Yom Kippur Murder Read online

  “It was locked,” she said in a monotone. “The bottom one, I don’t know. The top one was locked.”

  “Then someone had the key.”

  She looked fearful for a moment. “I have never used that key before today,” she said with fervor.

  “I don’t mean you, Mrs. Paterno. Maybe someone carried groceries home for him and took the key after killing him.”

  “A push-in? Not likely,” Gallagher said. “Herskovitz carried his own.”

  “I don’t see how. He had his cane. Going up all those steps must have been difficult. If he was carrying something—”

  “I thought you got him his stuff.”

  It was true that I had shopped for Mr. Herskovitz for the last month and a half, and I had carried a rather heavy bag from the supermarket only two days earlier. “He might have needed milk and bread,” I said.

  “You’re reachin’, darlin’. You don’t want to face the facts.”

  I truly didn’t. The thought of a building owner resorting to murder to empty his building represented the kind of moral low I found difficult to comprehend. Still, I could not ignore what I read in the papers. Such things had been attempted.

  “He had children, didn’t he?” I said, changing the subject.

  Mrs. Paterno raised her eyes and lowered them.

  “A girl and a boy,” Gallagher said. “Nina, I think she is, and the boy, maybe Mitchell. He didn’t talk too much about them.”

  “Didn’t they grow up in this building?”

  “Didn’t know him then. There were kids by the dozens back in the fifties. Herskovitz and me, we got to know each other when the place started goin’ to the dogs.”

  “Where am I going to go?” Mrs. Paterno said, looking at no one.

  “Do you have family?” I asked. Of the three, she had said the least to me in the two months I had been coming around. Most of what I heard from her was complaints; this isn’t working right, that isn’t the way it should be. Even when I came to help her or to deliver a message, she never asked me in. She stood on her side of the door, frequently with the chain in place, and I stood in the dark hall like some lesser mortal.

  “A daughter,” she said, as though that ended the discussion.

  “Maybe she can—”

  “Impossible.”

  “Would you like to stay with me for a little while?” For a hundred reasons, I didn’t want company, but the poor woman was terrified, and I didn’t know what else to do.

  “Where do you live?”

  “In Oakwood. It’s in Westchester County near—”

  “I cannot be out of the city.” She looked away, dismissing any other offer of help.

  “Someone will have to notify his children,” I said.

  “Look in the drawer,” Gallagher said. “He told me once where he kept the addresses. In case anything happened, someone should know.”

  I opened the center desk drawer, conscious that the police were just down the hall doing their grisly tasks and would probably not appreciate my snooping. They had asked us not to touch anything. There were scissors, pencils, pens, a large rubber eraser, and a bottle of ink. I closed the drawer and tried the top right one. An old leather book with ADDRESSES stamped in gold on the cover met my eyes. I took it out and opened it on the desktop. Under H I found “Mitchell (Carolyn)” as though he had written in his daughter-in-law’s name at a time when she was so new to the family that he might forget her name. I copied down the address and telephone number. Mitchell and Carolyn lived in Atlanta, Georgia. There was no Nina in the H’s, so I leafed through the book, starting with A, looking for her. When I reached the XYZ page, I realized she wasn’t listed.

  “His daughter’s not here,” I said, looking at Gallagher.

  “Oh, she’s there, all right. Preston, something like that.”

  I went back to the P’s, but the only listings were for an “H. Plotkin” and for “Pharmacy (close).” I was about to give up when I saw something ragged sticking out of the back cover. I flipped over to it and found a piece of paper in the shape of a long triangle, obviously a flap torn off an envelope. Printed on it in raised blue script was “Mrs. Gordon Passman” at an address on Long Island. Under it in ink was a phone number.

  “Passman,” I said.

  “Passman, that’s it.” Gallagher smiled. “I knew he had it.”

  I copied down the information, reinserted the envelope flap, and put the book back.

  Just as I did, one of the policemen who had climbed the stairs with us came into the room. “Mr. Gallagher? Want to come with me? Detective Sloan would like to talk to you.”

