Frank Wolf, Detective

Chapter 2

I took the three flights up to my grandfather’s office two steps at a time. That morning, I had completed my first year law school exams. I was jaunty, sure that I had done well, the day was warm and clear, and I wanted no intellectual burdens for a while. I thought an afternoon out watching a ball game with my grandfather was just what I needed. I planned to pick him up, have a quick lunch, and out to Shea Stadium to see the Mets take on the hated Dodgers.

I burst into his office. The sign on the door’s smoked glass read: FRANK WOLF DETECTIVE AGENCY. Grandfather was sitting in his swivel chair with feet propped on his desk cluttered with newspapers, magazines, and books. He was reading a Ross Macdonald novel. Bookcases covered every wall. It was warm in the office, but a single window that looked out to the next building’s red brick facade was fully open, and an incoming breeze made it bearable.

FRANK WOLF DETECTIVE AGENCY“Hello Zaida,” I said using the Yiddish word for grandfather. “Tell Lew Archer you’ve got to go because I’ve got plans for us!”

Grandfather didn’t answer. He didn’t move his eyes from his reading. I should have known that he wouldn’t. When he read, he wished his family to understand that he was not to be disturbed with anything unimportant until he came to a natural point of interruption. When reading a novel, it was at the end of a chapter when he would look up to see if anyone had anything to say to him.

I just couldn’t wait for his natural pause. If he had just started a chapter, I might have needed to delay speaking up to a half hour. By that time it would be too late for the game. I chose to risk his annoyance and announced my plans for the afternoon.

“Nuh,” he said with a pinched smile. He spoke English with a cultured European accent. “I know for you to talk into my reading means to go to the Shea must be important. But how can I help you? You see,” he said with a sweeping gesture, “I am at my occupation. Can I leave the office on a business day?”

My first impulse was to tell the truth. It may have been weeks since anyone besides me or my mother had walked into his office unannounced. He was lucky to get a call a week from a prospective client. I grandly thought myself not stupid. I had studied some psychology and had done well in a recent moot court competition. If the truth would hurt Grandfather’s feelings and make him at the same time resistant, why shouldn’t I speak around the truth?

Accordingly, I said: “Zaida, you deserve a half day off once in a while. If a client calls or comes to the office, I’m sure they’ll leave a message or try again tomorrow.”

Grandfather nodded as if what I said made sense. I had him convinced. As he slowly got up, straightening his fedora and suit jacket, I readied the cardboard out-of-office advisor and could already taste the hot corned beef sandwich I was going to have for lunch. I hoped the game would go into extra innings. I was in the mood for a triple header.

“We will go,” he said giving his baggy pants one final hitch. “A half day off will be good for the health.”

I shook my head vigorously and moved toward the door. Grandfather was right behind me. I opened the door and came face to shoulder with a man about to enter the office. He was well over six feet and wore a grey, three-piece pin stripe suit. His dark brown hair with some silver at the temples was short and razor cut.

“Mr. Wolf?” the man asked glancing from me to Grandfather who shot me a look that said: “Do you see what I almost missed?”

“Do you see what I almost missed?”“I am Mr. Wolf,” Grandfather said bowing slightly.

“Wesley Post, New York Mutual Insurance.” Post plucked a card from his vest pocket and handed it to Grandfather who looked at it and then pointed to me.

“Mr. Post, my associate, Mr. Gordon.” The man also handed me a card. I gave Grandfather a surprised look. He beamed at Post who in turn beamed at me. We all moved back into the office. Grandfather sat down behind his desk, and Post seated himself in the guest chair. Since there were no other chairs in the office, I stood.

“I’ll get right to the point,” Post began. “A Joseph Stein was shot to death last Monday morning in his butcher shop. Did you happen to hear about it?”

Grandfather’s brows furrowed for a moment. “In Boro Park, on the 13th Avenue?”

“Right,” Post said leaning back in his chair and crossing his legs. “The case seems open and shut. A bunch of young toughs tried to hold up his store. They got nothing but killed Stein while they were at it. Stein’s partner, a Mr. Kacew, saw it just as the g**g members were fleeing. The thing is that Stein just three months ago took out a $100,000 life insurance policy with us. He was 60 years old, but since he passed the physical and was quite willing to pay the high premium, he was given the policy.

“Now please don’t misunderstand me. Nothing seems to be out of order in Stein’s death. It’s just a matter of routine for us. But when a man takes out a large policy and dies three months later, we investigate. Normally, our own people handle it. But in this case, we feel inadequate and would like to call you in. You see, Mr. Stein was an orthodox Jew and didn’t speak English well. His widow also speaks English poorly. We note from your ad in the Yellow Pages that you speak their language. If you would agree to take on the investigation, we are willing to pay a $1000 retainer plus another $4000 if you should discover something favorable to our company. Are you willing to help us out?”

Grandfather did not hesitate. “Mr. Post, to solve anything, one needs the will and the effort. You will be glad to hear that we can give you both.”

“Great, I’ll have a contract and a check out to you by courier tomorrow morning. When will you begin?”

“Ah, that shall depend. Could you please tell me when Mr. Stein, may he rest in peace, was buried?”

Post appeared puzzled. “On that very Monday afternoon, just as soon as the coroner released the body. I understand it’s the Jewish way to have the burial before sunset. We would have liked to have had a full autopsy as the law requires, but we tried to be sensitive to your people’s religion on that matter. The coroner who is also of your persuasion quickly ruled, in what was presented as autopsy results, that ballistics indicated that Stein died from a non self-inflicted, single gunshot wound. We also have the testimony of his partner. As things stand now, we have no grounds to deny payment.”

Grandfather eased himself back in his chair. “Today is Thursday. We can begin our investigation early on Monday morning.”

Post seemed annoyed, shooting me a quick look that begged for intervention. But before he could say anything, Grandfather continued: “You are wondering why we don’t start immediately. The family will be sitting shiva, observing the seven days of mourning, through Sunday. I am sure the store will be closed all week. It will be plenty of time to begin Monday. The investigation should take a few days, and I promise you an expertly typed report no later than 15 days from Monday.”

shivaPost’s face relaxed. “I would have liked you to start right away, but if you’re sure you can produce results that quickly, your timeframe is fine with us.” He rose, shook hands with Grandfather, nodded to me, and left the office.

I had said nothing while Post was in the office. Now I blurted out: “Zaida, why did you introduce me as your associate, and are you sure you can handle a murder investigation?” My second question betrayed more incredulity than I had intended.

“Joel, Joel,” Grandfather said swirling to face me. “Is it possible that your lack of confidence comes from never having worked with me?”

I reddened and said nothing. Grandfather continued. “As for your first question, at first I introduced you as my associate to give my firm what we might term as gravitas. When dealing with a major insurance company, it is of benefit to have a young man in the business. But after accepting Mr. Post’s proposal, I truly want you as my associate. You are finished with your law studies until September and you have no summer employment yet. Will you not work with me as an equal partner on this case? Half of the $1000 is yours, and if we earn $4000 more, half of that will go to you also. Is this not a satisfactory arrangement?”

“Sure it’s satisfactory,” I mumbled, “but how can I help you?”

“Ah,” he poked at his temples a few times, “my powers of critical analysis are still working well, but for me to utilize my mind completely, I need all the information placed before me. I promised Mr. Post an expertly typed report within 15 days. I need your young feet to run around gathering some of the information. I also am in need of your beautifully spoken English to ask questions in places where an old man with a funny accent might not be welcome. Nuh, again, do you agree to work with me?”

I shook my head yes.

“Good,” Grandfather said, “now let us rush to lunch and then to the Shea Stadium where during the enfolding of the game, we will discuss both Mr. Hodges’ managerial acumen, and I will inform you of what I want you to accomplish before Monday in the preliminary phase of our investigation.”

In what now seems to have been an almost different type of world, the Stein killing in the spring of 1972 was the first case I worked together with my grandfather. There were others to come. As it happens to many of us at my current age, each passing year swells nostalgia and accentuates the sense of loss. Memory often becomes imagination, and over time has a way of rearranging the past, sometimes embellishing, and sometimes minimizing events. I may be fooling myself, but I think I have a clear recollection of what occurred.

And oh yes, if my cadence is clipped, even snappy, as if I were chronicling scenes from a Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade investigation, know that I do so purposely to pay homage to the profession in which my grandfather felt himself to be a full-fledged member.

Obviously, Grandfather was not your usual private eye. That’s why before continuing on to tell you about the Stein case, I’d like you both to understand my grandfather and how it was that this elderly man, broken by the h*******t, took on with confidence and enthusiasm being a private eye committed to the pursuit of justice.

Raised an orthodox Jew in Vienna, he was born Velvel Franck, but in a transposition of his first and last name and play on the translation of the Yiddish “Velvel,” he used Frank Wolf as his professional name. Although he completed rabbinical training, he did not employ his ordination but instead accepted a professorship at the Vienna university where he had completed his doctorate in philosophy at the age of 23. He was the university’s youngest professor at that time. He married the first woman the matchmaker proposed, fell in love with her after they married, and my mother was born in 1925. She was their only child.

From pictures I’ve seen from before the War, he was broad faced and powerful looking, probably 5’10” and around 170 pounds with a shock of wavy brown hair and a sculpted brown mustache. His cheeks were rounded, and he displayed a strong, square chin. His dark eyes, exuding a sharp confidence, were always lifted as if he were self-possessed and comfortable in his surroundings.

But by the time I knew him, he appeared much shorter, a hunched spinal stoop distorting and reducing his height. At 145 pounds, he trailed a frailness, with his face angular except for the same rounded cheeks as in the pictures, albeit greatly caved in. His hair was silvery and wispy, with a hairline that receded each year I spent with him. He still sported a mustache which he tended with daily care, but it also was silvery and pencil thin. His eyes were still sparkly, but he wore glasses daily.

I can remember my father often telling my mother out of Grandfather’s earshot, “The dear man isn’t much of an eater. He takes in just enough to sustain himself.”

And my mother always replied, “It was the War.”

Each day when he sat down to breakfast with The New York Times, he was already dressed in one of two brown suits he owned at any given time, each always worse for wear, a white shirt, and somewhat matching brown tie. A brown fedora hat lay nearby, at the ready, since he always wore a hat if he left the house. When he stood, he looked rumpled, pants baggy, jacket hanging, and shirt sleeves too long. When a garment became much too threadbare even for him, he would take the train to the Lower East Side and return with a replacement that just somewhat improved on what he was discarding.

