Yom Kippur Murder Read online

  “I’d like you to meet Mr. Greenspan,” he said as I walked into the room. “Mr. Greenspan helped my parents find the apartment when we first came to New York.”

  We shook hands, and I listened as Mr. Greenspan told us both what a wonderful person Nathan Herskovitz had been. Mitchell had just finished agreeing with one particular point when he looked toward the door and excused himself. A rather handsome couple had just come in, and Mitchell kissed the woman and shook hands heartily with the man. I assumed they were Nina and Gordon Passman. I told Mr. Greenspan I would be back soon, and I stood and took a few steps in their direction. Mitchell brought the couple over and introduced us.

  “I apologize for my behavior on the phone the other day,” Nina said as the men moved away to talk. “Mitchell said he explained.”

  “He did, and it’s all right.”

  “I understand you’ve been very helpful to my father. I’m grateful to you for that. I wasn’t able to help him myself. What I’ve learned as my father’s daughter is that time doesn’t heal all wounds. In some cases, it makes them worse.”

  “It’s possible your father was sorry for what happened between you. He was very anxious to attend Yom Kippur services. I was going to take him there.”

  “My father repent?” She laughed, a jarring, brittle sound in the quiet room. “He’d have to go to a year of Yom Kippur services to repent for everything he did. I’m sorry. I promised myself I’d behave this afternoon. By the way, how did you find my phone number the other day?”

  “It was on the flap of an envelope with your name and address printed on it. Your father kept it in the back of his address book.”

  A small smile played on her lips. “I wrote that letter a month after we were married, when my stationery was new and I was so happy to be Mrs. Gordon Passman. I told my father that I loved him, that I wanted us to remain a family, that we should meet and discuss our differences. He never responded. I wonder if he ever read the letter. Maybe he just tore off the flap so there’d be someone to notify if he ever ended up dead.”

  “He must have read it. He wrote your telephone number on the flap.”

  The little smile came back. “That’s right. It makes it worse, doesn’t it? He read it and rejected my offer. Well, it left him without a daughter, without grandchildren.”

  That troubled me, but it was none of my business. Several old people had come in while we were talking, and I noticed Gallagher and Mrs. Paterno among them. I excused myself and went to say hello to them.

  “Have you thought about leaving the building?” I asked Mrs. Paterno.

  “That’s all I think about, but I have nowhere to go.”

  “Do you know any of these people?” I asked both of them.

  “I see them on the bench sometimes on Broadway,” Gallagher said. “That fellow over there, he and Nathan were old pals.” He indicated a tall, rather solid-looking man who had entered with a woman.

  “That one I see sometimes in the supermarket,” Mrs. Paterno said, looking at little Mr. Greenspan, who was just then lifting himself to his feet with the aid of his cane.

  I realized people were moving toward another room, and we joined the small crowd. It was the first Jewish funeral I had ever attended, and it surprised me in many ways. The coffin was a shock. It was a very plain, unadorned box of a simple wood with a perfectly flat top. I guess we Catholics go in for more elaborate caskets, but the sight of that one gave me a chill.

  My second surprise was the funeral service itself. It lasted exactly seven minutes, including a brief eulogy and what I took to be a prayer for the dead at the end. Then we left for the cemetery.

  Mitchell had ordered a second limousine for Gallagher, Paterno, and me, although I told him I was quite able to drive. It was a long trip to the cemetery, and a fairly quiet one. After we talked about the Ramirez arrest, we were silent. At the burial, I saw Mrs. Paterno wipe away a tear, and Ian Gallagher looked desolate. I watched the simple coffin being lowered into the ground, and then Mitchell shoveled some earth over it. Nathan Herskovitz was gone.

  As we returned to the limousines, Mitchell asked me to stay in the city and have dinner with him. That surprised me because I had expected him to spend the evening with his sister. I accepted, and after Gallagher and Mrs. Paterno were dropped off at home, I continued on to the funeral home, where the Herskovitz car was just arriving. Mitchell picked up the book with the signatures of the mourners, and I went to find a telephone. It was close to six, but I thought I might still be able to reach Arnold Gold at his office. I was right.

