The Blood Lie (9 page)

“Later, Gus. I'm hoping I won't need to go that far.”

“Attaboy.”

Harry and Jack were sitting on the front steps shucking the last of the corn into a paper bag when the police car pulled up to the house.

“What now?” asked Harry.

“Come on,” Jack said, brushing corn silk from his trousers and moving quickly down the steps. He didn't want the trooper to get to the front door. His parents were inside, putting Martha to bed.

“Is your father at home?” Victor asked as he approached the boys in the driveway.

“No,” Jack lied. “Can I help you with something?”

“It's about his establishment. I need to check it.”

Jack nudged himself in front of Harry. “Establishment? The store? Check the store?”

“Yeah, have a look around. The Durham girl is nowhere to be found. So we're going to search the places of business.”

“You're going to check
all
the businesses in town? Even the farms?”

“Not all.”

“Just the Jewish businesses. That's what you mean, isn't it?”

Victor wouldn't look at him. He stroked his mustache and watched the moths orbiting the lantern on the porch.

“It's ten at night,” Jack said. “You need to get into the store now?”

“The sooner the better.”

“Well, our father's not home. I'll let you in. Hold on, let me get the key.” Pulling Harry along with him, Jack went inside and grabbed the spare store key that hung from a pantry hook. “Don't say anything to Mama or Pa until they figure out I'm gone.”

“Are you kidding? They'll have our heads for this.”

“Don't worry, I'll take all the blame. Close the door behind me, would you?”

Jack ran out of the house. “You have no right to do this,” he told Victor as they headed for the car.

“I'm afraid I do, kid,” Victor said, opening the back door. “I have every right when a child's life is at stake. Now get in.”

Jack fell into the seat. He'd never been in a police car and thought he never would. It smelled like cigarettes and rubber.

As Victor pulled away from the curb and drove down the street, Jack's head filled with nightmarish images. He saw his baseball team huddled up the way they did right before a game started. Of course, Jack wasn't in the huddle, because he was never at the Saturday games. But Moose Doyle was there. Trooper Brown was there too. So was automobile king Henry Ford, who'd recently published
The International Jew: The World's Foremost Problem
, and he was handing out free copies of his book. Joining the group was a pack of men Jack didn't recognize at first. Then he realized it was the gang that had lynched Leo Frank in Atlanta.

Poor Leo Frank. He was the manager of the National Pencil Factory in 1913 when a thirteen-year-old girl who worked there was found strangled. Leo Frank was accused of murder and convicted on circumstantial evidence. But before he could begin serving his life-imprisonment sentence, he was kidnapped and hanged by a group that included a former governor, the son of a U.S. Senator, bankers, doctors and a sheriff. None of the lynchers were prosecuted. Half the Jews in Georgia fled the state.

Jack tried to move to a different part of his mind. The opening chords of the concerto in C minor. The solid feeling of the cello between his knees. The warmth of the carved maple neck against his thumb. But it was no use.

Victor pulled in front of Pool's Dry Goods, where ten or maybe fifteen men were standing on the curb, drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes, as if they'd been waiting for them. They raised their cups in salute and moved aside to let the trooper park.

Jack suddenly felt compelled to study the faces in the
crowd—to watch and memorize them—but he fought the urge. He didn't want them to see the fear in his eyes, and he didn't want to see the hate in theirs. Instead, he gazed upward, where he saw a smashed egg drizzling down the store sign. He wondered if Gus Poulos had provided the egg from the diner.

Then Victor was opening his door and motioning him out of the car, telling the crowd to make way. Jack took the key from his pocket, and, with imaginary blinders on, unlocked the store and disappeared inside, Victor at his heels.

Jack hit the light switch, and Victor started walking the perimeter of the store. He probed the racks of trousers and felt behind the cabinets. He stood on tiptoes to check the wall shelves. Then he poked his head into the fitting room and the tiny bathroom in the back.

Jack stepped away from the door so the crowd outside couldn't see him.
My God
, he thought, watching Victor open cupboards and drawers.
He actually expects to find little body parts scattered around. He thinks he's going to uncover fingers and kneecaps, teeth and organs, if he just looks hard enough.

“Holy Jesus!” said Victor from the shoe closet.

