by Mary Marks
We watched as she typed a query with her thumbs. “Wow! Listen to this: All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts.”
Fanya ambled over to the sofa and sat next to her. “It’s a real saying?”
Giselle nodded. “Shakespeare. As You Like It. Now, why on earth would the kidnappers be quoting Shakespeare?” She shook her head as if to clear out the cobwebs.
Fanya reached inside the neck of her shirt and pulled out a small leather pouch hanging on a long silver chain. She gazed out the front windows, fingering the pouch.
Giselle pointed to the small bag. “What’s that?”
“It’s an amulet.”
“Huh?”
“You know, like a charm.”
“What’s inside?”
Fanya tugged on a string to open the top of the pouch. She cupped her hand and shook out the contents. “This emerald is for safe travels and the sapphire is to guard against illness.”
“You’re joking. I mean, how does it work?”
“Look at me,” she said. “I arrived safely in LA, didn’t I? Plus, I’m healthy as a horse, keinehora. Need I say more? The magic in these objects gets amplified when paired with other charms.”
“I don’t believe in magic. What’s the rest of the stuff?”
Fanya held two very tiny pieces of parchment rolled up, each no longer than one inch. “A protective text is written in Hebrew on one of these miniature scrolls, and symbols from the Kabbalah are written on the other.” She lifted a small gold charm in the shape of a hand with a cloisonné blue eye in the middle. “Do you know what this is?”
“I believe Martha once told me. It’s a hamsa, which means five. As in five fingers.’ ”
“Correct. It’s an ancient symbol. Also called the ‘hand of Fatima,’ which wards off the evil eye. In the bottom of the pouch are fennel seeds to keep me from getting hurt.”
Giselle scoffed. “Hah. This is the twenty-first century. You still believe in those things?”
“Of course!” Fanya put everything back in the pouch.
“Can you prove your so-called magic charms work?”
In typical rabbinic fashion, Fanya answered a question with a question. “Can you prove they don’t?” She carefully placed the items back into the pouch and sighed. “We don’t even know where to start looking.”
I glanced at Giselle. “Shadow uncovered some stuff about the Uhrman Company. Do you think he can dig a little deeper?”
She sniffed. “I thought you disapproved of hackers. Now you’re saying it’s okay to use his special skills?”
“Believe me, I don’t feel right about asking for his help. But face it. Hadas is missing and her chances of being found alive diminish greatly with the passing of time. So, anything we can do to find her is fair game as far as I’m concerned.”
Fanya nodded in agreement.
My sister flashed a triumphant smile. “I’ll text him right now.”
CHAPTER 12
Giselle grabbed her turquoise leather tote and prepared for the drive home to the Pacific Palisades late Tuesday afternoon. “You know how much I hate coming to the Valley, Sissy. I’ve finally discovered something I hate even more.”
“What’s that?”
“Going back. Especially during rush hour.”
“You know, you’re welcome to stay here until the traffic thins. Why don’t you have dinner with us?”
She took a deep breath and blew it out again. “I would, but Harold’s due home from his trip to Dallas. I want to be there when he arrives.” She tossed air-kisses to Fanya and me as she walked out the door. “I’ll call you as soon as Shadow’s finished his . . . research.”
I was glad Crusher and I had purchased plenty of vegetables and fruits for his vegetarian sister. She opened the refrigerator, rummaged through the contents, and pulled out bags of produce and shredded cheddar cheese. “Unless you have other plans, I’d like to fix dinner tonight.”
“Great!”
“Do you have any pasta?”
I opened the pantry door and pulled out a box of elbow macaroni and a box of angel-hair spaghetti. “Which one?”
“Macaroni.”
Fanya chopped onions, carrots, mushrooms, and broccoli and sautéed them in olive oil and garlic. She boiled the pasta in just enough water to cover it. “I don’t know why we Americans insist on using energy to heat an entire pot of water when the pasta only needs a little bit of water to cook.” She made a cheesy sauce, mixed it with the drained pasta and vegetables, poured everything into a casserole dish, topped it with more grated cheese, and put it in the oven. With a big grin, she closed the oven door. “We’ll melt the cheese on top and voilà! Macaroni primavera à la aglio olio.”
