by Leslie Glass
Ching was silent, didn't know what to say. Then Tang surprised her again.
"I'm giving you one, silly," she said. "You can't refuse."
So she didn't refuse. Ching had visited the magnificent shop on Madison Avenue, and Tang found a sample from last summer that they weren't making anymore.
Here Tang showed her true colors. No free lunch for anyone. She offered Ching a gown that had a large coffee stain in the train and was a size too big for her. Tang was queenly about her offer and promised Ching the gown would be perfect when they were finished working on it.
Ching was Chinese, too, and showed no distress over the gesture, or the tiny flaw in it. The dress had been, after all, five thousand dollars last year. That was a great deal of a gift, even if the item was unsellable now. Ching's athletic figure was far from delicate, and she had a robust appetite she'd never attempted to curb. Tang's sculpted sheath with pink pearls dancing across the bodice and tulip sleeves would skim her curves and give her stature and grace.
It also made her ambitious. Suddenly she wondered if there was another dress among the thousands Tang didn't need for her stubborn sister-cousin, April Woo. Nothing too fancy. Just the same fashion glory for them both, so they could shine together like real sisters on Ching's great day. April would object, of course. For sure she would object to being Ching's maid of honor. April didn't like standing out in any way whatsoever. That was the reason Ching hadn't told her yet. But if April had a magnificent gown, she wouldn't be able to refuse being maid of honor. She'd have to stand up with Ching and give a speech.
Secrets, manipulations, and most of all scheming was the only way to work with the stubborn Woos and also the Tangs of the world. When Ching got off the subway at the Hunter College stop, she was smiling at all her manipulations on April's behalf and hoping against hope that Tang would indulge her just a little more. It was a gorgeous day, only three blocks to Madison, and she wanted that dress.
When Ching climbed the stairs to Tang Ling's ultrachic second-floor showroom, however, she was disappointed to find Tang herself deeply engaged in a cantankerous bridal fitting for a noisy mother-daughter duo. Fittings with Tang were unusual. She was always so busy designing a new line for each season and traveling around the world that only the rarefied few received her personal attention after the choice of a gown was made.
"Prudence, stand still!" the mother shrilled loudly.
"1 am standing still," protested a slender girl who seemed to Ching awfully young to be a bride. She was encased in alenqon lace from shoulder to toe and eight feet beyond, dolled up like a Barbie of the fifties and looking every bit the part with a dip of real blond hair over one amethyst eye. All she needed was the white mink shrug of Doris Day to make her perfectly retro.
It was a daunting sight, and Ching was discouraged. She'd expected to have Tang to herself for at least a few minutes. She knew Tang had an important meeting at noon. So the young bride and her mother, and the friend they had with them, were an annoying setback. Time was passing, and they filled the ballroomlike showroom—usually large enough for more than one party to parade around in at the same time—making it clear how important they were in the scheme of things.
"Ni hao, Ching," Tang called out when she saw her. "Have a seat. I'll be with you soon." She glanced at her watch, a large one, heavily studded with diamonds.
Ching nodded and sat on a slipper chair by the elevator to watch the maestro work. After she'd been there for fifteen minutes, she had to hand it to Tang. The most famous of all special-occasion designers knew how to work the crowd and steer clear of disaster. The bride was slender; the mother was stout. Ching's own mother was chubby, but this woman was huge, her chest as big as a ship's prow. Tang took control of them.
Both women were wearing white gowns. The mother's had a long chiffon skirt that softened her bulk, but she wasn't happy with it. The neckline was cut low enough to reveal a great expanse of soft, crepey skin on her neck and abundant chest. That, however, wasn't what bothered this MOB.
"It's too plain," she complained, eyeing her daughter's extravaganza.
"Ah, yes, it definitely needs something, don't you agree, Wendy?" Tang said.
The third woman nodded. "A beaded bolero?" she suggested.
"Maybe not beads," Tang said slowly.
Kim, the fitter, shook his head. "Better just a handkerchief of the same material."
