Run You Down (Rebekah Roberts #2)(32)

“Great,” I say. “I can even do it over the phone if that’s better for them.”

Nechemaya nods. I fold the piece of paper and put it into my notebook.

“Why do you think the police chief never followed up on this?”

Nechemaya draws a shallow breath and flares his nostrils. “It is not like Brooklyn here in Rockland County. These people still think they can make us leave.” He shifts in his chair, agitated. “This chief … I have heard him say in council meetings that he does not work for us because we do not pay taxes.”

“You don’t pay taxes?”

“Of course we pay taxes!” he says, a little too loudly. “Everyone pays taxes. But people are ignorant and it is easy to believe stories about us. We look different. Our children do not attend their schools. We do not mix with them so they assume we are bad.”

“You said on the phone that you thought Pessie’s death might be part of some kind of plot. What makes you think that?”

“There have been several instances of vandalism, and two of our young men were attacked along the road.”

“Attacked?”

“Bottles were thrown at them by a passing car as they walked. Again, we reported the incident and nothing was done.”

“When was this?”

“January. The boys did not get a good look at the vehicle, or the occupants, so the chief said there was nothing he could do. The vandalism was at one of our yeshivas. Someone spraypainted a swastika and the words ‘go home.’ In Catskill, a woman attacked two Chassidish men at a grocery store. She spat on them and yelled slurs.”

“And you think this might be related to Pessie’s death?”

“How can we know if there is no investigation!” The woman sipping a Frappuccino next to us looks over. She rolls her eyes and shakes her head at me as if we share some similar understanding about how ridiculous people dressed like Nechemaya are. How unlike her and me. How downright weird. They cast themselves as “other” so it’s easy to see them as such. But easy is lazy. I meet the woman’s eyes with an expression like, what? You got a problem?

“I’m going to give this license plate number to my editor,” I say. “But I’d also like to go to the Roseville police with it. Is that okay?”

“Of course,” he says. “Perhaps they will take action now that the newspaper is involved.”

“We’ll see.”

After Nechemaya leaves, I call Larry and fill him in on what I’ve learned.

“It’s interesting, I’ll give you that, but what’s the story?”

“What do you mean?”

“What can you write for tomorrow? Your guy isn’t on the record, and we can’t print a license plate number.”

“Right.”

“I’ll see if I can get somebody at the Shack to run the plate, but so far you don’t have anything new on the record. Weren’t you going to try to run down the ex-fiancé?”

“I’m on it,” I say. “I’ve got a couple possible addresses and that’s where I’m headed.”

“Good. Go at the cops with the plate. If you’re up there, maybe stop in instead of calling. Makes it harder for them to blow you off.”

The Roseville police headquarters is inside a single-story brick building with one American flag and one black-and-white POW flag waving out front. The town clerk, the courthouse, the post office, and the cops all appear to share space. I park across the street in a low-rent strip mall whose anchor is a stationery and medical supply store displaying sun-bleached Hallmark cards, a portable toilet, and a FedEx sign in the window. A sticker on the door says WE ACCEPT MEDICAID. The smaller storefronts on either side are vacant. Leaning against the window in one is a FOR RENT sign with Hebrew lettering and a phone number. The other’s window is soaped over. Three doors down is a wig shop, and next to that a store that sells Judaica and has a “sofer” present, whatever that means. The restaurant at the end of the strip is called The Grille. A neon sign indicates that they serve Heineken. There are very few cars in the lot and none of the stores look like they’re thriving.

The door marked ROSEVILLE POLICE is on the far side of the long municipal building. A bell announces my entry into the waiting area. Above a bench of metal chairs is a bulletin board with a faded “This Is Your Brain on Drugs” poster, and a AAA warning against texting and driving tacked to it. On the opposite wall are six framed photographs of Roseville police chiefs from 1930 to the present. Chief Gregory, unsmiling and thick-necked, has been in his position since 2000.

In the bullpen behind the reception desk are two women. Both are overweight, but the younger one is certifiably obese. She wears an enormous wool poncho over her jeans, and waddles around on sneakers worn down sideways by her weight. I’d guess she’s twenty-five. The other woman is probably twice that. Both are bottle-blond. The younger one is on the phone and on the move, squeezing around the desks and office equipment like she’s looking for something.

“I told you we don’t have it,” she says, clearly exasperated. “It’s civil. We don’t keep the civil files. You have to call the town clerk.”

“Is that Friedman again?” asks the older woman, who is eating a pastry while standing in front of a printer spitting white paper.