Murder in the Melting Pot

by Jane Isenberg

  An hour later, Miranda was watering her spider plant when Colestah returned, dressed in her black pants and jersey, with her hair off her face and flowing down her back. Miranda put down her watering can and went to the fridge. “Here. I made you a doggie bag for your ride back over the mountains.” She didn’t usually do this for departing guests, but she was sure that Colestah would return to the Valley and wanted her to know she was still welcome at Breitner’s. “Next time you come home, may it be for a much happier occasion. Have a safe trip.” She refrained from adding, “And don’t shoot anybody.”

  “Take care of yourself, Miranda. You’ve made a great little nest here. Thanks for sharing it with me.” She took the bag Miranda handed her and turned to leave. After a few steps, she turned back. “As for that mess across the street….” She tilted her head in the direction of the processing plant and her lips curved in an enigmatic smile. “Don’t let it get to you. Sooner or later you’ll figure out who really did kill that koshering guy and you’ll tell the cops, and they’ll take the credit, and the whole thing will blow over.” Miranda thought she heard wrong. How did Colestah know she was feeding the cops leads on Crime Stoppers? Maybe the woman really was a prophet who foretold events no one else even imagined. “And don’t worry. I promise I won’t shoot anybody on the way home.” It was Miranda’s turn to smile. She’d forgotten Colestah’s mindreading expertise. “Seriously, Miranda, if you ever need my help… you have my contact info. I mean it.” Colestah’s hug was as unexpected as her offer, but surprisingly welcome. In a moment the Audi’s tires squealed and she was gone.

  When a week had passed after the trip to Rattlesnake Mountain, and no one had shown up to arrest her and there was no reference to the tire-shooting in the local news or blogs, Miranda acknowledged that Colestah was right. The two tribal police officers had decided not to publicize it.

  By the end of that same week Detective Ladin hadn’t shown up either. Maybe he regretted having forced his kiss on her. Or, as a newspaper reporter wrote, he was busy following “new leads.” She suspected one was the one she’d sent via Crime Stoppers and that the other wasn’t new at all but had to do with Javier Baez. Curious, she set out for a run with Rusty and headed straight for Darlene’s house on the other side of downtown. Rusty trotted after her up the street just as Detective Ladin himself walked out the front gate. His eyes widened at the sight of Miranda. He nodded politely, but, to Miranda’s relief, all he said was “Gotta run” and he kept going.

  Darlene was surprised to see Miranda too, but not unhappy. Rusty enjoyed a reunion with her that included lots of head scratching and a bonus belly rub. She welcomed them both into what seemed more like a cottage than a full-sized house. Miranda reminded herself that, according to her realtor, many of the homes in Sunnyvale were built back when aspirations were modest and central heating and indoor plumbing were still luxuries.

  The living room was neat and cozy, but Darlene was a mess. New lines transected her thin face, her complexion was sallow, and her eyes blinked in the sun-brightened doorway. The older woman’s altered appearance brought out the fixer in Miranda. “You look like you haven’t slept in weeks. I came over to see if you could work Friday night, but now I feel more like I should adopt you. Let’s get you out of the house. Come for a walk with us. Tell me what’s happened to Javier that’s keeping you up nights and stealing your appetite.”

  Darlene obediently slipped a coat off a hook, grabbed her purse, and locked the door. “That man has been here every day this week, sometimes twice in one day.”

  “I’m so sorry. I read they were following new leads. Have they found Javier? Is he okay? I didn’t see anything in the paper.”

  “No. They did not find him.” Darlene’s tone, suddenly resolute, was at odds with her worn face.

  “Well that’s a relief.”

  “No. They want to find him more than before because they think they have a new motive for Javier to kill that guy. It’s more convincing even than the motives they made up.” Darlene looked around her tiny yard, still blinking as if seeing the sun and the willow trees and the neighboring homes for the first time. “They think I know where he is.”

  Miranda thought so too. Darlene was smart and competent and probably quite capable of stowing that kid away somewhere secure if she had to. And she had to. Miranda didn’t press her on it.

