The Silent Bride awm-7 Page 6

  "Let's see, Arturo took over from me, what, four years ago?" Bellaqua mused.

  "More." Mike jerked up his chin with a little smile. "The place was never the same after you left."

  "Thanks." Bellaqua went on reminiscing. "That's right, almost four and a half now. We had some good times, busy place. How are you dom' over there, April?" The inspector gave April a long, speculative look, trying to read her.

  "Good," April replied, flat as a pancake.

  "It's a good command. You want some coffee, doughnuts?" Unperturbed, Bellaqua moved right on.

  Hospitality at NYPD meant offering the official food of the department any time of day. Twenty-four/seven, doughnuts were highly acceptable.

  "I sent out for a box. What kind do you like?" she asked.

  "Thanks, we like them all," Mike said.

  "Coffee?"

  "Sure, that would be great," Mike said.

  "Take a seat, please." The inspector rose. She was wearing a black pantsuit. She'd been up all night with the Schoenfeld family, but didn't look sleep-deprived. As she left the room, April assessed her back.

  "Good woman. You should have seen her working with those people last night. A real inspiration." Mike took a seat on a new-looking chair in front of the

  desk.

  "Good, we need some inspiration," April murmured.

  When the inspector returned, her expression had changed. She was through with nice. Now came management. The Detective Bureau consisted of more than six thousand people working in precincts and special units all over the city, also in the puzzle palace of headquarters. In big cases like this detectives were pulled in from different units to work together, often displacing the precinct detectives on whose turf the crime occurred. The rivalry between precinct detectives and special-units detectives was well known. Everybody jockeyed to keep important information in his own court, to be the one to break the case and get the credit for himself and his own unit.

  "Tovah Schoenfeld's body was released early this morning. Mike, you know this. I've never seen a victim move through the system so fast." Bellaqua put her index finger against her cheek and tapped. "I'm telling you, it was a very emotional scene at the ME's office. You know how it can get."

  "What happened?" April asked.

  "The family refused to leave without the body. The family staged a sit-in. They didn't want to leave the body alone. They also tried to get the gown released to bury her in." Bellaqua shook her head.

  "How did they do on that?" April asked.

  "An offer of a possible forty-eight hours was made. I don't know how real that was/' Mike jumped in.

  "Well, Jimmy might have been able to do the ballistics work in forty-eight, but the DA's office would have taken a stand that the dress was direct evidence in the case. When it was put to them that way, the family decided not to delay the funeral. They're putting her in the ground this morning. They've requested security at the funeral," Bellaqua said. "And they're getting a lot of it. The cemetery is in Queens."

  "What's the rush?" April asked.

  "They're very religious. They wanted her in the ground as soon as possible." The inspector lifted a shoulder.

  You know how it is.

  "So what's the muscle?"

  "Money. Riverdale. Real estate. Take your pick. You don't think ultra-Orthodox when you think of the area, do you?"

  April glanced at Mike. He smiled. No one had to tell Mike about Riverdale. He'd grown up there, just a block or two from the Five-oh. But he let his superior talk.

  "It's always been an enclave, classy. But pretty much of a mixed neighborhood. You got your pockets of Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn, in Morningside Heights. Upstate, of course, out in Port Washington, in Queens. Riverdale's Orthodox population has been growing lately. It's upscale, quiet, and, most important for them, geographically a confined space."

  Mike nodded thoughtfully, as if he'd never heard this before, as if Poppy Bellaqua, who'd worked with him on several occasions, didn't know perfectly well where he came from.

  "This neighborhood is bounded by the Henry Hudson Parkway and the Hudson River, from as far south as Spuyten Duyvil and up to the Two-forties. The synagogue is up on the parkway, Independence Avenue. You were there yesterday. Yes, thank you."

  A very good-looking Latina, young, with about a ton of curly black hair and a red jacket, came in carrying a loaded cardboard tray.

  "Right here." Bellaqua patted a space on her desk. "Detective Linda Perez, Sergeant Woo, Lieutenant Sanchez," she did the honors.

