Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death by Mark Reutlinger

father), his job could be
kaput.
    I was curious, but I understood and did not complain. I just waited while Mrs. K examined the list, with many “hmms” and “tsk-tsks” and even an occasional “
oy vey
.”
    And after maybe five minutes, she turned to me and said, “Even if I cannot let you see what it says here about particular individuals, I think I can tell you that I am surprised what some people have done in the past. You would never suspect it. Not that I hold it against them if they are good citizens now, but nevertheless it is a bit of a shock.”
    “Yes, yes, but is there anything on that list that brings us any closer to who stole Daisy Goldfarb’s earrings?”
    “Maybe yes, maybe no,” Mrs. K said, while staring past me into space.
Oy,
she can be maddening sometimes!
    “So what do we do next?” I asked. It was clear she was going to be mysterious about this list, so we might just as well get on with it.
    “
Sha,
I must think about this for a minute,” she said
.
But it was more like another five minutes that she studied the two lists, hers and Benjamin’s, before she looked up and answered.
    “There are some persons on this list who we might now say are more suspicious than the others. We also know that there are some on the list who are much less likely than others to have had the opportunity both to steal the earring and to drop it in the soup. Those persons, now that I see that they have nothing in their background to cause suspicion, they become so unlikely that in order that we don’t spend all our time chasing down wild gooses, I will cross them off for now and we can concentrate on the others.”
    “So how many have you left on the list?” I asked.
    Mrs. K looked down at the pad again, then looked up and said, “Only three.”
    “That is not so bad. And what do we do with these three?”
    Here Mrs. K sighed and looked up at me a bit uncertainly. “I am not sure,” she said at last. “I know what I would
like
to do. I would like to know where is the second earring.”
    “Of course. If we knew who had the second earring, then we would know that is the person who stole the first one and dropped it in the soup.”
    “Not necessarily,” she said, which I did not understand. Perhaps she meant the person who stole the earrings and the person who dropped it in the soup might be two different persons, which didn’t make sense to me, or maybe there were two persons working together; but in any case I did not pursue it. When Mrs. K comes up with her theories, it is best not to question her too closely.
    One way or the other, finding the second earring was important, and I wanted to know how she intended to do it, especially if I was to be part of the doing. So I asked her as much.
    “The best way to find it, I think,” she said with another sigh, “would be to search the room where each person on our short list lives. If only we could get into their rooms…”
    I’m afraid I rolled my eyes at this. “And ‘if only my
bubbe
had wheels, she would be a wagon,’ as my mother used to say. But we are not the police, and we cannot get a—what do they call it—a search warrant and go barging into their homes. Furthermore, I am quite sure that Benjamin, as nice as he was to get us this information, would draw the line at our asking him to enter and search these persons’ rooms.”
    This was not, unfortunately, cheering Mrs. K up. She was just sitting and looking forlorn.
    We were both silent for several minutes, thinking our own thoughts. Finally, I asked Mrs. K, “Do the three persons remaining on the list all live here at the Home?”
    “Yes, one is on the staff but lives in during the week,” she replied.
    “Well, then,” I said, “maybe I have an idea.”

19
    “What kind of idea?” Mrs. K asked. She looked at me eagerly, like she was a drowning swimmer and I was a nice fat log floating by.
    “Well,” I said, hoping I had not falsely raised Mrs. K’s hopes, “it will not