We walk slowly through it. One monkish bedroom. One tiny bath with a cracked oval mirror. One faintly yellow kitchenette that hasn’t seen a mop or a broom in years. A dog pound has more love, and a far better aroma. Instinct takes hold of me. I’m not the neatest man in the world, but I feel a compulsion in my gut to do something right away. I’m not sure what. Maybe sponge down the counter, sprinkle Ajax in the sink. That’s on the one hand. On the other hand, I also want to cringe and get the hell out of there as quickly as possible.
On a plywood and cinderblock shelf beside the bed, books are arranged. Judaica mostly, red and black leather-bound volumes with Hebrew lettering, but curiously, there are a few thrillers too. And even some pretty decent literature. Next to a lamp on Jonah’s bedside table sits one he was in the middle of when he left. It’s a dog-eared Primo Levi book I read a long time ago, Survival in Auschwitz. He has lots of other books, some squirreled under the bed, more anyway than the shelves will allow. And like the ones I saw in the rabbi’s office, some of these have also ended up loosely categorized, stacked on the floor. At least the bed is made, though that might have taken him all of ten seconds to accomplish.
Omar goes meticulously through his bureau, one pair of underwear at a time. “Hey now, what’s this?” he says when he reaches the bottom drawer. With his thumb and forefinger he carefully lifts a crowbar out and sets it down on the carpet.
I slide onto my hands and knees for a closer look. “It’s not clean,” I say. “No sir. See that brown streak?”
Omar squints. “So?”
“So, it might be blood.”
“You think?”
I sit up, look at Omar for half a minute before I open my mouth. For the first time in I don’t know how long, I’m suddenly bursting with confidence. “We may have just won the lottery. That’s what I think. This could be our lucky day.”
“The rabbi wasn’t hit with no goddamn crowbar,” he replies.
“Not at all,” I say. “But Dr. Ewing was. Or something just like one. And if the lab guys can find her DNA on this blunt instrument we have before us, well, you see what I’m getting at?”
“No. Not really. The kid killed the doctor?”
“Don’t you get it? That would put our Jonah Siegel right in the crosshairs of both murders.”
“Maybe,” he says. “If it’s her blood. But I dunno. You have a lot more faith in science than I do. Maybe it’s just a dirty old crowbar.”
I roll my eyes. “Tell me, amigo, is this where you’d usually stash a crowbar—right next to your pajamas? Is that a normal thing to do?”
“Hey, did I say he was normal? I said he was a slob.”
I slip the crowbar gently back into the bottom drawer just as Omar had found it, doing my best to keep my prints off it.
The closet is practically empty, and there’s no suitcase to be found. On the table in the living room there are a couple of Greyhound Bus and Amtrak schedules, and a crumpled piece of paper with all kinds of numbers and initials on it. Could be departure times, but looking at them it’s impossible to guess what they were. Beneath the train schedules there’s a large thick manila envelope. I straighten the metal flaps and open it up. It contains a half dozen of Rabbi Ezra’s latest sermons, some of the same ones Sophie had given me, as well as a few others. Jonah Siegel has evidently read them all with interest. He’s underlined several words and phrases in red ink. Jews do not exist in a vacuum. If every single undocumented person in Los Angeles just suddenly walked off the job, wouldn’t you notice? It’s a contract. Signed and sealed. Except now we know very well that God was not a party to it.
Omar’s been sifting through the young man’s trash bag under the kitchen sink. He comes back with a crumpled pale blue medical folder from Dora Ewing’s office labeled DIAMANT, EZRA. There’s nothing in it, but he shows it to me. “You want more proof?” I say. “You’re holding it.”
“Maybe so,” he says. “I’ll put it back in the garbage, that’s what you want, right?”
“Right.”
Then we backtrack through each room to see if we missed anything, turn off all the lights, and finally we’re out the door and into the fading October sunlight. A siren sounds a few blocks off, but it’s an ambulance, not the police.
“What now?” Omar asks when we’re safely back in my Honda.
“What now? Well, for starters, I’m gonna take out my cell phone and call Lieutenant Malloy.”
“Ah c’mon. De veras? Really? Why you wanna do that?”
