Past & Present Read online

  “I’m not seeing a house number, which is disappointing, but it’s the kind of house you might find in the old part of Toronto,” Chantelle said. “Somewhere like Danforth Village, where a twenty-five-foot lot would be considered a wide.”

  I knew Danforth Village, a neighborhood in the east end of the original part of Toronto. Most of the existing houses had been built in the 1920s and ’30s, although you’d be hard pressed to find one that hadn’t been renovated from top to bottom. Now considered centrally located, in 1952 it would have been on the outskirts of the city. “At least now we know where Anneliese settled. She must have moved in here with her fiancé.”

  Chantelle shook her head. “I don’t think people cohabited before marriage in those days, or if they did, it certainly wasn’t mainstream. It’s more likely she rented a room there, along with other new immigrants. It’s not like there were a bunch of apartment buildings back then.”

  “There’s still one more photo. Maybe that will tell us more.”

  In the last photograph, Anneliese was standing on the front porch of an attractive two-story brick house. She wore a below the knee pencil skirt in a light color, probably off-white or cream, paired with a softly flared short-sleeved jacket that skimmed her slender hips. Matching elbow-length gloves, a cap with a dark ribbon, and a three-strand pearl necklace completed the ensemble. Her blonde hair had been pinned back from her face in a loose bun, revealing pearl drop earrings that matched the necklace. A light-eyed man in a black suit, black tie, and white shirt stood next to her, his arm wrapped possessively around her waist. His hair appeared to be even blonder than Anneliese’s and as straight as a poker.

  I flipped it over. It was dated October 11, 1952. “Do you think this might be her wedding day?”

  Chantelle nodded. “Without question. It would make sense, as well. Those days, when you immigrated to get married, you were expected to tie the knot within six months, or you were sent back to where you came from. Sooner was definitely considered better. The pearls may have been a wedding gift from her husband.”

  “There’s an old superstition that pearls bring tears. I wonder if Anneliese cried on her wedding day.”

  “Actually, ancient Greek culture believed that pearls would promote marital bliss and guard against tears on the wedding day,” Chantelle grinned. “Or night, as the case might be. Anyway, that’s where the tradition of giving pearls to a bride comes from, although you’re correct. A lot of people associate pearls with tears and would never want to wear pearls on their wedding day, let alone accept them as a gift from the groom.”

  Chantelle always amazed me with the trivia she came up with. Her knowledge of pearls was no exception. “What about the house? Based on the narrow lot and overall style, it could be in the same part of city, which would also make sense. Anneliese’s fiancé would have rented her accommodations close to him.”

  “The double gabled roofline is definitely distinctive. You don’t see that often. The trim is quite unique as well. If I were renovating I might restore it, but I can’t imagine replacing it. A trip to Toronto might be in order for a walkabout.”

  “I’m always up for a trek to Toronto and a good walk, but I’m not seeing the purpose. It’s unlikely any of the original owners still live in the area. Nursing homes would be more like it, if they’re still alive. Besides, we’re only guessing on the area.”

  “True,” Chantelle said, drumming her fingers on the table. “I’ve got it. Old telephone books.”

  “Old telephone books?”

  “If Anneliese Prei had a phone, she would be listed, along with her address.”

  “I hate to rain on your parade, but it’s unlikely that Anneliese would have had her own phone in a rental property. It’s more likely there would have been one phone for all the residents. Lots of people didn’t even have telephones back then, and those that did often shared a party line.”

  “Anything else to add?” Chantelle asked, a note of exasperation in her voice.

  “Actually, yes. There’s the little problem of not knowing her married name.”

  “We can make an educated guess that it was Frankow.”

  “We can try that,” I conceded. “But where are we going to find a Toronto telephone book from 1952?”

  “The Toronto Public Library.” Chantelle turned to her attention back to her laptop and started typing. “Damn. They’ve digitized almost all of the nineteenth and early twentieth century Toronto city directories up to 1922, but they can’t add a directory online until the ninety-year copyright protection expires. Here’s the kicker. They have some print copies available, but none for 1952. The first telephone book after 1951 is 1957.”

