“Great,” said Mihdí, “I’ll check with her about what she remembers from that day. Did you know Rabbi Klemme yourself? I understand he came in here from time to time.”
“Yeah, I knew who he was,” Matthew said, frowning slightly. “I . . .” He left the sentence uncompleted.
“You were going to say something?” Mihdí asked. He could sense a change in Skefton’s attitude since he mentioned the rabbi.
“Nah. I got nothin’ more to say.”
“Do you happen to remember if Rabbi Klemme came into the store that day?”
“No, he didn’t. I would remember that.”
“When was the last time you remember seeing him?” Mihdí pursued.
“Dunno. Maybe last week sometime.”
“How do you feel about having a synagogue so near the bookstore?”
Matthew scowled. “I’d like to see it turned into a real church. I’m not really comfortable with those people.”
Mihdí felt the depth of the young man’s anti-Semitism and it made him angry, but he pushed the feeling down. “Did the rabbi ever buy books here?”
“What would a Jew want with Christian books?” Matthew scoffed.
“The two religions are very closely related, as I’m sure you know,” Mihdí offered. “What you call the Old Testament is the Jewish holy scripture.”
“I don’t know nothin’ about that,” Matthew retorted. “I just try to do what Jesus would do.”
“And you think He would want you to shun the Jews?” Mihdí asked him, incredulously.
“I said I don’t know nothin’ about all that. Just leave me alone, OK?”
“Where did you take your lunch last Tuesday?”
“I bring my lunch, so I go into the back and study the Bible while I’m eatin’ it.”
“Is there a back door?” Mihdí said.
“Of course there is,” Matthew said, his face flushing red with anger. “Are you sayin’ that I killed him?”
“I try to keep an open mind,” Mihdí said. Something about Skefton made Mihdí want to push him to see how he would react. “I need to investigate all the possibilities and ascertain the facts.”
“Well, I’m glad he’s dead!” Skefton said. “I didn’t like him. But I didn’t kill him. ‘Thou shalt not kill,’ remember?”
This pushed Mihdí right over the edge. “Oh, I remember,” he said coldly. “The Ten Commandments are a very important basis of Jewish law. Of course, according to your namesake, St. Matthew, Jesus said, ‘Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.’ I personally feel that ‘neighbor’ includes all humanity, not just Christians.”
“I didn’t kill him, and I don’t need to answer your stupid questions,” Matthew said.
“Thanks for your time, Mr. Skefton,” Mihdí said. “I’ll be in touch if I need anything further.”
“Don’t bother!” Skefton said. He sat down behind the counter, picked up his Bible and began to read.
Mihdí left the shop and went to his car. As soon as he sat down, he began to feel bad about having baited the young man. He felt a need to apologize for getting into a religious argument with someone who was obviously very committed to his beliefs. So, he gave himself another few minutes to calm down, then got up and returned to the store. Matthew started to get up when he heard the door but sat back down when he saw who it was. Mihdí proceeded to the counter and waited until Matthew looked up at him.
“I want to apologize for arguing with you,” Mihdí said. “It was rude and uncalled-for. I’m sorry.”
Matthew sat silent for a few moments, then gave a quick nod. “It’s OK,” he said.
“It’s not OK,” said Mihdí, “but can I take it that you accept my apology?”
Matthew nodded again.
“Thank you,” said Mihdí. “I hope you have a good day.”
He turned and left the shop. He got in his car again, took out Mrs. Plante’s card and punched in her number on his cell phone. Her full name, he noticed, was Stephanie Plante. After four rings, her voice mail kicked in. Mihdí left his name and number and asked her to call him back.
Mihdí felt that he could take a little time to talk to a realtor friend about the possibilities for a Bahá’í Center. He dropped in on his friend Erica Iyer at Gewirtz Realty.
“Hello, Mihdí!” she exclaimed. “It has been so long since I have seen you. How have you been? How are Andrea and the kids? Are you still living in that lovely house on Spitznagle? What can I do for you?”
