“The media?” I hadn’t listened to the news this morning. Obviously, a mistake.
“Them, too.” Sue puckered her lips. “Two detectives came yesterday. A pretty woman and a mountain of a man. They searched Rabbi’s office and his closet, and Dassie’s locker. I can’t imagine what they thought they’d find.”
The woman, I guessed, was Jessie Drake. The man didn’t sound like Connors. Probably Phil Okum, Jessie’s partner. “Did they take anything?”
“Nothing from Rabbi’s office or closet. I don’t know about Dassie’s locker. They asked me about Mr. Shankman. Why he was fired, did he have run-ins with kids, and if yes, which ones. I told them they’d have to talk to Dr. Mendes. She has Mr. Shankman’s file.”
I was gratified to learn that the police were pursuing other avenues. “Is Rabbi Bailor in today, Sue?”
“He is, but he’s not taking calls or seeing anyone. Dr. Mendes is dealing with the press and the parents. I don’t know which is worse.” After a quick glance at the door to the rabbi’s adjoining office, Sue leaned across the desk. “Now they’re saying Mr. Shankman is the one Dassie ran away with,” she said, her voice just above a whisper. “The media, I mean. I still can’t believe it, but I guess it’s true. They said he had a little girl, that he was depressed because his girlfriend broke up with him. But why would he do that to Dassie? And why would she run away with him? Did Rabbi tell you anything?”
I shook my head.
“I don’t have the heart to ask him,” she said. “He’s been going around in a daze since Monday.”
The phone rang. Sue picked up the receiver and told whoever was on the line that she’d be happy to take a message for Rabbi Bailor.
“Is there something y’all wanted to ask me, Molly?” she said when she hung up. “To be honest, I was surprised when the guard told me you were here, now that Dassie’s safe at home. Thank God,” she added. “That’s a miracle and a half, isn’t it? That she got away, I mean. She could’ve been in that car with Mr. Shankman.”
I nodded. “I wanted to talk to someone who knew Mr. Shankman, to try to get a handle on why he would do that to Rabbi Bailor’s family. You said the rabbi liked him.”
“He did. I think that’s why Rabbi is taking this so hard, Molly.”
“Maybe Mr. Shankman just lost it, you know? Being fired, losing his girlfriend, losing his daughter. I heard he bought a new car right before he was fired. I guess he thought he’d lose that, too, if he couldn’t make the payments. Did you ever see it?”
Sue shook her head. “It’s not like we have a parking lot for faculty or staff. Just two spots—one for Rabbi, the other for Dr. Mendes. The rest of us have to find street parking. I’ve had my share of parking tickets, thank you very much.” She sniffed.
A dead end, I thought.
“I know Greg was excited when he bought the car,” Sue said. “It was his first new one.”
“Maybe Rabbi Bailor would know,” I said. “Men are into cars.”
“Darlin’, Rabbi wouldn’t know a Moped from a Lexus. Ask him anything about the Torah, and he’ll cite chapter and verse. But cars?” Sue smiled.
“I think they said on the news that Greg Shankman had one of those specialty license plates.”
“Did he? Oh, right. I remember he talked about getting one.” The phone rang again. Sue picked up the receiver. “Torat Tzion. I can check, but it’ll take a few minutes.” She placed her hand on the receiver. “It was nice seeing y’all. You take care now.”
Chapter 35
Lydia Martin and company were still on the sidewalk when I exited the lobby. Pretty soon they would take root and sprout leaves, I thought as I headed for the corner. Lydia took a few steps toward me but stopped and turned her attention to a man who was approaching the school from the other direction. Lucky me. Poor him.
Fifteen minutes later I was home. After putting a load of laundry into the washing machine and talking to Zack, I sat at my desk and began entering the data I’d collected yesterday from Wilshire and West L.A. It’s not an exciting activity, and the column doesn’t pay much, but I’d hoped that a byline would give me a toehold in the media world. Five years later I haven’t won a Pulitzer, but I’ve developed contacts at several papers for whom I freelance regularly. And once in a while I come across a crime I find puzzling or intriguing, enough to make me investigate. One investigation turned into the true crime book I’d recently finished, The Lady From Twentynine Palms.