  "Nice to know you." Detective Perez put the tray down. Three coffees in blue mugs, white-lettered with

  Bias Unit,

  a bakery box of assorted Dunkin' Donuts. A container of milk and a pile of sugar packets, both regular and Sweet 'n Low. Napkins, white plastic spoons.

  The inspector examined it quickly. "Thank you, Linda. Go ahead, take," to Mike and April.

  She grabbed a mug herself, passed on the container of milk, the sugars, and the doughnuts.

  Dieting,

  April thought. "You got everything you need here, Mike, April?" she asked.

  Mike reached for a jelly doughnut. April hesitated. Bellaqua stared at her until she selected one, then waited for them to flavor their coffees before she went on.

  "Okay, so they own a lot of real estate in the area and have become something of a political force out there." The inspector paused to swallow some black coffee, grimacing only a little.

  "This is what we know so far. They're Orthodox. Tovah just celebrated her eighteenth birthday two months ago. According to the custom, this was an arranged marriage." Bellaqua paused for effect.

  "Wow." April put down her half-eaten doughnut, glanced at Mike again.

  "Not an everyday situation, right?" Bellaqua tapped her cheek.

  "I can see how it would be a parent's dream," Mike tossed back, clearly referring to April's parents.

  "Not many can pull it off these days, though. And something went very wrong here. Who knows, this may be a family thing. It may not be. We're going to have to use our common sense here, go at it several ways. Frankly, they pulled me in on this; but I don't see the profile of a hate crime. I'm sure you've talked about this between you. April, you were on the scene yesterday, any preliminary thoughts?"

  "I'm not an expert on bias cases," April murmured. She was way behind the curve on this.

  "Well, it may not be a bias case. We'll break it down this way. My people will take the bias angle. We'll canvass the neighborhood. Mike, you and April can start with the families and see what we can come up with there. Finish your doughnut," she directed April.

  April took another bite.

  Her hostess duties satisfied, Bellaqua went on. "You may want to do some research on customs and practices. But here's the general background the way I understand it. This community is real tight. They keep the boys and girls apart. Marry them young before they have a chance to fool around. They don't go for sex out of marriage. This was confirmed in the prelim report. Tovah was a virgin."

  This Mike had reported. Always fast with the sex details. April took out her notebook and pen.

  "So the way it works is the mothers do the matching themselves when the kids graduate high school. The girls' mothers put out the word their daughters are looking and what they're looking for. The boys' mothers show interest. Both sides have lists of potential candidates. Let me tell you, the background checks are very detailed. If a boy gets into trouble being rebellious at camp or not saying his prayers, it goes on his record that he's a delinquent and it affects his marriage prospects. Same with the girls. They're watched and gossiped about." Bellaqua did not smile. This was no joke.

  "It's very serious business to them and well organized. The kids all have blood tests but don't know what's up until their mothers tell them there's somebody for them to meet. Tovah and Schmuel went through this process two months ago and became engaged almost immediately. Maybe someone was against the match." Bellaqua shrugged.


  "Had they dated anyone else before they met?" April asked.

  "Schmuel apparently rejected two candidates before he met Tovah. That means he went out with each one once and told his mother no. Tovah had never been out with a boy before. That's their claim."

  "But surely she knew other boys from school...."

  "She went to a girls' school, did not go to camp." Bellaqua shrugged again. "The Schoenfelds live in a house on Alderbrook Road, very nice. I've got a background check going on them."

  "Let's return to the bias question for a moment," Mike said. "Has there been any anti-Semitic activity in the area? Any property complaints?" He licked a dusting of powdered sugar off his fingers.

  The inspector nodded. "Nothing stands out here. In a typical hate crime profile there would be plenty of signs, cases of property damage. Swastikas, slashed tires, broken windows, that kind of thing. Perpetrators of hate crimes use terrorist tactics to isolate people, make them afraid to go out. Have another, please." Bellaqua waved at the doughnuts.

