Consulting Detective

by Alan Manifold

  Rick stared at him for a moment, then, as the realization dawned that Mihdí had figured out his motive, answered quietly, “I noticed that more patrol cars have been passing by our house lately. I figured you must have alerted them to Andy’s activities so they could watch him.”

  Mihdí nodded. “I thought it was worth watching the situation a little more carefully,” he said. “Was there more?”

  Sapp looked defeated. “I searched Andy’s closet while he was at school, and I found some spray-paint. I found a notebook where he had written a lot of racist crap, including a couple where he used the n-word. The newspaper had said it was hate language that had been painted on the synagogue wall. I figured Andy must have been surprised by the rabbi while he was doing it.”

  “Maybe,” Montgomery said, “I’ll need to talk to him about the previous graffiti incidents, but it doesn’t feel to me like he is involved in this. I admire your sacrifice in trying to protect your son, Rick.”

  “Didn’t work so well, huh?”

  “No, it didn’t work, but it has a certain nobility. Hey, the Beth Shalom congregation is planning to have a work day tomorrow . . . uh, today . . . to clean the graffiti off the walls. If you’re willing to come and help, I’ll see if we can make this whole thing go away. In the meantime, why don’t you go home?”

  Rick shook his hand warmly and wiped away tears as he left.

  Mihdí realized how tired he was from a long day and from having his sleep interrupted. He drove home, went into the bedroom as quietly as possible, got back into his pajamas, slipped noiselessly into bed so as not to wake his wife, and fell back to sleep almost instantly.

  Sunday, Day 5

  Mihdí would have liked to sleep in on Sunday morning, particularly after his short night, but he wanted to help out the Beth Shalom congregation in cleaning up the synagogue. In fact, several members of the Bahá’í community had volunteered to help. Mihdí lumbered out of bed, put on some work clothes, and drove down to the synagogue, waking up a bit in the chill of the early morning.

  When he got to the building, he saw that the previous night’s spray paint had already been removed from the outside wall. He went inside and found quite a few people working and preparing to work. A number of the older members of the congregation were sitting in the pews, visiting and watching others work. Mihdí recognized one of them and greeted her, recalling her name in the nick of time.

  “It’s very nice to see you, Mrs. Fischbach,” he said. “Have you quit for the day already?”

  Ruth Fischbach laughed. “There are so many people here, they insisted that we sit down and let the younger folks work. I can’t say I’m disappointed at that.”

  Ruth Fischbach was a bit over seventy, but she was only recently retired from a secretarial job at City Hall. She had lots of graying hair, pulled up into a bun at the back of her head. She wore blue jeans and a sweatshirt that hung over her small frame. She had survived breast cancer in her mid-sixties and had lost a lot of weight at that time, and she had managed to keep it off after her extensive radiation and chemotherapy treatments. Her hair had grown back to its full length, albeit with more gray in it. Now she was looking recovered and healthy. Even in her work clothes, she held herself with a great deal of dignity. Her smile was genuine and seemed heartfelt.

  Ruth introduced Mihdí to the woman she was sitting with, who turned out to be Miriam Fischbach, her husband’s sister.

  “Are all of these people members of the congregation?” Mihdí asked, after greeting Ruth’s sister-in-law. “I didn’t realize there were so many young people here now.”

  “Oh, no,” she replied. “Not even a third are from Beth Shalom. Or do you say not even a third IS from Beth Shalom.”

  Mihdí laughed, “I was an English major in college, but I never know which of those is correct. Or which of those ARE correct. No, that one’s definitely ‘is.’”

  It was Ruth Fischbach’s turn to laugh. “We certainly appreciate all of the help,” she said. “You know we are hosting this year’s community Thanksgiving service on Wednesday evening, and we would hate to have the sanctuary in this horrible condition for that.”

  “Yes,” said Mihdí, “I was thinking about that. I’m sorry the service will be at such a sad time for Congregation Beth Shalom.”

  “Rabbi Klemme was supposed to be the main speaker this time,” Mrs. Fischbach said. “I guess they usually pick on the newest members of the Interfaith Alliance to speak at these things.”

