A white ceramic nameplate that said THE SANDERS had been nailed just beneath the “A.” Unit B was marked with something else: A white poster taped to the door, bearing the legend MISSING. REWARD!!! in bold black letters. Under that a photo-reproduction of an old woman—chipmunk face wizened as walnut meat, surrounded by a frizzy aura of white hair. Serious face, borderline hostile. Large, dark eyes.
Below, a paragraph in typescript:
SOPHIE GRUENBERG, LAST SEEN 9/27/88, 8 P.M., IN THE VICINITY OF THE BETH SHALOM SYNAGOGUE,402 1/2 OCEAN FRONT WALK. WEARING A BLUE-AND-PURPLE FLORAL DRESS, BLACK SHOES, CARRYING A LARGE BLUE STRAW HANDBAG.
D.O.B.: 5-13-16
HT: 4'11''
WT: APPROX 94 LB.
MENTAL AND HEALTH STATUS: EXCELLENT
FOUL PLAY SUSPECTED
A$1000.00REWARD HAS BEEN OFFERED FOR INFORMATION LEADING TO THE WHEREABOUTS OF MRS. SOPHIE GRUENBERG. ANYONE POSSESSING SUCH INFORMATION SHOULD CONTACT BETH SHALOM SYNAGOGUE.
The address of the synagogue was reiterated at the bottom of the page, along with a phone number with a 398 prefix.
I said, “September twenty-seventh. When was Novato killed?”
“The twenty-fourth.”
“Coincidence?”
Milo frowned and rapped the door to Unit B, hitting it hard enough to make the wood rattle. No answer. He rang the bell. Nothing. We walked over to A and tried there. More silence.
“Let’s try around back,” he said. We peeked into a small yard landscaped with a fig tree and little else. The garage was empty.
Back on the sidewalk, Milo folded his arms across his chest, then smiled at a small Mexican boy across the street who’d come out to stare. The boy scampered away. Milo sighed.
“Sunday,” he said. “Hell of a long time since I’ve spent Sunday in church. Think I can get partial points for synagogue?”
He took Rose to Pacific, headed south for a couple of blocks, and hooked right onto an alley that ran parallel with Paloma. Still no sunshine but the streets and sidewalks were a moving meat market; even the crosswalks were jammed.
The unmarked car inched through the crowd before turning into a pay parking lot on Speedway. The attendant was a Filipino with hair down to his waist, wearing a black tank top over electric-blue bicycle pants and beach sandals. Milo paid him, then showed him a badge and told him to park the Ford where we could get it out fast. The attendant said yessir and bowed and stared at us as we departed, eyes full of curiosity, fear, resentment. Feeling the stare at my back, not liking it, I savored a tiny taste of what it was like to be a cop.
We walked toward Ocean Front Walk, making our way past street peddlers hawking sunglasses and straw hats that might last a weekend, and stands selling ethnic fast food of doubtful origin. The crowd was clearance-sale thick: multigenerational Hispanic tribes, shambling winos who looked as if they’d been hand-dipped in filth, mumbling psychotics and retro-hippies lost in a dope haze, Polo-clad upscalers side by side with rooster-coiffed high-punk roller skaters, assorted body-beautiful types testing the limits of the anti-nudity ordinance, and grinning, gawking tourists from Europe, Asia, and New York, overjoyed at having finally found the real L.A.
A kinetic human sculpture, a quilt patched together with every skin tone from Alpine vanilla to bittersweet fudge. The soundtrack: polyglot rap.
I said, “The Salad Bowl.”
“What?” said Milo, talking loudly to be heard over the din.
“Just muttering.”
“Salad bowl, huh?” He eyed a couple on roller skates. Greased torsos. Zebra-skin loincloth and nothing else on the man, micro-bikini and three nose rings on the woman. “Pass the dressing.”
