“But what ifâ”
“A client's expectation of confidentiality is sacrosanct.” The gray eyes flashed. “Aggie would have been the first to agree. She would not have wanted her clients' confidentiality violated.”
“I think she'd want her killer caught,” I said.
“She was your best friend, and you are grieving for her. You want answers, you want justice. Don't presume to think you know what Aggie would have wanted.” In a gentler voice she said, “In the end it didn't matter, did it? The client Aggie worried about left Rachel's Tent. And the police found Aggie's locket with Randy.”
I wondered how much of Barbara Anik's attitude toward the police had been shaped by her childhood. I wondered, too, what would have happened if Aggie had reported Randy to BramerâI was convinced that she hadn'tâor if Barbara had done so.
I'm sure the therapist wondered the same thing.
She sighed. “I'm too old for this.” She sounded weary and sad, and looked all of her seventy-one years.
I was in the lobby, taking another look at the mural, when I heard Bramer bellowing my name.
He'd figured out where he'd seen me, I thought, forcing a smile as I turned to face his anger.
“I'm glad I caught you,” he said when he was at my side. “Mr. Horton will meet you Monday morning at nine-fifteen.” He handed me a business card. HORTON ENTERPRISES, with a Wilshire address. “If you can't make it, be sure to let him know. He's a very busy man.”
Bramer sounded as though he'd arranged a visit with royalty. I wondered if he expected me to curtsy when I met the man.
“Mr. Horton is delighted that you're doing the story,” the director said. “But I wouldn't bring up Randy or his drug addiction. Mr. Horton had high hopes for Randy, so it's a painful subject.”
“I understand.”
“Excellent. I hope you enjoyed your talk with Barbara. Was she able to give you what you needed?”
“She gave me a great deal to think about,” I said.
twenty-one
Saturday, February 21. 9:35 A.M. 6100 block of Sepulveda Boulevard. A woman took a cab to UCLA. The
cabbie pressed her to pay him. “I'll pay when we get
there,” she said. “You are so beautiful,” the cabbie
replied. “I bet it's good.” The woman told him she
wasn't comfortable with him talking to her like that.
The cabbie persisted in demanding payment. The
woman refused. The cabbie stopped at a gas station,
pulled the woman from the cab, and began yelling at
her. The woman told the station's employees to call
the police. The cabbie pushed her, causing her sandals
to come off, then kicked her in the small of her back.
The woman finally reached a pay phone and called
the police. The cabbie left, taking the victim's sandals.
(Culver City)
I SAW AGGIE'S MOTHER AT B'NAI YESHURUN, THE LARGE Modern Orthodox synagogue where Zack has officiated as rabbi for the past seven months. The shul is well attended on most Shabbats, a testament to its growing membership and to Zack. This Saturday the number of congregants was swelled by family and guests who had come to celebrate his
aufruf,
the calling up of the groom to the Torah, usually on the Shabbat before his wedding.
In our case, two Shabbats before the wedding. Zack and I had wanted to share the happiness and import of the day, but Ashkenazi Orthodox tradition says the bride and groom don't see each other during the seven days before the wedding. The idea is to heighten the anticipation, and maybe to ward off bad luck. Not everyone is strict about the custom, and my anticipation didn't need heightening, but after one failed marriage, I was taking no chances.
Yesterday, after leaving Rachel's Tent, the
aufruf
had been the farthest thing from my mind. I had sat in my car, trying to make sense of what I'd learned, and had been startled when I looked at my watch. Ten to twelve. Sunset in February arrives early, and I had a lot to do in the five hours before Shabbat would begin.
I stopped at the florist's to okay the linen for the dinner reception and make sure Raul had the correct delivery address for the floral arrangement my parents had ordered for Zack and his family. I shopped for groceries. I packed a suitcase for my weekend at my parents' and picked up my new suit from the dressmaker. Then I picked up Bubbie G and two loaves of the challa she had baked. Bubbie, who will turn eighty this May, is thin and looks frail but is surprisingly spry. Even with her cane, which she uses grudgingly, she had me hurrying to keep up with her as she walked to my car.
The house smelled like Shabbat. Chicken soup with dill simmered on the stove. A French roast warmed in the oven, along with a potato kugel and one of Bubbie's challas, which are the best. Zack phoned to wish me a good Shabbos and thank my parents for the flowers. My mother, Bubbie, and I lit our Shabbat candles, and they worked their magic, ushering in a heavenly stillness and quiet that soothed my soul.
