“Is that all you can remember right now?”
“Yes, Detective, that’s all I can remember, I guess the Rabbi was just not feeling himself.”
“Mrs. Weissman, what about you? You saw all this too. Did you notice anything unusual about that day or the Rabbi?”
“Well,” Colleen replied, “I saw the ashes and the skull protruding from them but thought it belonged to an animal. I didn’t get close enough to the ashes to know for sure what it was. I didn’t really pay attention to his wave, but I did notice he was slightly bent over when he returned from the backyard, but I didn’t think anything of it at the time.”
Pratt, pleased with their answers, thanked them both for their cooperation and left. Their testimony in court would be indispensable.
Sommerville went back to the Rabbi’s yard and began looking for a rake to take the pile of ashen material apart; finally having to ask a neighbor to borrow one. Pratt used his gloved hands to push away the ashes from the pile, while Jason used the borrowed rake.
They discovered a human skull and a partial jaw with four teeth still intact sticking out at the top of the ashes. At the bottom of the heap of ashes was what looked like to be small pieces of blue tarp, tiny fragments of red plastic, probably from a gas can, and a few more pieces of charred bone. The rest of the body was unidentifiable, unless forensics could somehow obtain DNA from the ashes. There was a bullet hole in the forehead of the skull. The scene burned an indelible image into the detectives’ minds. This was all the proof they needed to declare it a murder.
Sommerville radioed the police dispatcher. “Send over two black and whites, a coroner, and a forensics team ASAP to the Rabbi’s home.”
Within three minutes two squad cars arrived with four officers. One officer approached Pratt and asked, “What’s up, Detective?”
“A dead body,” he replied.
A few minutes later the coroner arrived, and within another half-hour, two forensics techs showed up. Sommerville warned the four officers, “Go out back and look at that heap of ashes. If you have to heave, do so far away from the evidence. I want you to search every inch of the property for bullets and their casings. Then search for footprints. If you find anything at all, call me or see Detective Pratt. He’s the guy standing out on the front lawn.”
The officers went to the back expecting a body but not what they saw. They looked down with a stricken expression at the gruesome remains. Two of them needed to hurl but controlled it until they could move away from the body parts.
The coroner approached Pratt, whom he knew from Sedona, and asked, “Where’s the body?”
“In the backyard, but I don’t think you’ll need a body bag. The way it looks to me, a medium-sized kitchen trash bag should do,” Pratt answered icily. A terrible wretched feeling ravaged his body at the thought of what he had seen in the past hour.
Using yellow police tape, the four officers cordoned off the property completely, including the side yards, the open front door into the house, and the rest of the three-plus acres of the yard. Detective Sommerville declared the entire area around the house a crime scene.
The detectives agreed to call District Attorney Stanford in Sedona to come and meet them at Jason’s police station. District Attorney Helen Stanford drove directly from her home in Sedona and showed up at Jason’s office in Flagstaff fifteen minutes after Pratt.
“Good morning, Madam D.A.,” said Detective Jason Sommerville as she walked towards his desk.
“Good to see you, Helen,” said Pratt as he sat nearby.
“Good morning, Gentlemen. I hear we have a body discovered in the Rabbi’s backyard,” D.A. Stanford replied.
“That’s correct, and both of us believe it’s going to be an easy one for you. We figure it’s an open and shut case.”
“So, you’re also the jury and get to declare somebody guilty already? Is that what I’m hearing you say?”
“Well, not exactly, but how much more evidence do you need?” asked Jason.
Helen replied, “That remains to be ascertained, Detective Sommerville, and that’s one reason I’m here, to further investigate. But first fill me in on what you’ve learned about the body, and how.”
Both Sommerville and Pratt unloaded all the information about what they found in the backyard and shared it with the D.A. Then Jason continued, “As to how we learned about the body, the Rabbi’s neighbors detected something strange going on in his backyard and notified our department.”
“How long will it take us to get to his home so that I can do some investigating too?” she asked.
