gingerly tried the whitewashed sash of the window on the ground floor. It seemed loose in its place but wouldn’t lift. She knew from experience that everything stuck in old houses. That didn’t mean it was locked. She braced herself and pushed hard against gravity and old paint and damp-expanded wood. The window moved. Marginally. She was dogged about it and pushed the sash up an inch at a time till there was an opening wide enough. She wondered what the College of Physicians and Surgeons would say if they could see her. One more cursory glance at the blankeyed windows of the houses opposite, then she heaved herself up one leg at a time, wondering why, at her weight, it was still so hard to lift those bones a few feet. She fought with the drapes inside the room before finding herself crouched on top of Goldie’s dresser. Some tubes and jars clattered beneath her.
There was less debris in the room than she remembered, the remainder no doubt divided onto glass slides in the forensics lab. What could she possibly find that they hadn’t?
Creeping up the hall — why was she creeping? — she could see there had been no attempt to clean up the apartment. The police had collected their samples, then left without looking back. So much for civic responsibility.
She headed to the living-room, drawn by some ghoulish force. Goldie was gone, there was no blood, no bodily evidence to mark her final resting-place. Nevertheless Rebecca knelt down near the spot, trying to evoke earlier memories of Goldie than the image of her that had imprinted itself on the inside of Rebecca’s eyelids.
She had to get on with it. Who was she feeling sorry for anyway? Goldie, or herself?
Rebecca began methodically opening drawers in the dining-room and kitchen, then in Goldie’s bedroom and the den. She went through every paper she could find, foraging in the apartment for nearly two hours. So far, she had come up empty.
The last stop was the spare bedroom near the front. She had the least hope for it since it appeared unlived in. The closet had been trashed, its contents helter-skelter on the floor. Nothing of interest: old shoes, sweaters, blankets. The top drawer of the dresser had been left pulled out. She searched it and pulled out the other drawers in a cursory shuffle if only to convince herself she had looked. Then she found them. In the bottom drawer, pale blue against the nightgowns and slips lay a sheaf of airmail envelopes bound with an elastic. The police had found them and hadn’t bothered with them.
The top envelope was written in a rounded European hand addressed to Mrs. Goldie Kochinsky in Argentina. Rebecca slipped off the elastic. All the envelopes were the same. The return address from Chana Feldberg on Bathurst Street in Toronto. Rebecca pulled out a letter and sighed. It was written in Polish. At least she assumed it was Polish, the strange dots over letters and strokes through l’s. It certainly wasn’t Spanish.
Suddenly a noise startled her. A key turned in the apartment door. Someone was stepping in. She held her breath while the blood began to roar in her ears.
chapter twenty-five
Rebecca quickly noted the window in the small room. It would take too long to open and would make too much noise. The closet in the corner. If she could make it to the closet without creaking the floor. A pounding, like a surf, began in her ears.
The intruder had stepped into the hall and stopped. Rebecca turned her body, slowly trying to head for the closet. Clothes lay strewn on the floor. Her feet prodded the ground gingerly before each step. The surf rose in her ears.
The intruder moved through the living-room. Rebecca caught the toe of her running shoe in a sweater on the floor. It made a slight shuffling noise that she hoped would not be noticed. No such luck.
“Is someone there?” said a voice Rebecca recognized. The intruder appeared in the doorway of the small room and turned on the light.
“What are you doing here, Doctor?” asked Feldberg.
He was small, she thought. I’m only in trouble if he has a weapon. “I could ask you the same thing,” she said. His chin rose in a self-righteous thrust. “I wanted to see the condition of the apartment. What needed to be done. I helped her with the maintenance while she was alive. She was my sister-in-law, after all. I have a right.”
The beat of the ocean receded from Rebecca’s ears. She bridled at his gall. Goldie had dealt with everything herself. He needed a good jolt of reality.
“Perhaps you want to take responsibility for cleaning it up then.”
His thin lips twisted as he looked around. “I’m going to call and complain to the police. They’ll have to send someone.” His eyes moved down to her hands and his expression shifted, resolved at the sight of the letters.
He stepped closer to the door, then held out his palm before her, ready to receive them. “I believe that is my property,” he said, the German accent more guttural.
Suddenly the letters took on a new light. She quickly bundled up the envelopes and put them in her purse. “This is something Goldie left for me,” she said.
She tried to step past him in the hall. He grabbed her arm and held her fast. “Are those the letters of my wife?”
Size wasn’t everything, she realized. His grip was iron hard. She was in pitiful shape in comparison.
“Certainly not. I wouldn’t keep letters from your wife.” She counted a heartbeat. “My secretary’s waiting for me outside.” She looked down pointedly at his hand on her arm.
For long seconds he seemed to be weighing his options. Then his iron fingers released her with reluctance. She scooped up her jacket and hurried out the front door.
Rebecca had trouble concentrating that afternoon in the office. She was relieved the problems her patients brought her that day were relatively simple ones. Flus, birth control problems, stomach ailments. Iris had given her an odd look several times and Rebecca wondered if her distraction was showing. She would not compromise the care of her patients. If she had to take off more time, she would.
At the end of the day she eased into a chair near Iris, who was finishing some paperwork. All Rebecca could think of was the sheaf of letters that lay undeciphered in her purse. Who did she know who spoke Polish?
“You must’ve been out late last night,” Iris said without looking up.
Rebecca shifted gears. She hadn’t mentioned the trip to the club or the police. “Did you call?”
“Twice. Did you get my message?”
“I didn’t check my phone. I just went straight to bed.”
Iris finally looked up from her papers. “Are you all right?”
Rebecca was unwilling to drag her friend into her own troubles. She didn’t want anyone else on her conscience. “You’re always telling me to go out, so I went out.”
Iris pulled her glasses down to perch on her nose and observe Rebecca. “You look tired,” she said. “Come for dinner tonight. Joe and Martha are coming. They’d love to see you again.”
Rebecca wasn’t in the mood for company. She stood up. “I know what I need,” she said, trying to sound more cheerful than she felt. “It’s a good day for a brisk walk.”
As soon as she closed the door to her inner office, Rebecca looked up the number of the bakery.
