Death Will Pay Your Debts

by Elizabeth Zelvin

  "I was thinking of more personal issues," Natali said. "Did you ever confide in your brother, or he in you? I ask because we can't find any evidence that you and your brother spent any time together, while you and his wife Sophia had an active relationship."

  "I don't know what you mean," the rabbi said.

  Natali gave Cindy a barely perceptible nod. She reached inside the envelope on her lap, drew out the diamond bracelet, and tossed it onto the table.

  "Perhaps you'd care to explain this?" Natali asked.

  The rabbi flushed beet red. He choked. His lips moved silently. Cindy was almost certain he was mouthing, But I paid cash.

  "We've done our homework, Rabbi Kahn," she said. "The jeweler is prepared to identify you as the buyer of this very expensive bracelet. We know your wife doesn't wear mined gemstones or real fur as a matter of principle. The bracelet was found among Sophia's possessions."

  "What was your relationship with Sophia Schofield, Rabbi Kahn?" Natali asked. "I strongly advise you to tell us the truth this time."

  The rabbi gave a hoarse sob and clutched at his cheeks, his fingers raking the skin.

  "I loved her! I knew it was wrong, but I couldn't help myself. My wife is a good woman, but—I can explain it, but you won't understand."

  "Try us," Natali said.

  "There was no intimacy in the marriage long before I fell in love with Sophia."

  "You no longer had relations with your wife?"

  "I knew you'd misunderstand! We did, but we were doing it by rote. We didn't laugh any more. We didn't talk about anything real."

  "No passion?"

  "My wife reserved her passion for her work," he said. "If I'd been an Artificial Intelligence instead of a flesh and blood man, she'd have paid more attention to my inner life."

  "And Sophia?"

  "Sophia was different. There was plenty of passion there. She brought me back to life."

  "Did you know she was a recovering alcoholic?" Cindy asked.

  "What? No! She didn't drink any more, but it was for her health."

  "So she kept secrets from you," Cindy said. "That must have made you angry."

  "No!" the rabbi said. "I loved her!"

  "Did she love you?" she asked. "Did she want you to leave your wife?"

  "We agreed that what we were doing was wrong. We broke it off. It was over."

  "Did your wife know?"

  "No! We were careful. And as I said, Miriam wasn't that interested in my comings and goings any more."

  "Are you saying she wouldn't have cared if she knew you were having an affair? That she wouldn't have cared if you asked for a divorce?"

  "Of course she would have cared. She liked being the rebbetzin. But it wasn't her whole life. She had her career. I—I wasn't sure that living with Sophia full time would be a success."

  "Less passion, more reality," Cindy said. "You liked the romance and intrigue. You liked having a secret love affair with a shiksa."

  The rabbi winced, and Cindy suppressed a smile. She had listened to enough of Barbara's rants on Jewish men's obsession with long-legged blondes with short noses and thin thighs to guess right about what Kahn had found so compelling about Sophia. Of course he had rationalized it as a great love. But he hadn't known the real Sophia, and in the end he hadn't wanted to.

  "Did you know that she was pregnant?" Natali asked.

  Kahn hesitated, his eyes darting back and forth. Cindy guessed he was trying to figure out which answer would be more incriminating.

  "I think you did," Natali said. "You'd gotten out of it. She'd agreed to break it off. But then she told you she was pregnant. She was going to tell everyone that you were the father. She wanted you to get a divorce and marry her. She gave you no choice. So you killed her."

  "She told me," the rabbi said. "But I didn't kill her. Do you really think I'd have killed my own unborn child?"

  "I don't know," Natali said. "It would depend on how desperate you were. Did your wife know?"

  "About Sophia or about the baby?"

  "Both," Cindy said.

  The rabbi groaned and bowed his head, clutching his face in his hands. He began to sob.

  "I didn't want to hurt anybody! Miriam never knew about Sophia. I would never have told her! Only when the baby—the baby—"

  "You killed her to keep it from coming out," Natali said.

  "No! No!"

  "Then what did you do?" Cindy asked. "You were desperate. You had to do something."

  The rabbi mopped his eyes with his tie.

