Murder At The Mikvah (19 page)

Lauren suddenly felt very ignorant. “It sounds like the dark ages… I had no idea.”

“Of course you didn’t,” Judith said, softening her voice. “How could you? You weren't there. But I was…” She sighed. “I’ve been scared, dependent, vulnerable… you name it! And you know what? There’s no way in
hell
I’ll ever allow myself to go back! Sure, times are different now—women have ownership rights, more opportunities in their education and careers—still, whatever I can do to protect them, empower them, I’m happy to do.” She paused. “That’s why I have such a hard time with…”—she waved her free hand back and forth, showcasing the room around them—“with all this!”

Lauren scanned the room, not sure what Judith had a problem with. Was she bringing up the decorating issue again?

“It seems so
backward
to me,” Judith continued.

Lauren understood now. “Being religious?”

Judith dropped her arm and nodded.

“But people
choose
a religious lifestyle,” Lauren said. “It's not like they have no say. God grants everyone free will.”

Judith smiled. “Ah, I see you've attended my son's classes.”

Lauren blushed.

“The fact that we have free will,” Judith continued, “almost makes it worse! Today, women have a choice! It’s no longer the cultural status quo, and yet…
yet
they choose to subject themselves to this kind of life! All I can say is thank God my son is a good man or Hannah might really be in trouble…”

Nehama started fussing, her tiny fists clenching as she bore down. Lauren was actually happy for the distraction. The conversation was getting a bit intense, and it was becoming increasingly clear to Lauren just how Judith felt about men.

“This is a long and complicated discussion,” Judith said, “perhaps one best left for another day.”

Or not,
thought Lauren, but she smiled politely and scooped up the baby. While upstairs, she took her time changing Nehama's diaper; she had no desire to listen to more of Judith's sexist dialogue. But she couldn’t help pondering Judith's words.
Not having control of her own money
? Lauren couldn’t imagine it! Okay, so women had, at one time, been at the mercy of men—that was a sad, historical fact. But when it came to Judith’s assertion that orthodox women were subjecting themselves to the same dependency of the past, Lauren wasn’t sure what to believe. It was true that most of the orthodox women Lauren had met from the community were home with four or five, even six children. Most believed that the use of birth control was prohibited without a rabbi’s consent, so it wasn’t unusual to see the same women pregnant year after year. It followed that if they were home with their children, then they were dependent on their husbands for financial support. But wasn’t that okay? Hannah often spoke about the inherent differences between men and women. She said that Jewish law provided for those differences by way of the marital contract. Going as far back as biblical times, it was understood that once the
Ketubah,
the marriage contract, was signed, a man was not only obligated to support his wife financially, but also emotionally and sexually. As ancient as Judaism was, one had to admit, these tenets were pretty darn progressive.

Lauren placed Nehama in her crib and sat in the rocker. She thought more about the orthodox families she had met this past year. The women often looked harried—understandable given all their responsibilities—but most seemed content and maintained strong community ties. Actually, now that Lauren thought about it, most of the women had college degrees; and many had had careers prior to getting married. Maybe that was what made the difference—a woman being
capable
of financial independence.

But then Lauren's thoughts turned to Sonia Lyman. For some reason, Sonia preferred to keep to herself.
She felt sorry for the young woman, living on the fringe of the community like that… Sonia seemed so alone. Lauren thought back to the summer—just a few months ago—when Sonia had been spending more time at the Orenstein home. She was her most relaxed then, happily teaching Lauren how to knit, cooking up some of her family’s traditional recipes of
borsht
and
golubtsi
. Sonia probably would have opened up eventually… if only Lauren hadn't messed up… if only she hadn’t been so
stupid
!

Lauren sighed, still regretting that day. She had immediately apologized, and Sonia had accepted, but it was obvious from Sonia’s curt “hello's” that she was still angry. Once again, Lauren replayed the scene in her mind: It couldn’t have been more than a week after Hannah had come home with baby Nehama. Most women would have enough to do with a newborn and four other children to take care of.
Most
, but not
Hannah
. No, Hannah jumped right back into her usual routine of planning elaborate Shabbat meals and playing matchmaker. Without missing a beat, she started up again with Lauren about finding a husband, even going so far as to imply that younger wives made happier wives.

“Really? Well, Sonia doesn’t seem so happy, does she?” Lauren had fired back impulsively. How could she have known that one of the boys had let Sonia into the house just seconds before? How could she have known that Sonia was making her way up the steps and had heard every word? But as wrong as she was for saying it, Lauren still believed it was the truth. Sonia
didn't
seem happily married! Besides, it wasn’t as though Hannah disagreed! If Hannah saw things differently, shouldn’t she have spoken up? Immediately come to Sonia and Gary's defense?

