The Silent Bride (2 page)

Two years ago I ran a contest on my Web site. The prize: the winner would appear as a character in my next book. Seems a long time ago, but we do have a winner. His name is Anthony Price. He's a Welsh butler now living on the north shore of Long Island. I interviewed Anthony, changed his name from Price to Pryce, and made up a family for him. Here he is, probably not as sinister as he would like to be.

I am deeply grateful for the friendship and help of Dorothy Harris, director of the Leslie Glass Foundation and perpetual reader and advisor, for being with me every step of the way. Dr. Rosemary Perez Foster of New York University's Ehrenkranz School of Social Work, and Dr. Linda Mills of New York University's School of Law have provided insight into the psychology of traumatized immigrants and the Orthodox community. Claudia Oberweger, C.S.W., C.A.S.A.C., has taught me a great deal about substance and alcohol abuse. Thanks to Nancy Yost and Audrey LaFehr, Woo fans in all seasons.

One

O
n May ninth, at three-thirty in the afternoon, two months after her eighteenth birthday, Tovah Schoenfeld was getting dressed for her wedding and living the last half hour of her life. She was in a downstairs room of Temple Shalom, near where the caterers were fussing over the last details of the reception and dinner to come. She was perspiring in her heavy bridal gown and very nervous.

To get her married, Tovah's father and mother had tried to make all her dreams come true. Thus she was wearing a Tang Ling gown of white satin covered with lace and seed pearls, unlike anything her friends had ever seen. Her dream had been for a sleeveless gown, something cut down below the hollow in her neck, but exposing skin was not allowed. So this dress was a waterfall that completely enveloped her. Folds of it tumbled down from her shoulders in a wide swath of puddling, snowy silk that weighed a ton and completely hid her beautiful figure.

A jewel neckline tightly encircled her neck. The dress had no waist, and the princess style nipped in only the slightest bit under her breasts so that hardly a curve could be detected. Tovah's arms were encased to the wrists, and her veil, not yet attached to her hair, was outrageously voluminous and would cover her from head to foot. For such modesty the price had been nearly ten thousand dollars. Kim, the fitter from Tang Ling who'd made the dress and personally sewn on every pearl by hand, had come all the way out to Riverdale to dress her.

Tovah was supposed to reign supreme on her wedding day, and her hair was being styled to be seen in public for the last time in her life. Tovah had long fair hair that curled naturally, and she didn't want to cover it. Her mother had bought her a natural-looking shetl for more than three thousand dollars and begged her to put on the wig when she and Schmuel were alone for a few minutes after the ceremony. But Tovah wanted to save it for tomorrow night, the first of the traditional seven postwedding dinners that friends were giving for them. Tovah and her mother were still arguing about the wearing of the wig when her familiar nausea took hold of her.

The crowded room was cluttered with hanging racks of gowns and dresses for now and later, hair dryers, makeup cases, tables with mirrors, combs, containers of hair spray. Tovah's mother, Suri, was in there, her grandmother, Bubba, three of her five sisters, a photographer, a hairdresser, and a makeup artist. The girls were noisy. Tovah's mother was scolding them for running around. Bubba was scolding her for scolding. There wasn't enough air, and Tovah was worried about doing the right thing. Tovah didn't really want to get married. Had she chosen the right boy? She hardly knew him, and he'd looked so young when she'd seen him a week ago. He was shorter than she was; she couldn't even wear real heels with her wedding dress. And he didn't have to shave. She hadn't seemed to notice this the few times they'd dated. She'd been so frightened she could barely look at him.

Wendy, the party planner, was giving her a funny look, and suddenly she was fainting in the heat of the room. She was sweating in the dress. Her mother was getting more irritable. That look crossed Suri's face:
Don't make trouble, Tovah. Don't get sick and have a headache. Don't act crazy.

"Kim, come in here," Wendy called out the door. "It's time to rock and roll."

Kim appeared at the door, smiling and bowing. "Everything all right, beautiful girl?" he asked. "Not worried anymore?"

Water filled Tovah's mouth. "Still worried," she whispered.

Suri and Bubba, in their own long gowns, both stopped yelling and exchanged looks. Surely, among the thousands of boys and girls matched up at the tender age of eighteen by their parents according to taste, disposition, and the financial worth of their parents, Tovah had to be about the most difficult. That was the story their rolling eyes told. Suri started scolding.

"Tovah, Schmuel and his family are here. The rabbi is waiting. Your father is waiting. You look beautiful; you're the luckiest bride in the world. It's time to get that veil on."

Tovah was white. But how could she be sure she was doing the right thing? The rule was you couldn't see or speak to your husband-to-be for a week before the wedding. Now she couldn't remember Schmuel's face or even recognize her own in the mirror in front of her. She'd never worn makeup before, just a little lipstick on their first date. Outside, she could hear people clinking glasses, talking loudly in the party room so extravagantly decorated. Guests who'd come from far away were already eating canapes and carrying on over the twenty varieties of roses and lilies in the centerpieces while they waited for the ceremony to start.

"Give her something sweet, a hard candy, quick." Bubba jockeyed for control.

"Beautiful girl, everyone is like this, nervous at first," Kim said softly.

Wendy grabbed Tovah's hands, chafed them. "Candy!" she commanded.

Suri pulled the wrapper off a lemon drop and stuffed it into Tovah's mouth. "There you go. Sweets for the sweet." She pushed the hairdresser out of the way. "Get out of the way, Penny. Give her some air. It's very hot in here."

"Penny, please step outside for a second. I'll get the veil on her." Wendy took over.

Then Tovah was on her feet. Wendy fluffed her hair and patted her on the back. Kim slid behind her and began fussing with the folds and the veil. While he worked, he murmured to Tovah as if she were a child, encouraging her and telling her she looked magnificent.

