Now You See Me...

by Rochelle Krich

  And really, what was she waiting for? They could do this, cement their love and lives, or her parents would drive him away. He said that would happen, and he was right. Or she could die any day, like Batya or Noah or Lisa, who had counted on a hundred million tomorrows and were lying in their dark, cold graves.

  “We may never get another chance,” he’d told her. “Do you want to take that risk?”

  She would never tell him, but she wished she could have had a real wedding, like the one her mother was planning for Aliza. She would have chosen a simple A-line satin dress, and a pearl headband attached to a cathedral veil. She would have liked to sit on a thronelike chair on a stage, where she would greet guests and accept careful kisses and wait for him to lower the top layer of her veil. She would have liked to hear her father’s blessing, to feel his hands on her face, and his kiss. She would have liked to stand under a chuppa with a satin tallit roof, the family heirloom her parents had stood under and that Aliza and Gavriel and all her siblings would stand under one day.

  She would have liked to capture on film the moment when he put the ring on her finger, when her mother raised her veil so that Hadassah could taste the sweet wine. She would have liked to clasp his hand while she waited for the bandleader to announce them for the first time, “Mr. and Mrs. . . ,” to race into the ballroom and duck under a procession of flower-adorned arches held by friends who would be squealing their delight.

  She would have liked to dance with her mother and Aliza. She would have liked to be lifted high on a chair, nervous and excited, her hands gripping the sides of the chair—“Don’t drop me!”—as her friends carried her to the men’s side of the room and the raised chair on which he was sitting, waiting for her to come close enough so that he could stretch his hand and grab hers.

  She would have liked all of that, but the main thing, she told herself again, was that they had each other.

  Tonight she had waited anxiously in the other room while he talked to her parents. She’d been a little upset when he took the phone away, but of course, he had done it to protect her.

  “Let them take their anger out on me,” he’d said. He would take the blame for everything, and eventually they would come around.

  “What did they say?” she asked when he returned. Not much, he told her, but she could tell from the way he avoided looking at her and the tension in his voice that he was lying. “Tell me,” she insisted.

  So he told her the truth, that her mother had said they’d never accept him or forgive Dassie, that Dassie had brought shame to the family, who would marry her now?

  “My mother told me to come home,” Hadassah said. “My mother cried.”

  Sure, she had cried, because she wanted Dassie under her control. “Go home, if that’s what you want,” he said. “You have to choose, Dassie.”

  She didn’t want to choose, but he had sounded terribly sad, and she could hear that he was about to cry. She had never seen her father cry, or Gavriel, and she wasn’t sure what to say, what to do. And yesterday he’d been in a dark mood. “Leave me alone, I have to think things through.” She hadn’t known how to handle that, either, but an hour later he was fine.

  “I’m sorry,” he’d told her. “I’m so worried about you, about us, I want to give you the world and take care of you. You know that, don’t you?”

  He’d been in a dark mood before, when he’d seen the damage to the car. A tiny dent. You could hardly see it. She’d been embarrassed by how angry he’d been with the valet. A little worried, because his face had turned so white, and then beet red. “I wanted the evening to be perfect,” he’d said, “that’s why I was so upset.”

  He was really upset tonight.

  “Your parents offered me money to divorce you,” he told her. “A hundred thousand dollars if I disappear forever and swear not to tell anyone. Is that what you want, Dassie? Because if that’s what you want . . . Maybe you don’t love me enough, the way I love you. I would die a million deaths for you.”

  She slipped the ring back on her finger.

  Chapter 15

  Friday, November 19, 7:43 a.m., 3100 block of Holly-ridge Drive. Unknown suspects broke into a residence and stole the victim’s laptop, containing compromising pictures of famous actors and actresses. The suspects later fled the location.

  “Well, golly, Miss Molly, you’re up early.” Andy Connors swung his long, boot-clad legs off his desk. “Or should I should say Mrs. Molly?”

