A Pain in the Tuchis, a Mrs. Kaplan Mystery

By Mark Reutlinger

Combining the classic charms of Agatha Christie with the delightful humor of M. C. Beaton's Agatha Raisin novels, Mark Reutlinger's Mrs. Kaplan mystery series returns as a notorious crank meets an untimely fate.
Yom Kippur is a day of reflection and soul searching. But at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors, Vera Gold misses this opportunity to atone for her many sins when she up and dies. Indeed, Vera was such a pain in the tuchis to all those around her that when her sister claims Vera was deliberately poisoned, the tough question isn't who would want to kill her—but who wouldn't?

• Language: Unknown
• Publisher: The Wild Rose Press
• Release date: Jan 12, 2022
• ISBN: 9781509238743

Mark Reutlinger

Biography I am a graduate of UC Berkeley and Berkeley Law. I am Professor of Law Emeritus at Seattle University School of Law. My wife Analee and I live in University Place, Washington, where my hobbies include tennis, biking, and exotic cars. I am also a clarinetist with the Tacoma Concert Band and a reviewer for the New York Journal of Books. My previous novels include MRS. KAPLAN AND THE MATZOH BALL OF DEATH and A PAIN IN THE TUCHIS, A MRS. KAPLAN NOVEL, both published by Random House/Alibi and soon to be reissued by Black Opal Books; SISTER-IN-LAW: VIOLATION, SEDUCTION, AND THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, under the pseudonym M. R. Morgan, published by Black Opal Books; and MADE IN CHINA, published by Abbott Press.

Book preview

Ida, we must go to see Inspector Corcoran right away. There is no time to lose. . . . Now? I said. We are going to see him now?

Yes. Get your coat. I shall hurry down to the front desk and ask for a taxi.

Mrs. K walked quickly to the front door. But before she could open it, someone on the other side began pounding on it. Oy, such a tummel! I reached past Mrs. K to open it, but she grasped my arm and stopped me. The loud knocking continued.

We cannot go that way, Mrs. K said, pushing me back from the door.

But you know there is no other way out, except the back window.…

I suddenly had a vision of another time, another window, when we needed to get into an apartment at the Home to find important evidence. Getting Mrs. K through that window, from bristen at one end to tuchis at the other, was like pushing two pounds of chopped liver into a one pound jar.

No, Rose, I said, we are not climbing through another window.

Praise for A Pain in the Tuchis

This is a great detective story, filled with Jewish references and humour. A delight to read. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes their murder mysteries to be solved by the elderly Jewish equivalent of Sherlock Holmes and Doctor Watson.

~ Splashes into Books

This book oozes with charm, humor, and mystery all rolled into one. This is a pure joy to read.

~ Socrates Book Reviews

A relaxing cozy mystery as comfortable as a warm knitted shawl on a cold winter night.

~ Mallory Heart Reviews

If you are looking for a great mystery that will keep you reading way past your bed time then you need to read this book.

~ Laura Collins

I have read a lot of cozy mysteries, but I have never read a mystery story as funny as this one.

~ BabyMo

Also by Mark Reutlinger

Mrs. Kaplan and the Matzoh Ball of Death

Oy Vey, Maria!, a Mrs. Kaplan Mystery

Murder with Strings Attached

Made in China

Under the pen name M. R. Morgan

Sister-in-Law: Violation, Seduction,

and the President of the United States

A Pain in the Tuchis

A Mrs. Kaplan Mystery

by

Mark Reutlinger

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

A Pain in the Tuchis, A Mrs. Kaplan Mystery

COPYRIGHT © 2021 by Mark Reutlinger

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

Contact Information: [e-mail]

Cover Art by The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

The Wild Rose Press, Inc.

PO Box 708

Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708

Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com

Publishing History

First Edition, 2022

Trade Paperback ISBN 978-1-5092-3873-6

Digital ISBN 978-1-5092-3874-3

This book was originally published by Random House/Alibi. This is a newly revised edition.

Published in the United States of America

Dedication

For Analee and Elliot, with love.

