Stone Kiss (5 page)

“I have made a decision,” he announced. “You’ll like the outcome, I think. If you need representation, I’d be happy to fit
you into my busy schedule. But there’s a condition.”

“What’s that?” Jonathan asked.

“If your family hires me, they’re going to have to work
with me
. That means if I ask them questions, they will have to answer me truthfully.” He shook his finger at Jonathan. “This isn’t
the
shuk
, Rabbi. This isn’t haggling until we find a story we both like. I must know what’s going on so I can perform the service
to the best of my ability. Oftentimes, the subtleties of attorney/client privilege are lost on some of our black-hat brethren.
They seem to consider it an insult to answer me truthfully. I will not deal with clients like that. At this point in my life,
I don’t need that
tsuris
. Am I clear?”

Jonathan nodded. “I understand.”

Hershfield stood. “I have a couple of very important depositions this morning. In the meantime, it is in everyone’s best interest
if your family refrains from talking to the police unless I am there during the questioning.” He turned to Decker. “I’m sure
this isn’t the case with you, Lieutenant, but a few of your renegade comrades have played it pretty loose with Miranda.”

Decker was expressionless. “If you say so.”

Hershfield laughed. “And you’re planning to contact your fellow brothers in blue?”

“I’d like to take a look at a report or two.”

“And you’ll keep me abreast.”

“I’ll do whatever I can, Mr. Hershfield.”

“So what happens if your findings put you in conflict with your family obligations?”

“Yes, I’ve thought about that.”

“And?”

“And…” Decker looked at his watch. “And I think it’s time to go.”

I
t was still early,
and the detectives weren’t in yet. Decker left his name and number with a desk sergeant and on the squad room’s phone machine.
If no one called his cell back by nine, he’d just show up and deal with it in person. Hannah needed to settle down and so
did Rina. Jonathan drove them into Brooklyn—traffic mercifully going the other way on the bridge. When the van got to Eastern
Parkway—a main thoroughfare in the borough—things took on a familiar focus. It had been ten years since Decker had been here,
but he had gotten to know the streets fairly well because he had been searching for someone in the area.

A missing kid, actually.

History repeating itself?

Maybe. That wasn’t all that bad. That kid had turned up alive.

As they passed the avenues—Forty-second, Forty-third, Forty-fourth—Decker was surprised by how many people were up and about.
Gaggles of bearded men—most of them bespectacled—dressed in black woolen suits, white shirts, and black hats, with their side
locks, called
payot,
bouncing off their shoulders as they moved with quick strides down the sidewalks. The boys and teens were miniversions of
the men except for the absence of facial hair. There were also dozens of kerchief-headed women bundled in coats pushing prams
while trying to contain the multitude of children who surrounded them. Some had as many as ten children, the older daughters
assigned
the role of mother’s assistant to their younger siblings. There were groups of school-age girls, toting enormous backpacks
(some things were the same world over), garbed in parochial uniforms—long-sleeved white shirts, blue skirts with hemlines
way below the knee. Their legs were encased in opaque tights, heavy coats on their backs.

The air was nippy now, so the thick suits and woolen coats and stockings were not only modest but also practical. But Decker
knew that when summer arrived with temperatures soaring into the triple digits and 90 percent humidity, the Chasidish attire
wouldn’t alter much. The exterior coats would be gone, but still they’d sweat into their long-sleeved clothing, drenched and
itchy with dark circles of perspiration under their arms and around their necks, faces moist in the muggy air. Yet they’d
accept their lot, endure the heat and the humidity, wearing the discomfort like ill-fitting shoes.

Regarding the girls, Decker couldn’t help but think of Shaynda. All of these preteens and teens were so fresh-faced with their
hair in pigtails, ponytails, or a long braid that trailed down their backs. None wore a drop of makeup or nail polish… even
the adolescent girls.

Especially the adolescent girls.

What was Shaynda’s big sin? Wearing nail polish or makeup? Hanging out at the mall? Breaking away and being with the public-school
kids? It seemed so harmless, but not in this community. It would give the locals the wrong idea about the girl, making it
hard for her parents to find her a proper
shiddach
—a match for marriage.

The streets were lined with stores catering to the Jewish trade— kosher cafés, pizza joints and restaurants, kosher meat markets
and butchers, produce markets advertising day-old sales, a dress shop featuring discount
shaytles
—wigs. There were stores that specialized in
sepharim
, or religious books, and there were smiths that forged esoteric silver objects like torah
yads
—pointers that a prayer leader would use while reading from the holy scroll. Decker noticed a studio for a
sofer
—a scribe. Every other establishment seemed to be a
schtiebl
, or a small storefront synagogue. Maybe some of the places had changed hands, but the overall gestalt of the area was the
same— except that the population seemed even
more
religious than it had been ten years ago. How was that possible?

Jonathan pulled the van curbside in front of a small two-story brick home on a block of small two-story brick homes. This
was the house of Lazarus, the abode of Rina’s former in-laws. As always, Decker wanted to wait in the car until it was over.
The Lazaruses had gone through the ultimate tragedy, and he always felt as if he were a painful reminder of what shouldn’t
have been. Yet, as soon as the motor died, the short, squat couple flew out of the doorway with smiles so wide that they almost
bisected their faces. They greeted Decker with a generosity of spirit that defined them as the lovely people they were. Heavy-breasted,
apron-wearing, Mrs. Lazarus hugged and kissed Rina; white-bearded Rav Lazarus pumped Decker’s hand with vigor that defied
a man of eighty-six. Both of them fussed over Hannah as if she were a blood granddaughter, greeting her with a plate of cookies
and several wrapped presents. The little girl smiled, thanking them shyly, calling them Bubbe and Zeyde.