  “How are you, Andy?”

  “No complaints. I’d be better if I didn’t have so many cases, but that’s the story of my life.” He nodded at the stack of Blue Book binders on his desk. “Why do people decide to turn ugly right before the holidays?”

  “I think you just complained,” I said.

  “I did, didn’t I?” He chuckled. “So are you getting together for Thanksgiving with your whole mishpacha?” His flat Boston drawl gave the word a unique sound. “Did I say that right?”

  “Perfect.” Connors loves to use the Hebrew and Yiddish words he’s started to pick up. “Zack and I will be with our combined families. What about you?”

  “Dinner with friends. I’m doing the bird—a centuries-old Connors family recipe.”

  “Really?”

  “No. I clipped it from the Times.” He gave me a lazy smile. “Sorry I missed you last week, Molly, and the week before. Lately I seem to be out whenever you stop by for your crime fix. So are you still enjoying married life?”

  “Will you tease me again if I say it’s wonderful?”

  “Absolutely. It’s indecent for anyone to be that happy. Probably a misdemeanor. Seriously, it’s good to see you, Molly. You look beautiful, as always. Can I say that, or will your rabbi mind?”

  I smiled. “I think Zack can handle it.”

  “I hope you’re treating him right.” Connors exaggerated a frown. “You’re not dragging the poor guy into your investigations, are you?”

  “Zack doesn’t seem to mind. And I’m treating him very right.” The piña colada and Irene Jakaitis’s information had put me in a celebratory mood that had kept us both up past midnight. “Actually, I need a favor, Andy.”

  “And here I thought you were pining for my company.”

  “That, too.”

  “Liar.” Connors stood and unfolded himself to his six-feet-two. “Grab a seat. I’ll get us coffee. Medium or large?”

  “Large, please. Regular, not decaf. With cream.”

  I’d had one cup this morning but still felt sluggish. Unlike Zack, who has to be at shul by six most mornings, I’m not an early riser. But I hadn’t wanted to risk missing Connors, and I had to finish and e-mail my “Crime Sheet” column to my editor before noon.

  “As for the favor,” I said, “I’ll let you decide how big it is.”

  He laughed and loped off to the end of the detectives’ room. I pulled over a chair from the next table.

  I’d met Connors when I took over the “Crime Sheet” for a classmate from my UCLA journalism extension course, around the same time I began my first true crime book. That was over a year after Aggie was killed. Though I never articulated the thought at the time, I think I hoped that writing the column and examining true crimes would help me deal with the fog of grief, despair, and fear that shrouded my life after my best friend’s murder. If anything, my column and books have reinforced my fears and my despair about the violence that increasingly confronts us. But I have taken heart that in some of the cases I’ve researched for my books, and in others that I found myself investigating, justice has been served.

  And I did meet Connors. From the start he was more user-friendly than many of the LAPD detectives I’ve encountered (the nicer ones share photocopies of sanitized crime reports; the others force me to copy the crime data by hand), and despite those moments when my inquisitiveness has pushed Connors to the wall and turned his bantering to caustic criticism, I know he’s fond of me, just as I am of him. He’s in his late thirties, has curly brown hair with a
bald spot on his crown that doesn’t strip him of one ounce of sexiness, and looks better in tight jeans than a person has a right to, although Zack comes in a close second. I don’t know much about Connors’s personal life, just that he left an ex-wife in Boston some years ago, and a few months ago he let slip that he’d met someone. I hope she’s special.

  “So what’s the favor?” he asked when he returned, carrying two cartons filled with steaming coffee.

  “I’m hoping you can trace a California license plate for me.”

  He set the cartons on his desk, along with packets of sugar substitute and creamer that he dug out of his pockets. Then he sat down.

  “Why?”

  On the way to the Hollywood station I’d debated how much I could tell Connors without violating the Bailors’ confidence. Not much, I’d decided. But there was no way I could find the information without his help. And I wasn’t about to start lying to him, not even for Rabbi Bailor.

