The Big Nap

by Ayelet Waldman

  I nodded my head once, and rose from my chair. “If there’s nothing else, Detective, I’d like to get back to my husband and children,” I said.

  “Do you understand me, Ms. Applebaum?” Detective Black asked again, also rising from her seat.

  “Of course, Detective. Let me see you and your associate out.”

  I hustled the two of them out the door, then turned and walked through the apartment to Peter’s office, at the back of the house. Leaning out the window overlooking the back yard, I shouted “All clear.” As my family came clomping up the back stairs, I looked around Peter’s office. Every available shelf was covered with toys. Action figures, mostly vintage and all in near-perfect condition. Peter, an avid collector, was in for a rude awakening. Ruby had never paid Peter’s toys the slightest attention, but at some time in the near future Isaac was surely going to wake up to the bounty in Daddy’s office and tear that Major Matt Mason right out of its original 1969 blister pack.

  Twenty-four

  I decided to studiously ignore the police detective’s instructions and make some phone calls. I had promised both Ari and Yossi that I would let them know if I heard anything definitive about Fraydle. Her death was something pretty definite. I had my suspicions about Yossi, but I was fairly convinced that Ari was innocent of the murder. I couldn’t say the same about his uncles, however. I managed to find Ari at the yeshiva, and as gently as I could, I told him about his fiancée’s death. He was shocked into silence for a few moments. Finally, he spoke, “Perhaps this is a message to me.”

  “Excuse me?” I said.

  “Perhaps Ha Shem is sending me a message that I should not be a married man.”

  “Ari,” I said, “I don’t think God is sending you any kind of message. What I think is that some evil person killed Fraydle. I also think that you had better be prepared to tell the police everything.”

  Ari didn’t seem surprised that I’d ratted him out to the cops. On the contrary, he insisted that he wanted to help in any way that he could and asked me for the detective’s phone number so that he could call her right away. I had a sense that I didn’t need to worry about this young man. While confused, he seemed to have a deep sense of right and wrong. He was not only able but willing to take responsibility for his own actions. I had no idea what path he would choose, but I felt that he would ultimately lead a life he could be proud of.

  I couldn’t get through to Yossi, and decided to call Al Hockey instead, to give him an update. His wife told me that he was out at the municipal golf course but gave me his cell phone number.

  “Hockey!” he bellowed, by way of hello.

  “Hi, Al, it’s Juliet.”

  “Juliet? What the hell are you doing calling me on the golf course? Are you trying to ruin my swing?”

  I could always count on Al’s bluster to improve my mood. I told him about Fraydle’s death and my part in the discovery of her body.

  “Want me to make some calls, see what I can find out?” he asked.

  “That would be great,” I said. “I have a feeling the cops aren’t going to be particularly forthcoming with details of their investigation.” I recounted my experience with Detective Black.

  “I know the woman. She’s a real ball-buster.”

  “Al,” I said, warningly. The guy was anything but politically correct.

  “Hey, don’t get your panties in a twist. All I meant was that the two of you have a lot in common. I’ll call you later.” He hung up.

  AL called within an hour and offered to come over after dinner and tell me the little he’d found out. I was surprised at his willingness to drive all the way from Westminister, the small city on the way to Orange County that he called home, to my house in Hancock Park, but I was happy at the thought of seeing him in the flesh. It had been a while.

  When he arrived, my old investigator and my husband greeted one another a little uncomfortably. It wasn’t that they didn’t like each other. It was just that they were two different species. Al didn’t know quite what to make of my nerdy husband with the shaggy hair and sensitive-guy glasses who made his living writing movies about cannibals, homicidal androids, and teenage succubae. Peter hadn’t spent much time around middle-aged men with brush cuts and Marine Corps tattoos whose libraries contained pirated copies of the Zapruder tape and books with titles like The Trilateral Commission Exposed. The two men shook hands and made a few awkward comments about the Dodgers’ chances next season. Whatever would men talk about if it weren’t for sports?

  Turning to me, Al said, “So where are those kids of yours?”

