“What was the objective?”
“To help the African-American community gain more opportunities in education and home ownership. Certain areas of Upper Roxbury, Dorchester and Mattapan, especially the ones that had been working-class Jewish for decades, were red-lined, as the saying went, by twenty-two Boston banks, and loans for houses there were made available to African-Africans. Twenty-five hundred moved in. Whatever the state’s intentions, it didn’t unfold the way they hoped. It was more like the recent credit crisis, where people had homes but not enough income to run them. The neighbourhoods declined, the Jews who could afford to move moved, and Brookline is now the centre of Jewish life instead of Blue Hill Avenue. A three-mile stretch that had been Jewish since 1910 declined from vibrancy and prosperity to-I don’t even have the words for it.”
“Those pictures in your study-the ribbon cuttings, groundbreakings, cheques-are those all from Brookline?”
“The groundbreaking was: that was for the new wing of the synagogue, where the school and seniors’ centre are now. The ribbon cutting, I think, was the Holocaust Centre. That’s downtown.”
“And the cheque presentation?”
“You know about the Vilna Shul?”
“No.”
“At one time-”
“I know this one,” Shana said. “I’ll get the dishes started.” Even though she had introduced herself to me as Sandy, I couldn’t help thinking of her as Shana now. She stacked our plates and carried them out to the kitchen. I heard water begin to run.
The rabbi said, “At one time, there were fifty little shtiebels in Beacon Hill. You know what shtiebels are?”
“Yes. Little synagogues. Learning centres.”
“Exactly. How many are left? None. Not a single one. The Vilna Shul was the last and it closed more than twenty-five years ago-as a functioning synagogue. But it was restored and reopened as a Jewish cultural centre. I was chair of the fundraising committee so they stuck me in the picture.”
“And the guy giving you the cheque?”
“He’s the congressman for that district. Marc McConnell. He’s very passionate about urban renewal, so the centre was right up his alley.”
“I see.” An idea started to tingle near the edge of my instinct. It came with a slight shiver. “So what is this project you mentioned at lunch? The thing you’re doing next. What is that?”
“As I was saying, there is no longer a functioning synagogue in that area that can serve people who work around the state capitol. I want to start one. Something small, of course. A little shtiebel like there used to be dotting every street. A place where people, men and women, can come and pray in the morning, put on tefillin, start the day right. It doesn’t have to be big. I don’t want big. I got so tired of running a congregation the size of Adath Israel. The politics and the gripes and the collections and the events, none of it related to teaching, learning, the actual discussion and revelation of Torah as it relates to us today. I didn’t want it anymore. I’m sure there’s every type of rumour out there-he resigned because of this or that-but the simple truth is I gave twenty-five years of my life to Adath Israel. I figure I have at least twenty more to give and I want to give them downtown. I’m thinking of calling it Shul on the Hill.”
Shana, coming in to get more dishes, groaned at the pun.
“How can you go wrong with Beatles humour?” he protested, winking at me. “It’s the right generation for it. No, I’m kidding,” he said. “The proposed name is Beth Aaron, after Aaron Lopez, not the first Jew in Boston, but the first allowed to live openly without renouncing his religion.”
“Mr. McConnell helping out again?”
“From your mouth to God’s ear. There are always funds to be raised, and zoning issues to be sorted out.”
“Does he know David Fine?”
“The congressman? I couldn’t see how. David isn’t part of that fundraising committee or anything. He isn’t a joiner. Although I believe he’ll join the new shul. When he comes back.”
“David was trying to contact him before he vanished.”
“The congressman? Why?”
“I have no idea. I’m going to ask him tomorrow.”
“Marc is seeing you?”
“He’s appearing at some museum event, where Jenn and I will happen to be. Rabbi, have you thought about what I asked you at lunch?”
“About breaking confidentiality? I thought about it a great deal. Tell you what, let’s take our wine to the study.”
There was a dark green leather couch against the wall opposite his work area. He pointed me there and settled into the black chair behind the desk. “Tell me a little about your work, Jonah. What you do and how you do it.”
“People come to us with problems they haven’t been able to solve by traditional means. The justice system has failed them. The police have reached a dead end.”
“Give me an example.”
“Is this a test?”
“I don’t need to test you, Jonah, I think I already know the kind of man you are. But Jews love specifics, we love to delve. So humour me.”
“All right. Last fall, a woman lost her daughter to suicide and didn’t know why. The police and coroner had closed the case. We reopened it and found out she had been murdered.”
“As well as who did it?”
“Yes.”
“And the girl’s mother found peace in that?”
“More than she’d had before.”
“I see. Is your work ever violent?”
“It can be.”
“Can be or has been?”
“Has been.”
“You feel justified in whatever part you played.”
“Yes.”
“Said without hesitation. Can I ask something that might be deeply personal, Jonah?”
“Yes.” I knew what it was going to be; I just waited for it.
“Have you ever taken a life?”
Bingo.
“I have, Rabbi. Three times.”
His bushy eyebrows lowered over his eyes, whose warm twinkle seemed to dim. “Three is more than I imagined. Are you willing to provide details?”
