Yom Kippur Murder Read online

  “To whom?” I asked. I sipped the seltzer and felt it go right up my nose and into my head. For a moment I thought I might sneeze and destroy Zilman’s concentration.

  “He gave a book to everyone he provided an escape for.”

  “Were they to keep the books till Nathan showed up in America?”

  “The books were gifts.”

  “Gifts,” I repeated.

  “Anyone who saved a book could keep it.”

  I felt a surge of affection for Nathan. “Do you have yours?” I asked.

  I got another stare. I guess this little man must have gotten a lot of mileage out of staring during his lifetime—perhaps that’s how he kept his wife in line—but I found him almost comical.

  “Nathan Herskovitz did not assist me or my family in any way,” he said, one hand moving to touch the gold key that hung from the chain.

  He dropped his hand, set his shoulders, and continued. “But you see, he didn’t mean it. It was only a ruse to get these poor fleeing people to carry out his collection.”

  “You mean he claimed the books after the war?”

  Zilman gave me an acid smile. “I only know for certain about one book. That book was worth the entire collection. It was a fifteenth-century Jewish prayer book, an incunabulum, if you know the term. Even before the war it was worth thousands. Today it might bring half a million. A book like that should not be in the hands of a private individual; it should be in a library, where people can look at it and scholars can study it.” He touched the Phi Beta Kappa key again so that I would know who the scholar in the room was. “The book had been given to Karl Henry Black—that was the Americanization of his name, of course.”

  Of course, I thought, wondering if he disliked me as much as I disliked him.

  “About fifteen years ago Professor Black decided to retire. Academics are not the best-paid people in the world, and Black needed a nest egg to see him through his retirement. He decided to put the book up for sale through an auction house.”

  “Did you teach with Professor Black?” I asked, starting to get a feel for the source of his obviously secondhand story.

  “I did.” He paused to drink some seltzer. “I must tell you that before he did this, for many years Herskovitz had bothered him about the book, asking for it, threatening him, sometimes confronting him in the street as he went to and from work. Now, when the auction house announced the book would be up for sale, Herskovitz came in with the lawyers.”

  “To prevent the sale?”

  “Presumably to prevent the sale, to challenge Black’s right to own it, to disrupt Black’s life as much as possible. I felt Black should have gone to court. He could have found enough witnesses to swear that Herskovitz gave the books away that no jury would have doubted him. But the judge halted the auction, and Black got nervous. He withdrew the book, and Herskovitz apparently then dropped the case.”

  “Then Professor Black still has it,” I said.

  “If only that were true.” Zilman glanced at his wife, nodded to his empty glass, and waited till she refilled it.

  My ire was really building. I couldn’t imagine treating a servant the way he was treating her.

  “On the day Professor Black took back the book from the auction house, he was found dead in the street.”

  “Murdered?” I said, my voice echoing my shock.

  “Dead of a heart attack.”

  “And the book?”

  “Gone.”

  “He may have died, and someone passing by picked up the package,” I suggested.

  “Then where is it?” Zilman countered. “A person who steals does so for money. Sooner or later the book finds its way into the hands of someone who knows what it is. Herskovitz took it, Herskovitz hid it. Maybe his children have it.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I couldn’t imagine Nina doing her father a favor, and I wasn’t sure Mitchell’s relationship with Nathan had been strong enough that Nathan would have trusted him with something so valuable. Still, it was worth a couple of phone calls. “You didn’t know Nathan Herskovitz, did you, Mr. Zilman?”

  “Never.”

  “How did you happen to be at his funeral?”

  “There was nothing in his life to celebrate, but his death brought a measure of justice. I went to celebrate justice.”

  I found this man so tiresome, I was ready to thank him for my apple and get up and leave, but I thought I ought to ask a few questions about the Black family. “Did you stay in touch with Professor Black’s family after his death?” I asked.

  “Not actively.”

  I had no idea what he meant, but I thought it would be purposeless to pursue it. “I wonder if someone in the family killed Nathan for the book.” I just stated it, hoping he would pick up on it.

  “I wouldn’t blame them. Imagine how you would feel if your life savings suddenly disappeared, just at the time when you began to need it.”

  “If they killed him for the book, they didn’t find it,” I said. “The apartment wasn’t searched.”

  “Surely you wouldn’t seriously accuse a member of an academic family with so heinous a crime.”

  “I’m not accusing anyone yet. I’m looking for reasons why someone would kill a kind old man who never hurt anyone and who couldn’t defend himself.” I said it to anger him, and I succeeded. I could see him restraining himself.

  “I told you the story not to place blame on the Black family but to give you an insight into a man’s character. A person who becomes rich by brokering lives, who gives gifts and takes them back, is a man who cannot be trusted, a man who may well have antagonized other men to the point of uncontrollable anger.”

  I thanked him for his help and got him to part with the address of Black’s widow. Then I went to Mrs. Zilman and thanked her for her hospitality. She glowed with happiness. I hoped Zilman wouldn’t take it out on her afterward.