  Gallagher lifted himself from the couch, gave me a quick smile, and left the room. A moment later, the policeman was back.

  “Mrs. Paterno? This way, please.”

  Mrs. Paterno stood and walked out without looking at me. She had regained her bearing, although her color was still poor.

  The policeman returned a moment later. “So how ya doing?” he asked as if we were old friends.

  “OK.”

  He made himself comfortable on the sofa, or as comfortable as he could be with the big leather belt and the holster carrying his gun. “What a way to start the day, huh? Walk in on somethin’ like that.”

  “It was pretty awful,” I agreed.

  “Poor old guy. You gotta wonder about New York sometimes.”

  “Yes.” I didn’t feel chatty, but he went on, and I responded to keep from seeming impolite. Finally a man in civilian clothes popped his head in the door.

  “You Christine Bennett?”

  “Yes.”

  “We can talk in here.” He motioned to the uniformed officer, who vacated his comfortable perch.

  “Would you like the desk?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  I carried my bag to the sofa and sat. As it happened, I was dressed for an evening dinner date, not having wanted to return home and then drive back into the city. I was wearing a suit of a rather beautiful shade of blue, and black sheer stockings. I could feel the detective’s eyes as I walked across the room.

  “I’m Sergeant Franciotti. Can you tell me what you were doing here this morning?”

  I told the story in abbreviated fashion. For some reason, I didn’t mention that Mr. Herskovitz had given me his keys and that they hadn’t worked. I think at that point I had pretty much forgotten that part, and later, when I thought about it, I couldn’t see that it could mean very much. I told him about coming down to five with Mrs. Paterno, how she preceded me down the long apartment hall, how I heard her scream. I had introduced my story with an explanation of who I was and how I was connected to the three holdouts in the building. The detective had heard of Arnold Gold and made a note of his name when I mentioned it.

  I found it amusingly ironic to be questioned in this manner by a police detective. I have what is called in the common parlance a boyfriend, a word I find very distasteful and more suited to high school romances than adult relationships. Jack is not a boy, and he’s much more than a friend. He’s also a police detective sergeant, working out of the Sixty-fifth Precinct in Brooklyn. I met him in June when I was only a few weeks out of the convent. We clicked, probably too soon and too firmly, and I asked for some time apart, a brief hiatus, if only to convince myself that I’d been right the first time. We hadn’t seen each other for a couple of weeks, and that night, under pressure from my neighbor in Oakwood, I was meeting her cousin for dinner in Manhattan. We had spoken on the phone and he sounded very nice, although he must have wondered what he was getting into, taking out a woman who’d spent half her life in a convent. I hoped he would be surprised.

  Looking at Sergeant Franciotti, I could imagine Jack at work. As he asked his questions, I kept trying to guess where he was leading me. But as it turned out, he wasn’t leading me anywhere. He was just getting times and places and relationships straightened out. The only time he was anything but neutral was when I told him about the key arrangement. His forehead creased and hi
s face curled into something that looked half-skeptical and half-disbelieving.

  “Never understand these people who stay,” he said. “But they got their rights.”

  “Has anyone called Mr. Herskovitz’s children?” I asked.

  “Haven’t found anything on them yet.”

  “I’ve got their names and addresses. Would you like them?” I handed him my notes.

  He wrote it all down.

  “Would you mind if I called them?”

  “Be my guest. Use the phone in the kitchen. The crime scene guys are done with it.”

  “Thank you.” As I left the study, Sergeant Franciotti was looking at the names in his notebook.

  I didn’t volunteer because I’m good at this sort of thing or because I like to do it. It just seemed I’d be a better bearer of bad news than a policeman who complained about people dying on high floors.

  In the kitchen I dialed the number for Nina Passman. It rang and rang, reminding me again that this was Yom Kippur, and Nina and her family were probably in synagogue. I tried the Atlanta number, but there, too, no one answered. As I left the kitchen, I could hear several people talking in the living room, but I kept away. I had no stomach for the scene.

