“What about you?”
“Oh, they won’t find anything scandalous. I was always the good girl.” She smiled and opened the door. “Would you like me to show you the way out? It’s a large building, and you wouldn’t be the first visitor to get lost.”
“No, thanks.”
“Oh, right. You’re here to talk to Dr. McIntyre. So your trip won’t be wasted after all.” Again, there was a question in her eyes.
“Unless he needs parental permission.”
She surprised me and laughed. “Touché. We live in litigious times, Molly. I don’t like it, but it’s a fact. Are you talking to Dr. McIntyre for your story?”
“Background information,” I said. “The mystery of the teenager.”
“When you solve it, I hope you’ll share the secret. At school I pretend to know what I’m doing, but my two teenagers will tell you it’s all a facade. It was nice meeting you, Molly Blume. I’m looking forward to getting your questions, and to seeing you next week.”
Next week would be too late for Hadassah, who was counting the days before she went to the mikvah so that she could be intimate with a controlling man who joked about wanting a hundred thousand dollars and made allusions to suicide.
Maybe it wasn’t a joke. Maybe I should have let Connors think blackmail was involved. That would have given him a legitimate reason to search for Hadassah.
Chapter 18
Dr. Mendes left. I’d been prepared to dislike the woman who was giving Rabbi Bailor a hard time, but she’d seemed friendly, approachable. Of course, she had no reason not to be friendly to me, especially since I was planning to write about the students in her school.
I crossed the room and looked through the stack of yearbooks. Rabbi Bailor’s was among them. A yeshiva high school in Brooklyn. I flipped to the back and studied his senior photo. Charles Bailor. His dark hair reached almost to his shoulders, and he had a rakish air and a broad smile. I found other photos. One showed him on the basketball court, about to make a shot. In another photo he had his arms around a brown-haired cheerleader. I wondered when he’d changed his name to Chaim.
Next to the yearbooks was a box with a pile of clear plastic envelopes containing senior photos. I found the packet for Adam Prosser. He reminded me of Ron. It wasn’t just his good looks—blond hair, blue eyes. It was the air of confidence and entitlement. Or maybe I was attributing qualities to Prosser that weren’t there.
After glancing at the door, I pulled out the boy’s senior photo and a family portrait and made copies of both. I removed the originals and my copies, along with copies Dr. McIntyre had left in the bin. I separated my pages from McIntyre’s, returned his pages to the bin, and slipped my folded copies into my purse.
I was standing in front of the table with the yearbooks, the original photos in my hand, when I heard the door open. My back was to the door. I slid the photos inside the packet and turned around.
“Sorry, that took longer than I expected,” Dr. McIntyre said. “Rabbi Bailor told me you wanted to ask me about Hadassah. I’m anxious to help you find her, but as you probably know, I’m bound by therapist–patient confidentiality.”
“Actually, I’m not here to ask you about Hadassah. I wanted to talk to you about the man she’s with.”
McIntyre frowned. “I have no idea who he is. Unfortunately, even if I did know, I couldn’t tell you.”
“What if she’s in danger?” I said.
“Even then, unless I could say with certainty that she was in immediate, mortal danger . . . Hadassah ran away with this man. She told her sister she was safe. Rabbi Bailor hasn’t told me anything that would indicate otherwise.”
“Can we sit down, Dr. McIntyre?”
I pulled out a chair from one of the tables, sat, and waited until the therapist reluctantly did the same.
“Did Rabbi Bailor tell you about the note he received from this man, and the phone call last night?”
“He did.” Dr. McIntyre’s nostrils flared. “I saw the note. Rabbi Bailor feels that this man is taunting him, and I have to agree. He’s despicable. Scum.”
“What about the phone call?”
“That’s difficult to say.” McIntyre sounded thoughtful. “I heard the conversation third hand. We’ve all played the telephone game, Miss Blume. Words often change when conversations are repeated. So do connotations.”
“After I left the Bailors last night, I wrote down what Mrs. Bailor said.” I took my spiral pad from my purse and read my notes aloud.
