“Impossible,” said Mrs. Steinberg. “She knew Venice like the palm of her hand. She would never get lost. Right?”
Nods.
“True, but who knows?” said Mrs. Cooper. “Anything can happen.”
Vulnerable looks. Long silence.
“Ahh,” said Morgenstern. “All guesses. Including the bank stuff—you ask me, that means nothing. Sophie was a crafty one—she never told anyone what she was thinking or doing. Never trusted anyone—especially the capitalist bankers. So how much would she keep in bank accounts? The big bucks? Or just narrishkeit small change? Maybe she kept her serious cash somewhere else.”
“Where would that be?” said Milo.
“I don’t know,” said Morgenstern. “She didn’t tell no one, you think she’d tell me? I’m just guessing, same as you. Maybe in the house, under the bed, who knows? She had her ideas. Maybe she was saving up, waiting for the next revolution. So maybe she took that and left, and you wouldn’t know nothing from nothing by checking with any banks!”
The old man’s color had risen.
Milo said, “So you don’t know for a fact that she kept large amounts of cash around the house.”
I knew what he was thinking: dope.
“No, no,” said Morgenstern, “I don’t know nothing. Which puts me in the same club with everyone else. She wasn’t a personal person, know what I mean? Didn’t let on what she was thinking or doing. So I’m just saying, checking the banks doesn’t mean nothing as far as logical, rational thinking goes. A person could keep cash and just decide to leave—am I right?”
Milo said, “You’ve got a point.”
“He throws me a bone,” said Morgenstern. But he looked pleased.
Mrs. Sindowsky said, “Tell him about the pictures?”
“Oh,” said the rabbi, looking uneasy.
“What pictures?” said Milo.
“Detective Mehan went to the morgue and took pictures of any... senior citizens who’d been... any unidentified victims that matched Sophie in age. He brought them to me to look at. He put out some bulletins, called some other police departments—Long Beach, Orange County-—and asked if they had any unidentified... people. None were Sophie. Thank God.”
Four echoing Thank God’s.
Sanders said, “In all fairness, he seemed to be thorough—Detective Mehan. But after three weeks had passed without her showing up, he told us there was a limit to what he could do. There was no evidence of any crime being committed. The choice was to wait or hire a private detective. We talked about doing that—the detective—made a few calls to agencies. It’s very expensive. We asked the Jewish Federation to consider funding. They wouldn’t approve a detective, but they did agree to the reward.”
“Those skinflints—to them it’s chump change,” said Morgenstern.
Milo said, “Can you think of any reason she’d just leave?”
Blank looks.
“That’s the point,” said Mrs. Steinberg. “There’d be no reason for her to leave. She was happy here—why would she just leave?”
“Happy?” said Mrs. Sindowsky. “You ever see her smile?”
“All I’m saying, Dora,” said Mrs. Steinberg, “is that after all this time maybe we have to assume the worst.”
“Feh,” said Morgenstern, shaking a thick fist. “Always with the gloom and doom. Chicken Little. The smog’s falling.”
“I’ve lived,” said Mrs. Steinberg, drawing herself up, “through plenty. I know the way things are.”
“Lived?” said Morgenstern. “And what’ve I been doing? Hanging on the wall like an oil painting?”
Milo looked at Mrs. Steinberg. “Besides the amount of time she’s been gone, do you have any reason to assume the worst?”
All eyes focused on the black-haired woman. She looked uncomfortable. “It just doesn’t make sense. Sophie wasn’t the type to wander off. She was a very... regular person. Attached to her house, to her books. And she loved Venice—she’d lived here longer than any of us. Where would she go?”
“What about relatives?” said Milo. “She ever mention any?”
Rabbi Sanders said, “The only family she talked about were her brothers and sisters killed by the Nazis. She talked a lot about the Holocaust, the evils of fascism.”
Mrs. Sindowsky said, “She talked a lot about politics, period.”
“Tell the plain truth,” said Morgenstern. “She was a Red.”
“So?” said Mrs. Cooper, “That’s some sort of crime in this free country, Sy? Expressing political views? Don’t make to them like she was a criminal.”
“Who says it’s a crime?” Morgenstern retorted. “I’m only stating facts. The plain truth. What she was, was what she was. Red as a tomato.”
“What does that make me?” said Mrs. Cooper.
“You, my darling?” said Morgenstern. “Let’s say pink.” Smile. “When you get excited, maybe a nice shade of fuchsia.”
“Ahh,” said the plump woman, turning her back on him and folding her arms under her bosom.
Milo said, “The poster says she disappeared around here. How did that happen?”
“We were having an evening social,” said the rabbi. “A couple of weeks after Rosh Hashanah—Jewish New Year. Trying”
“Trying to rejuvenate community spirit,” Mrs. Sindowsky broke in, as if reciting from a lesson book. “Get a little action going, right, Rabbi?”