  I went back to the study and told the detective that the Herskovitz children were unavailable, and the probable reason. He said his people would keep trying and that I was free to go.

  “Is Mrs. Paterno still here?” I asked.

  “She left. So did Gallagher.”

  “She’s very frightened about staying in the building now.”

  “Yeah, well, I’ll have the boys drive around the block here for a while, keep their eyes open. Be pretty safe.”

  I wondered. “Good-bye,” I said.

  “Nice meeting you.”

  I went up one flight to Mrs. Paterno ’s apartment and rang the bell. There was no answer. I knocked and called, but there was no sound from inside. I wasn’t afraid she had met with foul play—the police were a noticeable presence inside and out—but I wondered where she had gone and whether she had a place to stay for the night.

  Downstairs I found Mr. Gallagher. He was dressed in worn corduroy pants and a heavy sweater that seemed to top off every outfit. His face was pale, and there was an air of frailty about him that I had never seen before.

  “Come and have lunch with me,” I said.

  “Good idea. Seems safe enough with all the coppers.”

  “Mrs. Paterno doesn’t answer her bell.”

  “Probably wants to be alone, poor thing.”

  “I’ll check on her later.”

  We had lunch on Broadway, my treat, and then I walked him home. Then I drove crosstown to where an old friend of mine from St. Stephen’s had a small apartment.

  3

  Sister Celia Rataczak was spending the academic year enrolled in a nursing program at one of the hospitals on New York’s East Side. Since St. Stephen’s is some distance up the Hudson, she had sublet a tiny, beautifully furnished apartment on First Avenue, which had a sleep sofa in the main living area as well as a bed in a little alcove. We’d known each other for a long time, and I was delighted to have the chance to stay overnight with her after my date this evening.

  After I had explained what had happened that morning, I put on a big flannel shirt I had brought along to relax in and hung up my suit jacket and skirt. Celia was wearing the obligatory brown habit of the Order of St. Francis I had once belonged to.

  About half an hour after I got there, I finally found someone home at the Passmans’.

  When Mrs. Passman came to the phone, I said, “My name is Christine Bennett. I’ve been helping your father lately, and I’m afraid I have some bad news.”

  “About my father?” the woman said, and something in her voice made it sound as though there were something preposterous in that.

  “Nathan Herskovitz,” I said. “I’m afraid he’s dead.”

  There was a silence, and I wished I could touch her, give her support at this terrible moment.

  “I think you’ve made a mistake,” the woman said. “My father died twenty years ago.”

  It took me a moment to recover. I had dialed the right number. She had responded to the name Passman. Had Gallagher gotten things mixed up? The envelope had said only Mrs. Gordon Passman. Nothing really identified her as Nina Herskovitz.

  “Are you Nina Herskovitz?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry. I think you’ve got the wrong number.” She hung up, and I did the same.

  “Trouble?” Celia asked.

  “I feel like an idiot. I’ve just called some poor woman and told her her father’s dead when her father died twenty years ago. Well, I suppose the police will find the right one. Should I try the son or quit while I’m behind?”

  “Give it a try.”

  I dialed the Georgia number, and a teenage girl answered. I asked for Mr. Herskovitz, and a man said “Hello?” in a voice that sounded almost like Nathan’s.

  I said it all again and waited.

  “He’s dead?” the man said. “My father is dead?”

  “I’m sorry, yes.”

  “What hospital are you calling from?”

  “I’m not calling from a hospital, Mr. Herskovitz. I’ve been working with the tenants in his building, and I went down this morning to take your father to synagogue—”

  “My father? He was going to temple?”

  “He wanted very much to go for the holy day, but he needed a little help walking there.” I was starting to wish I had left this for the police.

  “My father was going to temple for Yom Kippur?” He sounded more incredulous about that than about his father being dead.

  “That’s right,” I said.

  “Excuse me, I didn’t get your name.”