Today I didn’t find anything intriguing—mostly car thefts, residential burglaries, a number of street muggings. While my fingers typed, my mind returned to my conversation with Sue. Not a total waste. I’d learned that Jessie Drake was investigating possible run-ins between Shankman and one or more of his students. I wondered whether the detective was merely being thorough or whether she was following a lead. And if so, what lead.
I had also learned that Rabbi Bailor was oblivious to cars. If so, he probably wouldn’t have recognized Shankman’s license plate number. And if he’d tried to identify the car owner, he would have reached a dead end, as I had.
So maybe Rabbi Bailor hadn’t known on Friday that Hadassah was with Greg Shankman . . .
Then why had Hadassah left that night? I pictured the wounds on her arm, the blood on the floor, on the box. There had been more blood, Jessie Drake had said.
Hadassah’s blood? Shankman’s?
I wrote both names on a sheet of paper, circled them, and connected the circles with a line.
Shankman must have assaulted Hadassah. Somehow she escaped. Had she killed him in self-defense?
Someone had tried to remove the blood. The same person who moved Shankman from his apartment to his car and drove the car off the road? Hadassah wouldn’t have been up to the task. Someone had also removed any signs that Hadassah had been in the apartment. From the little I knew about the teenager, I didn’t think she would have had the presence of mind to eliminate evidence.
Unless someone had directed her.
Jessie had suggested that Hadassah had phoned for help, and I had to admit that made sense. But whom had Hadassah phoned?
And what if Shankman was alive when Hadassah phoned? Shimon and Levi, Dinah’s brothers, had murdered Schechem and his towns-people to rescue their sister and avenge her honor.
With an objective mind and a heavy heart, I wrote Rabbi Bailor’s name and Gavriel’s, drew circles around them, and connected them to Hadassah. I debated, and added a circle for Reuben Jastrow.
Maybe Hadassah hadn’t phoned anyone. Maybe she ran home and told her family what had happened. And Rabbi Bailor, alone or with Gavriel, went to Shankman’s apartment and removed Hadassah’s belongings. And transferred Shankman’s body to his car, and drove the car off the road?
Saturday night, after Shabbat, not Friday night. Rabbi Bailor wouldn’t have violated the Sabbath to protect his daughter. Or would he?
The ringing of the phone startled me. It was Cheryl Wexner.
“I’m afraid to turn on the news and learn the next awful development,” she told me. “They’re saying Greg was killed, that he had a relationship with Hadassah Bailor.”
“I know.” I told Cheryl about the reporters I’d seen in front of the school.
“Honestly, I don’t know what to think. My first reaction was that they’re making this up. But they’re careful about what they put on the air, aren’t they? They could be sued. And if what they’re saying is true . . .”
“I know,” I said again, trying to decide what to tell her.
“But I don’t—Oh.” Cheryl was quiet a moment. “When you phoned Friday, Molly, you said you needed to talk about Hadassah. It was about Greg, wasn’t it?”
“I didn’t know when I phoned you that Greg was involved,” I said, glancing at the circles I’d drawn. “Hadassah ran away with someone she met in a chat room. The Bailors asked me to help find her.”
“Because you have police connections,” Cheryl said.
“Something like tha
t. Rabbi Bailor thought Hadassah might have confided in you and mentioned something that would help us identify who she was with.”
“She never said a word about Greg, probably because she knew I would have talked her out of getting involved with him.” Cheryl sounded pensive. “But didn’t you say Hadassah met someone in a chat room?”
“I think Greg pretended to meet her there. By the time they met face-to-face, Hadassah was hooked. And her friend told me Hadassah had a crush on him. I’m sure Hadassah didn’t know about his girlfriend or daughter. Rabbi Bailor didn’t.”
“But why would Greg do something like that? And why would he pick Hadassah?”
“Maybe he resented Rabbi Bailor for not going to bat for him, and took out his resentment on his daughter.”
“That’s not the Greg I knew.”