After everyone made nice, Decker took the suitcases into the house. The small living room was hot and stuffy and enveloped
in the aromas of chicken soup, roasting meat, and the sweet smell of chocolate-chip cookies, reminding Decker’s stomach that
a bagel hadn’t been much of a breakfast. But he’d satisfy the hunger pangs later. He looked at his watch, wondering when he
could make a graceful exit. Rina caught it and came to his rescue.

“I know you have work to do. Go. I’ll make excuses.”

“Are you sure?”

“Of course. The brother’s still dead and the girl’s still missing.”

“Try to have a good time,” Decker told his wife.

“You know, that just might happen. They’ve completely taken over Hannah’s care. They even bought her a
TV
.”

“That’s right,” Decker said. “These people don’t have TVs, do they?”

“These people!”
Rina elbowed him. “Well, now they do have a TV. So there!” Her smile was wide. “I think I’m going to take a hot bath. Then
I’m going to relax!”

Decker felt content. It was good to see Rina so happy. She always seemed calm and content in this ultrareligious environment.
He had always thought of himself as the one and only giver, the person who
had completely changed his ways to please her. Now he was aware that she, too, had adjusted her life to make a home with him.
He kissed her modestly on the cheek. “I want you to promise me something.”

“What?”

“That after you relax, you take off your shoes and relax some more.”

Her blue eyes were dazzling. “That’s a very good idea. I’ll see you in about six, seven hours.”

“That’s right. It’s
Shabbos
tonight.”

“How much can you really find out in six hours?”

“Depends. I’ve solved cases in thirty minutes.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“What’s the longest it ever took you to solve a homicide?”

Decker laughed. “Don’t know. The files are still open.”

Quinton was a town divided. On one side of the main municipal park—Liberty Field—was an upscale upstate rural suburb. Two-story
Federal-style brick houses were perched on large lots with SUVs and Mercedes parked in the driveways. Sinuous lanes and roadways
were edged by tall trees and old-fashioned street lighting with fixtures that looked like a sprig of flowers. Some of the
sidewalks weren’t even paved. There were lots of big sycamores and oaks that would provide much-needed shade in the summer,
although they were bare at the moment. The exceptions were the pines, and a few stately early bloomers with budding branches,
greening the wood as if it were covered in moss.

Taft, Taylor, and Tyler streets held the local shopping. Lots of the usual names—The Gap, Banana Republic, Star$s, Ann Taylor,
Victoria’s Secret, Pottery Barn—chains, yes, but at least they were individual stores, not units housed under one big roof
with adjacent parking lots the size of Lake Tahoe. Here, the parking was the diagonal kind—on the streets and free. Decker
commented to Jonathan about the absence of a mall and asked where Shayndie found one.

“There’s one in the next town—Bainberry.”

“It’s pretty here… old-fashioned.”

“This side is, yes.”

“This side as opposed to…”

Jonathan stared out the window.

“How far away are we from the religious side?” Decker asked.

“Don’t worry. You’ll know when you’re there.”

Tree studded and filled with multicolored tulip beds, Liberty Field contained the requisite courthouse, the hall of records,
the main police and fire stations, and a library. There was also a small lake, a botanical garden, an indoor skating rink,
a bowling alley, and a community center, where the Quinton High School production of
The Pajama Game
was playing.

Traveling past the park, Jonathan steered the van onto a road sided by copses of denuded trees. Minutes passed; then new groupings
of houses came into view. These were smaller, less adorned, and more functional. The driveways held cheaper cars and vans—sometimes
even two vans. The lots were smaller and barer, and the shopping district was quite different from its upscale cousin. Except
for the word “Quinton” every now and then, it could have been interchangeable with the religious stores and shuls and same-sex
parochial schools of Boro Park. The residents were also identical, down to the wigs and black-hat dress. It was hard to reconcile
the two areas as a single town. Decker asked why the two populations chose to share, when each area had such a distinct identity.

“At this point, the municipality needs every single bit of property tax to keep Quinton going. If the Frummies seceded, there
wouldn’t be enough money to keep the services going.”

“Are there problems between the two halves?”

“Yes,” Jonathan said. “But they need each other. There have been some compromises. But there have also been some nasty wars.
At the moment, the Frummies want their own school district, but they want the city to pay for it. They don’t understand the
concept of separation of church and state. Even worse, they don’t understand why it’s good for them in the long run.”

“They have a point,” Decker said. “They pay in taxes, but don’t get anything back.”

“You’ve been talking to Rina. All the Orthodox like the voucher system.”

“Yes, she likes the voucher system, but she’s come to realize that there’s a point in maintaining a strong public-school system.”

“Well, then she’s a first,” Jonathan said. “The Frummies get the fire department, the garbage pickup, the police department.
And lately, there’s been some talk about their using the public schools in the morning, then going to the yeshivas in the
afternoon so the yeshivas wouldn’t have to hire teachers for secular studies.”

“That seems like a good idea,” Decker said.

“Unfortunately, the Frummies don’t want the teachers teaching evolution, or sex education, or biology of any kind. Things
that are mandatory in the Quinton school curriculum. Plus”—Jonathan sighed—“the Frummies don’t care about secular education.
They were dragging down the standardized test scores. There was a big town meeting about it. It got ugly. Here we are.”

Jonathan parked the car.

Decker said, “You don’t approve.”

“I’m not saying you compromise your principles,” Jonathan said. “But you don’t have to create spectacles. Then when you throw
in the embezzlement charges… It reflects poorly on all of us.”

“No group is perfect.”

“Of course not. And the vast majority here are wonderful. But when you choose to make yourself visible, you do have an obligation
to be a
Kiddush Hashem
.”