of style,” whatever that means.) But I wasn’t any closer to figuring out which of these women needed to unburden herself, and I had the feeling I was wearing out my welcome. I needed to speak to each one alone. But how?

Just then the kitten scampered past. Ah . I glanced up. Thanks .

“Lauren,” I said. “I can tell you feel bad about Squeaker tripping your dad. Why don’t we take a little walk and talk about it?”

“Okay,” she said and hopped off her barstool.

“I hear your dad was allergic to Squeaker,” I said as we entered the hallway, heading toward the front of the house.

She shuffled next to me, focusing on the floor. “Yeah. Anytime Dad was in the same room with Squeaker, his eyes turned red and he started sneezing.”

“Must have been hard for you.”

“Uh huh.” She looked up. “Dad wanted me to give Squeaker back, but Mom convinced him to keep taking the allergy shots. He told me he’d try them for another month, but if things didn’t get any better…”

“How’d that make you feel?”

“Mad. I mean I know it wasn’t Dad’s fault, but why couldn’t I have a pet like everyone else?”

I couldn’t tell if she was just a typical self-involved teen or something worse. I needed to test her.

“You know,” I said as we approached the front staircase, “your grandpa could only see what occurred from a distance. Maybe it just looked like your dad tripped on Squeaker. Maybe he actually tripped on something else. Loose carpeting, perhaps.”

Her eyes lit up. “You think?”

She raced to the stairs and scrutinized each one. I followed her up. She looked so hopeful. She really believed it could be true. A good feeling rose in my heart. She couldn’t have pushed her father.

When we reached the top, she turned to me, shoulders hunched. “I don’t see any loose carpeting. Thanks for trying, Mr. Bookman. I guess Squeaker really is to blame.” She burst into tears and ran down the hall. A moment later, a door slammed and loud music began blaring from behind the door.

Great. I made a child cry. More to repent for.

I bent down to examine the top step. Had God sent me on a wild-goose chase? Could Goldenblatt really have just fallen over the cat? Heck, maybe he threw himself down the stairs to get away from all this squabbling. I needed to talk to the other girls to-

I felt hands on my shoulder blades. Then a shove! I began tumbling down the stairs. Oof! Urk! Hey, my suffering was supposed to be over!

I landed at the bottom and smacked my brow hard against the entryway table’s base. Apples and pears began falling on my head. Lord, what have I done to deserve this?