Murder in the Melting Pot

by Jane Isenberg

  “Oh my Lord! You poor woman! You’re the one who bought the old homestead down in Sunnyvale across from where the Jew was murdered. They still haven’t gotten that killer, have they?” He didn’t wait for a reply. “How’re things going now?”

  “Isaac Markowitz’s death was tragic. But it’s business as usual at Breitner’s. Reservations keep coming in. And satisfied guests send other guests. You know how that goes, I’m sure. Take a look at my video. Read the quotes from my on-line guest book. And may I have your card?” She handed him hers. “My B & B has five bathrooms and two kitchens, so I’ll need replacements before long.”

  “I hope so.” Laughing he added, “Seriously, I’ll keep you in my prayers, Ms Breitner.”

  And so it went all morning. The business community in the Valley knew all about Isaac Markowitz’s murder and the police’s failure to identify his killer, let alone bring him or her to trial. Miranda dreaded more pitying looks and questions at lunch and was relieved when she read Caroline Evans, on the name tag on the cranberry-colored jacket of the graying woman seated on her left. She was really glad to find herself face to face with the President of the Toppenish Public Art Association’s Board of Directors, whom she assumed was still an ally. “Hi, Caroline. I’m Miranda Breitner. Remember? Steve Galen stayed at my B & B.”

  “Of course I remember. Steve was very pleased with your place.” She paused and picked at her salad. “He must have been. We offered to move him after that homicide across the street from you, but he wouldn’t hear of it.”

  Miranda recalled how Steve had defended Breitner’s to her other guests the night they learned about the murder. “He was an easy guest. And it was kind of you to recommend Breitner’s to him.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “He told me you suggested he stay at Breitner’s because of my breakfasts.”

  “Good Lord! Don’t let that rumor get around Toppenish. I tried to get him to stay at the place near the casino or even at the pricey ranch with the spa up in the hills, but he insisted on your place. Said he’d read about your breakfasts online.”

  Miranda’s pleasure at learning that her website had been effective vied for her attention with her surprise that Caroline Evans hadn’t referred Steve to Breitner’s. “He did enjoy my breakfasts though. And if you didn’t send him to me, I hope you’ll send me other discriminating guests. I know you have the “Mural in a Day” event in the spring, and I bet there are artists who come to the Valley for that who’d enjoy Breitner’s.”

  “I’ll be honest with you, Miranda. As soon as the Sunnyvale police get their man, I’ll feel better about making real referrals. But let’s keep that under the radar. I don’t want our Toppenish hotelier and our innkeepers to know I’m sending trade out of town. Between you and me, my artists are always looking for budget-friendly bunks and good cheap eats. Did I say cheap?” She winked. “And I have friends all over the Valley who often have family members and clients coming in. Your location and rates would work well for some of them too.”

  “Thanks, Caroline.” Miranda made another go at her salad before asking, “So tell me, what brings you here today? Have you started a new business too?”

  Caroline flicked her striking eyeglass chain. “Yes. I make these out of stones and seeds, buttons and whatever else I find. I sell them at fairs and flea markets as well as on-line. We boomers are mostly farsighted but it’s really hard to find affordable eyeglass chains that are also attractive. Here’s my card.”

  By late afternoon, Miranda’s cheeks burned from smiling and her head throbbed from trying to absorb new names and faces while assuring vintners, grocers, organic farmers, restaurateurs, plumbing suppliers, woodworkers, gallery owners, antique dealers, accountants, periodontists, physical therapists, and a host of other entrepreneurs that Breitner’s B & B was still open and going to stay that way. By the time she dismantled her booth and packed up her remaining materials, she’d posed for a photograph for the newspaper and another for the Chamber’s website. Before she started her truck, she checked her B & B’s website, something she was doing far too often of late. Many people had clicked on it that day and three of those had booked reservations. Her excitement died when she saw also that two long-standing bookings had been cancelled.

  Miranda arrived at Temple Shalom just in time to join the other congregants clustered around Rabbi Golden, all singing a traditional melody, part of the pre-service blessing of wine. The familiar tune and the Hebrew words praising God for creating the Sabbath reminded her of how, as a girl, she’d stood close to her rabbi with the other kids and sung this same song. After the singing ended, two tweens, a pudgy boy whose yarmulke rested uneasily on his spiked hair and a tall, dark-skinned girl, recited the ancient blessing over wine. Two teenaged boys still awaiting their growth spurts carried trays bearing small glasses of wine to the adults and grape juice to the other kids. Just like their parents, some of the youngsters chugged their juice while others sipped. Swigging down her own wine, Miranda recalled a comment her grandmother had made in her Yiddish-accented English every single Friday evening. “Tonight Jews all over the Diaspora and all over Israel are raising glasses to celebrate the beginning of Shabbat.”

