Invisible City (14 page)

“Not necessarily,” says Saul as he opens the note. “Most Hasidim do not watch television or read English newspapers or use the Internet. But there is a lot of talk, especially around something like this. Depending on who they had spoken to, they could have heard completely different stories. Or nothing at all.”

He stops talking while he reads the note, which he balances open on one wide palm. After a minute or more, he closes the note and slips it back into the magazine. “This was given to you?”

“Yeah,” I say. “We were sitting in the kitchen and she told me that Rivka had been her babysitter and had sort of counseled her before she got married. Then she went into her bedroom or something and came back with this. And then she told me to leave.”

“A magazine like this is contraband in an ultra-Orthodox home.”

“Really?” I could see
Cosmo
being banned, but
Oprah
?

“Hasidim are taught to fear influences outside their community. They consider most of American culture to be corrupting and much effort is expended to avoid and demonize it. You don’t see it, but there are highly subversive ideas in this magazine. Even Oprah herself. Unmarried. Childless. Hasidic girls are taught that having children and bringing them up in a Jewish home is the most important work there is. They are called and blessed by God for this work.”

“Right, but…”

“There is no ‘but.’ Not for many people. For many people, this is enough.”

I’ve offended him. “I’m sorry.”

Saul shakes his head. “Thank you for this note. This note is very revealing. Have you spoken with your editors at the newspaper about it?”

“No,” I say. “They’d probably print it.” I chuckle, trying to lighten the moment. Saul doesn’t smile. “Seriously. It’s yours now.”

“Thank you,” says Saul.

“I spoke to Miriam again. And the little boy. Yakov.”

“Rivka’s boy?”

“He was coming home from the service. He said his father told him his mother had been sick.”

“Sick?”

“Yeah, but I don’t really know what he meant. He said he didn’t think she was sick.”

Saul considers this. He looks out the window. There is a 1-800-Flowers shop across the street and a narrow pizzeria and a nail salon. I can almost see Saul thinking. The crow’s-feet at his eyes twitch. He is squeezing his jaw.

“Also, the old woman at the funeral, Mrs. Shoenstein? She said Rivka had lost a baby recently. Did you know about that?”

“I did.”

“What happened?”

“That, I don’t know.”

My phone rings. It’s the desk.

“I’ll be right back,” I say, and take my notebook outside.

“It’s Rebekah.”

“Hold for Lars.”

Lars comes on.

“Whatchu got?” he asks.

“The funeral was packed.”

“How many people?”

“Hundreds?”

“What else?”

“Lots of crying. She was in this plain wooden box and they passed the box back toward the car. The women—it was like, you know at a concert when people crowd surf? They passed the coffin back like that.”

“What about quotes? Were people talking about the gardener?”

“Um … one woman said she heard the gardener did it.”

“Great, what did she say?”

I flip open my notebook and realize I’d never actually written down what Mrs. Shoenstein said, but I remember it clearly. Does that mean I’m getting better at this job? Or just getting used to bending the rules?

“She said … ‘It’s so horrible. She trusted a stranger and look what happened.’”

“Perfect. What else?”

“I mean, she didn’t actually
know
anything.”

“What’s the name.”

“Shoenstein. Mrs. Shoenstein.” I did write that down.

“First name?”

Shit. I didn’t ask, because I wasn’t thinking about calling in to the desk during our conversation, I was thinking, how can I be as friendly and gracious as possible so she’ll give me her daughter’s address. “She wouldn’t give it.”

“Okay, fine, Mrs. Shoenstein. Was she a neighbor? Relative?”

“She said her daughter had gone to…” I can’t remember what she’d said. It was something Yiddish. “Her daughter was friends with Rivka.”

“Great. What else?”

“I talked to a woman, a social worker; she said Rivka might have been thinking about a divorce.”

“Do you have a quote?”

“Not exactly…”

“Name?”

“Her name was Sara Wyman.”

“Age?”

Again, I didn’t ask, because I wasn’t thinking about the newspaper. I was thinking about what she could tell me. “She wouldn’t give it.”

“What else?”

“She said, ‘Rivka was a passionate, intelligent woman who cared deeply for her children and her friends.’ She also said she ran an organization for new mothers. Boro Park Mommies.”