The New York Times“Do you see how Orchard Street has a plethora of very fine haberdashery stores?” he would exclaim proudly showing off his purchases.

During my adolescence, I too often was embarrassed to be seen on the street with him. After failing to sway him directly, I sometimes pestered my mother to buy him some “decent” clothes.

“Leave it alone,” she would answer me sharply. “He is comfortable in his clothes, and they do you no harm. Leave it alone.”

I would relapse, but for the most part, I left it alone.

In 1938, when the Nazis began the attacks upon and round ups of the Austrian Jews, Grandfather wrote to dozens of universities in England, the United States, and Canada asking for sponsorship as a visiting professor. None was forthcoming. In 1939, days before deportation was certain, he, his wife, and daughter were saved by a non-Jewish university colleague who snuck them out of Vienna and hid them in the cellar of his isolated country home. For the next six years, my grandfather and mother left the cellar only once to bury my grandmother who caught a chill and fever in the damp, cold winter of 1942 and died within a few days. In nearby woods during the night, my grandfather and mother, using a spade and their hands, hacked and dug through the frozen ground to hollow out a shallow grave.

My grandmother died on February 2, 1942, on Tu Bishvat in the Jewish calendar, a holiday marking the New Year of the Trees in anticipation of the coming spring. As a young child, I was confused about the day. At my Jewish day school, we would celebrate with songs and a Tu Bishvat Seder featuring a fruit medley of olives, grapes, figs, pomegranates, and dates.

When I would come home from school, my mother and Grandfather were usually together at the kitchen table. Often they would be filling out forms for the purchase of trees in the newly restored State of Israel. As my mother wrote with her jaw clenched and eyes moist, my grandfather would beckon me to him and holding me would say gently, “We are planting trees in memory of your grandmother Rivkah, may she rest in peace.”

Once on a Tu Bishvat evening, as my parents sat close together in the living room, my father holding my mother’s hand which he rarely did in front of me, I asked my grandfather: “Should I not be happy during Tu Bishvat? At school, we sing and laugh, and dance. Am I doing something wrong?”

“Yoeli,” he answered using my Hebrew name in diminutive form, “it is my thought that it is perfectly correct that you be happy today. Yes, your grandmother, may her memory be for a blessing, died on this day in a horrible manner before my and the eyes of your mother, and we had to bury her somehow. But Tu Bishvat is a holiday of the rebirth of what is meant to grow, and your grandmother once told me she believes that we all exist on a tree of life where we are the leaves of certain seasons on that tree, and when the leaves drop and branches have become longer and stronger, we are replaced by new leaves such as yourself from which new boughs will sprout. So be happy on Tu Bishvat as she would have wanted you to be, as do I and your parents.”

Then, motioning me to approach him, he added: “I would be greatly pleased if you could teach me a Tu Bishvat song you learned today so that we may sing it together.”

Professor Lindemann, my grandfather’s university colleague or his wife brought provisions to the cellar, mostly canned foods which had to last until the next visit. Since the Lindemanns could not predict the timing of their return, the food was rationed to allow for at least a two month period.

Besides the rats which increased markedly over the six years, the cellar contained a flush toilet, a spigot with running water, cots and blankets for sleeping and some warmth, and dozens of books on a variety of subjects. The Lindemanns had recently purchased the home from the heirs of the previous owner, and when the heirs indicated they had no use for their parents’ extensive book collection, the Lindemanns asked to keep the books. Receiving permission, they stored box upon box in the basement until they could comb through the contents.

My mother received her education from these books. Literature, history, mathematics, sciences, she alternated subjects and had Grandfather explain what she didn’t understand. Every book that was taken out to be read was carefully restored to the same box with name and author carefully written on the side as if the boxes constituted an organized library collection.

Grandfather would have had not much new to read had it not been for three large boxes piled to the top with books. Several were paperbacks, a publishing media with which my grandfather had little familiarity. As he once whimsically confided in me, “paperbacks were then connected with readerships and subjects assumed to be less erudite than with which I was acquainted.”

There were around 100 detective and mystery novels including all the great works of Wilkie Collins, Conan Doyle, Dorothy Sayers and Agatha Christie translated in the mid-1930s into German. He had never read a detective mystery before and was fascinated by what he had discovered. As an example, Grandfather told my mother that in reading Christie’s Hercule Poirot mysteries, he had come across a mind employed in the practical application of critical analysis skills my grandfather had learned through the study of Talmud and philosophy. When he finished all the books, he re-read them. My mother claimed that by the time the liberation came, Grandfather had completed at least 10 turns through the collection.

Liberation, of sorts, came on April 14, 1945 when Professor Lindemann appeared. For two weeks my mother and grandfather had heard the sounds of explosions and the movement of military vehicles all around them, but their hideout remained secure and unscathed. Grandfather said that Lindemann previously had always been impeccably groomed and neatly attired with tie and jacket, his shoes always shined. This time Lindemann looked gaunt. His eyes that had expressed sadness for the past six years were flashing fright, his clothes disheveled and grimy, and shoes covered with dust and mud.

While Vienna had fallen to the Soviets, and the war was over in their region, fires burned throughout the city with widespread pillaging and violence against civilians. Lindemann advised that my mother and grandfather stay hidden a while longer as their safety, especially of my mother who would be vulnerable to r**e assaults by the victorious troops, was precarious. Lindemann promised to return as soon as order was imposed. My grandfather and mother agreed.

They waited for a month. Their food supply was nearly at an end when Lindemann, along with his wife, returned. They came by car and brought fresh clothes and toiletries. The war in Europe had officially ended the previous week, and the Soviets had instituted martial law in Vienna and its surroundings. The building where my grandfather and mother had lived in Vienna was now rubble. The Lindemanns drove them straight to a Jewish relief agency that had just begun operations.

Thanks to a cousin who sponsored them after the War, my grandfather and mother came to the United States and settled in a small apartment in the Flatbush section of Brooklyn. Mother spent one year getting her high school equivalency degree and then entered Brooklyn College finishing in three years. When she graduated, she married my father who had just completed law school a year earlier and worked as a real estate attorney in downtown Brooklyn. Grandfather moved with them into one unit of a duplex dwelling on East 7th Street off of Avenue P, also in Flatbush. I was born a year later. My father, a habitual back porch smoker, nagged constantly to stop by my mother and grandfather, died of lung cancer when I was 14. My mother never remarried.

Since Grandfather’s professional credentials were worthless in this country, upon arrival he went to work as a security guard at the 42nd Street Library where he sat at the exit checking if books were being properly taken out. During those moments when patrons weren’t passing before him, he read. He loved this country, and anything that pertained to America interested him including a Superman or Batman comic book. Oh yes, he continued reading detective stories, paperback Raymond Chandlers, Dashiell Hammetts, Ross Macdonalds, and Mickey Spillanes. Every morning he read the New York Times along with his breakfast. When he wasn’t reading, he listened to the radio and later watched television “to acculturate myself to the essence of America,” as he put it. He painstakingly learned the rules of baseball since my father and then I loved the game so much.

New York TimesAfter I was born, Mother went to work at the midtown jewelry store that she managed until she was 77, and Grandfather quit his job at the library to take care of me. When I was five and started school, he was 55. That’s when he became a private detective.

Grandfather came home one evening and announced that he was now in the “investigative business.” My parents, who at first thought he was joking, believed him when he showed them his license, the rent receipt for an office in downtown Brooklyn, and an ad in Der Tog-Morgen Zhurnal, a Yiddish newspaper advertising his services. He then added:

Der Tog-Morgen Zhurnal“My children, you must understand that this detective profession is perfect for me. If you know America, you know I will not be without business. I have with thought selected my office. It is just two blocks from the Boro Hall and courthouses where people in need of my services are always to be found. When I am in my office, I can hear from the street below the sound of thousands of feet walking by every hour. If just two of those feet came to me as a client each day, I would have a most successful business.”

My parents were appalled. They had visions of Grandfather engaged in night long stakeouts and shootouts with gangsters. But they said nothing in opposition. They simply hoped no one would hire as a private detective an elderly man who spoke a quaint English.

For the most part they were right. Up to the time of the Stein case, in the 17 years Grandfather was a detective, he had no more than 50 paying clients. Since both my parents were financially successful, they didn’t mind meeting the rent for his office. While my father was alive, Grandfather would gently badger him for “investigative” jobs stemming from his law connections. Even after my father died, my mother continued the financial support.

The few cases he did get came as a result of the ad that he regularly ran in the Yiddish newspaper and the Yellow Pages. A few were investigations of the character and financial condition of a future marriage partner. A few others were at the request of a spouse who suspected infidelity.

“It would seem,” I heard him tell my parents after completing one of these cases, “that when people are apprehensive or suspicious, they have every reason to be so. My cases are very sad with little difference between who may be a victim and who a victimizer.”

My grandfather was not in the least a bitter, cynical, or hardboiled character like his fictional heroes. Quite the opposite, he was always gentle, old world courtly, soft spoken with European inflections that transformed any statement into a form of inquiry.

When I was nine or so, I asked him a question that had been troubling me for a while. “Zaida, if you’re a detective, why don’t you carry a g*n?”

He stroked my head and answered: “I am your grandfather. What do I know from guns?

Dawn was just intruding through my bedroom’s curtains when Grandfather with orange juice in one hand and a coffee mug in the other awakened me, urging me to rise quickly.

“Your research last Friday discovered for us that the butcher store opens at 8:30. Mr. Kacew arrives even earlier. It is important we be there not much later after he arrives.”

As I washed and dressed, Grandfather said his morning prayers. My mother scrambled some eggs for us. My poor mother! She was concerned that we were involved in a murder case. Years later, not long before she passed away, just as her memory began to fade, for the first time in my hearing she started talking about the six years she and my grandfather hid in the cellar. In slightly accented English, she told me about the daily hunger that had to be, to use her term, “managed” so that the rations lasted until the next Lindemanns visit.