  Grandma Fannie’s observation had often inspired the adolescent Meryl Weintraub to imagine celebrating the Sabbath in sunny Mexico or Hawaii or even Israel or on the French Riviera instead of in gray, wet Seattle. Sitting in a synagogue in the relentlessly sunlit Yakima Valley, the adult Miranda Breitner realized that she had gotten a version of what she had once wished for and that the other part of her girlhood fantasy was outdated. Contemporary Mexico spawned deadly drug cartels, modern France was full of anti-Semites, and Israel was both besieged and besieging. In spite of this disturbing realization, she tried to relax, to let the familiar songs and prayers welcoming the holiday distract her from both her global and personal concerns.

  But when Rabbi Golden put down her guitar, adjusted her prayer shawl, and began her sermon, her words plugged into Miranda’s own grim preoccupations. “Shabbat shalom. I won’t begin with a joke tonight. We just blessed and drank the wine and grape juice the way we do every Shabbat. Both these beverages are kosher products. Perhaps they were even made from the fruit of vines grown right here in this Valley.” She spread her arms as if to enfold the entire region. “As you know, since I was with you last, a young rabbinical student from New York here to help kosher juice grapes, was murdered just down the road in Sunnyvale. His name was Isaac Markowitz, may his life be for a blessing.” Rabbi Golden lowered her head. Miranda was glad that the kids had disappeared, probably to a children’s service upstairs.

  “Why would anyone kill a law-abiding seasonal worker? An outstanding Talmud Torah student? A diligent employee? A newlywed? A visitor?” She looked around as if daring someone to respond. Miranda had been asking herself this question for weeks. Did this smart and with-it young rabbi know something she didn’t? Or did the week’s Torah reading, the prescribed topic of Sabbath sermons, hold a key to Isaac’s killer? Miranda didn’t even know what the week’s Torah reading was. She leaned forward so as not to miss a word.

  “Like Isaac Markowitz, I, too am a visiting worker here, an outsider. Perhaps that’s why I’m astonished that no one, including the esteemed and grief-stricken rabbi who supervises the koshering of juice grapes for RCK, Inc., at several processing plants here, acknowledges publically the possible existence of anti-Semitism in your Valley.” She leaned forward on the lectern as if to share a secret. “So tonight I’m going to talk turkey to you about anti-Semitism. Humor me, please.”

  Miranda was disappointed. What more was there to say about this tired topic? There just weren’t any clues leading to overtly anti-Semitic suspects. She listened as the rabbi continued. “Some American Jews define themselves in response to the Holocaust and anti-Semitism. They see themselves as victims and often don’t know much about pre-Holocaust Jewish history or anything at all about Jewish values.” Miranda
nodded. Her father was one of those people.

  “Other American Jews deny the persistence of anti-Semitism in our country because here we Jews now enjoy more acceptance and success than ever before.” Miranda nodded again. Her mother, may her life be for a blessing, had been one of these optimists. Rabbi Golden continued in a clear, strong voice. “And these glass-half-full folks are half right. We Jews should not allow the Holocaust and anti-Semitism to continue to define us.”

  The rabbi moved to the small space in front of the lectern and paced slowly back and forth as she spoke. “But neither should we deny the existence of anti-Semitism in this country, even in this Valley. Any American mother raising a black or brown son knows that racism in America did not end with the election of a black president.” Miranda saw many in the seats in front of her nodding. “Sadly, like racism, anti-Semitism lives on, modified to suit the changing times.”

  Rabbi Golden stopped pacing, faced her congregants, and raised her voice just a little. As she spoke, Miranda felt the woman’s eyes linger on her, heard her next words as a personal message, a mandate. “That’s why you must stop denying the possibility that anti-Semitism exists here. Remember always those who refused to leave Europe because they couldn’t believe that only death awaited them in their homelands. That’s why you must ask law enforcement to consider anti-Semitism as a motive for killing Isaac Markowitz, to consider the possibility that his murder was a hate crime.” While the Rabbi retraced her steps to the lectern, many heads stopped nodding. Miranda wasn’t sure if it was the congregants’ fear of taking a public stand or their unwillingness to confront even the thought of a murderous Jew-hater roaming their valley that stilled their nods.

