Yom Kippur Murder (24 page)

“I’ll wait up. I have to know, Jack. I have to do the right thing.”

* * *

It was after ten when he called. I was in bed reading, and I turned so quickly to answer that I lost my place.

“I got it,” he said.

“Yes.”

“You know lawyers; they sit on the fence.” I wondered when the turning point would come, when his sympathies would cross the line, in favor rather than against. “I put it to him the way you explained it. He said it’s a judgment call. The attorney might thwart the search for any evidence that would tend to incriminate his client. My guess is that Gold would take that position, from what I know of him. When I suggested turning the evidence over to the police, the professor said, ‘That’s a much better idea. They can get the search going on probable cause. We have a crime, a suspect, and probable cause to believe that something will be found in a certain place based on information or a strong likelihood.’ That’s it.”

“I’ll call Franciotti tomorrow, if I have anything.”

“You really think you’re close?”

“I won’t know till tomorrow.”

“If you need a warrant, do it before Saturday. They only issue them on weekdays. And cross your fingers for a sympathetic judge.”

“Thanks.”

“You still want me to meet you at the Herskovitz place?”

“I’ll be there Saturday, in any event.”

I walked early on Friday, meeting no one. Then I went back for breakfast and a long wait. Emily didn’t call until almost noon.

“I’ve got it,” she said triumphantly. “The problem was, when I finally found the airline, it turned out he missed his connection Friday afternoon, New York to Atlanta, and he had to change airlines. When he got out to the airport, he was standby, but that was a very busy night. It was Friday, which is always heavy, but it was also a Jewish holiday.”

“I know,” I said. “Yom Kippur.”

“That’s it. He finally got on a late flight with Delta. Do you want the details?”

“Please.” I wrote them down.

“He arrived in New York early Friday from Philadelphia.”

“He must have been on a business trip,” I said.

“The whole trip was charged to his company’s travel agent.”

“I really appreciate it, Emily.”

“Oh, gosh, it was a pleasure. Is this your murderer?”

“I hope not,” I said.

Franciotti wasn’t in. What a surprise. I wondered briefly where detectives go when they’re “out.” I left my name and number and said it was urgent. That hadn’t done much good on Monday when Bettina and I had our little adventure, but I felt we were on friendlier terms now. I called again at two, but he was still out.

I started to get nervous. Jack had said you couldn’t get a warrant on Saturday, and I just couldn’t see waiting till Monday to put this to rest. Besides, I wanted Franciotti to check something at Nathan’s apartment before the Herskovitzes came in and started packing.

It was four when he got back to me. I told him what I had learned, down to the flight numbers.

“Jeez, you mean the son?” he said.

“It looks that way. He spent the previous night in Philadelphia, so he probably had a suitcase with him. If his clothes were bloody, he could easily have changed in the apartment, even if he put on yesterday’s dirty shirt. And we finally figured out what’s missing from the living room, a heavy marble clock.”

“Aha,” Franciotti said. “Which he could have taken with him in the suitcase. Sounds like you’ve got a lot of solid facts there. Nice.”

“I think someone in Atlanta ought to get a warrant and search his house. They may find the clock stashed somewhere, and the bloody clothes, too. It’s not likely he dropped them in the laundry.”

“I’ll get right on it.”

“Sergeant, Mitchell and his wife are flying in tonight. I don’t know where they’re staying, but their children might. If the house is searched tonight, they may call him and warn him.”

“I’ll tell Atlanta to get the warrant and hold off executing it till tomorrow. The search can wait a day.”

“Good idea,” I said, as though it had been his. “There’s something else you may want to look into.” I took a deep breath and admitted to him that I had looked around the apartment that day last week when he had found me there, the day after the break-in. “I wore the big yellow rubber gloves that hang over the pail under the kitchen sink. It occurred to me that if the killer came into the kitchen to wash or wipe off his hands, he might have seen those gloves and put them on to rearrange the things on the mantel. I know that my handling them kind of bollixes things up, but maybe you could get some prints off them. And I’m sure any man’s fingers are longer and thicker than mine. They may have left some prints.”

“Good thinking. I’ll go over there with a lab guy as soon as I talk to Atlanta.”

