The Violet Crow (14 page)

The chapter was prefaced with a number of warnings:
CAUTION: FOR EXPERIENCED STUDENTS ONLY. DO NOT TRY THIS ALONE
. Funny they'd put something dangerous and difficult in a
Complete
Shmegegge
book. Golem making was supposed to be the most super-secret part of the Kabbalah. Well, Maggie'd be there to keep an eye on him. He trusted her judgment more than that of most people.

As usual, the section began with an annoying whimsical sidebar. It was headed, “The first biotechnologist?” and quoted a 1
^st
-century Rabbi named Yehoshua ben Chananya, who said, “I can take squashes and pumpkins and, with the
Sefer Yetzirah
, make them into beautiful trees.” Well, that was something. He'd have to remember to mention that to Dr. Jurevicius, or to Fischer, next time he saw them …

He read further and learned that the
Sefer Yetzirah
, or
Book of Creation
, was the oldest book of the Kabbalah. The basic idea was pretty simple. Since God created the universe, and everything else, by speaking words, and since words are made up of letters of the alphabet … Kabbalists can control the creative forces of the universe by manipulating the letters properly.

Then it started getting complicated. There were several different prescriptions for making Golems. And you could do it one way to create a male Golem and a different way for a female. That was good.

But then there were different instructions from different Rabbis. In Rabbi Abulafia's system, you had to sound out different letters in a special order, and also breathe and bob your head a certain way. This allowed you to create each part of the Golem's body separately. But it took 35 hours of non-stop chanting to bring the entire being to life.

More accessible was the system of the Riva, where you had to recite a smaller number of paired sounds while moving in a circle. Bruno tried the sounds, “Uu-Yu; Aa-Ya; Ii-Yi; Ee-Ye; Oo-Yo; Bu-Yu; Ba-Ya; Bi-Yi; Be-Ye; Bo-Yo.” That wasn't so bad. “Bo-Yo, Bo-Yo, Bo-Yo,” he hummed. But that was just the chanting.

You also had to make a life-sized figure out of soil from a place that no one has ever dug and knead it with pure spring water right out of the ground … That might be a problem. He was pretty sure he could get by with Kabbalah Water, the brand they sold on the Kabbalah Co-op's website. But unless he could order the dirt online, too, he was probably out of luck. Where could you go in Jersey where no one had been before? Reading further, he saw that the practitioner also needed to wear special clothes and be spiritually and mentally purified. What was that supposed to mean?

To make matters worse, if you did it wrong—in other words, if your circle was going in the wrong direction—you could get trapped in the earth up to your waist and never get out, unless a Rabbi who knew how to do the Golem business correctly came along and got you out.

All of this for a cheap date? It'd be easier and cheaper to fly out to Vegas. You'd have to be a complete
shmegegge
to try making a Golem with instructions like these. He checked the acknowledgements to see if they'd outsourced parts of the writing to Japan or Korea. Then he let the book drop to the floor and shuffled off to bed.

Chapter 28

He woke up to the sound of someone banging on his door. The noise woke Maggie too, and she started to bark.

He looked through the peephole and saw a distorted angle on the Chief's face. He was leering idiotically and appeared to be staggering. Bruno opened the door.

“You just open the door like that, this time of night, out here in the Pines?”

“I figured if it was bad guys, they wouldn't bother knocking.”

“What if it was something sinister? The Hookman or the Jersey Devil?”

“I'd have been out of luck.”

The Chief pulled his arm out from behind his back and shoved the neck of a champagne bottle in Bruno's face. “The real stuff,” he mumbled. “Not California. Definitely not New Jersey. This is French Champagne.”

“What for?”

“We got to celebrate.”

“Finding Gussie?”

“Yeah. You did a good job. Pretty amazing, you ask me.” He popped the cork and poured the overflowing champagne into coffee mugs. He plopped himself into Bruno's recliner and they clinked glasses. “Success,” sighed the Chief.

Bruno frowned. “We still haven't found the killers. We don't know the motive. One of the victims is still unidentified. The whole town's still at risk.”

