11
Just before roll call,I caught up with Greg Van Horn as he was signing out for his two-week vacation, the field roster marked in green highlighter. His face was filled with good cheer, and he had a spring in his step. Already, he had loosened his tie. I cornered him while he was waving his last good-byes. He frowned when he saw me, but too bad. Out there was a girl who needed medical attention. I gave him the slip of paper and explained myself.
“You did this by yourself?”
“All by my little lonesome.”
“On your own time?”
“Yes, sir, on my own time.”
He was still staring at me.
“Golly, that woman does have a brain in her head-”
“Decker!”
“Sorry, sir.” I stifled a smile.
He tapped his foot. “You’re putting me in conflict, Decker, and right before my vacation. I’m not thrilled about this.”
“Next time, I’ll try to be less effective.”
He glowered at me, but it lacked feeling. “The case belongs to Russ, but he don’t deserve the credit. You do.”
“It may not be anything, sir.”
He handed me back the slip of paper. “So why don’t you check it out first?”
“Then what if it is something?”
“Follow it up.”
“Should I contact Russ?”
“Play it by ear.”
Giving me leeway. He was being very gentlemanly. I thanked him and stowed the slip of paper in my pocket. He noticed the uncertainty that I felt.
“What?”
“This is a little different from what I’m used to. Talking to a retarded girl about babies and sex.” That sounded fearful. “I can do it. No problem. Just… any suggestions? I don’t want to blow your case.”
“More likeyourcase.” He held out his hands helplessly. “I’m on vacation, Decker. You got contacts in the Department. Use ’em.”
Home had always been Decker’s refuge, but of late, it was his office as well. At the station, there were issues and problems and details. There were meetings with superiors, meetings with the detectives, meetings with county supervisors or reps from the city council or congressional districts. There was PR that amounted to a lot of BS. Smiling through all of it gave him one giant headache. Once he’d been able to handle it, fielding calls as smoothly as a Vegas dealer. Now he constantly felt distracted, and the sudden images of blood and death didn’t help.
He took off his glasses and set them on the desktop, rubbing his eyes without relief. Rina had set up a comfortable home office in the guest room/den. In the daytime, the back windows showed a view of the mature fruit trees. At the current hour, the vista was dark. But because the room was situated next to a pittosporum tree in full bloom, sweet jasmine scents wafted through the open louver slats. In the peace and quiet of his own sanctuary, he could go through some of the more puzzling case files, often breathing life into stagnating investigations.
He was able to keep his job and his equilibrium because he was working twice as hard as he should have been. He’d get through it-he had no choice, his family needed the money-but it would take a while. Rina’s confession had helped, but Decker knew she wasn’t being completely honest with him. By and by, it would all come out.
“How much longer?”
Decker jerked his head up. Rina was dressed in black sweats. With no makeup and her hair down, she could have passed for her twenties.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Eleven-thirty.”
“Did I say something about coming in at eleven?”
“You did.”
“Sorry.”
“S’right.” Rina stood behind him and began to massage his neck. “You look tense. Maybe this will help.”
“Oh man, that feels good. What’s the catch?”
“I’ve got another file for you to look at.”
“Now?”
“It’ll take you five minutes.”
“Nothing ever takes five minutes anymore.”
Rina gave his back a slap. “Thank goodness for that. Now I’m going to make some tea while you clear the desk.”
“Yes, ma’am. Do I get tea, too?”
“You do.”
He smiled, watching her sway as she went. By the time she returned from the kitchen, the desktop was visible. She was carrying a tray with a pot of tea, two mugs, and a Pendaflex folder. She set the tray down and pulled up a chair.
“How about you pour and I explain what I’ve done?”
“Are you evernotorganized, Rina?”
“It’s part of my job description. I don’t see you pouring.”
Decker took up the steaming teapot dressed in a quilted cozy, held the lid, and poured two cups of steaming, brewed tea. “One lump or two? Or three if you count me.”
She kissed his cheek. “You are far from a lump. And you know I take my tea plain.” She pulled out three neat stacks of typewritten pages. “Maybe you’d like to take notes?”
Decker laughed and held up a pen. “I’m ready, Professor.”
“Very funny. This sheet has the names of all the people in the file.”
“Who translated the file for you?”
“Laurie Manheim’s mother-in-law. But we didn’t get through all of it. Do you know Laurie? She’s Rabbi Manheim’s wife.”
“I know neither Laurie nor Rabbi Manheim.”
“He teaches at the high school. Yonkie had him for tenth-grade Gemara. I got to know him very well because Yonkie wasn’t doing well in his class.”
“Well, he’s doing well now. The child has hit his stride.”
“Yeshiva life agrees with him.”
“More like college, Rina. But we digress.”
“Indeed.” Rina smiled. “Anyway, as far as Laurie’s mother-in-law could tell, I think this guy at the top of the list-Rudolf Kalmer-was the lead investigator in the case. But this other guy-Heinreich Messersmit-was also involved.”
“Partners?”
“I don’t know. It almost seems that both of them were working on it, but independently. Different handwriting.”
“Who’s this number three guy-Axel Berg?”
“He came in a little later. Berg had been working on two other unsolved homicides, and we think that Kalmer and Messersmit asked him for a consult on my grandmother’s death. Berg later took over.”
“What other homicides?”
“Here… wait.” Rina flipped through the pages of her translated text. “It’s hard to tell, Peter, because they, like you guys here, use abbreviations. Mrs. Manheim thought that this page”-Rina sifted through the faxed copies of the original documents-“here, this over here. They brought in Berg for a consult on the MAK of two women-Anna Gross and Marlena Durer.” Rina read to herself. “Okay… this word-‘tötungsdelikt’-that’s premeditated homicide. ‘Totschlag’ could be like regular homicide.”
“Regular homicide?”
Rina was exasperated as she groped for words. “You know… like defensible homicide.”
“Self-defense?”
“Yeah, yeah. It could mean killing in self-defense.” She hit her head. “ ‘Tötungsdelikt’ implies lying in wait.”
“Okay. So these two women, Durer and Gross, were premeditated murder victims.”
“Yes, we think so.”
“What does ‘MAK’ mean?”
“We’re not sure. Mrs. Manheim thinks itmightbe an abbreviation for ‘mordakten,’ which would be a homicide file. ‘Mord’ is murder. ‘Akte’ is any file. See? They have it in front of my grandmother’s name-MAK Regina Gottlieb.”
Decker regarded his wife’s blue eyes. “Regina? So you’re named after her?”
Rina nodded.
“Ah.”
“I think that Kalmer and Messersmit wanted to know if my grandmother’s murder was related to the murders of Durer and Gross.”
“What? Like a serial killing?”
Rina shrugged. “Beats me. That’s your domain.”
Decker scanned through Rina’s translated notes as he sipped tea. “You translated the autopsy report.”
“Yes, we did. It was gruesome.”
Again he regarded his wife. “Your grandfather allowed the body to be autopsied.”
“He didn’t have a choice because her death was unnatural.”