  Darlene’s voice was bitter. “I just wish they would concentrate on finding the real killer. Until they find who really did it, Javi is not safe in the Valley.”

  “You’re right. Believe me, I know.” Miranda swallowed her impulse to share her own experience with the police’s affinity for premature incarceration. “What new motive have they dreamed up for Javier?”

  “The dead guy and a friend, another kosherer, were walking around Toppenish looking at the murals on their day off. The dead guy , , ,”

  “Isaac. His name was Isaac Markowitz,” Miranda interjected.

  “Now I remember. Yes. Isaac asked a girl walking by to take a photo of him and his friend in front of a mural, and he gave her his phone and she walked across the street and took the picture. Then she went back and returned his phone. But, Ms Breitner, one of Javi’s amigos was driving by and saw this girl Alma talk to them and take the picture. As like a joke, he told Javi that Isaac hit on Alma.” Darlene’s voice had become low and desperate.

  “Uh oh, that’s not good.”

  “It gets worse. I’m telling you. It’s like on TV.”

  “But Isaac was Orthodox. And he was married. Orthodox Jewish men barely talk to women they don’t know. I’m surprised he even asked her to take the picture. I certainly don’t believe he flirted with her.”

  “It doesn’t matter, because Alma believed Javi got jealous. And right after that Javi went missing. And he didn’t tell Alma he was leaving. He also didn’t tell her where he was going. And he didn’t take her calls. So Queen Alma was very angry.” Miranda detected something almost like triumph in Darlene’s voice. “That bitch always acts like she has him wrapped around her little finger. So she went to the police.” Darlene stopped walking, looked at Miranda, and shook her head. “Can you believe that, Ms Breitner? That lying little slut told the police Javi killed Isaac for hitting on her. Can you believe that?”

  Miranda nodded. All too easily she could imagine how Detective Ladin, eager to close this troublesome case, inflamed the hurt teenager’s anger. “Yes, I can. Sometimes the cops can’t tell the difference between closing a case and finding a killer.”

  “You’re right. They keep questioning all Alma and Javi’s friends and all us relatives over and over. They say he stole the fish club to use to throw them off his trail and they’re talking to family and anyone else who ever so much as smiled at Javi or lent him money for a taco. My son and his wife are so afraid. They have already lost one son…”

  When they passed a two-story house where some pumpkins and gourds were attractively arranged on one side of the front steps, Miranda broke their silence with what she intended as a distracting bit of small talk. “These stairs look good. I ought to get some pumpkins and gourds for the B & B’s front steps and maybe for inside the fireplace.”

  Darlene didn’t so much as glance at the house. “What looks good on the outside isn’t always so good inside. On account of the people in that house who just moved here last spring, my granddaughter can’t play in front of my house anymore and I’ve lived here for thirty-five years.” She turned to look at Miranda and then back at the decorated stairs. “The kids who live in that house called my Josefina ugly names and took her doll and made her cry. Can you believe it?”

  “What did they call her?”

  “’Nigger.’ ‘Mud.’ The child has dark skin like her father and grandfather. My husband’s skin was dark.” Darlene was shivering, so without interrupting her, Miranda turned and headed them back the way they came. “Those kids are old enough to know better, and when I phoned their mother and told her she apo
logized to me and made them give back the doll, but Josefina won’t walk her doll’s stroller out in front anymore even if I go with her. That mother’s a nurse who works the night shift at the hospital so she can home-school those two brats. The father, he’s an engineer with the county. They’re educated people. You’d think they’d teach their kids better than that.” Darlene’s sigh spoke of resignation and sorrow. “You can see why our Josefina’s happier in her school. This world is not easy for someone like her.”

  Miranda, sobered by the realization that Darlene and her family routinely bore burdens that far outweighed her own baggage, put her arm around the grandmother’s shoulders, and the two women walked the rest of the way back without talking, like mourners leaving a funeral.