  “This is delicate,” I began, and realized I was using Jastrow’s word. “I can’t give you names, okay?”

  “Not okay. I can’t agree to do something before I know what’s involved, Molly.”

  “All right.” I tore open two packets of sweetener and stirred the contents into my coffee. “My friend’s daughter ran off with a guy she met in a chat room. The family doesn’t think she’s in physical danger, but—”

  “How do you know?”

  “They heard from her several times. The last time was yesterday evening.”

  “Go on.” Connors took a long swig of his coffee, which he drinks black.

  “My friend is anxious to find his daughter and persuade her to come home.”

  “How old is the girl?”

  “She turned eighteen a few weeks ago.”

  “So she’s an adult,” Connors said. “We’re not talking statutory rape. What’s so delicate?”

  “This is an Orthodox family, Andy. A young woman running away with a guy may not be a big deal in the general world, but for an Orthodox family, this would be a huge stigma if people found out.”

  Connors nodded. “So where does the license plate come in?”

  I told him what I’d learned.

  Connors huffed. “Unbelievable luck. I’ve been trying to get a lead on a double homicide for three weeks. You go for drinks and hit the jackpot.”

  “Not luck,” I said, annoyed. “An educated guess, deduction, and creative sleuthing.”

  “Whatever, Miss Marple. If you decide to give up your writing career, let me know and I’ll put in a word with Bratton. Scratch that. He’d probably make you my superior.”

  “So will you help me, Andy?”

  “I don’t know.” He swiveled in his chair. “What do you plan to do with the information?”

  “Talk with this girl and try to convince her to come home. Apparently, she looks up to me. Plus the family thinks it’ll be less confrontational if I talk to her. What?” I said when Connors frowned.

  “Suppose this girl doesn’t want to be found, Molly? Which is likely, considering that she’s okay and hasn’t come home. Maybe she doesn’t want to live a religious life. Her choice.”

  “It is her choice, but that’s not the case here. She is religious, Andy. She’s strict about her observance.”

  Connors raised a brow. “So she ran away with a guy she met in a chat room?”

  “From what I’ve learned, she’s feeling neglected and isolated and doesn’t have many friends. And she may be depressed. A classmate died last year of heart disease, and two other classmates died before that. Cancer and a car accident.”

  “Rough.” Connors tsked. “So I’ll ask you again, Molly. What if she doesn’t want to come back?”

  “I’m not going to tie her up and drag her home, if that’s what you’re worried about.”

  “Exactly. So what’s your next move? Are you going to tell the dad, ‘Sorry, your daughter’s happy shacking up with her boyfriend’?”

  Connors had me there. I took a long sip of coffee. “I don’t know. I guess I didn’t think it through.”

  “Would you give the dad the information?”

  “I haven’t thought about that.”

  “Well, think about it now. Suppose he tries to talk to his daughter. There’s a struggle, someone’s hurt.”

  I shook my head. “My friend would never hurt his daughter.”

  “In moments of extreme passion, people do the unexpected. You know that better than most people, Molly,” Connors said in the gentle tone he uses when he’s referring to Aggie. “And what if your friend decides to take out his anger or frustration on the guy his daughter’s with?”

  “He wouldn’t do that.”

  “You may be sure. I’m not. Or what if the boyfriend gets physical with the dad? In either case, if anybody gets hurt, whose neck do you think will be on the LAPD chopping block, Molly? FYI, the answer isn’t Tom Turkey.”

  “You’re right,” I said, glum. “Would you consider paying a visit to this guy, Andy?”

  “To what end?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe you could scare him into letting her go.”

  “Has he raped her?”

  “No.”

  “Has he assaulted her? Is he holding her against her will? Is she in any danger?”

  “Define danger.”

  Connors scowled. “Don’t play games.”

