Time Bomb (28 page)

“She wouldn’t have worried about that?”

“She certainly should have,” said Mrs. Steinberg. “With all the nogoodniks and lowlife hanging around, taking over the neighborhood—all the drugs. We used to enjoy the beach. You come around here during the week, Officer, and you won’t see us taking the sun like we used to. All of us used to walk, to swim—that’s why we moved here. It was paradise. Now when we go out at night, we take a car, in a group. Park it back on Speedway and walk to the
shul,
marching like a battalion of soldiers. On a nice summer night, a late sunset, maybe we’ll take a longer walk. Still all together—as a group. Even then we feel nervous. But Sophie never joined in any of that. She wasn’t a joiner. She lived here a long time, didn’t want to admit things had changed. You couldn’t talk to her—she was stubborn. She walked around like she owned the neighborhood.”

“She liked to walk,” said Sanders. “For exercise.”

“Sometimes,” said Morgenstern, “exercise isn’t so healthy.”

Mrs. Cooper frowned at him. He winked at her and smiled.

Milo said, “Rabbi, you lived next to her. What was her state of mind during the last few days before she disappeared?”

“The last few days?” said Sanders. He rolled his pipe in his palm. “Truthfully, she probably was very upset.”

“Probably?”

“She wasn’t one to express emotions openly. She kept to herself.”

“Then why do you say she was upset?”

Sanders hesitated, looking first at his students, then Milo.

“There was,” he said, “a crime. Someone she knew.”

“What
crime
?” said Morgenstern. “
Say
it. A
murder.
Drugs and guns, the whole shebang. Some black boy she was renting to. He got shot, over drugs.” He squinted and his eyebrows merged like mating caterpillars. “Aha!
That’s
the big secret you can’t tell us about, right?”

Milo said, “Do you know anything about that?”

Silence.

Mrs. Sindowsky said, “Just what we heard from the rabbi here. She had a tenant; he got shot.”

“None of you knew him?”

Shakes of heads.

“
I knew
of
him but not
him
,” said Mrs. Cooper.

“What did you know?”

“That she’d taken in a boarder. Once I saw him on his little motorbike, driving home. Nice-looking boy. Very big.”

“There was plenty of talk,” said Morgenstern.

“What kind of talk?” Milo said.

“A black kid—whadya think? Was she putting herself in danger.” Morgenstern looked accusingly at the women. They seemed embarrassed. “Everyone’s nice and liberal,” he said, “till it comes to putting the mouth where the money is. But Sophie was a Red—it was just the kind of thing she’d do. You think he got her into some kind of trouble, the kid? Keeping his dope money in the house—-they came to get it and got her?”

Milo said, “No. There’s no evidence of that.”

Morgenstern gave him a conspiratorial wink. “No evidence, but you’re coming around asking questions. The plot thickens, eh, Mr. Policeman? More meat, more worms.”

Milo asked a few more questions, determined they had nothing else to offer, and thanked them. We left, replacing our skullcaps in the leather box on the way out, walked a ways up Ocean Front, and had a cup of coffee at a teri-yaki stand. Milo glared at the winos hanging around the stand and they drifted away, like sloughing dead skin. He sipped, running his gaze up and down the walk-street, letting it settle on the synagogue.

After a few moments all four old people came out of the building and walked off together, Morgenstern in the lead. An elderly battalion. When they were out of view, Milo tossed his coffee cup in the trash and said, “Come on.”

The dead bolts on the synagogue’s doors were locked. Milo’s knock brought Sanders to the door.

The rabbi had put a gray suit jacket over his shirt, had his pipe in his mouth, still unlit, and was holding an oversized maroon book with marbled page-ends.

“A little more of your time, Rabbi?”

Sanders held the door open and we stepped into the anteroom. Most of the cookies were gone and only two cans of soda remained.

“Can I offer you anything?” said Sanders. He slid the book into one of the cases.

“No thanks, Rabbi.”

“Shall we go back in the sanctuary?”

“This is fine, thanks. I was just wondering if there was anything you hadn’t felt comfortable discussing in front of your students.”