  "I realized I had to tell Miriam," he said. "She always knows what to do."

  "So she knew everything," Natali said.

  "No! I was going to tell her. But then Sophia died, and there was no point. I mean, it would only have hurt her."

  "Did you tell anyone else?" Cindy asked. "Who knew about the situation and your plan to tell Miriam?"

  "Nobody!" the rabbi said. "I didn't tell a soul."

  Natali gave Cindy a warning glance and a quick shake of the head. The silence settled, while the implications resonated in the air.

  "I think I'd like to call my lawyer now," the rabbi said.

  Chapter Thirty-Five: Bruce

  "So Seymour Kahn insists that Miriam didn't know about the affair," Barbara said, "much less that Sophia was pregnant."

  "That's what he told Cindy," I said. "He must have realized that her not knowing incriminated him, because that's when he asked for the lawyer and stopped answering questions."

  "Cindy seems to be answering your questions again," she said. "Mazel tov."

  "Shove over," I said. "If I have to sit on the arm of this chair, I want the whole arm. Here's your latte."

  Jimmy and I had gone to a meeting, then met Barbara at the fatal Starbucks, which looked as bland as if it had never been a crime scene. Thousands of people must have passed through the place since the murder. Life goes on. Barbara had used her status as an incipient mother and Jimmy's as a newly minted wage slave to guilt-trip me into getting the coffee. When I climbed the stairs, three grandes in hand, I found them enthroned on the landing. Barbara said they were the most comfortable seats in the place, and she was sure the upholstery had been shampooed or dry cleaned since the murder.

  "You're crowding Junior," she said. "Are you sure this one is the decaf skim?"

  "Hey, I'm the godfather," I said. "I don't want Junior to be born already addicted any more than you do."

  "What do you think, Jimmy?" Barbara asked. "You're Miriam's friend. Do you think she knew?"

  "It almost doesn't matter," Jimmy said. "If she didn't know, he could have killed Sophia so she wouldn't tell and ruin all their lives. If she did, Miriam could have told him he had to get rid of Sophia, and maybe Sophia refused to go without a fight."

  "Yeah, but what is Miriam like?" I asked. "Would she really have said, Sorry, bub, I don't care if she gets an abortion or raises the kid on her own or does whatever it takes to make her peace with her husband, but you're not going anywhere."

  "It's hard to say," Jimmy said. "She likes to get her way. She can be a hard-ass when she has an opinion on a project. But that doesn't mean she'd kill to protect her marriage."

  "I've always thought of a rebbetzin as kind of like a traditional First Lady," Barbara said, "a woman who puts her life on hold for the sake of her husband's career. Obviously, that's not Miriam."

  "She's more the Hillary Clinton kind of rebbetzin," Jimmy said. "She talks about how she's organized various activist groups among the congregation: social justice, animal rights, that kind of thing. And she's been instrumental in getting a lot of computers for the kids. She gives workshops on integrating technology into Jewish life."

  "Creating tomorrow's customer base for Virtual Shul," Barbara said.

  "I can't say I know her well," Jimmy said. "I'm not sure anyone does. She and her partners, Fran and Thea, get along fine, but they're girl geeks together, not like Barbara's friends."

  "They don't schmooze about mood swi
ngs, mothers, and menstruation?" I dodged the hand Barbara raised to swat me upside the head. "Hey, don't spill the latte."

  "She's very well organized," Jimmy said. "She's always sharpening the pencils and lining up the Post-its."

  "You still use pencils and sticky notes?" I asked.

  "Sometimes sticking one on a computer screen is the quickest way to get somebody's attention," he said.

  "Sounds like OCD to me," Barbara said. "Is she on any medication?"

  "Not that I know of," Jimmy said. "For a techie, being obsessive compulsive could be an asset. You need a sense of order."

  "Affairs are messy," Barbara said, "especially if both the lovers are married."

  "So are pregnancies," I said, "and please don't hit me."

  "I know pregnancy is messy," Barbara said, "thank you very much, and have I mentioned that in the twenty-first century, godfathers change diapers?"