  “I’m sure he would have added a wonderful presence to the event,” Mihdí said. “Are you involved in the service yourself, Ruth?”

  “Just the reception afterwards,” she replied. “Hadassah is organizing that. We’re veterans of this sort of thing, so we’ll just arrive an hour or so before the service and get things set up and lay out some goodies.”

  “That will definitely be something to be thankful for,” Mihdí observed with a grin.

  Ruth Fischbach smiled.

  Mihdí said, “I have to ask . . . Is Hadassah still all female, or has there been any change in that over recent years?”

  “It’s all female,” Mrs. Fischbach confirmed. “Perhaps that change will come one day, but I am not aware of any such movement. Let me introduce you to some of the members of the congregation.”

  “That would be great,” he said.

  She led him around the sanctuary, introducing him to those who were free and pointing out some who were on ladders, or who were intent on their work. At one point, Mihdí found himself being introduced to Ahmad Muhammad, the owner of the coffee shop next door.

  “Mr. Muhammad and I have met,” Mihdí told Ruth Fischbach. “This is a wonderful thing you are doing here, Ahmad.”

  “The rabbi was a good friend,” said Muhammad with a bow of respect to the dead, “and the congregation has been a good neighbor to me. It is the least I can do to repay their long kindness.”

  Mihdí discovered several other people from businesses on the block helping with the cleanup. His friend, Harry Katz, was holding a ladder as a younger man treated some paint on the wall with a special solvent. Rick and Carl Sapp had gotten there early and had been working together removing paint from the walls. Andy Sapp was not with them. Three members of the Bahá’í community were there: Isabelle Tourangeau, Cheryl Bryant, and Benjamin Avery. Mihdí was touched by the image of Jews, Christians, Muslims, Bahá’ís, and others working side by side to remove the defacement from the walls of the synagogue.

  Mihdí also ran into Scott Craig, who apologized profusely for having missed their appointment. They made an appointment for late afternoon the next day at Craig’s office.

  After Mihdí had made the rounds, he found a job to do and started working up a sweat scrubbing and scraping. He ended up working next to Sandy Klarr, an employee of HisStory Christian Bookstore. The two of them chatted intermittently as they worked. Although they had not met previously, it turned out they knew a few people in common.

  “I was in the store on Friday. I got a chance to talk to Stephanie Plante for a while when she was there.”

  “Yes, she told me that,” Sandy said.

  “I also met Matthew. Do you know if he’s here somewhere?” he asked her.

  Sandy replied immediately, “I would be very surprised if he was. I don’t know him all that well, since we don’t overlap all that much in the store. But it’s my impression that it would take a direct visit from God Himself before Matthew would miss church. I thought this act of service was more important for me, but I think his church is maybe more strict about attendance.”

  “What do you know about his church?” Mihdí asked.

  “It’s called Faith Tabernacle,” she replied. “It’s over in Bolingbrook or someplace like that.”

  “Is it affiliated with any denomination?”

  “No, I think it’s strictly congregational,” Sandy answered. “I don’t really know what the pastor teaches, but it all seems a bit too rigid to my mind.”

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sp; “Any examples?”

  “Well, I know Matthew never reads anything that isn’t religious in nature and that he prefers just reading the Bible. Stephanie has had to talk to Matthew a few times to keep him from evangelizing with the customers too much and from talking them out of purchasing some of the books that he doesn’t approve of. We mostly work at different times, so I haven’t spent that much time with him myself; that’s just what Stephanie has told me.”

  Mihdí devoted his attention to his scrubbing for a minute or two. After a good long pause he asked, “Does he have any problem with the synagogue being nearby?”

  Sandy thought about that. “I’ve never heard him mention it, but like I said, I haven’t worked with him that much.”

  “Do you know if Rabbi Klemme ever stopped into the store?” Mihdí asked.

  “Oh, yeah. He stopped in a few times while I was working. He even bought a book now and then.”

