Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death Read Online Free Page A

since she got here, and if she did she certainly would not be wearing those precious earrings of hers, which she wears only when she is all dressed up and wants to show them off. To whom would she show them in the kitchen, the man on the Quaker Oats box?”
    “Exactly. So what is left? I suppose it is possible—just barely possible—that the earring fell into the soup as it was being served. But I don’t remember whether Daisy was wearing those earrings at the
seder,
and if she was I don’t think she was wandering around looking into soup bowls and dropping her earrings into them.”
    I had to agree with this also. “So where does that leave us?”
    “I don’t know about you, Ida, but it is leaving me with such a headache, I cannot think any longer. I am going to bed.”
    And that is exactly what she did. With no further information being available, I did the same.

7
    Things got much more complicated the next morning. Mrs. Kaplan and I were just finishing our breakfast—a little yogurt and some fruit for me, an egg and some matzoh for her—and still trying to imagine how that earring ended up choking Mrs. Finkelstein, when two men we had never seen before entered the room. One of them was tall and good-looking and built like that nice Inspector Dalgliesh who used to be on television. He had a pleasant, friendly expression on his face, like he was glad to be here and was just looking around in case his mother might want to move to such a place sometime. The other looked more like that Columbo person who also used to be on television—only shorter and needing more ironing, if you know what I mean. He had thinning hair that he apparently forgot to comb and seemed sort of nervous, looking around like he expected someone to jump out at him and say “Boo!” any second. I nudged Mrs. K and indicated she should look in their direction, which she did. Any time a stranger comes in, it is an occasion for wondering who they might be; two strangers—especially two such unusual strangers—required twice the wondering.
    As we watched, short and wrinkled went over to Mrs. Katz, one of the residents, and asked her a question. She pointed in the direction of Mr. Pupik’s office. He nodded to tall and handsome and they both went back there and knocked on Pupik’s door. It opened, they went in, and it was another fifteen minutes before all four of them came out and went into Bertha Finkelstein’s room. Again they closed the door.
    Meanwhile, Mrs. K and I were getting more and more curious as to what this introduction of new characters was all about. “They do not look like doctors, and they do not look like undertakers, and they certainly do not look like they would be Bertha Finkelstein’s relatives,” said Mrs. K as they were closing the apartment door behind them.
    “Who, then, do you think they are?” I asked her. “And what are they doing here?”
    “I don’t know, Ida,” she said, “but I will bet you bagels to blintzes that we won’t like the answer when we find out.”
    —
    Several minutes later, Mr. Pupik, apparently having finished whatever it was he and the others were doing in Bertha’s apartment, comes up to our table. This is something he never does just to be friendly, so we knew he had something on his mind. And he asked us if Mrs. K would mind coming to his office when we were finished eating. As it was again quite clear it would not matter if we did mind—she should come anyway—as soon as we finished Mrs. K pushed back her chair, stood up, and with a deep sigh said to me, “I wonder what it is Pupik wants from me now. Is it not enough that he implies that my matzoh balls killed poor Bertha Finkelstein? I did not sleep well at all last night worrying about this, and now he wants to go over it again?” She sighed once more.
    “Anyway, Ida, I would like you should come along with me this time, so I don’t have to deal with Pupik by myself.”
    Now our Mrs. Kaplan is no shrinking violet—or