So, the real problem at the moment was Not Paul and the weapon that Keenan had found in Jeremiah’s house. Jeremiah claimed it wasn’t his and frankly, Mark believed him. The rabbi was right. He wouldn’t have been stupid enough to keep that around.
“Detective Walters?”
Mark looked up and saw a man roughly his age wearing a suit that probably cost more than Mark made in a month. He was carrying a briefcase that also looked to be incredibly expensive.
“Yes?” Mark asked.
The man extended his hand. “My name is Bruce Westerfield of Price, Banner, and Westerfield law. I was told to speak with you.”
“Oh, are you the attorney that Joseph called?” Mark asked, standing to shake the man’s hand.
“The firm represents Mr. Coulter and he asked us to handle Rabbi Silverman’s case.”
“Well, you are most welcome here,” Mark said fervently.
Usually he hated seeing a lawyer walk into the precinct because it almost always meant some dirtbag was not going to talk. It was a rare moment when he was glad to see one. Apparently it was rare enough in general that Bruce smiled at him.
“I wish I always received so warm a welcome from detectives.”
“I can imagine.”
“I’d like to see my client.”
“Right this way,” Mark said, quickly leading him back to the interrogation room where Jeremiah still was.
When Mark opened the door Keenan looked up, irritated.
“Jeremiah, your lawyer is here,” Mark said, unable to keep the smugness from his voice. It did him good to see Keenan’s scowl.
“Rabbi Silverman, my name is Bruce Westerfield, and I would like to offer my sincerest apologies for my delayed arrival.”
“Hello,” Jeremiah said, his voice neutral.
Bruce turned toward Detective Keenan. “Am I correct in assuming that you are Detective Keenan, the arresting officer?”
“You are,” Keenan answered.
“Excellent, then I’ll leave these with you,” Bruce said, handing Keenan a stack of papers.
Keenan’s scowl deepened. “What are these?”
“Direction from the Attorney General to release Rabbi Silverman from custody immediately and a complaint sworn out against you and the city police department for trespassing and fourth amendment violations.”
“I had a warrant to search his home.”
“His home, perhaps, but you were illegally present on Joseph Coulter’s property when you forced your way into his home with neither a warrant nor probable cause.”
Mark bit his lip to keep from laughing. The fourth amendment argument could be a sticky one, but given that Joseph had a fence around his property that Keenan and his officers had breached without permission or even notification, Keenan could be in trouble.
“And, just so you don’t engage in illegal or harassing behavior in the future Judge Schofeld has issued restraining orders requiring you to keep a minimum distance of 100 yards away from Rabbi Silverman, Cindy Preston, Joseph Coulter, Geanie Coulter, and Traci Walters.”
Mark had to hand it to Joseph’s attorneys. They didn’t mess around.
“A civil suit is also pending for defamation and use of excessive force.”
“Excessive force? We barely touched him!”
“Seven police officers sent to arrest a rabbi. There is nothing about that which isn’t excessive.”
“You bastard.”
“And one count of slander against myself regarding my parentage,” Bruce said, completely unfazed.
“You might want to remember your Miranda rights,” Mark said.
Keenan snarled at him and balled his hands into fists. “Mark, you will pay for this, I swear.”
“Threatening a police officer and potentially assault. Shall we continue like this and see if we can add false arrest to your list of crimes?” Bruce asked Keenan.
“Get the hell out of here and take both of them with you!” Keenan roared.
Bruce nodded. “A pleasure doing business with you. Gentlemen, let’s go.”
Bruce turned and strode out the door. Jeremiah got up and followed him and Mark turned to trail after.
Once in the parking lot Bruce shook both their hands. “Gentlemen, I will speak with you both tomorrow.”
“Thank you,” Jeremiah said.
“No, Rabbi Silverman, thank you for all your service to your community,” Bruce said.
“You’re good,” Mark told him with a grin.
Bruce’s lips twitched. “Mr. Coulter doesn’t pay us to be good. He pays us to be the best.”
“Well, he’s certainly getting his money’s worth.”
“Thank you,” Bruce said. “Good evening.”
He got in his car and headed out.
“Let’s get out of here,” Mark said steering Jeremiah toward his car.
“I couldn’t agree more.”
As soon as they had driven out of the parking lot Mark heaved a sigh of relief. “Wow, I’m glad Bruce is on our side.”
“Me, too,” Jeremiah said, his voice tense.
“We’re going to get out of this,” Mark reassured him.
“I’m glad you’re confident,” Jeremiah said.
“Isn’t this the kind of mess your old employer should sweep under the rug?” Mark asked.
“If my old employer were my current employer then yes, that could absolutely happen. However, given the fact that it is previous and not current there’s no help coming from that quarter.”
“Unless you give your old employer a reason to help,” Mark said.
Jeremiah cocked his head to the side. “Like what?”
“Rejoin the fold.”
Jeremiah shook his head. “Not going to happen.”
“Okay, then how about handing them an international terror ring?”