I didn’t want to hold him up on his call, but something was still niggling at me. “There’s just one more thing,” I said. “When Mrs. Paterno and I went into the apartment the day we found the body, she was absolutely sure the bolt was locked. It means the killer had a key.”

“Or she remembered wrong. Mitchell Herskovitz is supposed to pick up the keys to his father’s place tomorrow morning. I have a note about it.”

“I just wanted you to know.”

“Thanks. Let me call Atlanta.”

Saturday was not the best day of my life. I called Arnold in the morning and asked where he would be in the afternoon. He said at home till four or five; they had one of those damned cocktail parties to go to, and they hadn’t decided whether to go early and leave early or go late and leave early. I said I might need him.

“Something cooking?”

“You know me,” I said lightly. “There’s always something cooking.”

“By the way, I talked to Bert Finch yesterday. He’s got apartments in two different buildings for Gallagher and Paterno, ready for inspection. He’ll paint to suit.”

“That’s really wonderful, Arnold. I’ll tell them when I go down this afternoon.”

“Mitchell cleaning the place out?”

“He should be.”

I tried Franciotti, but he wasn’t at the precinct squad. I checked with Celia, and she said she would wait up for me. I promised not to be too late. Then I packed a bag.

I had already decided to leave Celia’s early on Sunday and not attend mass with her. I stopped going on a weekly basis after I left St. Stephen’s, something I was working out for myself. So I packed some casual clothes for the next day and I dropped Mark’s prayer book in, in case I had time to leave it off. Then I dressed for my evening. At one I drove into New York.

I carried my overnight bag using the shoulder strap. You can’t leave anything that looks like luggage in a parked car
because it’ll be broken into, and the repair is likely to cost more than replacing what was stolen.

I walked up to Broadway to find a pay phone, and I called Franciotti.

“We got the gloves,” he said. “Is Herskovitz in the apartment?”

“I haven’t been up there yet, but I would guess so. He told me he wanted to get an early start.”

“He never picked up the keys.”

“I see. What about Atlanta?”

“I’m waiting on a call from them. Hold on … There it is now. I’ll see you at the apartment in an hour, one way or the other.”

I took out another quarter and dialed the number for St. Luke’s Hospital, just to kill a little time before going to Nathan’s.

“We expect Mr. Greenspan to be released tomorrow,” I was told. I sent my happy good wishes and hung up.

Then I called Arnold. “I’d like you to come to Nathan’s apartment,” I said when he answered. “There’s someone I’d like you to meet.”

“Be there in an hour,” he said.

I stopped at Gallagher’s apartment and told him the good news. He was ecstatic. Then I went up to six and told Mrs. Paterno. She took it the way she took everything, like a neutral weather report. Then I walked down to five.

The door was ajar, but I knocked and called before walking in. As I passed the study, I could see that all the books were gone from the shelves and a number of cartons were stacked in the middle of the room. Mitchell and his wife were in the living room, he in a sport shirt, she in jeans and a big shirt tied in a knot at her waist. We were introduced, and I put on the biggest act of my life. They were wrapping the pictures of Renata and the children in paper that looked as if it had been left by the same mover that had delivered the cartons.

At a quarter to three, Arnold arrived. He’s kind of a striking-looking man, tall and lanky with a shock of white
hair and one of those lean faces with lots of angles and thick white eyebrows. We all talked a little more while the Herskovitzes worked. Then, just at three, Sergeant Franciotti, his partner, and a uniformed policeman walked through the door.

“Afternoon, Miss Bennett,” he said rather formally. He walked by us, holding his shield up, and stopped in front of Mitchell. “Mr. Herskovitz, I’m sorry, but I have to arrest you for the murder of your father, Nathan Herskovitz.”

Carolyn screamed, “What?” and Mitchell turned so pale, I was afraid he might faint.

Arnold, of course, retained his cool. “Don’t say anything, Mitchell,” he said, walking toward him and dodging cartons while Franciotti took handcuffs out of his pocket and started reading Mitchell his rights from his Miranda card. “Sergeant, Mr. Herskovitz is represented by counsel at this time, and there will be no questioning of my client. Now, what’s this all about?”

