The Bar Mitzvah Murder

by Lee Harris

  I calmed myself for a minute, then hailed another taxi, immediately asked him to turn on the meter, and gave him the address. In ten minutes I was back at the hotel.

  24

  When we arrived home, I felt almost light-headed, happy in a way I had never felt before. It was hard to believe this incredible trip had happened, that we had gone where we had gone, seen what we had seen. Eddie was glad to see us, and Jack’s dad drove up to Oakwood to take his wife home so we wouldn’t have to make the trip. We were five happy, contented people.

  Jack had the rest of the week off, but he spent a lot of time on the phone with his office. I did the necessary shopping and Jack promised to cook through the weekend, as he was starting to feel rusty. He asked me to buy a can of chickpeas, and I had a good feeling about what that would turn out to be.

  I called Marnie on Friday.

  “Chris, I thought you’d forgotten.”

  “We needed a day to get back on schedule and get our clothes clean. But I’m available now.”

  “Please come here, OK?”

  She gave me directions and I promised to leave after lunch. It turned out she lived in New Jersey, not far from the George Washington Bridge. I hadn’t been there since the first case I’d looked into, the murder of the mother of idiot savant twins back in 1950. I got involved in that one forty years after the fact but managed to find the killer and make a good friend while I was at it, Arnold Gold, a lawyer in Manhattan.

  The Gross house was a few miles north of the bridge, and it was a magnificent residence. I turned into the private drive and parked near the house. The housekeeper opened the door and ushered me inside. As we walked toward the rear of the house, Marnie appeared.

  “Chris, thank you for coming.”

  “How are you doing?”

  “Nothing’s easy.” She led me to a small sitting room, and we sat at right angles to each other. She had closed the door when we entered, and now I saw why. She took a small gray pouch out of the pocket of her skirt. “This is what I found.” She handed it to me.

  I could feel the hard stones inside the pouch. “Have you touched them?” I asked.

  “Several times. I checked every item in the safe, as you suggested, and this was one of them. And the jeweler I took them to handled every one.”

  That meant there were no prints on the stones that would be of use anymore. I opened the pouch. As Marnie had said over the phone, there were several wrapped diamonds inside. I opened one, the largest, and looked at it. I am no expert on diamonds or any other stone, but this one glittered with internal color. I held it up to the natural light coming in through the window and admired it. “It’s very beautiful.”

  “And very real. It’s worth—let me just say tens of thousands of dollars.”

  I rewrapped it and put it back in the pouch. “And you have no idea how they got in the safe or who put them there?”

  “I have no idea who put them there, but I assume, if Gabe didn’t buy them, that whoever broke into the house put them there. I just don’t know why.”

  “I don’t know, either, Marnie.” I thought again of Simon Kaplan and asked if she was sure she had never heard of him.

  “Positive. I called Gabe’s secretary and asked her. She checked her Rolodex and all the files. His name didn’t come up.”

  “He said he’d done business with Gabe.”

  “Chris, they don’t throw files away. If he ever did business with Gabe, his name would be in some file or record somewhere.”

  “Then maybe he lied to me.”

  “Who is he?”

  “If I knew that, I might know who killed your husband.”

  “This is so frustrating.”

  “My word exactly. It seems to me either he lied about having a business relationship with Gabe and his father or somehow that relationship has been deleted from Gabe’s company.”

  She bristled at that. “Gabe was an honest man and an honest businessman. He didn’t delete embarrassments.”

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to sound accusatory.”

  “Chris.”

  She was pressing her lips together, her face uncertain. I waited.

  “There’s one more thing.”

  “What do you mean?”

  She reached back into the same pocket that had held the diamonds. “I found this on the shelf in the safe under the pouch.” She leaned over and handed me a small piece of paper.

  It was a note written in block letters with blue ballpoint. It said:

  MARNIE, THESE DO NOT BELONG TO YOU. THE OWNER WILL RECLAIM THEM. LEAVE THEM WHERE THEY ARE AND KEEP QUIET ABOUT THEM. VERY QUIET.

  The last two words were underlined. I realized she had known since the first moment she had talked to me about opening the safe that this note had been there. She had been trying to decide whether to tell me everything or just that she had found the stones.

  “I wasn’t sure whether to tell you,” she said.

  “Do you recognize the handwriting?” I asked.

  “I probably know ten people who would write like that if they printed in capitals. Gabe could have. I could have.”

  That sounded about right. As I examined the writing, I felt I could have written it myself. “Someone is hiding the diamonds here.”

  “And I’m quite frightened.”

  “I think you have reason to be. He has a key to your house—”

  “I changed all the locks,” she interrupted, “and added some new ones, very big locks. I also changed alarm companies and had the system upgraded with new passwords and some new equipment. The safe combination was also changed. No one has a key to this house except me. And my lawyer, for the time being.”

  “That’s a good idea. Whoever this person is, he can disarm the security system, but he can’t get in the house without a lot of trouble. I think—” I stopped, not sure whether I should say what was on my mind.

  “What?”

