Читать книгу Rebecca Temple Mysteries 3-Book Bundle - Sylvia Maultash Warsh - Страница 23

Thursday, April 5, 1979

Bubie’s Bakery was on Eglinton, one and a half blocks from Mrs. Kochinsky’s duplex. Rebecca used to come here for bread when she still had an appetite, before David died. Before she had lost the insulating flesh on her bones. She was always surprised when she came across herself unexpectedly, like this morning in the paper. She had unfolded it and scanned the front page till she found the headline: “Senior Strangled in Own Home/Police Follow Lead.” At first she didn’t recognize herself in the photo, a grim, distracted shot. It was Mrs. Kochinsky’s duplex, the front yard skirted by police tape, that caught her eye. Then her own face, grey and blurry in the foreground. She couldn’t say it was a bad likeness of her, only one she would have preferred to keep shut away in a mirror in the privacy of her bedroom where she could still convince herself she was alive and well. She pictured the killer scrutinizing the photo. It would just make it that much easier for him. At least the reporter had gotten very little information from the police. Her name was not mentioned, nor any important details of the crime. She supposed she ought to be grateful.

In the bakery two elderly women in white uniforms stood behind the counter serving a few customers when Rebecca entered. The satisfying aroma of baking bread swelled from the back in a pervasive cloud.

“Can I help you?” one of the women addressed Rebecca in a Yiddish accent. Her stylishly short hair was dyed reddish brown; her eyes sparkled.

“I’m looking for Rosie,” said Rebecca across the glass shelves of rolls and pastries. Which of the two would it be?

“That’s me,” said the woman surprised. “I’m Rosie.”

“I’m Goldie Kochinsky’s doctor, Rebecca Temple.”

The sparkle went out of her eyes. “She’s sick, God forbid? I yesterday wondered where she is. I tried phone her ” She stopped, seeing something in Rebecca’s face.

“You haven’t read the paper?” said Rebecca.

The woman wavered on the spot, her round face turning pale. “Newspapers I don’t read. Too depressing.” She motioned Rebecca to move toward the back door where they could speak directly over a counter rather than across shelves of kaiser buns and danishes.

“If it’s in the papers, it must be bad.”

Rebecca told her as gently as she could, if one could relate a brutal act in any terms but violent. She hated being the bearer of bad news, though as a doctor she was thrust into that role too often.

Rosie held onto the counter for support.

“Rose,” the other server called out, “there are customers here!”

Suddenly in the doorway leading to the back, a large lumpy man in an undershirt smeared with flour appeared. Displeasure with Rosie turned into puzzlement as he watched her lead Rebecca past him into the back.

“Oy, this is no good, I gotta sit down.” Rosie held her stomach as if she suddenly had a bellyache, then collapsed into a floury chair. Her eyes clouded over; a tear drifted quietly down her cheek.

“I don’t understand,” she said, her voice cracking. “Goldie’s

dead? Murdered in her house? No, I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it.” She sat doubled over a moment, tears dropping on the tile floor mixing with the flour.

Finally she sat up with a deep sigh. “Why would someone do this?”

“You have any idea?”

Rosie wiped a tear then flapped her hand through the air. “She could drive you crazy, but to kill her...”

“Did she tell you about her past? Where she came from?”

“Ach! The background, very bad. Terrible things she went through. This drove her crazy. Sometimes I remember, a customer walk into store and she runs to the back. ‘He’s here for me,’ she says. ‘He’s gonna get me.’ The guy walk out. Nothing.” Rosie tapped her index finger against her temple. “I felt sorry, but what I could do?”

“Did you see her Tuesday?”

Rosie thought. “Only in the morning. She worked till maybe lunch. Then she went somewhere. Downtown, I think.”

“Wasn’t that unusual?” Rebecca asked.

“Sure. I was surprised. She had to go on the bus.”

“Did she say where she was going?”

“To be honest I didn’t pay attention. She was telling me while I was serving a customer and ... well, I loved her but she could drive you crazy with her stories.”

Rosie got up abruptly and took a few steps to a corner where her purse leaned against the wall. She retrieved her wallet and from it she handed a photo to Rebecca. In the photo, Rosie and Goldie stood in the bakery, shoulder to shoulder, happily grinning at the camera. Rebecca felt a pang of loss.

“You know, must’ve been a store,” Rosie said, ruminating. “The place she went Tuesday. I remember something. I know sounds funny, but I think the name was after a river.”

So she hadn’t just gone shopping. Rebecca recalled the confusion with Goldie’s English the day the poor woman had run into the office. Rebecca had heard a verb where Goldie had meant a noun. The cousin had asked her for a shop, a particular shop, not to go shopping, as Rebecca had understood.

“A river?”

“You know, in the name. A famous river.”

“You mean like the ‘Mississippi’ Shoe Store?”

Rosie stared at her bleakly. “I’m sorry, I only trying to help.”

“I’m not making fun of you,” said Rebecca. “I’m just thinking out loud. Would it make any difference if I told you the place was within walking distance of Beverley and Dundas?”

She shook her head. “You know more than me.”

“She came to me very frightened Tuesday afternoon,” Rebecca said. “All I know is she walked to my office from wherever she was. She was killed that night.”

“She came to you before she was killed?” Rosie watched her horrified and perplexed. The unstated question: Why didn’t you do something?

A lump formed in Rebecca’s throat. “Could I borrow this photo?” she asked. “I’ll get it back to you.”

Rebecca felt the woman’s uncomprehending eyes follow her as she left the store.