Restoreth My Soul (Psalm 23 Mysteries) (9 page)

His stomach rumbled and he hoped that Cindy showed up soon with food. He also hoped Mark showed up soon with the video recorder. In the back of his mind playing over and over he was also wondering just how long he was going to be able to hold out before he pulled up all the carpets in the house looking for more treasure.

It was beyond frustrating that Heinrich still hadn’t said what it was that he had found and his optimism that sooner or later the man would write about it was dwindling. His curiosity about the Hebrew writing, though, was only growing. Someone like the ex-Nazi was the last person he’d expect to have made the effort to learn Hebrew. Wherever he had learned it, he had studied hard and done well. He had an impressive vocabulary for someone who hadn’t been raised with it. Maybe he would at least find out what had driven the man to learn it.

After the ice cream headaches subsided, Joseph volunteered to take both Cindy and Geanie out to dinner. Cindy declined so that she could take pizza to Jeremiah like she’d promised, but wished them a happy evening. Geanie was at least looking a little bit better than she had been earlier and with Joseph she was in good hands.

She grabbed some packets of tea, a mug, kettle, lemon and honey. She had nearly forgotten that Jeremiah had asked her to bring those things. She just hoped that his throat was doing okay.

She wished she could spend some time online looking up information about the Amber Room, but she remembered that Jeremiah had wanted her to come over early if she could. Her research would just have to wait. But now that some of the shock of the night before and Geanie’s pronouncement was wearing off she found herself growing increasingly curious. Was it really possible that the old man had stolen cultural treasures in his home?

From what Jeremiah had been reading Heinrich had clearly fought in the war. She’d heard somewhere that a lot of the art, jewelry, and even silverware that the Nazis had stolen had never been found. Was it possible some of it had made it to America?

It made a certain sort of sense after all. Everyone was busy tracking stuff down in Germany and neighboring countries. Who would even think to look for most of those things in America?

Her curiosity was reasserting itself and she started to get excited about the thought of continuing to search the house for anything else Heinrich could have hidden in it. Of course, at this point, the police had probably already ripped up the rest of the carpet in the house looking for more treasures and trapdoors.

She thought about the painting of the dogs. Why go to all the trouble to hide it? Hiding the Amber Room made perfect sense, but not the painting. You could get a good copy of that for twenty bucks or less at a print shop. If it had been the bloodstains that were the issue why hadn’t he just gotten rid of the paper? He could have thrown it away, burned it, even dissolved it. Unless he didn’t have time to do any of those things. Still, she had the impression that the painting had been in its hiding place for a little while, although maybe she was wrong about that.

She swung by and grabbed a large pizza and some more sodas from Round Table and headed on to the house. She was eager to hear what else Jeremiah might have found out while translating.

She pulled up outside, got out of her car and froze. There, halfway down the block, was a black car with dark windows that looked just like the one she had seen in the church parking lot.

Her heart began to beat faster as she continued to stare. For one insane moment she wondered what would happen if she walked up and knocked on the window. She even took a step forward before she stopped herself.

Don’t be an idiot
, she told herself. It was probably a coincidence and if it wasn’t then knocking on the window was the worst thing she could possibly do. The way it was parked behind another car she couldn’t read the license plate number and she dare not risk getting close enough to see it.

She got her pizza and drinks out of the car, locked it and headed for the front door still keeping one eye on the black car. She made it inside and Jeremiah greeted her at the door, this time calmly and with a smile which relieved her to no end.

“Everything okay?” he asked, his smile quickly turning to a frown as he studied her face.

“I guess. There’s a black car out there with tinted windows. It looks a lot like one I saw in the church parking lot that seemed out of place to me.”

He moved past her and outside. She debated about following him, but decided to carry the food into the kitchen. After all, it was probably nothing. As soon as she set things down she headed to the master bedroom, wanting to see what it looked like with the floor torn out.

The sound of a gunshot brought her up short. She turned and took two quick steps toward the front door before it flew open. Jeremiah was standing there, his hand pressed over his upper arm. Blood was dripping between his fingers.

“Call the police!” he gasped.

Cindy’s scream reverberated through the house as Jeremiah sunk slowly to a seat on the stairs. The sound pained him far more than his arm. He listened as she frantically called Mark and then was unable to stop her from calling 911. As soon as she had hung up with them he got her attention.

“Can you get me a clean towel from the bathroom?”

She ran to get it and was back moments later. Her pupils were dilated and she was breathing in short, shallow gasps. He was afraid that she was going to pass out before he did. He had been going to enlist her help to get the bleeding stopped but immediately thought better of it.

He took the towel from her and pressed it to his arm, applying as much pressure as he could in an effort to stop the bleeding.

“I need you to try to slow your breathing down,” he said, making his voice as low and soothing as he could. “I’m going to be okay, the wound isn’t bad, I just need to get the bleeding to stop and everything will be fine.”

She still had the deer in the headlights look, but at least she was listening to him. He also noticed she was attempting to focus on her breathing.

“Good, that’s it,” he said.