“Acting on a warrant issued in the state of Georgia, the Atlanta police searched Mr. Herskovitz’s house this morning”—here Carolyn gasped and covered her mouth with her hands—“where they found a probable murder weapon and a bloodstained shirt.”

Mitchell murmured, “Oh, my God,” and Arnold looked sternly at me. I nodded, feeling as miserable as I have ever felt.

“I only came to see if he was all right,” Mitchell said with a sob in his voice. “He took my name off a certificate, and I thought he was getting forgetful. I thought maybe he needed some help. And then we came in here and I saw the pictures and I just couldn’t bear it. I didn’t know what I was doing. I just knew I had to do something, something for my mother’s sake. My poor mother, my poor, poor mother who lived with that—”

But Arnold was practically shouting through Mitchell’s impassioned monologue. “Don’t say anything, Mitchell. Nothing, not a word. Mr. Herskovitz has no statement to make, Sergeant.”

When Mitchell had calmed down, Arnold spoke briefly and quietly to him, and I went to comfort Carolyn, who was beyond comforting. Franciotti’s partner and the uniformed policeman took Mitchell away, but Franciotti stayed.

“We’ll get some prints off those gloves,” he said to me, “and match ’em after Herskovitz gets printed. When the lab does its job on the shirt, we’ll compare the blood type with the father’s. You were right about everything in the house in Atlanta.”

“I wish I hadn’t been.”

“You want to explain?” Arnold said.

I introduced him to Franciotti, and then I went quickly through what I had learned in the last two days.

“You could’ve called me,” Arnold said.

“I couldn’t. I asked Jack what I should do, and he asked his law professor Thursday night. The professor said a suspect’s lawyer might not cooperate, to protect his client. If I wanted a search, the police were the best people to tell. I called the sergeant.”

“You can’t call it murder, Chrissie.”

“I know.”

I heard the door open and went to see who was there. Jack was coming down the hall, looking gorgeous with a fresh haircut. I put my arms around him and tried to calm myself.

“Trouble?” he said.

“They just arrested Mitchell.”

“Shit.” He kissed me and let me go, then went to the living room and over to Franciotti. “Sergeant Jack Brooks, Six-Five.” He held out his hand.

“Franciotti.” He looked from Jack to me and said, “Aha.”

I smiled for the first time that day. Then I took Jack over to Arnold.

I could tell as they looked at each other that everything would be all right. Arnold’s eyes were piercing, but his lips had a little smile.

“This is Jack,” I said. “This is Arnold Gold.”

They shook hands, both of them looking pretty pleased.

“Nice to meet you,” Jack said. “Don’t get this close to a hero very often.” I could have kissed him.

“Not a word that’s in my vocabulary,” Arnold said. “Chrissie tells me you’re in training for the noble profession.”

“It’s a long way off.”

“So’s Christmas, but it comes around. What are you taking these days?”

When I heard the word “torts,” I moved away. Carolyn Herskovitz was sitting in a chair, staring out the window.

“He’s a very good lawyer,” I said to her. “Mitchell couldn’t be in better hands.”

“But he couldn’t have done it,” she cried. “He was in Philadelphia. He
called
me from there.”

“I know.”

“Hello?” a woman’s voice called tunefully, and Mrs. Paterno walked into the room. “Is this what you’re looking for?” she asked. She was holding a package wrapped in brown paper and tied with strong cord. I could see Nathan’s bold handwriting on the top side.

“What is it?” I asked.

“I have no idea. He gave it to me years ago. He said, ‘Just keep it for me.’ And I forgot about it.”

We opened it together. There was a wooden box inside with hinges and a clasp. Inside there were layers and layers of wrapping, the last one silk. Inside that was a book, a very, very old book with geometric designs on the cover.

We were looking at the Guadalaxara Haggadah.

Jack carried my overnight bag over one shoulder and held my arm with his other hand as we walked out into the street.

“Where’s your car?” he asked.

“On Riverside Drive. Where’s yours?”

“In Brooklyn. I took the subway.”

I looked at him.

“I’ll show you where I live.” He put my bag in the backseat. “Mind if I drive?”

“Can you drive a shift car?”

“I can drive anything with wheels.”

I gave him my keys, sat back, and closed my eyes for a minute. He was right. He could drive anything.

“There were so many things going,” I said finally.