A curse? You should have a lot of money, but you should be the only one in your family with it.

—Ernst Lubitsch

Chapter One

I should have suspected all was not quite kosher with Vera Gold’s death when one of the men carrying her body accidentally tripped at the front door and almost spilled poor Vera onto the ground. This was not a good omen.

Vera died at the close of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement, when we’re called upon to examine our lives, confess the bad things we’ve done the previous year, and ask both God and the people we’ve wronged to forgive us. In her life Vera had much to atone for and many of whom to ask forgiveness; but knowing Vera as I did, I had no doubt she was unrepentant to the end.

About Vera’s death, you might say I had mixed feelings. I was not entirely sad to see her go, although I would have preferred that she left us upright rather than horizontal.

Ida, it’s going to be a lot quieter around here now that Vera has died, said my friend Rose Kaplan as we watched two burly men put Vera into a hearse.

You say that as if it’s a bad thing, I replied. The kind of excitement Vera caused I can do without, thank you very much.

I suppose you’re right, Mrs. K said. Still, you have to admit Vera kept things pretty lively at times.

Now that was an understatement. And when Mrs. K made it, she and I had no idea just how lively things were about to become.

As I’ve said before, death at the Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors is not what you would call an unusual event. Sad, yes. Unusual, no. Given the average age and state of health of the residents, it is perhaps surprising we aren’t having memorial services on a daily basis. Nevertheless, Vera’s was definitely a strange death. But then, Mrs. K seems to attract strange deaths like a dog attracts fleas.

Only fleas are a lot less dangerous.

****

"Did not your David used to blow the shofar on Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur?" Mrs. K asked me one day last September, the day before Rosh Hashanah. That’s the Jewish New Year and the beginning of the High Holidays, the ten-day period between Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur. David is my late husband, may he rest in peace.

We were in the kitchen of the Home, helping to prepare two of the most important foods for the coming holiday, apples and challah. There were just four of us, Mrs. K and I and Karen Friedlander and Fannie Kleinberg. Everyone likes to eat the goodies but only a few are willing to help make them. Karen and Fannie, and of course Mrs. K, you could always count on.

You may know that, unlike celebrating-type holidays like Pesach, Purim, or Chanukah, with parties and presents and noshing lots of food, on Yom Kippur we are supposed to eat nothing at all. Instead, we fast for the whole day, from dusk to dusk. But maybe to make up for that, on Rosh Hashanah, we eat very well.

The apples we were cutting up to be dipped in honey—it’s so we should have a sweet year—and the challahs we were making were round ones. I’m not sure why the challah—that’s a braided-up egg bread, it makes wonderful toast—is long in shape on Shabbos (that’s the Sabbath) and round on Rosh Hashanah. Some people say it symbolizes the circle of life, others that it is a crown because God is the King of Kings. Whatever is the shape or why, it tastes very good.

So while we’re slicing and mixing, somewhere in the building we hear someone practicing on the shofar, the twisted ram’s horn that is blown as part of the High Holiday services. When Mrs. K asked her question, I suddenly felt sad and stopped working for a moment. Yes, that’s right, I said. "For many years David was the baal tokea, the shofar blower, in our synagogue. I can remember him getting so excited the week before the High Holidays, making sure his lips were in shape for all the work they would be doing, just like if he were a famous trumpet player who was preparing for a big recital."

David I never heard, of course, Mrs. K said, "but I remember one of the men who blew the shofar at our synagogue. Oy, such a sound he made. You know how, at the end of the final service on Yom Kippur, the shofar sounds Tekiah Gedolah, that very long note?"

"Do I know? You should have seen the color of poor David’s face when he blew that note. I was always afraid he might pass out, collapse right there on the bimah. (That’s the raised platform in a synagogue from which the rabbi leads the service.) In fact, I once asked him please to be less dramatic and not hold the note for so long. He said he could think of no better way to die than to be accompanied by the sound of the shofar. After that I really worried."

