My eyes teared up and I wondered about my father’s funeral. Had anyone spoken in my place? Had my cousins been there, had they wondered about my absence?
One by one, Epstein’s family and close friends stepped up to sprinkle dirt over the coffin, and I had to turn away because of how deeply the experience affected me. I had not been there to speed my father along on his journey to the afterlife, and I would forever feel that pain.
I stood beside an elaborate tombstone dedicated to Philip Gross, “husband, father, grandfather and Holocaust survivor.” Beneath it was inscribed “Never Forget.” I heard the sound of the Kaddish prayer, and then the gears grinding as Epstein’s coffin was lowered into the ground, quiet sobbing coming from the family.
It was difficult to compose myself, and I took a couple of deep breaths and wiped the tears away from my eyes. I turned to find Saul Benesch approaching me. He wore a khaki trenchcoat over a dark suit, and he seemed somehow smaller than I remembered.
“It’s a terrible thing,” he said. “We’re not safe in our own houses anymore.”
“Did you know Mr. Epstein for a long time?”
“From the old days,” he said. “I had trouble with the Hebrew for my Torah portion, and he coached me. He was a mensch, even back then.”
“Was this at Shomrei Torah?” I asked.
Benesch nodded. “I was raised Orthodox, but my wife, may she rest in peace, was an Italianer, a Catholic. The only rabbi who would marry us was the one at Shomrei Torah, so we joined here.”
“The Jewish community back then must have been very close,” I said. “Did you know Mr. Feinberg back then, too?”
He shook his head. “Aaron? He’s a baby. I knew his father of blessed memory—he was a big macher at Shomrei Torah when my wife and I joined. But Aaron is fifteen years younger than I am. It wasn’t until he came home from college and got involved in the temple that I got to know him.”
The family left the gravesite and began to walk toward their limo. “You’re going to the son’s house for shiva?”
I shook my head. “I don’t... I can’t...”
Benesch put his hand on my shoulder. “It’s all right,” he said. “We each grieve in our own way.”
I watched him walk slowly back toward the line of parked cars, and then turned to walk toward where my parents were buried. When my mother passed away, my father bought a joint headstone and had everything engraved on it except his date of death. He had also bought a pre-need package that paid for all the expenses of a coffin, opening the grave and so on.
I thought it was morbid at the time, but when he died I was grateful that I could handle everything long-distance. Now I stood in front of the grave and looked at the stone. “Levitan” was engraved at the top, with my father to the left and my mother to the right.
I realized that was the way they’d always slept in the wood-framed double bed they had bought, along with a whole bedroom suite, soon after they married.
A tilted water pitcher had been engraved above my father’s name, with the words “Husband, Father” beneath it. Our last name implied that we were Levites, from the ancient clan whose members were responsible for washing the hands of the priests at the Temple in ancient days.
As is common for women, a candelabra was above my mother’s first and maiden names – Sylvia Gordon – with “Wife, Mother” beneath it.
What would my stone say? I was no one’s husband, no one’s father. I wasn’t a Holocaust survivor like Philip Gross. What would stand for my life?
My eyes teared up again. Where would I go, when my time came? A single plot there in the same cemetery? Would I be buried beside Lili? If we didn’t marry, we’d need separate stones, wouldn’t we? Was it too early to consider buying the plots?
Maybe Lili would want to be in a cemetery with her parents. Her father had been buried somewhere in Miami; I knew that she’d gone to visit his grave while she was there to look after her mother.
I shook off those grim thoughts. I found a pair of small pebbles and placed on one each side of my parents’ headstone, in the Jewish custom. As I was walking back to my car, the rabbi intercepted me.
“Have you learned anything from Joel’s emails?” he asked.
I told him about the man Joel had corresponded with, who went by the moniker NotwhoIthinkIam.
“From some details in his messages, I have the impression that this person lives somewhere in Trenton,” I said. “Have you spoken to anyone in the congregation who had similar concerns?”