Mihdí laughed at the multiple questions. “I’m fine, Andrea and the kids are fine, and we’re still living on Spitznagle. How are Bala and your kids?”
“We are all fine, too, Mihdí,” she replied with a laugh. Erica Iyer was five foot four with long, dark brown hair. Mihdí knew from experience that she was a gourmet Indian cook, and she sported the extra weight that proved how irresistible her cooking was. As usual, she wore a brightly-colored suit and coordinated blouse. She had a personality that was constantly upbeat, and she always wore a smile.
“And how’s the real estate business these days?” Mihdí asked.
“It seems that it is possibly picking up a bit lately,” she said. “It’s been slow for the last couple of years, but we’ve had a slight bump over the last two or three months. I hope it is a trend and not just a short-term flash.”
“Yes,” Mihdí replied, “it would be nice if the whole economy could come together again.”
“O Lord, hear our prayer!” Erica said, raising her arms in mock supplication. They both laughed.
“I wonder if you would help me with a little project, Erica,” Mihdí said.
“If I can,” she replied.
“The local Bahá’í community is going to be losing its center in a few months,” he started.
“The one in Bluff Village?” Iyer asked. “Oh, that’s where Newlin is going to develop the new multiuse facility, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” Mihdí answered. “They don’t plan to renew our lease when it’s up in four months. So, we need to find a new place. We need something not far from downtown that has a big meeting room as well as some smaller rooms for children’s classes and things like that. And we don’t have a big budget, either.”
“Hmm,” Erica mused. “There’s certainly some possibilities in town, but this isn’t a very good time for it.”
“Even with the economy down?” Mihdí asked. “I’d think people would be eager to find tenants just now.”
“Well, they will be in a few months, but there’s this big downtown redevelopment project coming up. There’s three or four developers who are hoping to partner with the city on it. They’ve been buying up key properties and holding off on getting new tenants so they’ll have more complete packages to offer the city. The city can exercise eminent domain over a few properties, but they won’t want to do it with too many because it ticks . . . it upsets people. The developers want to present their options with as few problem cases as possible.”
“Oh, I see,” Mihdí said. “This project is keeping some empty properties off the market right now. And when the council reviews the developer’s proposals and chooses one as the site for the redevelopment, the other sites will no longer need to be held and they’ll be made available again.”
“Exactly,” his friend said. “Once that all happens, there could be some good bargains to be had.”
Mihdí felt his cell phone vibrate in his pocket. He quickly pulled it out and checked it. The display showed that Stephanie Plante was calling him. He decided to let his voicemail pick it up. Putting the phone back into his pocket and glancing up at Erica again, he asked, “Any idea of the timing of all this? You don’t think it will be settled in time for us to move in March or so?”
“I doubt it,” she replied. “The Village Council probably wants to move fast, but a big process like this will have to be written up, and there will have to be plenty of time for accepting bids and probably for public comment. I’m not sure if an environmental impa
ct assessment will have to be done for this, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Even if everything goes very smoothly, it probably wouldn’t all be settled until sometime in the summer.”
“Well, that’s going to be a big problem for the Bahá’ís,” Mihdí said. “Maybe we’ll have to do without a center for a while. We’ve got so much going on there, I’m not sure how that would even work.”
“You should talk to Newlin,” Erica offered. “They probably feel obliged to end your lease when it’s up, but they’re not likely to be quite ready to start demolition in April. You may be able to get a month by month extension until they’re actually ready to start the project.”
“Good thinking,” Mihdí said. “Please keep your eyes and ears open for good properties for us, but I’ll suggest to the Center committee that they talk to Newlin as well. Give my regards to Bala.”
“And mine to Andrea,” Erica replied.
