Invisible City (Rebekah Roberts #1)(63)

Oh boy.

“Had you ever met him before?”

“No,” I say. “I said that.”

The captain looks at Darin.

“You’re saying you had no connection to Saul Katz before you just ‘ran into him’ at a murder victim’s house on Friday?”

Now I look at Darin. “What the f*ck?” I say. “You’re the ones with a rogue cop. I’m a reporter. I was doing my job.”

“I’m running a murder investigation, ma’am.” Ha. Young lady to ma’am in less than a minute.

“Are you?”

“Is that what Saul Katz told you? That we’re not running an investigation? Did you ask anyone at my department anything about this case at all? Because none of my people have heard of you.”

“I’ve spoken to DCPI…”

“Have you? Who, exactly, have you spoken to?”

I didn’t get the name of the tall man at the scene. Then, he was nothing more to me than DCPI.

“I’m sorry,” I say as earnestly as I can muster. “I’m not sure what Darin told you, but I met Saul Katz on Friday night. He said he had been called in as a liaison to the Orthodox community on this case. He told me he usually worked in property crimes. Is that true?”

“Yes,” says the captain.

“But he’s not a liaison?”

“He’s not anything anymore,” says the captain. “Except a suspect.”

“Why is he a suspect?”

The captain sighs. He is sick of me. “He is a suspect because he is attempting to manipulate the investigation. He is a suspect because he knew the victim. And because if not for the miracle of modern medicine, Saul Katz would be in prison for murder.”

On cue, Darin hands the captain a folder. “Would you like to see what Saul Katz did to a sixty-year-old man?” He doesn’t wait for me to answer, and of course, I don’t get up. He opens the file and with his fingertips spreads out four 8 × 10 glossy close-up photos of a man in a hospital bed. The man’s face is almost unrecognizable as a face. Both eyes are purple and swollen shut. There are metal rods that look like scaffolding attached to either side of his head, which is shaved; a fresh red surgery scar runs like train tracks up his skull.

“He’ll never walk again,” says the captain. “Severe brain damage. Saul beat him into unconsciousness. With his bare hands.”

I’m not sure what to say. Protesting that the man in the pictures may have intimidated witnesses in a felony case seems imprudent.

“Tell me the truth about your relationship with Saul Katz,” says the captain.

“My relationship?” And then I realize: he’s talking about my mother.

“Saul Katz knew my mother before I was born,” I say. “She grew up in Borough Park. Her family was—is—Hasidic. I’m not sure how they knew each other, but they did. But then my mother met my father, and they moved to Florida, where I was born. So I never met him.”

“I’ll check all this out,” says the captain. “I’d like to talk to your mother.”

“Can’t help you with that.”

“You’re not in touch?”

“We are not in touch.”

“Is she deceased?”

“Could be. I have no idea. She left us when I was six months old. I haven’t heard from her since.”

The captain pauses a moment. “I see,” he says. “I assume Saul Katz will tell me the same story.”

“It’s the truth,” I say.

“Something Katz seems to have trouble with,” says Darin.

The captain gets up.

“Before you go,” I say, “could you tell me where you are in the investigation into the Mendelssohn murder?”

The captain raises a bushy salt-and-pepper eyebrow.

“Have you interviewed her husband? Or her boyfriend?”

“Her…?” The captain catches himself before finishing his sentence and positively revealing that he had no idea the woman whose death he is supposedly investigating had been having an affair. I don’t even try to hide my smile.

“Maybe you should ask Saul Katz,” I say.

I peek at Darin, who is looking down, shaking his head.

“No comment, then?” I say, leaning down to my bag and taking out my notebook and pen.

The captain opens his mouth then closes it. Then opens it again. “You know I can’t comment on an ongoing investigation.”

I scribble no comment—ongoing invest into my notebook.

“And just so I’m clear, you haven’t interviewed the victim’s lover or husband?”

The captain is losing patience. “Like I said, I cannot comment on an ongoing investigation.” He gathers the photographs of the man Saul assaulted and tucks them under his arm. “You are free to go for now. But we may have questions for you later.”

“I can’t wait,” I say, feeling mildly triumphant.

“Your friend Saul Katz is in a lot of trouble, miss.” This guy really loves his diminutives. “From where I’m sitting, he has at the very least interfered with a police investigation. And if I discover you and he so much as stood in line for coffee together before last Friday, you may have, too. We take obstruction seriously, and I have no problem indicting a reporter. Your paper doesn’t hold nearly the weight it thinks it does. And you can feel free to tell your bosses I said so.”