"Magnificent," Wendy agreed. "The best yet."

But something was wrong. Tovah was so numb she couldn't feel her feet moving her out of the room. She couldn't make real what was happening in the rabbi's study. She was aware of Schmuel, a skinny redheaded kid, dressed in a tuxedo that made him look more like a bar mitvah boy than a husband. He had blue eyes, too, chosen in part so they would have handsome, light-skinned children. His father was grinning. Her father too. The rest was a blank, the words, the signing of papers, the business being done. All she could feel was her cold sweat inside the magnificent dress. Why did she have to be the only girl in the world who didn't want to marry?

And then the business was done, and the rabbi ushered Schmuel and his mother and father out of his study. Tovah and her parents were following. Now she could hear the music. Her father was on one side of her. Her mother on the other. Each clutched one of her arms, almost holding her up. They began their walk. From the side door up the aisle of the women's section they came. The partition between the men's and women's sections had been removed so the whole congregation could see them: a magnificent trio, rich and beautiful. Tovah and her parents turned when they reached the back of the sanctuary, then headed for the center aisle that separated the men from the women.

There, the width of Tovah's dress prevented the parents and bride from walking abreast. Tovah's mother and father let go of her arms and moved down the aisle first. Because there were no flower girls, no ring bearer, no bridesmaids, Tovah walked alone. It was for this reason that her killer had a clear sight line of her. First her head, covered in lace and tulle, bobbed in the rifle's sights. All eyes were focused on her forward movement, not the empty lobby behind her where the doors were closed and no one was on guard in this safe, safe neighborhood. The bride's head was in the sights, then the cascade of silk falling from Tovah's shoulders. The shooter never shifted the rifle sights to the wall of men and boys in their black suits and skullcaps or the mass of women and children, agog at the richness of Tovah's gown. The people were all well fed and fat. So healthy and rich. Suddenly the barrel of the gun did shift to the crowd, but only for a moment. There was no choice but to fire. Even in five seconds it would be too late. Tovah would be surrounded. She'd be in front of the man with the black robes and white shawl, family on all sides. It would be too late.

No more pain in this life. Salvation was now. The short volley of shots came with a muffled sound. A kind of
phumfp
ing. The bullets slammed through the tulle and satin into Tovah's back. She pitched forward without uttering so much as a gurgle. A man in the first row jumped to help her up. At first no one guessed what had happened. It was so easy, so very easy. The bride went down, and it took almost a full minute for anyone to realize she'd been shot. The killer was out the door and gone before the screaming even started.

Two

D
etective Sergeant April Woo fiddled with her chopsticks at a window table in Soong Fat's Best Noodle House on Main Street in Hushing, Queens. At four-fifteen on Sunday she was on a busman's holiday, doing a favor on her day off for her sister-cousin, Ching, who was neither a sister nor a cousin. Ching was the third daughter of her mother's friend, Mai Ma Dong, whom April had always called Auntie out of respect. She and Ching had known each other from birth, had shared the same crib, had played together as children, had stuffed themselves and yawned at countless family occasions, had stayed at each other's houses and been compared against each other enough by their highly competitive mothers to make them feel in equal measures the love and wrath of siblings.

Ching was very smart, had a business degree, and a great job at a stable Internet company. She was a rising star. If that wasn't enough to cause April's mother, Sai Yuan Woo, a serious loss of face in light of April's low-class work in law enforcement, Ching was getting married in two weeks to Matthew Tan, against whom April's own Latino lover, Lieutenant Mike Sanchez, stood as a poisonous threat to the purity of all the Han peoples. Ching was getting married and April was doing her a favor. She'd agreed to talk to Matthew's friend, Gao Wan, in the heart of Queens on a Sunday because it was also a good place to go food shopping for her mother.

April hadn't guessed that this favor would involve listening to an endless, shaggy, Chinese dragon-riding tale (illegal entry into the United States) that was completely unbelievable not only because of the manner of the telling, but also the telling itself. Usually illegal aliens did not inform authorities of their plight.

"My mother was the daughter of a fisherman," he'd begun over an hour ago. "My father a river god." Then the sly, appraising smile to see how she'd take such a tall story.

Right then April had known this would take a while. She appraised Gao right back. Could be he was trying to make himself interesting. Could be he didn't know who his father was. In any case, she was no stranger to the most elaborate of superstitions. Along with her ancestors, April herself half believed that the skies were filled with ghosts and immortals flying around making mischief in far greater measure than good fortune. And she often thought her own mother was the most powerful Chinese mythical creature of all, a dragon capable of changing shape as well as anything else that got in her way. Secretly, she believed her Skinny Dragon Mother had invisible armor on her body made up of far more aggressive yang scales than kind and gentle yin ones. Further, April had no doubt that her mother carried the precious pearl of long (possibly everlasting) life in her mouth. The idea was terrifying to her.

"My mother drowned when her seducer took her to his river god home in the weeds. I was orphaned before birth," Gao went on cheerfully. "My uncle had a small cafe in a tourist town. I learned to cook there."

She watched his eyes as he described his teen years working in small restaurants and inris, then his horrific boat journey to the food mecca of the world, Hong Kong. He glossed over his years there, barely mentioning the sponsor who'd brought him here. And finally he hinted at a grave danger he faced from the gangsters who claimed they now owned his culinary gifts for life. April's classic oval face, almond eyes, and rosebud red lips remained neutral as she suppressed her irritation at this elaborate waste of her time.

She'd bet a month's salary that Gao's story was made up from beginning to end and that he had arrived not in the filthy hold of some Taiwanese tanker, but in the comfort of an American airliner, and no gangsters of any kind were after him.