by Mary Marks
“Oh, no, thanks.” I took in the mainly white furniture and latte walls. “I’ve got to drive home.”
She waved her hand dismissively, flashing her shiny ring. “Don’t be such a nervous Nellie. By the time we finish breakfast, you’ll be fine.”
“Can I take a rain check? I’m actually starving and need food.”
She shrugged into her jacket. “Okay.”
I drove us the short distance to Harvey’s and, considering we hit the Sunday brunch crowd, we had to wait for a table. Harvey’s Deli connected at the far end to a bowling alley. In the background, hard balls rolled noisily down polished oak alleys and struck pins with loud pops. An open bar separated the restaurant from the bowling alley. Isabel ordered a mimosa while we sat at the bar and waited for our table.
“So you and Harriet were roommates in college?” I smiled.
“Yes, Brown was very laid-back, and if you were smart enough, you could get by without too much effort.”
“I remember Harriet as a serious student in high school.”
Isabel played with the stem of her glass. “Oh, yeah. She loved her classes. I, on the other hand, loved to party. Since we were both history majors, I copied Harriet’s notes when I didn’t feel like going to class. Still, we managed to enjoy our share of the fun.”
Several balls rolled heavily down the alleys and struck the pins almost simultaneously. “And you kept in touch after you graduated?”
“Oh, yes. I found a job in Southern California and reconnected with Harriet.”
“When we talked last night, you said something remarkable. I asked if you knew anyone who might have wanted Harriet dead, and you said, ‘Nathan.’ What did you mean?”
Isabel put down her empty glass and signaled to the bar man to bring another. A lot of wooden pins cracked together and a cheer went up from the bowling alley. “Did I say that?” She looked away. “I must have been speaking metaphorically. Everyone loved Harriet. Besides, Nathan is dead.”
“Well, something must have prompted you to say that. Were they not happy together?”
We sat in silence while Isabel finished her second mimosa and finally looked at me. “I had good reason to say what I did. Nathan was a pig and a mean drunk. I saw big bruises on Harriet more than once.”
A waitress came to the bar and told us our table was ready. Not bad. We only waited twenty minutes. We followed her back into the restaurant and flipped through a ten-page menu. Harvey’s featured typical deli food, along with dishes influenced by the diverse cultures of LA, including brisket burritos and spicy egg rolls.
Isabel ordered an egg-white omelet. I settled on scrambled eggs with lox and onions and the waitress left with our orders.
“Nathan abused Harriet?”
A busboy brought a basket of challah rolls and rye bread to the table and poured each of us a cup of coffee.
Isabel waited for him to leave. “He physically and emotionally abused her. He threatened to take Jonah someplace where she’d never see him again. With his money and resources, Nathan could have easily disappeared with the boy. Poor Harriet lived in constant fear. The only person Nathan treated halfway decent was his son, Jonah. And even then he managed to kill the boy.”
I didn’t think Isabel’s story could get any worse. I peeled the foil off a pat of butter and spread it on half a challah roll. “Nathan killed Jonah? I thought the boy fell off a boat and drowned.”
Isabel took a sip of coffee. “Oh, he did, all right. Thanks to his father. Nathan got drunk, as usual, and forgot to bring a life vest for Jonah. The captain didn’t let them come aboard at first, but he finally scrounged up a small life vest under one of the bench seats, a couple sizes too big for the five-year-old. Nathan promised he’d watch Jonah the whole time. What a crock. Instead of paying attention to the boy, Nathan kept drinking and started a card game with a couple other men.”
“So, how did Jonah drown?” My heart sank as I thought of the five-year-old wandering the boat on his own.
“The boat stopped somewhere between here and Catalina so the fishermen could cast their lines in the water. Jonah had brought his little fishing pole. Apparently he went to the side of the boat and crawled up so he could put his line in the water like he saw the big men doing.”
I clutched my coffee with both hands, willing the heat from the cup to warm the chill spreading inside me.
“When Jonah fell overboard, he gave a little cry. Then his body slipped out of the life jacket and he sank like a stone. A couple of the men dove into the water. They couldn’t find him for several minutes. When they did, he was dead.”