“Your glass is half empty,” said the Chief. “I'm going to fill it up again.” He poured a healthy slug into Bruno's mug. “Mine's half full, but I'm going to fill it up, too, just to be fair.” He poured until the wine overflowed and then he stated, “My cup runneth over.”

He looked at Bruno expectantly.

Bruno just sat there and patted Maggie nervously, until the Chief shot him another look, jutting his chin in Bruno's direction, until he capitulated and recited, “Surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life …”

“Attaboy. You really believe it, don't you? You're not just saying it?”

“Right.” Bruno fidgeted, wondering where all this was leading.

“Good, 'cause I have total confidence that we're going to find a way through this. Or around it. Whatever it takes.”

“Around what?”

The Chief went sober and deadly serious. “Mayor Dove just told me to terminate you, effective immediately.”

The news blindsided Bruno. “He did what? Why?”

“The publicity …”

“You mean Peaches? That's nothing but innuendo. A cliché.
I'm the one who found the crime scene, so I must have done it
. What's my motive?”

“I dunno. Make yourself look good? The point is, the Mayor doesn't want to look bad. Ever. Even for a teeny-tiny moment. So he tries not to take risks.”

“But he was the one who wanted you to hire me in the first place. At Peaches' urging. It doesn't make sense.”

“I agree.” The Chief raised his hand and let it fall in helpless frustration.

“And the killers are still on the loose.”

“Don't remind me.”

Bruno paced the floor. “I have to see my niece. If I can find out what she saw that day, it could be the key to the whole thing.”

“Yeah, it could.” The Chief yawned.

“What are you saying: You don't care? You're not interested?”

“No. I care and I am interested.” The Chief straightened up and said in a low, sober voice, “I just can't help you anymore. Your niece's father, Bill McRae, works in my building. He's already told me that he doesn't want anyone to go anywhere near his daughter. And he said that applied to you in particular. He wanted to get a restraining order, but he can't since you haven't done anything or gone near her …”

“Yet.”

“Right. You haven't gone near her
yet
. But since he does work in my building, and he has a … relationship … with the person I work for … he has a certain amount of influence. You see what I mean?” He spoke the word “influence” in such a peculiar way that Bruno had to ask him, “What exactly are you trying to say?”

“I'm glad you asked that. Otherwise I wasn't supposed to tell you. It's like this. They want me to put a tail on you.”

“Marvelous.”

“Yeah. It is kind of cool. It'll be like having police protection. I just wanted you to know. I thought it over carefully and chose Biff to keep you company. You'll like him more and more, once you get to know him. Really, he's pretty simple to figure out.”

“I can't wait.”

Chapter 29

Going to work always put Peaches on an emotional roller coaster: The
Pest
's offices were right across the street from a Catholic high school; the sight of impressionable kids wearing uniforms, going in and out of a building with the words “Honor,” “Faith,” and “Loyalty” on the side, either made her blood boil or her heart sink. Sometimes both.

Raised Catholic, Peaches had attended the local public high school and then a famous Catholic liberal arts college in the Midwest. So she knew what she was talking about. Basically, it all boiled down to birth control. Peaches needed it; the Pope said she couldn't have it; ergo the Pope was a pig. In addition, she couldn't stand the girls' uniforms—white blouses and plaid skirts every day. End of story: the sight of a Catholic high school was scary and depressing.

Fortunately, the paper had planted a stand of large trees right in front of the entrance to the building. Ostensibly, this was to keep irate readers and other whackjobs from finding the building, or if they did find it, possibly driving a truck or an SUV into the entrance lobby. But Peaches liked to think—and she knew other reporters and editors who felt the same way—that the trees were planted to minimize the irritation of having to look too much at the words “Honor,” “Faith,” and “Loyalty” on the way to work.

In any case, her spirits always picked up as she passed through the grove of trees. And they got a big lift when she entered the building and was greeted by life-sized murals of heroically muscled printers and paperboys—getting the vital news to “the people.” Peaches was a born journalist and by the time she reached her desk she was generally feeling everything was right with the world again.

Today, Peaches had been summoned to an emergency meeting of the editorial board. She'd been warned in advance that the paper had received an anonymous package containing what could potentially be evidence in a criminal matter. So she had dressed appropriately in a pair of Ralph Lauren jeans and a black cashmere pullover. She also took the precaution of bringing latex gloves and a respirator.