Splintering park benches along the west side of the promenade were crammed with conclaves of the homeless. Beyond the benches was a strip of lawn planted long ago with palm trees that had grown gigantic. The trunks of the trees had been whitewashed three feet up from ground level to provide protection from animals, four-legged and otherwise, but no one was buying it: The trunks were scarred and maimed and gouged, crisscrossed with graffiti. Past the lawn, the beach. More bodies, glistening, half-naked, sun-drunk. Then a dull-platinum knife blade that had to be the ocean.
Beth Shalom Synagogue was a chunky single story of tan stucco centered by aqua-green double doors recessed under a wooden plaque that bore Hebrew writing. Above the plaque was a glass circle containing a leaded Star of David. Identical stars floated above the arched windows on either side of the doorway. The windows were barred. Flanking the building to the north was a three-story drug rehab center. To the south was a narrow brick apartment building with two shop fronts on the ground floor. One space was empty and accordion-grated. The other was occupied by a souvenir shop entitled CASH TALKS, THE REST WALKS.
We walked to the front of the synagogue. Inside the entry alcove, a poster identical to the one we’d just seen on Sophie Gruenberg’s door had been taped to the wall. Below that was a small bulletin board in a glass-fronted case: corrugated black surface with movable white letters, informing the religiously curious of the times for weekday and Sabbath services. The sermon of the week was “When Good Things Happen to Bad People”; the deliverer, Rabbi David Sanders, M.A.
I said, “Sanders. Unit A.”
Milo grunted.
The doors were decorated with a pair of dead-bolt locks and some kind of push-button security affair, but when Milo turned the knob, it yielded.
We entered a small linoleum-floor anteroom filled with mismatched bookcases and a single wooden end table. A paper plate of cookies, cans of soda pop, a bottle of Teacher’s whisky, and a stack of paper cups sat atop the table. A wooden panel door was marked SANCTUARY. Next to it, on a metal stand, stood a battered brown leather box filled with black satin skullcaps. Milo took a cap and placed it on his head. I did the same. He pushed open the door.
The sanctuary was the size of a master suite in a Beverly Hills remodel—more of a chapel, really. Light-blue walls hung with oil paintings of biblical scenes, a dozen rows of blond-wood bench pews bordered either side of a central linoleumed aisle layered with a threadbare Persian runner. The aisle culminated at a large podium faced with another six-sided star and topped by a fringed throw of blue velvet. Behind the podium was a pleated velvet curtain sided by two high-backed chairs upholstered in the same blue plush. Dangling over the podium was a cone of red glass, lit. A pair of tall thin windows toward the front of the room allowed in narrow beams of dusty light. The rear was couched in semidarkness. Milo and I stood there, half-hidden by it. The air was warm and fusty, overlaid with kitchen aromas.
A fair-complected bearded man in his late twenties stood behind the podium, a book open before him, addressing a front-row audience of four, all elderly. One man, three women.
“So we see,” he said, leaning on his elbows, “the true wisdom of the Ethics of the Fathers lies in the ability of the tana’im —the rabbis of the Talmud—to put our lives in perspective, generation after generation. To teach us what is important and what isn’t. Values. ‘Who is rich?’ the rabbis ask. And they answer: he who is satisfied with his portion. What could be more profound? ‘Without manners, there is no scholarship. Without scholarship, no manners.’ ‘The more meat, the more worms.’” He had a soft, clear voice. Precise enunciation. Some sort of accent—my guess was Australian.
“Worms—oh, boy, is that true,” said the sole male student, using his hands for emphasis. He sat in the midst of the women. All I could see of him was a bald head wisped with white and topped by a yarmulke, just like the one I was wearing, above a short, thick neck. “Worms all the time—all we got now is worms, the way we let society get.”
Mutters of assent from the women.
The bearded man smiled, looked down at his book, wet his thumb with his tongue and turned a page. He was broad-shouldered and had a rosy-cheeked baby face that the dirty-blond beard had failed to season. He had on a short-sleeved blue-and-white plaid shirt and a black velvet skullcap that covered m
ost of his tight blond curls.