The shock was wearing off and the pain was crashing in. No matter how many times he was shot he would never get used to it. Sweat was beginning to form on his brow and he knew he had to look incredibly pale, but he struggled not to let her see how much pain he was in. It would do neither of them any good.

His head was swimming a little bit which was not good.

“You’re doing good,” he reinforced.

“What happened?” she asked, voice barely more than a whisper.

“You were right about the car. There was definitely something suspicious about it. When I got close someone shot me out the passenger window and then the driver took off.”

He had been an idiot. He had assumed given everything that she was going through that Cindy was just being paranoid so he had taken no precautions when approaching the car. He hadn’t even gotten very close when the occupants reacted.

If he hadn’t seen the barrel of the good a split second before it was fired he’d be dead. She didn’t need to know that, though.

And no matter what condition she was in he would never again take anything she said lightly. She had incredible instincts about these things and he had just learned the hard way that it was to his detriment to ignore them.

“I’m so sorry!”

“It’s not your fault. You weren’t the one who shot me. In fact, you warned me that there was something strange about that car. At least now we know that we’re being watched, that we need to take precautions. I think part of our problem has been that since neither of us discovered a body we’ve felt like we were only tangential to this investigation, but I think we just got pulled right into the middle of it.”

“I knew something terrible was going to happen,” she said, her voice shaking.

“Cindy, we can’t focus on that right now,” he said. “We just have to stay calm until Mark and the paramedics arrive.”

Which couldn’t happen too soon as far as he was concerned. The pain was growing and although the bleeding was slowing it wasn’t fast enough. There were a few tricks he knew to rectify the latter problem, but he didn’t have the tools for most and he was more than a little worried about freaking Cindy out. Seeing him cauterize his own wound was probably more than she could handle at the moment. And the questions she was likely to ask afterward were far more than he could handle ever.

“Tell you what, why don’t you humor me and rip up a piece of that carpet in the dining room?” he asked.

She blinked at him. “You want me to rip up the carpet?”

He nodded. “How else are we going to find out if there’s treasure under it? Besides, we’ve got to do something while we wait.”

She crouched down and began grabbing at the carpet and tugging on it. “It’s tacked down tight,” she said.

“Probably a sign that there’s nothing to find, but why take the chance?” he asked. “There’s a Swiss army knife in my right pocket if you want to get it.”

She licked her lips nervously as she stood and walked over to him. Her eyes strayed to his bloody arm.

“Hey, look at me, look me in the eyes,” he ordered, putting authority in his voice and raising it slightly even though it hurt to do so because of how hoarse he’d become.

She did as told and he forced himself to smile like he didn’t have a care in the world.

“See, everything’s good. Now just reach into my pocket and grab the knife.”

She looked down and he twisted as far as he could onto his left hip to make it easier for her to reach. She hesitated for the longest moment and then she finally reached into his pocket. He noticed that she started blushing as she did so and it took all his willpower not to comment on it.

She pulled the knife free and stepped back quickly, her cheeks still stained with red.

“You ever use one of those things?” he asked.

She nodded and a moment later had flipped open one of the blades. Then she got down on the ground and attacked the carpet with such ferocity that it was breathtaking. She stabbed and cut and ripped as if her life depended on it.

Moments later she pulled up a hunk of the carpet. Her shoulders dropped slightly. “There’s nothing underneath it,” she said, disappointment thick in her voice.

“Okay, maybe not under that one, but there’s lots more rooms,” he said. “Save the writing room for last since they might still be needing to preserve the crime scene.”

She nodded and turned toward the stairs. Jeremiah moved his feet slightly so that she could get at the carpet on the first stair. When she pulled it up he saw only wood, no amber reflecting the light as he had secretly hoped to see.

“Why don’t you check the rooms upstairs?” he suggested.

He was getting woozier, but keeping her calm and occupied was top priority.

She hesitated. “I don’t want to leave you alone,” she said after a minute.

“You won’t. You’ll be right up there and I promise I’m not going anywhere. I’ll wait right here.”

He smiled again, but from the way she recoiled slightly he realized he wasn’t doing a good job of looking calm anymore. She hesitated, but finally walked up the steps, scooting around him, her legs brushing against his good shoulder as she made her way upstairs.

Moments later he heard her attacking the carpet on the landing. There was a ripping sound and then she called down, “Nothing so far.”

“Keep looking!”

Finally in the distance he could hear sirens. He heaved a sigh of relief. Time seemed to dilate and stand still after that so it seemed like he had been hearing the sirens for at least an hour. When Cindy came back downstairs it seemed like she was taking a step a minute and each footfall felt like it would shake apart the entire staircase.

“There was nothing,” she said, her voice sounding like it was slow and distorted.

He nodded and it felt as though the weight of his own head would send him tumbling forward.

The door opened and Mark entered with paramedics close behind him.

“It’s about time,” Jeremiah said, his own tongue feeling thick as he slurred the words.

