by Grievous Sin
Marge said, “What’s your take on Darlene? Do you think she might be involved?”
“I’m not ruling out anybody, but my instinct tells me she just honestly fucked up.”
“Sounds like you feel bad for her.”
“Part of me is angry as hell. And the other part says we’re all human.” Decker didn’t speak for a moment. Then he said, “I’m outta here.”
“Kiss Hannah for me.”
“A big kiss from Auntie Marge, huh?”
“Auntie Marge?”
“The kid doesn’t have a lot of extended family,” Decker said. “We improvise.”
He cut the line. Marge laughed and hung up the phone. Her eyes had never left sight of the entrance to the juice bar. They had been in there for almost an hour. She was getting antsy.
Ten minutes later, the women emerged. Marge breathed a sigh of relief. Tandy headed back to the gym; Cindy appeared to be walking to her car. Marge waited until the doors had closed behind Tandy to sprint over to Decker’s daughter, catching her totally off guard. Cindy turned red and looked at her feet.
“I’m in trouble, aren’t I?”
“Be thankful it’s me and not Daddy.”
“Yeah, I was thinking the same thing.” Cindy followed Marge over to the Beemer. “Nice car. Is it yours?”
“Just get inside and don’t ask questions.”
Quietly, Cindy slipped into the passenger’s seat.
28
The house was cemetery quiet as Decker came through the door. Figuring someone had to be asleep, he tiptoed through the kitchen and went out the back door. Once again Nora, the nurse, and Magda had set up camp around the patio table, chatting happily as they sipped iced tea and munched grapes. Hannah was snoozing in her new cradle—a gift from his brother, Randy—and Ginger had curled up under the tabletop. The setter didn’t bother to greet Decker with her usual yipping and yapping, just raised her head and lowered it. For some reason, that bothered him. He took it as a neurotic sign that he was being displaced.
“How’s everyone?”
Nora said, “I’m glad you had that little talk with your wife. She’s been resting all morning. It’s what she needs to make her heal.”
“Good to hear.”
“Do you want some iced tea, Akiva?” Magda asked.
“Maybe a little later. How’s my baby?”
“Sleeping like one,” Nora said.
“Isn’t she a good girl?” Magda said. “Just the best?”
“No argument from me,” Decker said. “Is Cindy around?”
“She went out early in the morning,” Magda said. “I think she go swimming. She has with her a swimming bag.”
“Really?” Decker said. “That’s great. She must have hooked up with some friends.”
The women stopped talking and smiled at him. His presence must be wearing thin. Or maybe it was the other way around. He smiled and said, “I’ll just go inside the house. Get myself a snack and check in on Rina.”
The women nodded enthusiastically, as if they couldn’t wait to get rid of him. He reentered his kitchen, took an apple out of the refrigerator, and ate it before he remembered to wash it. So what’s a little weedkiller between friends?
He picked up the phone and dialed Florida. His father’s gruff voice came over the answering machine:
Leave a message. Beep.
Decker left his message. He hadn’t spoken to his parents since the baby was born; they kept missing each other. But the congratulations card in yesterday’s mail along with the lengthy handwritten note told Decker his parents had received the news and were excited. Ordinarily, his mother never wrote more than a couple of perfunctory sentences.
How are you? We’re fine. Bye.
Initially, they had been disappointed in his selection of a spouse. Nothing personal against Rina, but like Decker’s first wife, she was Jewish. His parents, being good Baptists, didn’t cotton to her rejection of the Savior. And when he announced he was joining his wife’s faith, he knew his mother would be heartbroken.
He had made the move after much deliberation. Accepting Judaism had taken him full circle, back to the faith of his biological parents. Even though Decker considered his adoptive parents his only parents, he knew his renunciation of Christianity was tantamount to renunciation of his parents in his mother’s eyes. For a while, the relationship with his parents was sticky. But things were improving. Mom genuinely liked Rina as a person.
