Run You Down (Rebekah Roberts #2)(5)

Saul is at the counter when I get there. A couple is sitting at one of the tables: he with a beard and the black coat-and-pants uniform, she in a glossy auburn wig. Another young man is working on a laptop. Every male in the restaurant, including the black barista, is wearing a yarmulke. I hop onto the stool next to Saul.

“It’s still so cold,” I say, unzipping my winter coat.

“The people on the television say it’s going to get warm soon,” Saul says.

“Not soon enough,” I say. “It’s almost April, for Christ’s sake.” Twenty-two years in Florida and it never occurred to me until recently how much sunshine was a part of my life. The cold makes me feel smaller and less consequential. My reactions are slower. Even if I weren’t depressed I’d hate going outside.

“It must be difficult adjusting to the weather,” says Saul.

“It is,” I say. “I guess eventually I’ll get used to it.”

“Do you think you’ll stay here, long term?”

“That’s the plan,” I say. “There’s nothing in Florida. I mean, even where there’s something there’s nothing. Not compared to New York.”

The menu is written on the wall in chalk. We both order tea and decide to split a smoked fish platter with bagel chips.

“I’ve never been to a kosher restaurant before,” I say.

“This one is new.”

“How have you been?” I haven’t seen Saul since right after I got out of the hospital. Since he told me my mother wanted to get in touch.

“Not bad,” he says. “What about you?”

I shrug. “Just work, mostly. I’m feeling a little better, I guess. My ear still rings.”

“It’ll go away eventually,” he says.

“That’s what I hear,” I say. And then: “Oh, ha. I didn’t mean…”

Saul smiles.

“I haven’t called Aviva,” I say. “But maybe you already know that.”

“She sent me a text message about a month ago, asking if I’d passed along her message,” he says.

“What did you tell her?”

“What could I tell her? I tried to call her back, but she didn’t pick up, so I just sent a text saying that I’d given you the message and that you said you’d call.”

The counter man sets out our tea.

“I haven’t seen your name in the newspaper lately,” Saul says.

“Yeah. I’m mostly doing rewrite. It pays a little more.”

“So no more reporting?”

“I’ll go back. I’m just … I don’t know, taking a break.”

“Well,” he says, “if you’re interested, I have a possible lead for you.”

“A lead?”

“I’ve been doing a little freelance private investigative work.”

“Really?”

“It sounds more exciting than it is,” he says. “Mostly parents trying to track down kids who have gone off the derech.” He pronounces this last word I’ve never heard of as “der-eck.”

“The what?”

“Off the derech means off the path. Jews who’ve left the fold. Your mother, for example. And the people you met at the Coney Island house. They’re all OTD, as they say. Anyway, I got a call from a man in Roseville. It’s a little town about an hour north of the city. In Rockland County. A lot of Haredi live up there.”

“Haredi?”

“‘Haredi’ is another way of referring to the ultra-Orthodox.”

“Okay,” I say. “Is ‘Haredi’ the same as ‘Hasidic’?”

“No,” he says. “Hasidism is a specific branch within the larger Haredi community.” He smiles at me. “Perhaps you should do some reading on this.”

I look down at my tea. He’s right.

He continues. “The man called me because his wife died somewhat mysteriously a few weeks ago. He said that her family didn’t want any fuss—apparently they’re worried it may have been a suicide—but he thinks it was something else.”

“Something else?”

Saul raises his eyebrows. “He didn’t say specifically. He said she was upset in the days before she died, but he’s convinced she wouldn’t have killed herself. They have a young child. And he is very unhappy with the police in the town.”

“He wants you to investigate?”

“No,” says Saul. “He said he doesn’t think anything will get done unless someone from outside puts pressure on the police and the community. He called hoping I might pass the information along to you.”

“Really?”

“Your work on the Rivka Mendelssohn case did not go unnoticed, Rebekah.”

I’m not sure what to say. I guess I didn’t think it went unnoticed, but it definitely didn’t occur to me that exposing a murderer and a cover-up inside the cloistered world of Borough Park might recommend me to members of the larger Haredi community.

“What’s his wife’s name?”

“Pessie,” he says. “Pessie Goldin.”

*

My shift at the Trib is always hectic for the first few hours when we’re scrambling to get copy in for the morning deadline. But things slow down after about six, and I Google Pessie Goldin. A newspaper obituary is the third and only relevant link. It says that Pessie Goldin, twenty-two, was buried in Roseville on March 5 and that she is survived by her husband, Levi, twenty-eight, and their infant son, Chaim. There is no mention of cause of death. Pessie’s son, like me, will grow up without his biological mother. But unlike me, there’s no chance his mother will suddenly appear when he’s twenty-three years old. When I think this I realize how insane it is that I haven’t called her back. It hits me hard: I want to meet Aviva.