"What do you think, Pru?" The MOB turned to her daughter. "Is it too plain?" she demanded.
"I don't know," the girl replied crossly. She turned her back on her mother and marched across the room to the window on Madison, dragging her train behind her. When she got there she stared out at the street blankly while Tang ordered one of the salesgirls to gather some jackets, scarves, and other accessories to enhance the MOB's dress.
"What's the matter, Pru?" The mother tried to rouse her daughter out of her sulk, but got no response for her effort.
"Wedding jitters?" teased the woman Tang had called Wendy.
"No," came the petulant reply.
"Maybe she doesn't want to get married so quick." This from Kim.
"Kim!" Tang's voice was sharp. "What are you talking about? Of course she wants to get married."
"No," came the sulky voice again.
"We don't want to get married! God, give me strength." The MOB clamped a hand on her chest.
"I can't wait until the ordeal is over. My God, I'm sick of all these freaking details."
"Ah, here we are," Tang said cheerfully.
The saleswoman arrived almost staggering under a load of shimmering, glittering merchandise.
Ching groaned to herself. This was going to take forever. Then she watched with utter fascination as Tang, the woman called Wendy, and Kim all skillfully steered the discontented MOB toward a stunning embroidered and beribboned bolero that served three purposes: it camouflaged the offending chest skin, allowed the mother to almost outshine her daughter, and cost an additional seven thousand dollars.
"The Hay women and their wedding planner," Tang said with a wan smile when they finally left. "Ching, I'm sorry to keep you waiting."
"No, no. It's nothing."Ching would never in a million years complain. "It was wonderful to watch you work. I never realized how hard it is."
"You can't even begin to imagine." Tang rolled her eyes, and immediately the salesgirl brought in Ching's gown.
Another girl came into the room and whispered loudly, "Your car is downstairs. You have two minutes."
"Ching, you look so great! 1 only have two minutes."
"Thank you." But Ching knew she didn't look great at all. Tang was the one who looked great. Thin, dressed all in Armani. Slide shoes, hair dyed red. Red nail polish. Pearls as large as marbles around her neck. And she'd had her eyes done! Almost Western eyes in a very Asian face. Ching had to admit it was a good job, even if she disapproved of surgery. She smiled. "You're the glamour girl."
"Not such a glamour girl today." Tang's customer demeanor dropped away, and she wilted visibly
"Tired," Ching said sympathetically.
"No, didn't you hear? One of my brides was murdered yesterday," Tang told her with an angry look.
"No!" Ching put her hand to her mouth.
"Terrible thing," Kim said, his eyes tearing up.
"What happened?" Horrified, Ching looked from one to the other.
"Someone shot her as she was going down the aisle." Tang glanced at her watch. "Hurry up. I have one minute."
But Ching was still trying to digest the news. A bride shot! Suddenly she felt dizzy and wondered what April knew about it. Poor Tang. "Did you know her?" Ching asked.
"Of course I knew her. We dressed her, made her gown. Special order. A big one," Tang said impatiently. "It's just terrible! And they haven't paid the bill yet."
"What?" Ching was shocked by the concern about money, but the tragedy gave her an idea. It occurred to her that she had an important relation in the police department. Maybe she could help Ta
ng somehow by offering April to assist her. Then maybe Tang would give her a free dress for her trouble.
"My best friend, my maid of honor, in fact, is a very important detective in the police department," Ching said slowly. Tang read her mind before she was even finished getting the sentence out.
"You aren't going to ask for a free dress for
her,
are you?" she said quickly. "I can't afford any more freebies."
Ching blushed hotly. "No, no. Of course not. You've already been so generous. 1 just thought maybe she can do something to help."
"Well, thanks anyway, Ching. But no cops. I just want to stay as far from this as possible. The last thing 1 need is this kind of attention."
"Miss Ling, you're going to be late." The girl was back. "I have your purse."
"No, no, take it back upstairs. I have some calls to make." Tang hurried out the door. "See you, Ching."