My father and two younger brothers went to shul. After setting the dining room table, Liora and I joined my mother and Bubbie G in the family room, where we recited the Shabbat and Friday evening prayers, singing parts and saying the rest aloud to include Bubbie, who is having difficulty even with the large-print siddur we bought her. I had a wave of nostalgia for the Friday evenings when all four of us Blume girls would harmonize prayers and other songs we'd learned in school or camp. Sometimes my mother joined in. Other times, like tonight, she would watch us and smile. She looked wistful now, and I sensed she was remembering those Friday nights, too, maybe wondering how long before Liora would marry and leave this big house that suddenly had so many empty rooms. Probably within the year, considering how often people call to set up my youngest sister. And my brother Noah has been dating someone for six months. . . .
An hour or so later my father and brothers returned. My father is almost fifty-seven, tall and broad-shouldered, and though he has more gray in his dark brown hair than he had a year ago, he still looks young, at least to me. My friends say he reminds them of Harrison Ford, without the scar and the earring. Noah and Joey are lankier. Noah is twenty-five, an overachiever and second-year law student at UCLA keenly aware that he's following in the able footsteps of my sister Mindy. Joey, two years younger and two inches shorter (I'm not sure which bothers him more), has a BS in computer science but no job because of the glut of unemployed programmers following the dot-com crash. He's been helping my dad, who hopes Joey will like the construction business and take over when he retires, something my dad talks about but the rest of the family agrees won't happen anytime soon.
My father always blesses us on Friday night. He usually goes from oldest to youngest, but tonight he saved me for last and rested his large, calloused hands on my head longer than usual. His lips lingered against my forehead.
“Mazel tov, sweetie,” he murmured, and we hugged each other tightly. “Happy?”
“So happy.”
“Bli ayin hara,”
my grandmother said.
My mom joined our little circle. Liora did, too. I was waiting for Joey to make a flip commentâhe's tender-hearted but uncomfortable with sentimentality. But he didn't say anything, and when we took our seats, I saw that his hazel eyes were misty.
Noah noticed, too. “Joey's all mushy.”
“Don't tease him,” Liora said.
Joey's face had turned red. “I'm worried that with all the money Dad's shelling out for Molly's wedding, there won't be anything left for mine.”
“You mean in twenty years when you're all grown-up?” Noah said.
“A hundred bucks says I get married before you do. What's
taking
you so long, anyway?”
“Za nisht kayn k'nacker,”
Bubbie said.
“I'm
not
a big shot, Bubbie. Noah started it.”
“Cool it,” my dad said. He likes decorum at the Shabbos table.
“They're just joking, Steven,” my mother said.
My father made kiddush over the wine and recited the blessing over Bubbie's challa. Between courses we sang
zemirot
and discussed the week's Torah portion and neighborhood news. Someone had become engaged, someone had given birth, someone was moving to Baltimore because housing here was so outrageously high. Mr. Friedland was in rehab, recovering from hip surgery, and had struck up a romance with Mrs. Goldowski.
“Maybe you should go out with Zack's grandfather, Bubbie,” Joey teased. “He's a cutie.”
“And he's a
greeneh
âlike you, Bubbie,” Noah added. An immigrant.
My grandmother shook her head and smiled. Even before the macular degeneration, some of the sparkle had gone out of her blue eyes when Zeidie Irving died.
At one point my dad's walkie-talkie crackled with static from the kitchen counter. My father and my brothers belong to an L.A. Jewish emergency-response organization that serves the Hancock ParkâMiracle Mile area. Zack belongs, too. My dad went into the kitchen and returned a minute later to tell us the call had been answered. Joey looked disappointed.
Zack usually walks over on Friday nights, but he had a house full of company. After dinner Noah took a stack of texts to the breakfast room, and my dad fell asleep on the family room sectional sofa reading the local Jewish paper. Bubbie dozed next to him, snoring lightly, while my mom, Liora, and I ate sunflower seeds and played Rummy Q with Joey at a game table in the corner. Joey almost always wins, unless Edie plays, but tonight he was distracted and Liora won.
“I was just kidding, Molly,” he said when everyone else had gone upstairs and we were putting away the tiles. “About Dad spending too much for the wedding.”
I smiled. “I know that.”
“Zack's a cool guy.”
“Very cool,” I agreed. Something was on Joey's mind. I wondered what it was.
“Ron phoned the other day,” he said a moment later. “He knows I've been looking for a programming job, and he wants to set up an interview for me at a company he deals with. Would that be a problem for you?”
“Ron and I aren't enemies, Joey. If he can help you, that's great. But I thought you liked the construction business.”
“I do. I love working with Dad, and I have ideas about expanding the business. But I'd like to give computer programming a try. It's why I got the BS. I told Dad, and he's fine with it.”
I nodded, and wondered if that was so.
“Ron asked about you, by the way. He sounded sad, Molly. I think he's sorry he blew it.”
A year ago that might have given me pleasure. “Divorce
is
sad, Joey. Ron's dating several women, so you don't have to worry about him.”
I kissed my brother's cheek and said good night.