  Once inside, Darlene made tea while Miranda looked around admiring the many class, graduation, and wedding photos of young people and the portraits of unsmiling adults posing stiffly in their old-fashioned best clothes. Darlene seemed to find comfort in the ritual of feeding a guest, and she put out a plate of churros with the tea. “Help yourself.” Her voice was deliberately cheerful. “Ms Breitner, I have another idea about who killed this Isaac. It’s pretty simple. Want to hear it?”

  “I’m all ears.”

  “Isaac’s killer might have been a dismissed employee of Oskar Hindgrout’s. He’s the plant owner. You know, the killer could be like those psychos who get fired from the post office and go back and shoot everybody they used to work with.”

  “It works for me. I’m surprised the cops haven’t pursued it. Or maybe they have.”

  “And maybe now this ex-employee’s a junkie who stole the fish club from Michael Wright's truck to sell for drug money. Then, while in the neighborhood, he went into Hindgrout’s plant to rip off some copper wiring or something else from a place where he had been so mistreated. He would think he knew how the plant operated too, that on a Sunday maybe there’d be fewer people around.”

  “Hindgrout does have a very short fuse.” Miranda kept listening.

  “Mr. Hindgrout could put together a list of fired employees, and the cops could find them and question them instead of focusing only on my Javi. I know a lot of those ex-employees are back across the border, but still…”

  “I agree. It’s a new direction.”

  “Well those cops need a new direction. I keep telling that detective, if my grandson ever saw a fish club, he’d hit a baseball with it.”

  “Right. At least your scenario takes that damn fish club into account.” She left Darlene’s house only after the older woman agreed to send her suggestion to Crime Stoppers. She also promised to eat more and try to rest. “After all, you’re going to be working all day Friday, and you’ll need your strength to keep up with this guy.” Miranda bent to scratch Rusty’s head and run her hand over his back.

  Later that day, she resolved to follow up on a new theory of her own. She called Nelson at home. Pauline took the call and insisted Miranda join them for supper. “We haven’t seen you in too long.”

  After a delicious chicken dinner of which Miranda preferred not to know the provenance, she turned to Nelson and asked, “So did you ever get to actually see Isaac’s ram’s horn? Was it there in the room when you found the body? Was Isaac holding it?”

  Nelson sipped his coffee before he spoke. “No. I don’t remember seeing it. When I came in he was lying on the floor all bloody and not conscious and I went right to my phone to get help. I was pretty upset. I just don’t remember seeing a musical instrument or any kind of animal horn near him. And that’s funny, because he was really proud of that thing. It was his idea to show it to me. He told me it was a wedding gift from his father-in-law, some kind of family heirloom.”

  “Did you tell the detective who interviewed you after the murder that you were coming to meet Isaac just to see that ram’s horn?”

  “I’m pretty sure I did. But I’m not positive. I know I told him Isaac and I used to talk a lot when we were both on breaks. We talked about the Bible. He was my friend. And his poor young widow, Eva is her name, will always be in my prayers. He missed her so much.”

  “So you aren’t absolutely sure you mentioned the ram’s horn to the detective?”

  “Right.” Nelson’s smile was wry, not mirthful. “I was scared the cops thought I’d killed my friend. And that new cop who interviewed me, he had a Spanish name. I understand Spanish accents, but he spoke with some weird accent that wasn’t Spanish. So I just answered his questions as fast as I could to get out of that little room.” Nelson’s mouth began to twitch at the memory. “I prayed to Jesus to get me out of there before he got it into his head that I killed Isaac.”

  Miranda understood Nelson’s desire to escape an interrogator. She hated interrogating him and they were both relieved when Pauline rejoined them at the table, even though she sounded annoyed. “I keep telling Nelson that cop was probably Filipino. They have Spanish names but they speak another language, right, Miranda?”

  Uncertain herself, Miranda shrugged. “All I know is that the Philippines were once a colony of Spain, so it makes sense that lots of people from there have Spanish surnames.”