“Sir?”

“Aw, hell,” Victor grumbled, “it's just a mannequin on its side. There a basement here?”

Jack pointed to the staircase between the men's jackets and the women's flannels. Victor headed down and started turning over shipping crates, shoving aside spare tables, and rifling through merchandise.
He's wrecking the place
, Jack realized,
and he's going to leave the mess for me to pick up.

Then an even worse thought gripped him: the Sabbath wine! Mr. Pool hid the wine bottles in the basement joists—
in the fourth row from the left, to be precise, so he could always find with his hands what he couldn't with his eyes. If the trooper found the illegal alcohol, what would he do? Fortunately, Victor never looked up.

“All right,” said Victor, rounding the top of the stairs, “let's get you home. I've got a long night ahead. Go on to the car.”

Jack didn't go on though. He was waiting for the trooper to finish his thought—to apologize, or at least to thank Jack for his cooperation. It didn't happen. Finally, Jack did as he was told.

The crowd rushed closer when the store door reopened. “Didja find her?” one shadow asked. Another called out, “Fools, go back in there!” And then they all started jabbering at once. Jack quickly locked the store door and ducked into the car, turning his back on all of them. If any of his baseball team was there, he didn't want to know. If any of his neighbors, teachers, or so-called friends were out there, he didn't want to know that, either. Better to let them be a faceless swarm of bugs.

Victor, still standing on the sidewalk, cleared his throat. “Gentlemen. Gentlemen, please. We're making progress, and now I advise you all to go home. We'll keep you apprised. In the meantime, please clear the sidewalk and the road.”

The gang grumbled, nodded, swore, spat and kicked the curb as Victor got into the car. He pulled out and made a U-turn that sent half the auto up on the opposite sidewalk. An egg arched through the air before smashing on a rear tire.

One of Jack's cello solos started playing in his head,
one that began
agitato
—played in an agitated mood—and progressed to
furioso
—furious. Yes, that was exactly how he felt,
agitato
and
furioso
. Then his mind gave way to a different score, one that was
pesante
—heavy—and
mèsto
—mournful. Knotting his fingers together, he could feel the torn skin where the potato knife had sliced him, and he wondered how long it would take to heal.
As long as it's all right in time for Syracuse. As long as I can still play my music.

The trip home felt much shorter than the trip to the store. It seemed like the egg was still smacking against the tire when the car jerked to a stop at the foot of the Pool's driveway. Jack's parents were planted like solemn statues on the front stoop. It was going to be a long night for everyone, and they all knew it.

Emaline bolted upright in bed.

“Em, what is it?” asked Lydie, who was lying next to her in the bed.

“I had a crazy, awful dream, it was about Daisy, she was in a boat on the river—no, not exactly, more like a raft on a pond, she was calling to me, she was saying…
God, I can't remember what it was
.”

Emaline swung her feet onto the floor and covered her face with her hands. “It felt so real, what if it means something, what if it's a clue?—if I could just bring it back.” It was no use, though. The dream had vanished.

“I don't believe in that stuff,” Lydie said firmly, putting her hand on Emaline's back. “Dreams are dreams, and real life is real life, and that's all.”

“I guess so. Sorry I woke you.”

“No need. Listen, I hear your mother in the kitchen. How about we go keep her company?”

Jack watched his mother step cautiously to the phone stand in the hallway. After resting her hand on the receiver for several seconds, she picked it up and asked the operator to connect her to the rabbi's house. There was no answer. Next, she asked for Sophie Popkin, but immediately remembered that the Popkins were out of town for the holy days. “Put me through to Anna Friedman instead, would you?” she said.

“Hello, Anna, this is Eva Pool. Forgive me for calling so late—I know it's after eleven…I am well, thank you. I just wanted to let you know that you might be getting a visitor tonight…No, not that. It's in connection with the little girl who's gone missing… Yes, it's terrible, isn't it? Do you know the family?…Anyway, there's a search going on, and the police are making some stops, so don't be surprised if you hear from them…You're most welcome. Perhaps I'll call again later tonight or in the morning then? Good-bye, dear.”

“Mama, that's never going to work,” Jack said. “You need to be more direct if you want anyone to understand that their store is about to get raided.”