When I had finished, McIntyre nodded. “That’s essentially what Rabbi Bailor told me.”
“So what can you tell me about this man?”
McIntyre shook his head. “I’m not an armchair psychologist, Miss Blume.”
“Just a guess,” I said. “I won’t hold you to it.”
McIntyre removed his bifocals and rubbed them with a gray cloth that he took from his pants pocket. “This is purely speculation, you understand,” he said, putting on his glasses. “As with the note, I sensed that this man enjoyed flaunting his control over Hadassah and, by extension, over the Bailors. He wants them to feel helpless. I’m sure you didn’t need me to figure that out.”
“Mrs. Bailor said he sounded angry and intense.”
“That may be true. Or she may have imagined anger. It would be difficult for her to be objective about this man.” McIntyre stroked his chin. “Also, he may have feigned anger to increase the Bailors’ anxiety and helplessness. I didn’t see his body language. I didn’t even hear the conversation, so I can’t comment on his tone.”
“The thing that struck me, Dr. McIntyre, is that he told Mrs. Bailor that he and Hadassah were planning to consummate the marriage on Monday. Why tell her that?”
“Again, to show them that he’s in control, that they can’t stop the event. For deeply religious parents like the Bailors, it’s like a ticking time bomb.”
“I agree. But what if on some level this man wants to be found before the bomb goes off?” I told him about the quote from Hamlet and the reference to Romeo and Juliet, about the song.
Dr. McIntyre was frowning. “You’re suggesting that he’s contemplating suicide?”
“Double suicide.” I let the doctor think about that. “It’s possible, isn’t it? You said yourself that this man has Hadassah under his control.”
The therapist pressed his lips together. “This is exactly why I don’t like speculating, Miss Blume.”
“The fact that Hadassah ran away with this man and is still with him suggests that she is under his control, doesn’t it?”
“That doesn’t mean that she would allow herself to be convinced to take her own life.”
“Maybe not by itself. But she was depressed about her friend’s death, and the deaths of two other teenagers she knew. Rabbi Bailor told me she’s been seeing you ever since Batya Weinberg died so suddenly.”
“I thought I made it clear that I can’t comment on anything Hadassah revealed during therapy. That includes anything related to Batya Weinberg’s death.” Points of red dotted the man’s cheeks.
“Teenagers are at high risk for suicide, aren’t they, Dr. McIntyre? I read about that all the time. It’s the third highest cause of death among teens. Suppose this man wants to kill himself and encourages Hadassah to do the same. If she’s in mortal danger . . .”
“You’re presenting me with a theory based on literary allusions and song lyrics,” McIntyre said. “Believe me, I would do anything to find Hadassah and stop this man from hurting her and other young girls.”
“But do you think she’s at risk?”
“Miss Blume, how many times can I say this? I can’t comment on Hadassah Bailor. What you told me isn’t enough for me to violate confidentiality. Even if I am worried about her, my hands are tied.”
The troubled look in his eyes, the tremor in his voice—both told me he was worried. I had gone fishing and wasn’t sure how I felt about what I’d caught. “So you do think Hadassah’s at risk.”
“I didn’t say that.” McIntyre’s tone was guarded.
“But you could say it is. I spoke to a police detective this morning. If you tell him you think Hadassah is at risk, either from herself or from this man, he might take steps to find her.”
“How? We don’t know who this man is.”
“I may have a lead.”
Dr. McIntyre inhaled sharply. “What lead?”
“I can’t tell you that. So will you talk to the detective?”
He didn’t answer right away. “You’re asking me to lie. I could lose my license.”
“We don’t know that it’s a lie. And if it helps us find Hadassah?”
“I need to think about this.” He drummed his fingers on the table. “If this man is contemplating killing himself, and having Hadassah do the same, why hasn’t he done it yet? What is he waiting for?”
“The consummation,” I said. “That’s what he told Mrs. Bailor.”
Having nothing to tell Rabbi Bailor, and something to conceal, I had hoped to leave without seeing him, but when I exited the lobby he was talking to several students. The conversation was animated. Rabbi Bailor was nodding and smiling. I wondered how he could function and act so normal, as if his world weren’t upside down.
