The Ritual Bath

18

Dry cleaner number one was owned by a Korean couple surnamed Park. They barely spoke English and didn’t seem to understand a word Decker was saying. The only other person who worked for them was a black woman of fifty named Lilly. Decker spoke to her. The voice didn’t match. He scratched the place off his list.

Number two was owned jointly by two white couples in their mid-thirties. They worked alone, and neither of the women’s voices matched the anonymous girl on the phone. Onward.

At the Ti-Dee-Rite Launderette he got lucky.

The place was in a small, shabby shopping center with a 7-Eleven on one side and a donut shop on the other. He parked the unmarked between a souped up ’58 Chevy and a Ford flatbed, and took out a sack of dirty laundry. If nothing else panned out, at least he’d have clean undershirts.

The laundromat was large. The central floor space was taken up by sixty Speed Queen machines. On the rear wall were a coin-operated soap dispenser, a laundry bag dispenser, and a bill changer. Directly in front of the machines were three free-standing tables for sorting and folding. The left wall had twenty built-in industrial dryers; the right held ten more dryers, four extra-large washers for bedspreads and rugs, and a pay phone. A couple of women sat on orange plastic chairs and waited for the wash cycle to finish, biding their time by thumbing through out-of-date magazines. A young man with a harelip loaded wet clothes into a dryer. A few other people were busy at the machines. In a corner sat a woman in her mid-twenties. Her face was round, almost pleasant, but marred by tight, thin lips. Her arms looked abnormally short, almost dwarf-like. She was wearing a name tag. Decker couldn’t read the name but could make out the word MANAGER written underneath in bold black letters.

He walked over to an empty washer and loaded the clothes. Closing the lid, he placed some coins into a slot and fed them into the machine. When the washer didn’t kick in, he started banging it furiously. Immediately, the manager got up and came over.

“Take it easy, mister!” she scolded.

Decker grinned inside.

“Stop hammering the thing to death. What’s the problem?”

Her name tag said Rayana Beth Mathers. Hello, Rayana.

“The thing’s broken. It ate my money.”

Slowly, Rayana eased back the slot.

“You put in two quarters and a nickel. You need two quarters and a dime.”

She pronounced “quarters” as “quarters.”

“You’re from Boston?” Decker asked, smiling.

She smiled back.

“You got a good ear for accents, huh?”

He nodded and stared at her. She lowered her head coquettishly, then looked up at him. Her face suddenly blanched, and she tried to take off. Decker grabbed her arm.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Leave me alone. I want a lawyer.”

“Why on earth do you need a lawyer, Rayana? I just want to talk to you.”

“I’ve got nothing to say.”

“Well, then just listen.”

“Take your hands off me!”

A few patrons turned around, curious looks on their faces.

“You’re attracting attention,” Decker whispered.

She stopped struggling in his grip.

“That’s better,” Decker said, not releasing her arm. “Now, how’d you know I was a cop?”

“You look like one.”

“Then how come you didn’t make me for one right away? What was it? Did you suddenly recognize my face? My voice?”

“Maybe.”

“Let’s sit down, Rayana.”

“Just let go of my arm, okay?”

He complied, and again she tried to run off. He latched onto her other arm.

“What the hell are you trying to do?” he said softly.

“I don’t know anything.”

“Know anything about what?”

“Know anything about anything. Leave me alone.”

“Let’s just talk about the phone calls.”

“What phone calls?”

“The phone calls you made to me.”

“I didn’t call you up.”

“I’ve got some voice prints that say you did.”

“Bully for you.”

“Come on,” Decker said, leading her to a plastic chair. He sat her down and pulled up another chair. “Rayana, you called me because you were concerned about something. You know something, and you’re too scared to tell anyone. Come down to the station with me. I’ll get you a lawyer, and we’ll make a deal. I guarantee we’ll deal with you. You turn state’s evidence, and you’ll not only walk out a free bird, you’ll be looked upon as a hero, Rayana.”

She thought about it for a moment.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” she said finally.

“Rayana, we’re very close to catching this guy. If we do and you’re implicated in any way, you’re going to be in deep shit, honey.”

“I honestly don’t know anything.”

“C’mon. I’ve got your voice prints. Let’s cut the crap.”

“Okay, okay,” she sighed. “I called you a couple times, okay? Maybe I was curious about something, okay? That doesn’t prove I did anything wrong. Or prove I know something.”

“How’d you know about the shoes, Rayana?”

“Maybe I knew this guy once who liked shoes.”

“What’s his name?”

“I forgot.”

“Come on!”

“I don’t know anything about any rapes. I don’t know anything! Wanna arrest me? Arrest me. I don’t know anything. I called you and asked you about shoes, and that’s all I did, and so far as I know, that ain’t a crime.”

“Harboring felons is a crime. Withholding material evidence is a crime.”

“I’m not withholding or harboring anybody.”

“Who’s the guy you know that likes the shoes?”

“What guy?”

He was losing her, damn it!

“Take a look at these, Rayana.” He pulled out some snapshots. “Take a good look.”

She gave a tentative glance to the first one, then pulled her head away.