  “You go to the funeral?” he asked when I told him who was calling.

  “We just got back. There were a fair number of people at the funeral, but none of them went out to the cemetery except our inner circle.”

  “How’re they holding up?”

  “Pretty well. I think they’re relieved there’s been an arrest. Jack called me this morning and said they’d arrested a man named Ramirez.”

  “Typical dumb NYPD collar,” Arnold said in his usual forthright manner. His sentiments about the police department are not exactly laudatory.

  “You think he may not have done it?”

  “I’m sure he didn’t do it. I went over and talked to him this afternoon.”

  “You talked to Ramirez?” I was starting not to like this.

  “I’m going to defend him, Chrissie. Every so often the cops do something so unforgivably stupid, I lose my cool, and this is one of them. You got a murder, you round up all the usual suspects and pick one to pin it on. I don’t think they can even place him in the area at the time of the crime.”

  “Arnold, how can you defend him if you’ve been in court against Metropolitan Properties?”

  “Who said anything about Metropolitan? Nobody’s made a connection there. They’ve just arrested Ramirez. Damned sloppy investigative work. Franciotti probably needed one more arrest to make lieutenant.”

  “If Ramirez didn’t do it, who do you think did?”

  “Who the hell knows? Doesn’t look like robbery. Maybe Herskovitz had an enemy.”

  “Maybe he did,” I said. Maybe, indeed, he did.

  Mitchell was as troubled as I at Arnold Gold’s news that he was defending Ramirez. “That means it’s not over,” he said as we sat at dinner that evening. “I wonder when they’ll let me in to clean up the apartment.” He had told me earlier that he was leaving for Atlanta the next morning and would not return until the police gave him permission to go in.

  “Arnold may be wrong. He’s often more concerned with people’s civil rights than with what actually happened. Ramirez may have done it. And the fact that someone’s defending the suspect doesn’t mean the police will change their minds. They’ve arrested the person they think is guilty. I expect they’ll free up the apartment pretty soon, regardless of Arnold.”

  “I hope so.”

  “I know it’s difficult to talk about, but you were pretty shocked by those pictures.”

  “Shocked beyond anything I can express in words. When I heard that he was dead, when you called me and afterward, when I talked to the police, I decided to put everything aside, all the animosity. I knew Nina was beyond forgiving him, but I wasn’t. There would be a funeral, I would meet his old friends, bury him next to my mother. When I saw those pictures …” He shook his head. “Old friends must have come to visit him and seen them. How could he explain it?”

  “It seems so odd that he never talked about that first family. What happened to him must have happened to many people. A family was wiped out, and the survivor started over. There’s nothing shameful about it.”

  “Maybe there was something shameful about it.”

  I didn’t know what he meant, and he didn’t elaborate. “Mitchell, I think there’s a good chance Ramirez did it, and if he did, he probably did it for Metropolitan Properties. Whether I like it or not, these things happen, and whatever Arnold feels about the police, they do a pretty good job. On the other hand, Arnold could
be right about Ramirez, and someone else may have killed your father.”

  “I understand.”

  You have to start somewhere. When someone is killed in an apartment house, the police knock on every door, question people in every apartment, looking for clues, reasons. In this case, they had accomplished all that on Saturday morning. I am not a professional anything, but I had done a bit of successful investigating a few months earlier, and I had a sense of where to start.

  “Would you mind if I copied down the names in the guest book from this afternoon?” I asked Mitchell. “I’d just like to ask a few questions and see if I come up with anything.”

  “Not at all. I have it right here.” He pulled it out of an attaché case he was carrying with him and gave it to me.

  I spent the next few minutes copying names and addresses. They covered slightly more than a page of the guest book, and three of them were Gallagher, Paterno, and I. I returned the book, and he slid it into his case.

  “I was kind of surprised when you asked me to join you this evening,” I said. “I thought you’d spend some time with your sister.”

  Mitchell smiled. “It may not sound very good, but Nina and Gordon had theater tickets for tonight. They left for an early dinner when we got back to the funeral home.”

