Murder At The Mikvah (4 page)

 Four

Weeknight patrols were usually quiet. By 9:00 PM, most Arden Station businesses were closed, kids were home studying or in bed, their parents glued to the TV or computer. And other than the occasional workaholic driving home after another fourteen-hour day in the city, there were relatively few cars on the road.

Tonight might have been different had the storm continued to rage. But by 11:00 PM, the torrential rain had stopped and the wind had all but died. Crews were out cleaning up the downed trees and repairing power lines. Railroad supervisors estimated it would be another hour or two before the main lines into the city reopened, but foresaw no delays for the morning rush hour. The bottom line for Officers John Collins and Robert Sedgwick was that it was shaping up to be just another night of business as usual.

The two were just pulling into the
Wawa
on Jenkins Street when the call came in from dispatch
: possible foul play at St. Agassi High School.

Juveniles
John thought immediately. At sixty-two, and with over thirty-five years on the force, he had seen plenty of teenage delinquents. Arden Station had some wealthy areas and kids with enough unsupervised time and plenty of money to get into trouble. Then again, St. Agassi was a construction site. Plenty of valuable pickings for young and old alike.

John turned to his partner. “Looks like our donut break will have to wait tonight buddy.”

Robert Sedgwick was a rookie who had been on the force for less than a year. Fresh out of the police academy, twenty-five year old Robert had not anticipated that his days would be spent issuing driving citations and filling out vehicular accident reports. The closest he had come to making a single arrest was warning a couple of drunk college kids about public lewdness, specifically that urinating behind a dumpster was
not
okay. As far as Robert could tell, beyond breaking up rich kid keg parties, there was not much excitement in Arden Station. This he would never admit to his girlfriend, who had gotten it into her head that he put his life at risk each day on the job. She was so terrified he’d be killed in the line of duty that she nagged at him constantly, reminding him that as long as he worked in such a dangerous profession, she would never consider marrying him.
How could she bring children into this world knowing they would be raised fatherless by their widowed mother?
This was reason enough for Robert to keep up the ruse, since marrying her was the furthest thing from his mind. The stress of the job, his girlfriend thought, was also the reason Robert spent so much time in front of the television, mindlessly watching cartoons and infomercials. The real explanation was simpler; with all his shift changes, Robert could hardly sleep. It was the policy for all the rookies: one month working days, the next working nights. It was enough to mess a guy up. On the flip side, they always paired rookies with more seasoned cops—guys who had been on the force for at least five years—and Robert had been lucky enough to get partnered up with John. But why John Collins, who had the most seniority in the department, would
willingly
work such lame hours—well, that, in the spirit of one of Robert’s favorite channels—the
game show network
—was the twenty-five thousand dollar question.

“I said, it looks like our donut break will have to wait tonight,” John said again. Apparently Robert had zoned out there for a minute.

“Roger that
Sergeant
,” Robert said, sitting up and straightening his hat. “No donut break at twenty-three hundred hours.”

John smirked at him before pulling out of the WaWa lot. He was fond of Robert, but the kid could be something of a smart ass sometimes. “Just
John,
all right? No
Sergeant
, no
Captain
, no
Detective
, got it?”

Robert laughed, all the while studying his partner. At 6'2” and solidly built, John was a living reminder that at one time, law enforcement had physical standards. Actually, with those Paul Newman blue eyes, prominent nose and strong chin, John looked more like a classic Hollywood actor than a cop. Minus the graying hair and about twenty years, he'd have made a perfect leading man. But regardless of his star qualities, John had chosen a career in law enforcement. It was no secret that he had moved up the ranks of the force. Rumor had it that he had once turned down the superintendent's position, choosing instead to remain in investigations.
So why take a demotion from investigations and go back to patrolling?
Robert guessed that his partner was sick of being cooped up in an office all day. Or maybe he was afraid of computers. A lot of older people were intimidated by the new technology. Robert had a hell of a time convincing his own old-fashioned mother to start using e-mail. She finally relented after the last postage stamp rate increase. Robert sometimes wondered if his partner was being pressured into retirement; maybe John had been given an ultimatum:
patrol or retire
. But there were other old timers on the force, and
they
hadn't made any changes. Whatever the reason, Robert would never ask. He knew John was a private person who didn’t like talking about himself. John could be a bit odd at times. Robert couldn’t forget the time he offered to drop off a jacket John had left behind at the station, but John wouldn’t hear of it. “I don’t like mixing personal and professional,” he said.
Jeez
! All Robert wanted to do was swing by the guy’s house! What was the big deal? For such a tough guy, John could be touchy about certain subjects too, including retirement.
The day I quit being a cop is the day I die
, was his response when Robert had once made a joke about his age. Robert later learned from one of the guys that John had gotten a taste of retirement a few years back. He had gotten sick or something, taken a leave of absence. Robert didn’t know much about it except that it was around that time that John left investigations and went back on patrol.

John rolled the police car onto Barnes Avenue. They were only a mile or so from St. Agassi High School.

“This call… you know, it's probably for the best,” John said with a straight face before casting his glance downward toward Robert's stomach. “You, my friend, don't need anymore
Twinkies
tonight.”

“I’ll have you know that this is rock solid!” Robert said. He thrust his chest out and patted his stomach proudly, like an expectant mother. Robert had packed on nearly ten pounds in about the same number of weeks, and was used to the nightly ribbing from his partner.

“Oh, yeah; that’s all muscle!” John laughed. “Whatever you say, buddy. Whatever you say!”