“No, come on. Stare at these for a while. I want you to see what you’re protecting.”

She flipped through the photographs, and a look of nausea passed over her face.

“One woman was raped and sodomized so harshly that the membrane between her vagina and anus ruptured. She came down with a massive cross-infection and had to have a hysterectomy. The woman was twenty-one, Rayana.”

“That’s too bad.” She handed the photos back to Decker. “But I don’t know anything.”

“I’m going to have to pull you in for questioning.”

“Go ahead.”

Tenacious little bitch.

“Let’s go.”

“Is it gonna take a long time?”

“Probably.”

“I’d better phone the owner and tell her.”

“Go ahead.”

She made a quick call.

“She should be here in a few minutes.” Rayana sighed dejectedly. “Man, she was pissed. I think I woke her from her nap.”

Decker flipped his wrist and checked the time. “She’d better be speedy.”

“Let’s just go.”

“You don’t want to wait for her?”

“Hell no! You think I want her to see me being led outta here by a cop. Let’s just get it over with.”

Decker escorted her out to the unmarked. He forgot his laundry.

“They let her go?” Fordebrand asked.

“Yeah. Nothing to hold her on. Not a goddam thing. Usually someone who’d bother to call would be aching to confess, but she closed up.” Decker thought for a moment. “Maybe she was afraid of implicating herself and didn’t believe it when we offered her immunity. Hell, maybe she’s involved.”

“You have reason to suspect her?”

“Nothing concrete, damn it. She was a loss.”

“She’ll be back,” Fordebrand said. “She’ll just have to get pissed or worried enough. Then, like a homing pigeon, she’ll be back.”

“Yeah. But in the meantime the asshole rapes someone else. Hollander is tailing her, trying to find out who her companions are. Maybe she’ll be stupid and lead us to someone.”

“You want to grab a steak somewhere, buddy?”

“Sure, just let me check for messages.”

He walked over to his desk and found a manila envelope sitting atop a pile of mail. The name and address were typed on a separate piece of paper and taped to the front side of the parcel. “Detective” was misspelled.

“When did this come in?” Decker said out loud to no one in particular.

“I don’t know,” Fordebrand said.

“Around noon,” MacPherson answered. He was a black robbery detective-a ladies’ man who quoted Shakespeare and Bacon. “While you were playing Eliot Ness with the cleaning maiden. It’s already gone through bomb squad. You’re safe.”

“What the fuck…? There’s no postage on it. Did it come through the mail?”

“Why don’t you open it up, Peter?” MacPherson said.

Decker gingerly broke the seal and gently dumped the contents onto his desktop. Out fell a plastic sandwich bag with something wrapped inside and a typed note. It read:

Check this out in the killing of the fat black bitch at Jewtown.

Decker didn’t even bother to unwrap the contents. He picked up the phone and called the crime lab.

He had a steak, fries, salad, and a beer with Fordebrand, then went home and slept for a couple of hours with Ginger curled at his feet. When he woke up it was nearly six P.M. He’d made an appointment earlier to speak with Stein and Mendelsohn. It was getting late, and he’d have to move it. Before he left the ranch he fed the animals and phoned the station.

The bag had contained a bloody, unwashed buck knife. The handle was bone with a metal ID tag insert. The name on the tag was Cory Schmidt. Preliminary blood typing and fiber analysis showed Marley’s blood on the knife and beige threads from her uniform. Marge had already requested a search warrant for Schmidt’s house and an arrest warrant for Schmidt, but so far they’d been unable to locate Cory or his friends. They were still looking. Decker left a message that he was going to do his interviews and to beep him if he was needed.

Well, golly! How convenient! Who the hell would want to set up Cory? His friends? The real murderer? But how would the real murderer know about Cory as a suspect? Unless he was an insider in the yeshiva and knew that Cory had pulled a knife on Rina. The interviews suddenly seemed more pressing.

Shlomo Stein sat hunched over a volume of Talmud. He’d been sitting that way since Decker started the interview a half hour before. His eyes remained fixed on the text in front of him, but the fidgeting of his hands and the shaking of his leg were giveaways; his mind was decidedly elsewhere. His beard was black and heavy and trimmed to a Van Dyke point a couple of inches below his chin. He wore a white shirt with sleeves rolled up to the elbows, a pair of black slacks, and a large black velvet yarmulke.

Why the hell was he being so uncooperative, Decker wondered? What did he have to gain by being so outwardly contemptuous? Decker looked over the notes he’d taken, then said:

“I want to go over this again with you.”

“What’s the point?”

“Why don’t you let me be the judge of that?”

“You’re not a judge. You’re a cop. I have only one judge, and He’s the one I’ll ultimately answer to.”

“Well, right now why don’t you bear with me and answer my questions?”

Stein said nothing.

“You were studying the entire time with your partner when Florence Marley was killed?”

“Yes.”

“The entire night?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t leave the classroom?”

“No.”

“To get a breath of fresh air?”

“No.”

“To get something to eat? To go to the bathroom?”

“No.”

“You put all your body functions on hold for twelve hours, Mr. Stein?”

