Invisible City (24 page)

“Maybe you should ask Saul Katz,” I say.

I peek at Darin, who is looking down, shaking his head.

“No comment, then?” I say, leaning down to my bag and taking out my notebook and pen.

The captain opens his mouth then closes it. Then opens it again. “You know I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

I scribble
no comment—ongoing invest
into my notebook.

“And just so I’m clear, you
haven’t
interviewed the victim’s lover or husband?”

The captain is losing patience. “Like I said, I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.” He gathers the photographs of the man Saul assaulted and tucks them under his arm. “You are free to go for now. But we may have questions for you later.”

“I can’t wait,” I say, feeling mildly triumphant.

“Your friend Saul Katz is in a lot of trouble, miss.” This guy really loves his diminutives. “From where I’m sitting, he has at the very least interfered with a police investigation. And if I discover you and he so much as stood in line for coffee together before last Friday, you may have, too. We take obstruction seriously, and I have no problem indicting a reporter. Your paper doesn’t hold nearly the weight it thinks it does. And you can feel free to tell your bosses I said so.”

“Will do,” I say.

The captain leaves, and for a moment, Darin and I sit in silence.

“Don’t blame Tony,” he says finally. “I didn’t really give him a choice.”

“You’re worried about your friend,” I say. “That’s a nice quality.”

“Are you being sarcastic?” he asks, sounding exhausted. “I can’t tell. I thought you’d take it better from him than me.”

“Take it?”

Darin exhales and shakes his head. “Look, I don’t feel bad about this. What Tony told me about a detective taking you to the funeral home was a red fucking flag. No two ways about it. And it took one phone call to confirm he was who he was.”

A phone call I never made.

“Can I ask you a question, off the record?” I say.

“You can ask,” he says.

“Do you really think Saul Katz murdered Rivka Mendelssohn?”

“I’m not going to answer that,” he says, standing up.

“I don’t remember reading anything in the newspaper about an NYPD detective who nearly killed a man,” I say. “I’m guessing that somebody convinced that man’s family not to press charges. Most people don’t just get suspended from their jobs when they commit what looks to me like aggravated assault.” I’m out on a limb here, but if I’m not in legal trouble—which I can see now that I am not—then I have a real story. About a police cover-up and a compromised murder investigation. And maybe another story about Shomrim’s relationship with the NYPD. And maybe another about witness intimidation in the community.

But Darin doesn’t bite.

“Here’s my card,” he says instead. “We are investigating this murder now, Rebekah. That I can assure you.”

“Now?” I say. “So you weren’t before.”

Darin doesn’t respond. He holds open the swinging door for me to leave, then follows me to the exit and opens the door to the cold.

I’m not outside a minute when my phone rings. It is
UNKNOWN

“It’s Rebekah,” I say.

“Rebekah! What the fuck is going on?”

It’s Larry.

“Where are you?” he asks.

“I’m in Brooklyn.”

“You need to get to Midtown. They want us both in the office.”

“Why?”

“Because somebody high up in the department told Albert Morgan that he had a reporter trying to pass off the ramblings of a suspended cop as inside information. You can think of how to explain it on the subway.”

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The newsroom is quieter now at nearly eight thirty at night than it is in the middle of the day. The desks in the gossip and Sunday sections are empty. All but one of the five TVs above the spiral of cubicles that makes up the “city desk” are tuned to sports. Mike sees me as soon as I walk through the heavy glass doors from the elevator bay. He is very unhappy.

“We need to talk,” he says quite a bit louder than he needs to. He is red-faced and his breathing is shallow. “Albert Morgan has a reservation at Eleven Madison Park with his family tonight, but he is coming here before to personally ask you what the fuck.”

Mike always struck me as the gentle giant type. Big and soft and harmless. He’s never even raised his voice at me, unlike Lars, who barks and insults with glee. But clearly, he is shaken by Morgan’s summons. He hired me and he runs the day shift stringers, so he’s probably concerned Morgan will blame him for not supervising me properly.

“Sorry,” I say, just as Larry Dunn walks in.

Larry is in his fifties and his thin blond hair is turning white. He is wearing black orthopedic shoes and a yellow Livestrong bracelet around one wrist. Marisa told me a couple months ago that one of the editors had cancer. Maybe it’s Larry.

