Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(16)

I swing my arms and jog in place. My scarf is wrapped around my mouth and nose, turning damp as I breathe. I wonder if Aviva grew up on this block. Did they live in a house or an apartment? Which synagogue did they pray at? If I had asked Miriam, Do you know Aviva Kagan? would she have said yes? I wish I could talk to someone about all this. Iris is likely to spend the night with Brice. I pull out my phone and text Tony.

how late do u work?

Tony texts back: off at 10

wanna grab a drink?

sure - bell house?

The Bell House is a bar three blocks from my apartment.

great. i’ll text you when I get off - 11ish?

cool

The cops are still in their cars. I call Cathy.

“How long do you think I should stay?” I ask.

“If the cops haven’t given us more info by ten, they won’t until morning. Hang on till then. Photo’s on the way. Is any other press there?”

I look around to be sure. “No,” I say. “I haven’t seen anybody.”

“Good,” says Cathy.

As soon as I hang up, another set of cops arrive. This time, it’s plainclothes detectives in a black Lincoln Town Car. Just like DCPI and the Jewish cops, they are dressed for October, not deep January. As soon as they get out, so do the uniformed officers. All three groups congregate on the sidewalk for about thirty seconds, and then the cops get back in their cars, tailpipes pumping exhaust into the cold. I decide to make contact with the plainclothes officers. I cross the street and knock on the passenger-side front window. The man inside looks at me and raises his eyebrows without rolling down the window. I wait, then speak through the glass.

“Hi. I’m from the Trib.”

He squints like he can’t hear.

“Is this Rivka Mendelssohn’s house? Her family owns the scrap yard, right?”

Finally, he rolls down the window about four inches.

“I don’t have anything for you,” he says, looking in the sideview mirror. He’s probably fortyish, overweight like just about every cop out of uniform I’ve ever met, with a severe gray buzz cut. His partner doesn’t even turn to look at me. He just stares down at his BlackBerry, rolling the cursor ball. “Call DCPI.”

I cross the street and watch. After about ten minutes, the plainclothes cops get out of their car, which triggers the uniforms to do the same. The Jewish men join them, and the whole group climbs the front stairs. A moment later, they disappear inside.

After a few minutes, another Jewish man appears, this time on a bicycle. This man is clean-shaven but wearing a black hat like the others. Around his waist is a belt with a badge and a cell phone clipped to it. Huh, I think, an Orthodox member of the NYPD? The man leans his bicycle against the back fence of the Mendelssohn house, and waits.

Five minutes later, my phone rings. It’s George, the photog. He’s on his way. I’m surprised Pete Calloway hasn’t gotten here yet. Ten more minutes and two more cars pull up. One is George; one is Fred Moskowitz, editor, publisher, reporter, and ad sales rep for The Brooklyn Beacon, a tiny free weekly. I practically run to George’s Volvo and jump in.

“Cold?” he asks.

I put my hands up to the heating vents and grunt a noise somewhere between brrrr and yeah.

“They want a photo,” says George. “But these are Hasids, right? We’re not gonna get anything.” George is probably in his fifties. He wears a bomber jacket with Army patches on the chest and back. We sit together, listening to 1010 WINS, the local news station, which gives us hockey scores and traffic and weather between loud ads for skin doctors and car buy-back programs. Forecast: cold. Windy and cold. It’s going to be fifteen overnight.

After about twenty minutes, the detectives come outside. George reaches into the backseat for his camera. “I’ll follow your lead,” he says.

We hurry over, with Fred trailing us. I call out a question: “Can we get an age, Detectives?”

The men keep walking.

Fred asks, “Is this about the woman in the scrap pile?”

“You have to get that from DCPI,” says the one I’d talked to before, barely breaking stride. “We have no information for you.”

“Assholes,” says Fred, after they’ve gotten into their car.

“The uniforms are still in there,” I say. “And the Jewish cops.”

“They’re called Shomrim,” says Fred, loving my ignorance. “They’re a neighborhood watch. And we won’t get anything from them. I’m gonna get some coffee and come back later.” He crosses the street to his Ford Taurus in a huff.

“What’s the plan?” asks George, once we’re back in his car.

“I’m not sure,” I say. George has been on the job probably fifteen years, but it’s usually up to the reporter to make decisions about who goes where on a stakeout. Even when the reporter is just twenty-two years old. “I should probably call in.”

Just then the front door opens and the uniformed officers and the Jewish watchmen exit the house. The Jews walk together down the street and out of view. The officers linger on the sidewalk. One lights a cigarette. In the sideview mirror I see the man on the bicycle walk toward the officers. The officers nod in acknowledgment and they begin to discuss something. One gestures toward the house. Bicycle jots whatever information they’re giving him down on a notepad. When the smoking cop finishes his cigarette, the two uniformed officers nod good-bye, get in their cruiser, and drive away.