The Silent Bride

by Glass, Leslie

  "Dan, Vic." Mike held out his hand, and the three men shook. Vic greeted April in a similar fashion.

  "Sergeant. Long time."

  "Good to see you," April replied.

  Handsome Dan looked her over. "Always good to work with the best," he said curtly. "Nice outfit," he added, awarding her a quick smile.

  By the time April smiled back, he was already past the small-talk stage. "What do we got?" he asked.

  Mike answered. "One homicide, two injuries, and a nightmare scene. Did you know it was a wedding party?" Mike pointed at the building. "A hundred and fifty people were seated in there. The wedding march was playing. Never been any trouble here, so there was no security—" He shrugged to shake off some tension.

  "How many people went in? You?" Dan interrupted before he could go on.

  Mike held his hands out, palms up. "Not me. I'm just relaying the pertinent here. Girl was shot in the back. First officers on the scene went in. Chaos in there. Panic. EMS went in to work on her. A lot of people were moving around, trying to get out...."

  "Okay, been there, done this." He was impatient to go in and look.

  "You want to take a minute to hear, or not?"

  "Yeah, yeah, I'll hear."

  "It's better to have the picture." Mike combed the ends of his mustache.

  "Okay, I know. Go ahead, give me the picture."

  "The shooter must have come in after everybody was inside. But who knows, maybe he was one of them and ducked out. The lobby is a closed space. Our guess is he stood there for some time, several minutes at least, waiting for the bride to walk down the aisle. She was late." Mike glanced at April. It was all news to her. She had nothing to add.

  "As I said, he shot her just before she reached the altar. Maybe you'll get something off the doors."

  Captain D'Amato nodded seriously. "Definitely. We could get lucky. Magic is coming. Vic will stay. Who knows?" Now he shrugged. They were all big shruggers.

  April stood on the bottom step and let her thoughts wander over to the parking lot. Hundreds of people to interview in this case. She liked that. Somebody was going to know, and that individual who knew would tell her. Somebody always knew. A brother, a sister, a drinking buddy, a friend. There were very few killers who didn't scratch the itch to brag.

  This crowd in the parking lot was a particular windfall. A hundred and fifty guests well acquainted with the bride and groom. It wasn't going to be a mystery, she assured herself. They'd nail the killer fast, and the community would heal.

  April was absorbed in the bubble of her own thoughts. It was clear to her that this was no random killing, a child caught in the cross fire of a political act. More likely the shooter was someone close to the bride and her family, not a stranger. It had to be someone, unlike herself, who would fit in, not be noticeable. Someone who knew the way in and out, what moment to strike. Someone very, very close to her.

  Lost in her speculations, April suddenly realized that she was staring at a woman about her age wearing a pink-and-light-blue, large flower-print dress with long sleeves, many tiny tucks in the bodice, and a skirt that fell to her ankles. Around her neck was a thick collar of gold, and her hair was as black and thick as April's. The hair looked like a lacquered helmet, hard against the soft flesh of her face and the soft colors of the dress. There was something a little perplexing about it. The hair got April's attention.

  Skinny Dragon Mother was always complaining about her hair getting thinner and thinner, losing weight with the years as she was. Skinny's white scalp showed through; she hated that. Soon she would have only three, four hairs on her head, Skinny grumbled. It seemed like every week she bought more herbal medicine from a fake doctor to make her hair grow thicker.

  April slowly realized the hair of the woman in the parking lot was a wig, and one that happened to be not so different from the wigs strippers wore in bare bars. A big and brassy wig. Short but wide and high, and definitely sassy. April was further astonished that this woman's wig wasn't the only one. Lots of women were wearing them. She wondered if there was some cancer epidemic among them, and they'd all had chemotherapy.

  The woman's chin jutted defensively at April's scrutiny. April turned away, sorry that curiosity and surprise had shown in her face. She didn't want to be disrespectful. Forget the wigs. She had a job to do. She made a big show of searching in her purse for her notebook. She had long been in the habit of taking extensive notes. Every stage, every interview in an investigation, required reports called DD-5s. Some people found the writing a chore, but April was addicted to correctly documenting information so that later she could recover her process accurately. This was a requirement of the job, but she was even more thorough than most. She had private notebooks for her own private thoughts.

  On the operative level she worked for the DA and the court case that came down the road. Her particular investigative nightmare was not the squirmy stuff, finding the bodies, even touching them when she had to—although Chinese feared the ghosts of corpses and avoided contact with them as much possible. April's nightmare was more along the line of many months, even years later, having some defense lawyer cause her to lose face by losing the case in front of the DA and the jury. So she wrote everything down, even the tiny details of crucial first impressions that often got lost in an avalanche of information that came later when the parameters of an investigation invariably widened.

  Now she wrote down her time of arrival, who and what vehicles had been on the scene. It was Sunday. What was the significance of Sunday? The daughter of restaurant workers herself, she considered not only the cops on the scene, and the guests, but also the staff. How much of a staff did this temple have? Who was here today? Maybe some individual who worked here had a grudge. She knew that Jews hired non-Jews to work on the Sabbath, turn on and off the lights, lock and unlock the doors, clean up. What about them?

