The Ritual Bath (2 page)

Decker picked up
the phone, and his mouth fell open as he scratched out the details in a small notebook. He knew the day just
had
to end up as lousy as it started out. First, it was Jan nagging him for more child support, then the entire day was wasted pursuing a dead-end lead on the Foothill rapist because of that call from the flaky broad. Now, as if things weren’t bad enough, a rape at Jewtown.

Jesus, he thought, looking at the piles of paperwork on his desk. The weather gets hot, and the locals take to the streets. Plus, to beat the heat, the women dress scantier and scantier till some weirdo gets it in his head that “they’re all asking for it anyway.” God, he was sick of this detail. He’d considered transferring back to Homicide, tired of seeing rape survivors hung up to dry by a fucked-up—and misnamed—justice system. At least with Homicide the victims never had to face the perpetrators.

But a rape in Jewtown? Few locals, including himself, had ever set foot in the place. The
grounds were gated and walled off, and the Jews kept to themselves, rarely venturing into town except to shop at Safeway or maybe get a car fixed. They were different, but they never caused any trouble. Decker wished he had a city full of ’em. He wondered how God’s chosen were going to deal with a rape and didn’t look forward to getting the answer.

He glanced around and found Marge Dunn at the coffeepot. Walking over to the most popular spot in the room, he touched her lightly on the shoulder.

“I need you, babe.”

She turned around, holding a steaming mug of coffee. Her big-boned frame made people think she was a lot older than her twenty-seven years, but that was okay with her. She liked the respect her height and weight brought her. Her face, in contrast, was soft—large bovine eyes and silky wisps of blond hair. She was an enviable combination of toughness and femininity.

“For you, Peter my love, anything.”

“It’s a dandy. A rape just went down at Jewtown.”

Marge put her cup down. “You’re kidding.”

“No such luck.” Decker frowned, then chewed on his mustache. “Let’s move it.”

“Pete, why don’t you let Hollander take the call?” She wiped a bead of sweat from her forehead. “We’re already working overtime with the Foothill thing, and he’s just come off vacation.”

“I’d love to pass this one over to him, but he’s at Dodger Stadium now.”

“So beep the lazy butt.”

“I don’t believe in interrupting a man at a ball game.”

“How about interrupting a woman with a fresh cup of coffee?”

“Let’s go.”

Decker started for the door. Marge grabbed her purse and followed reluctantly. It was the usual pattern: he hot dogging it, and she trying to slow down the big redhead. One thing about Peter, Marge thought, he was a good cop, smart and dedicated. But it worked against him. The brass constantly saddled him with all the rotten cases.

Together they left the station—a dilapidated stucco building, once white, now washed with grayish grime—and walked to the brightly lit parking lot. Flipping Marge the keys to a faded bronze ’79 Plymouth, Decker scrunched into the passenger side and pushed the bench seat back to the maximum. Like a fucking sardine, he thought as his shin grazed the undersurface of the dashboard. One day the Department would have unmarked that accommodated someone over six feet. When I’m ready to retire.

He rolled down the window. Jesus, it was hot. Decker could already feel moist circles under his armpits and rivulets of sweat running down his neck and back. He hiked up his shirt sleeves and leaned a thick, freckled arm out the window.

“Scorcher,” Marge said. “Must be hell with your metabolism.”

“I always know when we’re about to get a heat wave,” Decker moaned. “The air-conditioning goes out in the car a week before.”

“A rape in Jewtown,” Marge muttered. “I’ve always thought of the place as sacrosanct. Sort of like a convent. Who’d rape a nun?”

“Who’d rape, period?” Decker said.

“Good point.”

Marge started the engine and eyed him. “You look exceptionally bad tonight, Peter.”

“Thanks for the compliment.”

Marge peeled rubber. “I sure hope this isn’t the first in a string of Jew rapes.”

Decker exhaled audibly, thinking the same thing. Some people had lots of animosity toward the Jews. Their place had been hit several times by vandals, but there hadn’t been any violence against the people themselves. Not until tonight.

“Let’s take it one step at a time, Marge. Maybe there’ll be a logical explanation for the whole thing.”

“I doubt it, Peter,” she said. “There never is.” She drove quickly and competently. “How’re your horses?”

