Chapter 9

                                    

                                              
Copyright (c) 2015 Phyllis Zimbler Miller
                          
All rights reserved.
                          


                          
         "Come on, Rebecca," Rabbi Nancy Levine said as she passed the turkey platter at lunch in the dining room of her home.  It was the one-day holiday of Shemini Atzeret following Sukkot when meals were no longer required to be eaten in the sukkah.  Rebecca and Josh were here with Nancy, her husband Joel and their two sons.
                          
     "Do tell us what you know about Helene and Richard's deaths," Nancy said.  
                          
     Before Rebecca could reply, Josh cut in.  "Oh, no, not any more.  Everyone at services this morning tried to talk to her.  Let's discuss something else."
                          
     "This may be old hat for you," Nancy said, sweeping her shoulder-length black hair away from her face.  "For me it's a change of pace from temple politics."
                          
     "Hey, Nancy, that's what you get for being a pulpit rabbi -- especially being assistant rabbi at a major synagogue," Josh said.  "Your choice."
                          
     Rebecca turned to Nancy to cut off any more remarks from Josh.
                          
     "I wish I could tell you what's going on but I don't know myself.  I've been expecting a return visit from the Beverly Hills police since their last visit on Sunday morning," Rebecca said.  "I don't know whether they're hoping I'll become careless and give myself away.  Or whether they have their eye on other possible suspects."
                          
     "If you had to guess right now, who would be at the top of your suspect list for Helene?" Nancy said, offering cranberry sauce around the table.
                          
     "No one.  Helene's law firm is involved with some big clients.  But I can't see a client or the folks on the other side of a lawsuit murdering her over a case.  Or maybe I'm just naive."
                          
     "That's for sure!" Josh said.
                          
     Rebecca glared at him.  "I'm more inclined toward a motive that's less obvious.  After all, if her death were connected to a client's problems, there'd be a host of other people at the law firm who might guess at the connection."
                          
     Rebecca forked a second piece of turkey onto her plate.
                          
      "And probably the same thing would be true if someone in her firm had murdered her -- another person in the firm might figure it out," she said.  "On the other hand, an outsider could have hacked into the law firm's database and found information connected to Helene that was potentially damaging to the hacker."
                          
      Josh changed the subject by giving his opinion of the talk that morning at services by a member of the congregation.   Nancy hadn't heard this talk as she'd been at her own synagogue.
                          
     Having heard the original talk, Rebecca didn't listen to this replay.  Instead she thought back to the shiva minyan at the home of Richard's mother on Tuesday night following the funeral that afternoon that she and Josh hadn't attended.
                          
     The small house at the fringe of the Beverlywood area south of Pico had been crammed with synagogue members and other friends and relatives.  After services finished, she found herself standing next to Matt Brodsky, a young man in his early 30s who had been introduced to the assembled visitors as a cousin of Richard.  She had seized the opportunity to speak to Matt.
                          
      "You're Richard's cousin," she said.  Not very original but a place to start.
                          
     "We weren't first cousins; some sort of second cousins once removed."  He looked away, then back at Rebecca.  "Because Richard was an only child and his parents didn't have many other relatives, we saw each other often.  You know, Pesach seders, family affairs."
                          
     Rebecca's stomach did a flip flop.  She hadn't realized Richard was an only child.  She stared across the room at the elderly woman she knew was Richard's grandmother.  At that moment the woman lifted her arms to hug someone and the number tattooed on her forearm stood out.  A survivor of a Nazi concentration camp, possibly the only survivor of a once-large family.
                          
     Focus, Rebecca, she had told herself.
                          
     "What do you do?" she asked Matt.
                          
     "I'm a manager at a restaurant in Westwood -- the Golden Carpet."
                          
     The Golden Carpet?  Where had she heard that name before?
                          
     She said, "I've covered several restaurant stories for the World.  The economics of a successful restaurant can be very tricky."
                          
     A few minutes later Josh had hustled her out of the house before she had the opportunity to speak with Richard's mother or grandmother.
                          
     Now Joel, returning from checking on the two boys who had dashed off from the table after gulping down their food, brought Rebecca back to the present.
                          
     "You haven't said anything about Richard," Joel said. 
                          
     "It's Helene's death that most puzzles me," Rebecca said, "because it was staged to look like suicide, which is so unlikely.  Richard's death seems unconnected -- an obvious murder such as one of his clients might have done."
                          
     Rebecca hesitated before continuing.  "In fact, one of those clients might have seized on Helene's death as an opportunity to mask the true motive for Richard's death." Rebecca held up her hand.
                          
     "Yes, that would require the killer to know about Richard's personal relationships -- to know that Richard was a friend of Helene."
                          
     Josh laughed.  "All the killer would have to do is look on Facebook.  That information is easy to get."
                          
         "As is a whole lot of other information," Rebecca said.  "Information that could get you killed."
                          
__
                          
SINK LIKE A STONE is the second Rebecca Stone mystery novel.  The first, CAST THE FIRST STONE, is available on Amazon as are two Rebecca Stone mystery short stories in TWO BIRDS WITH ONE STONE.  See www.amazon.com/author/phylliszimblermiller