“What did Nathan do?”
“He stood at the edge of the boat shouting orders to the men in the water and swearing at them each time they came up for air without Jonah’s body.”
“What? He didn’t dive into the water? Not even to save his son?”
She took another sip of coffee. “See what I mean? The man was a pig.”
“Isabel, how do you know all these details?”
She leaned toward me and lowered her voice. “After the funeral, when all the mourners went back to Harriet’s house, I shared a few drinks on the patio with the captain of the boat, Nico Grimaldi. He told me the whole story. The authorities immediately shut down his charter boat business for the safety violation leading to Jonah’s accident. They refused to reinstate his license until he could pay a hefty fine or prove he wasn’t at fault.”
I buttered another piece of roll. “So why did he show up at the funeral?”
“The poor guy felt really bad and came to pay his respects to Jonah’s mother. He even brought back Jonah’s fishing pole. He also tried to talk Nathan into testifying on his behalf so he could get his license back, but Nathan refused. They got into a shouting match and Nathan ordered the captain to leave.”
“How did Harriet take all this?”
Isabel shook her head sadly and her eyes filled. “She became so dead inside, even Nathan lost interest in hurting her.”
The waitress brought two steaming plates of food to the table and refilled our coffee cups.
My heart ached for Harriet. “Did you ever tell her what you learned from the boat captain?”
“Yes, about two years later. I thought if she knew the truth, she’d find the strength to leave Nathan.”
“Did she?”
Isabel took a bite of bread. “She didn’t have to. Nathan must have finally found a conscience, because he jumped in the ocean and killed himself. For once in his life, he did the right thing.”
I wondered. Abernathy said Nathan’s body never turned up. Could he still be alive? Could Nathan Oliver truly have killed Harriet?
I dropped Isabel at her place and drove back to the valley. I kept thinking about the flashy ring on her finger. When I got home, I checked the pictures from Harriet’s flash drive. The three-carat canary yellow diamond surrounded by a starburst of clear baguettes on a filigreed platinum band had, indeed, belonged to Harriet.
The gray, damp weather made my fibromyalgia flare up, and the muscles in my neck and hip throbbed. Instead of taking a Soma, I was determined to practice my new yoga moves to see if they would help with the pain. I rolled out my pink rubber mat and lay on my back on the hard floor.
I put one leg straight up in the air, wrapped the six-foot-long strap over my foot, and held on to the ends with both hands. I stretched the leg first to one side and then to the other, keeping my knee straight. How did Isabel get that ring? I repeated the moves with my other leg. Did she steal it? Then I did the same stretches with both my legs together. Does she have the other missing pieces of jewelry? The tightness released in my hips.
Still lying on my back with my legs in the air, I bent my knees and stretched my arms up to grab the arches of my feet in the happy baby pose. Muscles I didn’t even know existed started burning with the stretch. I tried to breathe deeply, sending my “intentions” (whatever that meant) to the pain.
In my head I heard Dasha, my inst
ructor, “Take a long, slow breath from the bottom of spine to the top of head. Now hold for four counts. Slowly release breath until there is no more air in lungs. Now hold for another four counts.”
Air. Air.
The burning in my muscles actually subsided, but I started breathing rapidly to make up for the four counts without oxygen.
I finally gave up and just lay quietly with my eyes closed in the corpse pose. I tried to picture Harriet on the floor of her closet with my third eye.
Paulina Polinskaya said Harriet refused to communicate with Nathan’s spirit. According to Isabel Casco, Nathan was mean and abusive and directly responsible for Jonah’s death. No wonder Harriet refused Nathan’s collect calls from the dead. She must have hated and feared him with every fiber of her soul.
According to the suicide note he left behind, Nathan killed himself. According to Abernathy, a search at sea failed to turn up a body. On the theory Nathan might have faked his death, Abernathy said Harriet paid for private detectives to find him. However, after seven years and dozens of fruitless searches, the courts agreed that Nathan Oliver was deceased. If Paulina’s claims could be believed, Nathan’s spirit really dwelt with the Malach haMavet.