  “Ruby’s asleep, or at least in bed. Isaac’s over there in his Johnny-Jump-Up.

  “Johnny-what-up?” Al said.

  “You know, that jumpy thing. Haven’t you ever seen one of those? It’s a kind of harness that hooks in a doorway and lets the baby jump up and down. He’ll stay quiet in there for hours.”

  As if to illustrate my point, Isaac sprang up and down a few times and laughed.

  “Interesting contraption,” Al said, walking over to Isaac.

  “You know,” I told him, “if you’d let your daughters get married, you might have a grandchild to buy one of those contraptions for.” Al was legendary for driving away potential mates for his three girls, all of whom still lived at home although they were well into their twenties.

  “Yeah, well, soon as one of ’em brings home a man instead of a degenerate pile a crap, excuse my French, I’ll be slapping down my checkbook for a caterer and a band. But honestly, Juliet, you should see these guys. Earrings. Nose rings. Nipple rings, for crying out loud!”

  Peter self-consciously covered his pierced left earlobe. “Um, honey, I’d better get to work, if you don’t mind,” he said.

  “Sure, babe. Hey, Peter, why don’t you show Al your bellybutton stud!”

  Al blanched and Peter rolled his eyes. “I do not have a stud in my bellybutton. Very funny, Juliet.” He walked out of the room.

  “Does he?” Al asked, obviously horrified.

  I smiled mysteriously.

  Suddenly, I remembered why he was there. “I can’t believe we’re sitting here joking around. Tell me what you found out about Fraydle’s death.”

  Al plopped himself down on the couch and swung his feet onto the coffee table.

  “Make yourself comfortable. Can I get you something to drink? Coffee? Tea?”

  “Tea?” he asked, incredulous. “How about a beer? Something American.”

  “I’ll check.” Rooting around in the fridge, I managed to locate an ancient bottle of Sam Adams from a party we’d had no more than a year before. I popped the top off and brought the bottle out to Al. “How’s this?” I asked.

  He took a long swallow, burped, and said, “Fine.”

  “What did you turn up?” I sat down in an armchair opposite him. I glanced over at Isaac, who was contentedly gnawing on one of the hanging straps holding him in the air.

  “I talked to Fat Rolly Rollins, a detective in the division that includes Hancock Park. He’s an old buddy. Obviously they have no official cause of death yet, but the M. E. on the scene said the girl had a broken neck. She also suffered some kind of blow to her head.”

  “Which of those killed her?” I asked.

  “No way for them to tell now, although Fat Rolly did say it looks like she could have died by falling down the stairs and hitting her head on the concrete floor.”

  “Falling down the stairs? And then what? Conveniently landing in the freezer, which then plugged itself in?”

  “Maybe she was pushed.”

  “Could someone have hit her on the head?”

  “I suppose so. All I can tell you is what Fat Rolly heard from the officers on the scene. The M.E. said it looked like a fall to him.”

  “Okay, what about time of death? Did the medical examiner have an estimate?”

  “Not even a tentative at the scene. He couldn’t guess at anything, because of the freezer.”

  “Did Fat
Freddy—”

  “Rolly. Fat Rolly.”

  “Did Fat Rolly tell you if they had any suspects?”

  “No, but Juliet, in cases like this they look to the family.”

  I knew that. Most murder victims die at the hands of someone they know, and the circumstances of Fraydle’s death seemed to point particularly to the members of her family. Her body had been found at home. Her parents had failed to notify the police of her disappearance. It certainly looked damning.

  I told Al about Ari and his uncles and filled him in on my latest experiences with Yossi.

  “So what do you want to do now?” Al asked.

  “I don’t know. Nothing, I guess.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “No, really. I’m going to let the police figure this out.”

  Al snorted. “Whatever you say, Detective. I’d better get going. I’m going to be late.”

  “Late? Where are you going?”

  “You think I drove all the way to this cesspool of a city just to see you?” Al asked. “No way. I’ve got a meeting.”

  “What meeting?”

