Escape Artist

Houdini’s benefit. “The Master Escape Artist. See the Handcuff King in a Show to Benefit the Children’s Home. The Greatest Mystery Novelty Act in the World. Known in Every Country on the Globe.” I thought of the genial, humorous man I’d interviewed, and chuckled.

“What?” my father asked.

I recited the braggadocio of the poster and described the fuzzy picture of Houdini bound in chains, hunched forward, showing the camera a hard glassy stare. My interview, published, had been the talk of the visitors to the Ferber household. All the Ferbers, including my father, planned to attend the show. That had surprised me, this change of heart. He would see nothing of Houdini’s antics, but he said he wanted to experience Houdini. “This is an event.” Houdini’s show, of course, was a visual extravaganza, a magician’s sleight of hand punctuated by a rattling of chains and the whoop and holler of a frenzied audience. I dreaded it because I feared I’d be constantly leaning in, explaining, describing.

The Lyceum was dark now, but on the second floor, off to the left, was a hazy light.

“Maybe Houdini is rehearsing.”

“Maybe he was rehearsing and they turned off the lights downstairs. Now he can’t find his way out.” He was grinning.

I felt hollowness in my chest. Was my father talking about himself? This man condemned to grasping at fleeting shadows, condemned to awful blackness and pain. I thought of Milton: “When I consider how my light is spent.” Or was it: “When I consider how my life is spent.” Suddenly I couldn’t remember the line. It didn’t matter because they both said the same thing.

He touched my shoulder. “I don’t like it when you and Fannie do battle.”

“I know.”

“But it won’t change.” He gripped my shoulder. “You are two different people. Fannie wants life to be a calm lake, a boat ride with parasols and moonlight. And that’s good. You want life to be a storm-tossed clipper on the high seas, perilous and thrilling. You two will never agree.”

I liked the image he created of my life. “I’m the girl reporter.”

“You know, your mother hates that phrase. Your mother also knows that she’s like you, or you’re like her, rather-look how she runs My Store, better than I ever did. She likes being out of the home. She won’t admit it-she can’t-but she loves that store.” He could be talking to himself. “She’s not happy when she’s home. She gets quieter and quieter as the days go on. I sometimes don’t know she’s in the house.” He swallowed. “Edna, you are like your mother. You like to be out of the house.”

No, I wanted to cry, I’m like you. But I knew I wasn’t. I didn’t know how to dream, I told myself. I only knew how to act…to move…to question…to probe…

“I like my job…”

“I know you do.” An awful pause as he stopped walking. “You are determined to be a part of this murder investigation.”

“What?”

“I heard you talking with Kathe…all of it.”

“I’m sorry.”

He touched my hand. “No, no. Edna, I’m not unsympathetic. You’re a bright girl. There’s a fierceness in you”- that smile again-“and a sassiness, a penchant for hurling barbs at hypocrites.” He laughed. “You’ll spend your life scaring people, Edna.”

“Father!”

“No, no. There’s nothing wrong with that.” He turned toward me. “Edna, you’ll have to do what you have to do.”

“I always do.”

He smiled in the darkness and started walking. “The girl who got the interview with Houdini! Nineteen years old and so determined.”

“I have to be.”

His hand brushed my shoulder, affectionately. “I’ll never understand you, Edna.” He must have sensed me tense up. “I don’t really have to.”

Chapter Eleven

The next evening the Ferber family trooped to the Lyceum for Houdini’s benefit demonstration. No one was happy. I’d been late to supper, staying too long at the city room and neglecting to telephone home. Fannie, still roiling and fussing from the altercation the previous evening, served an undercooked spring chicken, lumpy mashed potatoes, and a sauerkraut cauliflower so vinegary my father gagged. I apologized, but Fannie would have none of it. Convinced my dawdling had been purposeful and malicious, she blamed the failed supper on her nerves. Kathe, scheduled to help that evening with supper, hadn’t shown up, and Fannie insisted that “Edna as Appleton’s Spanish Inquisition” had badgered the girl to a point where she probably would never set foot again in the Ferber household.

“And just how am I supposed to manage all these rooms?” She flung her arms out melodramatically and let her hand hang in the air like an emphatic punctuation mark.

“Perhaps if you weren’t so imperious with the help…” A rumbling from my father stopped me.

“Edna,” my mother wondered, “why were you late?”

“A witness has come forward.”

“To the murder?”

“No, but a farmer from Neenah, visiting his daughter on Friday, was taking a stroll in Lovers Lane, headed to the river sometime after two o’clock in the afternoon, and swears he saw a girl who looked a lot like Frana Lempke-he saw her picture in the paper-running off into a cove of bushes, running ahead of the man she was with.”

“Older?” From my father.

“He couldn’t tell except that the man seemed to be stumbling, losing his balance as he ran.”

“And he’s sure it was Frana?”

“He claims, yes. He said he noticed her because she was so pretty-and he said she drew his attention because she was laughing loudly.” I pushed away the sauerkraut. “He insists others can back him up. Because, minutes later, headed back to town, he saw a man and a woman nearby, the man leaning against a tree, the woman pulling at his sleeve. Lovers, teasing each other, playing games. Then the woman laughed out loud, and the two scampered out of sight. He said they would have crossed paths with the girl and her friend.”

“Good Lord,” my mother said.

I took a deep breath. “Chief Stone is trying to locate this couple, but the witness simply described them as ‘fancy dressed.’ Whatever that means. If true, then Frana somehow got out of the building by her own free will and met some man, happily so, and she was running-that was his word-running in the woods. It means she did not hide in that storeroom for hours-she left at two. More importantly it means that Mr. Schmidt didn’t grab her, pull her into that room, strangle her, then carry out her body after dark, as Amos Moss suggests.”

“Now what?” my father asked.

“Chief Stone doesn’t know if he believes the man.”

“Why?”

“I gather he…well, rambled, got confused. And I guess the chief would rather believe Frana was in that storeroom. She was in there that afternoon. So how could she have been outside at two?”

“So maybe the farmer is wrong.” My father rested his fork beside his plate.

“But if he’s not, something is really strange here. She hid in that room and then, well, I don’t know…”

“I bet that dullard Amos Moss has some ideas.” My mother, I knew, had little respect for the deputy.

“He’s probably arresting the farmer now for lying to the police.”

My mother frowned at the sauerkraut. “Well, it does seem to suggest that August Schmidt is innocent. I can’t imagine that poor man romping in the woods with Frana.”