As soon as he had stepped out the door of Gewirtz Realty, Mihdí called Stephanie Plante back. She picked up and told him that she was coming to the HisStory Book Store, and they arranged for him to meet her there. He drove back over to that neighborhood and found a spot to park near the bookstore. When he entered the bookstore, Plante had not yet arrived, so Matthew was still behind the counter.
Sensitive to the discomfort he had caused Matthew earlier, Mihdí said, “I’m meeting Ms. Plante here in a few moments, but I’ll wait outside.” He stepped back outside and paced up the sidewalk a bit. He waved at Ahmad Muhammad through the window of the coffee shop, but he didn’t go inside.
Stephanie Plante stepped out of the bookstore just a few minutes later. “Sorry, I came in the back door. Matthew said you were out here. Please come in.”
As Mihdí walked into the store with Stephanie Plante, Matthew exited, on his way to lunch.
“Matthew usually stays here for his lunch and eats in the back room,” Stephanie said once they were inside. “He said that since you were here, he didn’t want to be around. I guess you and he didn’t exactly bond?”
Mihdí smiled. “I think that’s an accurate statement. I suspect I pushed some of his buttons; I know he pushed mine.”
Plante raised an eyebrow quizzically, but Mihdí did not elaborate.
Stephanie Plante looked every inch a businesswoman. She wore a conservative forest green wool business suit with a skirt that fell below her knees. She had a lighter green mock turtleneck underneath and a necklace with a small plain gold cross that hung just below her turtleneck’s collar. Her light brown hair was cut relatively short, with a strong wave throughout and no bangs. Her nails were perfectly shaped but had no signs of polish. She walked with an air of total self-assurance.
“I gather you’re the owner of this store,” Mihdí began.
“Yes,” she answered, “with my husband. We own both this store and the original HisStory location in the Loop.”
“Matthew told me that you were probably here last Tuesday, the day of the murder at the synagogue.”
“Probably?” she asked.
“Well,” said Mihdí, “he thought he would have remembered if you hadn’t been here, but couldn’t say for sure that you were.”
She smiled, “OK, that explains that. Yes, I was here that day. It’s a terrible thing that happened. Jacob came in often, both to shop and just to visit.”
“Often?” Mihdí asked. “Matthew seemed to indicate that his visits were pretty rare.”
“Mmm,” she mused. “Matthew didn’t like him very much, and Jacob didn’t want to upset him. He most often stopped by when I was here.”
“That makes sense,” Mihdí said. “Why didn’t Matthew like him?”
“I assume you asked him that already,” Stephanie said, “but it was because of Matthew’s religious beliefs. He feels that his flavor of Christianity is the only right road. He is judgmental enough about other brands of Christians, but he seems to have a special disgust for Jews.”
“What’s that about, do you think?” Mihdí asked.
“His church teaches that Jews were the chosen ones of God,” she explained. “They believe that God gave them a special one-time chance to recognize Christ. Now they believe that Christians are the chosen people and that the long suffering of the Jewish people is punishment for rejecting Jesus.”
“I’ve heard that before,” Mihdí said quietly. “It’s very disturbing to me, I have to say. And I’m saying that personally, not as a police officer.”
“Actually, I have trouble with it, too,” Stephanie replied. “I keep hoping that being exposed to good people of all persuasions here in the store will help him to realize that his church doesn’t have a monopoly on truth.”
“Doesn’t seem to be working,” Mihdí observed.
“No,” she answered, “I guess it’s not. But if he can’t get a break from me, who will he ever get one from? And he’s been a very reliable employee. In the . . . what, maybe four months he’s been working here, I don’t even know of him having been late. I gave him his own keys after he’d been here about a month because he had shown himself to be completely trustworthy by that time.”
Mihdí nodded. “It’s a good thing you’re doing, and I wish you luck with it. I have to ask you some other questions, though.”
“Shoot,” she said.
“Do you remember what time you were here last Tuesday?” he asked.