  11

  I needed some food fast, and I got it on Broadway. The Zilmans lived on West End Avenue, the north-south street one block west of Broadway in the Eighties. When I finished my cheeseburger, I set out for the Greenspan address, which was about a dozen blocks south of where I was. I walked along Riverside Drive, admiring the view of the park and the river and New Jersey beyond. Fall had not yet made its colorful strike, but here and there a tree was losing its green.

  I was so involved in my admiration of nature that I went right by the Greenspan building and had to turn back. A woman’s voice answered the bell, and I was buzzed in.

  Mr. Greenspan made a joke about my frequent visits, but I sensed he was glad to have the company. The woman who had opened the door brought us cups of hot chocolate when I had sat down, and Hillel Greenspan’s face lit up in a way Mordechai Zilman’s had never learned to.

  “I have a lot of questions,” I said after sipping my chocolate.

  “I have a lot of answers,” the old man responded.

  “Did Nathan help you leave Europe before the war?”

  “Nathan got for me and my wife identification papers so good, the Gestapo couldn’t make better. You want to see them?”

  “You still have them?”

  “I have everything. What isn’t back there is up here.” He tapped his temple, stood nimbly, and left the living room, his cane thumping along. From the other room I could hear him humming. He returned quickly and handed me an envelope.

  The photograph on the first document was of a young man with a resemblance to this old one, but not a clear match. The name was Herbert Genscher, and after the address, there were numbers that I took to be his height and weight in the metric system. There was also a long word that was probably his supposed profession. A raised seal gave it the look of authenticity that the military would so prize.

  “Beautiful?” he said.

  “It looks excellent.” Of course, I had no idea what a real one would look like, but it didn’t matter.

  The other document in the envelope was for a woman with the same last name and a mai
den name that I couldn’t make out.

  “Were they expensive?” I asked.

  “Every week the price went up.”

  “Did Nathan make much on the transaction?”

  “Nathan made nothing. He was a go-between, that’s all.”

  “Between you and the forger?”

  “With the forger and with the transport. He got a car, a truck, a hay wagon, whatever he could find, whoever he could bribe.”

  “Did he give you a book?”

  “Who have you been talking to?”

  “Mr. Zilman.”

  “You talked to Zilman?”

  “A little while ago.”

  “What could Zilman tell you that I couldn’t?”

  “Mr. Greenspan, I’m just trying to find out whether someone who knew Nathan might have killed him.”

  “And you think Zilman did it?”

  “I don’t think Zilman did it. I don’t know who did it. But Zilman told me an interesting story about a book.”

  “Zilman is a fool.” He set his mouth and shook his head.

  “Tell me about the books, Mr. Greenspan.”

  “What can I tell you? Books are sacred. Nathan had a collection of very valuable, very rare books. He gave them away to save them. Better they should survive in other people’s hands than remain in his and die. He would say, ‘Here, take it. A book like this belongs to the world, not to you or me.’ ”

  “What about Professor Black’s book?”

  He shook his head again and wagged his finger at me. “Never think that a piece of the whole is the whole, young lady. If Nathan gave away a thousand books, it doesn’t mean he gave away a thousand and one.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Did you know Black?”

  “No.”

  “Of course not. You’re too young. Black was a second-rate scholar who got a good job when he came to New York because he had friends. In Europe he was nothing. Zilman is the kind of fool that Black could impress. Black was single when he left Europe. He was the perfect person to escort a woman and children. Nathan knew the time had come to leave. He knew he should go, too, but there was still work, people he had promised to help. He thought, a few days more and he would leave himself. A man on the run alone can take more chances. But for his family, time had run out.

  “Black agreed to accompany Nathan’s wife and babies, to look after them till Nathan joined them. But not out of charity. Black was not a charitable man. He wanted payment. They struck a bargain, and Nathan gave him the book.”

  “And he wasn’t able to save them,” I said.

  “Wasn’t able?” the old man nearly shouted. “He never came for them. He got on the truck himself and went to the border. He left them to die, a young woman and two beautiful children.”

  I could feel my skin prickling. I could imagine them waiting for the truck that never came, sitting, packed, with two sleeping children through a dark night, realizing finally at dawn that they had been had, betrayed, that there was no escape. If the story was true, it explained easily why Nathan had hounded Black for the rest of his life. But it didn’t explain everything.

  “How do you know this, Mr. Greenspan?” I asked.

  “How do I know? You think I make up a story like this? I know because my friend Nathan told me. I know because I knew all the people.”

  “Mr. Zilman said the book was put up for auction many years ago and withdrawn when Nathan went into court.”

  “Correct.”

  “Why didn’t Nathan pursue the case? Didn’t he want the book back?”

  “Sure he wanted it back. It was his. But you got to prove these things when you go to court.”

  “And he couldn’t?”

  “There was someone who knew the whole story, but he was sick. The doctor said he couldn’t testify. Nathan withdrew the case. The witness died.”