“Not that I can recall. Do you think this is the person who killed my brother?”
“That’s a big leap, Rabbi,” I said gently. “Right now I’m just following leads.”
He nodded. “I appreciate that. It’s just... officiating at this funeral, when Daniel Epstein died a violent death just like Joel, I can’t help but think of him.”
He looked at me as if the connection had suddenly appeared to him. “Do you think the same person could have killed both of them?”
“I don’t know. There are certainly connections – for example, that document in Yiddish that I found in the ruins of Shomrei Torah, where Joel had been camping. Daniel translated it for me. But it’s also possible that Daniel was the victim of some kind of home invasion, as scary as that sounds.”
“It’s times like this that I have to remind myself that everything that happens is part of God’s grand plan,” he said. “Even if His purposes are unclear to us.”
I remembered my conversation with Rick about how a benevolent God could have allowed a tragedy like the Shoah to happen. “That’s the definition of faith, isn’t it?”
He smiled. “Maybe you should lead the Talmud study sometime.”
“Oh, no, I’ll leave that to you,” I said. “You’re continuing the group, aren’t you?”
“Of course. I have to believe that it is what God would want.”
We shook hands and he strode back to where the line of cars was snaking its way out of the cemetery.
I looked around me at all the graves and stones, those with an accumulation of pebbles on the top and those that looked like they had been ignored, that there was no one left to mourn those who had been interred there. I felt a sense of peace wash over me. The Jewish people had survived centuries of slavery, persecution and exile. Trenton, while by no means a garden of Eden, was at least a place where these souls could rest.
Could there be rest, though, for Daniel Epstein, for Joel Goldberg, Rabbi Sapinsky and Myer Hafetz, if we did not know the truth of what happened to them?
That, it occurred to me as I walked back to my car, was where I came in. Was I terminally nosy, as I often wondered? Or was the curiosity I felt about solving crimes really God’s hand moving through me?
Either way, I still had more investigating to do.
24 – Good Men
When I got home from Daniel Epstein’s funeral I went back to the file I’d created on my laptop and added in the information I’d gotten from Saul Benesch. He had known Daniel Epstein when they were children, both studying at Shomrei Torah, which meant he knew Rabbi Sapinsky.
Lili and I had plans to go out to dinner that evening with our friends Gail and Declan, so I pushed aside my research and we drove up to Le Canal, a French restaurant in New Hope. On the way I asked, “How is your mother today?”
“Complaining about the food at rehab. It has no flavor and there isn’t enough of it. Sara has been making empanadas but they aren’t as good as the ones my mother makes.”
“So basically she’s back to normal,” I said. “That’s good.”
We met Gail and Declan in the parking lot. She was a young blonde in her late twenties who had grown up in Levittown, gone to the Culinary Institute of America, and snagged a prime job as a pastry chef in New York. When her mother was diagnosed with cancer, Gail had moved back to Bucks County to look after her, and eventually opened the Chocolate Ear café in the center of Stewart’s Crossing.
Declan had known her back
then, when he was an MBA student at Columbia, but she was dating his jerky roommate at the time, and he had to wait until she was free to make his move.
In New York, Gail had worked with the chef at Le Canal, and that connection was always good to get us comped something, an appetizer platter or a special dessert. And it was a lovely, romantic restaurant on the Delaware Canal, so it was good all around.
We sat at a four-top with a view of the river as evening drew around us. We chatted for a couple of minutes about the new dog-friendly annex Gail had added to the café, so that during the chill of winter or the heat of summer, you could spend time with your canine companion in comfort, avoiding health code restrictions about animals in food service areas.
The waiter brought out a platter of amuse-bouches, compliments of the chef—small rectangles of grilled salmon crusted with peppercorns. After he left, Gail grimaced. “I hate to turn down a gift of food, but don’t those look like little coffins?”
“You have a very active imagination,” Declan said, and Lili shot me a sidelong look. That was a trait she felt I had as well.