  “Southern L.A. Basin Chapter of the Freedom Brigade,” he said proudly.

  “A militia! Are you out of your mind?”

  “Listen, missy, last time I checked, the Constitution of this great nation still guaranteed us the right to a well-regulated militia. I’m just doing my bit to keep that alive.”

  How could such a warm, loving guy with such an astute investigative mind be such a nut case?

  “Just promise me that you’re not a white supremacist, Al,” I said.

  He gave me a disgusted look. “Juliet, have you ever seen my wife?”

  I thought for a moment. “No, I don’t think I have.”

  “But you’ve seen pictures of my kids, right?”

  “Of course.” Al’s office was covered with pictures of his three, dark-haired, beautiful daughters.

  “Ever notice that my girls are biracial?”

  “What? Really?” I hadn’t.

  “My wife’s African-American, Juliet.”

  I blushed. “Oh, wow. I’m sorry about the white supremacist comment.”

  “Whatever. Us freedom fighters, we have to deal with that kind of ignorant nonsense all the time. Just because we don’t swallow every word the federal government says doesn’t mean we’re a bunch of racists. I’ll have you know that my chapter is full of all kinds. Black, white, Asian, Latino, you name it.”

  I was just about to comment on how nice it was that his particular department of the lunatic fringe was an equal opportunity employer when I decided to give it up. You just can’t win with Al. Every time I wind up in one of those conversations with him, I swear to myself I’m never again going to mention Roswell, David Koresh, or the United Nations.

  I got up and gave Al a kiss on the cheek. “Thanks for the information, Al. I really appreciate it.”

  He blushed. “No problem, girlie. I’ll talk to you.” He hoisted himself out of the couch and left.

  Twenty-five

  TRUE to her promise, Barbara Rosen had saved us seats at the performance of The Boys From Syracuse. Ruby and Jake sat next to each other, holding hands and giggling. I settled Isaac in my lap and tried to nurse him to sleep, much to Barbara’s horror. Apparently, baring the breast, even under cover of a shirt and a draped baby blanket, is just not done at the better Los Angeles private schools. What could I do? It was either get the kid to sleep, or listen to him cry through the entire performance.

  While the baby nursed, and Barbara tried very hard to look as if she was not utterly humiliated to be seen with us, I checked out the mobbed auditorium. The attendees were mostly mommies, although there were a number of daddies who’d managed to escape from the office. Virtually all the daddies were watching the play through the eyepiece of their video cameras. Every second person was holding a bouquet of flowers, as if this were opening night at the opera rather than a junior high school production. The smell of roses was thick and heady.

  The lights dimmed and the orchestra struck up an almost recognizable version of the play’s overture. I looked down at Isaac, who had thankfully dropped off to sleep, and settled back in my chair, determined to try to enjoy the show.

  It actually wasn’t awful. The sets and costumes were almost professional, and there were some hysterical moments when the young boy playing the duke took off his hat with a flourish, inadvertently releasing into the air huge clouds of the baby powder that had been used to whiten his hair. I even found myself humming along to the songs. It was in Act I, as I was tapping my feet to “This Can’t Be Love,” that I began to get the beginnings of an idea. As I watched the preadolescent Dromios get hit over the head and an Adriana in braces drag home the wrong Antipholus, it became clearer in my mind. By the time Dromios shrieked, with a rather endearing lisp, “Shakespeare!” I knew who had murdered Fraydle.

  I sat through a full twenty minutes of standing ovations before I could finally bear it no longer. I whispered a hurried goodbye to Barbara and Jake and, carrying Isaac and dragging an unwilling Ruby, ran out to the car.

  “But I don’t want to leave!” Ruby wailed, as I buckled her into her car seat.

  “I’m sorry, honey,” I said. “But the play is over and Mama has an errand to run.”