  “This week’s Torah portion teaches us many things, among them that sometimes evildoers walk among us in surprising guises and disguises.” Miranda felt the tension in the room dissipate, probably because finally Rabbi Golden had begun talking like a rabbi instead of a rabble-rousing prophet. “As many of you know, our Torah reading for this week tells the story of Isaac, old and blind, his twin sons Esau and Jacob, and his wife Rebecca. In biblical times it was customary for the father’s blessing to go to his eldest son who then was named his heir. The slightly older and considerably hairier twin Esau was an outdoorsman, a hunter who often brought back tasty meat for their father to enjoy. Maybe this was why Isaac seemed to favor Esau. Jacob, their mother’s favorite, was quiet and a homebody. Translators have described Jacob as homespun and/or simple and/or blameless, and so he seemed.

  “The day Rebecca overheard Isaac promise to give Esau his blessing when he returned from hunting that afternoon, she told Jacob, and those two conspired to deceive Isaac. Rebecca killed and skinned a goat and cooked some of its meat. Then she covered Jacob’s arm with the hairy goatskin. Thus disguised as Esau, Jacob entered Isaac’s tent and gave their father the meat. Feeling the goatskin, the blind old man mistook Jacob for Esau and, so deceived, gave the wrong son his blessing.” Rabbi Golden paused. “The consequences of Jacob’s deceit were serious and often baffle scholars. But for tonight, it is only my purpose to remind you that Torah teaches us that wrongdoers are often those we least suspect.

  “Aged patriarchs may be blind, but detectives should not be. The police here should be helped to see that it is possible that Isaac Markowitz’s murder was a hate crime. And some among you should help them to open their eyes. Shabbat shalom.” Rabbi Golden’s green eyes met Miranda’s for just a moment. Miranda broke into a sweat and was relieved when the clergywoman picked up her guitar and began strumming softly.

  The kids, Julia Ornstein among them, reappeared and filed up front to watch the rabbi carefully wrap the Torah and return it to the simple Ark of burnished copper. At the sight of the children, some staring raptly at the scroll as Rabbi Golden brought its two parts together and slid them into the colorfully embroidered velvet tube while others twitched with impatience, Miranda felt queasy and disoriented. In that place at that moment the only voice in her ears was not Rabbi Golden’s’s but her grandmother’s. Then Grandma Fannie’s Yiddish-inflected words fused with the rabbi’s and became the soundtrack for a nightmarish vision: Isaac Markowitz enters the processing plant’s storage room carrying his ram’s horn. He surprises a stranger tearing the seal off one of the jugs of enzyme additives. There’s a vial on the floor beside the jug. In a flash forward, Jewish children in homes and synagogues from Yonkers to Yakima, swallow grape juice, throw up, moan and writhe, and die.

  She’d been so absorbed in the service that she’d failed to notice Harry Ornstein when he took the seat next to her. So she was grateful when, seeing her teetering, he claimed her elbow. “Steady there. You look a little seasick. Maybe some dinner will help.” When she winced at the thought of food, he added quickly, “Or not.”

  In her head she kept seeing these little ones, the pious and the bored alike, collapse to the floor in pain. Their moans sounded just like little Timmy’s. To dispel this waking nightmare, she shook her head and looked away from the children. She focused on Harry’s presence next to her and her head cleared although she remained shaken.

  He waited until the blessing over the challah closed the service to actually greet her. “Shabat Shalom, Miranda. I was hoping to see you here tonight. We both were.” Julia joined them and took her father’s hand and began to pull. “Daddy, I’m hungry. Come on. Miranda too.” She attempted to drag him towards the dining room where the potluck offerings were arrayed on a buffet table.

  “You go ahead, hungry girl, and we’ll be right behind you.”

  Miranda pulled herself together enough to return the greeting. “Shabbat Shalom, Harry. I’m glad to see you too.” When Harry smiled, Miranda smiled back, stood on her shaky legs, and quipped, “Don’t let it go to your head. You two are the only people I know here. Let’s go eat with Julia.”

  “Are you okay? You look a little unsteady on your feet.”

