Norma raised an eyebrow. “We don’t know, do we?”
“Norma! We do know! We know exactly where she’s gone. She ran off with May Ward and that man—her husband . . .”
“Freeman Bernstein. And he should go to jail, if he’s put her into his vaudeville troupe without our permission. I’ve looked through all our directories and I don’t see his name. I suspected right away that he was operating under the shadow of some sham corporation. They all do that on Broadway.”
“What do you know about what they do on Broadway?” She couldn’t believe that she was arguing with Norma over how show business managers conducted their business.
“I knew enough to find this,” Norma said. She pulled a card out of her pocket and handed it to Constance. It was the portrait of May Ward she’d signed the night of the audition. On the back was the name of the portrait studio and the line: “With the Compliments of Theatrical Amusement Company, Leonia, New Jersey.”
“Then we’ll go to Leonia,” Constance said.
She turned back to the jail, and this time she grabbed Norma by the arm and jerked her along, causing Norma to stumble and lose her hat. She had only just cut her hair—she always did it herself, as she hated for anyone to touch her head—and the curls stuck out in every direction. Even her hair had a sense of outrage about it.
“None of this would’ve happened if you’d listened to me and refused to give her the five dollars,” Norma grumbled, as she put herself back together and went unaided to the door.
Constance saw no reason to answer that.
“Oh, and I found this on the floor in your bedroom.”
Constance turned around. It was the tin where she kept her money hidden away. Norma hadn’t found it on the floor—Fleurette wouldn’t have been that careless. Norma had obviously been through her drawers before and knew right where she kept her money.
Constance took the tin but she didn’t have to open it. She knew as soon as she saw it.
The tin was empty. She had seventeen dollars saved, and now it was gone.
32
THEY FOUND SHERIFF HEATH in his office. Deputy Morris sat across from him. “I thought you were going home this morning,” the sheriff said when he saw Constance, “but as long as you’re here, do you remember a man we brought in?—”
But then he saw Norma and stopped.
“Fleurette’s gone missing,” Norma said.
Deputy Morris turned suddenly in his chair. Fleurette was such a pet to him.
“She isn’t missing,” Constance assured him, “but she’s gone off with a vaudeville troupe without a word to either of us. We’re on our way now to speak to the man responsible. I believe there might be cause for an arrest, so . . .”
Sheriff Heath settled back into his chair. There was something odd in his expression that stopped her.
“On what grounds would we be making an arrest, Deputy Kopp?” he said.
“Wouldn’t the Mann Act have something to do with it?” Norma blurted out. “Transporting a woman across state lines for immoral purposes? Isn’t that what you go around arresting people for these days?”
Sheriff Heath ran a hand over his mustache and said, “I’d like to know what Deputy Kopp has to say about a woman complaining to the sheriff because her sister has gone off at the age of eighteen to find employment for herself.”
Constance sighed and dropped into a chair. “I’m not proposing that we bring charges against Freeman Bernstein until we know more. Only that the situation might call for some stern questions from someone in an official capacity. I thought you might take us in the wagon.”
Deputy Morris and Sheriff Heath exchanged a look that suggested they understood things that she did not. She bristled at it but stayed quiet. Already she could see that it had been a mistake to try to bring the sheriff into this.
“Let’s start over,” Sheriff Heath said. “If she didn’t leave word, how do you know where she’s gone?”
Constance reminded him about the audition and showed him the photograph.
There passed another maddening look between Sheriff Heath and Deputy Morris, after which the sheriff said, “In that case, would you say that a girl of eighteen should be permitted to join a troupe after having auditioned, in public, with the full knowledge and approval of her family?”
“We didn’t approve,” Norma put in crabbily. “I didn’t. This man can’t be trusted. The entire operation is suspect. I’ve seen Freeman Bernstein. He’s something of a huckster. You know the type.”
“I’m afraid I don’t,” Sheriff Heath said. “Deputy Kopp asked me about Mr. Bernstein when this whole business started. As far as I know, he’s done nothing criminal. I can’t go running down to Leonia just because a deputy of mine happens to have a grievance. And speaking of deputies, mine are needed at work.”
“Not today!” Norma said. She gathered her coat around her and looked at Constance expectantly. But already Constance could see the weakness in her case.
“The sheriff’s right,” she said. “We already have too much trouble with the police interfering with girls in situations like this. Fleurette wasn’t lured away or conned.” It made her shudder a little to hear herself describing Fleurette in Minnie Davis’s circumstances, but she pushed on. “She went on her own. It’s the only thing she’s ever wanted to do.”
“But we don’t know anything about it,” Norma said. “If she was working at a factory, it would be another matter. We haven’t any idea where she’s sleeping tonight.”
“That may be true, but we’ve no reason to think it’s a matter for the law.”
Now Constance felt foolish for barging into Sheriff Heath’s office. None of the other deputies went running to him every time they had a problem at home. It was true that if she looked at Fleurette’s situation as one of her own cases, she’d find no evidence of wrongdoing, nor any reason to think that the girl ought to be brought home against her will. It had been nothing but fear and instinct that sent her running to the sheriff’s office.
Constance also blamed herself for being swayed by Norma’s resolute suspicion of Freeman Bernstein. Norma never liked anyone upon meeting them for the first time, and she was particularly mistrustful of a man who had designs on any of the Kopps. There was no way, as she thought back on it, that anyone in Freeman Bernstein’s situation could win Norma’s trust and admiration, even if the audition hadn’t been a sham. Why, then, had Constance given any credence at all to her opinion?
She hated to turn against Norma and give the impression that she would stand with Sheriff Heath rather than her sister. But she couldn’t please them both.
She looked back and forth between Norma and Sheriff Heath and then said, “You’re right. I’ll go down to Leonia and settle this myself, and you won’t hear another word about it. In fact, I’ll be close to Fort Lee, so I’ll stop in to speak to Minnie Davis’s landlord while I’m there.”
Sheriff Heath looked resigned to it and waved them out of the room.
33