Leaning against a black BMW, one of several cars double-parked in front of the school, was a brown-haired young man in his midtwenties. He looked familiar. For a second or so I couldn’t place him. Then I realized: He was number one son in the Prosser family photo.
I walked over to him. “I’m Molly Blume. I think I saw your photo in one of the old yearbooks. Your name is—?”
“Seth Prosser.” He sounded bored.
“Nice to meet you, Seth. You have a brother here, right? Adam? You may have heard that Rabbi Bailor is being honored this January at an educators’ conference. I’m talking to students and alumni to get background for a piece I’m writing about him.”
“Sorry. Not interested.” He checked his watch.
“It wouldn’t take long. Maybe five minutes. It’ll be painless, I promise.”
“What I have to say you wouldn’t print.” He straightened up and raised a hand. “Yo, Adam!” he called.
I turned and saw a group of students exiting the school. Among them was Adam Prosser. He waved at his brother and held up two fingers.
“Well, if you change your mind, Seth, give me a call.” I took a card from my wallet and handed it to him.
The rabbi was hurrying toward me, a principal turned father. I walked toward him.
“I’m sorry I couldn’t see you, Molly. I was meeting with a parent. Any developments?”
“Not yet.”
“Last night you said you had a lead.” He sounded petulant. “Can you be more specific?”
“No, sorry.” Telling him had been a mistake. “I did meet with Dr. Mendes. She said she’ll send out release forms for the parents on Monday.”
He grunted. “Monday is a year away. And who said Dassie’s friends know anything?”
Adam Prosser and his friends were approaching.
“Have a good Shabbos, guys,” Rabbi Bailor called to them over the honking of cars.
“You, too, Rabbi B,” one of the boys said.
The others did the same. Prosser nodded stiffly, but looked straight ahead. A moment later he gave his friends high-fives and got into the BMW.
“I’d better be going,” I told Rabbi Bailor. “Have a good Shabbos.”
He followed me to my car. “You’ll phone me right away if you find out anything?”
“If I can tell you something, absolutely.”
The rabbi frowned. “What do you mean, ‘If you can tell me something’? Are you keeping something from me, Molly?”
I forced a smile. “Now who’s nit-picking, Rabbi?”
The wind blew the bangs of my wig. I walked to the driver’s side of my Acura and opened the door.
The rabbi walked around the car. “You can’t even tell,” he said.
I looked at him. “What?”
“You said you had a fender-bender? I don’t see any damage.”
A liar, my grandmother Bubbie G says, has to have a good memory. “Not my car,” I said. “Zack’s car.”
The rabbi nodded. “As long as no one was hurt.”
I ducked my head and got into the car before he could see my flushed cheeks.
Chapter 19
I had spoken to Connors and to McIntyre. I’d given the psychologist my card and Connors’s phone number. Now all I could do was wait. I tried to put all that out of my mind while I stopped at Ralph’s supermarket on La Cienega for nonfat milk, GOLEAN Crunch! cereal, a bag of Hershey’s Kisses, and two pounds of fresh asparagus, which was on sale. The Molly Blume food pyramid.
I drove to Fairfax and Third and was pleased to find a parking spot in the usually overcrowded lot behind The Three Amigos discount produce store, where my family has been shopping for years. After navigating the narrow aisles and filling my cart, I chatted in my broken Spanish with the jet-haired, mustached clerk who rang up my purchases, including two bags of Clementine tangerines (Zack’s favorite) and a box of blueberries—out of season and expensive, but I love them, and not just because they’re high in antioxidants. When I opened my purse, I realized I’d left my checkbook on my desk before driving to Torat Tzion. The store doesn’t accept credit cards. I had almost no cash. Sighing, I put the $3.99 four-ounce box of blueberries back on the shelf.
The things you do for love.
I arrived home at a quarter to four, with less than an hour until Shabbat. I took a shower and shampooed my hair, mercilessly flattened from two days of wig-wearing, then blow-dried it into the tousled curls Zack likes.