She told me about the days her mother lay dying and she feeling helpless to do anything but wipe her mother’s burning forehead with a cold cloth. She told me about the night she and Grandfather buried my grandmother, the frozen numbness of body and mind in hacking out the grave, dragging the body of her beloved mother to it, and spadeful and handful, one after another, piling sufficient earth over the body so that animals would not burrow in. She told me that as much as she knew Grandfather was taking care of her, she was determined that she would also take care of him.

“The first day when we went down into the cellar, I was 14. “That day your grandfather called me ‘Malkeh’ and not ‘Malkehleh, ’ or ‘little Malkeh,’ as he always called me before. He never called me ‘Malkehleh’ again.”

Unasked, unprompted, she said one more thing to me. “I didn’t want to make you afraid, I never wanted to show you my insides, even though I was always afraid. You were my only child, but really even if I had a dozen children, I would have been equally afraid for all of them, a terror that I would lose each one, and it would have been my fault.”

“Your fault?” my voice faltered. “Why your fault?”

“Because,” my mother answered fiercely grabbing my arm, “I couldn’t do anything when my mother lay dying, I couldn’t stop your father from smoking, and I couldn’t do anything about the cancer that took him from us just after his 40th birthday. You’ll now try to argue with me, I know, but please don’t. No one was better than your grandfather in making logical arguments to me about how I have felt, but it has never been a matter of logic.”

My mother said she was worried that the Stein killers might find out that Grandfather and I “are snooping around.” I assured her that it was a routine matter and that we were to make an easy $1000 for just a few days of work. And with half a bagel still to be eaten, I walked with Grandfather down Ocean Parkway to the B9 bus which we caught at 7:15 and headed to Boro Park and the butcher shop.

Having fulfilled Grandfather’s earlier instructions, I was convinced Mr. Post was correct – the Stein murder was an open and shut case. The insurance company supplied me with a copy of Stein’s medical examination. It showed nothing wrong with the man, not even a minor ailment.

I also obtained a copy of the police report. At around 7:45 on Monday morning May 8, Stein’s partner Kacew, who was working in the back of the shop, heard noises and then a gunshot from the front. He rushed out and saw five or six youths fleeing the shop. Down near the cash register lay Stein’s body with a meat cleaver next to it. The apparent motive for the murder was robbery. Stein was shot with a g*n the butchers kept in their store for protection. Based on the information provided by Kacew, the report speculated that the killers took the g*n away from Stein and then shot him when he tried to defend himself with the meat cleaver. The g*n was found later in the day in a garbage can a few blocks away, prints wiped clean.

“Talk with the Stein and Kacew neighbors on Sunday,” Grandfather had directed me. “Friday is not a good day as many will be busy preparing for Shabbos. Find out what you can.”

Shabbos.“They’ll talk to me?” I asked having never done this before.

Grandfather just winked at me.

Folks certainly like to tell strangers about their neighbors. Without even showing identification, I introduced myself as a private detective investigating the Stein murder. I read the information straight out of my notebook to Grandfather. While I had a lot written down, I didn’t see that what I reported was helpful.

The butcher shop was on 13th Avenue between 52nd and 53rd Streets. Both families lived within walking distance of the shop, the Steins on 46th Street and the Kacews on 63rd. Stein was a pious man who prayed at a small Orthodox congregation nearby. He had a wife Gittel who was a homemaker, a son Jack and a daughter Rachel. The neighbors claimed Joe and Gittel were wonderful people, but afflicted with bad children. Jack was some sort of a political radical living in the Bronx, and Rachel, who a few years ago married what one neighbor woman called “a lazy Italian boy,” lived in Bensonhurst and was no longer welcome in her parents’ house.

The Kacews, according to neighbors, were the perfect family. They were prominent members of a large, Conservative synagogue and donated generously to various charities. David Kacew was somewhat of a neighborhood celebrity. He fought with the Jewish Partisans in Poland during World War II and just a few years ago foiled a mugging in Manhattan. Mimi, his wife, was American born, very attractive, and came from a wealthy family. They had one son, Arthur, who had been an honor student at Columbia.

“Excellent bit of sleuthing,” Grandfather remarked enthusiastically after I had completed my report.

“Really, what have we learned from all of it?”

“Time will tell us that over the next few days,” Grandfather answered. “Let us allow time to do its work.”

The B9 dropped us at 60th and 13th Avenue. We walked down 13th to the butcher shop. The door was ajar, so Grandfather and I walked in. My thumping a bell on the meat case brought a man out from the back who stopped at the side of the case where a manually operated National Cash Register sat on the counter. Tall, broad shouldered, and dressed in a white apron, he had a large, wide-boned face over which he wore a painter’s cap that set off by a series of Jewish stars that read “Kacew & Stein, Fine Kosher Meats.”

Kacew & Stein, Fine Kosher Meats“Good morning,” he said with a slight accent. “I am not yet open.”

Grandfather stepped forward and handed the man a card. “Good morning, you are Mr. Kacew?”

When the man nodded yes, Grandfather continued. “My name is Frank Wolf, and this is my associate, Mr. Joel Gordon. I am afraid we are here on distasteful business. Mr. Stein’s insurance company asked us to do a private investigation of his death before they pay his beneficiary. You know that he had such a life insurance policy?”

Kacew moved forward and shook hands with us. “May Joe rest in peace. Such a terrible thing.” Kacew dropped his voice and his head at the same time. “No, I did not know he had taken out a policy. I will be glad to do whatever I can to help.”

Grandfather gingerly moved behind the glass case, and I followed. Kacew remained on the other side. “This is where the unfortunate man was slain?” Grandfather asked pointing down at a figure of a person outlined in yellow chalk in the sawdust that covered the floor. Back then butcher shops commonly laid down sawdust to absorb the meat drippings. Next to it was the outline of a meat cleaver. I was shocked that cleanup hadn’t taken place with the shop reopening in just another 30 minutes.

“Yes,” Kacew replied visually shaken. “I was about to sweep out this horrible sight, wash down the floor, and put down new sawdust. As early as Wednesday after they had taken pictures, the police said I could clean up the store. I just couldn’t bring myself to do it during Joe’s shiva period. I’ll need every bit of my strength to do so now before the first customers arrive in just a while.”

shiva“We will not keep you too long,” Grandfather said sympathetically. Then, stooped over even more than usual, he slowly paced the whole area behind the counter, carefully avoiding the outlines. While still pacing, he looked at Kacew and said: “Just a few questions, and we will let you recommence your business. First please, on that morning, did you both arrive at the same time?”

Kacew shook his head. “No, we never arrived at the same time. Joe always went to the synagogue for morning prayers before coming to work. I am satisfied to pray at home. I believe it says in the Talmud that if the prayer comes from the heart, it makes no difference if it is said alone or with a congregation. So it was our habit for me to arrive first and begin preparations. Joe would stay a little later and close up.”

“And that morning, what time exactly did he arrive?”

Kacew thought a moment. “Exactly I cannot say because I was in the back until I heard the shot, and I had not seen him until then. I imagine he came when he usually does from synagogue, around 7:40.”

“Mr. Stein was a man of constant habits?”

“Yes, a simple man, a religious man who was a wonderful partner. Very dependable. In every morning after synagogue, home for lunch at 1:00, back at 2:00, and everything put away and the floor swept when he closed up.”

“It is wonderful for business partners to work so well together, Grandfather noted. “About the g*n, please. Where was it kept?”

“Here,” Kacew answered pointing under the cash register.

“Why did you have such a weapon in the store?”

“A few months ago Joe came in with it. He said we needed it for protection.”

“You have had some robberies?”

Kacew shook his head. “No, but in Brooklyn these days it is always possible. It was for just in case.”

“Yes,” Grandfather agreed, “much happens in Brooklyn. Tell me, were you and Mr. Stein trained in the use of this weapon?”

“I was during the war when I was with the Jewish partisans in the Polish woods. “I’m not sure about Joe.”

“Just a few more questions, Mr. Kacew, and we will be out of your way. What did the boys who shot Mr. Stein look like?”

Kacew shrugged. “Like boys in a g**g. You know it says in the Torah that because of Cain’s sin, we will have a world full of many nations and many tongues. So it was with the g**g, a few white, a few black, and a few Spanish.”

“Ah, that is good,” Grandfather said. “Such a g**g the police will catch easily.”

“No,” Kacew answered fiercely, “I don’t think I could identify them. I only saw them from behind.”

“Don’t worry,” I spoke up with first year law school confidence. “You’ll be surprised how much you remember when the time comes to pick them out of a police lineup.”

Kacew looked down and shook his head no.

Grandfather walked over to a chair near a wall on the other side of the counter near the shop’s door. He picked up a Daily News lying on the chair and thumbed through the pages. “This is from the last Monday. May I surmise that it belonged to Mr. Stein? Such a man of habit probably bought a newspaper every day?”

Daily News“No,” Kacew answered wearily, “it belonged to Rachel, Joe’s daughter. She left it here after she came upon the tragedy.”

Grandfather’s eyes grew animated, but his voice remained neutral. “Rachel, she was here that morning? What time? And would you also know why she came?”

“I can’t tell you why. I hadn’t seen her for quite a while. She burst in around 8:00 just after the police arrived. She screamed and collapsed to the ground when she understood what happened and dropped the newspaper. Terrible, it was terrible.”

Grandfather shook hands with Kacew. “Thank you for your help. We will let you get on with your work.”

Grandfather started for the door, and I shook hands with Kacew. Grandfather had just opened the door when he turned back to Kacew: “And yes, just a last question. Was anyone else here between the time you came to the shop and when Mr. Stein was killed?”

“No one,” Kacew answered quickly. “The store was not yet open for business.”

After we left, Grandfather asked: “What is your opinion of this man?”

I answered without hesitation. “I liked him. Doesn’t come across much like a butcher. He could pass for an old time Hollywood actor, the Gary Cooper type. He’s a religious man, very grieved about his partner’s murder.”

“Yes, he is very handsome. Why do you think he is religious?”

“Don’t you agree,” I answered petulantly. “His quoting from the Torah and Talmud suggests it.”

Grandfather halted, caught my eye, and held it. “It seems my young associate is impatient with my questions. I am still formulating my thoughts about Mr. Kacew. To help me, please find the newspaper report of the time Kacew was a hero in Manhattan. We will meet back home and then visit Mrs. Stein tonight.”

“Ok,” I said still a bit peeved. “What will you do today?”