  "Poor Miriam," Jimmy said. "He was her man, and he done her wrong."

  "If you ever cheated on me," Barbara said, "I wouldn't kill your girlfriend. I'd kill you. Don't worry, I know it wouldn't happen in a million years."

  "Thank you, petunia," Jimmy said. "What do the police think?"

  Those two kill me. You could put them on their own wedding cake on top of a tower of sugar, and they'd look right at home. The wedding cake was under serious consideration. Barbara was negotiating not only with bakers and caterers but also with her OA sponsor. Apparently, on Barbara's particular food plan, she could eat any of the dishes without breaking her abstinence provided they all fit on one plate, as long as she didn't take seconds, and she could have one piece of wedding cake, as long as she told her sponsor in advance . . . well, at that point, I kind of stopped listening.

  "Cindy isn't telling me everything," I said. "We've had other things to catch up on. But I got the impression that they're caught in a bind, you know, not wanting to prosecute a rabbi if they're not sure they can make it stick, but also not wanting to go easy on him just because he's a rabbi. What they really need is hard evidence. They still haven't traced the cyanide or the roofies."

  Jimmy's iPhone appeared in his hand as magically as the proverbial rabbit from a hat.

  "Google has no problem finding sites where you can buy cyanide pills or make the stuff at home. The challenge is making the search and then the transaction untraceable."

  "How about the Rohypnol?"

  Jimmy's thumbs flew.

  "Less obvious. You'd have to dig. It would be easier to buy it on the street."

  "If you knew what street," Barbara said. "I mean, who would you ask? I wouldn't know where to begin."

  "Yes, you would," Jimmy said. "Bruce or I both knew dealers in our sordid past, and so do the addicts you counsel up in the Bronx."

  "I couldn't ask a client," Barbara said, scandalized. "Well, not if I couldn't come up with an awfully good story about why I needed to know."

  "If they came from a dealer," Jimmy said, "good luck getting him to cooperate, even if the cops could find him. Buying online might be harder for the killer, but it would be easier for the detectives."

  "Cindy says the computer crime guys are really good," I said.

  "Maybe, but so is Miriam," Jimmy said. "So am I, for that matter, or any of a number of folks at Costello. The first trick is starting with the right computer."

  "Jimmy," Barbara said, "how closely does Miriam work with those two friends of hers, Francine and Thea?"

  "Very," Jimmy said. "They talk about how they developed their prototype by using their computers interchangeably with remote access software so they could bounce ideas off each other in real time. And at work, they're always at each other's keyboards."

  "Miriam talks about it?" she asked.

  "Now that you mention it," Jimmy said, "it's usually Fran or Thea. Fran loves the whole idea of collaborative creativity, and Thea loves everybody thinking of her and her buddies as the coolest cyberchicks ever. Miriam tells them to pipe down and not give away trade secrets."

  "Cindy doesn't even know that Fran and Thea exist," I said.

  "Costello won't let the cops lay a hand on his computers," Jimmy said. "The information highway is a fine thing, but Costello is in business to make money. He's not a champion of open sourcing, and both the hardware and the work product in that office belong to him."

  "Not even in a murder investigation?" Barbara asked.

  "Not without a warrant."

  "What are you saying?" I asked. "That Miriam was the killer?"

  "She could have used Fran or Thea's computer to get the drugs, the poison, and covered her tracks afterward," Barbara said. "That doesn't mean that someone with the right skills couldn't uncover them again."

  "They wouldn't get a warrant without probable cause," I said, "and they don't have it. I've heard Cindy talk enough about that stuff to know that much."

  "I'm not talking about the cops," Barbara said.

  "Are you asking me to risk my job?" Jimmy shook his head so vigorously that if he hadn't had an exceptionally sturdy neck, I would have been worried that he'd shake it off.

  "Jimmy," Barbara cooed in her most persuasive tone. "You're the only one who can do this. It wouldn't be a risk. Who would question your using a computer at the office? You've told me there are times when the place is practically empty. You said people work from home a lot and that the young ones don't stay late if they're going partying."

  "This is a really bad idea," I said. "Why don't we tell Cindy and let the cops take it from there? I don't want to risk my relationship with her again."