  “Rabbi Golden’s sermon really got to me.” Miranda stopped walking and sat down in the nearest chair. Harry sat beside her. “When the kids were helping the rabbi wrap the Torah, I pictured them all having been poisoned by something in the grape juice. They were on the floor crying just like that little boy I babysat for. Then I pictured Isaac Markowitz’s killer putting poison into the enzymes in the jugs in the storage room before Isaac came in…”

  “Wow. No wonder you don’t feel so hot. That’s pretty scary stuff. I appreciate your telling me.” He sounded grave, professional.

  “I have no secrets from my lawyer. But I shouldn’t make you work on Shabbat. Let’s catch up with Julia. I’m sure I’ll feel better after I have something to eat.”

  Together they walked a few steps to the onetime dining room where a table laden with casseroles and salads awaited. “Try Julia’s and my whole-wheat challah. It’s not bad.” Harry pointed at a lumpy loaf of bread.

  “Okay, but you should try my butternut squash lasagna. It’s delicious in spite of spending the day in a cooler in my truck.”

  “It must be good. It’s nearly gone. Are you trying to impress me with the fact that you can cook?”

  His tone was joking, but Miranda wondered if perhaps she was trying to impress Harry Ornstein. It was a little late for that. He already knew she’d been arrested as a baby killer and now he knew that she fantasized about somebody poisoning kids.

  After the depressing daylong Chamber of Commerce event, Rabbi Golden’s compelling stares, Timmy’s disturbing resurrection in her head, and her replay of this horror to Harry, Miranda felt unsettled and oddly reckless. Impulsive. She remembered feeling like this the day she opened the shed door to Vanessa Vargas and Rusty or agreed to accompany Colestah on her search for her family. She helped herself to salad, challah, a slab of salmon, and small portions of several casseroles while eyeing the bottles of wine on each table. No doubt a glass or two would restore her equilibrium. What the five glasses of wine she drank that evening restored was her long-latent libido.

 
She woke up the next morning naked, alone, and slightly hung over in Harry Ornstein’s bed staring at a scrawled note he’d left on a pillow. Shabbat shalom, Miranda, but there’s no Shabbat for this poor Jew. I’m downstairs with a client. If all goes well, he’ll be gone by nine. Then I’ll make us breakfast and drive you to your truck. Meanwhile make yourself at home. The blue towels in the bathroom are clean. There’s Tylenol in the medicine cabinet.

  It was 8:40 AM. Damn it. She found her phone in the pocket of her pants on the floor beside the bed and called Darlene. Miranda didn’t feel especially guilty about having finally had sex. It was a pleasure she’d recently begun to look forward to, along with other personal indulgences like reading Yakima-raised Raymond Carver’s stories, buying furniture for her apartment, and doing some volunteer work. But she did feel guilty for having abandoned her precious B & B to Darlene for the night. And her sense that she had gone AWOL didn’t leave her, even after Darlene answered the phone and told her, “Don’t worry. Everything’s fine here. There’s only one guest, and I made him a good breakfast. And just so you know, I had one too. I slept in one of the empty guestrooms. Rusty’s fine. Everything’s fine.”

  Alone and slightly hung over in her lawyer’s bed, Miranda was not fine. She’d gotten drunk and seduced a guy she liked but hardly knew. But now he sure knew her. She remembered his hand caressing her breasts and then her belly, and then her thighs, and then moving slowly over her tell-all scars. She hadn’t stopped him, but rather had guided that hand to her inner upper arm where she felt his fingers explore those welts too, deliberately, almost reverently. Exposing her long-concealed self-inflicted wounds, her secret self, to Harry, had excited Miranda so much that she had opened easily to him.

  Under the shower with only Julia’s plastic basket of tub toys for an audience, she rehearsed what she would tell him should he ask about her self-mutilation. He hadn’t seemed disgusted or repulsed, but, though, he would be curious. As she ran her own soapy hands over those same capsule-sized lumps and the pill-sized bumps, she realized he might not care enough to ask. After all, she had taken advantage of his solicitousness and interest in her. First she got so sloshed at the Temple potluck in the company of his daughter that he’d refused to let her drive home. Instead he drove her to his house. He said he’d take her back to her truck after she sobered up. He dropped Julia off at her mom’s. Before he even got back in the car, Miranda knew she wanted him. Remembering the intensity of her need, she winced.