  "No, no, thanks. One was great."

  "We had a case of a hit-and-run not too long ago. African-American girl was hit by a van filled with Hasidic schoolboys out in Brooklyn. At first it looked like a prejudice thing. Unfortunately, the girl died of her injuries." Bellaqua shook her head, then went on.

  "We investigated. Turns out the van didn't stop to help her because it was against their code of ethics to touch or have eye contact with a non-family member female. You may have heard about it. The case inspired a lot of anti-Semitic feeling. We had complaints from both sides about harassment, assault, and property damage arising from it. What we're talking about in Riverdale is not that extreme. It's an Orthodox community that doesn't mix, but is not ultra-Orthodox like the Hasidim. You'll see. Anything else?"

  April thawed a little. "Thanks for breakfast."

  "Oh, and you'll be working out of the Five-oh. They'll take the statements of the various vendors, caterers, etc. You'll want to work closely with them.

  Follow up on everything. Could be somebody who serviced the wedding. You never know. Push it. Keep in touch. We've got to nail this guy fast." The interview was over.

  Ten

  B

  y a little after ten April and Mike were on the Major Deegan, heading up to the Bronx. Mike found his voice and was finally talking freely. He told April about the Schoenfelds' agonized vigil at the medical examiner's office during Tovah's autopsy. He described his own feelings seeing Tovah on the autopsy table in her bloody wedding gown that spilled off the metal table onto the floor. She was photographed clothed to show where the bullets had entered her body through her clothing, then naked with the bullet holes in her back. The dress had been difficult for the attendants to manage because there was so much of it. In spots the blood was still wet on the heavy silk and lace. The gown was a ruin, slashed open from neck to knee. But the small holes in the back, with a minimal amount of blood edging them, showed clearly where on her body the bullets had entered. Only from the back, it turned out. Her front and back were photographed and then the attendants removed all of her articles of clothing and bagged them. The bridal gown, white lace bra and panties, white panty hose.

  Six people were in the cold room, all suited up from head to toe, all wearing respirators, nobody making small talk. April knew Mike was usually cool in autopsies no matter how frightful the condition of the corpse. She was surprised to hear him admit that this time he'd almost puked.

  "A hollow-point chewed up her heart and lungs like hamburger meat," he said, then got quiet thinking about it.

  Not that he and April hadn't seen these horrors many times before. Hollow-point bullets left small holes where they entered the body, and exploded on impact like bursting bombs once they got inside. Usually they lodged in their victims and didn't exit at all. Hollow-points caused the worst damage and were the bullets cops feared most from guns out on the street. For the second time April was glad she hadn't been there to see Tovah's body, as Mike described it. She didn't need any more nightmares, but neither did he. She tried to divert him.

  "He must have used a light rifle, something that can easily be broken down," she suggested.

  "Yeah. Maybe a nine-shot with a short barrel," Mike agreed.

  "Not so easy to hide in a space like that. Anybody could have seen him at any moment."

  "Maybe somebody did see him but doesn't know

  it."

  April nodded. Sometimes you don't see what you're not expecting to see.

  "If this had happened at a church, right now I'd be thinking the shooter might have been somebody wearing a liturgical robe, maybe disguised as a nun, a priest, an altar boy. That would play. But I saw only two people wearing robes, the rabbi and the cantor," Mike went on.

  April remembered them. One big and fat, one small and thin.

  "Or it could have been a woman. There were a lot of women in long gowns," he added.

  April considered the idea of a female sniper in an evening gown shooting a bride down in a synagogue full of people. "Gee, I don't know about that." It wasn't exactly a female kind of crime.

  "It could have been a man dressed as a woman. Lot of wigs there, too."

  She nodded, liking that better. "There you go."

