Sanctuary (20 page)

“I know what
shiva
is,” Decker said.

“That’s right. You’re Jewish. So you know how important burial is.”

Decker nodded.

Orit’s voice dropped. “My brother…he and Dalia would want to be buried in Israel. All Jews should be buried in Israel.” She inhaled a mouthful of smoke and
blew it out in one big gust. “
I
help you any way I can. Just leave my parents alone.”

No one spoke for a moment. Then Decker said, “They know something, don’t they?”

Orit shook her head. “Leave them alone.”

“Orit,” Decker said softly. “I’m trying to help. I’m trying to….” He stood, walked over to her, and put a hand on her shoulder. The gesture made her stiffen. He immediately backed off.

“You’re a tough lady, you know that?”

“You live in a country with all its life wars, you’d be tough. Lucky for you Americans, war is something that always happens on other people’s land.”

Again, the room was quiet. Orit turned and pointed to Decker. “You have the look. You were in the Gulf War?”

Decker shook his head. “Vietnam.”

“Ah, that’s right. I forgot about that. A fiasco that wasn’t ours.” She regarded Decker. “The same look as my husband. In the eyes. I trust someone with that look. You’ve been to hell and back,
nachon
?”

“
Nachon
,” Decker answered.

Orit paused. “You want to help the boys. I don’t know where they are. But I say to you this. If they are with my parents, my parents aren’t telling me.”

Decker gave Marge a sidelong glance. “You think your parents are trying to protect the boys?”

“Their son and daughter-in-law was murdered. You tell me the boys are running, afraid for their lives. So what do you think?” Orit threw her cigarette down and crushed it with a high heel. “If the boys are with them, yes, they are protective. Anyway, they don’t tell me anything. Maybe they don’t want me to know. Maybe they think I be scared, scared for my kids. But between my husband and me, we’ll be okay. I was in the army, too, you know.”

“What was your assignment?” Decker said.

“Desk job,” Orit said. “But I went through basic train
ing. I know how to use an Uzi. Someone makes the wrong move here, I’ll blow the head off.”

Marge and Decker traded looks. Decker said, “And you’re positive you don’t know where your nephews are?”

“You give me a
chumash
, I put my hand on it and make a
shevuah
, Mr. Sergeant. You know what a
shevuah
is?”

“An oath,” Decker said.

Orit nodded. “Yes, an oath. I make an oath on my Bible. You don’t believe me, give me a Bible.”

“I believe you,” Decker said. “I believe you because I think you really care about your nephews.”

Orit’s lower lip quivered. “Of course I care about my nephews. I love them.” Tears streamed down her cheeks, dragging with them rills of mascara. “They are my family. I don’t have much family. I only had my brother and…”

She dropped into a chair and cried bitterly. Decker waited her out until she wiped dark streaks off her cheeks with her fingertips. Orit said, “Why don’t you go to Israel? Who knows what you’ll find?”

There was a long pause. Marge finally said, “Are you saying your nephews are there?”

“I’m saying
nothing
about the boys. I say everyone goes to Israel to try to find something. Maybe you go to try to find God. Everyone else tries, why not you? If you don’t find God, maybe you find my nephews. Now please leave me alone. I’d like to find some peace now.”

Hannah was a wonderful baby; she liked her playpen. The boys had never tolerated the confinement for more than five, ten minutes at most. Then they got restless. Not so with Hannah. She was content, sitting in her little space, playing with her busy box or fingering her roly-poly ball that jingled every time she gave it a shove. Once in a while, the baby looked up expectantly at Rina, waiting for Mama to give her a smile. Rina would comply and heap on the praise. Then the baby would go back to work. Hannah’s willingness to busy herself for up to an hour gave Rina a freedom she never knew existed with babies.

Needing a little more time today, Rina opened up a box filled with colorful plastic blocks. She poured them into the playpen and watched Hannah’s eyes go wide. Little fingers reached for multihued squares, cylinders, and triangles. Hannah was a child learning how to manipulate her world. Rina took advantage of her daughter’s rapt attention and ran to the bedroom closet. Standing on a footstool, she reached up and swung down a suitcase from the highest shelf.

This was something she just
had
to do. As long as those kids were missing, Rina couldn’t find peace.

It had been the Rebbe’s reluctance that had spurred Rina forward. His reticence had been her personal invitation to check out the village. Why else hadn’t he wanted help from Peter? If he was hiding Honey and the children, what had Honey done to need a city of refuge?

But try as she might, Rina just couldn’t believe Honey had anything to do with her husband’s death. When in doubt, do it yourself.

Peter was going to give her grief. He would argue that it would be too much work for her mother to take care of Hannah. Her mother wasn’t young anymore. Hannah needed someone with energy to watch her.

Rina would counter by saying it would be for only three days and two nights. She had hired Nora, Hannah’s former baby nurse. Nora was happy to help out while she was gone. They both knew how capable Nora was. And Hannah loved her dearly. The topper was that Rina’s mother and Nora got along just great.