  "I thought you wanted to show her we could help her with the case," Barbara said. "Besides, you said yourself the cops couldn't gain access to the computers at Costello's. I'm always reading about cases where the police know whodunit but don't have enough evidence to prosecute. We're in a unique position to get the evidence if it's there. I'd do it myself if I had Jimmy's computer skills."

  Jimmy snorted.

  "I know you would, petunia. You're always willing to take the risk. It's a miracle my hair hasn't turned white already, wondering if I'm going to have to save you."

  "Don't go there, dude," I warned.

  Nothing gets Barbara's feminist dander up as much as implying she needs some man to rescue her. I knew this better than Jimmy because before he got this job, he always stayed home with his computers while Barbara and I went wading into danger. I thought she'd snap. But I could see the moment she got a calculating look in her eyes and decided she could catch this one large fly better with honey than with vinegar.

  "Please, Jimmy, just this once," she said. "You're the only one who can do it. It's just an Internet search. Call it your wedding present to me."

  Now Jimmy looked seriously harassed.

  "Jeez, Barb," I said, "I didn't think you'd stoop to emotional blackmail."

  "Whose side are you on?" Barbara demanded. "I thought you wanted Cindy to crack this case. With the evidence Jimmy gets, she'll do it."

  "If Miriam did it," I said, "and if she went online at work to get what she needed. She could have used a computer somewhere else that wouldn't be linked to her."

  "Like where?" Barbara asked.

  "I don't know. The synagogue. They have offices, don't they?"

  "Even if she did use Fran's or Thea's computer," Jimmy said, "I might not be able to uncover what she did."

  "You will," Barbara said. "I have complete faith in you."

  "What if she catches me at it?"

  "What could she do to you?" she said. "You've told me Costello's building has great security."

  "It's not-- "

  Barbara held her hand up like a traffic cop.

  "No more protests. You do a simple search, and if you don't find anything, I promise I'll let it go. We'll tell Cindy why we think it was Miriam and turn it over to her."

  This was subtle manipulation on Barbara's part, using a twelve-step phrase that would jerk Jimmy's reflexes. When you let something go, you were supposed to turn it
over to a Higher Power, not to the police. But nobody ever accused Barbara of lacking chutzpah.

  Chapter Thirty-Six: Bruce

  Jimmy was supposed to tackle the search when his workmates left for the day. He had taken the subway to work that morning, leaving his key card with Barbara, who would drive their old Toyota to his office as soon as she heard from him, park in the building's basement parking garage, and meet him at Costello's. He had promised to call her as soon as he found anything. She had promised to call me as soon as they got out. Cindy and I had a date for dinner at my apartment that I'd told Barbara I was damned if I would break. We would decide what to tell her once we knew what Jimmy had found. If he found nothing, I would vote in favor of not telling her anything. I couldn't imagine how Jimmy and I had let Barbara talk us into this, but that was the chronic condition of our oddball trio.

  I was beginning to worry as I checked the chicken roasting in the oven and tore up lettuce for a salad. I should have heard from Barbara by now. I wiped my hands on a dish towel and punched in her number on my cell. It went to voice mail.

  "Call me when you get this, Barb. Let me know what's happening."

  Jimmy's number didn't answer either. I left a message on his voice mail too and texted them both in case they didn't check their voice mail.

  Cindy was taking a shower in my bathroom. She was singing in the shower. She had a deep voice and a big range for such a small person, and she liked the blues. It would be fun to go and listen to some music some time. Getting together was always such a problem that we'd hardly gone out on an actual date. Making love and meetings had been our main activities so far. I whistled along to a Billie Holiday tune. She knew all the words. I could get used to making dinner for two and sharing my bathroom and my bed. If only I didn't screw it up. If she thought I was messing with her career, she'd be outa here. I'd be miserable, alone, and sober, and I'd hate it.

  Cindy was singing scat now, a skill I hadn't known she had. I did know that she liked long showers. She'd be in there for a while. She fell silent just as a long, loud buzz signaled someone at the door of the building. I flipped the switch on the intercom.