“Obviously, he had a psychological problem, Cheryl. He dated his high school student. He fathered a child with her.” On my paper I wrote “Melissa,” circled her name, and connected the circle to Shankman.
“One mistake doesn’t mean he was a predator,” Cheryl said, but her voice lacked conviction.
“Maybe he was harassing Amy.” And Batya Weinberg, I thought. “Greg may have been wonderful to Justin, and not so wonderful with young girls.”
Cheryl was silent. I added Batya’s name and a question mark.
“I can’t tell Justin,” Cheryl said. “This would break his heart. He’s been upset for months about Greg. When he heard Greg had died, he broke down and cried. He was much calmer after he talked to you, by the way. Thank you for coming.”
“I didn’t do anything.”
“You listened. You cared.”
“Has Justin decided to talk to the police?”
“Do you think he should?”
“I don’t know. If Greg wasn’t planning to go public with this whole thing, then I don’t see how Justin’s information would help the police in their investigation.”
“Into Greg’s murder, you mean. I can’t absorb that. Who would want to kill him?”
I decided to let Cheryl work that out for herself. “By the way, Cheryl. When we met, you mentioned you were concerned about Hadassah, too. Why?”
“I thought she was depressed. After you phoned me on Friday, I contacted Rabbi Bailor to make sure it was all right to talk to you. He told me you were a friend of the family and were trying to help Hadassah. I could tell that he couldn’t talk, that someone was in the office.”
“Could be.”
“The thing is, I feel guilty, Molly. I met with Hadassah several times. She was under tremendous stress. I don’t think she wanted to go to an Ivy League college, or law school. She was doing that for her father. And she talked about Batya Weinberg a great deal. The girl Justin mentioned, the one who had a heart attack? Hadassah hinted one time that Batya might have killed herself. So I was worried, because Hadassah and Batya were close, and I had recently read about cluster suicides.”
“I read about that, too.” A teen commits suicide. Soon after, one or more close friends do the same. A frightening thought . . .
“Anyway, I didn’t know if I should tell Hadassah’s parents. I didn’t want to alarm them unnecessarily. And I knew that Hadassah was seeing Dr. McIntyre, so I assumed she talked to him about Batya. And I told him what Hadassah was doing, just in case she didn’t tell him, and her parents didn’t know.”
“Doing?”
“Cutting herself. A lot of teens do it. I saw her arm. She made up some story about being scratched by a neighbor’s cat, but I didn’t buy it.”
Chapter 36
Melissa answered the door. I recognized her from the photo in Greg Shankman’s apartment, but the photo hadn’t shown the freckles. She was wearing jeans and a black cable-knit V-neck sweater over a white T-shirt. With her brown hair in a ponytail, she looked more like a teenage babysitter than a mother of a four-year-old.
“I thought you were my friend Judy,” she said. “Do I know you?” Her voice was friendly, open.
“I’m Molly Blume. I stopped by the other day?”
It took a second or so before accusation replaced the friendliness. She narrowed her eyes. “You said you were Greg’s cousin.”
“I’d like to explain,” I said. “I don’t blame you for being upset.”
Behind her, a voice called, “Mommy? Can I go on the swing now?”
“In a sec’, hon.” Melissa faced me. “You’re a reporter, right. That’s what your card said.”
At least she hadn’t slammed the door shut. “I freelance, and I write books and a weekly column.”
“I talked to reporters Sunday night, but I didn’t tell them much more than they knew. They were here when I got back from Seattle. How did they find out so fast?” She shook her head.
“I know this is a terrible time for you, Ms. Frank, but if I could have a few minutes of your time?”
She studied me. “You told my neighbor you wanted to talk to me about one of Greg’s students. What about him?”
“Greg suspected him of cheating. I think Greg found proof. I’m wondering if you could tell me more about that.”
“Why?”
“I’m wondering if that had anything to do with his death.”
She thought that over, then opened the door wide. Stepping inside, I was assaulted by the overpowering scent of days-old floral arrangements that filled the living room. Stacks of toys and the boxes they had come in covered the floor.
“People have been bringing stuff since we came home,” Melissa said. “I won’t have to cook till next year. Kaitlin, say hi to Mommy’s friend Molly.”