“I just got a pinto filly,” he said, smiling. “A real cutie.”

“How many are you up to now?”

“Lillian makes six.”

“You must shovel lots of shit, Peter.”

“True, but unlike the urban version, it’s biodegradable.” He lit a cigarette. “How’s old Clarence?”

“Speaking of shit,” Marge grumbled.

“Oh?”

“He forgot to tell me about the wife, the two kids, and the dog.”

“The louse.”

“Stop laughing. That’s exactly what he was. As far as I’m concerned he’s dead and buried. You’re not up to date, Pete. My newest is Ernst. He’s a concert violinist for the Glendale Philharmonic. We’ve played some nice flute-violin duets. When I get good enough, I’ll invite you and the lucky date of your choice to a recital.”

“I’d like that.” He smiled at the image of the big woman playing such a delicate instrument. A cello would have seemed more in character. Not that she had any talent. The guy must really be hot for Marge, he thought, to put up with her playing, which Decker had always likened to a horny parrot’s mating call. He couldn’t understand how she could continue with music if her ears heard the same thing that his did. The only logical conclusion was that she was deaf and had maintained the secret all these years by artful lip reading.

Marge turned onto
TWO HUNDRED TEN
East, and the Plymouth grunted as it picked up speed.

Decker dragged on his cigarette, looked out the window, and surveyed his turf. Los Angeles conjured up all sorts of images, he
thought: the tinsel and glitter of the movie industry, the lapping waves and beach bunnies of Malibu, decadent dope parties and extravagant shopping sprees in Beverly Hills. What it didn’t conjure up was the terrain through which they were riding.

The area encompassing Foothill Division was the city’s neglected child. It lacked the glamour of West L.A., the ethnicity of the east side, the funk of Venice beach, the suburban complacency of the Valley.

What it did have was lots of crime.

Bordering and surrounding other cities, each with a separate police department, Foothill’s domain could best be described as a mixture of small, depressed towns segregated from each other by mountains and scrub. Some of the pocket communities housed lower-class whites, biker gangs, and displaced cowboys, others were ghettos for blacks and migrant Hispanics, but most had a common denominator—poverty. People scratching by, people not getting by at all. Even Jewtown. These people weren’t the wealthy Jews portrayed by the media. It was possible that the yeshiva held a secret cache of diamonds, but you’d never know it by looking at its inhabitants. They dressed cheaply, buying most of their clothes at Target or Zody’s, and drove broken-down cars like the rest of the locals.

The station was twenty freeway minutes away from the yeshiva—a quick ride along a serpentine strip of road cut into the San Gabriel mountains. In the dark, the hillside
lurked over the asphalt, casting giant shadows. The air in the canyon was hot and stagnant, but as the Plymouth sped along, a cool jet stream churned through the open windows.

“I’m glad you were available,” Decker said. “You do a hell of an interview.”

“Sensitivity, Peter. That’s why I work so well with the kids in Juvey. Being a victim of life myself, I know how to talk to people who have been thoroughly fucked up. Like you, for instance.”

Decker smiled and crushed the cigarette butt in the overflowing ashtray. “Is that an example of your sensitivity?”

“At its finest.” Marge’s face grew stern. “I’m not looking forward to this. The Jews don’t relate well to outsiders.”

“No, they don’t,” he agreed. “But rape survivors experience lots of common feelings. Maybe that’ll supersede the xenophobic inclinations.”

“Yes sir, Professor,” said Marge, saluting. She pulled onto a winding turn-off ramp marked
Deep Canyon Thoroughfare, Deep Canyon
. The “thoroughfare” was a two-lane road blemished with dips and bumps. The unmarked car bounced along for a mile, until the street turned into a newly paved four-lane stretch.

They cruised slowly for another mile, inspecting the street with cops’ wariness. Scores of local kids were hanging out in front of the 7-Eleven, sitting on the hoods of souped-up
cars while smoking and drinking. Their raucous laughter and curses sounded intermittently above ghetto-blasters wailing in the hot night air. While the teenagers filled themselves with Slurpees and Coke, their elders tanked up on Jim Beam or Old Grand Dad at the Goodtimes Tavern. The place was doing a bang-up business judging from the number of cars parked in the lot.

