Murder in the Melting Pot
Page 19
“David Cohen was Isaac’s roommate and he’s seen it. He’s upstairs doing laundry. I’ll call him.”
The phone call made, they waited for David to join them. “When do you return to the Valley, Rabbi?”
“I’m not sure. If I’m still employed, I supervise at different businesses out here throughout the year. But usually I don’t spend the night, and I don’t bring a crew. Why?”
“I want to share the rest of my thoughts with you before you leave.”
He leaned forward. “I’m listening, Ms Breitner.”
“Rabbi, what if the intruder was there not to steal something or to kill Isaac as part of a gang initiation or for revenge, but to commit a different kind of crime, one that would kill many Jews? And what if Isaac surprised him while he was doing it?”
Predictably, Rabbi Alinsky began shaking his head before she even finished stating her question. “Who else could he kill in there? Isaac, may his life be for a blessing, was the only Jew in the whole building.”
Again his head sank below his shoulders and he supported it in his hands. Miranda leaned over to catch his next words, directed as they were, at the tabletop. “I’ve been fooling myself. Of course, killing Isaac was a hate crime. I’m not stupid, but I didn’t want to believe that there could be racism and anti-Semitism here. Every year I bring young men here to do God’s work, to fulfil his commandment… I’m like a shepherd leading his flock… And I never allowed myself to think we were in danger, Ms Breitner, even from the gangs.” He raised his head to look at her through eyes filmy with unshed tears. “That’s how much I wanted to do business here. And RCK, Inc., it does God’s work, but still, it’s a business.” The mention of Rabbi Certified Koshering prompted the rabbi to yank really hard at his beard and, as if that vigorous tug let the air out of him, he slumped in his chair.
He managed to lift his head once more and continued to share with Miranda his anguished account of self-deception. “I kept telling myself and my crew that people in this valley like us, how we’ve never had anything but kindness here. So many Valley processing plants work with RCK, Inc. Year after year, we’re always welcomed. This is true. And the manager of this nice hotel lets us kosher the oven in the room in my suite where we all prepare and eat our meals. And, Ms Breitner, the local police here have been providing us with security in case the killer returns. But let’s face it. They’re actually afraid the killer will come back to kill another Jew.” He threw up his hands.
Miranda empathized. “Rabbi Alinsky, I understand, believe me, I get where you’re coming from. I was in denial too. I wanted my own business here to succeed so badly that until Isaac was killed I felt immune to the gangs and the poverty and the drug trade and even the possibility of anti-Semitism. I told myself it was charming how these Valley towns seem lost in time, like Brigadoons of the Fifties.” She paused for breath. “But then, after what happened to Isaac, I realized that there was more to the Fifties than saddle shoes and Sinatra. There was segregation. There was anti-Semitism. Women had few rights. You know, Rabbi, even when a county detective told me that Isaac’s murder might have been a hate crime, I let him convince me that such criminals don’t operate in the Valley itself, because that’s what I wanted to believe. Talk about denial…”
Miranda was about to continue her rant when David Cohen arrived. Short, dark-haired, and heavyset, he looked to be about twenty-three or -four. He was sweating. For an instant, Miranda wondered if maybe he feared being accused of murdering his roommate after a squabble over an ambiguous Torah passage turned deadly. But she reminded herself that all of Isaac’s carefully vetted colleagues not only had had clean records but also had very good alibis. They were either at a synagogue in Seattle or on duty in another processing plant when Isaac was murdered. At a nod from the rabbi, David joined them at the bare table.
“Ms Breitner, this is David Cohen. David, Ms Breitner. She wants to ask you a couple of questions about Isaac’s shofar.” David blinked, clearly surprised.
He and Miranda exchanged nods. “David, I’m sorry for the loss of your friend and I appreciate your joining us now. I know you have packing to do, so let me get to the point. I understand that you’ve seen Isaac’s shofar?”
He nodded. Miranda began to wonder if he was speech-impaired.