The little girl was feeding a doll with a miniature bottle. She was wearing a sweater with Disney characters over black leggings, sitting the way only children can—bent legs wide apart, her weight on her shins, her red-and-white sneakers touching her hips, her little butt an inch off the carpet.
“Hi, Kaitlin.” I smiled.
“Can we go outside now, Mommy?” She had a sweet, round face, blond curls, and a hint of her mother’s freckles.
And no father, I thought. Hearing that Greg Shankman had a daughter was one thing. Seeing her in the flesh was more painful.
“Sure, baby.” Melissa smiled at her daughter. “She’s been cooped up indoors, poor thing,” she told me.
Kaitlin put down the bottle, held on to the doll, and jumped to her feet. Swinging the doll by an arm, she raced down a narrow hall to a door that led to the backyard and waited for us to catch up.
A red metal swing set took up most of the small yard, which was enclosed with a cinder-block wall and brightened with pockets of pansies and straggly impatiens. In the corner were a pink tricycle and a yellow scooter.
Melissa strapped her daughter into a swing and set it in motion. The swing creaked as it moved back and forth. The girl squealed. From where I stood, it looked as though her red shoes were touching the gray-blue sky.
“I haven’t told Kaitlin,” Melissa told me in a sad, low voice. “I haven’t found the right time, or the words to tell her she’s never going to see her daddy again. First they said maybe Greg killed himself. Now they’re saying he was killed. I don’t know what to believe.”
“Do you know anyone who would want to kill Greg?”
She shook her head. “Greg got along well with people. His students loved him. Well, except for this one kid you were asking about, a big-time cheater.”
“Greg didn’t tell you his name?”
“Higher, Mommy! Higher!”
“He may have. I don’t remember.” Melissa pushed the swing harder. “He spent the summer getting the goods on this kid. I’d asked him to move out, so maybe he needed something to focus on. Anyway, the first week in September Greg had proof. He showed it to the principal, but she told him it wasn’t enough. So he quit. He didn’t want to teach in a school where they took the word of a cheater over his.”
Not the same version I’d heard. I wasn’t surprised that Shankman hadn’t told Melissa that he’
d been fired and accused of sexual harassment.
“Greg was intense, you know?” Melissa said. “And impulsive. And he got into moods where he thought the whole world was against him. That’s one of the reasons we split up.”
“Is that why you got a restraining order against him?”
“I’m sorry that got out. I didn’t want his parents to know.” Melissa sighed. “Greg had crying jags when I asked him to move out. And he kept coming to the house, begging me to take him back. He said his life was over, he didn’t want to live without us, stuff like that. He scared me, and Kaitlin.” She looked at her daughter. “I had no choice.”
“But things obviously improved if Greg was going to join you for Thanksgiving.”
“He was calmer.” Melissa nodded. “He’d pulled himself together. Two weeks ago Sunday we spent the day together, the three of us. We went to the park, had a picnic lunch. It was a nice day.” The swing slowed. “I did it for Kaitlin. Maybe I gave Greg false hope. That was the last time I saw him,” she said, with sadness I hadn’t heard before.
“More, Mommy!” the girl called.
“So you weren’t about to reconcile?” I asked.
Melissa pushed the swing again. “The TV reporter said we were setting a wedding date. That’s not true. We had major problems. I didn’t know if we could get over them. I told Greg, that Sunday. But he was a good dad, and I wanted Kaitlin to have him in her life.”
“Did you talk to him after that Sunday?”
“He phoned every day, mostly to talk to Kaitlin. He said he was in Sedona—that’s in Arizona? He was trying to make decisions about what he was going to do. Obviously, he lied. He didn’t go anywhere.”
I felt a stirring of interest. “What kind of decisions?”
“For one thing, the principal called him a couple of times. She wanted him to come back. And the kid that cheated? The brother went to see Greg at his apartment, to talk things out. Greg said it was too little, too late. But he didn’t have anything else, so I told him to consider the principal’s offer.”
The swing came to a stop.
“Again,” Kaitlin said.
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