  Mike was still talking. "The other two injured individuals are both males. Possibly by bullets that went through the victim. This guy knew what he was doing. Hey, Ken, Artie, how ya doin'."

  Detective Kenneth Souter, a short, dark-haired, broad-chested, mustached thirty-eight-year-old with an intense expression showed up with Arthur Hayle, known as Bacon because of his large size, not his views or habits. Each carried two heavy black suitcases that contained the equipment. Ken particularly had received a lot of attention after he'd lifted a partial thumbprint from the back of a bench in Central Park. That partial was entered in the computer bank in Albany, and a match popped up of a guy who'd been arrested and printed for turnstile jumping. The print led to the arrest of the killer of four individuals in unconnected cases. Zero tolerance for quality-of -life crimes had led to printing everyone arrested for anything. It worked wonders to shake real criminals out of the trees and enraged everyone else printed for the small stuff.

  Mike finished his account. The commander and three CSU detectives immediately donned Tyvek overalls that covered them from head to foot and went into the building to evaluate the scene before a team of two would get down to work.

  The brass had finished their look-see and were getting ready to leave. One caught Mike's eye to call him over. A few minutes later, they were heading for their cars, and Mike jerked his chin at April.

  She moved to his side, and he touched her hand, sending a shiver up her arm. "The rabbi has some concerns. The chief wants you to work with him until Poppy gets here," he said.

  "Okay." April's face was unreadable, but she was surprised. Inspector Poppy Bellaqua was commander of the Hate Crimes Unit.

  Mike gazed over her shoulder. "You're on it. We'll get organized later."

  Usually April loved getting out of her Midtown North precinct detective unit for a high-profile case, but this one felt like a curse leveled at her. A young bride murdered in front of her husband-to-be, her parents, brothers and sisters, and friends. All reason rejected a crime so cruel. She didn't want anyone she loved to be tainted by it. Superstition! She shook off the selfish reaction
and obeyed the command to work with the rabbi.

  "I'm Sergeant Woo. I'll be working on the case with Lieutenant Sanchez," she introduced herself a minute later.

  Rabbi Levi was a small, ascetic-looking man in black robes. He did not look at her or respond.

  "Anything you need, any questions you have about procedure, I'll do my best to help," she continued politely.

  "Are you the liaison they were talking about?" He tilted his head as if the wind, not a person, were speaking to him.

  "For now, yes. Anything you need, you can run it by me and I'll see what can be done."

  At this the rabbi separated himself from the other men and gestured with a finger for April to follow at a short distance.

  "I do have some issues I told the officer—I don't know your ranks. Not the precinct commander. The heavy ... I think he was a chief." He waved his hand impatiently at his memory, letting the identification go. "Can we talk in my study?"

  "No, we can't go in. Crime Scene is not finished with the building yet," April said apologetically.

  "What kind of investigation is this?" he demanded.

  "It's routine," she assured him.

  "The killer came into the lobby, that's all. He shot through the door. I was there. Everybody was there. What routine could take the police into my study?" he asked softly.

  "I don't know that they will go into your study, Rabbi Levi. It's more a question of preserving the integrity of the crime scene."

  "Is that a cruel joke?"

  "Sir?"

  "You're telling me about integrity?"

  April rephrased. "They don't want people walking there, touching things until they're finished with it."

  "Everybody walked there," he said angrily.

  "Yes, sir."

  "Well, there is a side entrance. Can I use that?"

  "As soon as they say so."

  "And how long will that be? We have evening prayers... . The caterers want to clean up."

  "The reception was here?"

  "Yes, the party is always here."

  Ah. Then there were caterers, too. "I understand. Is there a particular time you need to pray, and if necessary is there another place you could pray tonight? This will take several hours at least." Maybe several days. She didn't want to tell him that now.

  "How many hours?"

  "It's a large space. Sometimes it takes as long as five hours. Sometimes longer."

  "Why so long?"

  "The Crime Scene Unit is very thorough. It can make a difference later."

  "What kind of difference? The harm's already been done." Then he threw up his hands in another gesture of impatient compliance and changed the subject.

  "That chief told me there is no way to prevent an autopsy."

  "No, it's the law with homicides."

  He managed to keep his eyes focused inward. "No way to oppose it?"

  "No. I'm sorry. I know how difficult it is. If it's any solace to you, the autopsy may help us find Tovah's killer. I know you want that as much as we do."

  "We have our laws, too."

  "I understand."

  "Our laws say she must never be alone. She must be cared for by us. Her father and mother want to stay with her. Her body must not be defiled. We must have her back today. We will bury her tomorrow."

  April blinked. These were impossible requests.

  "And we need her gown tomorrow," he said firmly.

  April didn't want to query the need for the gown and lose face by betraying her ignorance of unfamiliar customs. She pressed her lips together. The other things could be negotiated, but the gown happened to be evidence in a homicide. From the bullet holes, exact calculations could be made about the movement of the victim and the people around her when the shots were fired. The path of the bullets could determine where the shooter stood and even his height. Sometimes the prosecution even dressed a mannequin in the victim's clothes to make some point to the jury. A wedding dress would have profound emotional impact in a courtroom. They'd never get it.