  “Do you think she would talk to me?” I asked.

  “Probably. My sister’s a good person. Don’t let her relationship with our father get you off on the wrong foot. He was the anomaly in our lives.”

  I was starting to wonder. When people tell me something, I tend to believe them. On further reflection, I sometimes revise my opinion. I had known Nathan for nearly two months, and he had seemed a kind man caught in the collective problems of old age and modern real estate. Was it possible that he was the victim of a daughter who clearly despised him, of a wife who might not be the saint her children portrayed her to be, even of a son whose story might be open to some scrutiny? I had liked Nathan. Gallagher liked Nathan. Mrs. Paterno—well, Mrs. Paterno might not like anyone except herself, but perhaps I felt that way because I didn’t really know her. There were enough questions floating in my head to justify my spending time finding answers.

  “How old was your father?” I asked.

  “Eighty-five on his last birthday. He was born in 1905.”

  “That surprises me. I took him for eighty. He was in very good condition.”

  “He was. He walked a lot when his legs were better. Even now, Mr. Gallagher said they often walked up to Broadway and sat in the sun. He never wanted to be a recluse, and he never became one.”

  We had come to the end of dinner, and I wanted to get home as soon as possible. My Tuesday class met at nine in the morning, and I needed my sleep. “Let me know when you come back to clean out the apartment. I’ll be glad to help if you need another pair of hands.”

  “I’ll do that.”

  He thanked me, paid the bill, and I drove him back to his hotel. I thought he drooped a little as he crossed the sidewalk and went through the door. It takes something out of you to spend a day as he had spent his, seeing that apartment first off and then burying his father. For all the problems in the Herskovitzes’ lives, there had been affection between Mitchell and his father, maybe even love. It was more than I could say for Nina.

  7

  Melanie Gross is a wonderful neighbor. She has a sixth sense about me, which I appreciate. Just when I think I can’t cook one more tasteless meal and eat it alone, she invites me for the kind of dinner you can only make for two or more people. When I thank her, I wonder if she understands how much I appreciate her hospitality.

  Tuesday morning I ran into her on my morning jaunt. She was in her red sweat suit—I don’t own one; I go out in plain old clothes—so she looked a little like Santa. Melanie is slightly on the plump side and very affable. We hadn’t seen each other since before Yom Kippur, so we greeted each other like long-lost pals.

  “He’s everything you promised,” I called, knowing she would understand I meant her cousin, Mark Brownstein.

  “So how was it?”

  “Very enjoyable.”

  “Think you’ll see him again?”

  “Probably.” I had his prayer book, and he had said he’d retrieve it next time we saw each other.

  “That’s fabulous,” Melanie said. She looked as happy as though it were happening to her.

  We continued around the corner, talking and jogging. When I meet Melanie, I move faster. All I want in the morning is a brisk walk, but Mel wants speed and distance. We have learned to compromise. Perhaps that’s why we’ve become friends.

  She left me at my driveway and kept going. I got ready for my day, breakfasted, gathered my papers, and left for my class.

  I taught a group of sophomores and juniors who considered themselves contemporary women, often aggressively so. In the few short weeks that the semester had run, I had been surprised several times by the intensity of some students’ wrath at what they characterized as “chauvinistic drivel” and “demeaning sentiments masquerading as poetry.” It wasn’t very much like teaching at St. Stephen’s College. I had wondered, not aloud in class but to myself afterward, whether time and experience would temper their sentiments and their tongues, even as they sharpened mine. It must be wonderful to be eighteen or nineteen and to be so sure. It’s something I missed.

  The class lasted two and a half hours, which was rough going, but it was my only fixed commitment each week. We took a brief break after ninety minutes; then I didn’t feel guilty if I went over a few minutes at the end. That morning a student from whom I’d heard almost nothing suddenly came alive. She challenged the “chauvinistic drivel” proponent, saying human emotions other than anger and resentment had a legitimate place in literature, that love of the opposite sex did not necessarily imply relinquishing one’s rights. She was angry and articulate. I wondered whether she had fallen in love over the weekend or simply begun to read the assigned poems. I was glad to hear from her.