“I usually get here between 11:30 and noon,” she said. “I don’t remember that day being different, but let me check my calendar.” She got her iPhone from her purse behind the counter and manipulated it for a few moments.
“Oh, that was the day the rep from Thomas Nelson was up from Nashville,” she said. “I met with him at our downtown store in the morning, and I got a bit of a late start out here. I didn’t arrive until about 2:00.”
“And Matthew was here at that point?” Mihdí asked.
“Yes, I called him before I left the store and told him when I’d be here. He told me it was no problem holding off on his lunch break until then. I stayed until just before 3:30.”
“Do you remember what he did when you arrived?”
“We chatted for a few minutes as we usually do, then he went in the back to eat his lunch.”
“Did he stay there the entire time you were here? I know there’s a back door. Did you go back there while you were working? Any chance he slipped out for a while?”
“I went back there a few times to check on special orders, but customers kept me out front most of the time. And the lunch area is sheltered a bit, so even if I had gone back there, I wouldn’t have known for sure that he was there. He usually just reads quietly while he’s eating and after he finishes.”
“Have you ever known of him going out?”
“Oh, sure. Sometimes he’ll run an errand during lunch or just go out for a walk or some fresh air. He doesn’t smoke, so he doesn’t have to go out all the time, but it certainly happens.”
“And there’s no alarm or bell or anything that says that the back door is being opened?”
“No, nothing like that. We have a buzzer so people making deliveries can get our attention, but Matthew has a key, so he wouldn’t use that.”
Mihdí had made a few notes as she was talking. “I want to ask for your personal opinion now,” he said. “I imagine that you, as a businesswoman, have to make judgments about people often. But I also imagine that as a good-hearted Christian, you sometimes find your judgment befogged a bit by your love for humanity and seeing God in them.”
“That’s a lovely way to think of it,” she said.
“But to the extent possible,” he continued, “I’d like you to set that part aside and give me your coldest opinion. Do you think that Matthew—because of the depths of his beliefs—would be capable of murdering Rabbi Klemme?”
She closed her eyes, and a pained expression crossed her face. “I don’t like to think that anyone is capable of murder,” she said at last, “least of all someone I know personally. But I know that som
e people do kill others. And I know how difficult it is for Matthew to accept the possibility that people could hold different beliefs than those he does. He has a very hard time holding his tongue when someone buys a book that he doesn’t like. I occasionally find books not put out on the shelf when they have titles or content he finds objectionable. That’s all to say how deep his commitment is to what he holds dear.
“Based on that, I’d have to say that it just might be possible for him to commit murder, if he thought that it was somehow doing God’s will. He has mentioned several times that if the Jews would just move out, the synagogue could be cleansed and become a Christian church. Perhaps he even thinks Faith Tabernacle would want to expand into it.”
They were both silent for a few moments.
“That’s so creepy,” she said, “just to contemplate the possibility that he could have killed someone.”
“I can certainly understand that,” Mihdí replied. “As you said earlier, it’s difficult to swallow that anyone could ever be capable of murder, yet we know it happens. In this case, though, I need you to forget the idea as completely as you can for now. Matthew seems troubled to me, and he needs the love and help that you have given him here. I have no evidence at all—none—that he was involved in the rabbi’s murder. The fact that there is a remote chance that he could have done it means that I have something more that must be investigated, but it certainly does not convict him. It doesn’t even point a finger at him. So, please, just continue to think of him as Matthew, a strong and devoted Christian who wants to see God’s will working in the world.”
Stephanie smiled and nodded. “Of course, that’s the right thing to do,” she said. “I’ll do my best not to let possibility turn into probability.”
“I’m afraid I have another question for you,” Mihdí said. “Can you verify that you were here in the store the entire time that you were in this area? Do you have witnesses that saw you here? And can you verify that you left the area after you left the store?”
“Well,” she said, “that puts a different spin on the whole idea of suspicion, doesn’t it? Let me look at the cash register records.”
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