  “He’s brainwashing her. He intimated as much to the parents. And he’s controlling her. He’s threatened to cut her off from her family.”

  “He may not be Mr. Rogers, Molly, but from what you’re telling me, he hasn’t committed a crime and doesn’t plan to. And the girl is an adult. Unfortunately, there’s no law against stupidity.”

  “There’s something else.” I told Connors about the quote from Hamlet and the reference to Romeo and Juliet.

  Connors gave a little snort. “So he’s not an expert on Shakespeare, or he used the quote because the words fit his situation. Last I heard, Romeo and Juliet are still the epitome of young love.”

  “And the fact that he sent a note to the girl’s father with a reference to ‘What Becomes of the Broken-Hearted?’ ”

  “Jimmy Ruffin. I love his stuff. So?”

  I took the manila mailer from my purse and placed it on Connors’s desk. “The note’s inside, with some Chanukah chocolates. I was careful when I handled it, but my friend thought this was a little gift. He touched the note, but not the chocolates. He’s hoping you can run the prints, if there are any, and identify this man.”

  Connors took a pair of latex gloves from a desk drawer and slipped them on. Then he removed the note from the mailer and read it.

  “Your friend’s a rabbi, huh?” he said, looking up. “What’s a shekel?”

  I explained.

  Connors’s expression hardened. “This guy raped her?”

  “From last night’s phone, apparently not. The thing is, Andy, this girl may be married.”

  “She is or she isn’t, Molly. Unless she did a Britney Spears and changed her mind a couple of hours later.”

  “It’s more complicated than that.”

  I told him that there had been a ceremony and that Dassie had a ring, that we didn’t know if there had been witnesses, that the marriage hadn’t been consummated. Then I explained about mikvah.

  “I never heard of that,” Connors said. “People really do that? Go without sex for two weeks every month? They don’t even touch?”

  From his awkward tone, I figured that “people” included me. “The idea is to elevate the physical into the spiritual, to make marriage more than just about sex.”

  “Sex isn’t important?”

  “It’s very important. In fact, the marriage contract says the husband is obligated to give his wife pleasure. The two weeks when the couple abstains is supposed to make them feel like newlyweds, to heighten the anticipation and sustain the newness of the relationship.”

  “Abstinence makes the heart grow fonder?” Connors smiled.r />
  “Something like that.” I felt myself blushing. “I know virginity isn’t a major concern for many teenagers, Andy, but in Orthodoxy it matters a great deal. Very observant Jews don’t even touch each other outside of marriage. And suppose I am right, and this guy is contemplating a double suicide?”

  “You’re back to that? Shakespeare and Jimmy Ruffin.”

  “The song is morose, Andy.” I’m an oldies fan, too, and had heard the song countless times, but I’d looked up the lyrics online last night before going to sleep. “Broken dreams, happiness being an illusion. It’s about someone who can’t find peace of mind, who believes he’s lost everything and is doomed to an unhappy ending.”

  “Which probably fits half the guys in this station, but they’re not about to kill themselves. And there’s hope toward the end of the song,” Connors said. “The guy is determined to search for someone to care for him.”

  “But it ends with the refrain, which is all about despair.”

  “That’s your interpretation. It’s a song, Molly. It’s not a suicide note.”

  Zack had said that, too. “What if you’re wrong?”

  “What if I am? Suppose he does pull a Romeo. What makes you think she’d do a Juliet?”

  “Nothing,” I admitted. “But she may be depressed. She’s under this guy’s control, suggestible. . . . And what if he decides to kill her before he kills himself?”

  Connors grunted. “A hell of a lot of ifs.”

  He put the note back inside the bag and removed his gloves. I drained the rest of my coffee.

  “Did you tell the father about the car?” Connors asked.

  I shook my head.

  “What did you tell him?”

  “That I might have a lead on Ha—on his daughter. I phoned him when I got back from Yamashiro. I didn’t tell him where I’d been, or what I’d learned.”