  I had to admit it was frustrating, but one thing I’d learned during the past thirteen months was that there was always another place to look. I was pondering the possibilities when Chantelle spoke up.

  “What if we posted the photograph on Facebook with a link to our website? It’s possible someone might recognize the house.”

  “I don’t love the idea. It opens up our investigation to any nutcase out there, and I’m not sure how Louisa would feel about posting her grandmother’s picture for the world to see. I’d rather try your walkabout idea first, if we determine knowing the address is necessary. Which I don’t think it is, at least not at this point.”

  “Fair enough. But if we do decide to post the photo of the house, we can always hire a photographer and have them remove Anneliese from the image. They can work miracles these days with all the digital advancements.”

  The issue shelved for the moment, I replaced all five photographs back inside the storage bag. “Which one do you want to open next? The thin one or the thick one?”

  “Let’s leave the thick one for last.”

  Great minds think alike. “The thin one it is.”

  8

  The thin one contained a Certificate of Marriage between Horst Frankow and Anneliese Prei, dated October 11, 1952, at the City of Toronto in the Province of Ontario. The Marriage License had been issued on September 25, 1952.

  “We were right about the last photo of Anneliese being taken on her wedding day,” Chantelle said. “And about the Frankow part. What I don’t understand is why Sophie would have ended up in foster care if there was a father in the picture.”

  “Another mystery. Unfortunately, this marriage certificate won’t help us much.”

  When I’d researched my mother’s disappearance, her marriage certificate had been a huge help, even listing the current addresses of the bride and groom. Not so with this one, which offered nothing more than the basic facts: names, date, place, along with the signatures of the witnesses and City Hall magistrate. Even the witnesses’ names were a dead end. John J. Johnson and David P. Smith. There had to be a lot of Johnsons and Smiths out there. The magistrate would be long retired, and likely to have performed thousands of civil ceremonies. I guessed the witnesses had probably been supplied by City Hall for a nominal fee.

  Chantelle was more optimistic. “You never know. Ancestry.ca has a pretty good selection of marriage certificates on record. At the very least, it might lead us to find out more about Horst Frankow. It’s another thing I can check when I’m on there.” She recorded the details of the certificate on a new page of her notebook.

  “You do know that we can make copies with our printer,” I said, teasing her.

  “Waste of paper. We’re on a budget. Besides, I like to have all my notes in the same place.” Chantelle started tapping her fingers on the table again, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Can I see the photograph from Anneliese’s wedding day again?”

  “Sure.” I slid it out of the pouch and handed it to her. “What’s bothering you?”

  “Her outfit. In the snapshots from the boat, she wore things that emphasized her tiny waist. So why was she wearing a loose jacket on her wedding day?”

  I went back through the notes I took with Louisa. Sophie was born on March 23, 1953. I did some mental math. “An
neliese was almost four months pregnant on her wedding day.”

  “Give me a minute to check my files,” Chantelle said, back at her keyboard.

  Patience has never been one of my virtues. “What are you looking for?”

  “I thought I recognized the outfit, and I was right. It’s part of another project I’ve been working on, the grandmother was a seamstress in the 1950s.” Chantelle pointed to a picture on her computer screen. “It’s almost identical to what Louisa is wearing in the photo.”

  The outfit was a Butterick pattern, number 6194, and it had been listed under the category of 1952 maternity clothes. The material of the jacket and skirt was lightly patterned versus plain, but it was definitely the same style. Even the cap was the same, ribbon and all.

  “I suppose there weren’t many patterns for maternity ensembles,” I said. “I wonder…do you think the pregnancy was planned?”

  “It’s possible, but doubtful,” Chantelle said, typing. “Here’s an online pregnancy calculator. A March 23 birth date would have meant conceiving around June 30.”

  “You think Anneliese got pregnant on the ship?”

  “I think it’s a possibility we have to consider.”