Zack had done most of the Shabbos preparations. He’d unscrewed the refrigerator lightbulb, heated water in the electric urn, set the timer that would shut off the lights throughout the house tonight and turn them on again tomorrow in the late afternoon. On the Sabbath we don’t cook, or turn electricity or fire on or off. It sounds complicated and restrictive, I know. But except for a hiatus of several years after high school when I left Orthodox observance, I’ve been doing this all my life. And I look forward to being sealed off from the mundane activities of the world for twenty-five hours and reconnecting with my spirituality.
On the cloth-covered dining room table Zack had set a vase with yellow roses, and two silver candlesticks on a silver tray. I dropped a handful of coins into a silver-and-rosewood box—setting aside charity before the Sabbath is a helpful reminder to think of those less fortunate. Then I lit the candles, circled my hands above the flames three times to welcome the Sabbath and, hooding my eyes, recited the blessing and several additional prayers, including one for Hadassah Bailor.
The truth is, I didn’t want to think about Hadassah—where she was, and with whom. I didn’t want to worry about her, especially on the Sabbath, when there was nothing I could do. I told myself that Connors and Zack were probably right. I was investing too much in words, words Nechama Bailor may have misheard, words that nevertheless filled me with apprehension and dread.
Finally, I prayed that Zack and I would be blessed with a child. I’d had mixed feelings when I didn’t conceive the first few months of our marriage. A flutter of disappointment, a little relief, because we had just begun to learn our rhythms. A part of me had been loath to relinquish that special solitude. But I had turned thirty in April, and I wondered whether my failure to become pregnant when I was married to Ron—something I had viewed, in retrospect, as a blessing—had foreshadowed problems.
Zack was in the room. I hadn’t heard him enter, but I could feel his presence. When I opened my eyes he was standing next to me.
“Good Shabbos,” I said.
“Good Shabbos.”
He placed his hands on my shoulders, and we kissed. A sweet kiss, not a sexy one. Unspoken between us was the hope that my being two days late meant I was pregnant.
“You look beautiful. New sweater?” H
e touched my sleeve. “Soft.”
“Cashmere, on sale at Ann Taylor. Plus I had a coupon.”
He smiled. “I didn’t ask how much you spent.”
“You never do. But I don’t want you to worry. We can eat this week.”
Zack’s salary is generous, but L.A. is expensive. While we were lucky to find a fixer-upper in foreclosure (for the down payment, our parents supplemented our wedding gift checks and Zack’s and my savings, and I suspect that my dad did the remodeling below his cost), our monthly mortgage payment can float a small country. I contribute my modest earnings from my “Crime Sheet” column, freelance articles, and true crime books, but Zack has refused to use the dividends from the investments I made with my divorce settlement. Maybe one day, for our kids, he says.
I was in the bedroom, putting on a necklace, when Zack appeared in the doorway.
“Ready to go?” he asked.
“I have to get a hat. Did you put away the groceries?”
“I did.” He came up behind me. “Let me do that.” He took the necklace and closed the clasp, then moved my hair aside and nuzzled my neck. “Thanks for the tangerines.”
“You’re welcome. Thanks for the roses.” I turned and put my arms around his neck. “Please note that I gave up blueberries for you.”
“I bought you three boxes.”
“Three boxes is extravagant,” I said, feeling a rush of love. It’s the little things, I have learned, that often mean the most. “But so sweet.”
I took a hatbox from a shelf in the closet.
Zack leaned against the dresser. “By the way, how did it go with Connors?”
I told him. I also told him about my conversation with McIntyre.
“Good thinking.” Zack nodded. “You don’t believe the suicide thing, though, do you? You said that to get McIntyre to talk to Connors, right?”
“To be honest, I have a bad feeling about all this, Zack. But I don’t know if McIntyre will call Connors. And you may not think I’m so clever if Rabbi Bailor asks you about your car.” I explained what had happened. “I’m sorry. He caught me off guard, and I didn’t know what to say.”
Now You See Me... Page 11