Mrs. K laughed. "Yes, I see what you mean. And most shofar blowers, they hold the note for a few seconds and then give up. We all get the idea, and it’s quite satisfactory. But this one man in our shul—a handsome fellow, not particularly tall or heavy, just ordinary build—would take a deep breath, begin to blow the long note, then turn slowly around, sending the sound to all parts of the sanctuary. You expected that after maybe twenty or thirty seconds, he would run out of air, like most people would. But he just kept on and on, sweeping the shofar back and forth, until we were all on the edge of our seats, wondering how long he could go on without collapsing. It was like he was Joshua at the battle of Jericho—you know, bringing down the walls with his shofar. When he finally did run out of breath and had to stop, we all felt like clapping, but of course one does not applaud during the Yom Kippur service. Nu, we contented ourselves with congratulating him afterwards."

I’m glad my David didn’t try anything like that, I said. It maybe wouldn’t have hurt him, but it would have given me a heart attack for sure.

I began to get a bissel watery in the eyes, thinking about David. Mrs. K knew what was the matter—she doesn’t miss much—and she came over and put her arm around me. I know, Ida, she said. I miss my Sam too. But we must be grateful for the wonderful memories we have, and for our children, who will carry on the family after us.

Yes, I’m being silly, I said. "It’s just that at this time of the year… But we should get back to work, or there will be no apples and no challah to nosh on after services."

How important is family, I thought, especially at these times when we come together to celebrate or observe a special occasion. They provide you comfort, understanding, and hope for the future.

But not always. Standing there in the kitchen that day, I of course didn’t know that in ten days, when the High Holidays had ended, Vera Gold would have passed, and how differently her family would figure into that sad event.

****

The Julius and Rebecca Cohen Home for Jewish Seniors is probably like most such establishments, except most of the residents—not all, but most—are Jewish. They serve kosher food, and we celebrate all the Jewish holidays. If you want Christmas and Easter, no one will object, but you probably are in the wrong place. Mrs. K and I have lived at the Home for several years now. The residents are a real mishmash of people: old, not so old; rich, poor; athletic, arthritic. Mentally, many of the residents are still, as they say, sharp like a tack; but some are now more like the other end of the tack, having been hit with the hammer of life much too often. You know, missing a few candles from their menorah. Alas, it is life in a retirement home.

I suppose Mrs. K and I fall somewhere in the middle in all of these ways, with one big exception: If we are measuring how well our minds are working, Mrs. K is definitely the sharpest tack in the box. There certainly is no doubt she’s smarter than I am; otherwise, it would be me who is solving the murders and she who is telling you about it.

So I shall do the telling, as usual.

****

Vera Gold moved into the Home maybe five years ago, more or less. From the beginning, she was a real pain in the tuchis—you know, what my son Morty would call a pain in the butt, and my grandchildren would use another, shorter word—always finding ways to irritate or infuriate the other residents.

I will give you some examples of what I mean.

First, there was the time Vera told Mr. Pupik, the Home’s general manager, that Rena Shapiro was keeping a cat in her room. Now, this technically is against the Home’s rules. Perhaps Vera knew about the cat because her room was right next door to that of Rena, and she had heard the cat meow at some time. In fact, most of the residents knew Rena had a cat, but no one minded because it was poor Rena’s only companion, and besides, it harmed no one, including her neighbor Vera. Rena is a sweet little woman, frail like a faigeleh, a little bird. She usually keeps to herself, seldom venturing out of her room except for meals or a walk in the garden. Who would begrudge her the company of a little cat?

Apparently Vera would. For some reason—perhaps just to be mean—Vera found it necessary to let the cat out of the bag, so to speak, reporting Rena’s secret to Pupik.

Mrs. K told me Rena had shown her a letter she had received from Pupik, all formal looking, saying something like, If you do not get rid of the cat, we will have to get rid of you. Or words to that effect.