“That all?”

Here we go. “Actually, I talked to a detective, but he didn’t want his name used.”

“What did he say?”

“He said she was pregnant.”

“Great. We can definitely use that.”

“He also … um, from the funeral home, he said that her body was really, um, beat up. Head wounds.”

“Okay. Who’s this from?”

“You can say a police official with information about the case.”

“Anyone else from the funeral? You said there were hundreds of people there.”

“I talked to one woman who said Rivka Mendelssohn used to babysit her and was sort of a confidante.”

“Do you have a quote?”

I’m reaching. “She said, ‘Rivka liked to walk and listen to music.’ She said when she heard she’d died, she thought maybe she’d been hit by a car on one of her walks.”

“That’s the quote: She liked to walk and listen to music?”

“Yeah.” It is, without a doubt, a lame quote. A big part of this job is hearing the quote. People say a lot of shit, and most of what they say is either unprintable or unimportant, or both. At the
Trib,
because the articles are short, they like explanatory quotes—quotes that narrate what happened—instead of supplementary quotes, which add color or context to the action. So, if I was covering, say, an old lady whose geriatric scooter was hit by a garbage truck traveling in the bicycle lane (as I did in September in the West Village), the desk would love me to get someone to say: “She was scooting along toward the Y like she always does after lunch, when this garbage truck came barreling through the light. I don’t even think he saw her.” If I were working at the
Times,
they would write the information in the first sentence using their own language, then use “I don’t think he even saw her” as the quote. In college, most of my professors said that narrative quotes were lazy, that it was the writer’s job to succinctly tell the reader what happened. That quotes should be “gems.” But as with much of what I learned in college journalism classes, this does not apply at the
Trib.

“That’s it?” asks Lars.

“She also said Rivka was questioning.”

“Questioning? What does that mean?”

“Like, questioning … her faith?”

“Is that a quote?”

“No, she didn’t exactly explain, but…”

“What’s the woman’s name?”

“She wouldn’t give it. You can say a friend.”

“Too many unnamed quotes. I can’t use them.”

“Sorry … she also said Rivka Mendelssohn had lost a baby recently, but I couldn’t confirm that with the family.”

“She lost a baby
and
she was pregnant?”

“According to the people I talked to.”

“All right,” he says. “The desk wants to run something on the gardener being questioned. Did anybody else say anything about the gardener?”

“No.”

“Marisa got some great stuff from his neighbors. Apparently he’s a drinker. And he has a couple arrests for fighting, one for exposing himself.”

“Do they really think he might have done it?” It doesn’t make sense to me that a drunk who doesn’t speak English could pull off getting Rivka Mendelssohn alone long enough to tie her up, kill her, and get her dead body into a scrap pile on her family’s private property.

“How should I know?” says Lars. “Do you have anything else? How the family is taking the news, maybe?”

“Um…” I’m trying to think back. “You can say the family is very shaken up. I talked to her son for a minute on his way home; he was crying. He said the father had told him his mother was sick.”

“Sick?”

“That’s what he said.”

“How old was he?”

“I’m not positive. Around nine or ten.”

“That doesn’t help me. Did you get a name?”

I’m not going to give them Yakov’s name.

“No.”

Lars sighs. “Anything else?”

“I guess that’s it. Is Cathy around?”

“Greg!” he shouts. “When does Cathy come in?” Pause. “Tomorrow.”

Before I can even say thanks, he hangs up.

I look through the glass window at Saul, and suddenly I feel very tired. All I want to do is go to sleep. I can still smell the inside of that room where Rivka’s body was. I wonder if I’ll still smell it at home. Tomorrow. Forever. Saul is on his phone. I wish I had kept the letter instead of giving it to him.

I go back into Starbucks and sit down across from him.

“The paper is running a story about the gardener tomorrow,” I say. “Apparently, he has a record.”

Saul does not respond.

“When Yakov told me his father had said Rivka was sick before she died, he got really upset. Oh, and he said they had a big fight about Coney Island.…”

“Coney Island?”