“Would you describe it?”
When he spoke, his voice was low and he talked fast, as if he wanted to get his words out before his sorrow overcame him. “It’s a real beauty, one of a kind…”
“Whoa! David, would you speak just a little louder and more slowly, please?”
On his next try he slowed down and spoke loudly enough for his tablemates to hear him but not so loudly as to attract attention from the one other occupied table in the dining area. “Isaac’s shofar looked to be about two-and-a-half feet long if you straightened it out to measure it. He told me it was the horn of a Moroccan ram, not the horn of some other animal like a kudo or an elk. It has two twists.” David drew a spiral shape in the air. “It also has lots of stripes and it isn’t painted, but it’s all different shades of brown from light like a latté to dark like, uh, like black coffee. Isaac said he liked to play it because it sounded like a tuba, kind of mellow.”
“It must be very beautiful.” Miranda had never before considered the aesthetic properties of rams’ horns.
“Isaac said it was a family heirloom. Eva’s dad gave it to him as a wedding present.” David studied the tabletop. After a moment he looked up. “His father-in-law told him it’s a very rare shofar, so Isaac insured it for over three thousand dollars. But what he really valued about it was that it was in Eva’s family for several generations and he felt, you know, honored to have it. He said he’d leave it to their son when they had one.”
Miranda flashed on Michael Wright’s fish club, also an heirloom. “Thanks so much, David. You’ve been very helpful.” The young man stood and, biting his lip, nodded his goodbyes before going back to his room.
“Rabbi, Eva or her dad may have a photograph of that shofar if they insured it. I’d really like to get my hands on a picture of it, the sooner the better. So I’d like Eva’s phone number. I know she’s still in mourning, so would you please phone her now and tell her or leave a message that I’ll be calling her soon and encourage her to accept or return my call?” David’s description, rough as it was, had given Miranda yet another new idea and with it came a new urgency.
“E-mail or text me and I’ll send it to you immediately.” Rabbi Alinsky jotted his e-mail address on a napkin he took from the counter behind him.
“How about giving it to me right now while you call her?” When he nodded, Miranda whipped out her phone, keyed in what he dictated from his, and read it back for him to check.
“That’s it.” He made the call and Miranda heard him leave a message alerting the widow to a call from a Ms Miranda Breitner and imploring her to take it. When he finished, he sighed and said, “I think she’ll talk to you. She’s eager for Isaac’s killer to be brought to justice.” Then he stood. “Thanks for your interest in this matter Ms Breitner. Don’t hesitate to contact me if I can be of further help. And please, take care of yourself.” But, his goodbyes said, he didn’t walk away.
Instead, shaking his head, he sat down again and, looking around at the now empty lobby, spoke in an urgent whisper. “I mean it, Ms Breitner, be careful. I know from hate crimes. Here in Washington they range from painting swastikas on synagogues and schools and burning crosses on lawns to setting explosives at a Martin Luther King Day Parade and shooting unarmed women at the Jewish Federation.” For the first time since they had begun to speak, his eyes bored into hers. “And it’s not only us Jews these white supremacists hate. No. They’re like the Nazis. Really. They admire and imitate the Nazis.” This time the rabbi’s whispered sigh was a breath of pure anguish. “So they also hate all people of color as well as immigrants, homosexuals, transvestites, bisexuals, the disabled, and even the mentally ill.
Miranda felt her eyes tear up. Her grandmother never let her leave the house without uttering those exact words. Sitting at the table alone, staring out at the rows of skeletal grapevines silhouetted in black against the blazing orange sunset, she briefly considered the rebbe’s cautionary sermon. Then she nudged his words into a place in her head where she hoped they wouldn’t paralyze her as she contemplated her next move.