According to Janine, Sonia's husband made a good living as a C.P.A. They lived in a beautiful new house on one of the nicer streets in Arden Station—in a development called Trinity Lane Estates—not far from where the new Jewish Life Center was being built. And Lauren remembered Sonia mentioning that she had worked in a hotel before getting married:
The Hotel Kiev
. This meant she had skills to fall back on if she ever needed to support herself. So why did she seem so sad? Was it a simple cultural difference like Janine said? Was she homesick? Or was it what Lauren suspected: Was Sonia stuck in a miserable marriage? And if so, why didn’t she just
leave
?

But now that Sonia was offended and not speaking to her, Lauren realized she might never find out the answer. Beyond speculation, people never really knew for certain what went on inside another's head—or in their home, behind closed doors. Lauren knew how easy it was to fool others into thinking you were something you were not. After all, she had been doing it most of her life. In fact, she had been hiding her own secret for so long that she sometimes forgot who she really was. To Lauren, public personas were as comfortable as an oversized shirt, hiding well the unsightly marks underneath.

 Twenty-five

“So tell me what’s going on,” Lewis began, settling into an oversized chair in his daughter's cozy family room. Elise handed him a coaster and he carefully set his coffee on the glass table in front of him. “You said there was something very important you needed to talk to me about.”

Still a bit jet lagged after his return to the states two days earlier, Lewis had taken an early afternoon train in from Boston, sleeping for most of the six hour trip, and arriving an hour before dinner. He was greeted at the door by a squealing three year old holding an enormous helium balloon with the words “HAPPY BIRTHDAY!”

“Ben picked it out,” Becca explained, standing behind him and rolling her eyes. “Even though it's not even your birthday!” She pointed a finger at herself. “
I
wanted to get the one that said “WELCOME HOME”, but Ben had a fit in the store.”

As with all of his visits, the kids dominated their Pop-Pop's attention throughout dinner, yapping excitedly about everything that had happened while Lewis was away. For a special dessert, Becca proudly presented the cupcakes she helped make in his honor—vanilla with chocolate frosting.

Since it was a school night, the kids were now in bed. Evan was in his study watching the 11:00 PM news.

Elise took a deep breath. “A woman in the community—Estelle Ginsberg—is dead.”

Elise placed an open hand on her heaving chest.

Lewis leaned toward her, concerned. Elise had suffered an occasional asthma attack as a child, but had outgrown the condition.

She waved him away. “I’m okay. Just give me a minute.”

Lewis waited while Elise dabbed her eyes and blew her nose.

“I’m fine now,” she said, her breathing regulated.

Lewis spoke gently. “Estelle Ginsberg has died…” he prompted her.

Elise nodded. “And Yehuda Orenstein’s wife is in the hospital—in a coma.”

Lewis sat up. “Yehuda Orenstein? The rabbi from The Jewish Learning Center?”

“Yes.”

He leaned back in his chair, rhythmically stroking his clean-shaven chin in a stereotypically Freudian kind of way. “What happened?”

“Estelle and Hannah were at the
mikvah
—last Monday night. When the police found them… Estelle was already dead.”

“She was close to ninety, right?” Lewis asked. Already he was forming a scenario in his mind: an elderly woman getting overly excited by some unforeseen event—maybe something having to do with the construction—and her heart giving out.

“Eighty-six, I think.”

“And Hannah?” Lewis hadn't come up with a scenario for Hannah yet. What possibly could have happened to land a young, vibrant woman in a coma?

Elise sighed. “Hannah was alive—barely.” She shook her head back and forth and covered her face as the tears flowed.

Lewis handed her a box of tissues. “Sweetheart, we can continue this tomorrow if you want.”

Under normal circumstances, Lewis would
never
, during a dialogue so entrenched with emotion, offer an out for the patient. For a psychiatrist, tears were like striking oil. Sometimes you could drill for months, years even, before hitting anything. But once that nerve center was hit, and the flow started, it was fascinating to see just how much had been pooled below the surface, and watch as it was carefully dredged up. Lewis suspected his daughter’s strong reaction was a display of some latent, unresolved grief; therefore he reasonably concluded that there was no need to force the issue tonight.

“No, it’s okay, Dad…Really, I’m alright.” She placed the tissue box on the coffee table beside her and continued. “By the time they pulled him off her…”

Lewis held up his hands. “Wait a second… pulled
who
off her?”

Elise stared at him blankly. “The guy who attacked them… he was on top of Hannah.”

Lewis stared back at his daughter, silent, stunned. He hadn’t expected the story to unfold like this. So much for his theory of unresolved grief.

Elise repeated herself, figuring her father had not heard her. “Dad, this man… from the church across the street… he was on top of Hannah.” She paused and lowered her voice. “Dad, Hannah was completely naked.”

“Did he…?”