  “Yes. And now there’s a Filipino family in our church and their last name is Gonzalez. The wife, she told me the health center keeps sending all their medical bills and test results in Spanish, and they can’t read them. Our pastor got someone to translate for them.”

  At this, Nelson looked annoyed. “Well I don’t know about that. All I know is I speak English and I couldn’t understand that guy’s English too good.”

  Miranda nodded, eager to avoid taking sides. She needn’t have worried. When Nelson spoke next, he defused the domestic tiff by addressing Miranda. His voice was low and his tone apologetic. “Now, don’t take this the wrong way, Miranda, but maybe one of the other Jews took the ram’s horn to keep it from being, you know, desecrated by non-Jews like the cops. You people don’t like non-Jews touching your grapes or your dead bodies, so maybe the rabbi or one of the other kosherers felt that way about the ram’s horn, wanted to keep it, you know, kosher.”

  Miranda stiffened for a few seconds at Nelson’s use of the phrase you people but she got over it. She assumed Nelson meant no harm. Even so, she didn’t feel like explicating the complex commandments that governed the lives of Orthodox Jews just then. So all she said was, “The rabbi and most of the other kosherers weren’t in the Valley when Isaac was killed, Nelson. And I don’t think they would have removed anything from a crime scene even if they were here.”

  Nelson shrugged and nodded.

  “Nelson, tell me, what’s Oskar Hindgrout like to work for? I was talking to someone this morning who thinks the killer might be an employee fired by Hindgrout and holding a grudge.”

  “Hindgrout’s a decent boss. He’s got a temper, but he jokes about it. And from what I can see, he’s real careful about who he hires, so he doesn’t have to can too many people. I been with him over twenty years and he maybe let go four, five guys in all that time.” Nelson sighed. “We got more machines than men now.”

  “Interesting. But I better get a move on. I’m going to Yakima tomorrow right after breakfast so I have to get my beauty sleep.”

  “Don’t tell me there’s another Jewish holiday.”

  Miranda grinned. “Yup. We have one every week. Friday night is the beginning of our Sabbath, so I’m planning to go to Temple in Yakima. They have a monthly service led by a visiting rabbi and a potluck dinner. But another reason for my heading up that way is the annual exposition and luncheon the Yakima Valley Chamber of Commerce gives to welcome new small business owners.”

  “Oh, yes. It’s smart for you to go to that. You can spread the word about Breitner’s and let them know you’re prepared to ride out this mess, that you’re not going anywhere. What are you wearing?”

  “I’m going to go through my closet to see if I have anything a successful B & B owner would wear to such an event.”

  But
at home, Miranda walked Rusty and then, ignoring her closet, spent an hour composing a tip to send to Crime Stoppers. She tried to make it simple and guileless.

  I heard the kosherer was going to meet some co-worker in the storage room to show him his ram’s horn. This is a musical instrument from the Holy Bible, played by Jews on their big holiday. But I also heard that the co-worker did not see a ram’s horn with the body. So maybe the killer was a thief surprised by the kosherer, so the thief grabbed the ram’s horn out of his hands and hit him in the head with it. Then probably the killer took it away.

  CHAPTER 15

  Guest book: “In the Valley for a family reunion on the res. Need a little me-time during these reunions. This B&B’s rates are good. So is the breakfast. I’ll be back next year.” Colestah Wright

  The exposition was in one of the older chain hotels near Yakima’s Conference Center, and Miranda signed in, slapped her name tag on the lapel of the royal blue jacket she wore with her white sweater and trusty black pants, pinned a smile on her face, and went to set up her booth in the hall next to the dining room. She opened her laptop at the table fronting her booth and brought up the video she’d made for her website. She strewed the table with business cards and brochures, untied the box she’d lugged in, and assembled three platters piled with assorted bite-sized muffins she’d defrosted for the occasion. Then, taking a breath, she introduced herself to the burly young man arranging brochures, faucets, shower heads, and spigots at a neighboring booth. “Hi, I’m Miranda Breitner. I own Breitner’s B & B in Sunnyvale. We opened in September.”