“About thirty-five minutes,” replied Sommerville.
“All right then, let’s not waste another minute. Why don’t you drive me to the scene,” said Helen.
Each detective took his own vehicle and D.A. Helen Stanford sat in the passenger seat of Pratt’s car. She had known Pratt for many years and felt more comfortable discussing everything with him.
They stepped out of their vehicles and the D.A. headed straight to the backyard, where she saw what appeared to be a large pile of ashes encircled in spots with some burnt pine needles and leaves that escaped the murderous arson.
She grabbed the neighbor’s borrowed rake that one of the officers had left leaning on the back wall of the house, took it to the pile and began raking hard. She was looking for possible additional clues that may not have completely burned, such as a watch, ring, or anything else that would help her. She stopped after a few heavy rakes of the pile of ashes, bent down and picked something up.
“Well, Detectives, I believe your officers need to go back to the academy and for additional rake training,” she said with a sarcastic tone. She retrieved a .45 caliber Glock with an attached silencer somewhere at the bottom of the ashes where the body was left. The weapon was severely burned, but there had not been enough heat circulating in the pyre to melt the gun or the silencer.
“Holy shit!” exclaimed Sommerville. “I can’t believe my guys missed that.”
“Neither can I,” added Pratt, “because I was watching them to see what they might find.”
She continued to rake and found pieces of soft blue rubber, which she believed must have come from some type of surgical or gardening glove, and a small red piece of hard plastic, which still had the odor of gasoline. She picked up each item, placed them into separate evidence bags and handed them to Sommerville and said, “Please have your lab test the remains for DNA and the other items for fingerprints and see if they can explain their origin. Anyway, you know what needs to be done.”
“I know, and believe me, I’ll have a discussion with my officers about their having missed key evidence. I’m embarrassed and pissed!” replied Sommerville.
“Well, don’t bite them too hard,” said Stanford. “Just make sure they understand you loud and clear about the importance of thoroughly inspecting sites that may contain potential useable evidence. Once they have the results, have your lab send these items to my lab in Sedona for their analysis. Depending on what they find, if the two labs come to an agreement on the evidence, it may seal the case. I’ll get a warrant to search the Rabbi’s premises.” She obtained the warrant within two hours and remained with the detectives at Bloom’s.
When forensics showed up to inspect the inside of the house, they put on removable shoe covers and rubber gloves that would not leave any foot or fingerprints. They didn’t have to ask Sommerville what they needed to do. They knew their jobs well and did them without a second thought. They took samples of the ashes and placed them into marked plastic forensics bags, along with small fragments of bones, and placed the skull in a large labeled bag. Then entered the inside of the home, checked inside the Rabbi’s closet, and took fingerprints along with fibers from the Rabbi’s clothing. During their search inside the home, one officer found a hole in the closet door directly opposite the front door. As the officer investigated the hole, he found a slug and dug it out with his pocket-knife and placed the slug in another plastic
bag labeled “Evidence.”
Twenty
An hour later, the Rabbi arrived home following a two-night stay out of town. He saw the police cars in front of his house and walked up to Pratt, the only person on the scene he knew. “What are you doing here?” he inquired. “What’s going on here, Detective? Why wasn’t I told you would be coming to my home? Do you have a search warrant to search my property and my house without my permission?”
“We have a search warrant for the premises from the Flagstaff court,” Pratt answered. “You’re under arrest for murder and desecration of a body.” He told him this much because the coroner had already confirmed that what he found in the backyard was what appeared to be a cremated body and a head that had belonged to a male who had been dead less than twenty-four hours. Pratt then confiscated the Rabbi’s cell phone. He moved away from Bloom, got on his mic to call Sommerville, and asked him to come up front. “I’m going to arrest this Rabbi,” declared Pratt.