Grandfather started walking again. “I will wander about the 13th Avenue. I see that many of the stores are offering bargains. We will discuss the case further during dinner before we go to see Mrs. Stein.”

I left my grandfather on 13th Avenue and took the D train to the New York Times building in Manhattan, then at W. 43rd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues. An old-fashioned card file in the paper’s massive library told me the exact date of David Kacew’s Manhattan story. Since newspapers including the Times had recently placed its historical copies on microfiche, I found the story quickly and took notes as I spun the text.

New York TimesTimesFrom the Times Building, since I was close by, I walked over to my mother’s jewelry store on 47th Street between 5th and 6th Avenues to see if she could have lunch with me. But prior to departing, I called her from a pay phone to let her know I was coming. I had learned at a very early age that she did not like surprises. Had I not called, as soon as she saw me, for the minute it took for her to buzz me into the store, a terror would have enveloped her fearing that something bad had happened to Grandfather.

Times BuildingAfter a hug and ascertaining why I had come, she called over to a clerk and gave him a sandwiches order to bring in. Following some light chit-chat, my mother’s face turned serious.

“How is your first day working with Zaida? I still should not worry?”

“There’s nothing to worry about,” I said firmly. Then my voice turned irritable. “I honestly don’t know how I’m doing so far. Zaida just tells me what to do while he acts sphinxlike. I’m not even sure I’m allowed to tell you anything more.”

My mother drew me close to her and hugged me again. “That’s all right, I received five years of education through what you’ve called the “sphinxlike” method of pedagogy that Zaida always assured me would sharpen my “critical analysis” skills. Eventually, he would be direct and share his insights, but only after I did some processing on my own. But again, please, please be careful.”

I assured my mother that we would, and after a quick lunch and putting up with Mother’s clerks coming over to tell me how grown up I looked and asking me about my career plans, I headed back to Brooklyn on the F train.

By the time I arrived home, it was nearly 4:00, and Grandfather had not yet returned. My frustration was boiling over and tiring me more than the running around. It still seemed an open and shut case to me. Why did Grandfather care what I thought about Kacew? If Grandfather did not agree with my thinking Kacew was a nice guy and a religious man, why didn’t he just say so? Why did what happened with the Kacews 10 years ago in Manhattan have anything to do with this murder? The whole thing shouldn’t have been complicated, but Zaida seemed to be making it so.

Shutting my eyes and mind to the case, I dozed off until I heard Grandfather return around 5:00. The jewelry store my mother managed was open until 9:00 in the evening on weekdays, so when I was home for dinner, it was just the two of us. Grandfather and I would eat what my mother had prepared in advance. My mother always drove home, arriving around 10:00. She was frightened to take the subway, especially at night.

I helped Grandfather warm dinner, but I was still childishly sullen when we sat down. While eating Grandfather said nothing about the case. Instead, he brought up mundane domestic matters and bragged about the food and clothing “bargains” he had purchased on 13th Avenue. I was annoyed with him. Here I had spent most of the day running around the City and traveling subways, and all he could talk about was his petty purchases.

Right after dinner we went to see Mrs. Stein. We took the train to Boro Park in silence. I wasn’t going to offer any information until asked. As we began the short walk from the train at 50th Street and New Utrecht to the Stein house, Grandfather stopped to light a pipe he sometimes smoked, but only outside of the house. Before resuming the walk, he said: “Nuh, I have been waiting to hear what you uncovered this afternoon. Are you a stranger that you need a personal invitation to address me?”

I felt stupid, the way I usually do when caught in a pout. I still do, whether I am discovered by my wife or two grown children. To smooth over my embarrassment, I quickly told Grandfather what I had learned.

“It goes back 10 years,” I answered opening my note pad and reading from it. “Kacew and his wife had just gotten out of a Broadway show and were walking to the subway. A guy with a knife came up and forced them into an alley. He made Kacew give over his wallet and then told Mrs. Kacew to hand him her purse. She was frightened and dropped it, which may have angered the mugger. He pushed her away and reached for the purse. As he did so, Kacew lunged at him, took away the knife, and stabbed him to death.”

Grandfather winced. “He took away the knife and stabbed him? Tell me, the mugger was a young boy?”

“No, he was 26 and weighed over 200 pounds. The paper made a point of his size to play up what Kacew had done.”

“Quite an elucidating event,” Grandfather noted while pushing up his glasses and closing his eyes for a moment’s thought. And then looking at me with pride, he added, “Excellent leg work, Joel. Well done.”

While the child in me swelled from the approval, I didn’t have a clue what was so “elucidating” about what I had reported.

We turned up 47th Street from 13th Avenue and looked for the Stein home which turned out to be a modest two story duplex. We walked up the stoop and rang the bell. A very overweight woman with brown speckles over her neck and hands answered the door. She had a round face with small, trusting brown eyes, and age lines from both sides of her mouth down to her jaw. In the manner of the Orthodox, she wore a dark brown sheitel, a wig, short and even in its contours that covered her head to her ears. The wig lay slightly off center with a tilt to the left as she faced us.

sheitel, Speaking Yiddish, Grandfather introduced us and, after determining that he was speaking to Mrs. Stein, extended his card and explained why we had come. I knew Mrs. Stein couldn’t be more than 60, but she looked at least 20 years older.

“Kum arein, kum arein,” she happily motioned us to come in. Following Grandfather’s lead, we swept our right hands over the mezuzah on the door frame and entered the house. Mrs. Stein led us into a dark, small front parlor that was overstuffed with a large velour textured light brown sofa and matching arm chairs. The material showed scenes of shtetl life, women holding happy babies, men in yarmulkehs and payess, and Klezmer-like musicians. A large brown coffee table placed much too close to the sofa and arm chairs took up the middle of the room. A few pictures of what I guessed to be family members scattered across the walls.

shtetlyarmulkehs payessMrs. Stein seated herself on the sofa, and Grandfather and I took the armchairs to the sides of her.

“Please excuse the intrusion,” Grandfather said. He continued to speak in Yiddish.

“It is nothing to excuse,” she responded also in Yiddish opening her hands to us. “Your coming is welcome.”

And then looking at me, she asked in English: “You too can understand the Yiddish?”

When I nodded, she continued in Yiddish. “I never had so many people around as during the seven days of mourning. Day and night someone was with me. Then after this morning there was nobody.”

Grandfather nodded. “It is very hard to suffer such a loss. But you have two children. They are a help at a time like this?”

“Yes, they were both here. You know children. They grow up and have their own lives. So now I sit alone.”

Grandfather sighed. “Tell me, you heard the news from your daughter? I believe she came upon the tragedy, no?”

“Yes, Rachel came running. In our shock, we sat and cried together. Rachel called Jack, and David, bless his soul, came over as soon as the police were finished with him. He made the funeral arrangements.”

“David, that would be Mr. Kacew, yes?” Grandfather asked.

“Yes, he has always been very good to us.”

Grandfather paused for a moment. “Tell us please, your daughter often visited her father at work?”

Mrs. Stein’s sorrow seemed to deepen. “No, I am ashamed to say that she hadn’t spoken to him in the last two years.” Mrs. Stein lowered her voice. “She married out of our faith and to a bum, and Joe said she was lost to us. I wonder why she was at the store. All week I didn’t want to ask her.”

“Then your son, he was a comfort to your husband?”

Mrs. Stein put her hands to her face and shook her head. “When he was very young, Jackie could do no wrong in Joe’s eyes. Then in high school Jackie took up with politics. He said people were suffering from the capitalists, and he had to save them, to make a revolution. For the last five years, he works for an organization, the Workers United Party. They pay him nothing so he would come to Joe for money. ‘Give your money to the people,’ Jackie would hound him. Joe said ‘no, not a penny for your organization, but take $50 a week for yourself. I can’t let my son starve.’”

“I am sorry,” Grandfather said. “This aggravation must have hurt your husband’s health?”

“No, thank God, he was a healthy man. I thought for sure his blood pressure would be bad, but it was normal. For the last few months he had some headaches, but that was all.”

“Then you were surprised when he took out the large insurance policy?”

Mrs. Stein appeared to be thinking back for a moment. “One day he came home and said, ‘Gittel, I want you to know about this policy.’ I asked him why we needed it since we already had a $10,000 policy and the mortgage paid off on the house. He said, ‘$10,000 is not enough so you should not have to go to a nursing home.’ I am an old-fashioned wife. I accepted what my husband told me and forgot about it.”

“And this was about three months ago?” Mrs. Stein nodded yes. “And the children,” Grandfather quickly followed, “the children, did you tell them about the policy?”

Mrs. Stein answered with some intensity. “You know how it is. A mama talks with her children. She tells them what’s new, both the important and not important things.”

She looked to me as though I certainly would understand her point. I gave her a half smile in return.

Grandfather drew her attention away from me. “Yes, Mrs. Stein, a mama is a mama and a wife is a wife. Mr. Kacew told us that your husband went home for lunch every day?”

Mrs. Stein, who had looked as if she would cry, now smiled. “Yes, for the 19 years that he owned the shop, the man came home the same time every day for lunch. You can imagine how strange it was for the last three of four months not having him home for lunch on Fridays.”

I almost leapt to ask the question, but Grandfather calmly did it for me. “And did he explain why he didn’t come home on Fridays?”

“Of course, why shouldn’t he tell me? He said that we should feel fortunate that the business at the shop had become very heavy before the Sabbath, and he couldn’t leave David by himself during those times.”

“Truly,” Grandfather said leaning in toward Mrs. Stein, “the man was a good husband and a good partner. I imagine you are quite close with the Kacew family?”

Her voice was firm as she responded, “Never a quarrel, never a bad word did Joe bring home about David.” And then softly, “But our families were never close. We were the greenhorns, and they like established Americans. Mimi, Mrs. Kacew, was born in this country. She grew up in a luxury apartment in Manhattan.”

“They just have one child?”

“Yes, Arthur.” She used a hard t for th when she pronounced the name. “He is a very nice boy. They sent him to a private school in Riverdale for high school, but not a Jewish one. I have not seen him for a while, but Joe told me some things. Arthur did very well in college. A very practical boy, not a spender like some today. Everything he buys is quality. Now he is a stockbroker, and with his ambition and good sense, he will own all of New York. It is funny how life takes its turns. For about a year, he had been pestering Joe to sell out his half of the shop. Now he will have no trouble doing what he wants. I will gladly sell my portion.”

tth“Why did he want your husband to sell?” I asked in English. While I comprehended what was said in Yiddish, I spoke it poorly. Grandfather translated to make sure she understood.

