“She said that?”

“Yep.”

“Good for her. Then she knows about your origins?”

“No. I thought about telling her but decided against it. It would be too big a distraction at this point. We both have work to do. I need her to concentrate on a rapist, not on me. Besides, I could never spit in my parents’ faces and suddenly declare myself a Jew, like my ‘real’ parents. It would upset them tremendously.”

“So how did you come to have these books?”

“I was curious about my background. There were no open records when I started searching twenty years ago, but since I was a cop in the state where I was adopted, I was able to pull a few strings. To make a long and boring story short, I found out my mother was a religious girl from New York who was shipped down to Miami after getting herself into a little fix when she was fifteen. She’s in her fifties now with five kids and a load of grandchildren. I’m not about to barge in on her and disrupt her life.

“The records also contained my father’s name. He was a different story. Older. Never married, lived alone on the Lower East Side of New York in one of those projects. One day I got up enough nerve, flew to New York, and looked him up. We talked. He was a nice man, a retired diamond cutter, a big man like me, with big hands. I looked like him. It was a strange experience to resemble someone. Very strange. He kept trying to console me, as if I were mad at him for some reason, telling me over and over that he and my mother weren’t meant to be. He kept saying it wasn’t basheert, repeating that word. I gave him my address and told him to keep in touch. I wrote. He never did. Finally I gave up.

“A couple of years ago, I received these books and a couple of other personal items of his-a prayer shawl, phylacteries, a kittel. No note. I called up the NYPD and asked them to check the obits. Sure enough, his name was there. It said he died of a stroke. What a bunch of baloney. The package was dated a week before he died. I know he killed himself. The M.E. was incompetent and didn’t pick up on it.”

“Or maybe, Detective, he knew he was about to die.” Decker smiled.

“That’s a little romantic, Rabbi.”

“You need to think a lot more like a Jew. Hashem can do anything, Detective.”

“Maybe.”

Decker sat down on a leather chair and lit a cigarette.

“I’ve never told a soul. I trust you’ll keep this confidential.”

The old man sighed heavily.

“Detective, your ex-wife didn’t know you were Jewish?”

“I’m not really Jewish.”

“I mean that you are Jewish biologically. I don’t want to quibble with semantics.”

“No.”

“Were you married in a Jewish ceremony?”

“We had a combo wedding. A reform rabbi and a Unitarian minister. It was pretty unusual.”

“Do you remember anything about the Jewish part of the ceremony?”

“I’ve tried to repress the whole thing.” Decker smiled and thought. “I gave her a ring and said something about Moses. Oh, and I stepped on a glass. They gave my wife a wedding certificate that I signed. I don’t know what happened to it. Why are you asking me this?”

“I’m trying to figure out if you’re still legally married to your ex-wife. If there was a kinyan, a valid transaction.”

“We’ve been divorced for five years.”

“Civilly. But maybe not according to Jewish law. By any chance, has your ex-wife remarried?”

“Yes. About two years ago. She went all the way and married a real Jew this time.”

The rabbi looked pained.

“Vay is mere. And do they have children?”

Decker looked at him.

“As a matter of fact, she just lost a premature baby. She was six months pregnant when she went into labor, but the baby didn’t survive. She’s okay physically, but my daughter tells me she’s not doing too well emotionally.”

“Now that was basheert,” the rabbi said to himself. “Detective Decker, to be on the safe side, I’m going to prepare you a get-a Jewish divorce. A civil divorce is insignificant for religious purposes. Otherwise, your ex-wife’s future children may be considered mamzerim-bastards-and be irrevocably stigmatized.”

Decker’s eyes grew cold.

“I’m stigmatized?”

“You are not a mamzer. Your parents were not married at the time of your birth, but you are still a full-fledged Jew. A mamzer is the product of an adulterous union between a married Jewish woman and a Jewish man, or of incest. According to Jewish law, it’s possible that you’re not legally divorced from your wife.”

“She doesn’t know I’m Jewish.”

“But you knew you were Jewish at the time of your marriage?”

“Technically, yes.”

“Do you have any objection to her finding out?”

“Not really.”

“Then let me divorce you properly.”

Decker smiled slightly.

“Let me ask you this, Rabbi. Had my ex-wife’s baby lived, would it have been considered a bastard?”

“Debatable but possible. Every marriage is looked at individually because the consequences are so severe. Once decided, it is one of the few things in Jewish law that is completely irreversible. Why condemn your former wife’s children to such a fate when the whole thing can be easily resolved? Let’s divorce you according to halacha.”

“What do I have to do?”

“Sign a document that I will prepare. And deliver it personally to your ex-wife.”

“Fine.”

“I’ll need to know your ex-wife’s Hebrew name, that of her father, and your father’s. I’m assuming you don’t have a Hebrew name.”

“Not that I know of.”

“All right. Your English name will be sufficient. I’ll also need the date of your marriage.”

“I can give that to you right now. The rest I’m going to have to find out.”

“Write it all down for me tomorrow. Then I will come with you to your ex-wife’s house and divorce you properly.”

Decker smiled at him, still bemused.

“Okay.”

The rabbi placed a hand on his shoulder.

“It was fate that led you here. It was basheert. Something pulled you to us.”

A rape and a homicide, Decker thought. But he didn’t answer.

“You were searching for something, Detective.”

“So far as I know, Rabbi, I still am.”

23

Cory Schmidt sat slumped in the interview room, head down, smoking a cigarette. His stringy blond hair was pulled back in a ponytail, and dark circles underlined his eyes. The prison denims he wore were wrinkled and too big for him. Taking a deep drag, he looked around, then turned his attention back to the tabletop in front of him. He had been stripped of his earrings, his wrist bracelets, and all of his bravado.

He fidgeted, growing increasingly jumpy in this pisshole. Man, he felt alone. Someone had told his mother about the arrest a couple of days ago, but the lazy bitch hadn’t bothered to show her face. She was probably glued to the boob tube-her fuckin’ soaps. His old man didn’t care, either. Too busy gettin’ tanked somewhere. Shit! When you come right down to it, ain’t a soul who gave a flying fuck about you. Not your parents, not your buddies, not your chicks. Nobody. He looked at the suit sitting next to him-some righteous fuck-off of a public defender named Ronson. Who was he trying to kid with his dipshitty beard and fako English accent? A first-class jiveass turkey fag. Dude didn’t do a fucking thing except scribble notes, shuffle papers, and clear his throat, asking if there were any questions, talking to him like he was a retard. Man, there was nothing left to say. Cory finished the last hit of nicotine and wondered if he wasn’t better off with a bullet in his head.

Decker stood outside the interview room waiting for Birdwell, the deputy D.A., to return from his phone call. The prosecutor was a young, good-looking, bespectacled black kid with a baby-smooth face and short kinky hair-a Berkeley grad, sharp, with a lot of spirit. He’d do well in the system. The detective wondered how he would have fared had he gone into public law. In retrospect, it had been a big mistake to join his father-in-law’s practice. Estate planning and wills. Big bucks but mind-numbing.