I regretted all three deaths but I wasn’t ashamed of any of them. “The first one, I was in my twenties. I was in the Israeli army and my sergeant was attacked in an alley. A man was stabbing him and I shot him.”
“With intent to kill or disarm?”
“I had an M-16 and I fired three-round bursts into him until he dropped. So I’d say I had intent to kill.”
“And the sergeant?”
“He died anyway.”
“I’m sorry. For both your sergeant and the man who attacked him. What about the other two?”
“One was straight self-defence. The other … if there is such a thing as pre-emptive self-defence, then that’s what that was.”
“How so?”
“A man tried to kill me and failed and ended up critically injured. I knew he’d have me killed if he survived so I made sure he didn’t.”
“If you hadn’t, would he have died anyway?”
“I don’t know. Probably. But I couldn’t take that chance.”
“This one bothers you more than the other two.”
It did. I even dreamed about it sometimes, always in weird watery settings totally unlike the shallow, rocky part of the Don River where Stefano di Pietra died. I’d be diving in great reefs teeming with fish and he’d swim past in his fine grey suit, or I’d be canoeing through a calm Muskoka lake and my paddle would hit his head. He’d turn up in a restaurant aquarium, next to lobsters whose claws were pegged shut.
“Do you know the story of Abner?” Rabbi Ed asked. “From the Book of Samuel?”
“No.”
“When King Saul died, David was anointed King of Judea in Hebron. But a second faction formed under Abner, whose father was Saul’s general. Abner installed one of Saul’s sons in Gilead and called him king of a separate territory called Israel.”
“Two Jews, two fact
ions,” I said. “Go figure.”
“Hey, it could have been three. So a skirmish broke out between Judeans, led by Joab, and Israelites, led by Abner. Abner’s men were routed and fled. Joab’s brother Asahel followed him and wouldn’t give up the pursuit, even though Abner kept stopping to turn and warn him off. But Asahel was single-minded. Samuel says he would look neither left nor right, veer neither left nor right, he’d only keep straight after Abner. Fast. When Abner saw that Asahel wouldn’t give up, they fought and Abner slew him. What follows is actually a pivotal point in our history, Jonah. Because now Joab and his men chase after Abner but when they catch him, Abner convinces Joab to spare his life. He explains-get this-that Asahel left him no choice by refusing to break off his pursuit. The first known case of justifiable homicide. A crucial legal precedent. But there’s more: Despite his anger over Asahel’s death, Joab not only spared Abner but declared peace with Israel. In your mind, Jonah, would this man in the river have continued to pursue you like Asahel, veering neither left nor right?”
“Yes. He’d had at least six people killed by the time he died, including his own brothers and two innocent civilians.”
“A very evil man then. So some homicides, we know, are justifiable, Jonah. Which means?”
“Yes?”
He smiled and said, “It means enough about you. We can talk about David now.”
If his questions had been a test, had I passed?
“Some things that he and I talked about can be shared.”
“Great.”
“He came to me last year, while I was still at Adath Israel, to enlist my support on a project. As you know, there is a great shortage of organs for transplant in the United States. I don’t know how it is in Canada, but very few people here sign their donor cards.”
“I don’t think it’s much better at home.”
“It’s even more true among the Jewish community, sadly, especially the Orthodox. There is great doubt and debate among them as to whether it falls within Halacha, the Jewish way, because we believe we are not supposed to change in any way the body Hashem gave us. It’s why the Orthodox oppose autopsies, and why their women wear clip-ons instead of piercing their ears. It’s why we don’t get tattoos. So if you won’t pierce an ear, or get a little tattoo on your tuchus, how can you cut open a body and take out its organs? How can you take the corneas? What if sight is needed in the afterlife? And on it goes. David saw first-hand how acute the shortage was and it bothered him. He wanted to drum up rabbinical support for donation. He knew how connected I am in that community so he came to me for help.”
“What kind?”
“We held a series of discussions with all the Orthodox rabbis in New England, one of them on Skype, if you want a laugh. We decided that to save a life was, if you’re old enough to remember the first Star Trek, the prime directive. It came above all other considerations and was therefore within Halacha.”
“That’s great. Has it helped?”
“It’s early days. Too early to tell if we’re having any statistical impact. But we had these made up and we’re giving them out at our shuls. In my case, my former shul. And I’ll promote it from my future pulpit.” He reached into his back pocket and pulled out a wallet thick with currency, receipts, credit cards and more. He slid from one pocket a laminated blue card that said, “Halachic Orthodox Organ Donors.” Under that was his signature and a paragraph saying he was donating any and all organs needed and that it was within the Jewish tradition and endorsed by the Rabbinical Council of New England.
“Hood,” Ed said. “That was David’s idea. He had no standing on the rabbinic side, but he gave a lot to get this going and came up with the idea of the donor card. He looks shy and bookish but he is tougher than people think when he thinks he is right. Which he generally is.”
“Is he tough enough for what he’s into now?”
“We don’t know what he’s into.”
“Are you sure?”