An hour later, Crusher helped himself to yet another serving of casserole. “This is great, Fan. You always did know how to cook.”
“Yossi,” I said, “did you realize the police failed to complete their house-to-house? They completely overlooked one witness.” I repeated what Melroy Briggs observed. “I’m going to tell Arlo.”
A shadow passed over his face so quickly I might have missed it. “Do what you have to.”
Fanya retired to the guest room, while Crusher cleaned the kitchen, according to our agreement: If one cooked the other cleaned. I turned on the television in time for the final Jeopardy! category, “heads of state.” The answer was the first prime minister of modern Israel. The contestants bent their heads to write questions. One completely blanked and wrote a question mark, one wrote Who was Golda Meir? and the third wrote Who was Moshe Dayan?
“No, people!” I shouted at the TV. “Ben-Gurion. Who was David Ben-Gurion?”
Fanya returned to the living room and watched Wheel of Fortune, and I went to my sewing room to be alone and called Beavers.
“Ah. The clever Martha. And to what do I owe this call?”
“Go ahead, be snarkastic. But I have a couple of leads you might be interested in, as well as a heads-up about your investigation. Of course, if you’d rather not entertain new facts about Hadas, I’ll go away quietly.”
“One can only hope. What do you have?”
Despite myself, I smiled. Sparring with Beavers had become playful and almost fun. I briefly wondered what our lives would have been like if I chose to marry Beavers instead of Crusher. For one, I wouldn’t be trying to find my fiancé’s kidnapped wife.
I told Beavers about Melroy Briggs. “He actually saw the kidnappers put Hadas in the blue SUV. He lives only three houses away, but the police never came to question him. I thought you should know someone on your team didn’t go far enough on the house-to-house search.”
“I’ll look into it. You said something about new leads?”
“What about this? My neighbor two doors down, Catalina Muñoz, heard Hadas yelling at her kidnappers. She may have invoked her brother’s name, Ze’ev. He was killed six months ago in a hit-and-run in New York. Still unsolved. I think his death might be connected to her abduction.”
Beavers was silent for a moment. “I’m telling you again, this is a complicated investigation of some seriously bad people. Please back off, Martha. I don’t want anything to happen to you.”
Was he flirting again? I had to admit his words stirred some unresolved feelings. What if I’d chosen the wrong fiancé? “I’m truly flattered by your concern, Arlo.”
“Good night, Martha.”
Crusher walked into my sewing room. “You talked to Beavers?” His voice betrayed a tinge of disapproval.
My cheeks grew warm. Thank goodness he couldn’t read my mind, otherwise he might catch a glimpse of a guilty conscience. “Yes. Arlo appears to be on top of the investigation. But he won’t discuss the details with me. Have you talked to him? Learned anything new?”
“Yeah. This is now a federal case.”
“Because of the abduction?”
“Apparently there’s more to it
than a simple abduction. But they won’t tell me more since I’m still considered a suspect.”
“Have you told Fanya yet?”
He raked his fingers through his once-red beard, now mostly gray. “I doubt she’d be able to shed light on this. Besides, she’s naïve for a New Yorker.”
“Baloney. You seem to still regard Fanya as your inexperienced kid sister. But she’s all grown up now, a woman leading a life of her own choosing. Don’t sell her short. She was friends with the Uhrman family, and I’ll bet she can tell us more.”
We moved to the living room, where Fanya sat in the middle of the sofa.
Crusher sat beside her. “Fan, can we talk for a minute?”
“Sure.” She reached for the remote control as the giant wheel turned and clattered. It landed on a glittering silver wedge worth $5,000. Then the TV screen went black. “Is this about Hadas?”
I settled in an easy chair across from my fiancé and future sister-in-law and told her the feds had taken over the investigation of Hadas’s disappearance.