One paramedic grabbed the blood soaked towel and Jeremiah relinquished his hold and felt himself falling backward onto the stairs. He heard Cindy scream from somewhere far off while he debated whether or not to let himself pass out. The pain was great and he was in good hands now so he could, but it would only frighten Cindy more.

With a pained grunt he decided that he had to stay conscious for her sake. Things became clearer. Time seemed to resume to its normal speed and he could clearly hear Cindy telling Mark everything she knew about what had happened.

He could feel hands on him and ripping sounds as the paramedics cut his shirt off of him. There was a moment of silence and then someone whistled low.

“I’ve never seen so many scars and bullet holes on one person,” one of the paramedics was saying. “Who is this guy?”

“He’s a rabbi,” Mark said, but he heard the uncertainty in the detective’s voice.

A better question would be what
hadn’t
happened to him.

“Will he be okay?” Cindy asked.

“He’ll be just fine,” one of the paramedics reassured her. “He’ll just have another scar to add to his collection.”

“What’s one more?” Jeremiah said, attempting to joke.

He opened his eyes and saw them all staring at him. There’d be no escaping rigorous questioning from both Mark and Cindy over what they were seeing. He wasn’t looking forward to it in the least.

“You’re conscious?” Mark asked.

“Yeah. I am. And I’d really like something for the pain now.”

Mark swore under his breath as one of the paramedics reached for a syringe. Jeremiah couldn’t hear him, but he could read his lips and he was very glad that Cindy likely couldn’t hear him either.

“Miss, can I ask you to step into the other room?” the paramedic with the dark hair asked.

“Careful, that’s my wife you’re talking to,” Jeremiah tried to joke. It was an old joke between Cindy, Mark and him. He’d once had to claim to be her husband in order to see her in the hospital and help protect her from the killer who was after her.

Neither Cindy nor Mark laughed, though, as he had expected them, too. Both looked frightened. He glanced down. There was quite a lot of blood.

“Detective, there’s something else you should know.”

“What is it, Jeremiah?” Mark asked intently, although his eyes kept straying to the scars on Jeremiah’s chest.

“The car...it had diplomatic plates.”

This time the detective didn’t bother to keep his swearing to himself.

Mark felt as though everything in his world had just been turned upside down. A strange case had just gotten far stranger than he could have ever guessed. Diplomatic plates? Why was someone from another government taking shots at the rabbi? What was someone like that even doing in Pine Springs? There were consulates in Los Angeles but that was an hour away at best.

Then there was the fact that he couldn’t take his eyes off Jeremiah. The rabbi’s chest looked like it had gotten into a fight with a meat grinder and lost. He wondered how many of the scars were from the terrible ordeal in March at the camp. That whole thing had cost Paul his life.

Mark knew that Jeremiah and all the kids had been hospitalized for a few days afterward, but because of what he had been facing he’d never had a chance to visit. As he thought about it he realized he’d never even really heard what the extent of Jeremiah’s injuries were from that. Guilt flashed through him. He’d been so busy dealing with his own emotional baggage related to the Green Pastures tragedy that he’d never even stopped to truly consider everything Jeremiah must have gone through.

Then, all those months they’d spent together with Jeremiah counseling him so he could get back on the force. The things he’d said, the anger, the frustration, and again he’d never thought to check in with the rabbi and see how he was handling everything that had happened to him.

He honestly couldn’t remember a time in his life where he’d felt so small, weak, selfish. He glanced at Cindy and saw the tears in her eyes. She couldn’t take her eyes off the scars either. Mark shook his head slowly. He and Cindy were the ones with the majority of the emotional baggage which made no sense in the larger scheme of things.

Impulsively he reached out and grabbed Jeremiah’s right hand. It was sticky, covered in the man’s own blood. None of this would have happened if he hadn’t gotten him involved. There was no one else to blame this time but himself. He might as well have shot the rabbi himself. Jeremiah looked at him and Mark felt tears stinging his own eyes.

“I swear to you I will make this right,” he said.

Jeremiah nodded slowly, but Mark could tell he didn’t fully grasp his meaning. That was alright. He’d apologize to him later when things were calm and there was no morphine dulling his senses.

He pulled away and put his arm around Cindy’s shoulders. He rubbed her back, belatedly realizing that he was rubbing Jeremiah’s blood into her shirt. What a mess the three of them were in. Blood bound them together.

First it had been the blood of a dead man in a church, but that had been just the beginning. Eventually it had been the blood of his partner, Paul, who had given his life trying to save Jeremiah’s and the blood of a murderer that Mark had been covered in as he tortured him striving for the same goal. And still the blood kept flowing, coating the three of them. It bound them together. One day, though, would it tear them apart?

He shook his head, trying to rid it of the dark thoughts that were swirling through it, threatening to consume him.

Then the paramedics were putting Jeremiah on a gurney and wheeling him toward the ambulance that was waiting outside. They told him the name of the hospital they were heading to. Mark knew it well.

“We’ll follow,” he told the driver.

Then he and Cindy watched as the ambulance drove away. Once it was out of sight it was as though some sort of spell was broken. Cindy let out a half sob and leaned back against a wall, bracing her hands on her knees.