“The learning of Torah liberates one to the point that one forgets such banalities as body functions. The words of Hashem envelop and whisk one out of the corporeal and into the spiritual. I was trying to soar above my meager earthly existence and grow close to Hakodosh Boruch Hu. Of course, you couldn’t understand that.”

“What I do understand, Mr. Stein, is that while you were spreading your heavenly wings in holy ascent, Florence Marley was hacked up by some psycho. It caused quite a commotion out there-all the people and noise. You didn’t hear a thing?”

“I was learning.”

That was supposed to explain it all.

Decker tapped his pencil against his note pad. He ached to break through the man’s holier-than-thou attitude. The hell with it.

“How’d you go from pimping to praying, Scotty Stevens?”

Stein burned with a rage that glowed on his face.

“Why don’t you crawl back into your anti-Semitic sewer, Detective, instead of raking innocent Jews over the coals? I know what you’re doing. You’re trying to be a big sheygets hero to impress a woman who is unattainable to you. You’re a goy, Decker. She’d rather be raped by a scum-of-the-earth Jew than let you touch her. Ask her. Ask her what’s halachically correct.”

“Why? Are you the scum-of-the-earth Jew who tried to rape her?”

“Crawl back into your gutter,” Stein mumbled, then returned his eyes to his book.

“So no one can attest to your whereabouts except Shraga Mendelsohn-your partner.”

“Yes.”

“Did Mr. Mendelsohn ever leave you alone to attend to his bodily needs, or was he also imbued with the holy spirit?”

“I don’t remember. Why don’t you ask him?”

“I will, Mr. Stein. And if there are any inconsistencies, you’ll hear from me again.”

“I don’t doubt it,” Stein growled. “Amalek always has a way of rearing its ugly head.”

Decker scribbled down “Amalek” in his note pad, then stuffed it in his breast pocket. He’d ask Rina what the word meant. He hated insults he didn’t understand.

“I don’t know what I can tell you that Shlomi hasn’t already said. We were together the entire night.”

“Just a few questions, Mr. Mendelsohn.”

“Well, let’s get going. It’s almost time for mincha.”

Mendelsohn rocked back and forth, avoiding Decker’s eyes, and bit into an already chewed-up left thumbnail. Behind a full blond beard was a youthful, handsome face. Smooth complexion, light blue eyes, straight thin features that were almost too delicate. His black hat covered most of his hair, but a few blond strands managed to peek out from under the rim.

“Did you ever leave Mr. Stein alone?”

“Alone? No.”

“Not to get something to eat or to go to the bathroom?”

“I might have gone to the bathroom. Oh, I called my wife to tell her I wasn’t coming home.”

“When?”

“I don’t remember the exact time: Early, around eight I guess.”

Mendelsohn chomped on the cuticle of his thumb. A tiny red rivulet began to ooze out. He sucked up the blood and moved onto his index finger.

“How long did it take you to make the phone call?”

“I used the pay phone in the main lobby. Maybe I was gone five minutes. Not long enough for Shlomi to disappear, murder, and return. And I wasn’t gone long enough to murder and return. I don’t know why you’re bothering us like this.”

He screwed up his face and clenched his hands.

“I do know. It’s because of Shlomi’s record. Well, he can’t make his past go away. But I’ll be damned if you’re going to use it against him in the future. I don’t care what Rina told you about him, he’s changed. She had no right to say anything to you. To talk to a…an outsider.”

Decker ignored him.

“You were studying with him the entire time?”

“Yes.”

“Do you two ever do anything else together besides study?”

Mendelsohn looked blank.

“Like what?”

“Hobbies. Fish, for instance. Do you two ever talk to each other about secular things?”

“There is nothing else besides Torah. All other things are nahrishkeit.”

“Well, what about your family, your wives?”

Mendelsohn’s face registered confusion.

“What about them?”

“Are they nahrishkeit?”

“Of course not! They’re part of Torah!”

“Do you talk to your wife about Torah?”

“No. Well, yes. As it pertains to the household, to the raising of the children. But we don’t learn together.”

“Why not?”

Mendelsohn giggled to himself.

“You don’t learn Gemara with your wife, Detective.” He shook his head. “Ayzeh goyishe kop.”

“So your wife knew you were learning all night.”

“Yes.”

“And it didn’t bother her to be left alone?”

“Of course not! She supports it. Why else would I be in kollel if she didn’t approve? My Torah learning is her salvation also.”

“And you called her around eight?”

“What are you trying to prove? That I murdered a black woman that I’ve never met and used the phone call to my wife as an alibi? Detective, Jews don’t murder, Jews don’t rape. Your people murder and rape, not mine.”

“Do you believe in the Ten Commandments?” Decker asked.

“Of course.”

“That they are God-given laws?”

“Yes.”

“And God gave them to the Jews?”

“Yes.”

“And the Jews He gave them to were considered righteous men and women?”

“What are you getting at?” Mendelsohn asked, gnawing at his right thumbnail.

“Simply this. If God was so sure that righteous Jewish men and women wouldn’t murder, why did He bother with the sixth commandment?”

The thumb began to bleed.