Crusher asked his sister, “You’ve known the family for a long time. Do you have any idea why the feds would be interested in the Uhrmans?”
She shook her head sadly. “No. She talked almost constantly on the five-hour flight from New York. Mostly about herself and the Uhrman Company. Among his other weaknesses, she said Ze’ev had a drinking problem. More than once she sent him home from the business because he showed up shickered. Plus, he was a womanizer and a gambler. Do you think the kidnapping has something to do with her brother’s death?”
Crusher rested his hand on Fanya’s shoulder. “It certainly looks that way, Fan. You know Hadas better than we do. Any idea who they might be?”
“No. But you’re a federal agent, Yossi. Can’t you find these things out from your friends in Washington?”
Crusher worked his jaw muscle. “They won’t talk to me.”
“Why?”
“I’m their chief suspect.”
“Still?”
“I’m the husband.”
I resolved right then and there to contact Director John Smith of the FBI. Smith had helped me in the past. He knew Crusher. Surely, he could supply information about Hadas and the Uhrman Company. If Smith couldn’t help, there was always Shadow, the hacker my sister employed.
CHAPTER 13
Wednesday morning came far too soon. All the stress of the last few days caught up with me. My whole body ached from fibromyalgia and my head pounded with a migraine. I glanced at the clock and groaned. It read eight. Past time to rise. I rolled on my side and pushed myself into a sitting position. The room spun for a few seconds and then stopped. I slowly made my way to the bathroom and the medicine I desperately needed for the pain.
Ten minutes later I sat at the kitchen table with Fanya, sipping my first cup of coffee of the day. “I’m sorry I slept this late. What time did Yossi leave?”
“Early. He was already gone when I got up at five. I’m still operating on New York time.” She peered at me for a moment. “Martha, you don’t look so hot. Is something wrong?”
I explained how fibromyalgia could flare as a result of stress. “But don’t worry. I took some medicine. I should feel better in a half hour or so.”
“You know what this is, Martha? It’s a curse! Someone has cursed you with the ayin hara, the evil eye.”
“You mean someone is sticking pins into a voodoo doll with my name on it?” I chuckled. “Sorry, Fanya, but I don’t believe in that stuff.”
“I wish you’d take this more seriously. Who has it out for you?”
“I have no idea. No one.”
“From what Yossi says, you helped put a few bad guys in jail. One of them probably threw the curse. But I’ve come prepared. There are things we can do to reverse the effects.”
“As long as it doesn’t involve giving up chocolate.”
Fanya barked a laugh. “That would be an epic curse, right? But seriously, you’ve got to wear a sapphire. I do. It’s in the amulet I showed you yesterday. It’ll cure you and keep you from getting sick in the first place.”
“How do you come up with these things?”
“Have you heard of the ephod, the breastplate the high priest wore in the holy temple?”
“Vaguely.”
Fanya grinned, showing the gap in her front teeth. “It contains twelve stones, one for each of the twelve tribes of Israel. Each stone has special properties. Sapphire is the stone you need right now.”
“You speak as though the breastplate still exists.”
“Halevai. Nobody knows what happened to it or to the aron hakodesh, the holy ark. They say when the destruction of the temple was imminent, the priests hurried to a secret place underground below the temple and hid the sacred items.”
Despite my doubts about using charms or magic, I was impressed by Fanya’s knowledge of the somewhat arcane superstitions and practices within Judaism. “I have a little sapphire ring my bubbie gave to me right before she died. Will that do?”
“Perfect. Wear it all the time. And wear amethyst, too. Demons and spirits don’t like amethyst.”
I did a mental inventory of my jewelry box. “I don’t have an amethyst.”
“I highly recommend you get one.”
Despite my protests, Fanya insisted on helping me with the breakfast dishes and tidying the house. “You’re obviously still in pain, despite the drugs you take. Besides, I’m glad to help.”
At noon, she prepared a vegetable salad with hard-boiled eggs and cheese. She produced a small plastic bag filled with something black. “I brought these with me.”