Driving home, Miranda thought about the call she would make to the grieving young newlywed so suddenly and horribly widowed. She remembered how all those years ago her own Jewish community had turned their backs on her, and she suspected that Eva Markowitz would fare better. She recalled the rituals associated with traditional Jewish mourning. The week of sitting shiva was over, but maybe the widow had not yet left her home to reenter communal life, to visit her shul. Her fridge was probably still filled with casseroles and her mirrors still covered. She’d still be wearing black and playing hostess to relatives still staying with her. Even more important, Miranda was sure Isaac’s widow still sobbed into her pillow every night. So it was with some trepidation that, once back at the B & B, she placed the call to New York. “Eva Moskowitz, please.”
“Who is this?” The voice was soft, young, tentative.
“Rabbi Alinsky gave me your number. I’m Miranda Breitner from Sunnyvale, Washington.”
“Yes. He left word I would hear from you.”
“Eva, first, I’m so very sorry for your terrible loss.” Miranda hated having to lay this formulaic bromide on the young widow, but she had tried and failed to think of better words.
“Thank you.”
“Rabbi Alinsky probably mentioned that he and I are very eager to help the police find out who killed your husband. We need your help.” How many times had she heard the cops on TV say this to the traumatized relative of a murder victim? Again, Miranda hated sounding so clichéd, like a rerun, like the cops who had questioned her about Timmy. For a moment she felt her focus slipping, but she resisted being sabotaged by her memories.
“How can I possibly help? I’m in New York.” Eva sounded hopeless and angry.
“You can help a lot by answering two questions. First, do you know of anyone anywhere who would want to hurt your husband?” Miranda threw that in just because she wasn’t sure someone from the county police had actually asked it of the young widow, so determined were they to blame their usual local suspects.
“No. My husband was a good man. He helped everybody. He liked everybody. Everybody liked him.” Eva sounded annoyed by this query as if Isaac’s popularity were unquestionable or as if she’d answered it before.
“He certainly was very well-liked by his colleagues and others here.” Miranda paused and got to the point of her call. “Eva, I understand that the shofar your dad gave Isaac was very special and quite valuable. Is there a photo of it somewhere in your family’s records? An insurance photo for example?”
“Maybe. Isaac insured the shofar before he left. He took it to an appraiser first. I can look for that report and see if there’s a photo with it.” She went on with a catch in her voice. “I know Isaac took pictures of our wedding gifts and I wrote the giver’s name on each photo. That way I’d know who to thank for what.” Miranda was pleased to hear this. “But I’m not sure if he took a photo of the shofar.” Disappointed, she waited while Eva hesitated again. When she resumed talking, annoyance and impatience clipped her words. “But why do you need to see photos of the shofar? Rabbi Alinsky probably has it. Isaac had that shofar with him on Rosh Hashanah. He was going to play it in the factory.”
“He did play it. I heard it from my house.” Miranda remembered how profoundly the shofar had moved her. “I’m sorry to say, Eva, it wasn’t with his body.” Miranda would not burden the family with her theory that the shofar was the murder weapon until she could prove it. Besides, that bloody image seemed too ghoulish to inflict on the fragile young woman just then.
“Missing? How could that be?”
“The police aren’t sure.” That in all probability the police did not even know the shofar was either significant or missing Miranda kept to herself. “But Eva, please give me your e-mail address. I’m going to give you all my contact info too. Please, please look as soon as you can and e-mail or fax me copies of whatever photos you find. And a copy of the report from the appraiser would be very helpful too. I’ll reimburse you for any expenses you incur making copies and scanning or faxing. And I’ll return whatever you send me. Please don’t discuss this with anyone. But you have my word, I’m going to find that shofar.”
Eva’s e-mail with a copy of the ram’s horn’s appraisal and photo attached arrived the next morning. The shofar appeared exactly as David had described it, large and twisted twice, with raised ridges in many shades of brown. It was appraised and insured for $3,500. Miranda was itching to begin her search, but had to finish her baking and other chores, check in guests, and walk Rusty, so it was evening before she was finally free to hunker down over her laptop.