And now the baby…their granddaughter.
Time and babies heal all wounds.
Not really hungry, Decker decided to peek in on Rina. He opened the door to the bedroom. She was curled into a ball and wrapped in her blanket, only a tiny area of skin showing from her face. He bent down to kiss her cheek, and she opened her eyes.
“Nora says you’ve been resting. That’s good, darlin’. The only way to heal.”
“You mean it’s good for her,” she squeaked out.
“Rina, if you don’t like Nora, I’ll fire her right now.”
No response.
“Honey, do you want me to get rid of her? We certainly don’t need another interfering nurse around here.”
Rina pulled the blanket off her face and turned to him. “What do you mean, ‘another interfering nurse’? Who was the first one?”
Decker winced. “No one. I’m just babbling.”
“You were referring to your case, weren’t you?”
“I suppose it’s all blurring. Is Nora preventing you from taking care of Hannah?”
“No, not at all.” Rina fell back on her pillow. “I suppose she feels she’s doing the right thing by helping me rest. She just makes me feel useless!”
“You’re not useless.”
“Useless and uterusless.” She let out a bitter laugh. “That’s me!”
Decker said, “Rina, I love you and need you and want you and find you sexy, and I’ll keep saying those words over and over until you believe me!”
“I believe you.” She sighed. “I just want my baby, and I’m too tired to care for her. I’m cranky.”
“You can be cranky.”
Rina tried to smile. Instead, the mouth turned down into a look of despair, and she started crying. Decker bit his mustache. All this outpouring of emotion was wearing him down. Rina’s catharsis was so honestly expressed—but that didn’t make it any easier to deal with. He felt like galloping his stallion around the corral, building up a sweat until his muscles ached with that satisfied throb of physical work. But instead, he lay down next to his wife and held her in his arms, trying to sympathize with her plight without being consumed by it.
“I love you, baby,” Decker said.
“I love you, too.” Rina sniffed. “I feel so much better when you’re here.”
Decker thought about that one as she sobbed in his arms. He supposed crying was a definite improvement over catatonic depression. “I’m glad, Rina. Just give me a few more days on this case, and I promise, I’ll take a few weeks off. I’ll do everything I can for you. We’ll work through this together.”
“I hate when I drag you down like this.”
“You’re not dragging me down. I’ll finish this case, and then I’m all yours.”
Rina broke away, propped up her pillows, then laid her head down and folded the sheets across her lap. “Thanks for being so wonderful.”
“Any time.” Decker glanced at her nightstand, and picked up a handwritten note.
Palm Springs—April.
“What’s this?”
Rina read the slip. “Oh. Abba and Eema Lazarus called to congratulate us.”
Decker smiled weakly. Abba and Eema Lazarus—the parents of her late husband.
The boys’ grandparents.
“That’s nice. So what does their call have to do with Palm Springs?”
“They invited us to go with them to Palm Springs for Pesach.”
Decker frowned. “Palm Springs for Passover? Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t the saying ‘
Next year in Jerusalem’?”
“One desert’s the same as the next.”
“I think you’re missing a crucial point.”
Rina smiled. “Jerusalem is lovely, but Palm Springs is a little closer.”
“What’s in Palm Springs besides golf?”
“Sonny Bono.”
“Rina—”
“They have this huge Kosher for Passover tour. I’ve spoken to people who have been there. They take over a resort hotel and turn it into a Club Med for the Orthodox. The hotel has a pool, spas, tennis courts, a health club. The tour provides activities—Israeli dancing, cooking, wine tasting, a bingo contest—”
“My heart can’t take the excitement.”
“No, Peter, it’s not chasing felons, but I bet your body could use a real rest. Anyway, I didn’t refuse them outright. It’s up to you.”
“Up to me?” He paused. “Do you actually want to go?”
“My first instinct was to say no. But then I thought, Rina, what’s wrong with lying around the pool all day? If we stay home for the holidays, we’d just wind up working around the house.”