“Policemen are your friends, Omar.” I smile. “Get used to it.” He smiles back ruefully. My old pal has never had a kind word to say about cops. It’s okay. I get that. If I were in his shoes, I wouldn’t, either. One day, I think, when he’s lived here long enough and there’s a Latino president sleeping in the White House, then maybe he’ll change his tune.
I pull the Honda into gear and ease onto the street. “And right now,” I continue, “we need our friends to find that kid. We can’t do it by ourselves.”
“I just hope you aren’t gonna tell them about the crowbar.”
“Are you kidding? All I’m gonna say is we got a tip. This Jonah Siegel fellow was sitting at the table when the rabbi dropped dead. Isn’t that interesting, Lieutenant? And it struck us that maybe, just maybe, you’d like to chat with him. Oh, and I’ll make it even easier. I’ll give him the kid’s address.”
“They’re gonna know you were there, you do that.”
“That’s okay, who cares? We’ll say, sure, we came nosing around, but he wasn’t home. And we’re law-abiding citizens, you know. We didn’t want to intrude. But we tell them it’s worth looking into. That’s all. Trust me, they’ll find the crowbar and take it from there.”
“So then, this is the killer? Is that what you’re saying? So we’re done now?”
There’s a small part of Omar that genuinely wants to believe this, I can tell. Even though he’s committed to helping me out, he doesn’t much like toting that gun around, waiting for something bad to happen. That’s how your mind works after you’ve seen cruelty up close. When push comes to shove, you’ll do your job, but you won’t be a hero. What’s the point?
Chapter 10
THEY SAY ECHO PARK is coming up in the world, but if it is, it’s still got a long way to go. The neighborhood where Ruth Diamant lives is even dicier than Jonah Siegel’s. A bunch of ramshackle stucco buildings with Spanish touches clawing their way up a ragged hillside. Iron grills on the windows. Trash cans standing at odd angles on the street. The gang graffiti on the walls isn’t new, but it isn’t that old, either. I’ve seen it before. They’re the kinds of signs and portents Omar might have spray-painted himself when he was younger. Or at least he can probably translate. Here and there on the balconies overhead, a few folks have enough pride in where they live to put out red and blue and yellow clay pots filled with flowers.
I tell Omar to stay put in the car, but keep his eyes open.
“What for, man? If it was that kid who left you the bullet, he’s long gone.”
“Maybe he has friends,” I say. “Just pay attention. This probably won’t take too long.” I slam my door and trudge the ten winding steps up to her apartment. This time the buzzer works just fine, and after a minute I’m staring at Ruth Diamant. She’s tall and slender, early twenties, I’d guess. Her dark hair is clipped fashionably close to her head like a runway model. She’s wearing a loose white Mexican blouse with birds embroidered on it, tan shorts, and leather sandals. Three strands of heavy beads around her neck. Some artsy gold-hoop earrings. There’s a confidence in her handshake.
“Oh hi,” she says when I tell her who I am. “I’m glad you came.” I hand her my business card. It’s just a small pale blue square with my name and cell phone and the words private investigator down at the bottom. Simple and direct, that’s my style, if I have any at all. Years ago, when I was more enterprising, I printed up 500 of these things. I figure I still have 450 left.
She leads me i
nto her living room, which is bright and airy. In the dining room beyond, the windows have been levered open and there’s a long black Formica table, six sturdy wooden chairs, and a laptop computer. Someone—either she or her girlfriend—works out of the house. There are political posters all around, some framed, some laminated and stuck in the walls with pushpins. Head shots of Nelson Mandela and Malcolm X. A black and red and blue quote from Mahatma Gandhi: “Be the change you want to see in the world.” The place feels very lived in and leftish and welcoming, especially if you’re an old Jewish socialist like me. I plant myself on a comfy, pea-green couch and glance all around.
“Can I get you anything to drink? Coffee? I just made myself a fresh pot.”
“No, no thanks. I drink coffee now and I’ll be pacing the floor at midnight.”