Jeremiah nodded slowly. “They might be inclined to help if the stakes were that high.”
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
“So, what’s your plan?”
“You just heard it,” Mark said.
“That’s it?” Jeremiah asked.
“Yup.”
“You realize as plans go that’s pretty simplistic, right?” Jeremiah asked.
“It’s a work in progress. We know two of four murders were terror related.”
“You mean Peter and the actual terrorist?”
“Yes, those two.”
“Okay,” Jeremiah said, the doubt evident in his voice.
“I know I’m grasping at straws, but we could be in real trouble here,” Mark said. “We’ve built this whole house of cards over the last few years and it’s in serious danger of all coming down right on top of us.”
“I won’t let this come down on you,” Jeremiah said.
Mark rolled his eyes. “I don’t know how you think you could stop that. You go down for murder and I’ll be lucky if all they think is that I’m incompetent and unfit for the job.”
Jeremiah didn’t say anything.
“Look, tell me what you’re thinking. I’ve spent too much time in my own head the last few hours.”
“You don’t want to know what I’m thinking,” Jeremiah said quietly.
Mark glanced at him. “If you’re thinking about killing Keenan, then you’re right, I don’t want to know, because that will just make things worse at this point. Look, there’s only one good way out of this, and that’s for everyone to realize you’re innocent. Then we can all go back to our normal lives.”
Jeremiah chuckled.
“What?”
“You said ‘normal lives’. What we have are nothing like normal lives.”
“Okay, then normal for us. I’d settle for that.”
“So, you want to go hunting terrorists and find a way to pin this all on them?”
“Yes,” Mark said. “I think that’s a solid play.”
“You realize if you pull in the organizati
ons that deal with terrorists that all of this could go completely sideways, right?”
“Is that your way of saying that the Mossad and the C.I.A. are unpredictable?”
“Far from it. They are sometimes a little too predictable, especially when it comes to downsides.”
“I’m not seeing where we have a whole lot of other options,” Mark said.
“We need to give this some serious thought,” Jeremiah said. “We can’t make a snap decision on this.”
“Well, two more minutes and we’ll be back at Joseph and Geanie’s and then we can all sleep on it.”
They made it past the fence and then climbed the hill to the house. Once there they parked. Mark was about to turn off the car when Jeremiah grabbed his arm.
“What?” he asked.
“On the ground, do you see that?” Jeremiah asked, voice tense.
“It looks like someone painted something on the ground,” Mark said with a frown. “I don’t remember anything being there the last few days.”
“Turn on your high beams so we can get a better look at it,” Jeremiah said.
Mark did and then they both got out of the car. Once they did the smell of stale blood hit Mark’s nostrils and the hair on the back of his neck stood on end.
“The writing is in blood,” Jeremiah said, confirming his fears.
Mark looked down and could see the whole thing. Once he read it he looked at Jeremiah as panic welled up in him. “What does that mean?”
On the ground in blood was spelled out malakh ha-mavet.
Jeremiah clenched his fists. “It means we don’t have to go looking for terrorists. They’ve found us.”
5
Cindy, Geanie, and Traci were sitting around the kitchen counter, holding hands and praying. At the moment it was all that they could do.
Her mother and brother were upstairs asleep. Her father’s attempts to persuade them to leave had failed. She was sorry for that because dealing with them was not what she needed. She even got the feeling that Kyle was relieved that Jeremiah had been arrested and was in serious trouble. For that alone she wished she could be throwing darts at his picture like she used to.
The twins were upstairs asleep and a baby monitor on the counter enabled Traci to hear if they woke up. Joseph had come home from the emergency church meeting just a couple minutes before and had gone upstairs to shower.
That left the three of them to sit and watch and pray. Traci’s husband was with Jeremiah at the precinct and she’d already said there was no way she was sleeping until he came back. Geanie was refusing to sleep until Cindy did.
Cindy couldn’t sleep, not yet. Maybe after they heard from Mark she’d try to, but she didn’t believe she would be able to fall asleep with all the worry and fear that were filling her. She was sick to her stomach and she was jumping at every noise. Every time Blackie or one of the dogs had come into the room she’d jumped. They’d finally put them all to bed.
They kept taking turns praying. Geanie prayed with a ringing voice, filled with passion and conviction. Traci prayed softly, hesitantly, unused to praying as she was. Her words were heartfelt, though, and brought Cindy to the brink of tears more than once. Cindy herself was all over the map, praying a torrent of words one minute and then barely able to put together two words the next.
She was struggling to find the words she wanted when she heard what sounded like someone running behind her. She turned around as Jeremiah raced into the room.
She screamed and jumped to her feet, throwing her arms around his neck a second later. She hugged him and kissed him, crying all the while. He hugged her back fiercely for a moment and then she recognized that he was asking her something, but she was too overwhelmed to make sense of his words.
“Joseph’s upstairs showering,” Geanie said.
“The kids are also upstairs, asleep,” Traci said.
“What?” Cindy asked as Jeremiah pulled away from her.
“Your family, your parents, Kyle, where are they?”