  I drove much too quickly down Santa Monica Boulevard, dialing Peter’s cell phone as I whipped through yellow lights. I reached his voice mail. Cursing, I tried his assistant. Voice mail again. I wasn’t going to be able to unload Ruby and Isaac. I turned onto Melrose Avenue and drove to Nomi’s restaurant. I parked in the last spot in the lot, yanked the kids out of the car, and hustled them into the almost-empty restaurant. Anat sat at a table, reading a Hebrew newspaper.

  “Hi! What’s going on?” she asked.

  “Anat, I have a question for you. You told me that the last time you saw Fraydle she looked weird. What did you mean by that?”

  She shrugged and wrinkled her brow. “I can’t explain it. She just looked different.”

  I leaned forward and looked at her intently. “Could you have seen someone else, someone who looked like Fraydle, but wasn’t Fraydle?”

  Anat looked at me, puzzled. “I don’t think so. It was her. Same hair, same clothes. She just looked—I dunno, different.”

  “Like less pretty?”

  “Exactly!”

  “Could it have been someone who looked like Fraydle, but wasn’t as pretty?”

  Anat looked skeptical. “I guess so,” she said, not sounding particularly confident.

  I thanked her, gathered up the kids and ran out the door of the restaurant to the car. I buckled them into their car seats for the millionth time that day, and headed back up Santa Monica Boulevard. As I drove, I thought once more about Anat. The fact that Fraydle’s body had been found in her own parents’ home seemed to rule Anat out as a suspect. I couldn’t imagine the Hasidic girl inviting Anat into her house. And besides, I knew who killed Fraydle. I just needed someone to tell me why.

  I pulled into the Gap parking lot and jumped out of the car. I stuck Isaac in his stroller and convinced Ruby to postpone her tantrum with the promise of an ice cream reward. I didn’t even bother to pretend to be visiting the store, but just walked right up the block into the courtyard of Yossi’s apartment building and knocked on the door. After a few moments it opened a crack. Yossi grimaced when he saw me and tried to close the door in my face.

  “Yossi!” I said. “You have to talk to me. Please. I know what happened with Fraydle.”

  Now, I didn’t know anything. I merely suspected. However, I was sure that the only way to get Yossi to tell me the truth was to pretend that I already knew it.

  He opened the door slowly. His face was unshaven and he looked pale and ill. I pointed to Isaac, who was sitting in his stroller chewing on his fist, and to Ruby, who was throwing sticks and pebbles into the fountain.

  “I have my children with me,” I said. “Let’s sit out here so I can watch
them.”

  He looked at me for a moment, and then walked out of his apartment and sank into one of the two lawn chairs in front of his door. I perched on the other one and made sure that Ruby was far enough away that she couldn’t hear our conversation.

  I sat silently for a minute, and then I said softly, “You were sleeping with Fraydle’s sister, Sarah.”

  He didn’t deny it. He didn’t even look surprised. He simply said, in a hoarse whisper, “Has she told the police?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered.

  He looked up at me. “I didn’t kill Fraydle. I loved her. I still love her.”

  I nodded. “Tell me what happened, Yossi.”

  “It was after Fraydle told me about Ari Hirsch. She came one day and we were together, like always. Then, afterwards, she kissed me and said goodbye. She said she had to marry Ari, that her father insisted and that it was important to the whole family. She said her father needed the alliance with the Hirsch family. She told me she loved me but that she had to take care of her family.”

  His eyes filled with tears.

  “Go on,” I murmured.

  “I begged her not to leave me. I promised her that I would take care of her family. I even promised to chozer b’tshuvah, to become Hasidic. She wouldn’t listen. She just said that it had already been decided. She had accepted him. And then she left. She just got up and left.

  “For days I tried to talk to her. I looked for her at the store. I walked up and down the streets looking for her. I couldn’t find her anywhere. It was like she had disappeared. Finally, one day, I saw her sister, Sarah, walking home from school. I stopped her and begged her to take a message to Fraydle. She said she knew all about Fraydle and me. She said she knew we’d been together, that she’d followed Fraydle to my house. She promised to help me, to talk to Fraydle for me. She told me to wait at my house and that she would come to me after she’d talked to Fraydle.