In front of the Adult Love bookstore, a group of bikers congregated, decked out in leather and metal. The ass-kickers leaned lazily against their gleaming choppers and stared at the unmarked as it drove by.

As they headed north the activity began to thin. They passed a scrap metal dealership, a building supply wholesaler, a discount supermarket, and a caravan of churches. Poor people were always attracted to God, Decker mused. The area was a natural for a yeshiva—except for the anti-Semitism.

The street narrowed and worked its way into the hillside, the landscape changing abruptly from urban to rural. Heavy thickets of brush and trees flanked the Plymouth, occasionally scraping its sides as it meandered through the mountains. Two miles farther was another turn-off, then the property line of Yeshivat Ohavei Torah.

Marge pulled the car onto a dirt clearing and parked. Decker stepped outside, took a deep breath, and stretched. The dry air singed his throat.

“Gate should be open,” Marge said. “The
place is all walled in, but they always leave the gate open.”

“They’ve been vandalized at least twice and you can’t get them to put a lock on the damn gate.” Decker shook the wire fence. “This is just a psychological barrier, anyway. Wouldn’t stop a serious intruder.”

He pushed open the gate and walked inside. “Let’s get on with it.”

The grounds of the yeshiva were well tended but sparsely planted. A huge, flat expanse of lawn was surrounded by low brush and several flat-roofed buildings. Across the lawn, directly in their field of vision, was the largest—a two-story cube of cement. To its right were a stucco annex off the main building, a nest of tiny tract homes, and a gravel lot speckled with cars, to its left, two smaller bungalow-like structures. Behind the houses and buildings were dense woodlands rising to barren, mountainous terrain.

Decker gave the area a quick once-over. The rapist could have entered the grounds anywhere and exited into the backlands. They’d never be able to find him. Unless, of course, he was someone from the inside.

The two detectives walked on a dimly lit path that ran the length of the lawn.

“Where are we going, Peter?”

Decker looked around and saw two figures approaching. They were dressed in black pants, white long-sleeved shirts, and black hats. They must be dying in the heat, he thought. As they drew closer, he saw that both
of the men were young—barely out of their teens—and thin, with short beards and glasses. They walked in a peculiar manner, clasping their hands behind their backs instead of swinging them naturally at their sides.

“Excuse me,” Decker said, taking out his shield.

One of the men, the taller of the two, squinted and read the badge. “Yes, Detective? Is anything wrong?”

“Can you please direct us to the bathhouse?” Decker asked.

Both of the boys broke into laughter.

“I think you’re in the wrong place,” the shorter one said, smiling.

“Try Hollywood,” the taller one suggested.

Decker was annoyed. “We received a report that an incident took place here, at the bathhouse.”

“An incident?” said the short one in a grave voice. “You mean a criminal incident?”

“Do you think they mean the mikvah?” the taller one asked his friend, then turned to Decker: “You mean the mikvah?”

“Maybe you should direct us to this mikvah,” Marge said.

“You can’t go there now,” the tall one said to Decker. “It’s only open to women at this time of night.”

The short one prodded him. “The
incident
obviously has to do with the mikvah.” He looked at Decker and asked, “Was anyone hurt?”

“Stop asking them questions and answer
theirs,” his friend scolded, then said to Decker: “The mikvah is that little building in the corner.”

“Thank you,” Marge answered, walking away.

“I hope it’s nothing serious,” the big one added.

Decker gave them a smile, but not a reassuring one.

They walked a few steps, then Marge said, “Notice how they looked at me?”

“They didn’t.”

“That’s what I’m saying.”

They’d arrived before the black-and-whites.

Marge knocked on the door and a young dark-haired woman opened it, allowing them to enter after a flash of badges. Immediately, the murmuring that had filled the room died. The detectives were greeted with icy, suspicious stares from four kerchief-headed women crammed into the reception area. In the corner, an elderly bearded man who looked like a rabbi was whispering into the ear of a younger man who was rapidly rocking back and forth.

The young woman motioned them outside.

“I’m Rina Lazarus, the one who called the police,” she said. “The women inside were here earlier tonight. We’ve called a meeting to find out if anyone heard or saw anything unusual on their way home. Unfortunately, no one did.”

“What happened?” Decker asked.