The Bar Mitzvah Murder (17 page)

25

The following day I called the people on what I thought of as the second list of bequests. The man described as Gabe's best friend choked up when I talked to him about Gabe's death. He had been at the Bar Mitzvah and had left when Marnie did, although he and his wife had planned to stay for another week.

I reached the secretary at home. Her name was Flavia O'Rourke, and she sounded tense. “I know Mrs. Gross talked to you recently, Ms. O'Rourke,” I said.

“She did, and I couldn't help her. There was no one by that name anywhere in my files, the man she asked about.”

“I understand. I'm calling you because I'm trying to help find Mr. Gross's killer.”

“Aren't the police working on it?”

“They are, in two countries. It's just that some suspects are in each country and it's hard keeping things straight.”

“There are suspects?”

“There are people being questioned, let me put it that way. I think the person who masterminded the killing is in the States.”

“I wish I could help you. Mr. Gross was a wonderful man. I would have worked for him for the rest of my life. He was kind and generous and . . .” She faded off.

“There has to be someone who didn't feel that way.”

“If I knew who, I would tell you. I would call the police. I would fly to Israel and tell the police over there.”

“Are you aware that Mr. Gross has left you a bequest?” I asked.

There was silence. “You mean a gift?”

“A gift of money.”

“I—no, I had no idea.”

“He thought very highly of you.”

“Thank you.” I heard tears in her voice. “It was mutual, I can assure you.”

Well, I thought, either she's a very good actress or she had nothing to do with it.

On Sunday, Jack and I got together with the Grosses— my Grosses, Mel and Hal. Mel described with relish how she had bought the Roman glass and silver cross for me, adding the chain that the artisan had made.

“It's so beautiful,” she said. “I just love the colors.”

“So do I. And you can't imagine how surprised I was. I couldn't figure out how Jack had known to get it or how he had gotten there.”

“He planned it, Chris. I was in on it from the beginning. He's such a dear.”

I told them what I was doing now, leaving out what Marnie had found in the safe. I still didn't want Jack turning over that information to the police.

“What do you expect to find out from those charities?” Hal asked. “I can't believe the UJA or the Red Cross would talk to you about a contributor.”

“They won't, and I just called the big ones so I could cross them off my list. I thought maybe there'd be something fishy about the smaller ones, or about one of the individuals he left a bequest to. But every charity answered the phone or had a machine answer. One of them was a safe house for abused women, and I'm going to follow up on that. I could hear voices and children crying in the background. But what if it's a fake and someone's running it out of her home?”

“That's an interesting idea,” Hal said thoughtfully. “You're thinking Gabe could have been seduced into making a bequest to what he thought was a legitimate, worthy organization that now turns out to be a fraud.”

“Deceived,” I said, a little chagrined at his choice of words.

“Of course,” Hal said with a playful smile. “Deceived. So then this person who got Gabe to make the bequest decided to kill him before Gabe found out that the charity didn't exist.”

“Exactly.”

“How does the person know Gabe left them a bequest?”

I shrugged. “I have no idea. Maybe he told them. Maybe he let all these organizations know that he intended to give them a gift when he died.”

“That happens. My alma mater encourages alumni to ‘favor' the university in their wills and offers suggestions as to how to do it.”

“So when you write asking for their brochure, they have a pretty good idea what your intention is.”

“Right. I'll tell you, Chris, this is the best approach I've heard of. Maybe this will get you somewhere.” Hal turned to Jack. “I think Chris may be on to something. I like her idea. Let us know about that shelter for abused women. If it turns out to be Mrs. Jones's home sweet home, I'd say you're on to something.”

We stayed for cheese and drinks, then collected Eddie, who was upstairs with Sari and Noah, and walked down the street to our house.

“Hal seemed impressed with your idea,” Jack said.

“Let's see if anything comes of it. It's only a good idea if it works.”

On Monday I decided to visit the shelter rather than call. I had an address, which the woman on the phone had confirmed. Elsie Rivers, my mother's old friend and Eddie's surrogate grandmother on my side of the family, agreed to pick Eddie up at school. In fact, she couldn't wait. She hadn't seen him for almost a month, and she was looking forward to having him over. There might even be a baking lesson in the offing. I knew what that meant.

With that taken care of, I drove to the address in the will. It was in an old section of a town in New Jersey not too far from where Gabe had lived. I crossed the bridge and followed the directions Jack had worked out for me. The houses on that street were large and Victorian, some of them quite grand, others somewhat run-down. The one I was looking for was painted gray and badly needed to be scraped and repainted. I thought maybe a bright white or beige might help it look like a place to come home to.

I knocked on the door. A woman opened it only as wide as the heavy chain allowed. Perhaps, I thought, they were afraid angry husbands would burst in to reclaim the wives they had abused so badly that the women had felt it necessary to leave.

“Yes?”

“I'm Christine Bennett. I'd like to talk to whoever's in charge.”

“You OK?”

“Yes, I'm fine. I'm not looking for shelter. I need some information.”

She opened the door and reclosed it securely. “I'll tell Kim you're here. Christine Bennett?”

“Yes. She doesn't know me.”

The woman trotted away. I stood in the foyer, waiting. A young pregnant woman carrying a toddler walked by, looking at me curiously. From not too far away I heard the kinds of sounds I had heard over the phone, crying, laughing, small children giggling and talking. I was pretty sure I had made a long trip for nothing.

“Ms. Bennett?”

“Yes, hello.”

“I'm Kimberly West. Kim. We can probably find a corner to sit in in my office.”

I followed her through a maze of hallways and rooms to a small office in a rear corner of the house. She sat on her rolling chair and I sat on the only other chair in the room, a wooden ladderback that had probably been swiped from a dining table.