Sanders smiled at her, then turned to Milo. “Mrs. Gruenberg showed up but left after a short while. That was the last anyone saw her. I assumed she’d gone home. When the mail started piling up at her door, I got worried. I used my key and let myself into her unit and saw she was gone. I called the police. After forty-eight hours had passed, Detective Mehan agreed to come down.”
“And the last time you saw her—at the social—was around eight?”
“Eight, eight-thirty,” said Sanders. “That’s only an estimate—the social began at seven-thirty and ended at nine. She wasn’t there during the last half hour. We pulled up chairs and had a discussion. So she left some time before eight-thirty. No one’s really sure.”
“Did she bring a car or come on foot?”
“On foot. She didn’t drive, liked to walk.”
“It’s gotten kind of tough around here to be walking at night,” said Milo.
“Good of you to notice,” said Morgenstern. “Days aren’t so wonderful either.”
“She wouldn’t have worried about that?”
“She certainly should have,” said Mrs. Steinberg. “With all the nogoodniks and lowlife hanging around, taking over the neighborhood—all the drugs. We used to enjoy the beach. You come around here during the week, Officer, and you won’t see us taking the sun like we used to. All of us used to walk, to swim—that’s why we moved here. It was paradise. Now when we go out at night, we take a car, in a group. Park it back on Speedway and walk to the shul, marching like a battalion of soldiers. On a nice summer night, a late sunset, maybe we’ll take a longer walk. Still all together—as a group. Even then we feel nervous. But Sophie never joined in any of that. She wasn’t a joiner. She lived here a long time, didn’t want to admit things had changed. You couldn’t talk to her—she was stubborn. She walked around like she owned the neighborhood.”
“She liked to walk,” said Sanders. “For exercise.”
“Sometimes,” said Morgenstern, “exercise isn’t so healthy.”
Mrs. Cooper frowned at him. He winked at her and smiled.
Milo said, “Rabbi, you lived next to her. What was her state of mind during the last few days before she disappeared?”
“The last few days?” said Sanders. He rolled his pipe in his palm. “Truthfully, she probably was very upset.”
“Probably?”
“She wasn’t one to express emotions openly. She kept to herself.”
“Then why do you say she was upset?”
Sanders hesitated, looking first at his students, then Milo.
“There was,” he sa
id, “a crime. Someone she knew.”
“What crime?” said Morgenstern. “Say it. A murder. Drugs and guns, the whole shebang. Some black boy she was renting to. He got shot, over drugs.” He squinted and his eyebrows merged like mating caterpillars. “Aha! That’s the big secret you can’t tell us about, right?”
Milo said, “Do you know anything about that?”
Silence.
Mrs. Sindowsky said, “Just what we heard from the rabbi here. She had a tenant; he got shot.”
“None of you knew him?”
Shakes of heads.
“I knew of him but not him,” said Mrs. Cooper.
“What did you know?”
“That she’d taken in a boarder. Once I saw him on his little motorbike, driving home. Nice-looking boy. Very big.”
“There was plenty of talk,” said Morgenstern.
“What kind of talk?” Milo said.
“A black kid—whadya think? Was she putting herself in danger.” Morgenstern looked accusingly at the women. They seemed embarrassed. “Everyone’s nice and liberal,” he said, “till it comes to putting the mouth where the money is. But Sophie was a Red—it was just the kind of thing she’d do. You think he got her into some kind of trouble, the kid? Keeping his dope money in the house—-they came to get it and got her?”
Milo said, “No. There’s no evidence of that.”
Morgenstern gave him a conspiratorial wink. “No evidence, but you’re coming around asking questions. The plot thickens, eh, Mr. Policeman? More meat, more worms.”
Milo asked a few more questions, determined they had nothing else to offer, and thanked them. We left, replacing our skullcaps in the leather box on the way out, walked a ways up Ocean Front, and had a cup of coffee at a teriyaki stand. Milo glared at the winos hanging around the stand and they drifted away, like sloughing dead skin. He sipped, running his gaze up and down the walk-street, letting it settle on the synagogue.
After a few moments all four old people came out of the building and walked off together, Morgenstern in the lead. An elderly battalion. When they were out of view, Milo tossed his coffee cup in the trash and said, “Come on.”
The dead bolts on the synagogue’s doors were locked. Milo’s knock brought Sanders to the door.
The rabbi had put a gray suit jacket over his shirt, had his pipe in his mouth, still unlit, and was holding an oversized maroon book with marbled page-ends.
“A little more of your time, Rabbi?”
Sanders held the door open and we stepped into the anteroom. Most of the cookies were gone and only two cans of soda remained.
“Can I offer you anything?” said Sanders. He slid the book into one of the cases.
“No thanks, Rabbi.”
“Shall we go back in the sanctuary?”
“This is fine, thanks. I was just wondering if there was anything you hadn’t felt comfortable discussing in front of your students.”