  It was all hearsay. I was inclined to believe Mr. Greenspan and disbelieve Zilman, but that was because I liked one and disliked the other; also because I wanted to believe good things about Nathan.

  But hearsay or not, there was certainly a motive for Nathan to have hounded Black and for Black’s heirs to want to retrieve the book.

  “How much do you think the book is worth?” I asked.

  “Who knows? Ten, maybe twenty thousand.”

  “Mr. Zilman said half a million.”

  “Zilman doesn’t know what he’s talking about. This is one book, not a collection. People don’t pay that kind of money for books.”

  “Do you think Nathan had the book?”

  “Somebody had it.”

  I smiled, and he smiled back.

  “You think someone killed Nathan for the book?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. I was going to ask you the same thing.”

  “Anything is possible. Especially when you got people in New York who think a book is worm fifty times its value. So what else can I tell you, young lady?”

  I said, nothing else today, thank you, and I took my leave. It was still too early for sunset.

  * * *

  I called Arnold Gold from home. I had changed into a stiff new pair of jeans and a plaid flannel shirt that I had bought from one of the mail-order catalogs Melanie Gross had thrown my way. Believe it or not, one of the big negatives in being a former nun from an order where a habit was required is that you have no old clothes. Every time I put on something to relax in, I felt as though I were modeling for the company. I look forward to the day when my fun clothes are soft and faded and losing buttons.

  Arnold had just gotten home, and in the background I could hear his favorite music station, WQXR, playing what sounded like Mozart.

  “So what do you got for me, Chrissie?” he asked.

  “Plenty.”

  “Let’s hear it.”

  “A lot of people may have loved Nathan, but there may have been some who hated him enough to kill.”

  “Don’t give me conclusions. Give me facts.”

  I regaled him for the next fifteen minutes, admitting my once-over of the apartment this morning, including my discovery that the address book was missing.

  “Cops probably took it.”

  “I’ll ask Jack to check on it for me.”

  “So this guy Zilman thinks Herskovitz hounded the professor to death.”

  “That’s the impression I got. It sounds like a real case of revenge.”

  “And we have a missing Jewish prayer book that could be worth ten or twenty thousand and could be worth half a mil.”

  “Depending on whom you ask. Maybe I’ll go over to the auction house tomorrow and see if they have any record of an appraisal from fifteen years ago.”

  “Won’t mean much,” Arnold said. “Prices have escalated a lot since the seventies. But it’s a place to start.”

  “Are you surprised to hear Nathan was a lawyer?” I asked.

  “Can’t say that I am. When we talked, I was impressed with the way he thought. He had a logical, disciplined mind. He also had a lot of good ideas about how to handle Metropolitan. He would have made his mark in revenge law.”

  I laughed. “Is that the newest brand of law?”

  “The oldest, Chrissie. The goddamned oldest kind of law anyone ever practiced.”

  Jack called before I had a chance to call him.

  “They told me a woman called, and I tracked down all the old girlfriends.”

  “Before you thought of me.”

  “How are you?”

  “How are all the old girlfriends?”

  “Changing diapers, if you want to know the truth. How’s things?”

  “Complicated.” I explained about my little adventure this morning and the missing address book.

  “First off, you can get your head shot off doing what you did this morning. Second, I’ll check on the address book first thing tomorrow. So you think Herskovitz was killed over a book?”

  “I think he may have been a tough guy to love, Jack. He may have angered a lot of people,
not just his family.”

  “Well then, where the hell have they been all these years? Why’d it take till now for someone to kill him?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “It doesn’t sound right.”

  “I just have to take it where it goes.”

  12

  The case of the five-hundred-year-old prayer book that was withdrawn from auction had made the kind of mark that left people with sharp recollections. The man who had headed the book division of the auction house fifteen years earlier, Jonathan McCandless, had since advanced to a position high in the administration, and he accepted my unannounced visit on Friday morning with a frown and a meaningful glance at his watch. But when I mentioned Karl Henry Black and the prayer book, his face relaxed into a smile.

  “That was one I’ll remember for a long time without going to the files,” he said. “Do you know what book that was?”

  “I was told it was a Jewish prayer book.”

  McCandless leaned back in his swivel chair, smiled to himself, then returned to an upright position. “At the end of the fifteenth century, for about thirty years after the printing of the Gutenberg Bible, a small group of books were printed that have come to be known as the incunabula. One of those was a Haggadah. Do you know what a Haggadah is?”

  I shook my head. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s the prayer book used at the Passover seder. One in-cunabulum was the Guadalaxara Haggadah—that’s with an X,” he added. “It consists of only six sheets, that’s twelve pages front and back, and it’s printed in Hebrew letters. The cover is leather mounted on wood with raised bands and rich blind tooling of geometric designs. It was printed circa 1483. In other words, Miss Bennett, we are not talking about a book; we are talking about the rarest of books, the kind of thing that sets your teeth chattering when you’re near it.”