The Silent Bride (5 page)

"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

T
hree 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 jacket 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.

What had been added today for the wedding was a tentlike structure over the altar that was completely covered with real leaves and many varieties of flowers. Even the four poles that supported the canopy were twined with white lilies and the palest pink and white roses. An amazing display. For April, however, white was the color of death. A Chinese wedding might have a bride in white, but only for the ceremony and only to satisfy Western convention. Every other decoration would be in the lucky colors of red and gold. Though Mike liked to tease her with bride magazines full of white dresses, April herself secretly hoped that if the day ever came for her she would wear lucky red.

In the temple, the magnificent white flower bower alone was not so shocking. What was shocking were the signs of flight. Articles of clothes left behind, ribbon-and-cinnamon-and-white bouquets on stands knocked every which way. Lilies and roses crushed underfoot and mixed with blood. It was a pitiful sight, but probably more fragrant than any crime scene in New York history. Vic and Ken were working furiously to record it all. Strobes of light flashed as Vic meticulously set his measuring instruments and shot photo after photo to document exactly how the sanctuary had been set up and looked. His suitcase contained a number of expensive cameras and lenses for different needs, as well as a video cam, which he was not using at the moment. Ken was nowhere in sight.

"Hey, April, you want to get us some food?" Vic called out.

April let annoyance roll off her back. "How long are you going to be? The rabbi needs to clean up. The men want to pray here before sundown."

Vic lowered the camera to check his watch. "Sundown? That's about an hour from now... no way-Look at the size of this place. We're not half done. You know that."

"Do you have an estimate? They start prayers here at five in the morning.
That
going to be okay?" She knew that was not going to be okay either.

Big sigh. "Oh, that's nearly ten hours from now. We've never gone twelve on a case."

"We'll be long gone by then. We're not staying here all night!" Ken called out.

"Don't mind him. We're on an eighteen-hour tour. We can stay on it. If the place is in continuous use, this is going to be our only shot." Vic had a reputation for being a pain in the ass on the subject of leaving before he was satisfied he had everything he could possibly get from a scene.

"A lot of physics to work out here, and physics takes time. How about some of that food downstairs? Can you arrange that?" Vic was back on the food.

April shook her head. They always wanted the females on the job to play mother. She outranked him and wasn't buying into it. Not that she was paranoid, or a stickler. She pointed at the froth of white stuffed under a pew down the center aisle, then caught her breath. It was a long swath of veil, glinting diamonds and pearls in the soft light. The wedding veil.

"Got anything interesting so far?" Mike asked.

"You won't believe this. I lifted a left ear print from the door out there." It was Ken's excited voice.