“We’re supposed to wait in his office,” says Mike.

“You first, boss,” says Larry.

Mike ushers us past sports and art to a part of the twelfth floor where I’ve never been. Albert Morgan’s office is smaller than I’d imagined the managing editor would get. There are two windows that face the building next door, but the rest is unremarkable. Standard, sturdy dark wood executive desk; leather wingback with all the ergonomic details you pay an extra grand for. Albert Morgan is the first black managing editor of the
New York Tribune
. He won a Pulitzer in the early 1990s—the
Trib
’s first and only—for a series of reports and columns about race relations and the Clarence Thomas nomination hearings. There is a plaque on the wall commemorating the award, next to a photograph of him holding a giant fish beneath a banner reading, M
ARTHA’S
V
INEYARD
S
TRIPED
B
ASS AND
B
LUE
F
ISH
D
ERBY,
2001. On the wall behind his desk is an antique map of China.

There are only two chairs in the room, other than Morgan’s behind the desk. Mike and Larry and I all stand, waiting.

Albert Morgan enters the room and immediately orders that we “sit down.”

Mike sits. Larry hesitates, gesturing to me. I appreciate the courtesy but nod for him to sit. I need to stay standing; I think it will make me seem more in control.

“Sir,” I say, before he’s even got his coat off, “let me tell you what happened.”

“Wonderful! Someone who gets to the point. Go.”

I take a deep breath; I’ve been practicing a succinct version of the last three days on the train. The quicker I get it out, the quicker I know if I still have a job. And, if I’m lucky, the quicker the brick in my stomach begins to dissolve.

“Mike sent me to a crime scene on Friday. A dead body in a scrap metal yard in Brooklyn. I talked to DCPI and workers and even to the victim’s son—though I didn’t know he was her son at the time. Later that night, Cathy had me go to the victim’s house in Borough Park. There were several police cars out front, including the Shomrim.”

Albert has thrown his coat over the back of his enormous leather chair. He is standing with his arms crossed over his chest, his face expressionless. I wait for him to ask me what the Shomrim is, but he does not. “Keep going,” he says.

“One of the cars had uniformed officers in it, one had plainclothes. They were detectives. I asked them about the case but they wouldn’t talk to me.”

Larry sits down. We make eye contact and he nods, like, you’re doing okay. Mike is biting at his cuticles and looking at the carpet. I continue.

“Then another detective arrived. He had a badge. At least it looked like a badge. And he went directly to the uniformed officers and spoke with them. And they spoke with him. So I assumed he was a detective. I went to question him and … he recognized me.”

“Excuse me?” Morgan’s tone is teetering on exasperation.

“He knew my mother. I look like her.”

“Get to the part where you explain quickly, please.”

“He said he was in property crimes but that because he was Orthodox and had grown up in the community he was sometimes called in as a liaison. The problem is that he wasn’t actually working the case at all, because he’d been suspended from the force in December for … assaulting a man.”

Mike shakes his head. “Jesus.”

“But everything he told me has been right on,” I say. “Are the police actually denying she was pregnant?”

“No,” says Larry. “In fact, I’ve been told off the record that it’s true.”

“Off the record?” asks Morgan.

“Brooklyn South commander gave it to me an hour ago.”

Morgan turns to me. “What else did this … What’s his name?”

“Saul Katz.”

“What else did Saul Katz tell you?”

“He told me he didn’t think the police were going to do a real investigation.”

“What made him think this?”

“He said the community was obsessed with keeping unpleasant things under wraps. He said there was a kind of don’t-ask-don’t-tell thing going on between them and the police. He said Aron Mendelssohn, the dead woman’s husband, was a major benefactor of Shomrim and that he would make sure they pinned this on someone outside the community, or just let people forget about it.”

“Didn’t they bring in a gardener?” Morgan asks.

“They questioned a gardener and released him,” I say.

“No arrests?”

“No,” I say. “And at the scene the M.E.’s office let the Jewish van take the body straight to the funeral home.”

“Larry, there was no autopsy?”

Larry shakes his head. “The funeral home might make a report.”

“Has anyone seen a report?” asks Morgan.