Suddenly Ching felt queasy. After the news of a murdered bride in a Tang gown and Tang's attitude, Ching's joy of being an insider with a free wedding dress dissipated fast. She felt like the poor college girl of the old days, someone getting leftovers. And the murder troubled her more than she wanted to admit. She felt funny putting on the gown, even though Kim had altered it to fit her perfectly.
She evaluated herself in front of the mirror. The train with the coffee stain was gone. The hem dipped just enough in back now to puddle a few inches on the floor. Kim had added more bobbing pearls to the bodice, adding to its luster. But Ching was a plain, no-nonsense kind of girl, not in any way the beauty that her friend April was, and her expression shov/ed that she wasn't happy in her gift.
"What's the matter, girl, you don't want to get married?" Kim said, smoothing his hand along her waist speculatively. He took a tuck, careful not to stick her with the pin.
"No, no. I love the dress. Kim, you did an amazing job. Really."
"It was my design," he said modestly.
But he didn't think it was perfect. A few minutes later Ching left without the dress. Kim had insisted on another fitting.
Thirteen
A
t four-forty-five that afternoon April tapped at the closed door of Rabbi Levi's study in Temple Shalom. "It's Lieutenant Sanchez and Sergeant Woo," she said.
"Yes, they told me you were here. Come in," the rabbi said in a tired voice.
Mike opened the door, took a quick look around, then let her go in first. Coming from the brightness of the well-lit hall to the darkness of the paneled room, April's eyes didn't register a person in there at first. In his black suit Rabbi Levi was a small figure sitting motionless in a dark leather chair behind a large desk. On this sunny Monday afternoon his study was in dusk. Lined on three sides with leather-bound and dark-covered books, the room looked like an ancient library from another world. This atmosphere was enhanced by the folded newspaper in Hebrew that was all the paper visible on his desk. The sorrowful, gray-haired man seemed much reduced from yesterday. His expression clearly said it was happening again: His people were being embroiled in a brand-new holocaust in the year 2002, right there in Riverdale, New York.
Without looking at the two detectives, he gestured for them to enter the office. "We had almost a thousand people at the funeral. They came from all over. A sizable demonstration of respect."
"Yes, and thank God there was no trouble," April murmured.
There had been no anti-Israel demonstrations and none of the anti-Semitic sentiment from the African-American and Middle Eastern factions in the city that the rabbi had predicted. April's instincts appeared to be on target. This killing was a personal thing. And the news media thought so, too. The media bulldozers were already moving the earth around the wealthy Schoenfeld family, searching for their underpinnings. The news vans were out in droves. Dozens of reporters from agencies all over the world had been at the funeral, plus the dozens of still cameras, clicking away. Tovah's murder was topping the worldwide charts as America's freak-of-the-week crime horror. The mayor was going nuts, the police commissioner, too.
A lot of people were asking again: What kind of city was this where somebody could shoot down an eighteen-year-old bride in front of hundreds of people? Several vans were outside the temple even now. Mike and April had been videoed going in. The press couldn't be stopped.
The rabbi bristled at April's remark that the funeral had gone without a hitch. "There's lots of trouble, maybe not the kind you mean. The girl, bless her soul, is in the ground now. No one else can hurt her. But that can't be said of rest of us." His anger escalated as he spoke. He was a man used to lecturing. "Do you know who did this terrible thing to us?"
To Tovah, April wanted to correct him. The victim was a person with a name. Others could have been killed very easily, but no one else had been killed. It had been a careful hit. The murder was not a message for the universal them. April wished she could lecture right back and tell this mourning rabbi that Tovah was the one they had to think of now. They had to focus on what had made her a target in her happiest moment on her happiest day—not the day before, not the day after. She refrained from saying this. She wanted his help, not his ire.
"Your people left a mess. It's a disgrace," the rabbi went on, changing the subject so quickly April wasn't sure for a second what he meant.
"In the synagogue?" she asked, glancing at Mike, who'd asked her to conduct the interview.
"Everywhere. Those yellow tapes. Bloody floors."