“Arthur wanted to expand, to take over the store next door, break the walls, and make a large market and delicatessen. He didn’t want a partner besides his own father. Arthur would ask Joe to sell in such a nice way that Joe said it was hard to say no. But what would Joe do without his business? What a relief it was when Arthur stopped asking.”

“When, please, did he stop?” Grandfather asked.

“Exactly, I cannot say, but a few weeks ago I asked Joe if the boy was still nudging him. Joe said ‘no, not in a while.’”

We sat for a few minutes with no one speaking. Grandfather was content to think, and Mrs. Stein seemed just glad to have company. I was edgy and ready to go. Finally Grandfather stood up, thanked Mrs. Stein, and as we left, Grandfather offered Mrs. Stein the traditional words of consolation, “Hamakom yenachem etchem bitoch shar aveli Zion V’Yerushalaim.” (May you be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem)

Hamakom yenachem etchem bitoch shar aveli Zion V’YerushalaimMay you be comforted among the mourners of Zion and Jerusalem“Nuh,” Grandfather asked as we waited for the train to return to Flatbush, “do you understand more now?”

I just shook my head no. Nothing had shaken my stubborn belief that there was nothing in this case to think about. But I did have a question.

“You didn’t ask Mrs. Stein if she knew about the g*n her husband bought for the shop recently. Why didn’t you?”

“Ah,” Grandfather said looking pleased. “That is an excellent observation. Mr. Stein would not have mentioned the g*n to his wife. It would have only served to frighten her. And I did not wish to anguish her further during her time of grief. I think my hypothesis will be validated after questioning of the Stein children.”

I had not been looking at Grandfather directly as he spoke, but when I turned to face him, he suddenly looked tired to me. “Today,” he said as the train pulled in, “I understand a few things and don’t understand many more. Tomorrow we will investigate further, and the end will be that we will both understand better.”

The next morning we took a bus and the N train to the 18th Avenue stop to see Rachel Scotto, the Stein daughter. She lived on 70th Street between 16th and 17th Avenues, a quiet street in Bensonhurst. It was about a half mile walk from the train, and Grandfather seemed fatigued when we had climbed the stoop of the light colored duplex. I opened the grilled screen door to the right of a bay window with a c***k in the glass and rang the doorbell.

A young woman about my age with streaked blonde hair and wearing a bathrobe opened the door. A cigarette dangled from chapped lips. She appeared nervous as if it might be the landlord coming for rent that could not be produced. She had an angular face and large green eyes that begged sleep and easing of tension. All made up, I thought, she probably would be attractive.

Following Grandfather’s earlier instructions, I did the introductions including handing her Grandfather’s card and explained why we had come. As we entered the darkened apartment with a living room to the immediate right, she put a finger to her lips and pointed to a man asleep on a red sofa. Bare feet stuck out of a sheet that covered him to his waist. The room was cluttered with odd pieces of furniture, not one matching another. Newspapers and magazines were all over the floor. Rachel closed the door to the living room, and we followed her to a small kitchen deeper into the house. She motioned us to chairs at a table with dirty dishes.

“Please excuse us,” she said removing the soiled dishes to an already full sink. She then sat down and looked at me. “We were out late last night. You know how it is.”

I wasn’t sure if Grandfather wanted me to begin. I shot him a questioning look. He spoke immediately. “Mrs. Scotto, thank you for seeing us. We have only a few questions.”

“Your answers will help speed p*****t on your father’s policy,” I added peeking at Grandfather who seemed pleased with my statement.

“O.K.,” she said yawning and again looking at me. “Ask away.”

Grandfather’s tone was conversationally steady. “Please, what time did you arrive at your father’s shop the day of the tragedy?”

Rachel lit another cigarette. “I dunno, I don’t wear a watch, but it was plenty early. Around 8:00 I guess, a little before, a little after. There was a crowd already there.”

“And please, why did you go see your father that morning?”

“Can’t a daughter just drop in and say hello to her father?” Rachel snapped in my direction cinching the sash of her robe. “Did I need a reason to go see him?”

“Mrs. Scotto, I beg your pardon,” Grandfather said neutrally, “but we were led to understand that he had refused to speak to you for the last few years. Now I ask you very kindly, what did you want of him that morning?”

“You know about that?” she said meekly looking like a little child caught in a lie. I nodded my head.

“I went because we really needed some money. Tony’s been out of work for months, and we’re flat broke. I would have asked Mom, but Dad controlled all the money and gave her what she needed each week for shopping. I was ready to beg him. I came early because I thought it would be better if I got there before customers started coming in. If I came to the house, he’d run into the bedroom and not talk to me. I thought I could corner him at the shop.”

“A sad thing for a father and daughter not to speak. But good that you could still talk to your mother, no?”

“Yes,” Rachel said cheering some, this time turning to Grandfather. “Mom and I spoke two or three times a week.”

“Then she mentioned that your father purchased a g*n for the store?”

Rachel looked confused. “No, that was a real surprise when David told us. Daddy’s buying a g*n would have been big news, and Mom would have told me.”

“The same like when she told you about the insurance policy?”

Rachel’s eyes narrowed into a glare and she turned back toward me. “Yeah, like she told me about the damned policy. I know what you’re getting at. You think I’m glad Daddy’s dead so I can hit up Mom for some of the insurance money. Well listen, I won’t say I won’t take some if Mom offers, but I didn’t want him dead to get it. I don’t care what you think.” She sobbed and wiped her eyes with her sleeve.

I felt sorry for Rachel and felt helpless as to what to say or do. So I was glad when Grandfather leaned toward her and said with a voice choked with his own emotion:

“We know you are sad that he is dead, and under such terrible circumstances. It is never easy to lose a loved one.”

“I must spend more hours on the 13th Avenue,” Grandfather advised me after leaving Rachel’s apartment. “Would you please go to the Bronx address of this Workers United Party and speak to the Stein boy.”

More time on 13th Avenue! Whatever for, I wondered but said nothing. But going to the Bronx to the Workers United Party office to speak to Jack Stein! That was another matter. I became very nervous and stopped our walk. “But what shall I ask him, Zaida?”

“We have now done together three interviews so you are acquainted with the interviewing procedures. I trust you to find your way. But before you go, employ your legs to do a little work.” Grandfather flashed his shy but self-satisfied look whenever he came up with an English language play on words. “And see what the newspapers have written about the Workers United Party.”

Still nervous, I took the train to the 42nd Street Library. There were two small New York Times articles about the committee. The first in July, 1965, described an announcement by Ervin Green that he along with three other Columbia University students had broken off from SDS, Students for a Democratic Society, to found the Workers United Party, as the article quoted, “to fight for economic justice, racial equality, and brotherhood among America’s working class.” Claiming that SDS leaders such as Tom Hayden had become “coopted” by the establishment, Green vowed that “WUP will never accommodate compromise with the rapacious, capitalist oppressors.”

New York TimesA second article, from February, 1968, reported that Ervin Green had filed to run as a candidate for the United States Senate from New York under the Workers United Party. I couldn’t resist. I looked up how he wound up doing in the election. Green received 328 votes.

The 42nd Street Library did not house Daily News archived articles, so with my legs still strong and a “what did I have to lose attitude,” I hustled over to their nearby building. Rolling through their microfiche, I found a story that took my breath away. An article from March of 1971, blared a headline of “COMMIE PARTY JACKS UP VIOLENCE IN BROOKLYN,” with a picture of shopkeepers standing before a candy store with a shattered glass front on 4th Avenue in Brooklyn’s Sunset Park section. The story quoted merchants as saying that about six months ago, the Workers United Party had started a campaign to radicalize Brooklyn street gangs, particularly in the Boro Park and Sunset Park neighborhoods. They accused WUP of inciting the gangs to steal to fund the group’s activities.

Daily NewsBut here’s what made my eyes open wide. The article contained an interview with a Jack Stein who was identified as the Workers United Party’s “Youth Officer.” Stein said he started WUP’s youth arm in these Brooklyn areas because he grew up in Boro Park and was very familiar with “the exploitation that takes place in these neighborhoods.” He rejected the merchants’ “deliberate distortions” of his work. “What you are getting from these capitalist exploiters is the usual smear accusations. They don’t want us to raise the consciousness of the young who fall prey to accepting the degrading work practices that store owners here and throughout America are employing to grow their wealth at the expense of their workers.”

I paid a quarter to have the story printed. I felt excited and energized, filled with a newfound bravado that made me even willing to skip lunch as I headed to the subway to take the #4 train to a W. Burnside Avenue address in the Morris Heights section of the Bronx where the Workers United Party was headquartered.

My mind was racing with a suspicion that perhaps this case wasn’t as simple as I had thought. I had not met him, but I disliked Jack Stein. Perhaps he was behind his own father’s murder. After all, he was well acquainted with the butcher shop’s hours, set up, and who would be there before the morning opening for a g**g to swoop in and steal a few, easy dollars. I wondered if he even might have known about the g*n and had tipped off the g**g to watch for it. I knew I had to constrain my animosity, but my adrenaline was pumping, and I looked forward to a confrontation.

WUP headquarters turned out to be a small storefront between a Firestone tire center and Dunn-Rite Dry Cleaners. The harsh whirring of air compressor drills attacking lug nuts dominated the neighborhood sounds. As I approached the WUP entrance, I was perspiring. Late May, the days were becoming hot and humid. The smell of rubber competed with the acetic odor of the dry cleaning chemicals, and rubber was winning. I stopped before an open streaked, glass door with paint flaking all around its dirty, white frame. The door was held open by two triangular wooden door stoppers. Crudely stenciled large block letters proclaimed WORKERS UNITED PARTY.

I walked in and saw two men behind desks speaking on phones. Both desks were grey steel industrial models. Dozens of tag board placards with wooden handles were propped against the walls. One, I could clearly see, read GREEN FOR SENATE. He must be keeping it for another run, I scornfully told myself. Two bulbs screwed into ceiling sockets gave the room some additional light. The air was warm and fetid. I spotted a small brown door ajar toward the back wall with TOILET painted on it in white.