“It’s always the same, Rabbi,” said the bald man. “Complication, making things difficult. First you set up a system. To do some good. Till then you’re okay. We should always be looking to do good—otherwise what’s the point, right? What separates us from the animals, right? But then the problem comes when too many people get involved and the system takes over and all of a sudden everyone’s working to do good for the system instead of vice-a-versa. Then you got worms. Lots of meat, lots of worms. The more meat, the more worms.”
“Sy, I think what the rabbi means is something different,” said a plump woman on the far right. She had fluffy blued hair and heavy arms that shook as she used her hands for emphasis. “He’s talking about materialism. The more foolish things we collect, the more problems we get.”
“Actually, you’re both correct,” said the blond man in a conciliatory tone. “The Talmud is emphasizing the virtue of simplicity. Mr. Morgenstern is talking about procedural simplicity; Mrs. Cooper, material simplicity. When we complicate things, we drift further away from our purpose on this planet—getting closer to God. That’s precisely why the Tal—”
“It happened with the IRS, Rabbi,” said a woman with a thin, birdlike voice and a cap of dyed-black hair. “The taxes. The taxes were supposed to be for the people. Now it’s people for the taxes. Same with Social Security. Moishe Kapoyr. ” Twist of a wrist. “Upside down.”
“Very true, Mrs. Steinberg,” said the young rabbi. “Oftentimes—”
“Social Security, too,” said Mr. Morgenstern. “They make like Social Security is something we’re stealing, the young puppies, so they shouldn’t have a new BMW each year. How many years did I work and contribute, like clockwork, back before BMWs were enemy airplanes? Now, they make like I want charity, bread out of their mouths. Who do they think baked them the bread in the first place? From trees it fell?”
The young rabbi started to comment but was drowned out by a discussion of the Social Security system. He seemed to accept it with practiced good nature, turned another page, read, finally looked up and saw us, and stood up straight behind the podium.
He raised his eyebrows. Milo gave a small nod of acknowledgment.
The rabbi left the podium and walked toward us. Tall, built like an athlete, with a sure stride. His students—old enough to be his grandparents—turned their heads and followed his path. They saw us. The synagogue grew silent.
“I’m Rabbi Sanders. Can I help you, gentlemen?”
Milo flashed the badge. Sanders examined it. Milo said, “Excuse the interruption, Rabbi. When you’re through we’d like to talk to you.”
“Certainly. May I ask about what?”
“Sophie Gruenberg.”
The baby face braced itself, as if for pain. A child in a doctor’s office, anticipating the needle. “Do you have news for us, Officer?”
Milo shook his head. “Just questions.”
“Oh,” said Sanders, looking like a prisoner who’d had his sentence delayed but not commuted.
“What?” said one of the women at the front. “What is it?”
“Cops,” said Morgenstern. “I can always tell. Am I right?” Seen front on, he was thick, with doughy features, shaggy eyebrows, and meaty workingman’s hands that he waved as he talked.
I smiled at him.
He said, “I can always tell. Those yarmulkes are sitting there like they’re ready to fly off.”
Four faces stared at us. A quartet of antique masks scored by time but strengthened by experience.
Rabbi Sanders said, “These gentlemen are indeed police officers and they’re here to ask questions about Sophie.”
“Questions,” said the plump woman, Mrs. Cooper. She wore spectacles, a white sweater buttoned to the neck, and a string of pearls. The blued hair was precisely marcelled. “Why more questions, now?”
“All we’ve gotten from the police is questions,” said the hand-waving Morgenstern. “No answers–no meat, lots of worms. How long’s it been? What, month and a half?”
The women nodded.
“You think there’s a chance?” said Mrs. Steinberg, the black-haired woman. The hair was cut in bangs and bobbed. The face below it was chalk-white and thin and had once been beautiful. I pictured her in a Roaring Twenties chorus line, doing high kicks. “Even a little bit of a chance that she could still be alive?”
