Faye Kellerman: The Ritual Bath

After Sarah reentered the dressing room, Rina cleaned up and shut off the mikvah heater and the lights. Then she had no choice but to wait with Decker in the reception room.

“All done?” he asked.

“We’re just waiting for her to dress.”

“How’s she doing?”

“I’m not sure. Compared to what?”

“Well, is she talking at all?”

“She’s talking. But not about the…the incident, if that’s what you mean.”

“Do you think she might be willing to talk to us sometime later?”

“That’s up to her,” Rina answered.

Decker didn’t pursue the conversation.

“I’m not being deliberately evasive, Detective. I just don’t know.”

“I understand. And I don’t want to put you on the spot. But frankly, without something more concrete, there’s no way we’re going to catch this guy.”

Rina stood up, walked over to the linen closet, and busied herself with rearranging the already neatly folded towels and sheets. A minute later Sarah Libba appeared. Her head was covered with a kerchief-her new shaytel had been confiscated for evidence along with her torn clothing.

Decker rose and held the door open for the women. Rina turned off the waiting room lights, and the three of them walked in silence across the grounds to the residential area, the women in front, he following.

When they reached Sarah’s house, Decker knocked on the door and Zvi answered. He was still dressed in street clothes-white shirt, black slacks, black oxfords and yarmulke. His long, thin face was grim and stoic behind a thick pelt of light brown beard. After helping his wife in, he stepped outside.

“Thank you,” he said politely to Rina.

“If she needs anything, Zvi, call.”

“I will,” he said softly, then focused on Decker. “Are you the detective in charge?”

“Yes, I am.” He gave the young man his card.

Zvi looked at it and placed it in his breast pocket.

“Detective Decker, you find this thing ,” he spat out. “You look high and low, and you find this thing . And when you do, you don’t arrest him or put him in jail. You just bring him here and leave me alone with him for an hour. That way justice will be done.”

Decker let the words hang in the air for a moment.

“I’m going to need your wife’s help, Mr. Adler, if I’m going to find him.”

Zvi didn’t seem to hear. He stared into space, finally looked back at Decker. “Just find him and bring him here.” He turned abruptly and walked inside.

Rina knew Sarah wouldn’t talk. The case wasn’t going to go anywhere. She looked at the detective. He knew it too, and she sensed his frustration. They began to walk.

“It’s been a long night,” Rina said.

“Yes, it has.”

“Do you get a lot of long nights?”

“Lately.”

“You’re the detective on the Foothill rapist, aren’t you.”

Decker nodded.

“It didn’t dawn on me before, but now I recall seeing your name in the newspaper.” Rina started to shake. “That nurse who was beaten up, how’s she doing?”

“She’s on the mend.”

“That’s good.” Rina swallowed a dry gulp. “Do you think there’s any connection between this and the other Foothill rapes?”

“Mrs. Lazarus, at this point I honestly don’t know.”

There was so much she now wanted to ask him, but knew she couldn’t. They continued walking, and he stopped suddenly, a few feet from her door.

“You want to help? This is how you can help,” Decker said. “First, get a good, solid dead bolt on the mikvah door in the morning. Second, be very careful, even a little paranoid, for the next couple of weeks. Third, you might try to talk Mrs. Adler into giving us a statement of some kind. If she can’t talk to me, maybe you can convince her to talk to Detective Dunn.”

“I’ll do what I can.”

“Thanks.” Decker brought out his pad and a pencil. He scribbled a number on it and gave the slip of paper to Rina. “This is my home number. I don’t want you walking alone at night unless there’s some sort of security patrol on the premises. If you can’t get anyone to walk with you, call me. I’m only fifteen minutes away. I’d much rather take a few minutes of my personal time to assure your safety, than to have to come on official business. All right?”

“I’ll be careful,” she said.

“Look, I’m not telling you how to worship. The rabbi said you’re a widow, that you don’t like to walk alone with a man. But in my book, religion comes second to personal safety. I’m sure he can give you dispensation.”

Rina said nothing.

Decker knew he was wasting his breath. She wasn’t listening. Goddam Hollander and his fucking ball game! Decker didn’t want to be here. He didn’t want this case. It was going to dead end, and he’d have another unsolved rape on his hands.

But that was just part of it. Some force was sucking him into this place. He knew he’d be returning here in a professional capacity. And that worried him.

Rina sat at her desk in the stuffy basement classroom and looked out at a sea of bobbing yarmulkes. Heads down, her students were busy scratching away at the test. She’d thought the exam would be challenging, but the kids seemed to be whipping through the pages in record time. It was getting harder and harder to challenge them, she realized with delight. It was a pleasure to teach such a bright group of kids. Her only major complaint about the job was the poor facilities. In the summer the room became a sauna, and the two large floor fans did little to mitigate the heat.

Her eyes returned to the open pages of the Chumash . She’d finished studying parsha -the biblical portion of the week-and was on the haftorah . Sunday was the new moon, so the reading would be the story of the friendship between David and Jonathan. It was one of Rina’s favorites-a tale of unswerving love and trust. She’d never had a relationship like that with anyone, including Yitzchak. Theirs had contained some of those elements, but Yitzchak’s first and true love had been the Torah.

The rabbis had regarded his brilliant mind as a gift from God. He was their prize pupil, one of the few young men who was a real tal-mid chacham . They’d showered him with attention, but it had never gone to his head. He wasn’t interested in adulation, just in the acquisition of knowledge.

Rina had been astonished by Yitzchak’s intellect when they first met. He was a living, breathing genius, and she was willing to put up with his idiosyncracies for the privilege of being around him. He’d turned out to be a warmhearted man and a good father, but their relationship had always been a bit distant.

It was cruelly ironic that his brilliant brain cells eventually led to his demise.

Rina felt melancholia nibbling at her gut. She looked up from the text, and her eyes landed on the sandy-haired boy in the corner. His expression hadn’t changed since he’d entered the room. Usually one of the quickest thinkers, today he gazed at the chalkboard as if it contained some magic words of comfort. Yossie looked just like his father, Zvi, and his face bore the painful, numb expression that his father’s had last night. Rina was sure they hadn’t told him, but he knew. Oldest children always knew when something wasn’t right.

A few of the best students had handed in their exams. Rina would grade them, but really didn’t have to bother. She knew they’d be perfect. Soon the rest of the boys followed, until Yossie was the only one left. He continued to stare blankly, not even moving when Rina was standing right next to him. She looked down at his papers and found them untouched.