  "We need the gown tomorrow," Rabbi Levi insisted. "No compromises. And the veil, too."

  A sudden fear that they intended to bury the poor girl in her bloody wedding dress brought April's fist to her lips. Such profound cruelty would be devastating for Tovah's ghost. No Chinese ghost would ever be coaxed into a peaceful afterlife with such a gruesome eternal reminder of her violent end.

  "And we need any other items of her clothing that were stained with her blood." The rabbi punched the air with his finger to show he meant it. The rabbi's shawl was bloody. Did that count, too? April wondered.

  She felt sick. She worked for the dead but had no authority to negotiate for peace in their afterlives. The Jews clearly had a different idea from the Chinese of how their dead should be treated. What could she say? Of course they would release the body as soon as they could, possibly as early as tonight if an autopsy could be done immediately. Forensic work had to be done on the dress, however. Sometimes it took weeks, and she'd have to check that with the DA's office. Items that pertained to a crime were always kept in a secure location, introduced into evidence in court, and not released until after a trial. If a suspect wasn't apprehended, they remained in custody indefinitely. She didn't know if returning any forensic evidence before trial would be possible.

  "I'll see what I can do," she promised. "Is this a religious requirement?"

  "Yes, absolute requirement."

  "I can contact the scientists at the lab to let them know about your time constraints," she said quickly. "But this may be an issue for the DA's office."

  "The girl has to be buried with everything that came out of her. We have to have all of her there. Anything else would dishonor her memory. Can I go into my study now?"

  "I'll ask," April promised.

  Five

  Three hours later April finished talking with the five valets. She'd taken down names and counted forty-two women wearing wigs. She'd spoken to ten snuffling, wig-wearing women in some detail. All ten were convinced the tragedy was another Arab plot. When questioned a little more deeply on the subject, they denied any possibility of the family's doing business or being acquainted with any Arabs, so their reasoning about how the Schoenfelds might have been singled out for an Arab attack remained unclear. She did not feel it was appropriate to ask about the wigs.

  As time passed and cars were swept for bombs, the guests from the wedding party went home. When all were finally gone, April and Mike marched up the steps to the tall front doors of the synagogue and entered the crime scene for the first time. Inside the doors, a carpeted lobby about ten feet deep spread across the width of the building. April slowly absorbed the site. A clump of dark stains on the light brown Berber carpet in front of the two middle inner doors suggested that blood from the victims had been carried out this far on people's shoes, or else the shooter had somehow cut himself.

  To the left, well away from the bloodstains on the main entrance path, Ken and Vic had made a little "trash pile" of their used materials so that items they'd brought to the scene wouldn't be confused with articles that had been there before they arrived. Empty film packs, blood-testing materials, used gloves, and soda cans sat on a newspaper blanket in the corner, indicating the CSU team had finished out here.

  To the right of the third pair of doors the lobby angled into a hallway like a backward L, wide enough to serve as a landing at the top of a sweeping circular staircase that wound back down to the ground floor. Mike chose these side doors near the stairs for his point of entry to the sanctuary.

  "Okay to come in?" he called out.

  "Who is it?" Vic Walters called, as if he didn't know.

  "Sanchez and Woo," Mike said, smiling a little at April.

  "You guys sound like some kind of fusion law firm. Yeah. But come around the other side and don't touch anything in my grid. I haven't done over there yet."

  Close to Mike, April breathed in the signature cologne that wafted deliciously from his shirt and jacke
t and was distracted for a moment. The spicy scent that April's father complained was a hundred times too sweet for a man used to set April's teeth on edge. A few times she'd tried to identify it at perfume counters. The aroma that permeated Mike was a deeper brew than bay rum, complex, but not as musky as patchouli. It evoked orange-lemon-jasmine-cinnabar-scented summer beaches, sex, and coconut-fruity drinks. None of which had Mike personally experienced growing up on 234th Street in the Bronx, which happened to be only a few miles east of where they were at the moment.

  "Uh-oh. This is going to be a marathon," she said.

  "Looks like." He touched her arm as if she needed reminding to step around the flagged areas on the floor. She knew he just liked touching her.

  Through the far left doors they entered both the least and most adorned house of worship April had ever seen. Compared to the show of fancy cars outside, this synagogue was not fancy. Like a younger version of the Lower East Side turn-of-the-century immigrant synagogues, this could not be favorably compared to the uptown temples April had seen in Manhattan. Its auditorium had plain, even dingy walls, unexceptional windows, standard wooden pews, and a raised stage. On the stage were eight armchairs covered with shabby needlepoint, a wooden altar, an ark that April knew housed their Bible (written in the Hebrew alphabet and rolled into a scroll). She'd had a case in the Fifth Precinct years ago involving the burglary of an old man who sold them, so she knew what they were. Above the ark was a Jewish star and the flickering light they called the eternal light. This much about Judaism April knew.