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Authors: Peggy Hesketh
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house and were standing at the foot of the stairs.
“So tell me a little more about the Straussman sisters,” the detective said, startling me just a bit by the abrupt change in subject. “If I recall, they were early risers like yourself.”
“I suppose so. At least, in their later years,” I said. “Claire wasn’t so much an early riser when she was younger, though. In fact, I recall a morning many years ago when I nearly broke her window tapping on it, so eager was I to rouse her with news of a wild swarm my father and I had spotted on our morning rounds.”
“I’m not much of an early riser either,” the detective said, tucking his shirttail back into his waistband, which was too tight by half an inch, as we trudged up the porch stairs and on into the kitchen. “Good thing the wife is a morning person and that she knows how to make a good strong pot of coffee or I don’t think I’d ever get up.”
“My mother was an early riser,” I said. I crossed to the sink and picked up the bar of Lava soap on the basin’s edge and began to scrub off the day’s dust and grime as I did every evening before starting my supper preparations. When I turned back around to face Detective Grayson, I saw that he had removed a dozen photographs from the manila envelope he had been carrying and had laid them out on my kitchen table in three neat rows of four each.
“If you don’t mind, Mr. Honig, I was hoping you could help me out here,” he said. “We’ve been having a devil of a time locating any next of kin for the Straussman sisters. Or even anyone besides yourself who seems to know much of anything about them.”
I finished drying my hands and set the kitchen towel back on the counter as I allowed my eyes to quickly scan the photographs. There was only one I didn’t recognize, but just a few over which I wished to linger.
“I’ve taken the liberty of making copies of the pictures we found on your neighbors’ mantelpiece,” the detective said. “Do you recognize any of these people here?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Excellent,” he said, looking up from the photos to stare directly at me. “So what can you tell me about these good people here?”
Eight
C ASTES: In apiculture, the three types of bees that comprise the colony, or the adult social structure of the hive, are workers, drones, and queen.
T hough I had often seen these photographs displayed on the Straussmans’ mantelpiece, having so many memories laid out in an evidentiary grid was another matter entirely. In the moment it took to compose myself, I wondered at the extant capacity of light-inflected silver to reach beyond the grave.
“That would be Mrs. Straussman. Mrs. Marvella Straussman,” I said, pointing to the top left-hand photograph in the group.
In the photograph, taken more than forty years earlier, Mrs. Straussman was seated in the large wicker chair that had for many years been the sole piece of furniture to grace my neighbors’ front porch. In her broad left hand, which had grown gnarled from the ravages of arthritis, she gripped the shaft of her badger-headed cane that leaned like a scepter across her knee and the arm of the chair. Her right elbow was crooked across the other armrest.
“This was Claire and Hilda’s mother. She passed on in 1956. Complications of diabetes, I believe.”
Mrs. Straussman was a large woman, and in the photograph, as had become her custom in her later years, she wore a dark high-necked dress that billowed down over her ample breasts to the tops of her black ankle-high shoes. Her thin gray hair was pulled tightly in a knot on top of her head, and her wide face was cast almost entirely in shadows, which—and I mean no disrespect—was probably just as well, as her features had grown increasingly bloated and mottled from a combination of sundry ailments.
“That would be Mr. and Mrs. Straussman,” I said, moving on to the second photograph in the row, an infinitely more pleasant portrait
“So tell me a little more about the Straussman sisters,” the detective said, startling me just a bit by the abrupt change in subject. “If I recall, they were early risers like yourself.”
“I suppose so. At least, in their later years,” I said. “Claire wasn’t so much an early riser when she was younger, though. In fact, I recall a morning many years ago when I nearly broke her window tapping on it, so eager was I to rouse her with news of a wild swarm my father and I had spotted on our morning rounds.”
“I’m not much of an early riser either,” the detective said, tucking his shirttail back into his waistband, which was too tight by half an inch, as we trudged up the porch stairs and on into the kitchen. “Good thing the wife is a morning person and that she knows how to make a good strong pot of coffee or I don’t think I’d ever get up.”
“My mother was an early riser,” I said. I crossed to the sink and picked up the bar of Lava soap on the basin’s edge and began to scrub off the day’s dust and grime as I did every evening before starting my supper preparations. When I turned back around to face Detective Grayson, I saw that he had removed a dozen photographs from the manila envelope he had been carrying and had laid them out on my kitchen table in three neat rows of four each.
“If you don’t mind, Mr. Honig, I was hoping you could help me out here,” he said. “We’ve been having a devil of a time locating any next of kin for the Straussman sisters. Or even anyone besides yourself who seems to know much of anything about them.”
I finished drying my hands and set the kitchen towel back on the counter as I allowed my eyes to quickly scan the photographs. There was only one I didn’t recognize, but just a few over which I wished to linger.
“I’ve taken the liberty of making copies of the pictures we found on your neighbors’ mantelpiece,” the detective said. “Do you recognize any of these people here?”
“Of course,” I said.
“Excellent,” he said, looking up from the photos to stare directly at me. “So what can you tell me about these good people here?”
Eight
C ASTES: In apiculture, the three types of bees that comprise the colony, or the adult social structure of the hive, are workers, drones, and queen.
T hough I had often seen these photographs displayed on the Straussmans’ mantelpiece, having so many memories laid out in an evidentiary grid was another matter entirely. In the moment it took to compose myself, I wondered at the extant capacity of light-inflected silver to reach beyond the grave.
“That would be Mrs. Straussman. Mrs. Marvella Straussman,” I said, pointing to the top left-hand photograph in the group.
In the photograph, taken more than forty years earlier, Mrs. Straussman was seated in the large wicker chair that had for many years been the sole piece of furniture to grace my neighbors’ front porch. In her broad left hand, which had grown gnarled from the ravages of arthritis, she gripped the shaft of her badger-headed cane that leaned like a scepter across her knee and the arm of the chair. Her right elbow was crooked across the other armrest.
“This was Claire and Hilda’s mother. She passed on in 1956. Complications of diabetes, I believe.”
Mrs. Straussman was a large woman, and in the photograph, as had become her custom in her later years, she wore a dark high-necked dress that billowed down over her ample breasts to the tops of her black ankle-high shoes. Her thin gray hair was pulled tightly in a knot on top of her head, and her wide face was cast almost entirely in shadows, which—and I mean no disrespect—was probably just as well, as her features had grown increasingly bloated and mottled from a combination of sundry ailments.
“That would be Mr. and Mrs. Straussman,” I said, moving on to the second photograph in the row, an infinitely more pleasant portrait
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