“Hush, Rose,” said Mrs. Cooper. “There’s always hope. Kayn aynhoreh, poo poo poo. ”Her soft face quivered.
Morgenstern regarded her with a look of exaggerated scorn. “What’s with this aynhoreh business, my dear? The evil eye? Superstition—stupidstition. What you got to have is rationality, the rational mind. Dialectics, Hegel and Kant—and of course the Talmud, excuse me, Rabbi.” He slapped his own wrist.
“Stop joking, Sy. This is serious,” said the black-haired woman. She looked at us, pained. “Could she possibly be alive, Officers? After all this time?”
Five faces, waiting for an answer.
Milo took a step backward. “I’d like to hope so, Ma’am,” he said. To Sanders: “We can come back and discuss this later, Rabbi.”
“No, that’s all right,” said Sanders. “We were just about to conclude. If you wait a minute, I’ll be right with you.”
He went back behind the podium, said a few more words about values and proper perspective, dismissed the class, and returned to us. The old people lingered near the front of the synagogue, huddling in discussion.
“Refreshments out in front, people,” said Sanders.
The huddle buzzed, then broke. The women hung back and Mr. Morgenstern came forward, the designated quarterback. He was no more than five three, blocky and firm-looking. A toy truck of a man in khaki work pants and a white shirt under a gray sweater vest.
“You got questions,” he said, “maybe we can answer them. We knew her.”
Sanders looked at Milo.
Milo said, “Sure. We’d appreciate any information.”
Morgenstern nodded. “Good you agreed,” he said, “’cause we voted on it—the people have spoken. That should be respected.”
We reassembled near the podium. Milo stood in front of it. Sanders took a seat and pulled a briar pipe out of his pocket.
“Tsk, tsk, Rabbi,” said the woman who hadn’t yet spoken. Big-boned, no makeup, brushed-steel hair tied in a bun.
“I’m not lighting it, Mrs. Sindowsky,” said the rabbi.
“Better you shouldn’t do anything with it. What do you need problems on the lips for? More meat, more worms, right, Rabbi?”
Sanders blushed and smiled, cradled the pipe in one hand and touched it longingly, but didn’t put it in his mouth.
Milo said, “I want to be straight with you people. I’ve got absolutely nothing new to tell you about Mrs. Gruenberg. In fact, I’m not investigating her case and I only came here because her disappearance may be related to another case. And I can’t tell you anything about that one.”
“Such a deal,” said Morgenstern. “You must be fun at swap meets.”
“Exactly,” said Milo, smiling.
“What can we do for you, Officer?” said Rabbi Sanders.
“Tell me about Mrs. Gruenberg. Everything you know about her disappearance.”
“We told everything to the police already,” said Mrs. Cooper. “She was here, left, and that was it. Poof. Gone.” The heavy arms rippled. “After a couple days the police agreed to talk to us and they sent a detective down who asked questions. He filed a missing persons report and promised to keep in touch with us. So far, nothing.”
“That’s because,” said Morgenstern, “they got nothing. They had something, would this man be here, asking us to go over it again? How they gonna give you what they don’t have?”
Milo said, “Do you remember the name of the investigating detective?”
“What investigating?” said Morgenstern. “He took a report—that was it.”
“Mehan,” said the rabbi. “Detective
Mehan from Pacific Division.”
“Which division you from?” said Morgenstern.
“West L.A.,” Milo said.
Morgenstern winked and said, “Silk stocking detail, eh? Lots of stolen BMWs.”
Rabbi Sanders said, “Detective Mehan did more than just file a report. He examined her... Sophie’s house. I know because I let him in. We, my family and I, were—are—her tenants. We live side by side, kept each other’s keys. Detective Mehan went into her unit and found no evidence of any crime being committed. Everything was in order. He also checked with her bank and found out she hadn’t made any large withdrawals recently. And she hadn’t asked the post office to withhold or forward mail. So it seemed to him she hadn’t planned to take a trip. He thought she might have gotten lost somewhere.”
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