“They look like dead flies.”
She sprinkled a few on the salad. “They’re black mustard seeds. Good for stiff muscles and joints and inflammation.”
The ringing of my cell phone interrupted our conversation. One glance at the screen told me the caller was Giselle. “I’ve put you on speaker. I want Fanya to hear. I hope you’re calling with news from Shadow because I feel we’re back at square one with no place to go.”
“Then this is definitely going to advance us to square two. Remember Shadow found out the Uhrman Company had been bleeding cash?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “Well, it seems Ze’ev secretly withdrew cash from the business.”
Fanya leaned forward to get closer to the phone. “Are you sure? Uhrman Company was everything to Hadas. She wouldn’t have allowed Ze’ev to hurt the business in any way.”
My gut told me we were on to something important. “Maybe she didn’t know about those cash withdrawals.”
“How could she not know?” Fanya frowned and blinked rapidly at the phone.
Giselle’s voice came across the phone loud and clear. “Didn’t Hadas tell you Ze’ev was the numbers guy? He could’ve hidden his theft from the business by some sort of deception, like keeping an extra set of books. Isn’t it suspicious that the reversal of fortune in the business coincided with his death?”
“My thoughts exactly, G. I’ve been asking myself the same thing since she disappeared.” I turned to Fanya. “On the long plane ride to LA, you said Hadas never stopped talking. Did she confide anything about her brother besides his addictions to wine, women, and wagering?”
“Hmm.” Fanya closed her eyes briefly as if to reach some memory. “I already told you about Ze’ev’s drinking problem. Hadas also discovered he owed serious money to some mobbed-up bookie. After Ze’ev’s death, Hadas cleaned out his desk and found a bunch of betting tickets shoved in the back of a drawer. He never bet less than a thousand dollars at a time.”
“Now we know where the money from the business probably went,” Giselle said. “Anyway, that’s all I have for now.”
“One other thing before you go, G. Your guy Shadow said six months ago, right after Ze’ev died, there was a sudden infusion of capital into the business. Do you think he can discover where the cash came from?”
“I’ll ask. Talk to you soon.”
After the cal
l ended, Fanya shook her head. “Oy va voy! What does all this mean?”
“The more I learn about Ze’ev, the more I think it’s possible his death wasn’t an accident.”
Fanya gasped. “Are you talking about murder? God forbid!”
“As horrible as it sounds, he could’ve been killed over money—gambling debts or theft from the business or both. And there are still a couple of nagging questions. Hadas said she recently changed her will, making Yossi her sole heir. If both of them die, God forbid, who is next in line to take over the Uhrman Company? Hadas didn’t have children, but what about Ze’ev? Did he have kids?”
“Nine.”
“So why didn’t Ze’ev’s family inherit his half of the business?”
“Oh my gosh, you’re right. Hadas never once mentioned Ze’ev’s family.”
“I think it’s time to call my friend at the FBI.”
Director John Smith was technically not my friend. Especially since Crusher still called him “sir.” However, since Smith and I had successfully worked together in the past, perhaps he’d help me once more. I carried my cell phone to my favorite chair in the living room and scrolled through my contacts under the letter “S” and turned on the speaker so Fanya could hear our conversation.
“Hello, Martha. I was wondering when I’d hear from you. Can I assume this call is about the abduction of Mrs. Hadas Levy from your home over the weekend?”
“Jeez. How did you know? Are you wiretapping me?”
“No. Abductions are the business of the FBI.”
“Are you working with the LAPD?”
“The federal government likes to collaborate with local agencies to solve complex crimes. This is one of them.”
“If you already know about Hadas, you must also know she’s still married to Yossi. He can’t get any information on the case because they say he’s a suspect.”
“And technically, you are as well.”
“I think you know how absurd that sounds.”
“You know, Martha, I have always thought of you as a reliable witness—even a friend at times. I still remember the wonderful meal at your home.” Smith referred to a time in the past when Crusher brought him home for Sabbath dinner and we called each other by our first names.