  “Marnie, someone who knows Gabe well did this.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  I thought she looked a little tense as she said that. “I don’t think that person is going to try to break into the house and the safe again. He knows you’re smart enough to change the locks. He’s going to come to you and ask for the stones back.”

  “How is that possible? Then I would know who killed Gabe.”

  “He doesn’t care if you know. He has some reason not to fear a reprisal from you.”

  “How so?”

  “Suppose it’s Gabe’s son,” I said, pulling the first person out of my head. “He thinks you wouldn’t go to the police because of his relationship to Gabe.”

  “But I would. I wouldn’t let his son get away with murder.”

  “Maybe this person knows something that would keep you quiet.”

  “This is too complicated. It’s outrageous. Gabe’s son didn’t kill him. Don’t you understand? Gabe was generous to his children. This is crazy. This is just crazy.” She took the note and the pouch and stuck them in her pocket. “I don’t keep these in the safe anymore.”

  “That’s a good idea. Marnie, why did you tell me this?”

  “I thought you might see something that I’ve missed.”

  “I think I have. I think you have to sit down with yourself and make a list of people close to Gabe. Maybe one of them is running an illicit business. Maybe one is being paid off in stones instead of cash so there’s no record of payment. Maybe the police are on to him and he wants to hide the stones where they’re not in his possession. Marnie, this person knows both of you. He didn’t address you as ‘Mrs. Gross’ in the note. He called you Marnie. He spelled it right, too.”

  “I know.”

  “So someone who knows both of you is involved. I think you know this person, even if you’re not aware of it right now.”

  She looked down at the beautiful Oriental carpet at our feet. Then she faced me. “Are you done investigating, Chris?”

  “I’m going to research the charities mention
ed in Gabe’s will. I sat on that plane the other day for more hours than I’ve ever sat before and thought about this. The former wife got a bequest. The children got money. You got the most, as you should have. Other people known to you got bequests. Then there are the charities. Did you look at the list?”

  “Briefly.”

  “Anything stand out?”

  “Gabe gave a lot of money to worthy organizations. We didn’t discuss that. When we made out our wills, the ones he wanted remembered were listed. I have a different list, a smaller one, in my will.”

  “It’s the only thing I can think of that I haven’t checked out, that and the individual beneficiaries.”

  She stood, her right hand running down her skirt to reassure herself that the pouch was safely stashed. “You’ll keep in touch?”

  “Yes. One more thing. Do you have Gabe’s lawyer’s name and address?”

  “I’ll get it for you.”

  I waited for several minutes. When she returned, a piece of notepaper in her hand, I noticed that her skirt was flat again. She had put the pouch away somewhere.

  “If you want to talk to him and he says he’s too busy, refer him to me. I’ll see to it that you get a quick appointment.”

  “You’ll hear from me,” I said. “I promise.”

  When I got home, Jack was whipping up a storm in the kitchen. He shooed me away as he usually does and I went without reluctance. Anything he cooked for us would be better than anything I attempted. And I wanted to think.

  I spread my things out in the family room, which is just off the kitchen. From there I could smell Jack’s cooking and occasionally hear a syllable or two muttered under his breath, reassuring me that even the best of them make mistakes now and then. I took out Gabe’s will and went over it again very carefully. A lot of it was boilerplate, phrases describing one’s possessions, like furniture, clothes, cars, and so forth. I paid special attention to the individual names of people receiving bequests. The first ones were family, and they were dealt with generously. It was the ones on the second list that I looked at more carefully.

  I didn’t know who any of them were, and I hadn’t asked Marnie. All of them had little descriptive phrases after the names: “the best friend a man could ever have,” “more of a friend than an employee,” “a secretary who earned more than I could give her,” and so on. The secretary gave me pause. She was the one who couldn’t find Simon Kaplan’s name in the company files. But how could she benefit from Gabe’s death? She probably didn’t know he had left her a bequest. I have never heard of people going around telling their friends and employees that they’d been remembered in a will. Unless the diamonds would eventually go to her. And perhaps she knew something so damning about Gabe that when she claimed the diamonds, Marnie would not turn her in to the police. It was something to think about.

  I decided to call the charities and inquire about the nature of their work and Gabe’s relationship with them. Had he made an annual contribution? For how long? What was their mission?

  I started with the largest ones, the most well known names on the list. I didn’t get very far with them, and I wasn’t surprised. “Records are private,” “we cannot disclose,” da-dah, da-dah. But I established that they existed at the addresses given in the will. I called what I assumed was Gabe’s alma mater and couldn’t get them to confirm even the year he graduated, but they did say he had been a student there.

  One of the bequests was made to a home for abused women. The woman who answered the phone sounded harried and had never heard of Gabe, but she assured me they were at the listed address and that she was very busy and please call back another time. In the background I could hear voices and more than one baby crying.

  I called what appeared to be a school for poor children and got an answering machine, which gave the school’s hours as nine in the morning to four in the afternoon. I checked my watch. It was almost four.

  By the time the business day had ended, I had checked most of the charities out and not learned a lot except that they all had telephones. When real people answered, they were forthcoming about their purpose, the people they helped, their goals. Most of them recognized Gabe’s name, and several were aware that he had died tragically.

