The Shadow of Death (Psalm 23 Mysteries Book 9) (4 page)

Traci waved enthusiastically from the couch where she had retreated to put her feet up. “Sorry, I overdid it a bit,” she apologized.

“Oh no, you should rest when you need it. And while you can,” Cindy said with a warm smile.

Mark took Cindy’s suitcase from Jeremiah. “I’ll put this in the guest room,” he said.

Cindy nodded and sat down next to Traci. Buster enthusiastically gave her a welcome lick. The two women were quickly engrossed in baby talk as the baby began to kick and Cindy got to feel it.

Mark took the suitcase back and put it down next to the bed in the guest room and then hurried back into the family room. Jeremiah was standing just inside the door, unmoving, his eyes fixed on Cindy.

Mark grabbed Buster’s leash from its peg next to the door. “Come on, Buster. The men are going to take a walk,” he said with a significant look at Jeremiah.

Fortunately the rabbi didn’t protest, just followed them out of the house. The three of them hit the sidewalk. It was slow going as Buster felt the need to thoroughly sniff every mailbox.

“So, what’s really going on?” Mark asked without preamble. “If Cindy needs police protection for something there are easier, more efficient, more correct ways to go about it.”

“They’re also more official,” Jeremiah said. “This doesn’t need to become official.”

“I have to admit, I’m not liking the sound of this,” Mark admitted. Try as he might he couldn’t keep his suspicions about Jeremiah and his connection to the homeless man from rearing their head.

“I’m not asking you to like it, but I am asking for your help.”

Mark stopped while Buster inspected yet another mailbox. “Is what’s going on connected to those things you and I don’t talk about?” he asked bluntly.

Jeremiah gave him a small, humorless smile. “It might be. That’s what I need to figure out.”

“And you felt Cindy would be safer here with a cop than at Joseph and Geanie’s?”

“Something like that.”

“You know, one of these days you and I are going to have to talk about those things we don’t talk about.”

Jeremiah looked him dead in the eyes. “I pray that day never comes.”

“Unless one of us is killed I think it’s inevitable at this point.”

Something dark flashed in Jeremiah’s eyes and then vanished. Mark blinked, wondering what exactly it was he had just seen. The rabbi usually wore a pretty impenetrable mask, but Mark had the uneasy feeling that he’d just had a glimpse beneath it. He was sure that he never wanted to see that look again from anyone, let alone from Jeremiah.

He shook his head. “I’ve got a bad feeling that a reckoning day is coming, Samaritan.”

The corners of Jeremiah’s mouth quirked up. “You haven’t called me that in a while.”

“At least, not that you’ve heard,” Mark said, struggling to backpedal from the edge of a precipice. He realized his hands were clenched into fists at his side. So were Jeremiah’s. They were standing, facing each other, almost sizing each other up as though they were enemies ready to fight.

But he knew enough to know that he would never want Jeremiah for an enemy. He just hoped the day never came when he couldn’t have him as a friend.

“How long do you expect Cindy to be with us?”

“Hopefully just a day or two. It might be longer, though.”

“If it’s longer than that I have a feeling we’ll all be needing police protection.”

“Some of us, at any rate,” Jeremiah said.

Mark shook his head. “See, when you say things like that it doesn’t make me feel better.”

“It wasn’t designed to.”

“You know, I think it was easier back in the good old days when you pretended like you’d never been anything but a rabbi.”

“Then you should have stopped asking questions a long time ago.”

“You know that’s not in my nature.” Mark sighed. “But, no more questions for now. Cindy can stay with us for as long as she needs to.”

“Thank you.”

“Let’s get back to the ladies.”

They turned and walked back to the house.

“Is there anything you need that I can get you?” Mark asked.

“No. I’ve got it covered,” Jeremiah said.

Back inside the house they discovered that Traci was giving Cindy the tour of the nursery that they had just finished painting. They had opted to go with a pale, soothing green on the walls since Traci didn’t know the sex of the baby, and they both agreed that they liked green better than pink or blue anyway.

“Looks like you’ve just about got everything done,” Cindy commented.

“The crib and dresser were gifts from Mark’s parents,” Traci said.

“When is the baby shower?” Cindy asked.

“Next month. My older sister who you’ll meet tomorrow is putting it on.”

A strange look crossed Jeremiah’s face.

“What is it?” Mark asked him.

Jeremiah shook his head. “It’s just strange to me. For Jewish people, we don’t have baby showers or set up the nursery before the baby comes.”

“Why not?” Traci asked.

He hesitated a moment and then said, “In our culture, it’s seen as bad luck.”

“You set up the nursery after the baby comes? During all that chaos?” Mark asked.

“Yes. I mean, often after the baby is born while mother and child are still in the hospital the husband would come home and set everything up so it would be ready when they arrived.”

Mark shook his head. “I’m going to be a basket case when the baby happens. This furniture took me an entire day to assemble. I can’t imagine how I would have deciphered the terrible directions that came with them under that kind of pressure.”

“I see the logic of that. It’s just odd to me,” Jeremiah said.

Mark laughed ruefully. “In this case I prefer my brand of odd to yours.”

Jeremiah stayed a few more minutes before excusing himself. He would be back the next day by noon for the festivities. In the meantime, he had some things he wanted to work out.

He made it home and walked inside, carrying the envelope that he had taken from Cindy’s house. He was hoping he could learn more about it.

Jeremiah studied the envelope intently. Other than the words there were no other markings. It was a standard white envelope, the kind you bought in bulk at any grocery store or drug store.

