The Passover Murder by Lee Harris Read Free Book Online

happened.”
    “You said your brother went looking for her.”
    “He walked around the block, and when he came back, he saw the police car and came upstairs.”
    “And you called Iris’s number.”
    “A hundred times. In the morning my brother called the police and said she hadn’t been seen all night. They don’t investigate right away, you know.”
    “I know.”
    “By the time they were ready to get started, someone found her body.”
    “How long had she been dead?”
    “Long enough that they were pretty sure she’d been killed on the first night of Passover.”
    “So all your fears were well founded,” I said.
    “All our fears, the ones we admitted to and the others, the ones we couldn’t bring ourselves to think.”
    “What was she wearing when they found her?”
    “Her coat,” she said, as though that were the important thing. “She was wearing her new winter coat.”
    “Were there signs of sexual abuse?”
    “None.”
    “What about jewelry?”
    “Now I have to think. What I remember is that she was wearing a gold ring, but I think everything else was gone, her watch, her bracelet, whatever she was wearing on her dress.”
    “And her purse?”
    “It was never found.”
    “Mom,” Mel said, “I thought they found—”
    “They never found anything,” Marilyn said firmly. “And that’s the whole story, Chris. The police came and questioned everyone who had been at the seder. They were very nice, very polite. They took notes and asked if there was anything else we wanted to say, any ideas we had on who could have done this, but of course, nobody had any ideas at all. My father was a wreck. My mother almost had a nervous breakdown over it But they never came up with anything.”
    “Did they talk to Shirley Finster?”
    “They must have. They asked for names of people she worked with and friends and neighbors, and I’m sure we all gave them whatever we knew.”
    “Do you have a theory of your own?” I asked.
    “I never thought of it as a theory. You can imagine I’ve given a lot of thought to what happened to her. One possibility is that she didn’t feel well and instead of worrying us, she grabbed her coat and bag and went downstairs to find a cab and go home. While she was waiting, some stranger grabbed her. If that’s what happened, it’s as good as saying there’s no answer. The other possibility is that she met someone for some reason and he killed her. But I can’t tell you why. If that’s what happened, she would have gone downstairs to meet whoever it was, give him or tell him whatever she had to give or tell, and planned to come back up before anyone ever noticed she was missing. That’s why she had her coat and purse with her. And if I have a theory, that’s my theory.”
    She looked very worn and I said, “Let’s take a break.”
    “Good idea,” Mel said. “I’ll just boil some water and we’ll have tea.”
    “I can use a cup,” her mother said.

5
    We talked about other things while we had tea and cake. Marilyn walked over to the window where Mel kept an arrangement of beautiful plants and admired how healthy they looked. I sat and glanced over the notes I had taken. Whatever I had hoped to learn from Marilyn, it wasn’t there. As I reviewed what she had said, what popped out at me was the idea that Iris had simply not felt well and decided to go home without making an issue of it. As theories go, it satisfied all the facts I knew, that she had taken her purse and coat, that she had volunteered to open the door for Elijah to excuse herself from the table, that wherever the apartment was located, New York streets are not always the safest place for a single woman to walk at night.
    I accepted another cup of tea and removed myself from the mother and daughter, who had begun a conversation that did not involve me. Holding my cup, I sauntered out into the living room. The sun was streaming into the room, highlighting the pieces of colored glass on tables and