  Jack’s dinner was fabulous, which wasn’t a surprise. And we started with hummus, as I had suspected. I told him it was every bit as good as what I had eaten in Israel and he grinned.

  “I’ll make an international gourmet out of you after all.”

  “You just may.”

  25

  The following day I called the people on what I thought of as the second list of bequests. The man described as Gabe’s best friend choked up when I talked to him about Gabe’s death. He had been at the Bar Mitzvah and had left when Marnie did, although he and his wife had planned to stay for another week.

  I reached the secretary at home. Her name was Flavia O’Rourke, and she sounded tense. “I know Mrs. Gross talked to you recently, Ms. O’Rourke,” I said.

  “She did, and I couldn’t help her. There was no one by that name anywhere in my files, the man she asked about.”

  “I understand. I’m calling you because I’m trying to help find Mr. Gross’s killer.”

  “Aren’t the police working on it?”

  “They are, in two countries. It’s just that some suspects are in each country and it’s hard keeping things straight.”

  “There are suspects?”

  “There are people being questioned, let me put it that way. I think the person who masterminded the killing is in the States.”

  “I wish I could help you. Mr. Gross was a wonderful man. I would have worked for him for the rest of my life. He was kind and generous and . . .” She faded off.

  “There has to be someone who didn’t feel that way.”

  “If I knew who, I would tell you. I would call the police. I would fly to Israel and tell the police over there.”

  “Are you aware that Mr. Gross has left you a bequest?” I asked.

  There was silence. “You mean a gift?”

  “A gift of money.”

  “I—no, I had no idea.”

  “He thought very highly of you.”

  “Thank you.” I heard tears in her voice. “It was mutual, I can assure you.”

  Well, I thought, either she’s a very good actress or she had nothing to do with it.

  On Sunday, Jack and I got together with the Grosses— my Grosses, Mel and Hal. Mel described with relish how she had bought the Roman glass and silver cross for me, adding the chain that the artisan had made.

  “It’s so beautiful,” she said. “I just love the colors.”

  “So do I. And you can’t imagine how surprised I was. I couldn’t figure out how Jack had known to get it or how he had gotten there.”

  “He planned it, Chris. I was in on it from the beginning. He’s such a dear.”

  I told them what I was doing now, leaving out what Marnie had found in the safe. I still didn’t want Jack turning over that information to the police.

  “What do you expect to find out from those charities?” Hal asked. “I can’t believe the UJA or the Red Cross would talk to you about a contributor.”

  “They won’t, and I just called the big ones so I could cross them off my list. I thought maybe there’d be something fishy about the smaller ones, or about one of the individuals he left a bequest to. But every charity answered the phone or had a machine answer. One of them was a safe house for abused women, and I’m going to follow up on that. I could hear voices and children crying in the background. But what if it’s a fake and someone’s running it out of her home?”

  “That’s an interesting idea,” Hal said thoughtfully. “You’re thinking Gabe could have been seduced into making a bequest to what he thought was a legitimate, worthy organization that now turns out to be a fraud.”

  “Deceived,” I said, a little chagrined at his choice of words.

  “Of course,” Hal said with a playful smil
e. “Deceived. So then this person who got Gabe to make the bequest decided to kill him before Gabe found out that the charity didn’t exist.”

  “Exactly.”

  “How does the person know Gabe left them a bequest?”

  I shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe he told them. Maybe he let all these organizations know that he intended to give them a gift when he died.”

  “That happens. My alma mater encourages alumni to ‘favor’ the university in their wills and offers suggestions as to how to do it.”

  “So when you write asking for their brochure, they have a pretty good idea what your intention is.”

  “Right. I’ll tell you, Chris, this is the best approach I’ve heard of. Maybe this will get you somewhere.” Hal turned to Jack. “I think Chris may be on to something. I like her idea. Let us know about that shelter for abused women. If it turns out to be Mrs. Jones’s home sweet home, I’d say you’re on to something.”

  We stayed for cheese and drinks, then collected Eddie, who was upstairs with Sari and Noah, and walked down the street to our house.

  “Hal seemed impressed with your idea,” Jack said.

  “Let’s see if anything comes of it. It’s only a good idea if it works.”

  On Monday I decided to visit the shelter rather than call. I had an address, which the woman on the phone had confirmed. Elsie Rivers, my mother’s old friend and Eddie’s surrogate grandmother on my side of the family, agreed to pick Eddie up at school. In fact, she couldn’t wait. She hadn’t seen him for almost a month, and she was looking forward to having him over. There might even be a baking lesson in the offing. I knew what that meant.

  With that taken care of, I drove to the address in the will. It was in an old section of a town in New Jersey not too far from where Gabe had lived. I crossed the bridge and followed the directions Jack had worked out for me. The houses on that street were large and Victorian, some of them quite grand, others somewhat run-down. The one I was looking for was painted gray and badly needed to be scraped and repainted. I thought maybe a bright white or beige might help it look like a place to come home to.