He put a pot of water on the stove and waited until it was boiling. Once it was he carefully held the envelope in the steam, waiting a minute to see if any other writing appeared. When none did he carefully pulled apart the seams of the envelope, spreading it out until it was just a flat sheet of paper. He was hoping to find something, a microdot, a word, anything.

There was nothing. It made no sense. Why bother to write the words on the outside of an envelope if there was nothing else meant to go inside? Why not just write them on a small slip of paper?

He turned off the stove, took the paper, and sat down at the kitchen table. Captain padded up to him and put his head on Jeremiah’s knee. He scratched behind the dog’s ears.

“What do you think, boy?”

The dog just squeezed his eyes shut.

Jeremiah put the envelope down on the table, close to Captain’s head.

A moment later the dog jerked. He opened his eyes and a deep, menacing growl rose up from his throat. He lunged and grabbed the envelope with an unearthly howl of rage.

4

Captain shook his head violently, as though the envelope was some creature he had caught and was trying to kill.

“Captain, stop!” Jeremiah shouted, stunned at the dog’s outburst. He reached over to try and take the envelope away from him, but Captain jumped away. He stood in the middle of the kitchen, chewing and shaking until all that was left of the envelope was little bits of paper scattered on the ground. Finished, Captain walked back over and laid down at Jeremiah’s feet, whimpering.

Jeremiah reached down to pat him on the head and Captain flinched. “Easy boy, it’s okay.”

There was only one thing that Jeremiah could think of that could have made Captain freak out like that. He had had a similar reaction a few months before when he encountered the man who had killed his previous master. That man was dead, though. Jeremiah had seen to that.

Still, before he died the terrorist had told Jeremiah that there were more of them out there, waiting. Was it possible that there had been two people present when Captain’s former master had been killed? Was the scent left on the envelope intentional?

If so, it was a very convoluted way of sending a message. Cindy had to find it and show it to him. He then had to take it home to look for extra clues and put it somewhere his dog could get a good whiff of it. There were too many steps for it to be an effective plan. There were too many places where it could go awry. That just made the whole thing even more confusing.

One thing he hadn’t been able to figure out yet was why Peter, Captain’s former master, had been killed. He doubted that the man’s real name had been Peter despite what the identification on his body had said. When Jeremiah had met him he’d been going by a very different name, and he had been a spy working for the C.I.A. How Peter had gone from being a top operator in Iran to a homeless man in California he didn’t know.

The question was, why had he been killed? And why had he been killed on Jeremiah’s street? The man had made it as far as Jeremiah’s yard before collapsing. What would he have had to say if he could only have made it to the door? Was he killed because he knew Jeremiah and someone was afraid of what he might tell him? Or was Peter killed for some other reason, something he’d known about from his past or even something he’d uncovered in his present? How was he connected to the men who wanted Jeremiah dead? It was possible they were Iranian and their revenge on Jeremiah was related to something that had happened in that country. If that was the case it was possible that they had had it in for Peter as well.

There were too many pieces of the puzzle still missing. What was worse was he didn’t know how to go about actively searching for those missing pieces without raising red flags all over the place.

Retirement was not shaping up to be as low-key and uneventful as he had been hoping for. In fact, his whole carefully constructed house of cards was threatening to fall down around him.

He finally decided to give up for the night. Maybe his subconscious would come up with the answer if he got some sleep and allowed it the chance to work on the problem. He threw the now useless paper bits into the garbage. He got ready for bed with Captain pressed next to him the entire time, nearly tripping him twice.

When he finally got in bed the dog crawled up to lay next to him, pressed against him, instead of at his feet where he usually slept. Jeremiah put his arm around the animal and gently stroked his back. He whispered softly to the traumatized animal and eventually the tension left Captain and he fell asleep. Just as Jeremiah drifted off he realized that he had been speaking to the dog in Hebrew.

Cindy woke the next morning early with a sense of excitement and trepidation. It was Independence Day and it should be a great party as long as they didn’t have any uninvited guests. She got dressed in her jeans and her flag shirt and made her way to the kitchen. Even though it was early she found Traci already up.

“You’re up early,” Traci commented.

“Not as early as you apparently.”

Traci grimaced. “The baby was kicking a lot this morning, all over the place.”

“I guess it wanted to start celebrating the holiday with a bang,” Cindy said, smiling.

“She.”

“She? It’s a girl?”

Traci nodded.

“Congratulations! But I thought you were waiting to find out when it was born,” Cindy said.

“That’s what I wanted. Mark insisted on knowing.”

“And he couldn’t keep it a secret?”

Traci sighed. “No, he’s trying. He’s been very careful to say gender neutral terms only.”

“Then how do you know?”

“Because even though he’s a fantastic detective he would make a lousy criminal. He telegraphs everything. I can’t go into a baby section of a store with him without him gravitating straight to the girls’ clothes.”

“I’m sorry,” Cindy said as she sat down at the kitchen table and leaned over to squeeze Traci’s hand.

“It’s okay. I can still pretend to be surprised, which is what I’m going to do.”

“Well, I had no idea until now that you actually knew,” Cindy said.

“That’s because I’d make a far better criminal than my husband.”

“Or actress,” Cindy said with a smile.

“That too.”

“So, what can I help with today?” Cindy asked, changing the subject.

“I’ve got almost everything under control. Of course, when it gets closer to time I’ll need help setting up the tables in the backyard and carrying out the food.”