GREEN FOR SENATEThe man sitting at the desk closer to the door was Ervin Green. I recognized him from his picture in the New York Times that accompanied his Senate filing story. He was a red head, from his short cropped, wiry hair down through long sideburns and stubbly beard. Wire rim glasses gave prominence to bushy red eyebrows. He was wearing a powdery blue short sleeve shirt which allowed me to see the forest of freckles that made its way from his hands to wrists, and up arms. He kept his fingers to his mouth spreading them when he spoke rapid fire and closing tightly when listening.

New York TimesMuch of Green’s desk was covered by a ragged, stained brown desk blotter with frayed, lifted edges on which were a black rotary dial phone, empty and half empty bottles of soda, various papers, and multiple copies of what I could read as Workers Voice.

Workers VoiceAfter a few moments of looking at me with narrowed eyes, he spread his fingers over the phone and barked, “wait a second.”

And then directly to me, “You a reporter?”

“No.” I shook my head trying to keep my expression neutral and hiding my antagonism. “I’m here to see Jack Stein. It’s personal family business.”

“About his Dad’s death, I’m guessing.” And before I could respond, Green rocked one shoulder and a tilt of the head toward the other desk and then spoke again into phone, “Yeah, I’m back.”

I moved forward and positioned myself near Jack Stein’s desk. He too was on the phone, and I tried not to act impatient as I waited around 10 minutes listening to his discussion with someone at what seemed to me to be the bureau that gave out permits for political rallies. Actually, the delay gave me a chance to look Jack over, and I was surprised.

I guess my mind had raced with its stereotype of a political radical. I thought Jack would have dark, wooly hair, several days of face stubble, and be bespectacled like Green. I was sure his arms up to his knuckles would be furry, and chest hair would be tufting through the top of an unbuttoned worker’s shirt.

Well, I was right about the work shirt. It was sunwashed blue canvas which might have come even back then from the L.L. Bean factory. But it was neatly buttoned to the neck. He was wearing the blue jeans I imagined, but they were clean and not frayed.

Jack sat forward while he spoke into the phone, obviously frustrated, but his voice was firm and modulated, not at all harsh. His desk was clean with neatly stacked papers and copies of the Workers Voice.

Workers VoiceHe was thin, no more than 125 pounds, and later when he stood up, I saw that he was around 5’ 6”. His sandy colored hair was slightly wavy and grown out down to the nape. He did not wear glasses, and his hazel eyes looked tired to me, especially as brown circles sat underneath. Probably insomnia, I suspected. His small, angular face was clean shaven.

“Yes,” Jack intoned several times into the phone.

“Yes, we are sure we want to have it in Cadman Plaza in Brooklyn.”

“Yes, we know about last time. This time we will easily have over a 1000 people.”

“Yes, again, the rally is called ‘Delivery Workers United Against Greed.’”

“Yes, I know there is a permit fee. I’ll drop it off tomorrow at your office.”

Finally he hung up, gently dropping the phone receiver into the cradle. By this time, both my antagonism and adrenaline had for some reason receded. “Mr. Stein?” I asked wanting to be formal and polite.

Even though I had thought that he must have known I was waiting for him, he looked up surprised and nodded yes to me. I moved forward, introduced myself, and offered condolences.

After I had told him why I had come and had a few questions, he stood up but did not extend his hand. He looked at me, and with the tone of someone deeply disappointed with the person in front of him and perhaps with all of humanity, softly said: “Well, insurance companies are always true to form. I suppose if I don’t answer your questions, you’ll just use it as an excuse not to settle with Mom, so ask your questions.” He sat back down.

I felt myself disarmed. I would have done better with a frontal, verbal assault, but the mildness of his response oddly unnerved me. I was going to get right to the point, no niceties, and do my interview machine g*n fashion. Now I felt myself faltering as I proceeded to ask my questions in the order I had prepared in my mind.

“Mr. Stein, did you know your father kept a g*n at the shop?”

“No,” he retorted blandly.

“Did you know about the $100,000 policy before your father’s murder?”

“Yes.”

“Do you expect to get some of that money?”

To this question, he hesitated for a moment. “I don’t know. That’s up to Mom.”

I worried that Jack might take my next question badly. “Since you work with the kids in Boro Park, any ideas which g**g it may have been?”

But he took the question well. For that matter, he lost himself in a moment’s thought. Then, looking as if he were battling confusion, he answered: “No idea. The description Mr. Kacew gave the police doesn’t fit any of what you call the gangs I work with. The ones I know are not racially mixed.”

Did I have to ask the next question? I’m not sure even to this day. But I remember I had to pluck up my nerve to do it.

“Is there any truth to the accusation that you get your gangs to steal for your organization?”

But while Jack’s eyes flashed anger, he remained steady. “Mr. Gordon,” he said forcefully, his voice rising somewhat. “I’ll bet you did some homework before coming all the way up the Bronx and saw the article in The Daily News where you’ve probably seen my refutation of these absurd charges. If you haven’t, look it up, it’s the March 4 of last year edition.”

The Daily NewsBefore I could say anything, Jack picked up the phone and said, “So if that’s it, I have important work to do. You’ll probably find a way to screw my mother out of her money. That’s just the way it is, until we make some real changes in this country. Good bye Mr. Gordon.”

I wasn’t going to get into an argument with Jack, so I turned, walked by Ervin Green, and out the door. The heat was even more stifling, tires were going on or coming off cars, clothes were being martinized in one hour, and I was pretty much satisfied with my day’s work.

I returned home around 4:00 famished from not having eaten since breakfast. Grandfather was asleep in our living room’s easy chair, the Yiddish weekly unfolded in his lap. Although I was excited to report on my day, I didn’t disturb Grandfather. Instead, I grabbed a snack and read the Times’ sport section. I heard Grandfather stirring a half hour later.

Times’When I walked back into the living room, Grandfather was still in the easy chair. He greeted with me a wide smile. “I didn’t hear you come home. Nuh, how are you and what discoveries did you make today?”

I was bursting with self-satisfaction about how well my day had gone. I pulled up a chair in front of Grandfather and sat down, leaning toward him. Rapidly, I told Grandfather what I had learned from reading the Times and my initiative in running to the Daily News Building and finding the article that mentioned Jack Stein working with the young gangs. After giving Grandfather a description of the Bronx neighborhood where WUP was located, I repeated almost verbatim my conversation with Jack. Shrugging off any import, I also shared how wrong I was in my expectation of him.

TimesDaily NewsWhen I finished, I leaned back and expected a compliment or two, but instead Grandfather said: “Two things, please Joel. Do you not find it most interesting, as I have for a good portion of my life, how we are dominated by preconceptions and formulas that are useful for our getting through each day, but are the stumbling blocks to critical analysis. Certainly we would never cross a street if we didn’t have in our heads that cars will stop at a red light. But for excellence in detective work, we must always challenge our own minds’ entrenched stories.”

Thinking back, I must have appeared flustered, the way I looked when I wanted validation and approval from Grandfather but instead received a pedantic teaching moment. I think Grandfather always understood my reaction but thought our bond was strong enough to withstand momentary exasperation for longer term development. He was right, and I’m still working on it.

His expression benign, Grandfather continued. “Thank you for your dedicated work today. But I must ask that you perform one more task tonight. I know you may be fatigued, but please go back to Manhattan and see if you can interview Arthur Kacew. I called his father at the butcher shop, and though he was hesitant, he gave me his son’s address and phone number after I told him that to complete our thorough investigation, we needed to talk to Arthur briefly. Let us take the approach of not calling first. The master detectives of fiction believed that approaching those we interview unawares will provide us with a more honest assessment of behavior and information.”

I would rather have put on a ball game and relaxed at home, but I made no objection to Grandfather’s request. After all, I was making at least $500 for a few day’s work.

I took the F train up to Lexington and 63rd Street. Even with an early supper, by the time I arrived, it was 8:15, and the heat was just beginning to subside. Arthur’s address checked out to be on 63rd off of 1st Avenue, one of the newly emerging fashionable Upper East Side apartment buildings. Walking up to the building, I spotted the mural of Sherlock Holmes with smoke wafting out of his pipe above a sign for the Baker Street Pub at the corner of 63rd and 1st. I took it as an indication that history’s greatest detective was smiling down at my work.

I never got past the doorman who was dressed out of a movies set in a heavy coat, cap, and white gloves. A large, metallic whistle hung from his neck. How in the world, I thought feeling sorry for him, does he bear the heat? But exhibiting not a drop of perspiration, he told me that Arthur was out-of-town. He didn’t know when Arthur would be back.

I dropped a dime into a pay phone and called Grandfather. “Do you have two $5 bills with you?” he asked.

Puzzled, I checked my wallet. I did have two $5 bills.

“Go back to the doorman,” Grandfather directed, “and give him one of the bills. Tell him if he answers some questions, you will give him the other. Ask him: When did Arthur leave? Why did he leave? Does he remember anything special about a week ago Monday?”

I went back wondering that Grandfather knew about such tactics. The $10 “gratuity” worked. Somewhere from within his voluminous coat, the doorman, who suddenly became chatty and told me his name was John Regan, took out a ledger book and thumbed through it. The day Arthur went out of town, he came down around 6:00 in the morning “looking dapper” and headed for the garage. The doorman remembered quite well because he was tired toward the end of his 8:00 at night to 8:00 in the morning shift, and Arthur’s good cheer irritated him so early in the morning.

“Just wanted to check my memory, sir,” Regan said indicating the ledger book to me. “Yep, it was a week ago Monday morning this happened.”

Just before 8:00, Arthur returned in his Continental, pale as a ghost, hair ruffled, tie askew, and a shirt that didn’t match his suit jacket. Arthur ordered the doorman to watch his car while he went upstairs.

“I can tell you sir,” Regan said with a voice seeking sympathy. “That wasn’t right sir, no sir, not right to make me delay my knock off time. But these days I’m glad to have work, and our building’s motto is ‘the tenant is always right’”

Just 15 minutes later, Arthur rushed down with a small suitcase and wearing a change of clothes.

“More casual like,” Regan recalled. “Mr. Kacew was mumbling something to the effect that he was suddenly called away on business. Jumped into that beautiful Continental of his and roared away turning north on 1st Avenue.”