Peter would complain about the cost. Rina would counter by saying she’d found an extremely cheap standby coast-to-coast flight. She’d be staying with relatives in New York so lodging wouldn’t cost a penny. And Jonathan, an old friend and Peter’s newly discovered half brother, had agreed to let her borrow his car. So she had cheap transportation to travel upstate to the Leibbener village.

Peter would say it was dangerous.

Rina would introduce the argument that Jonathan had offered to come with her if she felt she needed protection.

Enlisting Jonathan’s aid could potentially make Peter angry at his younger half brother. The last thing Rina wanted to do was create friction between the two men. Their relationship was fragile as well as recent. Jonathan’s mother was Peter’s biological mother, who had given him up for adoption. Peter held no malice against the woman—she had been a teenager when Peter was born—but their relationship was strained at best. Peter did get along well with two of his half brothers.

And Rina was taking a chance by asking Jonathan for help.

But this was something she just
had
to do. For the sake of the children.

She put the suitcase on the bed and checked on Hannah. The baby was banging two plastic triangles together.

Rina opened up her drawers and began to pack.

Tug Davidson had turned florid. “You want the department to allocate money to go
where
?”

“Israel,” Decker replied calmly. “It’s a very small country in Asia—”

“I know where Israel is, Decker. Don’t wiseass me. The answer is no.”

Davidson looked down at his desk and began to busy himself in paperwork. Decker and Marge didn’t move. His eyes returned to their faces. “The ‘no’ was the signal for both of you to leave.”

“Lieutenant, we might have two dead teenaged boys on our hands if we don’t go,” Marge said.

“For all you two know, we may have two dead teenaged boys right now.”

“And for all we know, they may be alive,” Marge said.

“And for all we know, Dunn, they may have popped the parents.”

“All the more reason for us to find them,” Decker said. “If they turn out to be our prime suspects, we should have them extradited to stand trial.”

“You make perfect sense except you don’t know where the hell the kids are. Then you come to me with this half-assed theory about Shaul Gold being a hit man. If you suspected him in the first place, you should have brought him in for questioning.”

“We didn’t have any reason to do it back then,” Marge stated.

“And you don’t have any reason to do it now,” Tug answered. “Get me some concrete evidence as to the whereabouts of the boys, then we can talk.”

“The boys are in Israel,” Decker stated.

“Show me the plane tickets, Decker.”

“We haven’t been able to locate any yet—”

“Or maybe never,” Davidson said.

Decker said, “I think they went through Canada. I think that’s why we haven’t been able to trace the tickets. There’s a large Jewish community in Toronto—”

“Find me plane tickets and then we’ll talk.”

“It may be too late by then.”

“Decker, is my hearing going bad or something? Didn’t you tell me that the sister specifically told you that she didn’t know where the boys were?”

“In a way that specifically told us the boys were in Israel,” Marge said.

“So now you mind-read, Dunn?”

Decker was growing frustrated. “Look, if it’s a matter of money—”

“It’s a
big
matter of money,” Davidson said. “And it’s a matter of time, too. I don’t like pulling two seasoned detectives off the field.”

Marge was sure she’d heard right. He had said two
seasoned detectives—two
detectives—as in plural. The son of a bitch considered her seasoned. He was actually giving them a backhanded compliment. She looked at Decker to see what his reaction was. All she saw was frustration.

Decker said, “Look, Loo,
I’ll
pay for my own transportation—”

“What is it with you?” Davidson interrupted. “You suddenly want to make a pilgrimage to the Holy Land for a holiday or something?”

Decker kept his mouth in check. “Lieutenant, Gold said he was looking for the boys. All I want to do is
find
them before he does. That’s it. Find the boys and bring them back to America.”

“And you’re willing to pay for it out of your own pocket?”

“Yes, I’m willing to pay for it out of my own pocket. I’ll take a no-frills fare and travel with livestock. I’ll do it because I want to find the boys. But I also expect to be
reimbursed
by the department if my trip solves this case.”

“With a
big
emphasis on the
if
,” Davidson said. “Meanwhile, you still haven’t figured out the problem of your time loss.”

Decker told himself to unclench his jaw before he spoke. “I’ll be
working
on a homicide case, Lieutenant. I won’t be sightseeing.”

“It still amounts to me losing two homicide detectives from the field.”

“I’ll stay behind,” Marge volunteered. “There’s still plenty to do here in LA.”

“Yeah, it’s called solving the case.” Davidson waved her off. “Okay, so you’re not the problem now.
He
is.” He stared at Decker. “So what exactly do you think you can accomplish over there, Decker? Think you can just waltz into Israeli police headquarters and start coordinating an investigation in a foreign country? By your
own
admission, you don’t know a rat’s crap about Israel. Do you even speak the language over there? What the hell is the language over there? It ain’t English, I bet.”

“It’s Hebrew,” Decker said.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Davidson said. “They speak Hebrew. Do you speak Hebrew, Decker?”

The room fell quiet.

“Terrific, Sergeant. You’re going to solve a major homicide case in a foreign country using sign language. Get out of here and do something useful.”

Decker felt a giant headache coming on. His old bullet wound started to throb. He squeezed his eyes shut, then opened them. He hated fudging, but what option did he have. “I’ve already got that worked out.”

Davidson glared at him. “
What
worked out?”