Ah.
Sometimes people went on the offensive when they were hurt. They threatened to hire lawyers, to sue anyone and everyone they could think of. The rabbi was a complainer. April nodded sympathetically. She knew that the Crime Scene Unit had taken all the refuse from their own materials with them, but he didn't mean that. He'd wanted the place cleaned up last night after they'd finished. Literally the floors and pews washed so they could have their services in the sanctuary today.
April had already checked out the situation. There were several other synagogues in the area where people could pray today and tomorrow. That was as far as she could go. In the movies, you might see bad guys cleaning up their murder scenes, but the police were the good guys. They provided other services.
"I know you talked with Inspector Bellaqua about anti-Semitism in the community," she murmured.
The rabbi leaned forward and looked hard at Mike for the first time. "Good, hardworking people live here. I told the inspector we had a small incident last year—a swastika in shaving cream on one of the windows. Not even spray paint. A prank. Since then, a broken window. A few things..." He seemed of two minds about pursuing it. If he let that angle go, where would the police look next?
"That's what Sergeant Hollis told us," April said.
"He's a good policeman. We had a car theft once. He was helpful." Rabbi Levi looked away. He'd played the hate crime card. Experienced bias detectives were all over the place. They were turning the area upside down. They would continue with every lead they could dig up. But not a lot was there. No follow-up to the crime had occurred so far. The killer had gone to ground. That put the motive back in the family arena. Rabbi Levi clearly wasn't comfortable with it.
April glanced at Mike again. He'd told her to lead, but the rabbi didn't want to acknowledge a female. Or maybe it was the Chinese tiling. Maybe both. Some people didn't think a Chinese female could investigate a crime. Mike wasn't going to jump in and help. April made a note to call Dr. Jason Frank, a psychoanalyst and the only Jew she knew well enough to ask about how the Orthodox thought.
She changed the subject. "Tell us about your staff here. Any problems with them?"
Rabbi Levi gummed the insides of his cheeks as he recited the information. "We have a large staff, teachers in the school. They are all part of our community. We have cleaning people, same. Only one person is not of the tribe. He's a good man."
"You're talking about Harold Walker?" April asked.
"Yes, a good man," he said wearily.
"Never ha
d any trouble with him?" April probed a bit more. In fact, a background check on the dignified Jamaican revealed that he'd been arrested twice for assault in bar fights. At the time Mr. Walker had only good things to say about Rabbi Levi. But he had a temper. Maybe he wasn't treated as well as he claimed and had a beef.
Rabbi Levi hesitated a long time. Finally he shook his head. "No trouble."
So there were some little things about Harold. Okay, they'd come back to it. She saw a slight movement of Mike's hand. He wanted her to move on.
"We need a list of everyone who works in the building, everybody who has a key. We'll be talking to everyone connected to the synagogue as well as everyone who attended the event. What about the photographers? Was anyone filming at the time the shots were fired?"
"No, it's strictly forbidden during services. They did videos in the party room and of the girls getting ready." He lifted his shoulders.
Too bad. It would have helped them to have a video of all the people in all the rows so they could know for sure who they could eliminate as suspects. The rabbi went on.
"Do whatever you have to do. I don't know everyone who was here. I just met the boy and his people last week."
"What did you think of them? Was it a good match?" The word didn't trip easily off April's tongue.
Match.
What was a good match, anyway? Mike was listening, taking notes. She could feel his warmth, smell his aftershave in the airless room, almost hear his thoughts churning.
"They did some upsetting things yesterday. I'm sure you heard." Now he was speaking to the bookcase.
April hadn't heard. "What things?"
"A terrible thing. When the ambulance got here, people were screaming. You couldn't tell what was going on. The technicians—whatever you call them— they came in and cut her dress open down the front." He demonstrated with his finger down his own front. "Terrible."
April nodded.
"They were trying to save her. Her parents were crazy. No one knew she was dying. People were afraid to go out the front doors; they were panicked." He talked without looking at her.