Stuart Kaminsky: Blood On The Sun

"No," the widow said, "but I could tell that he wasn't looking forward to it."

Hyam Glick began to rock in his chair, eyes closed. He spoke softly in Hebrew.

Yosele translated, " 'Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm. For love is as strong as death, passion fierce as the grave… Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it.' "

"Song of Songs," said Stella.

Yosele nodded and looked at her now weeping brother-in-law.

Detective Trent Sylvester drove slowly down the road, letting traffic pass him. He concentrated on the right side, pausing whenever he saw anything that might be suspicious, finding nothing for thirty-five minutes. Then he came to the slight break in the bushes. He slowed down, parked and passed carefully through the opening.

In the clearing beyond the bushes, Sylvester saw the bicycle, front wheel twisted, handlebars turned almost around. He walked carefully for a few steps and then stopped, not wanting to contaminate the scene.

Beyond the bicycle lay a crumpled bloody white shirt next to a scattering of clothes- underwear, denim jeans, socks and a single sneaker. He scanned the ground looking for a second sneaker, but couldn't see it. Nor could he see the boy's body, but that could have been carried deeper into the trees or buried and covered with leaves.

Sylvester backed away, took his phone from his hip and called in what he had found. He was told, though he didn't have to be, to cordon off the crime scene.

Mac, who was still at the Vorhees residence when the call came in, arrived at the scene less than ten minutes later. Danny had already headed back to the lab with the samples they had taken.

"We start searching for the body?" asked Detective Defenzo at his side.

Defenzo felt the warm moist sweat under his arms and on his forehead. It wasn't even noon and his underpants were clinging and itching against his groin.

Mac didn't answer. He scanned the scene- bike, scattered clothes, shoe, ground. What he didn't yet see was the boy's second shoe and the glasses he always wore.

Mac opened his kit, pulled on his gloves and handed a second pair to Defenzo. Find the body, find the blood, find footprints, fingerprints, hair, anything.

But there was something else to look for. Mac was not ready to give it a name. The ground cover of leaves, hundreds, perhaps thousands, would make the search more difficult, but Mac was always suspicious when it was too easy.

He stepped forward and began his search, watching where he stepped, carefully reaching back to remove an insect from his neck, imagining a frightened, pale, skinny twelve-year-old boy standing nude in this dark tiny clearing.

"Look for the boy," said Mac. "Watch where you step. Touch nothing."

Defenzo nodded and headed into the trees to his left.

Mac took photographs, knelt at each piece of evidence and examined it with a portable microscope that looked nothing like the one Sherlock Holmes used. The one in Mac's hand looked like a small metallic pocket-sized eyeglass case. He went from item to item, sometimes focusing the built-in tilting light on something he enlarged by almost one hundred times.

For the next fifteen minutes, Mac gently picked up leaves, examined them, and bagged them.

THE LARGE, DARKLY TINTED WINDOWS were emblazoned with the words THE JEWISH LIGHT OF CHRIST in neatly printed large gold letters. On the door were the words ENTER. ALL ARE WELCOME.

On the awning, down in front of both windows, were the faint remnants of the words GOLDMAN'S DRY CLEANING AND PROFESSIONAL TAILORING. The awning provided little relief from the angry sun.

Aiden and Stella had entered hoping to find air-conditioning. They found only a tired ceiling fan grinding away. Meanwhile, Flack had gone with Yosele Glick to her home to see if he could find names, leads, something to go on.

Inside the store fourteen chairs were in a half circle facing the door. All of the chairs were occupied. Seven men, seven women. The clean-shaven men in black all wore yarmulkes. The women all had their heads covered.

It struck both Aiden and Stella that these people were young, the oldest a man seated in the middle who might have been forty at the most.

The room was late-morning hot. The ancient ceiling fan turned slowly, making a tired scratchy sound.

"We've been expecting you," said the older man.

He was dark, lean, with thinning hair, a slightly pitted face and deep blue eyes that stayed focused on the two CSIs.

"Joshua?" asked Stella.

"I am," the man said. "And this is our congregation."

"All of it?" Stella asked.

"We will grow in numbers, faith and determination," he said. "There are fourteen million Jews in the world."

"Rabbi Mesmur says you've been harassing him and members of his congregation," said Stella.

The people seated in the other chairs barely moved. Some of them were now looking at Joshua with confident smiles.

"Our mission is to bring Jews to the true light of Christ as the Messiah," Joshua said. "To accomplish this, we must confront those who are misguided and convince them of the truth."

"Why?" asked Aiden.

"So they will be saved," said Joshua.

"A man was murdered in the temple this morning," said Stella.

"We know," said Joshua.

"Crucified," said Stella.

All eyes were now on the two women who stood before them.

"We'd like to collect your fingerprints and swab for DNA testing," said Aiden.

"We didn't kill anyone," said Joshua calmly. "We follow both the Commandments and the word of Christ the Savior."

"Then you won't mind our taking samples to eliminate you as suspects," said Stella.

"And did you do the same to the congregants at the minyan this morning?" asked Joshua. "Or Saint Martine's Church?"

"We're going to," said Aiden.

Joshua looked to those people seated at his right and said, "Devorah's father is a cantor in one of the largest orthodox congregations in Connecticut. David holds a doctorate in Jewish studies from Yale. Joel is an adjunct professor of classics at Columbia. Carole is a psychiatric social worker. Erik is a lawyer. Each of us knows the world beyond these walls. Each of us is committed to changing that world, saving those who will find peace only when they accept the word of Christ."

"Fingerprints," Aiden said calmly.

She had heard this kind of religious babble since she was a child and distrusted anyone with a hard religious line. She knew some of the religious zealots meant what they were saying, but often the words were a blanket over something dark beneath- seduction, money, power. Joshua struck Aiden as one who had secrets under his blanket of words. He also had the mad smile of certainty she had seen in true believers.

"We prefer not to," said Joshua, reaching out his hands on both sides and gently touching the shoulder of a girl on his right and a round-faced young man on his left.

"We can get a court order," said Stella.

"No," said a man on the left.

He was about thirty, wearing a suit and glasses.

"You don't have sufficient cause to compel us to comply," he said.

Joshua smiled, looked at Aiden and Stella and raised his eyebrows in victory.

"Erik…," Joshua began.

"… is a lawyer," Stella continued.

"No one in this congregation committed murder," Joshua said emphatically.

"I don't think we can simply take your word for that," said Stella.

"I did not imagine you would," said Joshua.

"And what were you before you found your religion?" asked Aiden.

"I was the son of a rabbi," said Joshua. "I was a writer of pornographic paperbacks, a lost soul. Now I have seen the light and the truth and am, myself, a rabbi, a teacher of the faith."