She flashes a quick version of a smile. She still has a touch of the sullen demeanor I noticed in her teenage photograph, but it’s like the storm or whatever was troubling her back then has passed. “Well, suit yourself. I’m going to have some.” She vanishes into the kitchen, comes out presently with a large steamy cup, and takes a wing chair opposite me. “Okay then, shall we?”
I start out on what I think is safe ground. “Well, as Mrs. Applebaum probably told you, the Board at Shir Emet has asked me to look into your father’s death.”
She looks a little peeved. “Now why on earth would they do that? Does that make any sense to you, to hire a detective? Do they think somebody actually killed him?”
“Hard to say. It was an unusual death.”
She takes a sip of her coffee and licks her lips afterwards. “People drop dead all the time. Old people, even young ones now and then. Not so unusual, if you ask me.”
“Maybe. Maybe not. But obviously somebody at the synagogue was concerned enough to bring me into this. I didn’t know your father personally, you understand, but I’ve heard a lot in the last few days.”
“Yeah? So just what have you heard?”
I wag my head. “What everyone says. How passionate he was with the congregation. His ideas. His zest for life.”
“Oh please, don’t go there, Mr. Parisman.” Now she’s animated. Her brown eyes are flashing. “My father was a pig.”
We stare at each other in silence for a moment.
“Really?”
“As God is my witness. A total pig.”
I scratch the stubble on my cheek. I’m trying to remember when I last heard someone talk about their father like that. “So I take it then that you two didn’t get along?”
She sets her cup down on the low table. She doesn’t speak immediately; she’s gathering the proper words, I can see that in her face. “People thought he was progressive. That’s what they always said. That he was enlightened. That he loved the whole world. And he did, with the exception of his children.”
“Well, I didn’t come here to do therapy,” I say. “All I want to do is—”
“All you want to do is grab a few memories and jot them down in your notebook so you can make a nice neat report and be done with it. You don’t really want to know what a charlatan, what a criminal my father was.”
“I’d like to hear whatever you have to tell me. Even if it doesn’t comport with—”
“Oh, it won’t comport with what everyone else says, believe me.” She picks up her coffee cup, takes a couple of sips, and starts again. “Do you want to know why I finally left home?” she asks. “Did Sophie tell you that?”
“She didn’t tell me exactly, no. It’s more like she talked around it. I guess she thought it might have had something to do with your—your sexual preferences.”
She rolls her eyes derisively. “It’s not a preference, Mr. Parisman. This is who I am. When I met Rhianna seven years ago, you couldn’t imagine how miserable I was.”
“No, I suppose not.”
“And when my father, the great rabbi, found out, do you know what he did?”
“Let me guess. He refused to speak to you? He called you an abomination?”
“He did that, yes. That was the least of it. He also slapped me. He threw me against the wall and locked me in my room for two days.”
“How old were you when this happened, Ruth?”
“Fifteen. Fifteen and scared. He turned my mother and my own sisters against me. He said—and you can write this down verbatim—he said it would be better if I’d never been born.” There were tears streaming down her cheeks now. Her hands were shaking but she wasn’t about to stop. “Do you know what I did when I heard that my father died, Mr. Parisman? Do you want to know how I reacted to that news?”
I stare at her. “Tell me,” I say.
“Honestly, I laughed. I laughed so hard I cried. And Rhianna just held me and held me, and when I finally stopped, we just curled up in each other’s arms and went to sleep. I don’t think I’ve ever slept that well, before or since.”
After a few years in the detective business, you come to believe that you understand pain. You’ve seen so much of it, after all, that nothing much surprises you. But what Ruth said about her father touches me in a peculiar way; it makes me stop and think about how complicated people can be, and how long it can take sometimes to get to the truth.
I thank her for her time and pull my tuchis off the couch. I tell her I probably ought to shove off. She nods. Then instinctively I reach inside my coat and offer her a business card.
“You already gave me one,” she says. “Remember?”
“Oh right,” I say, “I did. At my age, you know how it is.” I start to take it back, then change my mind and press it into her hand. “But why don’t you hang onto it anyway, okay? Humor me. Put it up on your refrigerator. Just, you know, in case.”
“All right.”
She walks me to the door and watches as I start down the steps. “You’re still thinking this was an accident,” I say, stopping at the bottom and looking up. #8220;And you may be right. But let me ask you—if it was murder—did your father have any enemies?”