Decker was silent.
“You don’t want to go, we won’t go,” Rina said. “They’re just trying to be nice. This is the honeymoon the Lazaruses wanted us to have. They felt terrible about last year. Calling us to come for the holidays, then making you work.”
“It wasn’t their fault a kid decided to run away with a psycho.”
“But you wound up spending all your vacation time looking for him. They felt lousy about it. They want us to have some fun. Remember fun?”
“Describe it to me.”
Rina touched his cheek. “I think it involves lots of time in bed—sleeping or otherwise.”
“It’s coming back…slowly.”
Rina punched his good shoulder.
Decker smiled. “They know I won’t come to Brooklyn. They want to see the boys, don’t they?”
“I’m sure that’s a big part of it. You can understand that. And even if Channaleh isn’t technically their own, they feel like she is. Eema’s already booked us two rooms—one for us and one for the children.”
“Nothing like pressure.”
“I never committed. Don’t go if you don’t want to. Life’s too short for doing things you don’t want to do.”
“Who else is going?”
“Just Eema and Abba. It’ll be just the seven of us.”
“What about your parents?”
“They’re going to Israel to be with my brother.”
“What about your former sisters-in-law and their families?”
“Eema and Abba spend plenty of time with them. They just want it to be the seven of us.”
Decker rubbed his eyes. “Would it make you happy to go?”
“Spending some time alone with you would really make me very happy. And it’s free.”
“That’s not the issue.”
“It’s a legitimate issue if you saw how much these things cost. They wouldn’t take our money anyway. They want it to be their treat. But it’s totally up to you, Peter. I mean it.”
Decker bit his mustache. The poor people had lost their only son from illness. Now, more than ever, he could feel their heartbreak. It seemed so cruel to deny them their grandsons, too. And it would please Rina and wouldn’t involve going to Brooklyn. Plus, to be honest, the idea of having nothing to do for a week except make love and lie around the pool did sound pretty damn good. A free family vacation with built-in baby-sitters and kosher food provided to boot. Rina wouldn’t have to drag along pots and pans and kosher food packed in an ice chest. And if he said yes, he’d look like a prince in Rina’s eyes.
“If it’s just them…” Decker massaged his temples. “Sure, we can go.”
Rina’s smile was wide and happy, and for a moment Decker saw her old self. He knew it would take time for her to get over her trauma, and he hoped his agreeable attitude was helping her along.
Rina gave him a big kiss on the cheek. “You really are a nice person. Just the best!”
“No prob, darlin’. It’s worth it to see you smile.”
Marge said, “Just answer me one question, Cindy. What in the world could have possibly gone through that brain of yours?”
“I got some very important information, Marge.”
Calm, Marge told herself. Just remain calm. First thank God she’s not your daughter, then treat her like any other dingbat witness. “And what is that information, Cynthia?”
“I know why Tandy might have taken the baby…if she did take the baby. I mean, I don’t know that she took the baby. But I have a motive if she did.”
“She lost a baby when she was fifteen,” Marge said.
Cindy stared at her, disappointment clouding the sunshine of her eyes. “How did you know?”
“Because I interviewed her, Cindy. That’s what the police do. And they don’t even have to pose as bodybuilders to do it. I don’t have to tell you how dangerous and stupid your little stunt was. Your dad and I aren’t TV detectives with cute little mannerisms who wrap things up in an hour minus twenty minutes for commercials. We get things done by putting in long hours and trying out different tactics that often lead nowhere. It’s hard, it’s tiring, and it’s frustrating! What we don’t need is someone blowing all of our careful planning by being stupid!”
The girl looked as if she was going to cry. Marge softened her tone. “Did you have a good workout at least?”
Cindy didn’t answer.
“Look,” Marge said, “no harm done.” She hoped. “What’d you two talk about in the juice bar? You were in there for almost an hour.”
“Nothing much.” Cindy sighed. “What are you doing here?”
