[ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

in rush-hour traffic on the Harbor Freeway north. He
was heading toward the downtown interchange and
knew he was going to be stuck for a while. He con-
sidered playing cop and pulling out the light to side-
step it all, but he wasn t particularly eager to get to
work. He eased the Plymouth into the left lane, cutting
in front of a Datsun which gave him an angry honk.
Decker ignored it, but the driver wasn t satisfied with
just a simple reprimand. When they were both at a
standstill, he thrust his head out of the window, let go
with a tirade of verbal abuse, and flipped him off.
At the first opportunity, Decker swung his car next
to the Datsun. He took the red light off the dashboard
and reached out to place it on the roof of the un-
marked. The 280 ZX pulled onto the freeway shoulder.
Decker parked the Plymouth, got out, approached
the Datsun, and looked through the rear window.
Nothing suspicious. He regarded the man. Mr. Junior
Executive. Fancy jacket, silk tie, prissy mustache.
Probably lived in a condo and coked his head on the
weekends. Now he looked as if he was going to piss
in his pants.
204 / Faye Kellerman
 May I see your license, sir? Decker asked.
 Officer, I m sorry about the outburst 
 Your license, sir?
 Oh sure. The man fumbled around, finally locating
the ID, then handed it to him through the open win-
dow.
Decker looked it over.
Ronald Elward. Five eight, 160. Blue eyes, brown
hair. Twenty-eight years old. A little prick.
 Mr. Elward, you need to learn about freeway man-
ners.
 I m sorry 
 I could arrest you as a public nuisance.
The man blanched.
 This is a warning. Consider yourself lucky.
 Yes, sir.
Decker pulled the car out and edged back into the
traffic. He was still crawling, but he felt a little better.
It had been a long night the murder, four hours of
interrogation, and a mound of paperwork.
Moshe Feldman had been an impossible suspect to
grill because the usual techniques of interviewing didn t
work on a schizophrenic. He seemed oblivious to the
fact that he was a suspected murderer. The possibility
of incarceration left him apathetic. The man was in
outer space. He spoke freely and uninhibitedly, talking
even when advised to remain silent, but most of what
he said was gibberish not all of it in English. Decker
THE RITUAL BATH / 205
asked the rabbi to translate the Hebrew (actually Ara-
maic, the detective learned), and the old man said he
was quoting from the Gemara Sukkot.
Feldman s counsel was equally difficult. The rabbi
had brought in some mouthpiece from Beverly Hills a
contentious bastard if ever Decker had seen one but
sharp. The attorney objected to every question he
posed, so the detective had spent at least half his time
trying to rephrase himself.
Hours of interviewing had led nowhere.
The search of Feldman s living quarters had proved
equally fruitless. The wandering scarecrow lived mea-
gerly, out of choice, in a potting shed covered with
sheets of tarpaper to keep the rain out. The shack was
bereft of basics such as bed or bathroom, but loaded
with mowers, hoes, shovels, claws, clippers, stakes,
wire, fertilizer, potting soil, seeds, and plant food.
Against the rotted wooden planks was a makeshift
closet of stapled boxes full of old clothes of varying
sizes. Most of the garments were soiled white shirts,
stale-smelling black pants, old black hats, and fringed
dickies, but in the corner hung a white robe embel-
lished with gold thread, lace, and embroidery, and a
prayer shawl trimmed with a collar of silver. These
were set aside from the rest of his wardrobe, encased
in a plastic cleaners bag. Rabbi Schulman told Decker
that Moshe slept on the floor and ate only fresh fruits
and raw vegetables that he grew in a small garden
patch behind the lean-to. For the Sabbath, he in-
206 / Faye Kellerman
dulged in challah, wine, and a pot of soup and boiled
chicken that the Rosh Yeshiva s wife cooked for him.
The oddest thing about the place was the room s
centerpiece a bookcase fashioned of dark, oiled wal-
nut and windowed with leaded beveled glass. It was
an antique and, judging from the amount of marquetry
and carving, obviously worth money. Inside were
prayer books in Hebrew and phylacteries.
Some potentially incriminating evidence had been
found at the scene of the murder. A shred of material
from Feldman s jacket was hanging on an adjacent oak
branch, and nearby were fresh footprints that matched
the shoes he was wearing. But it was nothing to make
a charge of murder stick. The man was a compulsive
hiker. The jacket could have been ripped a long time
ago, and he could have left his tracks before the murder
took place. Most important, there was no concrete [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]

zanotowane.pl

doc.pisz.pl

pdf.pisz.pl

kajaszek.htw.pl