  “What if Anneliese and Horst slept together right away? Sophie might have been premature.”

  “Maybe the thick pouch will hold the answer,” Chantelle said, ending the debate.

  I unzipped the top and pulled out a tissue-wrapped photo album with a pink cover and yellowed pages that may have been white or cream at one time. A cautious flip through the pages, about two dozen in all, revealed that each snapshot had been painstakingly positioned inside black cardboard corners, two photos to a page, with several blank pages at the end. All the photos were black and white. I went back to the first page, careful not to damage the aging paper.

  The first picture was of a chubby-cheeked baby, the words “Sophie Marta Frankow, March 23, 1953,” written beneath it in Anneliese’s now-familiar handwriting.

  “She was a cute baby,” Chantelle said, “but her coloring definitely isn’t the same as Anneliese or Horst. We know Anneliese’s eyes are soft brown, and based on Horst’s fair complexion and blond hair, we can safely assume his are blue. Sophie’s eyes look almost black. So does her hair. Love the little curl on top of her head, though.”

  The curl was cute, but Chantelle had a point. Both Anneliese and Horst had blonde hair. That wasn’t conclusive proof of anything, a newborn’s hair color and texture could change over time, and we had no idea about Anneliese or Horst’s genetics. Even so, the baby in the picture didn’t look premature to me, not that I was an expert.

  I went through the album, page by page. Anneliese was with Sophie in every one, playing on the front yard of the double gabled house, sitting on the porch with her daughter in her lap. Horst was in the odd picture, always with his hand resting firmly on Anneliese’s arm, or wrapped tightly around her waist. There were no pictures of him holding the baby, let alone playing with her.

  “Anneliese looks radiant when she’s alone with Sophie,” I said. “Is it just my imagination, or does her expression look strained whenever Horst is in the shot?”

  Chantelle shook her head. “I don’t think it’s your imagination. I had the same impression. She’s always smiling and happy, except when he’s standing or sitting next to her. Look at the way he’s posing in every single one. It’s as if he’s trying to control Anneliese. And there are no pictures of him interacting with Sophie.”

  “Maybe we’re reading too much into it,” I said, but I had to wonder. Did Horst know or suspect that he wasn’t Sophie’s birth father? Did anyone else? Today, it might not be such a big deal, but in 1952, raising another man’s child might have been considered scandalous.

  “One thing is certain,” Chantelle said, interrupting my thoughts. “Anneliese never lost her sense of style. She had to be one of the hippest moms on the block.”

  Was that another reason for Horst’s apparent possessiveness? Was he the jealous type, and if so, how much did that jealousy impact their lives? I studied the photos again, page by page, noting the special occasions recorded by Anneliese, month after month. First birthday. Christmas. Valentine’s Day. Easter. Halloween. Repeat. The photos ended with one taken at Sophie’s third birthday party on March 23, 1956. Her hair hadn’t gotten any blonder, either. If anything, it had gotten darker and curlier. She was blowing out three candles on a lopsided chocolate-frosted cake, clearly homemade. Anneliese stood behind her, clapping her hands and laughing.

  “Sophie went into foster care at age three,” I said. “Anneliese must have died shortly after this picture was taken.”

  Chantelle wasn’t listening. Instead, she was sliding her hand across the bottom of the suitcase’s satin lining. “I’m not sure about this seam in the left hand corner.”

  “The seam?” Sometimes I had to wonder about the stuff Chantelle worried about.

  “Just trace your fingers along it and tell me if you feel anything funny.”

  I humored her and did what she asked. Nothing. “No, can’t say as I do.”

  “Do you have a magnifying glass?”

  “Of course I have a magni…wait, you want to examine the seam with a magnifying glass?”

  That netted me an exasperated sigh. I took a magnifying glass from what I’d come to think of as my “Detective Callie” drawer and slid it in her direction.

  Chantelle explored the seam, viewing it from every possible angle. I was starting to lose patience when she handed me the magnifying glass and pushed the train case toward me. “What do you think? Has it been carefully re-stitched? Or is my imagination in overdrive?”