What if Nathan didn’t die at sea? What if he deliberately disappeared? If so, a living, flesh-and-blood Nathan could have returned to kill Harriet.
However, the more I thought about it, the more the whole scenario made no sense. What would motivate a self-indulgent, wealthy man like Nathan to abandon his lifestyle and his fortune to a wife he didn’t love or respect?
No matter how I examined the people in her life, not one person I talked to seemed likely to have murdered Harriet Oliver. I’d just have to keep looking. Maybe Estella and Henry would show up to bury their sister-in-law tomorrow. Maybe they could shed some light.
When I got home, my daughter, Quincy, called from Boston. “Hi, Mom. Sorry I missed you Friday night. I had a hot date.”
I sat on my cream-colored sofa and covered myself with my blue and white Corn and Beans quilt, enjoying the sound of my daughter’s voice. Quincy, a reporter for NPR station WGBH in Boston, constantly met interesting men who were attracted to her intelligence, her long legs, and the coppery ringlets framing her beautiful face.
“Tell me about him.”
“He’s a physics professor at MIT. Young, brilliant, and very hot. We’ve been out every night this week, and he says he’s ready to get serious.”
Crusher proposed marriage two weeks after we met. I became worried for my daughter. “How serious?”
“He wants an exclusive relationship.”
“How exclusive?”
“Oh, Mom, don’t read anything more into it. He doesn’t want us to date anyone else. He says he thinks this relationship can go somewhere.”
“What do you think?”
“I’m willing to try. He’s nice and funny and great in bed.”
I gasped. “Stop! TMI. You’re still my little girl.”
Quincy laughed. “Mom, don’t you know I love teasing you? And besides, I know you’re way past all of that.”
Past? If she only knew. “Quincy, honey, I only want your happiness. Just go slowly and be careful.”
Quincy sighed. “Okay, Mom, but sometimes, when something good comes your way, you just have to let go and trust. Right?”
The million-dollar question.
Around seven in the evening I got a call from Detective Farkas. “The coroner just released Mrs. Oliver’s remains to the mortuary. You can go ahead with her funeral tomorrow morning like you planned.”
“Did he confirm Harriet was strangled?”
“Yes,” Farkas wheezed. “He also found a fractured wrist bone. She probably struggled with the killer before she died.”
“Oh God. Poor Harriet must have been terrified. Will you be at the funeral, Detective?”
“Why? You think the killer will show up after more than ten months just to gloat?”
“I think it’s possible. Strangulation suggests a crime of passion to me.”
“You got anyone in particular in mind?”
I thought about Nathan Oliver. Although I didn’t see one photograph of him in Harriet’s house, maybe one existed in his missing person’s file. “You might keep your eye out for a man in his fifties who looks a lot like Harriet’s husband.”
“The dead guy? You’ve gotta be kidding.”
“Maybe not so dead, Detective. Remember, no one ever saw Nathan Oliver’s body.”
CHAPTER 12
Monday morning I called Kresky’s Kosher Market and Catering near Uncle Isaac’s house in West LA to deliver a couple of platters to his house at noon. Uncle Isaac would be hosting the mourners after the funeral.
Birdie, Lucy, and I drove to Gan Shalom Memorial Park in Lucy’s vintage black Caddy. The nine a.m. southbound traffic crept slowly over the Sepulveda Pass. Neither of my friends knew Harriet, but they were determined to support me; not to mention they were also curious about the mystery of her death and the theft of her treasures. Both of them committed to return to Harriet’s house and finish searching for the missing items.
I sat in the backseat in a gray Anne Klein woolen skirt suit and knee-high gray leather boots against the December chill. I told them about my visits with Paulina and Isabel.
Today Lucy wore all black, like the grim reaper. “Don’t just write the psychic off, Martha. Maybe Nathan reached out from the dead.”
Birdie pinned a stray piece of hair back on top of her head. “Or maybe Nathan isn’t dead after all. Maybe he returned in the flesh to kill Harriet.”
I sighed. “Well, she didn’t go without a struggle. When the coroner examined her the second time, he found a broken wrist.”