Recalling Michael’s half-joke about how, in order to get his fish club back, he’d have to buy it on eBay, she speculated that the person who took the bloodstained shofar learned it had value, cleaned it up, and sold it to a dealer. She further speculated that this dealer would then attempt to resell it online. So she would look for it and find it. Not a problem. With Rusty at her feet and a printout of the appraisal and photo in view, she sipped wine, and searched eBay, Amazon, and the websites of the many, many dealers who, to her amazement, traded in shofars. According to the appraiser, Isaac’s ram’s horn was exceptionally large and so, she figured, it should have been fairly easy to find. But when after several hours, she hadn’t found it she feared the killer had already sold it.
That possibility was too defeatist to entertain for long, so she decided that Isaac’s killer was waiting to sell the murder weapon until someone else was found guilty of Isaac’s murder. But she also worried that if she weren’t vigilant, the killer would decide to sell the ram’s horn to a dealer who, in turn, would put it online for sale on the first night she didn’t look for it, and someone else would buy it. Then the instrument and any evidence connecting it with Isaac’s killer would vanish forever. So she asked Google Alert to notify her when the words and phrases that would be used to advertise the horn such as one of a kind, Moroccan ram, double twist, and mellow like a tuba appeared. Meanwhile she continued to scan the sites of the likeliest dealers each evening.
This scaled-down approach freed Miranda to pursue another line of research, one even more challenging and frightening. Rabbi Alinsky’s impromptu sermonette about white supremacists and Rabbi Golden’s reference to hate groups could take her only so far. She didn’t doubt anything either rabbi said, but the thing was there didn’t seem to be any news reports of un-gang-related skinheads in the gang-infested Valley. Detective Ladin had located the haters in the vast lonely regions surrounding the Valley, the isolated territory of survivalists, loners, fugitives, and land-rich ranchers. She went online and found nothing that spoke to her need to place hate groups in the Valley until she came across a book called American Swastika: Inside the White Power Movement’s Hidden Spaces of Hate by Pete
Simi. Where were these “hidden spaces of hate?” Were there any in Central Washington? In the Valley? In Sunnyvale? Miranda sent the book to her tablet.
That night it was snowing lightly, so she put on her Snow Traks when she took Rusty out to run. They were the only ones out enjoying the crisp cold air and the white world. They hadn’t run far when a dark sedan pulled up alongside them. Miranda kept moving when she saw Detective Ladin jump out, leaving the car with the motor running in the empty street. He fell into step beside her. “Long time no see, Meryl. Care for a lift? It’s cold out here. And with a killer still somewhere in the area… Tell me, did you get a firearm yet?”
“No, not yet.” She kept moving.
“Good. Then you can’t shoot me.” He grabbed her arm and pulled her to him with one hand while his other hand groped at her jacketed chest. When that proved unrewarding, he crushed her clamped-shut lips with his toothy kiss. When Rusty growled, the detective released her quickly and loped back to his car, calling behind him, “You want it, too, Meryl. I can tell.”
CHAPTER 17
“Exhibited at Farm Machinery Exposition and this B & B near Expo site. Breakfast choices good, room comfortable and clean, innkeeper helpful all at bargain rates, but neighborhood dicey. Seasonal worker killed across the street. Gang hit? Who knows?” John Ingersall, Tractor Dude from WI
After being assaulted again by Detecive Ladin, Miranda’s sleep had been uneasy. She wanted to talk to Harry and get advice on how to handle the Detective’s continued attacks without having him blab about her past. But when Harry left her at her truck on Saturday, he’d promised to call soon and she’d not heard from him.
As if an assault, a bad night’s sleep, and a broken promise weren’t worrisome enough, that morning Meryl found not one but two of her worst fears confirmed. First, Breitner’s finally got reviewed on Yakima County B & B’s esteemed site only to be deemed unsafe. Second, no guests were scheduled to arrive that night. Not a single one. And the snowfall had let up, so there would be no walk-ins delayed in the Valley until the danger of avalanches was over and the mountain passes cleared.