“Yakov said his mother had taken him to Coney Island to ride the roller coaster. She told him to keep it a secret. And there was a big fight about it at home. I didn’t tell the desk, because…” I’m not sure why I didn’t, actually. Somehow, it seemed like that might be, I don’t know, evidence? I feel like I’m serving two masters here. What goes to Saul and what goes to the
Trib
?

“They had a fight about the roller coaster? Or Coney Island?”

“I don’t know. He said…” And then it hits me: Coney Island is where the safe house my mom and Saul used to go to was. Could it still be there? “Saul,” I say slowly. “How did you know Rivka Mendelssohn?”

Saul looks at his hands.

“Saul,” I ask again, my voice louder this time. “How did you know her?”

“Calm down,” whispers Saul. “Rivka Mendelssohn knew my son.”

“Your son?” What had my dad said about Saul’s son? That they were estranged after his divorce.

Saul nods. “He was an instructor at Yakov’s yeshiva.”

“Oh,” I say. “What does he teach?”

“He taught math,” says Saul. “But he was let go. Rivka Mendelssohn was one of the only parents who took his side.”

“His side?”

“She asked the rebbe to let him stay.”

“Did he?”

Saul shakes his head.

“What happened?”

Saul draws and exhales a sharp breath. He seems impatient. I don’t think he’s going to tell me any more. “That is not really important. What is important is that she helped someone I love at a time he needed help. And I want to help her.”

“Did you ever actually meet her?”

“Yes. We met at the house in Coney Island, the same one your mother used to go to. I wanted to thank her and she suggested that would be a good place to talk.”

“Did you know she had been going there?”

“No,” says Saul. I’m expecting him to explain further, but he does not.

“What about Miriam?” I ask.

“What about her?”

“How do you know her?”

Saul shifts in his seat. Why is this making him so uncomfortable?

“Before Rivka and I met, I made the mistake of going to the Mendelssohn home, uninvited, to express my gratitude. Rivka was not home, but Miriam was. She said Aron did not agree with Rivka’s position regarding my son, and that I was not welcome inside.”

“Really?”

“She told me she didn’t believe it was appropriate for Rivka to speak publicly about my son, either.”

“But she let you in last night.”

Saul nods. “Last night, well, things had changed.” He pauses. “When I saw you at the Mendelssohn house yesterday, Rebekah, I saw an opportunity.”

“An opportunity for what?”

“An opportunity to keep this case alive.”

“How is it not alive? It’s barely been twenty-four hours.”

“Yes,” says Saul. “And the victim’s body is gone.”

Right.

“Do you know how many of the murders in this city get solved, Rebekah?”

“No.”

“A little more than half.”

“Half?”

“Sixty-one percent last year. But it’s lower in Brooklyn. Nationally, about four out of every ten murder victims never get justice. Every day, I go to people’s homes and businesses who have been robbed. I will work ten hours a day, six days a week, and I will make an arrest for only four of every ten cases. Car theft is worse.” He pauses. “I am surprised you don’t know this. Your newspaper made a big splash of it last year. I believe the headline was ‘New Yorkers Get Away with Murder.’”

“I guess I just don’t know what you want,” I say quietly.

“I want you to write articles about Rivka Mendelssohn’s murder. I want you to keep the pressure on the police and the community.”

“And you can’t do that? Why aren’t you like, bringing a
colleague
to see her body?”

Saul shakes his head. “You talked to Miriam. You talked to Chaya. I guarantee you that Chaya would not have let me—or any other police officer—into her house, or given us that letter.”

“But you’re the police.”

“And?”

“This is what you do.”

“I’m telling you that you can do it better than I can.”

“So you want to use me.”

“Yes,” he says slowly. “That is one way to put it. I want you to stay on this story. I want you to do your job as a journalist and try to find out the truth. Do we not, in some respects, have the same goals here? We both seek the truth.” Before I can say anything, he says, “I know it’s not that simple. I know what I am asking.”

“I don’t think you do, Saul,” I say. “You’re asking me to start lying.”

“I am not.”

“You
are
. I can’t tell my editors I spent the afternoon posing as a college student to view a murder victim’s body in the basement of a funeral home with a detective from the fucking robbery squad.”