I didn't think about Aggie or Randy and the packets of red thread until I was lying in my bed in what used to be my bedroom. Staring into the dark, I wondered what Barbara Anik had interrupted when she entered Aggie's office unannounced, wondered about the client Aggie had encouraged to go to the police, wondered why Aggie had been so nervous at a party she had told me nothing about.
I thought about her again when I awoke in the morning. How much I missed her and wished she were with me today, how happy she would have been for me, how senseless and tragic her death was. Now I was in the front pew in the high-ceilinged sanctuary, surrounded by my family and Zack's, and I was focused on the man on the other side of the wood-panel
mechitza
that separated the women's and men's sections, the man who had stolen my heart twice.
The morning service was over, and the Torah reading was about to start. I opened my text to this week's portion.
Mishpatim.
Laws.
“ âAnd these are the ordinances. . . ,' ” the shul's official reader, Simon, began.
I paged ahead, calculating how long before Zack would be called up. Out of the corner of my eye I saw my mother watching me, amusement in her warm brown eyes. I'm always amazed at how easily she can read me.
“Lost my place,” I mouthed.
She smiled and pointed to the line Simon was reading. I ran my index finger right to left beneath the Hebrew words to anchor my attention, but I was still only half listening when a verse jolted me into awareness.
“One who strikes a man, so that he dies, shall surely be put to death. . . .”
I had a name for Aggie's killer, but no clear motive. Had she rebuffed Randy's advances? Had she discovered that he'd been blackmailing her clients, and possibly those of other social workers? That he'd been selling drugs?
“If a man shall act intentionally against his fellow to kill him with guile,” Simon continued in the ancient traditional cantillation, “from My Altar shall you take him to die.”
Had Randy followed her from her house that night? Had he planned to talk her out of reporting him to Bramer? Or had he left his apartment intending to kill her? And if I had been there with her . . . ?
In a large, close-knit family like mine, a sigh is never just a sigh. Mine had drawn the attention of half the pew except for Bubbie G, who probably hadn't heard me, and Liora, who was absorbed in the reading. Mindy and Gitty flashed me sympathetic smiles. Edie was frowning at me.
Zack's mother, Sandy, was gazing at me, a question in her blue eyes, which were hooded by the brim of her black velvet pillbox.
“I'm just a little emotional, because of the day,” I told her, though she didn't ask. I felt a little guilty when she hugged me and said, “Me, too.”
My mother's look said she knew better. She squeezed my hand and held it. I forced myself to return my attention to the Torah portion and safer ground: laws dealing with lesser crimes and civil torts; the commandment to extend free loans and show sensitivity to the helpless and abandoned; instructions for maintaining the integrity of the judicial process and dispensing justice.
I supposed justice had been dispensed. Creeley was dead. But why had Doreen disguised herself? Who were the people she feared? And what, if anything, did they have to do with Aggie and with Randy Creeley?
Edie was watching me. Pushing Randy from my mind, I concentrated on the reading. At one point Mindy left the pew to help her two little girls, who were staggering under the weight of an enormous, beribboned wicker basket as they tottered up the aisle and handed out the blue voile bags Zack's mom had filled with Jordan almonds and fruit gems and other candy. The candy symbolizes the wish for a sweet life. The almonds represent fertility, although if the Torah reading didn't conclude soon, I thought, I'd probably be too old to conceive.
Ten long minutes later Simon finished.
“Let's go.” Edie stood.
With a swishing of clothes we all filed out of the pew and crowded in front of the five-foot-high
mechitza.
Parting the panels of the ivory lace curtain at the top, I stole a glance at Zack, sitting on his high-backed chair on the platform at the front of the room. I was hoping he'd look my way, but he was facing the congregation.
Ron was staring at me. He winked when we made eye contact. In spite of what he'd told Joey, I wasn't surprised by the wink, or by his presence. As I mentioned, he's on the shul board. Plus his ego probably hadn't let him stay away.
Look at me, see how cool I am even
though my ex-wife is marrying my high school pal.
I cast a quick glance behind me and was relieved to see that my ex-mother-in-law wasn't there.
I was reflecting on how difficult this day must be for Ron's parents, who have always been pleasant to me even after the divorce, and for Ron, too, despite his bravado, when the cantor bellowed Zack's Hebrew name with the pomp you'd use to introduce a Vegas headliner.
My heart racing, I watched as Zack, looking oh so debonair and sexy in a navy suit and Zegna tie I'd helped him pick, made his way to the center of the room and the bima, the elevated table where the Torah scroll is read. Once there, he turned toward me. Our eyes met. For one moment it was as though the world had stopped and we were alone in the large sanctuary. Then he unfolded the fringed white
tallit
I'd bought him, draped it around his broad shoulders, and recited the blessing.