  She put her face out the car window into the wind and breathed the spring air. It wasn't good that both of them were so spooked by this homicide. Maybe Mike was troubled because it occurred near his old home, a section of the Bronx that crime-wise had always been quiet. In his day it had been staunchly middle- and upper-middle-class. Now a lot of newcomers to the city lived there. The neighborhood had changed from white-collar to blue-collar. Even Mike's mother, Maria Sanchez, who'd been a newcomer herself thirty years ago, complained about the immigrants who flocked to the buildings on Broadway. But still, the Five-oh was one of the safest precincts in the city. Crime-wise, it was sleepy.

  The Deegan cut through the Bronx to Westchester. Apartment buildings were rooted in the hills on the east and west sides of the highway. The older ones were ten stories high, square, unrelieved red brick, one after another laddered in the hills. The newer ones were twenty, thirty stories high, towering on the bluffs.

  April turned her thoughts to the funeral. They'd go. They'd see who was there saying good-bye.

  Killers frequently went to the funerals of their victims. If the funeral was at one, they'd go over to the house and talk with Tovah's family in the late afternoon, around five. She didn't relish the prospect of interviewing the family. This was going to be a long day, but what day wasn't? Mike interrupted her timing calculations.

  "I think we should get married. What do you say,

  cjuerida

  ? How about we finally set a date?" he asked suddenly.

  "Let's not compete with Ching's wedding."

  Or a homicide,

  she thought.

  "How is that competing?" He put his foot on the gas, reacting to the evasion.

  "There's just a lot going on right now, that's all." April shook her head; he'd driven right out of her comfort zone. And now he was speeding.

  "There's always a lot going on," he countered.

  "What's the sudden hurry,

  chicol"

  she said softly.

  Don't push me at a bad time.

  "The hurry is, I have a bad feeling."

  "About what?" Her heart spiked as he changed lanes too fast. He was definitely pissed at her. She hated that, too.

  "About this bride shooting. About being together but not married. Not being married feels wrong now, like bad luck. That's it. It feels like bad luck." He turned to look at her as he said it, and his expression was fierce, showing that he really meant it.

  Bad luck!

  April felt the kick of those two highly charged words. Right in the gut where she was most vulnerable. Only yesterday he'd been content being together on any basis. Now he was thinking it was bad luck. That hurt, because April's constant nagging worry was that wors
e luck would result from their marrying. So far she'd been able to avert really bad luck by nonaction. Now he was suggesting nonaction itself was dangerous.

  "1 think you're in a funky mood/' she said.

  "And I think you have a problem, April."

  Oh , now she had a problem. This cold reading sent her feelings careening from hurt, to anger, to anxiety about truth and untruth and what she had to do about it. The feelings vied for supremacy.

  She

  had a problem! He didn't understand the complexities of her life.

  He

  was her problem.

  She wanted to lash out at him but had to contain herself. It wouldn't be fair to make a scene in his home territory. From the second he exited the highway and crossed the overpass to Broadway he always got funny, thinking his childhood was looking him in the eye. There, the skating rink from his vouth. It was now a Loehmann's. There, where it used to be the Dale movie theater, now a bank. There, the Stella D'oro factory with the air still percolating with baking anisette and almond cookies. And Pauline's was still a grungy bar down the block from the precinct. McDonald's was still next door. Stop and Shop was across Broadway. Van Cortlandt Park a few blocks down. Two hundred thirty-eighth Street, still the end of the line for the Broadway El. And his mother within hailing distance. She couldn't say a word with his mother's ghost so close by.

  April simmered on low as Mike parked outside the Five-oh, not a bad house, as precincts went. The blue building was three stories high and had been built within the last twenty years. But it was far from her home base back in Manhattan.

  Mike got out arid stretched.

  "Todo bien, quenda?"

  he asked, as if he didn't know perfectly well that he'd ruined her day and she couldn't do a thing about it.

  "Oh, yeah, everything's just hunky." April didn't lash out. She pulled herself out of the car, smoothed the wrinkles out of her blue skirt, adjusted her gun, her jacket, her brains. And she jerked herself back into line. There was no place for private feelings in police work. Anyway, she always got butterflies in a house not her own where she didn't know the personalities and no one wanted them there. She was far from hunky right now, but what else was new?