“Students.” Sanders smiled. “They’ve taught me a good deal more than I’ve taught them. This is only a part-time job. Weekdays I teach at an elementary school in the Fairfax district. I conduct services here on weekends, give classes Sundays, run an occasional social evening.”

“Sounds like a full schedule.”

Sanders shrugged and adjusted his yarmulke. “Five children. Los Angeles is an expensive city. That’s how I came to know Sophie—Mrs. Gruenberg. Finding affordable housing’s impossible, especially with children. People in this city don’t seem to like children. Mrs. Gruenberg didn’t mind at all, even though she wasn’t very . . . grandmotherly. And she was very reasonable about the rent. She said it was because we—my wife and I—had ideals, she respected us for them. Even though she herself had no use for religion. Marxism was her faith. She really was an unregenerate communist.”

“She generally pretty vocal about her political views?”

“If one asked her, she’d speak her mind. But she didn’t go about volunteering them—she wasn’t a gregarious woman. Quite the opposite. Kept to herself.”

“Not a joiner?”

Sanders nodded. “I tried to get her more involved in the synagogue, but she had no interest in religion, wasn’t at all sociable. Truthfully, she wasn’t the most popular person. But the others do care about her. They all look out for one another. Wanted to dip into their own pockets in order to hire the private detective. But none of them can afford it—they’re all on pension. Detective Mehan told me it would probably be a waste of money, so I discouraged it, promised to bring it to the Federation again. Her vanishing has really frightened them—they’re slapped in the face by their own helplessness. That’s why I’m glad you returned when they were gone. Talking about Ike could only upset them more. That is what you want to talk about, isn’t it?”

“Why’d Detective Mehan feel it was a waste of time?”

Sanders lowered his gaze and bit his lip. “He told me— and this is something I haven’t told them—that it didn’t look good. The fact that she hadn’t made plans to leave meant there was a good chance she’d met up with foul play. The fact that her apartment was in order meant it had taken place on the street—as she walked home. He said that if she’d gotten lost and wandered away or had a stroke, she would have turned up by three weeks. One way or the other. He said private detectives could find people, but weren’t much use discovering bodies.”

He looked up. Blue eyes still. Jamming the pipe in his mouth, he bit down so hard his jaws bunched and the board bristled.

Milo said, “She’s your landlady. Is there a mortgage on the building?”

Sanders shook his head. “No, she owns it free and clear—has for several years. Detective Mehan found that out when he checked into her finances.”

“What about other bills that come in? Who pays them?”

“I do. It doesn’t come out to much—just utilities. I’ve also been collecting all her mail. What looks like a bill, I open and pay. I know it’s not perfectly legal to do that, but Detective Mehan assured me it would be all right.”

“What about your rent cheek?”

“I’ve opened an interest-earning account, deposited the October and November checks in there. It seemed the best thing to do until we learn . . . something.”

“Where do you keep her mail, Rabbi?”

“Right here, in the synagogue, under lock and key.”

“I’d like to see it.”

He said, “Certainly,” put his pipe in his jacket pocket, and went into the sanctuary. We watched him unlock a cabinet in back of the podium and draw out two manila envelopes, which he brought back and handed to Milo. One was marked
SEPT/OCT
.; the other,
NOV
.

Milo said, “This is all of it?”

“This is it.” Sad look.

Milo opened the envelopes, removed the contents, and spread them out on the ledge of the bookcase. He inspected each piece of mail. Mostly flyers and computer-addressed bulk mail.
Occupant
appearing more frequently than her name. A few utility bills that had been opened and marked
Paid
, followed by dates of payments.

Sanders said, “I was hoping there’d be something personal, to give us a clue. But she wasn’t very . . . connected to the outside world.” His baby face had grown sad. Stuffing one hand in his pocket, he groped until he found his pipe.

Milo slid the mail back in the manila envelopes. “Is there anything else you want to tell me, Rabbi?”

Sanders rubbed the bowl of the pipe against his nose.

“Just one thing,” he said. “And Detective Mehan filed a report on it, so you should have a record of it somewhere. The old people don’t know this either—I didn’t see any point in telling them. A few days after she disappeared—that was a Tuesday; this happened sometime over the weekend—burglars broke into the house. Into both our places. My family and I were out of town, at a school retreat in the city. Detective Mehan said it was probably a drug addict looking for things to sell. A coward: he’d watched the house—staked us out—waited until we were gone, and moved in.”