Waiting for her in the conference room were the
Pest
's Publisher, Dan Snarrel, Executive Editor Moe “the Mule” Lubbock, and Managing Editor Jeanine Calisto. All were wearing rubber gloves and seemed to be focused, rather glumly, on a crumpled mailing container on the conference table.

As usual, Jeanine took charge. “Glad you're here, P.C. Now we can get started.” She picked up the bag, gingerly, by the corners, adding, “I don't think you'll need the respirator. There doesn't appear to be any powder or anything like that.”

Peaches left the respirator in place.

“The contents of the package include part of a garment that has been ripped or cut in half and a letter.” Moe Lubbock spread a large sheet of plastic onto the center of the table, and Jeanine carefully shook the two items out onto it. She produced tweezers from somewhere and arranged the garment and the letter side by side.

“Wha's it all about; wha's the letter say?” Peaches demanded through her respirator. She didn't wait for an answer. She got up from her chair and leaned over the table and read the letter herself. It only took her a moment and she snorted in disdain. “… is nothing. Jus' a prank,” as she fell back into her seat.

Then Dan Snarrel started as though he'd just woken from a nap. “Can you take off that damn mask and talk to me?” he shouted.

Peaches obeyed the publisher, though she took her time about removing the mask.

“This letter says there's evidence of a crime,” roared the publisher. “How can you say it's nothing? Jeanine thinks I need to get the attorney in here, but I don't want to pay $250 an hour for his baloney unless I absolutely have to. So you need to explain this to me so I can understand it.”

Snarrel was old, effectively deaf and habitually cranky, so Peaches didn't take him or his manner too seriously. “I think this is a just a college prank,” she said, straightening her hair, which had come undone when she removed her respirator. “First of all it's anonymous so that tells you something right away. Then what does she say?” Her desire to make her point overcame her fear of exposure; Peaches approached the table without her mask so she could read the letter out loud.

“NATE LITTLEJOHN IS A HYPOCRITE AND A FAKE. STUDENTS IN DEVIANT BEHAVIOR ARE DOING SERIOUS AND IMPORTANT WORK. WE HAVE EVIDENCE THAT IMPLICATES CORPORATE
MALE
FACTORS IN RECENT CRIMES IN GARDENFIELD. LITTLEJOHN IS SUPPRESSING INFORMATION AND SEXUALLY ABUSING STUDENTS. YOU HAVE THE EVIDENCE IN YOUR HAND. PC CROMWELL SHOULD STOP COVERING LITTLEJOHN'S BUTT—OR IS HE FUCKING HER TOO?—AND WRITE THE TRUTH INSTEAD.”

Peaches' voice dripped with derision as she read the signature, “A FRIEND.” She pulled back from the table and added, “I'm glad to say I do
not
have the evidence in my hand. Read my lips: I did not have sex with Nate Littlejohn, not one single time. I hope that's perfectly clear.”

“We appreciate your candor,” said Jeanine, somewhat icily. “But I'm still not sure what to make of this …” She picked up the garment with the tweezers and turned it around in several directions to examine it. “It is stained, but who knows with what?”

“Looks like Karl Marx boxers covered with pecker tracks,” the Mule observed sagely.

“Not funny, Moe,” retorted Peaches, looking to Dan Snarrel for confirmation. The publisher appeared to be dozing—a good sign—so she continued. “The writer says this is evidence, but what does it prove? Even if the substance is … DNA, how did it get there?”

“It might not be Littlejohn's …” said Jeanine.

“That's easy enough to check,” argued Moe. “But it should be on her clothing, not his. This only proves that she had access to his shorts …”

—“I don't think it's even a woman sending this,” said Peaches. “Women don't think this way. We're not obsessed with body parts and emissions. That's how men think.”

Moe tried to disagree. “She talks about ‘malefactors,' and emphasizes the first four letters, MALE. It's like she's obsessed about being victimized.”

“How insulting,” said Peaches, raising her voice. “And predictable. Resorting to stereotypes and blaming the victim. I expected more from you, Moe, but you're just like all the others.”