“Sorry, buddy,” Sommerville replied, “but you’re in my jurisdiction now and I get to arrest him.” He came up front to do so, approaching the Rabbi and very coolly telling him, “Rabbi, please turn around and place your hands behind your back.” Bloom did as he was told and then Sommerville cuffed him. Sommerville Mirandized the religious leader and then had a black and white drive Bloom to the Flagstaff county jail.
“I don’t understand what you’re doing,” protested the Rabbi. “Why are you handcuffing me? What am I being accused of? You gentlemen don’t know what you are doing. Do you have any idea who I am?” he asked indignantly.
In the black and white, the Rabbi asked the officer who was driving, “And who did I supposedly kill? What are these detectives talking about? What gives? Officer, do you believe that I could murder someone? I couldn’t harm anyone, let alone kill them. I’m a man of the cloth for heaven’s sake! I pray for God to protect people, forgive them, heal them, feed them, not kill them.”
“I can’t answer any questions, sir,” the officer replied. “You seem like a good man to me, but I’m just the delivery boy.”
At the station, Sommerville reminded Bloom of his Miranda rights and told him, “I suggest, Rabbi, that you contact an attorney as soon as you can. You’re gonna need a good one.”
Once Bloom was behind bars, Jason Sommerville didn’t seem triumphant, instead he felt a little uneasy. He had come in with confidence, but now found himself pacing back and forth in front of the Rabbi’s cell block. He was moving in slow steps as if deep in thought, wondering, Maybe we captured the wrong guy. He couldn’t explain it; it was just a queasy feeling he had in the pit of his stomach. He later asked his boss, Flagstaff’s Sheriff Tambor, “Ray, do you believe that it’s possible for a Rabbi to kill someone?”
“Well, he’s just a human, and no different than any other person with a prefix or suffix added to their name. So, yeah, I believe that a Rabbi could kill someone. Look, if we got preachers running swindles and priests molesting children throughout this country, then why couldn’t a Rabbi kill somebody? You know what the punishment has been for those priests?” he asked Jason. “They were transferred to another town’s church to get a refill, instead of being sent to prison for the rest of their stinking lives. Absolutely, a Rabbi can kill somebody, and from the evidence you’ve presented to me, I think he did kill someone.”
“I agree with everything you said, Boss, until the last sentence,” Sommerville replied. “I just don’t get it.”
“What is it that you don’t get?”
“I just don’t see how a man who’s got the balls to kill a guy, for whatever reason, is also so stupid as to hide the body under a pile of leaves and needles and then set it on fire in his own backyard? I just hope I didn’t jump the shark.”
“Remember, Detective, it’s quite conceivable that he could have burnt the cadaver to ashes thinking that it would not be identifiable as a body but just a pile of leaves. After all, just burying someone in the woods somewhere has never been a reliable way to dispose of it without some dog smelling it out someday or someone finding body parts after heavy rains washed the dirt away enough to expose it.” Getting no reply to this screed, Tabor asked Jason, “Have you notified the D.A. yet?”
“Yes, D.A. Stanford. She’s covering both Sedona and Flagstaff while our D.A. is out on leave getting chemotherapy. She was happy to finally get a heavy felony charge to investigate and try in court. She was with us when we investigated the Rabbi’s home.”
“Good,” replied Tabor.
◆◆◆
Pratt called his boss.
“What’s up, Detective?” Marshal Whitaker asked.
“I think I just got a lead, but I’m not going to discuss it over the radio. Anyway, I need to do some further investigating, and I’ll tell you if I get something. In the meantime, you can tell the mayor that we have a lead, but he is not to release it or even leak it to the press. No telling what a leak will do if the shooter and the public read about it in the newspapers.”
“All right, Detective, just keep me informed. By the way, is your suspect a Black dude or one of our local Indians, you can tell me that much, can’t you?”
No, you stupid bigoted prick, Pratt thought, he’s not a Black man or any other minority. But the detective felt he needed to answer his boss with some semblance of respect, so he told him that he was a “White male,” not mentioning that he was Jewish.