“What was taken?”

“As far as I could tell, what he took from Sophie was a television, a radio, a silver-plated samovar
,
and some inexpensive jewelry. From us, even less—we don’t have a television. All he got from us was some flatware, a ritual spice box and candleholder, and a tape recorder I use for teaching Hebrew. But he made a mess. Both units were in a shambles—food taken out of the refrigerator and thrown around, drawers opened, papers scattered. Detective Mehan said it showed signs of a disorganized mind. Immaturity—teenagers, or someone on drugs.”

“What was the point of entry?”

“Through the back doors. I’ve since had new locks put on and bars on the windows. Now my children look out through bars.”

He shook his head.

“The material loss was trivial,” he said, “but the feeling of violation—and hatred. The way the food was strewn about seemed so spiteful. And something else . . . that made it seem . . . personal.”

“What’s that, Rabbi?”

“He—the addict or whoever—wrote on the walls. In red paint that he took from the garage—the same red paint I’d just used a week before to paint the windows. It resembled blood. Hateful stuff—anti-Semitism. Profanities—I had to cover my children’s eyes. And something else that I found very strange:
Remember John Kennedy!
Several exclamation points after the word
Kennedy.
Which doesn’t make any logical sense, does it? Kennedy was anti-racist. But Detective Mehan said if he’d been crazy on drugs, he couldn’t be expected to make sense. So I suppose that would explain it.”

He frowned, chewed on the pipe some more.

Milo said, “You don’t like that explanation?”

“It’s not that,” said Sanders. “It’s . . . nothing tangible. Just a feeling my wife and I have had. Since Ike. Since Sophie. As if we’re in jeopardy—someone’s out there, intending to harm us. Despite the locks and the bars. Not that there ever is anyone, when I actually look, so I suppose it’s nerves. I tell myself this is simply the way America is—learn to get used to it. But my wife wants us to move back to Auckland. That’s New Zealand. Things were different there.”

“How long have you been in L.A.?”

“Just since July. Before that, we lived in Lakewood, New Jersey. I studied at a seminary there, did have occasion to visit New York City, so I guess I should have been prepared for urban life. But in California I expected things to be more . . . relaxed.”

“The term is
laid
back
, Rabbi. Unfortunately, for the most part it’s a facade.”

“Seems to be.”

“Since the break-in, have you and your family had any other problems?”

“Nothing, thank God.”

Milo reached into a coat pocket, drew out the photo he’d taken from Dinwiddie, and held it in front of the rabbi’s baby face.

“Yes, that’s Ike,” said Sanders. “Did his death have anything to do with Sophie?”

“Nothing as far as we know, Rabbi. What can you tell me about him?”

“Not much at all. I barely knew him. We passed each other a few times—that was all.”

“How long had he been living here before he was killed?”

Sanders shook his head. “I don’t know. My feeling was it had been for a while.”

“Why’s that?”

“They—he and Sophie—had a . . . comfortable relationship. As if they’d settled in with each other.”

“They get along pretty well?”

“Seemed to.” Sanders put his pipe in his mouth, then removed it. “Actually, they debated quite a bit. We could hear it through the walls. To be frank, she was a cantankerous old lady. But she and Ike did seem to have a certain . . . not rapport—I’d call it ease. He did chores for her, gardening, brought her groceries—I believe he worked at a grocery store. And the fact that she had him living with her, right in the apartment, would imply a great deal of trust, wouldn’t it?”

“Any reason for her not to trust him?”

Sanders shook his head. “No, I didn’t mean that at all. The racial thing has no personal relevance for me. But it is unusual. The old people have had bad experiences with black men—they tend to fear them. Not that there was any reason to fear Ike. From the few contacts I had with him he seemed a very good chap. Polite, pleasant. The only thing I did find unusual about him was his interest in the Holocaust.”

“Unusual in what way?”

“The fact that he was interested in it at all. Someone his age, not Jewish—it’s not a common interest, don’t you agree? Though I suppose living with Sophie made it not that unusual. It was a favorite topic of hers—she may have passed it along to Ike.”

“How do you know he was interested in it?”