The Rabbi sipped the last of his wine and stood. “I’m afraid there’s nothing more I can tell you, Jonah. Anything else he might have told me as his rabbi, I think will have to remain confidential. If getting more information was the only reason you came to dinner, you may have to go home disappointed.”
“It wasn’t and I won’t. May I propose a compromise?”
“How does one compromise confidentiality?”
“Anything he told you while you were his rabbi is between you and him,” I said.
“Then where is the wiggle room?”
“Because you were no longer his rabbi the night he vanished. You had already resigned from the shul by then.”
He started to say one thing, stopped himself, started again and came up with, “What do you mean?” It was enough to tell me there was more.
“We’ve interviewed new witnesses,” I said, “and we’ve pieced together what happened to David.”
“That’s great!” There was a reason the rabbi had left theatre school. He wasn’t a good enough actor to sell that one.
“On his way home that night, two men tried to abduct him.”
“No!”
“They worked for an Irish gangster named Sean Daggett.”
“Have the police arrested him? Or these other men?”
“The other two are dead, Rabbi. They were shot to death last night.”
Now his face fell for real, no acting involved. “What!”
“I just found out. By accident, maybe by the hand of God, David was able to get away from them that night. He ran down Summit Path all the way to Beacon and was lucky to catch a trolley that was just pulling out. The driver confirmed it. Once David was safely away, he could have gone anywhere, but he got off at the very next stop. Washington Square. Right where you told me to get off. Now that was kind of risky for him to do. Those hoods were cruising around looking for him. So he had to have had somewhere in mind. Someone close by who would let him in.”
Shana came in from the kitchen then. “Dad, are you okay? I thought I heard something.”
“It’s about David,” I said. “I know he was here the night he disappeared.”
She looked away from me to her father, then at the floor. I liked the fact that she didn’t try to tell any lies.
“About seven-thirty,” I said, “maybe a few minutes after, he showed up at your door, out of breath, frightened. Now if you don’t want to tell me what he said, fine. I’ll find out anyway. I figured out this part fast enough. But at least confirm he got away. That he was unharmed. You couldn’t give his parents a greater gift than that.”
Rabbi Ed looked at his daughter and they made eye contact. Then he looked back at me and said, “Yes. For his parents, I can do that. He came here like you said. We were just cleaning up from dinner. I had never seen him like that. If I didn’t know him better, I would have thought he was having some kind of psychotic episode.”
“What about?”
“He didn’t tell us.”
“He wouldn’t,” Shana said.
“Right. He said it was for our own protection. All he wanted was a place to stay the night. But he made us swear not to say anything about seeing him, not even to his parents. He said that was for their protection too.”
“He didn’t say where he was going?”
“No,” Rabbi Ed said. “When I woke up in the morning he was gone.”
I looked at Sandy.
She said, “I woke up later.” It didn’t have the ring of truth.
“Did he have money?”
“About forty dollars,” Ed said. “I had a bit of cash that I gave him, about a hundred and twenty.”
“I gave him another eighty,” Shana said. “I had just gone to the bank machine.”
“So he had two hundred and forty dollars, no car, no clothes.”
“I gave him a coat when he left.”
“I thought you were asleep.”
“The night before, I meant. He told us he was going to leave early in the morning, so I made sur
e he had it before he went to bed.”
Okay, now she was bust-out lying.
CHAPTER 17
“So what do you think?” Jenn asked. “Is he alive?”
We were back in my room. Jenn was reclining on one bed, which I was facing in a club chair. The second queen bed was barely visible under the papers we’d been searching through. I had just told her everything about the dinner and David’s flight to the Lerners’ house the night he disappeared.
“I think he is,” I said. “At any rate, it’s the assumption we should work on. David is alive and in hiding, trying to work out whatever mess he’s in. And all we know is it will take a while.”
“What mess doesn’t? So what do we do with this news? Do we share it with his parents? With Gianelli?”
“If you were his parents, what would you make of it? Someone tried to abduct your son but he evaded it and went on the run. Does that help you or hurt you? Let’s wait until we know a little more before we call them.”
“And Gianelli?”
“Let’s wait on him too. So what happened with Carol-Ann Meacham last night? Did she go straight home after work or was she mobbed by suitors?”
The smile left Jenn’s face and she suddenly looked sheepish. She reached behind her to straighten the pillows behind her back. Fluffed them a bit and put them back the way they’d been. A sure sign she was blaming herself for something going wrong.
“What?”
“It all went fine at first. I matched her home number to an address in the phone book.”
“Where?”
“Roxbury.”
“Really? Gianelli made it sound like a war zone.”
“I wouldn’t go for long romantic walks after dark, but she lives in a real-estate pocket. The houses are big and in decent shape and apparently very affordable. Mostly because so many were foreclosures. They have signs up for a city program where you can get a fo-clo, as they are called, dirt cheap. Which Carol-Ann did, about six months ago.”
“What did you do, read her mail?”
“I did better. I found a neighbour across the street whose house is for sale. She was outside cleaning her garden and I chatted her up. Pretended I was interested in her house. Asked about the neighbours, the street. So Carol-Ann bought hers, did a little cosmetic renovation, and rents out the upstairs to help pay the mortgage.”
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