Run You Down (Rebekah Roberts #2)(65)

Isaac’s speech is slightly slurred. He looks at the cup again, and again, I bring it to his lips. As he sips, he closes his eyes. When he is done, he lies back. After a few seconds, he speaks again, slowly, his eyes still closed.

“Since he got out of prison Sammy wasn’t coming around much. But he showed up the day after we heard Pessie had died. And he was scared. He wouldn’t say anything for days. He said he was sitting shiva but really he was hiding. He told us he did the vandalism. He said that Ryan’s father and brother had done it with him, but that it was his idea. He kept saying that. ‘It was my idea.’”

“You said Ryan’s father and brother. Not Ryan?” asks Van.

Isaac shakes his head. “Ryan is a good kid. He hated his family as much as Sammy hated his. But it wasn’t as easy for him to cut ties.”

“Why not?” I ask

“Sammy had a path out. He had Aviva and me. More and more people are going OTD. And Sammy knew they would let him go. But I got the sense Ryan was afraid that no matter how far away he ran, he’d always be looking over his shoulder for his father.”

Van raises his eyebrows and nods almost imperceptibly. I remember what he said about the kid “connected” to the Halls who died in prison.

“What about Pessie?” I ask.

“Sammy wouldn’t tell us anything specific, but it was clear he knew whatever happened was not just an accident. He begged us to believe that he had nothing to do with it. Aviva did. It was easy for her to believe that one of the Halls killed Pessie and then threatened to kill Sammy—to kill all of us—if he told. That’s what she thought the swastika was. A warning. What I didn’t understand was why they would want to kill Pessie in the first place. Sammy wouldn’t explain, except to say that it was his fault. If it hadn’t been for him, Pessie and them would have never crossed paths.”

“So Sammy said the Halls killed Pessie?” asks Van.

“He didn’t ever say. But it is what Aviva and I assumed.”

“Why didn’t you go to the police if you thought Pessie had been murdered?”

Isaac pauses for a breath. Talking is taking a lot out of him.

“Aviva thinks it is her fault Sammy turned out the way he is. She thinks she should have protected him better and she is terrified of him going back to prison. She was afraid that if she went to the police they’d suspect Sammy. I respected her wishes. And I did not have any real knowledge about what happened.”

“Do you think he could have done it?” I ask.

“If Sammy killed Pessie,” he says slowly, “it had to have been some kind of accident. He loved Pessie as much as he loved Ryan. As much as he loved anybody. And Pessie was the only one of us who had never let him down—at least that’s how he saw it. She was steady as a rock. I don’t think Sammy ever thought he would have to live in a world without Pessie Rosen.”

None of us say anything for a few seconds.

“When was the last time you saw Aviva? Or Sam?” I ask.

“I haven’t seen either of them since the night after we found the swastika. Aviva packed a bag and made Sammy come with her. When I talked to her last she said they were staying at one of the houses she cleans, but she didn’t say which one. The number she called from is in my cell. I think it was a landline. I told her she was being paranoid, but she said they weren’t finished killing people. And she was right. I was upstairs when that thing came in. If anyone had been in the living room they’d be dead.”

*

Saul and I check into a Super 8 just outside New Paltz a little before 10:00 P.M. The barely legal desk clerk tells us that the only room they have available has a king-sized bed.

“I don’t mind sharing,” I say.

Saul looks at the clerk, who is back to watching Family Guy on a tiny tube television behind the counter, and then at me.

“I will sleep on the floor,” he says quickly.

“Whatever you want,” I say.

We get our key and walk outside, climbing concrete stairs to the second floor room.

While Saul is in the bathroom, I fold the shiny floral bedspread into a sleeping mat on the floor, and set a pillow at the head. When we parted ways at the hospital, Van asked me not to inform the newspaper tonight that Isaac named the Halls as probable suspects in the firebombing.

“Give me twelve hours,” he said. “I don’t want to give them a heads-up we’re onto them just yet.”

I told him I could do that, but that I planned to call Nechemaya.

“They should be on the lookout, don’t you think?”

“Yes,” he said. “They should.”

In college, we had a guest speaker from The Miami Herald come talk to our long-form class. She made a big point of telling us that it was unethical to insert ourselves, as journalists, into a story in any way. She told us about a series she wrote about a family in Naples whose McMansion had been foreclosed on. Once, she said, the mother had an interview for a job in the next county, but the father had to take the one working car with him or he’d get fired. I had a car, she told us, but I didn’t offer to drive her, because then my presence would have altered their story. I remember thinking that was some pretty lame logic. Iris and I talked about it afterward and we both agreed we would have taken the woman. Because we are human beings before we are journalists. Warning Nechemaya that a neo-Nazi may be on the hunt for a former member of his community is definitely inserting myself in the story, but if I’ve learned anything over the last couple months I’ve learned that it’s a crock of shit to pretend that once you’ve decided to write about something you aren’t a part of it—in some way.