“Students.” Sanders smiled. “They’ve taught me a good deal more than I’ve taught them. This is only a part-time job. Weekdays I teach at an elementary school in the Fairfax district. I conduct services here on weekends, give classes Sundays, run an occasional social evening.”
“Sounds like a full schedule.”
Sanders shrugged and adjusted his yarmulke. “Five children. Los Angeles is an expensive city. That’s how I came to know Sophie—Mrs. Gruenberg. Finding affordable housing’s impossible, especially with children. People in this city don’t seem to like children. Mrs. Gruenberg didn’t mind at all, even though she wasn’t very... grandmotherly. And she was very reasonable about the rent. She said it was because we—my wife and I—had ideals, she respected us for them. Even though she herself had no use for religion. Marxism was her faith. She really was an unregenerate communist.”
“She generally pretty vocal about her political views?”
“If one asked her, she’d speak her mind. But she didn’t go about volunteering them—she wasn’t a gregarious woman. Quite the opposite. Kept to herself.”
“Not a joiner?”
Sanders nodded. “I tried to get her more involved in the synagogue, but she had no interest in religion, wasn’t at all sociable. Truthfully, she wasn’t the most popular person. But the others do care about her. They all look out for one another. Wanted to dip into their own pockets in order to hire the private detective. But none of them can afford it—they’re all on pension. Detective Mehan told me it would probably be a waste of money, so I discouraged it, promised to bring it to the Federation again. Her vanishing has really frightened them—they’re slapped in the face by their own helplessness. That’s why I’m glad you returned when they were gone. Talking about Ike could only upset them more. That is what you want to talk about, isn’t it?”
“Why’d Detective Mehan feel it was a waste of time?”
Sanders lowered his gaze and bit his lip. “He told me— and this is something I haven’t told them—that it didn’t look good. The fact that she hadn’t made plans to leave meant there was a good chance she’d met up with foul play. The fact that her apartment was in order meant it had taken place on the street—as she walked home. He said that if she’d gotten lost and wandered away or had a stroke, she would have turned up by three weeks. One way or the other. He said private detectives could find people, but weren’t much use discovering bodies.”
He looked up. Blue eyes still. Jamming the pipe in his mouth, he bit down so hard his jaws bunched and the board bristled.
Milo said, “She’s your landlady. Is there a mortgage on the building?”
Sanders shook his head. “No, she owns it free and clear—has for several years. Detective Mehan found that out when he checked into her finances.”
“What about other bills that come in? Who pays them?”
“I do. It doesn’t come out to much—just utilities. I’ve also been collecting all her mail. What looks like a bill, I open and pay. I know it’s not perfectly legal to do that, but Detective Mehan assured me it would be all right.”
“What about your rent cheek?”
“I’ve opened an interest-earning account, deposited the October and November checks in there. It seemed the best thing to do until we learn... something.”
“Where do you keep her mail, Rabbi?”
“Right here, in the synagogue, under lock and key.”
“I’d like to see it.”
He said, “Certainly,” put his pipe in his jacket pocket, and went into the sanctuary. We watched him unlock a cabinet in back of the podium and draw out two manila envelopes, which he brought back and handed to Milo. One was marked SEPT/OCT.; the other, NOV.
Milo said, “This is all of it?”
“This is it.” Sad look.
Milo opened the envelopes, removed the contents, and spread them out on the ledge of the bookcase. He inspected each piece of mail. Mostly flyers and computer-addressed bulk mail. Occupant appearing more frequently than her name. A few utility bills that had been opened and marked Paid, followed by dates of payments.
Sanders said, “I was hoping there’d be something personal, to give us a clue. But she wasn’t very... connected to the outside world.” His baby face had grown sad. Stuffing one hand in his pocket, he groped until he found his pipe.
Milo slid the mail back in the manila envelopes. “Is there anything else you want to tell me, Rabbi?”
Sanders rubbed the bowl of the pipe against his nose.
“Just one thing,” he said. “And Detective Mehan filed a report on it, so you should have a record of it somewhere. The old people don’t know this either—I didn’t see any point in telling them. A few days after she disappeared—that was a Tuesday; this happened sometime over the weekend—burglars broke into the house. Into both our places. My family and I were out of town, at a school retreat in the city. Detective Mehan said it was probably a drug addict looking for things to sell. A coward: he’d watched the house—staked us out—waited until we were gone, and moved in.”
“What was taken?”
“As far as I could tell, what he took from Sophie was a television, a radio, a silver-plated samovar, and some inexpensive jewelry. From us, even less—we don’t have a television. All he got from us was some flatware, a ritual spice box and candleholder, and a tape recorder I use for teaching Hebrew. But he made a mess. Both units were in a shambles—food taken out of the refrigerator and thrown around, drawers opened, papers scattered. Detective Mehan said it showed signs of a disorganized mind. Immaturity—teenagers, or someone on drugs.”
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