Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(58)

“She’s pretty,” I say. I want to burn this face into my brain and use it to replace the chalky, bruised Rivka lying naked in the funeral home basement. They are nothing—and everything—alike. Full eyebrows growing together, never plucked. Delicate hands. The Trib loves photos of victims. Especially attractive victims. If I can get Dev to give me these photos, I can get a story in the paper.

“Where’d you get these?” asks Suri, now standing over me.

“Heshy’s drawer.”

“You went in his drawer? It’s not locked?”

“If it was locked, I couldn’t get in it,” says Dev.

Suri is not happy. “We have drawers, lockers sort of, in the mudroom downstairs,” she tells me. “Just to put stuff you need, like a toothbrush, or money, or whatever. Do you go in mine?”

“You lock yours,” says Dev. “Anyway, do you think that’s normal? Having your sister-in-law’s photos tucked in a little stash so you can look at them whenever you want?”

“How long have you been going in there?” ask Suri.

Dev shrugs. “Does it matter?”

Suri sits down next to me to look at the photos. “Maybe Heshy killed her,” she says softly.

My hands feel clammy and hot. Heshy is downstairs. Is anyone else in the house?

“Does anyone else know about these?” I ask Dev.

She shrugs and goes into Suri’s bag for her pipe and pot. As she’s lighting another hit, my phone rings. It’s Tony. I silence it.

“How long did you know Rivka?” I ask Dev.

“As long as she’s been coming here, I guess. A year? Less? I don’t know.”

“Did you know she’d lost a child?” I ask. Both girls nod. “Do you know what happened?”

“She said it was asthma or something,” says Suri. “She said Shoshanna—that was the little girl’s name—had weak lungs. I thought it was kind of weird. Rivka’s husband is rich. I know there’s medicine for asthma. My little brother has it. Anyway, we only talked about it once. She kept saying it was preventable.”

“Do you know what she meant by that?”

“Not really. I mean, I figured she meant that, like, she felt guilty. Maybe she’d missed some medication or something. But she said it really angry. That was weird, too, actually.”

“Why was it weird?”

“It felt like she wasn’t saying everything. It was like she blamed something, or someone.”

“Did either of you ever meet her husband?”

Suri shakes her head.

“I did,” says Dev. “About two weeks ago. He came here. He was f*cking pissed.”

“She didn’t think he knew she’d been coming here,” says Suri.

“We were in the kitchen. Fucking Moses let them in.”

“Them?” I ask.

“Him and Heshy and Heshy’s wife.”

Heshy’s wife. “Miriam?” I ask.

Dev shrugs. “She was Rivka’s age, but she was uglier.” That could be Miriam, I think.

“Heshy was with them?” asks Suri.

“Yeah. He’s such a f*cking putz. He was, like, pretending he’d never been here. The husband came in and grabbed Rivka. He shook her really hard. She dropped a plate and it broke on the floor but nobody even noticed. He was shouting and his face was so close, he was totally spitting on her. And she didn’t say a word.”

“What did he say?” I ask.

“He said what you’d expect. He said she had betrayed her community and her family and Hashem and everything. He said he’d divorce her and shun her and she’d never see her children again. I thought she’d, like, yell back. Tell him off, or at least try to explain, but she didn’t. She just sort of zoned out. It was like someone turned her off. Baruch came running from upstairs and I thought they’d, like, announce their love, but she basically ignored him. I don’t think he knew what to do. And then Heshy’s wife fainted.”

Suri looks skeptical.

“I’m serious. She took one look at Baruch and keeled over. It was super dramatic. Aron and Heshy carried her out to the car. Rivka refused to go with them, but afterward she was, like, catatonic. Baruch was pacing and muttering about the laws and what countries would give them asylum with their kids.”

“Asylum?” asks Suri.

“He was saying they were being oppressed because of their religion, or lack of religion, and that the judicial system was corrupt—which it is—and that Rivka should be able to keep her children because she’d always been their primary caregiver. I asked him what happened with the sister-in-law, and he said she must have recognized him from the grocery store. He said once when he and Rivka were shopping—that’s how they used to meet at first, before they started f*cking, at the grocery store. He’d, like, shop with her and they’d talk. They ran into her and Rivka pretended she didn’t know him, but Baruch said the lady looked suspicious.”

“So she fainted?” asks Suri. “That’s weird. You’re sure that’s why?”

“Who f*cking knows? The whole thing was weird.”

“Do you remember the woman’s name?” I ask. “Was it Miriam?”

“Maybe,” says Dev. “You can ask Heshy.”