I gave Regan the second $5 bill and thanked him profusely. He tipped his cap to me as I said goodbye and turned to head back to Lexington.

I knew Grandfather liked to be in bed by 9:00, so I dropped another dime into the pay phone and within my three minute time limit before I needed another coin, I filled in Grandfather on what I had learned.

“Thank you Joel, again good work. I find myself a bit weary this evening, so let us reconvene in the morning.”

On the train riding home, I stopped thinking of Jack Stein as my prime suspect. I was now sure that Arthur Kacew was implicated in Joe Stein’s death. So much had occurred in the last two days. I thought about the murder scene, the Stein children, and Arthur Kacew’s seemingly strange behavior as described by the doorman. But a lesson acknowledged late is better than a lesson not acknowledged at all. “Arthur Kacew is one more puzzle piece,” I lectured myself thinking about what Grandfather had said earlier in the day. “The puzzle pieces have to all come together. Be patient.”

By the time I rolled out of bed, it was around 9:00. My mother had already left for work, and I found a note from Grandfather on the kitchen table asking me to meet at the office. I badly needed a shower and shave, and so it was around 11:00 when I made it to downtown Brooklyn.

“You are well rested, I presume,” Grandfather greeted me from behind his desk. Not waiting for a response, he added: “I called Lerman Equities, Arthur’s place of employment. They told me he has been ill for over a week and to call him at home. There was, of course given what you reported to me last night, no answer when I called his home number.”

“There’s something strange somewhere,” I said seating myself in the guest chair.

“Ah Joel, that is a much too simple conclusion. I trust you have more complex thoughts?”

My mind’s engine quickly kicked into revving mode, and I blurted out: “Well Zaida, I don’t know what to think given that David Kacew saw the g**g fleeing the shop. Following your guidance on my need to engage what you call critical analysis, that fact really makes any of my thoughts just conjectures.”

Grandfather said nothing for a while but made sure that his eyes caught mine. I relaxed a bit. He then replied: “It is appropriate for a moment to be hypothetical, to operate in what you have called the area of ‘conjectures.’ Let us see how they survive when placed against our critical thinking. So I am most interested in your confusions. They often pave the way to clarity.”

I thought briefly before answering. “Like any good detective, I look for motive and access to the victim. Who could gain by Stein’s death? There’s Arthur. Stein stood in the way of his market. Arthur probably knew about the g*n in the shop, something happened to him at the very time the murder occurred, and that he suddenly disappeared right after.

“There are the Stein children. They both knew about the insurance policy and might have known about the g*n, but probably not. And Jack could have engineered the whole thing behind the scenes. He might not have wanted his father killed, just the shop robbed for the cause. But Zaida, my feeling is to discount the possibility of the Stein children being involved. I can’t believe that one of his own kids could have had a part in it.”

“Tcha, tcha,” Grandfather cautioned. “When I was a young man in the 1920’s, the most gripping news of that decade for many of us was not the stock market crash or Lindbergh’s flight, but the Leopold and Loeb murder case. We could not comprehend how two wealthy boys, so refined and well-educated, could commit such a crime. What many concluded, in America and abroad, was that America may be called for good reasons the Golden Land, but where there is gold, life always exists at a cost, and not just of the monetary. We should automatically not rule out that one of the Stein children, or even in collaboration, could have engineered their father’s murder. But neither Jack nor Rachel did such a heinous act, and we arrive at that determination using our analytic skills and not our emotions.”

“How so?” I wondered.

“Because obviously David Kacew made up a street g**g that could not possibly match any the police or Jack Stein know. Also, would a g**g make a holdup so early in the morning when the shop would only have a few dollars for the change making?”

“So that leaves one prime suspect, Arthur Kacew,” I said bounding up. “That’s where he went when he left his apartment early that Monday morning. He wanted one more try at convincing Stein to sell. When Stein again refused, Arthur lost his head and shot him with the g*n he knew was there. I’m now sure Arthur killed Stein, and his father is covering for him.”

Grandfather smiled. “Do you remember what time Stein was killed? According to the police, it was around 7:45. Do you remember what time the doorman said Arthur returned to his apartment? It was a few minutes before 8:00. Could Arthur have travelled from Brooklyn to Upper East Side Manhattan in such a short time?”

I was deflated and again confused. I liked certainty, and this detective work was constantly eroding feeling sure about things. “That would put him in the middle of rush hour, and he couldn’t have made it. That leaves out Arthur, doesn’t it Zaida?”

“No Joel, it does not,” Grandfather said looking directly at me. “You see, Stein was murdered earlier than 7:45.”

I was even more lost. “What makes you believe that?”

“Because Stein did not go to synagogue that morning. He could not have gone.”

I was totally lost. “What makes you believe that?”

Grandfather eyed me affectionately. “It is impossible the man did so. You see it was a Monday morning and also Rosh Chodesh, the monthly Jewish celebration of the new moon. Do you remember when you were younger in the summers when you weren’t in school and up in the early morning, and I sometimes asked if you wished to accompany me to synagogue? This was before you became a teenager and slept long into the day. Before agreeing, you would inquire, especially if it was a Monday or a Thursday, if it was also Rosh Chodesh. Do you remember why you would ask me such a question?”

Rosh ChodeshRosh Chodesh“Sure, the services were already long on Mondays and Thursdays because portions from the Torah are read on those days, and if it’s Rosh Chodesh too, the service with the additional prayers is even longer. So usually I wouldn’t want to go on those days.”

Rosh Chodesh“And how long would such a service take, Yoeli?”

“At least an hour and 15 minutes.”

“So do you see why it was impossible for Stein to have been at the shop at 7:45. He would not have left services in the middle. During my walks on the 13th Avenue, I learned that at the synagogue that Joe Stein frequented, services started at 6:45 that day. Even so, Stein would not have arrived until after 8:00.”

“Wait a minute, Zaida. What you say might be true, but wouldn’t a religious man like Kacew know all this? He would have taken this into account in formulating his story.”

I saw the smile on Grandfather’s face. “You believe he is a religious man because he quotes the Talmud and Torah? When we spoke to Kacew Monday morning, neither of his seemingly learned references was correct. On the 13th Avenue, those who know Kacew said he gives his money generously to charity but comes to synagogue only three times a year on the High Holy Days. Kacew would have neglected to take Rosh Chodesh into account in creating the murder story.”

Rosh ChodeshFrustrated and feeling a bit stupid, I spit out: “So my conclusion was correct. Arthur Kacew killed Stein.”

Grandfather drummed his fingers on his desk. “No Joel, the evidence may point in that direction, but I do not think Arthur killed Stein. I believe David Kacew did the shooting.”

When I looked incredulous, Grandfather went on. “I cannot rely on my analytic skills to convince you as much as on intuition, the second most valuable asset for a detective. Look at the history of the Kacew father and son. The son grew up in a comfortable, protected environment. The father was a hero during the h*******t fighting Nazis for five years. In America, he engaged a mugger and killed him with his own knife. What I am suggesting is the ability to kill, and certainly the father possesses it more than the son.

“But what would his motive have been?” I asked hardly convinced.

“Good,” Grandfather beamed. “You pose a most important question. I cannot satisfy you at this moment. I would also like to know why Joe Stein did not go to synagogue that morning. And we have neglected other puzzling aspects of this case. Prior to the day of the murder, does any one time period stand out?”

I very much wanted to come up with the answer, but just shook my head.

“Listen, it is quite evident,” Grandfather said swinging around to face me. “Three months ago, Stein bought the g*n and the insurance policy. In the last few months, he stopped coming home for lunch on Fridays, and a few months ago he started getting headaches. Also, in the last few months, Arthur stopped asking him to sell the shop.”

“There’s a connection among all these facts?” I asked trying to put the pieces together.

“I am quite sure, but what it is I do not fully know yet. But I will tell you this. Just yesterday I discovered that Joe Stein at the time of his murder had a terminal illness.”

I didn’t even try to betray my wonder. My look begged an explanation.

“Where did Joe Stein go on Fridays?” Grandfather asked without really expecting an answer. “Yesterday I walked down the 13th Avenue in the direction of his home away from the shop and spoke to shopkeepers. Most knew Stein by sight. They told me that for years he had passed by around 1:00 and back again around 2:00, but lately not on Fridays. I then started in the other direction from the shop. Only a few of the merchants knew him, but those who did said for a few months before his death, Stein passed by on Fridays also around 1:00 and 2:00. Yet past the 52nd Street, not one person ever saw him go by. So I turned up the 52nd Street toward the 14th Avenue. Where would he be going? I asked myself. When I thought of his headaches, the answer was obvious.

“I stopped at the first doctor sign and was very lucky. I explained my representation of the insurance company, and he admitted Stein was his patient. But he would not tell me why Stein went to see him. I pointed out that he would be subpoenaed for depositions and possibly a court appearance where he eventually would have to disclose the information and that he could save himself the time and expense by telling me now and signing a deposition later at his convenience.

“The doctor was reluctantly convinced and informed me that Stein had a brain cancer, gioblastoma multiforme, with no reasonable intervention. Every Friday Stein would come and ask the doctor if he knew any better how much longer he had to live. The doctor felt sorry for Stein and didn’t want to dissuade him from his repeated visits to which the answer to his question at first was six months and decreasing thereafter. At the time of Mr. Stein’s death, he maybe had another three months to live.”

“OK, Zaida,” I said trying to get all the pieces to fall in place. “Then how did Stein pass his physical for the insurance policy?”

“Ah, a good question which I asked the doctor. He didn’t know anything about the policy but indicated that the physician for the insurance company would not have known about the condition if Stein hadn’t mentioned the headaches.”

All of a sudden Grandfather ranked with Poirot and Holmes in my mind. “Zaida, that was fantastic work you did.”

“Well boychic, it is nice to hear that the young are sometimes capable of appreciating the work of the old, but do not forget we still have unanswered questions. What is the connection of the murder with Stein’s illness and all the other events of the last few months?”

“Excuse the unintended play on words, but I guess we are at a dead end, Zaida. I don’t see where we can go for those answers. Can you?”

“Yes Joel, I can. We will ask David Kacew, and he will tell us.”

“David Kacew!” I was quizzically amused. “He’s going to tell us? Really?”