“Upstairs. They went to bed a while ago. Why?” she asked.
“We’ve got trouble,” Mark said as he came into the room.
Traci jumped up and went to kiss Mark.
“Trouble? What kind of trouble?” Cindy asked. “The police let you go, right?”
“For now, thanks to Joseph’s lawyer,” Mark said. “He’s still in hot water. It’s worse than that, though.”
“What could possibly be worse?” Geanie asked the question before Cindy could.
“My enemies have found me. They wrote the words malakh ha-mavet in blood just outside the front door,” Jeremiah said.
“No,” Cindy whispered, feeling suddenly faint.
“What’s going on?” she heard Joseph ask right before he appeared in the doorway. He saw Jeremiah and grinned. “Excellent! I knew they couldn’t hold you for long. I hope Bruce was helpful.”
“Extremely,” Mark said. “But we’re not out of the woods yet.”
“What does malakh ha-mavet mean?” Traci asked.
“Angel of Death. It’s what they used to call Jeremiah,” Cindy said.
“Wait, where was this?” Joseph asked.
“Just outside by the cars,” Jeremiah said.
Joseph turned and headed for the entry.
“Don’t go out there!” Jeremiah commanded, his voice booming.
Joseph froze in mid-step then turned slowly around. “Are we in trouble?” he asked.
“Yes,” Jeremiah said. “We all are.”
“The timing can’t be a coincidence,” Traci said.
“I was thinking the same thing,” Joseph said. “Is it possible that whoever wrote that killed Ben and framed you?”
“With these people anything is possible,” Jeremiah said.
That was the truth. Cindy knew that firsthand. The last time they’d been confronted with Jeremiah’s past it had brought them together, but she was terrified that this time it would tear them apart.
Over the baby monitor they could hear one of the children start to cry. Traci got up and hurried off. They were all silent for a minute until they heard her speaking softly to Ryan.
“We have to get them out of here,” Cindy said.
“We all have to get out of here,” Jeremiah said.
“Alright, where do we go that’s safe?” Joseph asked.
It was a valid question, but no one seemed to have an answer.
“Look, we’re all tired. I suggest we lock the house down tight, get a few hours of sleep and figure this out in the morning,” Mark said.
“But what if whoever wrote that is waiting for us to do just that?” Geanie asked.
“They won’t strike tonight. They’ll wait and strike when they can cause the most panic,” Jeremiah said.
“So, it’s settled. Sleep now, plan later,” Mark said.
Cindy wasn’t sure that was the best idea, but Jeremiah wasn’t objecting so neither did she.
“Cindy, I’ll walk you to your room,” Jeremiah said.
The others trailed out of the kitchen with them, all heading for the stairs. They climbed in silence and each step felt like a dozen as she dragged her tired body upward.
When they made it to her room, Jeremiah walked in and checked it out before giving her the all-clear to come in. Once she did he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her.
“I’m so sorry,” he whispered moments later.
“This isn’t your fault,” she hastened to reassure him.
“I can’t lose you,” he said.
“I can’t lose you, either.”
When he finally made to leave panic surged through her and she clung to his arm.
“What is it?” he asked, turning back to her.
“I’m worried something is going to happen to you,” she said.
He took a deep breath. “I know, but I’ll do everything I can to keep us safe.”
He finally pulled free
and left the room, closing the door behind him.
~
Leaving the room was one of the hardest things Jeremiah had ever done. He wanted to stay with Cindy, to wrap her in his arms and keep her safe. He knew, though, without a shadow of a doubt that he couldn’t protect her that way. Sooner or later someone would come for them and he’d be too distracted to notice until it was too late.
He couldn’t let that happen. If ever those he loved needed his strength it was now. He could do what needed to be done, no matter what it cost. He could because the alternative was too terrible.
He knew the way these people thought. They were masters at inflicting terror. The message had been designed to do just that. It was meant to send him and those around him into a blind panic. He couldn’t allow that to happen. He needed to be clear-headed and rational no matter what it took.
Very shortly they’d target one of the people in the house and kill them. They’d likely start with either Geanie or Traci. They’d torture and kill whichever lady they chose in such a way as to create maximum fear and chaos. Then they’d do it again and again. They’d save Cindy for the last. They’d make him watch as they killed her.
Trying to run and hide at this point wasn’t a viable option. They knew who his friends were, and they’d be watching. No matter how careful they were, they wouldn’t be able to stop those who were coming after them. He had only one real choice if there was to be even a prayer of them all surviving. He picked up his phone and dialed a number he had memorized.
“Rabbi? It’s late,” Martin said, yawning.
He had clearly woken the C.I.A. agent. He hoped that meant that he was in the country. It was already daytime overseas. His last contact with Martin had been just a few days earlier and it had been in town. If he was very lucky the man was still local.
“Are you nearby?”
“Why?”
“I need help and there’s no one else I trust.”
“I don’t like hearing that.”
“I don’t like saying it,” Jeremiah told him.
In the Presence of Mine Enemies Page 4