“I’ve seen the body,” I say.

Everyone looks at me.

“You mean at the crime scene,” says Mike.

“No,” I say, “I got into the funeral home on Saturday. I saw her after they’d … prepared her.”

“Let me guess,” says Larry, “Saul Katz got you in.”

I nod again. Larry looks impressed. Mike looks annoyed. Morgan is still wearing a poker face.

“She was savagely beaten,” I say, trying to impart the graveness of her injuries with my inflection. “Someone hit her in the face and the head and the neck repeatedly with something. They shaved her head and stripped her and dumped her in the scrap pile. She’d be on her way to China if not for dumb luck.”

“Okay,” says Morgan. “Ms…?”

“Roberts. Rebekah Roberts.”

“Ms. Roberts. You’ve obviously done some good work on this. You’ve also made some pretty major fucking mistakes. Are you a New Yorker?”

“No,” I say. “I’m from Florida.”

“Well, if you were a New Yorker, you might know that the Orthodox community does, in fact, have some clout with the department and the city. That’s not a story.”

“Exactly,” says Mike.

“But,” he says, leaning forward on his desk, “a rogue NYPD detective and the slow-footing of the investigation into the brutal murder of a pregnant woman because the department doesn’t want to upset a population of voters
is.
”

“I agree,” says Larry. “And the investigation isn’t following normal avenues. It’s been three days and they haven’t questioned the husband. He owns the yard where she was dumped. He’s at least worth questioning to figure out who has access.”

“They also don’t know about the victim’s boyfriend,” I say. “And we do.”

Morgan raises his eyebrows; I’ve impressed him.

“What about this Saul Katz character?” asks Morgan. “Is he a suspect?”

Larry’s phone rings. He answers quietly.

“They’re sort of acting like he might be, but I think they’re just pissed he’s talking to the press.”

Morgan considers this.

I am not dressed to meet the boss. My dirty hair is twisted up in a plastic clip and I’m a month overdue for a lip and eyebrow wax. Albert Morgan is in a hand-cut navy suit. Cuff links on Monday night. I must look like a child: no makeup, chipped purple nail polish, old red Doc Martens on my feet.

“Ms. Roberts,” he says. “What are you hoping will happen after we leave this meeting?”

“Well,” I say, “I’m hoping you don’t fire me.”

“Go on.”

“I know I’ve fucked up the sourcing, but I’ve got a ton of information on Rivka Mendelssohn. She had a daughter who died about a year ago. And she was considering a divorce. She had looked at apartments with her boyfriend. And her husband had threatened her recently.”

“This is on the record?”

“Yes.”

“From Saul Katz?” asks Mike. Why is he being such a dick?

“No,” I say. “From a social worker who knew her. And two girls—young women—who were friends with her. They’re all part of this group of ultra-Orthodox who are, like, questioning. On the margins. I have a picture, too.”

I take the snapshot out of my pocket. I hadn’t even looked at which one I’d gotten. It’s the one of her in the wedding dress. I hand it to Morgan.

He looks at the photo and nods.

“Write that up for tomorrow,” says Morgan, handing the photo to Mike. “Friends talk about her, say she was rebelling, the boyfriend, the dead child, whatever you have. But we can only milk the victim for a day. There are about five hundred murders in the city every year. This is a corruption story. We need to connect the husband to the Jewish patrol. I have a very angry commissioner on my ass, but from what I can tell, it’s his people he should be angry at, not mine. You let a source use you. Don’t do it again.”

“I won’t,” I say.

“Background your sources. Ask the library.”

“I will,” I say.

Larry gets off his call. “That was my source in Brooklyn homicide. They just arrested Saul Katz.”

“For what?” I ask.

“Impersonating a police officer and obstruction,” says Larry. “They say they’re looking at him for the murder.”

“On the record?” says Morgan.

Larry nods. “They called him a ‘person of interest.’”

Morgan rubs his hand over his mouth. “Okay,” he says. “We need two stories. Larry, you write up the arrest. I don’t want Rebekah near that. She’s compromised. I don’t think you need to get too detailed about his relationship with the paper. Maybe just that Katz had been speaking to a
Trib
reporter about the case. Rebekah, we’ll have to name you.”