Decker sat back in his chair as if he had triumphed. “The contacts, Lieutenant. I’m already set up with all the major police departments in all the major cities. I’ve even got myself a top-notch interpreter—an American who moved to Israel when she was…eighteen. So I’m all set. All I need is your go-ahead.”

Tug’s glare grew icier. Decker sneaked a glance
at Marge. She was trying to stifle a smile.

“You set this up already?” Davidson asked.

“Just being thorough, Loo. And thoughtful. Didn’t want to burden our department with details I could handle.”

Davidson squinted. “Who’s your contact, Decker?”

“Yaacov Cohen,” Decker said, glibly. Meanwhile, he thanked God for Jack Cohen, his ex-father-in-law. Without him, he wouldn’t have been able to think up a Jewish name on the spot.

Davidson said, “I thought you said your interpreter was a woman.”

“You asked for my contact. I thought you wanted the name of the guy at Police Headquarters. My interpreter’s name is Rina.”

Marge bit her lip to keep from laughing.

“Rina?” Davidson said to himself. He threw Decker a sarcastic smile. “Same name as your wife?”

“Yeah, same name as my wife. It’s a common name over there.”

“What a coincidence.”

“Life’s full of them.”

Davidson rubbed his forehead.

Decker said, “Just give me a week. Two at the outside.”

“How much vacation time do you have accrued?”

Decker spoke slowly and emphatically. “This shouldn’t come out of my vacation time because I’m
not
taking a vacation.”

Tug smiled genuinely. Decker knew the game was finally over, the shithead. Putting them through the wringer and for what? But that was the way it was going to be with this one.

“All right, all right,” Davidson said. “I won’t dock you time. One week on
our
time,
you
pay for your own transportation—both in the air and on the ground. And you pay for your own accommodations—”

“To be reimbursed by the depart—”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll agree to that. If your jaunt leads to solving this case, you’ll get your money back. Just keep receipts, including how much it cost you to set things up with the Jews. I know that didn’t come cheap.”

Though boiling inside, Decker put on a grin. “Don’t worry about that, Loo. I got a bargain. Remember, I’m Jewish, too.”

Davidson was about to agree, then looked at Decker and realized he shouldn’t say anything. Tug thought he detected a hint of sarcasm but not enough to call him on. He looked at his detectives without affect. Calmly, he said, “You got what you wanted. Now get out of here and go be useful.”

Just as the door opened, Rina had stuffed the last of her clothing into the suitcase. Quickly, she closed the valise and attempted to snap it shut, but it was too full. From the living room, she heard Peter cooing to the baby. Then he called her name out loud.

“In the bedroom,” she answered. “Wait, I’ll come out to you.”

She sat on the suitcase, trying to secure the latches without making noise. But it was too late. Peter was standing in the doorway, holding Hannah. The baby had her head against his chest. He stared at the suitcase, then his eyes went back to Rina.

“Well, you’re certainly fast when motivated,” he said.

Rina looked at him, but didn’t answer.

Decker kissed Hannah’s cheek. “Go to Mama, so Daddy can get going.” He handed the baby to Rina and swung down the matching suitcase. Canvas—nice and light. “You know where the passports are?”

Rina paused, then said, “Of course I know where the passports are.”

“
Excuse
me!” Decker went to his closet and pulled out a couple of suits. Slightly out of style, but the fabric packed well. “I didn’t for a moment doubt your competency. I was just asking a question for information.” He
pulled out a couple of ties. “These go with the suits? I want to look professional but not like a stiff.”

Rina didn’t answer. Decker regarded his wife’s confused face.

“I’m not posing for
Vogue
, Rina. I just want an opinion.”

Rina remained silent.

Decker said, “Are we on the same planet here?”

“Peter, what’s going on?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why are you packing?”

“Because I can’t travel wearing just a suit on my back.” Decker stood, legs apart, hands on his hips. Cop’s stance, Rina thought. He said, “We’re missing some vital connecting sentence, aren’t we?”

“I believe so.”

Decker said, “I called you about a half hour ago. Left a long, involved message on the machine about our going to Israel. Any of this sound familiar?”

“I haven’t picked up messages from the machine today.”

“So…” Decker let out a deep breath. “So you have no idea what I’m referring to, right?”

“Right.”

“So the obvious question for me is…why are
you
packing your clothes? I know the marriage has had a few rough spots, but…”

Rina laughed. “I’m going to New York.”

“Why? Somebody die suddenly?”

“God forbid, no! I’m going to visit Honey Klein’s village. This is something I just
have
to do, Peter. So don’t try to stop me. Something strange is going on—”

“Hold on!” Decker held out the palms of his hands.

“I’ve got to see for myself—”

“Wait, wait, wait!” Decker started to talk, but laughed again. “You’re packing to go to New York?”

“Yes. And I’m going. I’ve spent two hours making arrangements—”

“I’ll write you up as a contact and get you reimbursed.”

“What are you talking about?”

Decker said, “How about we strike a deal? On our way
back
from Israel, we’ll stop in New York. I may even be able to swing reimbursement for that if Davidson will buy my looking into Honey Klein’s disappearance. But I wouldn’t count on it.”