 Five

St. Agassi Catholic High School was originally housed in the eighteenth century fieldstone mansion of Mr. Augustine Sinclair, who in 1911, died and bequeathed his entire eighteen-acre estate to the Catholic Church. With minimal construction, the gothic style residence was seamlessly converted into a boy’s high school. Daily mass was held in the St. Agassi chapel a short distance away. Built in 1913, the chapel adjoined a modest size rectory, converted from Mr. Sinclair’s original carriage house. Beginning in the late 1960’s, girls were admitted to St. Agassi High; and in 1975 the school underwent a multi-million dollar expansion, quadrupling its size and increasing its capacity from 200 to 500 students. Thanks to the successful building campaign, state of the art facilities were added including a multi-media library, temperature controlled classrooms, atrium style lunch area, and an Olympic-sized indoor pool. The school continued to thrive. Yearly tuition was high, but necessary in order to attract the best teachers with bigger salaries and generous benefits. Prospective students had to navigate their way through a series of admissions tests; those not scoring in the higher percentiles were wait listed. It didn’t matter. They were willing to wait as long as necessary, since St. Agassi graduates were known to go on to a disproportionate number of Ivy League colleges.

It was in the early 1990’s that St Agassi High School began to lose fiscal footing, marked by the death of several key contributors and a steady decline in the number of yearly applicants. The demographics of Arden Station were changing. Simply put, the town was no longer predominantly Catholic. Members of other faiths were flocking to the area and establishing their own communities and places of worship. Intermarriage rates were on the rise and a significant number of younger Catholics were joining less rigid churches and questioning long held beliefs such as the necessity of a Catholic education. Besides, why should they send their children to St. Agassi, when the local public schools were ranked in the top ten nationwide for academic achievement? There were a large number of non-denominational private schools to choose from as well, which were equally, if not more, impressive. In 1995, after several years of struggle, St. Agassi High School graduated its final class—a meager nineteen students—before closing its doors forever.

Over the course of the next few years, several well-meaning but fruitless attempts were made to reopen the school, before the entire tract of church property along Trinity Road was quietly sold in 1999. The local newspaper broke the story within a week, claming that the sale had been to a private real estate developer. After several years of sitting idle, the high school it seemed, would be undergoing yet another transformation. This immediately stirred up speculation as to what the developer planned to do with the land. The rumors ranged from the building of twenty-six upscale homes, to the construction of a high-end shopping square, to the least favored possibility: leasing the property to the township to be used for additional school bus parking. Understandably, residents in the surrounding area were the most concerned. The fate of those eighteen acres would have a major financial impact on their own properties.

A year after the sale, word got out that it was in fact a private
individual
who had purchased the property, a Jewish philanthropist named David Tuttle whose wife had died of breast cancer shortly after giving birth to their fourth child. As a memorial to his wife, Tuttle intended to build a Jewish Life Center. He envisioned a place where families and individuals of all ages could come together to enjoy an array of activities—sports and games, educational classes, Jewish cultural celebrations, world class lectures—in a beautiful environment. The plans for the center were impressive: media rooms, a theater style auditorium, indoor track, health club, indoor and outdoor swimming pools, tennis courts, plus acres of outdoor fields for sports and playground equipment.

Not long after Tuttle's plans were made public, there were murmurings throughout the region questioning the decision of the church to sell the land to a Jewish interest group. In private circles people debated whether or not the church actually knew who the buyer was, and if they had known for what purpose the land would be used. These debates became more public, eventually making their way to the local newspaper. One anonymous letter to the editor argued that the church had been swindled and should demand a reversal of sale. He reasoned that because David Tuttle had used the name of one of his corporate entities to buy the land, the transaction had taken place under false pretenses. The church had been duped, he argued, thereby rendering the sale invalid. The situation worsened when a rumor spread that Tuttle planned to demolish the church and rectory. Anti-Semitic threats were made at a local synagogue, resulting in the cancellation of religious classes and services while the premises were thoroughly checked out by a bomb sniffing canine unit borrowed from Philadelphia County. A few days later, the Catholic High School was vandalized—windows shattered, obscenities spray-painted on the building. Both incidents were quickly traced to a group of unruly teenagers who had no interest in the ongoing debate, but had simply seized the opportunity to wreak havoc.

Meanwhile, David Tuttle countered the negative publicity by taking out large ads in the paper calling for mutual respect and open dialogue between religious groups. He stated his hope that the new Jewish Life Center would benefit the entire community, as membership was not restricted to those of the Jewish faith. Tuttle aligned himself with church officials who reassured local parishioners on several points, foremost that the sale was legitimate and equitable to both parties. The public was assured that demolishing buildings once used for religious purposes was not a sin against the church or Jesus Christ, and most importantly, that each of St. Agassi's precious church relics had been safely transplanted to other local and regional parishes.

The more vocal concerns were from older parishioners, many who had been with Father McCormick for over forty years. Why couldn’t the high school be converted, they argued, while the church and rectory remained intact? Church leaders were sympathetic. They understood how attached some people became to their local parish and priest. Demolishing St. Agassi would be like destroying a piece of their personal history. But as emotionally wrenching as it was, the church had no choice. The fact remained that not only had parochial school enrollment dropped sharply, but mass attendance had as well. Fewer families were joining parishes and the Catholic Church was feeling the financial strain. Throughout the entire Philadelphia region, there was no viable alternative but to close schools and merge parishes. On a positive note, David Tuttle saw no reason why their beloved parish priest couldn’t remain in the rectory until demolition began on the church.

Originally slated for that spring, the entire building project came to a screeching halt following the events of September 11th. It was a time of national mourning, but to the quiet delight of his loyal followers, it meant that Father McCormick would be sticking around a bit longer.