  I mimicked her actions. Still nothing. I shook my head.

  “Never mind. Can you get your sewing basket?”

  “My sewing basket?”

  “Yes, your sewing basket. The one with your sewing tools. Like needles and thread and one of those stitch remover gizmos.”

  “Sorry to disappoint but my father never encouraged sewing. I don’t own a sewing basket, and I have no idea what a stitch remover gizmo looks like. I might have one of those lame hotel sewing kits from a hundred years ago when they gave them out with the shower caps and the shoe shine thingamajig.” I paused for effect. “No, wait. I don’t.”

  “Spoken like the spoiled only child that you were, no hand-me-downs to alter, hems up, hems down, no knees or elbows to patch.”

  It was a running gag between the two of us. My being a spoiled only child while Chantelle wore rags as the fifth kid of six. Except today, it didn’t seem all that funny.

  “It’s not as if my father dressed me in the latest runway fashions,” I said, hating the pissed-off tone in my voice. “He just didn’t think to teach me about stuff like sewing.”

  “Yeah, yeah, chill out. It was an observation, not an indictment.” Chantelle grabbed her handbag from the back of her chair and rummaged through it. “Here you go. It’s not an official stitch remover, but these nail scissors should work. Just be careful not to damage anything.”

  “Why don’t you do it, if you’re such an expert?”

  Chantelle rolled her eyes, but I could tell she was relieved. I watched as she carefully snipped each stitch until the secret compartment was revealed.

  Unlike the previous contents in the upper part of the train case, there were no plastic storage bags under the lining. In their place was a single envelope. Part of me wanted to dive in, head first. Another part felt as if I was crossing some sort of invisible line. “What do you make of it?” I asked Chantelle.

  Chantelle bit her lower lip, appraising the contents before her. “I would say that Sophie was the one responsible for the storage bags, everything neatly compartmentalized.”

  I nodded. It fit with Louisa’s description of her mother. “What else?”

  “My guess, and it is just a guess, is that this train case with the photo album, marriage certificate, and collection of postcards, pictures, and travel documents, was the o
ne thing Sophie had to bring from foster home to foster home. At some point, she decided to protect each and every item in plastic for posterity.”

  “Do you think Sophie knew about the envelope under the lining?”

  “I don’t believe so. Even after my prompting, you didn’t find anything wrong with the seam, and truthfully, if I hadn’t been forced to learn needlework skills, I don’t think I would have either. I think it’s safe to say that that hidden compartment was a secret Anneliese took to her grave.”

  “We need to look at what’s inside, but I don’t know, it feels wrong somehow. Do you feel the same way I do? Like it’s an invasion of privacy?”

  Chantelle shook her head. “Not at all. We were hired to find out what happened to Anneliese Prei. Unless we decide to walk away, it’s going to get personal. You of all people should know that, especially after everything you’ve been through these past few months.”

  Put like that, the decision was an easy one. It was time to find out what Anneliese had been hiding all these years.

  It was a Certificate of Baptism and Birth for Sophie Marta Frankow dated March 25, 1956, two days after Sophie’s third birthday. I stared at the names on the certificate, trying to push back the sick feeling in the pit of my stomach.

  “Are you okay?” Chantelle asked, concern etched on her lovely face. “I get that you recognize the last name, but surely it’s a coincidence.”

  “You’re probably right,” I said, knowing that she wasn’t. I turned my attention to the document at hand.

  “Certificate of Baptism and Birth,” I read out loud, as if doing so would change what was written there. “This certifies that Sophie Marta Frankow, daughter of Anton Osgoode and his wife Anneliese Ruth née Prei, was born on the twenty-third day of March, 1953 at Toronto, Ontario, and received Christian Baptism on the twenty-fifth day of March, 1956.”

  “His wife” had been crossed out, raising the question of who would have done that. The pastor? Anton? Anneliese, after the fact? I knew the question was rhetorical, that there would be no way of ever finding out, but I couldn’t help but wonder.