paper wasn’t the only source of his angst. On the corner of the desk, next to the photo taken at his police academy graduation, was a book written about the Holocaust. If his interpretation of the carbon paper dated May 1944 was correct, 300,000 Hungarian Jews were on their way to the gas chamber at Auschwitz the same year that the U.S. Fifteenth Air Force began operations from bases in Italy. A single five hundred pound bomb dropped from the belly of a B-17 could’ve put the killing machine out of operation.
Perhaps he was naïve to think the millions shoved into the crematoria would’ve lived if the Allies acted. But, the country he thought to be the champion of freedom did nothing.
Rosa unplugged the vacuum, picked up the bucket and garbage bag, and moved into the dining room. “Mio Dio! What is this?”
“Don’t touch anything on the table. I spent most of last night organizing it,” Joe shouted.
“Mr. Swedge makes my skin itch,” Rosa said.
The door bell rang. “Be a good girl and answer the door,” Joe asked.
Rosa mumbled something Joe couldn’t quite make out as she went to the front of the house. Roxy raced down the steps. “You, stay!” Rosa said as she opened the door. The dog circled back to the base of the steps. “Joe, there’s a woman who wants to see you.”
Joe slipped on his sneakers and grabbed the five-iron suspended on the edge of the desk. Slowly, he rose from the chair barely able to put weight on his right leg that was stiff from sitting for three hours. He hobbled through the dining room. Pausing in the hall, Joe tucked his T-shirt into his Levis.
Watching from the kitchen, Rosa said, “Give her the bracelet.”
“It’s manners to invite a person in,” Joe needled as he pat his pocket and gave her the thumbs up. Looking through the glass sidelight, he was surprised to see Ruth Ritchie standing on the landing. Ruth had exchanged the lime green pantsuit for a demure black dress. Her hair, out of the bun, was shoulder length. A pearl necklace replaced the gold cross. She had lost the tough momma look and twenty years.
Joe checked Roxy who sat at the base of the stairs, then opened the door. Ruth held out three books bundled by twine. “These were found in the master bedroom study. Since you took his papers, I thought you might be interested. If you’re not, throw them in the garbage. I’m finished across the street.” The roar of a winch echoed across the street as the garbage dumpster was hauled onto the flatbed of a truck dispatched by the disposal company.
Joe took the bundle, visualizing the converted dressing area. “The bookshelves were empty except for the yearbook.”
“One of my employees lost the backing from an earring. She found it stuck between two floor boards,” Ruth said, straightening her pearls. “When she used the blade of a pocket knife to pry the backing out, one of the boards moved. A lot of the older houses have spots where owners kept jewelry and valuables. Thinking that she was onto the greatest find since gold was discovered in California, she pried up the board to reveal a compartment below.”
Before he could say a word, Ruth turned on her heels and walked down the steps to a new Cadillac Seville parked in the driveway.
Joe watched her drive away. He knew he had been in the presence of a female Barnum who played to her audience of bargain hunters. Ruth convinced the skeptics that they had in their hands a “find” and get them to pay a premium for the right to take it home.
Joe flipped the door closed with his left foot. Rosa never moved from the kitchen doorway. “Different girlfriend,” Joe said. He carried the new found bounty to the dinette table in the kitchen.
Rosa turned her attention to dishes Joe left in the sink. “You’re going crazy.”
“That’s what all the ladies tell me.” He rotated the bundle under the light of the Tiffany fixture. It wasn’t twine like he used to bundle newspapers for recycling, but a rough thistle his mother employed to stake tomato plants in her Brooklyn vegetable garden. From a butcher block cube kept near the stove, Joe removed a steak knife and cut the cord. Two of the books were bound in the same cordovan leather as Preston’s passport cover. The third bore a black and green flecked cardboard cover of a basic composition book