We pulled up to the valet parking and an attendant helped Birdie from the car. For once she hadn’t worn her overalls but opted instead for a lavender skirt and pullover sweater. Wisps of white hair flew around her face like fairy wings.
Lucy stood over six feet tall in her black leather heels. When we entered the mortuary, she draped a black lace mantilla over her orange hair.
I spotted Mrs. Deener, the funeral planner, and walked over to her. “Is everything ready?”
She nodded and her wig shifted slightly. “Yes, everything is taken care of. Rabbi Adler will officiate, and I’ve printed your uncle’s address and directions to his house to hand out to the mourners. Will you be delivering the eulogy?”
I nodded. “One of them. I’m sure there are others who’d like to say something about Harriet.”
“I’ll let the rabbi know.” She looked at her watch. “The service is scheduled to begin in half an hour.”
Dark wood paneling covered the walls of the chapel, and plain wooden pews sat on thick blue carpeting. A bronze sculpture mounted on the front wall depicted an eternal flame formed by Hebrew letters. Harriet’s plain pine casket sat on a bier in front of the wall. The shomer, the guardian of her remains, sat discretely on one side of the room, reading from a small prayer book.
Lucy and Birdie sat in the front row near Harriet’s casket while I stood next to them and watched people drift into the chapel. Abernathy showed up with his assistant, Nina, and another woman. He reached in a wooden box next to the door and put on a white silk yarmulka. His hand shook again. Definitely a neurological problem. Old football injury? He came over to me and introduced the smartly dressed Bunny Friedman, fund-raiser for Children’s Hospital.
“You’ll want to talk to Bunny when you’re ready to settle the estate,” Abernathy said.
The poised Bunny handed me her business card. “Call me anytime, Mrs. Rose. I’m eager to help you finalize Mrs. Oliver’s bequest to Children’s Hospital. I know we both want to see her dream of the Jonah David Oliver wing come true as soon as possible.”
Bunny must be the one responsible for persuading Harriet to donate thirty million dollars to Children’s. Under ordinary circumstances, her bequest might not have become available for another thirty or forty
years, but Harriet died prematurely. Of course Bunny would want to expedite the transfer of funds. Scoring such a large contribution would ensure her a place in the fund-raisers’ hall of fame. Would Bunny’s desire to sit at the big boys’ table be enough motive for murder? And just how tight were she and Abernathy in all this?
I shook her well-manicured hand. “Thank you.”
Crusher walked in with Uncle Isaac and his friend Morty, followed by a troop of several men in their seventies and eighties. They wore suits, prayer shawls around their necks, and their own head coverings. They shuffled to the front of the chapel, ready to take their positions as part of the minyan, the quorum of ten Jewish men. Uncle Isaac smiled and patted my hand. “You see, faigela? I promised you a minyan, and I brought you one.” He gestured toward the others. “There are nine of us. The rabbi makes ten.”
“I knew you’d come through. And thank you for offering your home for the reception afterward.”
“Well, you said the police locked you out of Harriet’s house. I remember her as a nice little girl. It’s the least I could do for the daughter of my old friend Herschel Gordon.”
I looked at the group of old men, most of them long past driving. “How did you all get here?”
“The senior center provides a shuttle.” He stroked the side of his face. “We come here a lot.”
Crusher hovered near me, wearing a crocheted white head covering and a black suit. He let the collar of his white shirt gape slightly open without the constraints of a tie. He hung his tallit a fine white woolen prayer shawl, like a huge blanket over his shoulders and down his back. “You okay, babe?”
My heart raced a little. He looked so handsome in the familiar religious garb. “Thanks, Yossi. I’m fine.”
He gave me a probing look. “Want me to stay here with you?”
I shook my head. “I’ll be okay. I’ve got Lucy and Birdie.”
He sat next to Uncle Isaac and bent his head toward the old man while the two of them engaged in a serious conversation I couldn’t hear. Soon Morty and the others joined in. Someone put their hand on my arm. I recognized the Chanel N°5 and turned to look at Isabel.