“Sorry, but I just heard that one of my favorite customers passed away and his funeral was today.”
“Not Daniel Epstein?” I didn’t have the same compunction about the food, and I speared one of the salmon rectangles and put it on my plate.
“You know him?”
“It’s a small town, my love,” Declan said, in his Kiwi accent. “Haven’t we figured out that everyone knows everyone else?”
“We’re not quite that inbred,” I said. “There are nearly ten thousand people in Stewart’s Crossing and I doubt any of us know that big a percentage.”
“But you knew Daniel?” Gail asked. “He used to come in the café quite often, always for a big mug of hot chocolate with sugar-free raspberry syrup, and a pain aux raisins.”
I’d never had Gail’s hot chocolate, but I’d tried the snail-shaped pastry studded with juicy raisins, so I figured Daniel Epstein had good taste.
“The last few times I saw him, he was looking more and more frail,” Gail said. “So I guess his death shouldn’t be a shock.”
“He didn’t die of old age.” I lowered my voice. “He was killed during a burglary at his house in Crossing Estates.”
Gail’s mouth opened. “That’s awful!” she said, and Declan took her hand. “Is Rick investigating?”
Rick and I often met at the Chocolate Ear, so both she and Declan knew him. “He is.” I sliced a piece of the salmon and put it in my mouth. The peppery coating was a great contrast to the smoothness of the fish.
“I wonder,” Gail said.
“About what?” I asked.
“He met several times with this woman, and I was surprised – she didn’t look like someone he would know.”
“Why did you think that?”
“I don’t know. She was young, only in her late teens or early twenties, an African-American woman with this elaborate hairstyle, a coil of braids on top of her head that reminded me of Medusa and her snakes.”
I hadn’t noticed anyone of that description at Epstein’s funeral.
She shivered. “Maybe that was it, that evil-looking hairdo. I worried that maybe she was trying to romance Daniel or take advantage of him. He was such a good man.”
The same term that Rabbi Goldberg had used to me – a good man. I hoped that my goodness, such as it was, wouldn’t lead me to the same end as Daniel Epstein.
“You should tell Rick about her,” I said. “I’m not saying she had any connection to his death, but I’m sure Rick wants to know everyone Daniel was in contact with recently.”
Gail promised that she would, and we all focused on eating, and on more positive topics. Lili told us a funny story about Miami. Declan had been there on a business trip and he chimed in, and I zoned out for a bit, wondering when I would get to Miami and when I would meet Lili’s mother.
Would I ever call Senora Weinstock my mother-in-law? I’d finally stopped calling Lili my girlfriend—I just introduced her, or mentioned her, and let whoever I was talking with draw their own conclusions. We weren’t teenagers, after all, and the English language had yet to come up with an acceptable word for us to use. Companion sounded like a paid position, and partner was too businesslike. Most of the time it was used between same-sex couples.
Lili had suggested we use the Spanish terms “novio” and “novia,” which had a variety of meanings from fiancé to sweetheart. But this was Pennsylvania, and Spanish terms weren’t as well-known as they might be in Miami.
After dinner, we walked out into the parking lot together, and I held Lili’s hand. I’d enjoyed the meal and the chance to spend time with friends. But a chilly wind swept through the parking lot, reminding me that two men I had a tangential connection to had died recently. Would someone even closer to me be next?
* * *
It was seven-thirty the next morning, and I’d just gotten back from walking Rochester when my cell phone rang with Rick’s tone. I stuck the phone to my ear as I juggled pouring Rochester’s kibble into his bowl.
“Do me a favor?” Rick asked. His voice was raspy, as if he’d smoked a pack of cigarettes, though I knew he was too careful about his body to smoke. “I had to leave the house fast this morning and I didn’t get a chance to feed Rascal.”
“Sure. I can stop by on my way to work. Developments in a case?”