“Aside from me?” She humphs, runs her hand reflexively through her short, boyish hair. “No, nobody. I haven’t been back there in years, so there might be a few old cranks down at the shul who didn’t care for what he had to say. That’s a long shot, but it’s possible. Sometimes he irritated them. But I’m the only one in the world—the only one I know of—who flat out hated him.”
“Well,” I say, “you should probably try to let that go now. It’s not gonna do you much good anymore, is it?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” she replies. “I had an Aunt Elsie in New York. She seemed to be angry at just about everyone she ever met. My uncle told me it was like food for her, like a drug. And she went on forever, outlasted all her contemporaries. Anger served her well.”
“Maybe,” I say, “but how many people showed up at her funeral? In my book that’s proof of a life well lived.”
“Goodbye, Mr. Parisman. I hope you find whatever it is you’re looking for.”
Chapter 11
THAT FRIDAY NIGHT, just before the sun goes down, I take my maroon tie and my starched white shirt out of the dresser and put on my nicest outfit, which, to be honest, is not much different than my ordinary outfit, and drive over to Shir Emet for services. As I push through the glass doors and grab a black silky yarmulke out of the box, I notice the temple gift shop off to the right. It’s closed for the day, but they’ve filled it to the brim with Yemenite pottery and coloring books and menorahs and Hanukkah candles. The display window is nothing but gold and silver chains featuring various Stars of David.
I stop at the door of the sanctuary, pick up one of their glossy brochures and thumb through it. It has a photograph of a beaming, curly-haired kid in black trousers and a white long-sleeved shirt scaling a jungle gym. They bill themselves as progressive orthodox, but what’s that all about? I have no fucking idea. It’s vague enough to mean almost anything. Which may be what they want. Maybe it means they just make their own rules. They have a private elementary school
in the San Fernando Valley. It’s a modern airy building with bare steel beams and lots of windows and eucalyptus trees all around. The elementary school accepts children of all faiths as long as they have the dough. There’s a combined middle school and high school for girls in West LA, and there’s the boy’s-only orthodox-looking high school here on La Brea. This is the flagship, it seems. Here they have a chemistry lab. Here they teach German as well as Yiddish. And there are four different courses you can take on the Holocaust. What’s odd is that the high school is less expensive than the elementary school. It’s also fully accredited but you still have to say your prayers. Maybe that’s the problem, I think. Maybe by the time they’re ready for high school, most kids have had it with religion. And then there’s even a small rabbinical studies program. The rabbinical program is new, only a couple of years old, but whoever wrote the brochure promised that they have big plans to expand it soon to another campus. That’s when I realize this isn’t a synagogue so much as a corporation.
Tonight they’ve brought in a temporary rabbi to work the crowd, a young, cheerful, curly-haired and earnest guy from Texas named Zack. He wears cowboy boots under his robes, if you can believe it. Frye boots. Shit-kickers. He’s friendly enough, I suppose, but everything about him says that he doesn’t really expect to be here long. It’s just a gig, and yes, I’m guessing, but maybe a chance for him to spend time with some old girlfriend in LA.
Esther Kravitz, one of the elderly ladies I’m sitting with in the rear, has informed me that I shouldn’t worry, there’s already a search committee set up to find a new Rabbi Ezra. “Not that he can ever be replaced, mind you.”
Her companion for the evening, a dapper woman named Lillian and wearing a navy pantsuit, nods her head in agreement. “I loved that man,” she whispers. “Just loved him.”
Everyone grows quiet almost on cue, and Rabbi Zack uplifts his big, broad cowboy arms. He smiles, asks us all to please rise for the Sh’ma, the central prayer of Judaism that declares the oneness of God. And we do. We rise like sheep, sing the Sh’ma, some louder, some softer, a few off-key, and some with more passion than needed. Then we settle down again while the cantor belts out some soulful numbers in Hebrew, and a few bearded old men wrapped in tallises remain on their feet to daven, immune, lost in a service of their own creation. They mumble rapid-fire words under their breath, bending and swaying to the rhythm of a world I have long ago forgotten.
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