the dining room with casseroles, salads, breads. Men poured glasses of whiskey or juice. People stood, sat, ate, talked. No one rang the doorbell; you just walked in. Except for the contents of the casseroles, and the black cloths draping the mirrors, it was just like dropping by after a funeral at Wah Wing Sang.
I spoke to Ruth, who sat on a plain wooden stool in her living room. I’m not sure what I said, though “sorry” came into it a lot. I introduced Bill and she thanked him for coming. As I was offering my sympathy to Joel’s son—I told him Joel had talked a lot about him, which made him smile—someone tapped my shoulder.
“Lydia? I’m Leah. I’d have recognized you anywhere.”
I turned to find an angular, gray-haired woman smiling beside me. “Well,” I said, shaking her hand, “I do sort of stand out in this crowd.”
“Not just that. Joel described you perfectly.”
“I’m afraid to ask.”
“ ‘Small, quick, restless.’ He also once said, ‘Much smarter than she knows,’ but I’m sure by now you know.”
“She doesn’t.” Bill arrived with a beer, and a seltzer for me. “But it won’t help to tell her.”
I was afraid I was going to have to squelch this debate about my IQ, but Leah waved over a stocky bald man from across the room. “This is David Rosenberg. From Zurich, that you wanted to talk to. David, this is Lydia Chin, the investigator Joel was working with. And this is her partner, Bill Smith.”
In less somber circumstances I’d have objected to Bill’s unauthorized promotion back into his old job, but in less somber circumstances he’d have smirked. As it was, we all shook hands, and Leah, after suggesting we might have more privacy on the screened porch, left us. We settled ourselves in creaky wicker chairs and watched some kids making a mess of their good clothes by digging in the dirt. A few overgrown shrubs symbolically marked the boundaries of the Pilarsky backyard. Toward the rear rose a surprising and well-tended vegetable patch featuring an even more surprising scarecrow dressed in an old gray suit of Joel’s.
“That’s a little spooky,” I said.
“His daughter Amy once said it was scary how many years Joel could wear the same suit,” David Rosenberg said. “So Joel wondered if it would scare the birds, too.”
“Does it work?”
Rosenberg gazed at the scarecrow with a sad smile. “I don’t think Joel ever scared anything, in person or in effigy. Leah said you have questions for me?”
“Yes. You were one of the last phone calls Joel made. Not long before he died.” I tried for clinical detachment, but I could hear I hadn’t made it. “Alice Fairchild said she’d gotten Joel’s name from a contact in Zurich. Could that have been you?”
“Yes. She called me a few weeks back to ask if I could recommend an investigator who knew his way around Forty-seventh Street. Because I’m originally from New York.”
“Is that why Joel called you? Something about the case?”
“I wish I could say something that could help you, but we really didn’t talk about much of anything.” Rosenberg looked out at the scarecrow again, maybe thinking if he’d known this was his last conversation with his friend he’d have made sure to cover all kinds of topics. “I’ve already told this to the police. He called to thank me for sending Alice his way. He asked about her. I’ve known her for years, slightly. To say hello at cocktail parties, that sort of thing. She didn’t say why she needed an investigator, and I didn’t think it was right to ask.”
“When Joel called, how did he sound? Was he upset, worried?”
“No. Nothing about the conversation seemed urgent. He sounded in a good mood.”
Bill asked, “Can you remember that conversation in any detail?”
Rosenberg shrugged. “I’m a journalist. Remember is my middle name.” He closed his eyes and, one hand going back and forth as though he were following a Ping-Pong game, he started to mutter.
“. . . hey, David, how are you . . .”
“. . . hey, great to hear your voice . . .”
“. . . how’s Ingrid . . .”
“. . . how are Ruth, the kids . . .”
“. . . when are you coming to New York . . .” At that David Rosenberg paused but didn’t open his eyes. “. . . met with this Alice Fairchild day before yesterday, wanted to thank you . . . interesting case, Shanghai ghetto, stolen jewelry . .