“Not exactly. I’m at St. Mary’s Hospital in Langhorne. In the ER.” He started to cough, and when he stopped he said, “My heart started going crazy this morning and I freaked out and called 911. They brought me here.”
“Jesus, Rick. You should have called me. I’ll feed Rascal and come right over there.”
“You don’t need to. They’re just running some tests. The doc thinks it’s just stress.”
“Even so. You’ll need a ride home when they’re finished with you.”
I scrambled upstairs, showered and dressed and told Lili where I was going. “Send him my love,” she said.
With Rick out of action, I knew what I needed to do. Before I left the house I retrieved my laptop with the hacking tools from its hiding place in the attic. I knew there had to be clues somewhere to the two murders in the past – and perhaps how they connected to the two in the present. I was tired of resisting the temptation to hack my way to a solution online. I had these skills, and someone needed my help. I’d put my conscience aside and see what I could find.
I fed Rascal and left Rochester there with him to keep him company. Then I picked up I-95 in Yardley and headed inland toward Newtown. In high school, when I’d stayed late for speech and debate club or the math team, I’d ridden the late bus home. It followed a wide path around Newtown, Yardley and Stewart’s Crossing, dropping off individual kids all around the area, and though I’d become familiar with all those back roads, many of them now were nearly unrecognizable as farms had been replaced with housing developments and shopping centers.
I parked in the garage at the rear of the hospital property and walked to the emergency room. The triage nurse at the front desk directed me to the curtained area where I found Rick propped up on a gurney. He wore a pale green gown in place of his shirt, and I could see leads attached to a heart monitor, and a regular up-and-down display on the monitor beside him.
“How are you feeling?”
“Better. As soon as I told the doctor what my job is, she decided it was some kind of stress-related thing. And I didn’t even get to tell her about the unsolved homicides.”
“Don’t worry about them. Focus on keeping your heart rate steady. When they let you out, you should call Tamsen. Take the day off and stay home with Rascal. Petting Rochester and playing with him always calms me down when I’m stressed.”
“Not sure the chief of police will see it that way.”
I sat on the stool beside his bed. “Things are slow at Friar Lake, so I’ve got some flexible time. Anything I can do to help you out?”
“Ask Rochest
er for a clue? Or use your online mojo to find me a murderer?”
“Working on it.” I told him about looking through Joel Goldberg’s emails and online posts. “There’s a guy I want to track down. He’s got a weird screen name, Not Who I Think I Am, and Joel’s been emailing him about Holocaust survivors in Trenton.”
The doctor returned then, a young Chinese woman who barely looked old enough for college. Her name tag indicated she was Dr. Chen, and she had a California surfer lilt to her voice.
I stood back as she scanned through Rick’s chart and then glanced at the monitor. “Your signs are all stable,” she said. “I can write you a prescription for an SSRI to relieve some of your stress, but the best thing you can do is work out ways to relieve it yourself.”
Rick nodded. “I know. Exercise. Play with the dog.”
“You’re single?” she asked.
“He’s almost engaged,” I said. “About to propose.”
“Are you experiencing stress from that situation?” she asked Rick.
He pursed his lips for a moment. “In a way. Not about the proposal, you know. I’m sure I want to marry Tamsen. Just making the time to do it right.”
“This is a good reason to spend some time with your almost-fiancée. Kissing and cuddling are great stress relievers.”
She electronically prescribed a medication for him. “I’ll have the nurse come in and disconnect you, and then you’re good to go.” She wagged a finger at him. “I don’t want to see you back here, Mr. Stemper. You take care of yourself.”
She left with a swish of her white coat.
“Have you called Tamsen yet?” I asked.
“I don’t want to worry her. Don’t want her to think I’m some sick old guy she’s going to have to take care of.”
“I doubt she’ll think that. And I’m sure she’d want to know you’re here.”
He looked at his watch. “Justin left for school a half hour ago, so she’s probably sitting at her kitchen table with a cup of coffee, reading email on her phone.”
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