  I gave it to him and explained again what my relationship was to his father and the other tenants. Then he asked me how his father had died.

  “It appears to be murder, Mr. Herskovitz.”

  “Murder. Jesus. My father was murdered?”

  “I’m afraid so. The police will be calling you, but I wanted to tell you myself because I was very fond of your father. He was a decent, thoughtful man, and I’m very sorry.”

  There was a short silence. Then, “Right, right. He was.”

  “Mr. Herskovitz, I called a Mrs. Gordon Passman, who I thought was your sister, to tell her what had happened, but I seem to have reached the wrong number or person.” I gave him the number I had called.

  “Yeah, that’s Nina’s number.” He read it back to me.

  “She told me her father had died twenty years ago. I really don’t understand how—”

  “Yeah, well, if you knew Pop and you knew Nina, you’d understand.”

  “I see. Will you be coming to New York, Mr. Herskovitz?”

  “I guess I’ll have to. I suppose there are arrangements …”

  “I’d be glad to help in any way I can.” I gave him my phone number and address. “I really mean that, anything at all.”

  He asked for the name of someone at the police station whom he could call. I gave him Franciotti’s name, but I couldn’t think of the precinct number. He said not to worry, and I gave him another few words of condolence, and we hung up.

  With that behind me, I settled in for a nice talk with Celia.

  My date that evening was Mark Brownstein, a first cousin of my neighbor in Oakwood, Melanie Gross. Melanie and I had become friends after I moved into the house I inherited from my aunt Meg, who had lived there about as long as I can remember. Mel had told me that Mark “did something on Wall Street” and was rich and great and good-looking and single. Frankly, I thought it very decent of him to gamble an evening on someone he didn’t know, someone who had been a nun for half her life. I assumed Mel had said nice things about me, but even so, I liked his style.

  We were meeting rather late, nine-thirty, but as he had explained on the phone, it was Yom Kippur, and he would break his fast with his parents earlier in the evenin
g. (Yom Kippur, I knew, was a fast day). He also thought it was a great joke that he was concluding Yom Kippur with a former nun.

  Celia and I had a pleasant dinner, after which we washed up. I had asked Mark to call for me in the lobby as I didn’t want to disrupt Celia’s life too much. At nine-fifteen I went downstairs and waited for him.

  At exactly half-past, a man came through the door with the doorman.

  “Chris?” he asked tentatively.

  “Yes. Hello.” I held out my hand and we shook.

  “I’m Mark. Good to see you.”

  I could tell by his face that he wasn’t disappointed. We went outside and he hailed a taxi.

  “We’ll go somewhere for a drink,” he said, and we chatted until the taxi stopped.

  “Somewhere” turned out to be one of those loud, packed, trendy places that I had only heard of. We sat at the bar, ordered drinks, and picked up our conversation.

  “Is it top secret why a woman who looks as good in clothes as you do would want to spend her life as a nun?” he asked.

  “It’s a long story and not very interesting. It has a lot to do with being orphaned at fourteen and coming from a devout family.”

  “And now?”

  “Now I’m a part-time college English teacher and a part-time volunteer for worthy projects.”

  “Enlighten me.”

  I did. I told him about Arnold Gold and his causes, about the building he had saved for the tenants. “So I’ve been helping them out for the last two months, three old people who won’t be budged, living in this spooky old building on the West Side, three people who love each other, hate each other, trust and mistrust each other, and ultimately, I’m afraid, can’t live without each other. Every time I say their names, I think I’m describing the great melting pot: Gallagher, Herskovitz, and Paterno.”

  “Melting pot, hell. It sounds like an old-line New York City election ticket, an Irishman, an Italian, and a Jew. Put ’em together, you’d probably have them running the city.”

  “No more, I’m afraid. Mr. Herskovitz was just murdered.”

  “Murdered. You’ve had quite a day.”

  “You can say that again,” I said, reaching for my whiskey sour, which had just been placed before me on a cocktail napkin.