  They both went back to their work for a little while. Out of the corner of his eye, Mihdí observed Sandy. She was quite short, with light brown hair and green eyes. Although she was white, her skin had the dark cast of a tan. She was dressed in a loose turquoise sweatsuit. She wore beat-up white tennis shoes with pink highlights and traces of housepaint on them. Work clothes.

  Sandy broke the silence. “I just remembered that Matthew told me once that he hoped that the congregation here would sell the building. He wanted to see it turned into a Christian church. Personally, I really like having the synagogue in the neighborhood, although I suppose a church would also bring people into the store.”

  “Is HisStory open on Sundays?” Mihdí asked.

  “No, it’s not,” Sandy replied. “Now that you mention it, the fact that some of our Jewish neighbors come over to the bookstore before or after their services is one thing that makes the synagogue a better source of customers than a church would be, since Christians would mostly only be here on Sundays when we’re closed.”

  They both laughed at that.

  “You know, in a way, Matthew was sort of biting the hand that fed him,” Sandy said.

  “In what way?”

  “Well, Rabbi Klemme was the one who recommended him for the job.”

  “Really?” Mihdí asked in shock. “Stephanie Plante didn’t say anything about that.”

  “Actually, she doesn’t know about it,” Sandy said. “I’m not sure I should have told you, but it seems like something you ought to know.”

  “Tell me about that, if you would,” Mihdí encouraged.

  “Jacob came over one day,” she explained, “when I was alone in the store. He said that he had met a young man who would really benefit from working in a place like HisStory. He said the guy, who turned out to be Matthew, had gotten into some kind of trouble and that Jacob was trying to help him out. Jacob said he was meeting with Matthew later that day and was planning to casually mention our ‘Help Wanted’ sign to him. He hoped Matthew would come over that very day and fill out an application for the job. He specifically asked me if I could put in a good word for him to Stephanie without saying where the recommendation came from.”

  “And then it all happened just like that?” Mihdí asked.

  “Uh-huh,” acknowledged Sandy. “He came over that afternoon and filled out the application. I left it in Stephanie’s box with a note saying that I had received a request from someone who did not want to be named and asking for her to give the applicant special consideration. Matthew was very eager in his interview, seemed to show good Christian values, and said he was willing to work hard, so Stephanie hired him.”

  “Did she ever ask you who had given you the recommendation?”

  “Yes, she asked, but I told her I was sworn to secrecy, and she didn’t press the matter.”

  “Do you think Matthew knew that the rabbi had put in a good word for him?”

  “No, I don’t think so. Matthew never mentioned it to me and hasn’t ever said that to Stephanie, either. I’d say Jacob pulled it off pretty well. Until today, I was the only other one in on it.”

  Mihdí shook his head and said, “Matthew owes a great deal to that man. It’s a shame he doesn’t appreciate it more than he does.”

  After a short silence between them, Sandy asked, “You don’t think Matthew is involved, do you?”

  “I hope not,” Mihdí answered. “A good churchgoing young man, steeped in study of the Bible . . . I hope he could never take a wrong turn like that. I like to think I am a reasonable judge of character, but it’s part of my job to remain open even to possibilities that I don’t like to contemplate.”

  Sandy nodded solemnly, and they both turned their attention back to their work.

  By 1:00 p.m., there were more people idle than working. Mihdí came down from his ladder and stretched his arm muscles, which were a bit sore from the unaccustomed exertion. Before heading home, Mihdí headed to the restroom to clean up and found Scott Craig there washing his hands.

  “I think it’s pretty well licked,” Mihdí said.

  “Yes,” said Craig curtly.

  “I hear this is not the first incident of graffiti at the synagogue,” Mihdí ventured.

  “No, it isn’t,” Craig replied. “And it probably won’t be the last, either.”

  “Are you thinking that this is just the way it is for Jews in America?” Mihdí asked him as they exited the restroom together.

  “That’s probably true,” said Craig, “but just now I was thinking about this particular location. This part of town isn’t what it was when the synagogue was built, or even a few years ago. The neighborhood has gone way downhill.”

  “I gather you support a move to a different part of town,” Mihdí said.