“What do you think? I’m keeping an eye on Tandy.”
“You’re watching her car?”
“Yes. Promise me you’ll back off for good, okay?”
“I was supposed to return to the gym tomorrow—”
“Cindy!”
“They have this whole routine worked out for me. They say I have lots of talent.”
Marge stared at her. “Cynthia Decker, if I find you within a mile of this place, I’ll arrest you and throw you in the clink with all sorts of unsavory women.”
Cindy smiled. “I’ll stay out of your face, Marge.”
“You’ll stay out of our business!” Marge took a deep breath. “Now…what did you two talk about?”
“Just talked—about school, about guys, about our families. Don’t worry, I didn’t tell her my father’s a cop. I’m not stupid, only adventurous.”
“No, Cynthia, it’s stupidity!”
Cindy smiled sadly. “And here I thought I discovered something really important. I was going to lay a real insight on you.”
“So I beat you to the punch. How did losing the baby come up in conversation?”
“She talked about her modeling career. How one of the directors made her pregnant.”
“How long was she a model?”
“Since she was five. A kid’s model at first for clothing catalogs. Then she graduated into haute couture and the cat-walk. She told me how brutal the whole thing was. How mean everyone was to newcomers, how she had to starve herself to stay thin. She was bulimic. Even when she was pregnant, she used to starve herself, didn’t start showing until she was in her sixth month. She wound up losing the baby shortly afterward. Afterward, she was five-nine, ninety-five pounds.”
“Jesus.”
“Yeah, a real skeleton. Even her agent told her to gain a few pounds back. Which she did. She worked for a few more years. Then she said she got pregnant again and lost that baby—”
“Wait a minute, Cindy.” Marge pulled out her notebook and began to scribble furiously. “She got pregnant again?”
“Yeah. This time when she was eighteen. She was still living in New York.” Cindy’s eyes lit up. “You didn’t know that one, did you?”
“No.”
“See. I found something
—”
“Just cool the pats on the back for the time being, okay? Did she lose that baby, too?”
“Yes, but earlier than the first one. In the fourth month, I think.”
“Did it send her into a depression or anything?”
“Well, it made an impact on her. And on her professional life. Because the second time around, she refused to starve herself. She felt the starvation was the reason she lost the first baby. She said people told her over and over it was her fault she lost the first baby.”
“Which people?”
Cindy shrugged. “She just said people. Probably her mom. So the second time she got pregnant, she ate. And ate and ate and ate and ate. It was the first time in years that she could eat normally. When she lost the second baby, she had put on fifty pounds. But she didn’t care. By that time, she was so disgusted with the business and her mother for pushing her, she left New York and came out here.”
“She’s originally from New York?”
“No, from Berkeley. Her parents were divorced when she was a kid. Her mother took her to Manhattan to model shortly after her parents split. She used to live with her father during the summers, but when she got real busy with her career, she stopped visiting him. She said she was glad. She hates both her parents, I can tell you that much.”
“Sounds like a lovely girl.”
“She’s had it rough, I guess. A bitch stage mom—real pushy—and a philandering father. We talked about divorce for a while. How hard it can be on the kids.”
Cindy started biting her nails.
“It’s hard under the best of circumstances. My parents really tried to shield me, but their hostility toward one another was palpable whenever my dad picked me up for weekends. It got easier after my mom remarried; they became a little more civil. But I don’t think there’s ever going to be any love lost between them. It hurts….” She shrugged. “But you move on. You get past it. You realize that your parents can make mistakes and still be good people. I don’t think Tandy ever got past that. She still talks about her parents’ divorce as if it happened last year instead of years ago.”
“Did she talk about her parents’ faults specifically?”
“Yes. She kept repeating that her mother was a stage-mom bitch and her father was a pathetic Lothario who couldn’t keep his pants zipped. She was happy to stop seeing him in the summers because he was getting real desperate as he aged—the students getting younger and him getting older.”