Elise shook her head fervently. “No! No… Oh God, no! The police think he would have… that he probably planned to… but they got there before that could happen.”

“And this man, you say he’s from a church…”

“He’s from the church next door to the mikvah—St. Agassi.”

“I thought St. Agassi was closed.”

“It is, but apparently the priest still lives in the rectory, and this guy—the one they arrested— he lives there too. He’s the custodian or something.”

Lewis took a minute to organize his thoughts. “You said Estelle was found dead…”

Elise nodded.

“What was the cause of death?”

“Blunt force injury to the back of her head,” Elise said. “He hit her with a vase. Nearly cracked her skull open.”

Lewis closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “He confessed?”

“No.”

“Then how did he explain his being there?”

“He didn’t.”

“He didn’t give a statement to the police?”

Elise shook her head. “Not one word.”

“They were able to keep him locked up without a confession?”

“Yehuda’s mother says that given the circumstances of his arrest there was never an issue.”

“The rabbi’s mother said this?”

Elise nodded. “Judith Orenstein. I don’t think you’ve met her dad; she doesn’t come in too often. Well, she didn’t until now. Until this.”

“I take it she's a lawyer,” Lewis said.

Elise nodded. “She practices in New York. Pretty high powered, specializes in divorce, I think.”

Lewis sat quietly for a minute processing all that he had just heard. “And Hannah Orenstein? What is her prognosis?”

Elise exhaled loudly. “She still hasn’t come out of the coma.
Head trauma
.”

He shook his head empathetically. “What a difficult time for the family,” Lewis said, shaking his head. “All they can do is wait…”

Elise nodded. “That’s exactly what the doctors told Yehuda. They said she had water in her lungs, but the police aren’t sure how long he held her under.”

Lewis shook his head in astonishment
. How long he held her under
. The facts were getting more and more shocking. Maybe Arden Station wasn’t the best place for his daughter and her family to live.

“Dad,” Elise said softly, interrupting Lewis's private growing annoyance at his son in law for bringing Elise to this area, “I know I don’t have to tell
you
of all people about confidentiality, but the general public does not know certain details about what happened.”

“Nothing’s been published about this?” Lewis asked, surprised. “Doesn’t your paper have a police blotter?”

“Yes of course, but something of this magnitude would be more likely to show up as a front page story. Given the nature of the crime—and the fact that the guy they’re holding isn’t talking, let alone actually confessing—they're trying their best to maintain a low profile, at least for now.”

Lewis wondered how many other area crimes the public didn’t know about.

“They might also be concerned about the
motive
,” Elise continued.

Lewis knew what she was going to say even before she said it.

“Specifically that it might have been a hate crime,” Elise continued. “There are people who aren’t very happy about a Jewish Life Center being built on church land.”

Lewis recalled hearing that the site had been vandalized on several occasions, but those events had taken place years earlier.
Why the sudden resurgence?
“And this guy—the church custodian—he’s unhappy about it?”

Elise shrugged. “Apparently he was about to lose everything—his job, his home. I guess he blamed us.”

By
us
, Lewis knew Elise meant
us Jews.

“And if it
was
anti-Semitic in nature,” Lewis said, “the police are probably concerned about copy-cat crimes.”

“They are. In fact, they’re so worried that they've closed the mikvah and posted a security guard to watch the property at night,” Elise said.

“But hasn’t that drawn public suspicion?”

“Not at all. The only ones who even know the mikvah is there are members of the orthodox Jewish community. And as far as the security guard being at the building, well, it’s not at all unusual see security at construction sites.”

“That's true,” Lewis said. “And I suppose Yehuda is relieved that it’s being kept quiet.”

“Yes, he is… for the children's sake.”

Lewis was silent for a moment. “Tell me Elise, how
are
the children coping with their mother being in the hospital? There are four of them, right?”

“The baby makes five.”

Lewis smiled. “Ah, yes, baby Nehama, the one who gave her parents quite a scare… the other children are all boys?”

“They have three boys and an older daughter. The boys have been doing very well according to their grandmother.”

“Yehuda's mother—the lawyer?”

Elise nodded. “I brought over a meal this afternoon. Judith told me the boys seem perfectly fine. She said only Rachel seems to be suffering. At nine years old, Rachel can more fully grasp the magnitude of the situation. Unfortunately, I think she suspects that there is more to the story than what she’s been told.”

Lewis nodded. He agreed with Elise’s assessment. Before she stopped working to be a stay at home mom, she had been a wonderful social worker. Lewis was certain she would have made an even better psychiatrist.

“Do you happen to know what exactly Rachel's been told?”

“I know
exactly
what she's been told. That somehow her mother and Estelle Ginsberg slipped on the wet floor and hit their heads.”

Lewis crinkled his forehead. “Sounds sketchy to me; no wonder the child doesn’t believe it.”