“What can I do for you?”

“I believe Gabriel Gross made contributions to your shelter.”

“Mr. Gross? Yes. Very generous contributions. I heard something . . . Is it true?”

“That he died? Yes.”

“How awful. He was young and he seemed to be in very good health.”

“He was. He was murdered.”

She stared at me.

“Had he been contributing to the shelter for long?”

The phone rang and she excused herself, reaching for it across the desk. The conversation was short and monosyllabic. She dropped the phone back in its cradle. “You were saying?”

I repeated my question.

“About three years, I think. It could be more. I met him somewhere, a fund-raiser, I think, and buttonholed him. We always need money. We have more people here than we can sleep and feed. He was very sympathetic, asked for my card.” She laughed. “If I spent money on cards, two people would miss out on dinner. Anyway, I got a check in the mail about a week later. A nice one. And there have been others since. Is there a problem?”

I admitted there wasn't and I thanked her for her time. I asked if I could use her phone to call New York and promised to pay for the call.

“I appreciate the gesture. Be my guest.”

Someone somewhere was calling, “Kim? Kim, where are you?” She jumped up and left.

I called Gabe's lawyer's office and asked if I could talk to him in about an hour. The secretary said yes. I left a fivedollar bill for the call and took off.

“Mrs. Gross told me to expect to hear from you.”

Harold Singer was about Gabe's age and graying. He gave the impression of being easygoing, but I assumed he could be tough as nails when he had to be. He knew what I had been doing, and if he felt at all skeptical about my abilities or thought I might be interfering, he kept it to himself.

“I understand from Mrs. Gross that there seem to be few leads to Mr. Gross's killer.”

“That's what I understand. They have two men in custody in Jerusalem, the men who kidnapped Gabe in a fake ambulance and probably killed him, but they haven't said anything that goes anywhere. They claim they don't know who they were working for and, of course, they didn't do the killing; someone else did.”

“Someone else always does.”

“Here's my idea.” I sketched it out for him.

“I may be able to help you a little. I don't know the beneficiaries personally, but when Gabe gave me his notes I questioned him about each person.”

“Do you have those notes?” I asked with hope.

“I doubt it, but I can look.” He picked up a phone and asked someone to get the Gabriel Gross file. “As I recall, they were handwritten and as I made my own notes I think he crossed each name off the list so that nothing was left. He may have taken the notes with him or just tossed them in the wastebasket.”

There was a knock at the door and a woman came in, dropped a file on his desk, and left without saying a word. He put glasses on and started looking through the many papers in the jacket, shaking his head as he turned the pages.

“His notes aren't here. In fact, I don't even see my notes.” He frowned.

“You don't keep your original notes?”

“It depends.”

Not much of an answer. “Everything look in order?”

He was holding the document that I assumed was the will itself. As I watched, he turned the pages, moving his index finger down each page from the top. “Looks in order to me.”

“You said you might be able to help me with the beneficiaries.”

“Yes, of course.” He flipped a couple of pages. “These look like what he gave me. His wife, his ex-wife, his children.” The finger moved across the page, back and forth. “Looks OK to me.”

“And the other beneficiaries?”

“The big ones are well known. But Gabe had a soft heart. He would go to dinner with friends and someone in the group would have a special hobbyhorse, you know, something he was very interested in, dedicated to, and he would talk to Gabe. I'm sure some people lined up for the chance to be in the same room with him. If Gabe liked what he heard, he'd send a check.”

“But these are sizable bequests.”

“As I said, he had a good heart. Here's one, this shelter for abused women in New Jersey. I'd say this place is marginally legitimate. They take in more women and children than they have beds and cribs for. Sometimes there isn't a lot to eat. But Gabe made them one of his own.”

“How do you know this?” I asked.

“I actually took a drive out there when he put it in the will. I thought he might have been vulnerable to a request delivered with a sweet smile.”

“I see.”

“But they're on the up-and-up. They have the proper accreditation; they keep their heads above water. I'm sure his bequest will keep them going for a good long time.”

“And the others on the list? Did you look into all the rest of them?”

“I didn't really have the time, and to tell the truth, Gabe didn't want me to. He knew who they were and he wanted them remembered.”

“Did he ever change this will after he signed it?”

“No. I would know if he had. I haven't seen him for a couple of years although we spoke now and then. You don't look happy, Ms. Bennett.”

“I don't like dead ends. Someone developed and executed a complicated plot to kidnap Gabe. Whether the murder was in the original plan or not I don't know, but it happened. There has to be something somewhere that gives me a lead.”

“Some homicides go unsolved.”

“I know, but I really want this one cleared up. I know several of Gabe's relatives and I've gotten to know his wife. She's devastated.”

“Understandably.”

“Mr. Singer, does the name Simon Kaplan mean anything to you?”

He pursed his lips and thought about it. “Can't say it does. I've probably met one in my life and forgotten him. He's not on the list, is he?”

“No.” I described him and told Singer what had happened in Jerusalem.

“Can't help you, I'm afraid. I didn't know Gabe's father, and if Gabe ever mentioned this man it didn't stay with me.”

I reached down to pick up my bag from the floor, where I had left it. “If someone had gone into your file and removed, say, your notes or Gabe's notes, would you have any way of knowing it?”

“No one went into that file without authorization, Ms. Bennett,” he said testily.

“Well, I guess I'll just keep making my phone calls and hope to learn something useful. Thank you for seeing me.”

He gave me a warm smile. “I'm glad you came down.”

I offered him my hand and we shook. “If you think of anything—”

“Of course. I'll get in touch with you.”

I left my name and phone number with the secretary and thanked her for arranging for me to see Mr. Singer so quickly. If something came up, she might remember I had been polite to her.