Grandfather remained serious. “The venerable Hercule Poirot mused that ‘if you confront anyone who has lied with the truth, he will usually admit it – often out of sheer surprise. It is only necessary to guess right to produce your effect.’

“So we will simply present him with your original theory that Arthur shot Stein. If he is the man I believe him to be, he will not allow his son to be implicated falsely.”

I jumped up and headed for the door. “I’m ready,” I said. “Let’s go to the butcher shop.”

Grandfather waved me back with a “sha, sha, the man is working and making a living. Why should we interfere with that. He is not a common criminal who might run from the city. Let him work, let him eat supper. Around 8:00 tonight will be soon enough.”

While most of the homes on 63rd Street off of 13th Avenue were two or three level duplexes with stoops leading up to the entrances, the Kacew residence was a large house with a street level one-car garage, white balconies across the second and third floor fronts, and a few manicured concrete steps up to the entrance. When we rang the bell, the door was opened by a strikingly attractive middle-aged woman wearing a good deal of make-up, well-dressed in a red linen suit, matching pearl earrings and necklace, and silver hair puffed and teased.

After greeting us and ascertaining who we were, she welcomed us into the foyer and called behind her, “David, there are two gentlemen to see you.” And then to us as she headed to the door, “Please excuse me, I have a meeting tonight.”

When Kacew saw us, he smiled broadly and waved us into the living room which was neat and meticulously clean. The long wall was covered with Jewish art, a Chagall that was easy to recognize, and other works depicting biblical scenes. Family pictures were stacked on chests and end tables. The short wall caught my eye with its large reproduction of Bierstadt’s Rocky Mountain Landscape.

A highly polished wood mantel was built into the wall beneath the Bierstadt, which, along with end tables, held family pictures, some recent and in color, many in black and white including what appeared to be a 19th century tintype of a large family gathered around a bride and groom. A richly colored Persian rug adorned the wooden floor, and Kacew directed us to a wine colored sofa. He faced us from a matching easy chair.

Grandfather spoke gently, but got right to the point, immediately stating our suspicions of Arthur and presenting the supporting evidence for the contention just as we had reviewed it at Grandfather’s office.

Kacew stopped smiling. “All you say cannot be proven,” he said sharply looking hard at Grandfather.

Grandfather answered in a neutral tone. “You might be correct, but please be sure of the following. When we go to the police and give them Arthur’s motive, when we tell them about Arthur’s car parked in front of the shop around the time of the murder which we are sure it was and a witness will certainly be found, when we tell them you lied about Arthur’s being there, your son will be arrested for murder and you for covering up. A good lawyer could get both of you off, but the arrests will take place.”

Grandfather took out a handkerchief and, as he wiped his glasses, looked directly at Kacew and said firmly. “Know this completely, we will go to the police with these facts even though I don’t believe Arthur murdered your partner. It was you who fired the g*n, am I not right?”

Kacew, who had gone from belligerently self-assured to agitated as Grandfather spoke, slumped back and gave a grudging, painful smile. “It seems very hard, Mr. Wolf, for one greenhorn to fool another. And I find myself relieved to say it, Mr. Wolf, yes, you are correct, I shot Joe. I made up this g**g so that no boys could fit my description. I did not want any innocent people hurt because of what I did.”

“We believe you are not a bad person,” Grandfather said quietly. “Please, why did you shoot your partner?”

Kacew’s gaze looked beyond us. “To explain why, I must go back about three months to the morning Joe came into the shop with the g*n. He told me he was dying from cancer. He made me swear I would tell no one else, including Gittel. Before I could get over the shock, he gave me an even bigger kick in the stomach. He told me about the insurance policy and very calmly asked me to shoot him because if he died of the cancer, the company would not pay out. They would have realized that he lied on the application. He had it all figured out. I would shoot him and make it appear that he was killed in a robbery. I told him, no, absolutely not. ‘I could never shoot you,’ I said. ‘You are like a brother.’ Joe kept begging me, wept to me, screamed at me, but of course I would not give in. That was the end until the morning of his death.”

“And around then, around three months ago, Arthur stopped bothering Stein to sell because you told him Joe was dying?” I asked.

Kacew jerked his head toward me as if he had forgotten that I was present. “No, I did not tell Arthur. I only insisted without explanation that Arthur stop pestering him. Arthur listened until that morning. When I came to work, Arthur was already there. He had just pulled his car up in front of the shop. It was around 7:00. I let him in with me. He was very excited. He talked about the economic upturn and predicted a boom period ahead. He wanted one more chance to convince Joe to sell.

“I again said not to bother the man, but before I could get him out of the shop, Joe walked in. On the way to the synagogue, he must have seen Arthur’s car parked outside, and he waited for me to arrive. His face had a happy look I had not seen since he told me about his sickness. Arthur and I were behind the counter. ‘You say that you cannot kill me, we will see,’ Joe hollered in Yiddish without even giving us a hello. He ran over and got the g*n out from under the register. ‘What are you doing? What are you doing?’ I kept pleading over and over.

“He rushed over and after jamming the g*n into my hand, shoved me back a few steps in the direction of the door. I don’t know why I didn’t put the g*n down. I kept holding it. In another quick motion, he pulled a cleaver off the wall and ran toward my son. He grabbed Arthur by his shirt and looked right into my eyes for a second before lifting the cleaver as if to strike at Arthur.

“The look was like in the paintings of Abraham holding a knife to Isaac’s throat, and Joe, using similar words from the bible, roared at me, ‘Is this not Arthur, your son, your only son? Aren’t you his angel that will save him from his s*******r?’

“Arthur is my son, my only son, so I shot, just once. I learned well when I was with the Partisans. And God forgive me, I aimed at Joe’s head. Even as I pulled the trigger, even as Joe fell, I knew through my twisted insides that he would never have struck Arthur. But it was too late. For that split second, I could do nothing but shoot him.

“The rest you can probably guess. In the few seconds it took for Arthur to rush over to where I was standing, g*n still in hand, he had become hysterical. I calmed him down and made him wash up. He didn’t have his suit jacket on, but his shirt and tie had blood splatter. I had him remove his shirt and tie and put on an old dress shirt I kept in the back. I kept hoping that at that time of day before the other shops open, no one heard the shot.

“My son is a good boy, never in trouble, a boy with a wonderful future. I worried that his present job would be lost and his future ruined. I also considered what you yourself realized that the police might not believe the truth and would suspect us because we would gain by Joe’s death. Then Joe’s suggestion came to me. I would tell the police about the g**g robbing the store. I made Arthur leave immediately, told him he was in shock, not to go to work, and instead to leave for our bungalow in the mountains. He was to stay there until he calmed down enough to function without betraying what occurred.

“With Arthur gone, I wiped the g*n of fingerprints and hid it in the freezer with the shirt and tie. I knew that if I called the police then, people would ask why Joe hadn’t gone to the synagogue that morning. Also I needed to give Arthur time to return to his apartment in case he needed an alibi. So I waited a half hour before calling. I figured a half hour difference in death is hard to discover. Of course, I wasn’t aware about Rosh Chodesh. Later, I threw the g*n away in the trash and burned the shirt and tie. Had the insurance company not contacted you, no one would have ever known.”

Rosh ChodeshWe sat in silence with Grandfather gently rocking back and forth and Kacew holding his head in his hands. “I am sorry,” Grandfather finally said. “But of course, you would have known all of your lives, and both of you would have carried a heavy weight.”

“Thank you, Mr. Wolf, I am sorry too. Do you know what I did waiting for the half hour to pass? I stood over Joe’s body, watched his dear blood seep into the dust, and spoke to him the whole time? ‘Yossi,’ I said speaking of course in Yiddish, ‘is this why you suffered through the h*******t? Is this why I lived like an animal for five years fighting the Nazis? Did we both do these things so that you should be lying at my feet dead from my own hands?’ Over and over I repeated this.”

“If this is consolation,” Grandfather said, “it is possible you will not be prosecuted if you suggest the shock caused your lapse in judgment.”

Kacew continued speaking in Yiddish, his head up. “Yes, perhaps, as it is the truth. I am usually quite calm and with good judgment in difficult situations. But it was my son after all, and I panicked when the truth would have been the best option. I will take the consequences, and hopefully not Arthur.”

Kacew then looked imploringly at Grandfather. “You will do me one favor? Do not go to the police. I will call Arthur and tell him to come back. I will talk to Mimi. She knows nothing of it. Then we will all go to the police together, as a family.”

Grandfather also answered in Yiddish: “Of course, tonight, tomorrow, go when you are ready.”

Kacew remained sitting as we let ourselves out. On a beautiful twilight night, children were still playing in the street. People sat on the stoops and porches of their homes talking, and television pictures flickered in the windows. I was very pleased and babbled about our success in cracking this case.

When Grandfather had not said anything for a few minutes, I turned and saw my beloved grandfather looking tired and trying to keep up with me. I stopped and faced him.

“Zaida, is something wrong? Aren’t you glad that we’ve solved the case?”

He sighed and shook his head. “I am satisfied, but happy is another emotion. Consider the great Sherlock Holmes who fought battles with real hardened villains, murderers, spies, and blackmailers. A victory over a Moriarity was a victory for good over evil. Such work truly merits satisfaction, but still, a sadness would envelope Holmes who would fall into depression and opioid addiction.

“In my career as a detective, I have accepted money from one sad person to reveal the unwanted truth about another sad person. Now we discover that one fine man shot to death another fine man. Why did such a thing happen? Such sorrowful reasons for this tragedy.”

“And Mrs. Stein won’t even get her $100,000, will she Zaida?”

“It is probable she will not. When the insurance company receives our report, they will reject the claim because Joe Stein lied on his application and, in effect, committed suicide. Bah, what is the difference? I have a feeling her children would wind up with most of the money anyway.”

My high flying balloon came down to earth. “I feel bad for you.” I said stopping and putting my hand on Grandfather’s shoulder.

“Ach,” he answered grabbing me gently by the neck. “You are new to the business. Let’s go home. If the Mets are playing tonight, we can watch the last few innings.”

A short item in the Times reported that David Kacew had confessed to the involuntary homicide of his partner, Joseph Stein. Arthur Kacew was charged with obstruction of justice. They were freed on bond. A few months later, he and Arthur were let off with a $5,000 fine, the cost to the city in dealing with Joe Stein’s death.

Times