  “Absolutely!” answered Craig vehemently. “There are better, more friendly and more convenient locations than this by far. It’s overdue for us to find one. Maybe Rabbi Klemme would still be alive if we had moved last year.”

  “Oh,” said Mihdí, a bit startled. “Do you think the murderer was from this neighborhood?”

  “That certainly wouldn’t surprise me,” Craig said, “but I was really just thinking that things would be that much different if we had moved. The old folks seems to think that we’ll be able to revitalize the congregation down here, but that’s just stupid. The only way to fix our problems is to move on.”

  “Tell me more about that,” asked Mihdí.

  “There are so many problems with this congregation, it just makes me crazy,” said Craig. “But the biggest one is that the members are so old. Schliebaum’s nearly ninety, and he isn’t even the oldest active member. I don’t think we have more than five families under forty, and it’s not getting better. Klemme brought in a few new younger folks, but they’ll all leave now; they only attended because of him, they don’t care about the temple itself. And now the only way to get a good rabbi this time will be to move. Who will want to come to this place and face the possibility of being killed?”

  “You feel that the congregation’s choice not to move is pretty much directly responsible for the rabbi’s death, then?” Mihdí inquired.

  “It’s hard to think otherwise,” Craig said. “If people would just wake up and realize that people today don’t want to live in the past, we might be able to have a decent synagogue. I always feel like I have to shake things up a bit, since these old fogies just want things to stay the same forever and ever, amen.”

  By this time, Craig had his jacket on. He told Mihdí he would see him the next day and left.

  That evening was the Bahá’í Nineteen-Day Feast, a gathering held on the first day of each Bahá’í month. It is one of the primary events in the Bahá’í calendar, and Andrea and Mihdí made an effort to get their children to it as often as possible. Enoch and Lua didn’t mind, as they had some good Bahá’í friends they enjoyed seeing.

  Mihdí helped get the kids into their shoes and coats while Andrea gathered up a few letters and other correspondence to share at the Feast. As the Local Spiritual Assembly s
ecretary, she had a responsibility to make sure such things were presented at the Feast. When they were all ready, they got into Andrea’s car, a ten-year-old dark green Toyota Camry, and drove to the home of Behzad and Fereshteh Rouhani, the hosts for this Feast. Before they went in, Mihdí reminded the kids that they needed to enter the house respectfully and take their seats quietly to maintain a prayerful atmosphere.

  Behzad and Fereshteh’s house was immaculately kept. Other people had arrived before Mihdí and his family, but Mihdí could still see that every chair, pillow, throw, picture, and rug was exactly in its place. Bezhad was seventy-eight and was a retired radiologist. In his retirement years, he had decided to get a degree in religious studies and had gotten his Master’s degree the previous year from the University of Chicago. Fereshteh was seventy and still extremely active in the community. She represented the Bahá’ís in the Interfaith Alliance. Fereshteh had not worked outside the home but had somehow created a large network of friends and colleagues all around the region. She and Behzad had immigrated to the United States from Iran in the 1950s and had raised their family in this house in Pine Bluff. Now that their children were parents and grandparents themselves and were scattered throughout the world, the couple devoted their considerable energy to the activities of the Pine Bluff Bahá’í community.

  The Feast, like all Bahá’í Feasts, had three separate parts: the devotional, the consultative, and the social portions. The hosts had chosen a number of short readings and prayers for the devotional portion. Fereshteh took Mihdí aside just before the devotions and asked if he would chant a prayer to open the devotions and then lead everyone in a few songs at the end. Since his promotion to detective, Mihdí no longer had time to sing in a choir, but he had a rich bass voice and was happy to get a chance to sing now and then at Bahá’í events.

  When the devotions had ended, all of the children went to the basement for children’s classes with Cheryl Bryant and her teenage daughter, Corinne, while the adults consulted on the affairs of the community. Fereshteh, as the chair of the Assembly, guided the meeting, but Andrea was the one to share most of the information. The coming termination of the lease for the Bahá’í Center was a topic of great interest, but much of the time was spent on consulting how to launch an upcoming project for two neighborhood children’s classes in the new year.