In the meantime, Pratt got on his radio to his police secretary in the office and told her to “Get a record of all the calls on Bloom’s cell phone once I send you the number.” He also wanted any records she could find about him and have all photos on Bloom’s cell phone sent to his desktop computer, to Johnny’s cell phone, and to D.A. Helen Stanford.
The next day, Johnny Pratt went to his boss’ office and told him that Rabbi Bloom had been arrested. Sedona Marshal Whitaker was clearly annoyed, clearly showing his ignorance about Judaism.
“What the fuck are you talking about, Detective, you’ve arrested a Rabbi, and a Jewish one, yet? This could ruin my career. Jews are assholes, but they have a lot of swag in this town.”
Pratt stewed in frustration at this self-serving, prejudiced dig, but said nothing.
The marshal decided it would be best to inform the Sedona mayor that he had a lead and an arrest was expected shortly. He would inform the mayor of the name of the perpetrator as soon as he gets it, for the time being cloaking that it was Rabbi Bloom.
He asked Pratt sternly, “What evidence have you found that permits you to arrest a prominent Jewish leader in our community?”
“I have evidence that the Rabbi was having an affair with a married woman from his congregation and intended to off her husband to get him out of the way.”
“Is that your conjecture, Detective, or do you have proof?”
“I have proof of the affair, sir, and it is my professional assessment that he was intending to permanently get rid of the woman’s husband to have her for himself. And now we find a deceased body burned to ashes in his backyard. I think the circumstantial evidence is powerful. You can even ask D.A. Stanford.”
The marshal responded forcefully, “That’s absolute bullshit, Pratt. You’re giving me conjecture; I want facts! Couldn’t there be an alternative explanation?”
Johnny conceded to himself that it wasn’t a fact, that it was just conjecture; yet he didn’t want to give Whitaker the information regarding what the Weissmans had witnessed.
“Here’s a fact you can share with the mayor and he can release to the press. ‘Human remains of a body were found in Rabbi Bloom’s backyard. The Rabbi was arrested on suspicion of murder.’”
“Are you shitting me, Pratt? Are you sure enough of those facts?”
“Well, I told you I found a cremated body in his backyard, with a bullet hole in its head. I think that speaks for itself.”
The marshal called the mayor and gave him the unbelievable news that they arrested Rabbi Bloom for murder. “They found a dead body
cremated in his backyard with a bullet to the head.”
“That doesn’t mean shit to me,” the mayor responded. “Anybody could have killed somebody, cremated them and then brought this mess to the Rabbi’s backyard. You had better be fucking sure of yourself before you make me lose the next election and you lose your job!”
The detectives were not able to hold Bloom for more than two days, thanks to the $100,000 bail money his congregation raised. Bloom obtained a lawyer to speed up his release. The lawyer’s name was Albert Jaxson, a criminal lawyer from Sedona.
Twenty-One
Neither Pratt nor Somerville could guess who the cadaver once was. Pratt had a theory that Bloom had killed Carol’s husband Jules in his backyard so that he could have Carol for himself. That would have been reckless, but easy to do if passion got the better of him. After the Rabbi’s arrest, Pratt became increasingly uneasy that the corpse had not yet been identified, so the following evening he drove to Carol and Jules’ home to confirm if Jules was still alive. Carol answered the door. When Pratt asked to speak with her husband, she informed him that he went skiing in Telluride and Vail, Colorado, and would not be reachable for the next few weeks. She didn’t know where he was.
“Seems somewhat odd for him not to tell you how you can get in touch with him. Cell phones work practically everywhere now. Why did he go so far to ski, when there are much closer ski areas at the Mormon Lake Ski Center or the Snowbowl near Flagstaff? It would be a lot closer, wouldn’t it?” he asked Carol.
“I have no idea why he does some of the things he does,” she replied. “Sometimes, since we’ve been arguing so much, he just seems to want to get away from it all. He just takes off for a while and doesn’t want to be bothered. That’s one reason he doesn’t take his cell phone with him. It doesn’t bother me because he comes back sooner or later.”
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