  I stopped for a sandwich at the cafeteria and then drove into New York, voices from my class still ringing in my ears. I wanted to get started asking questions about Nathan Herskovitz, and I thought the best place to start was with the other tenants. As I rolled slowly down Broadway looking for a free meter, I spotted Gallagher on a bench.

  Broadway is a funny street. North of Columbus Circle an unkempt median of scraggly grass and weeds divides the north- and southbound lanes. At intersections there are old wooden park benches facing north at one end and south at the other. The benches are chipped and cracked by age, weather, and use, and they bear small pieces of often painful history in engraved remembrances. On sunny afternoons they are usually occupied, mostly by old people of a variety of races and ethnic origins. Some sit in silence, some talk to themselves, still others regale fellow bench sitters. Gallagher was sitting next to a black woman who must have been half his age. On the other side of her was an old white woman with a newspaper in her lap, perhaps to keep her warm as she was raising her face toward the sun. A small van pulled out of a parking spot just ahead of me, and I swerved in without even signaling. An hour had been granted me.

  I got out and walked back to where Gallagher sat between the two women. “Hello, Ian,” I called as I crossed to the divider.

  His face lit up. “Well, darlin’, it’s good to see you.” He stood and clasped my hand in his.

  “How ’bout a cup of coffee?” I offered.

  “Good idea.”

  We crossed to the other side of Broadway and went into a coffee shop. Once ensconced in a booth, I suggested that Ian try the tuna sandwich with melted cheese. These old people have a nasty habit of eating tea and toast meal after meal, and sometimes, when they’re not hungry (they tell me), tea and toast minus the toast. I try to get some protein in them, and a few calories as well. Ian obliged, which meant to me he hadn’t had much, if anything, for lunch.

  “Ian,” I said when I’d given the order, “Arnold Gold thinks Ramirez may no
t have done it.” I didn’t want to use the word “murder,” and I didn’t need to.

  “Then who did?”

  “He has no idea. I know you think Metropolitan Properties is involved, but it’s possible they’re not. It’s possible someone wanted to kill Nathan because he was Nathan.”

  “What are you tellin’ me?”

  “I want to find out as much as I can about Nathan. Maybe something will turn up.”

  “Don’t ask me. If Herskovitz had secrets, they died with him. We only talked about the weather and the landlord.”

  “He told you where to find his address book,” I said, ignoring his disclaimer.

  “True, true. You think about those things when you get to our age.”

  “When did you move into 603?” I asked.

  “Thirty-nine. Had a new wife and a new job. I worked for the city then. Drove a trolley car.”

  “Were you in the war?”

  “Couldn’t keep me out.” He smiled at the memory.

  “Did you join up then?”

  “Wanted to, but they drafted me first. Covered the whole Pacific before it was over—Hawaii, Guam, Okinawa. I was out in Guam when my son was born.”

  “And then you came back to the same apartment and the same job?”

  “Same kinda job, I drove a bus. Nice pension, good vacation. Retired at sixty-five. Fifteen years already. Seems like yesterday.”

  From the distant look in his eyes, I guessed he was seeing it all again. When he resumed eating, I asked, “When did you first meet Nathan?”

  “Hard to say. You run into people in the lobby, you say hello, talk about the weather, that kinda thing. When Metropolitan took over, that’s when we all started to look each other in the eye and think of people as neighbors. That was three, four years ago. Some folks up and left right at the beginning. They got a nice little bonus for going, and they found another place, and that was the end of ’em. Most of us stayed and worried. Finally we had a tenants’ meeting, that was a long time ago, and hired on a lawyer to see if he could fix it so we could stay. It bought us a little time is all. Then things stopped working. The elevator was off more ’n it was on. Light bulbs in the halls disappeared. Strange things went on in the empty apartments, a fire here, a fire there. Every month someone else moved out. When they turned off the electricity, that’s when the rest of ’em deserted. One day there was just the three of us.”