So how, you may ask, did we learn that it was Vera who snitched on Rena? Well, it’s difficult to keep such a thing secret in a place like the Home, especially when there are ladies like our Mrs. Bissela living there. Mrs. Bissela, the Home’s resident yenta—you would say busybody—doesn’t miss much that goes on, and she delights in telling whoever will listen what she has heard or seen. She certainly had no hesitation telling us what Vera had done, although I don’t know how she found out. It’s as if she has a spy in every room of the Home. Maybe she does.

Now, in strict Jewish law, it’s a terrible sin to spread gossip, which is called lashon hara, an evil tongue. In fact gossiping is right up there with the big sins like murder or adultery, because of the serious harm it can do to another person. And this is even if—and maybe especially if—the words spoken about someone are true. False words can at least be proven to be false, and so the harm is mostly undone. But once a harmful truth is told, there is no way to untell it, and of course it cannot be proven to be false. As an old Chasidic tale says, once words are released into the air, they are like the feathers from a pillow tossed into the wind, drifting in every direction and impossible ever to recover.

It is also a sin to listen to gossip, because if no one were to listen, the gossip could do no harm.

So you see that Vera’s telling on Rena was not just unkind, but it was a major sin. And so was Mrs. Bissela telling on Vera. Perhaps both of them will someday be rubbing elbows on the other side with ganovim—crooks—like Albert Capone or Bernie and Clyde, who I understand were very bad people indeed.

Why, you may ask, didn’t we just refuse to listen to Mrs. Bissela’s gossip? When Mrs. Bissela passes along something she has heard, it is extremely difficult simply to ignore what she is saying, sin or no sin. Perhaps we are not strong enough to resist listening. And besides, it is not so easy not to listen. Should we cover our ears and shout ya-ya-ya like when we were children and didn’t want to hear what our parents were telling us?

Come to think of it, that might work.

Anyway, Mrs. Bissela is particularly fond of Rena, and once she found out that it was Vera who gave her secret away, she was so angry we thought she would plotz, burst. And she made sure everyone else knew also. I am surprised she didn’t borrow a bull’s horn, or whatever you call that thing which makes your voice very loud, and announce it at dinner. I was present when she wished on Vera a mise-meshune, a particularly violent death.

When we learned about Vera’s complaining to Pupik, everyone was quite angry with her, especially Rena, as you would expect.

There is no way Rena, who has no remaining family, could move out, I said to Mrs. K. Where would she go? And without her cat, she would be so lonely and unhappy. I myself am not so fond of cats, but I know that some people get very attached to them, as did Rena to hers. Nu, to each his own.

Although we all would have liked to help, no one was quite sure what we could do for Rena. No one, that is, except Mrs. K. She is not one to stand by and wring her hands crying oyoy vey iz mir—woe is me—when she faces a problem. It’s more likely her hands will be busy helping to solve the problem.

Ida, we simply cannot let Pupik evict Rena, Mrs. K said to me the day after we learned about Rena’s dilemma. I have an idea. I shall look into it and see what I can do.

When Mrs. K says she will see what she can do, I consider it as good as done.

That was all I heard about Rena until the next day. We were sitting in the lounge enjoying our morning tea—nothing fancy, just Mr. Lipton—and after we had both had a few sips and settled back on the sofa, Mrs. K says, Ida, I did a little research, and I may have found a way to keep Pupik from evicting either Rena or her little cat.

How? You will make the cat invisible?

Yes, that would work, but it won’t be necessary. Have you ever heard of such a thing as a ‘service animal’?

You mean like a dog that a blind person uses to get around? What has that to do with Rena’s cat?

I think it can be argued that the cat is also a service animal, says Mrs. K.

That sounded a bit meshugge to me. A bit crazy. A service animal? That cat? What service? The lazy thing does nothing all day but sleep on Rena’s windowsill. Not only does it not lead her around, she has to carry it across streets.

Nevertheless, Mrs. K replied, I think there’s a good chance. I was reading that these days many different animals can qualify as service animals. Dogs, cats, hamsters, turtles—I don’t think it matters, if they are necessary for the owner’s health. And if it is a service animal—a service cat, in this case—it’s against the law for Pupik to refuse to let Rena keep it.

I was still skeptical, but I know