The Second Rule of Ten: A Tenzing Norbu Mystery (Dharma Detective: Tenzing Norbu Mystery) (6 page)

“What, you mean next-of-kin situations?”

“Nope. Needy women situations.”

He jumped out of reach before I could swat him.

C
HAPTER
5

I followed Bill to the Rudolph house, enjoying the throaty snarl of my Mustang as I let her stretch her muscles a little on the surprisingly fluid freeways, since Friday traffic hadn’t started clogging all the drains yet. We took the Sunset exit off the 405, wound our way past the Bel Air byways, turned north on Beverly Glen, and after a few quick turns, onto Madrono Lane. The Rudolph house was a two-story, butter-yellow Mediterranean, surprisingly modest for a man of Marv’s means. It had a neat lawn and was set back from the sidewalk at the end of a quiet cul-de-sac.

Bill climbed out of the unmarked Ford Taurus, gave his back a satisfying crack, and started up a narrow paved path to the front door. I had parked a half block away and was a few steps behind Bill. As I headed for the house, I noticed a black, four-door sedan, some sort of Chevy, an Impala maybe, parked across the street, engine idling. It sped off.

Bill pressed the doorbell, and we heard a chime of bells inside.

“You met Mrs. Rudolph before, right?” he said

“No,” I said. “Just Marv and the daughter, Harper.”

“Well, hell, what good are you, Norbu?”

I ignored him as I studied a narrow antique brass object, rectangular in shape, tilted inward on the right side of the doorframe. The door opened a crack and then swung wide as a dark-suited man in a black yarmulke stepped outside. He peered into our faces, his own expression grave.

“Is there news?” he said. “I’m their Rabbi, Rabbi Aaron Fishbein. The body, is it available for burial yet?”

“Not yet, sir,” Bill answered.

Fishbein nodded. “Please, be gentle with her. She is in shock.” He kissed his fingertips, transferred the kiss to the brass object, and hurried across the street. I watched as he continued down the sidewalk to the intersection and turned toward Beverly Glen, still on foot. The door started to close again.

“Mrs. Rudolph?” Bill said.

“Go away. Please.” The voice quavered with quiet emotion.

Bill flipped open his badge-case and held it up to the crack in the door. “I’m Detective Bohannon. We spoke briefly this morning.” He nodded in my direction. “My colleague Tenzing Norbu is here with me. Can we come in?” After a moment, the door opened. On an impulse, I glanced behind me, across the street. The Impala was driving past again. I followed Bill inside.

The house was much larger than it appeared from the outside. A grand foyer opened into an even grander living-room area to the right. The formal dining room on the left boasted an antique table that could easily seat 20, and a huge hinged mahogany door that led into what I assumed must be the kitchen. A curved staircase led up to an equally spacious second floor. All the doorways had similar small, rectangular boxes, tilted at an angle.

The rooms were spotless but decorated with a somewhat jarring mix of modern and traditional. As I trained my eyes on Mrs. Rudolph, my first impression was that she and her husband were an odd study in contrasts. From my own experience, coupled with everything I’d read, Marv was an explosive person, prone to arm-waving bursts of rage. He had stormed through life like a blustering monsoon, destroying anyone in his path. The woman before me was meek, thin, and unassuming; she seemed almost to disappear into herself. Her brown wavy hair was threaded with silver, and it stopped just short of her hunched shoulders. A deep worry line was etched vertically between her eyebrows, and her mouth was pinched with pain. But her oval face and dark eyes hinted at an earlier beauty, and I flashed on her daughter’s fragile appeal. I was looking at the 55-year-old, worn-out version. Mrs. Rudolph wore black slacks, a gray cardigan, and a pair of dark flats embroidered with a muted Moroccan design. Her face bore the stark, flattened expression I had seen again and again on relatives of homicide victims. She led us into the living room. A few silver-framed photographs, some of a younger, happier Harper, some of Marv and her, dotted the tables. A large, ornate mirror hung over a fireplace mantel. The rest of the walls were covered with framed posters of past Marv Rudolph films.

As Bill and I sank into a pair of modern, overstuffed leather armchairs, I found myself wondering, as I often did with married couples,
What did they see in each other?
For some reason, this time a possible answer popped into my head:
Something they couldn’t find in themselves.
Marv probably needed her quality of hardly-there-ness to balance out his quality of here-the-fuck-I-am-and-you-better-get-used-to-it-ness. As for what she saw in him, I guessed it had something to do with survival—she who mates with the biggest gorilla in the jungle gets the most bananas, or something like that.

Not that I’m an expert on this subject. I was taught to view females, and, it follows, sex with females, as harmful, if not disastrous, distractions on the road to enlightenment. One of the creation myths drummed into us in the monastery even claimed that Tibetans were descended from a wise monkey and a wily, rock-dwelling demoness.

Now that I’d read Darwin, I had to admire the fact that my Tibetan ancestors at least got the monkey part right.

Bill’s calm voice tugged me back. “We just have a few questions we need to ask, Mrs. Rudolph.”

“Yes, yes.” She waved vaguely at the dining room. “I should offer you something to drink.”

“We’re fine,” Bill said. I thought longingly about coffee, but I knew he was right. She pulled over the most uncomfortable chair in the living room, a straight-backed antique number, and perched on its edge, facing us. She sat very still, looking at the floor, neither patient nor impatient. Everything she did seemed to be a beat or two behind normal, and it was hard to get a read on her. Grief does strange things to people.

Then again, so do pills. I remembered the last time I’d seen her daughter, stoned to the gills. Maybe Mom was her role model.

“Is Harper home?” I asked, gently. She looked blank for a moment, and then said, “Harper? No, no, she’s at school. I thought it was best that she go. She’s doing so much better at her new school.” Her expression brightened at the thought of her daughter then sagged again, as if weighted down by the recollection that her husband was dead. She met my eyes. Hers were huge, but the pupils didn’t seem dilated.

Bill said, “I’m very sorry for your loss. Please accept our condolences.”

“I asked my Rabbi, why? Is this a punishment from God? For him? For me?” Her eyes filled. “Marv wasn’t always like this, you know,” she said. “He wasn’t always so . . . “ She blinked, and tears spilled over.

“I’m very sorry for your loss,” Bill repeated. I was silent.

Homicide detectives are trained to say, “I’m sorry for your loss,” to the next of kin, but I seldom connect to these words. Maybe it’s a Buddhist thing. I know it’s important to acknowledge another’s pain, but if I tune in, deep down inside, I usually don’t feel comfortable using the word
sorry.
Why apologize for someone else’s loss, especially when all involved are strangers? It borders on egotistical. In this case, it would also be a lie. I did not feel sad. Not for the demise of Marv Rudolph and not for his surviving wife. Most of us are in for a rough ride as we get older, even more so if we’re overweight, chronic cigar-smokers. Maybe Marv got lucky; his limited time on earth came to a fairly painless and swift end rather than a long, slow, painful one. And as for Arlene, I had a hunch she was well rid of him.

Marv’s wife wrung her hands. “This is all such a shock. I don’t know what to do.” Her voice rose. “I need to bury him. I need to put him into the ground, so he . . . so he can have some peace, and we can sit shivah. It’s almost Shabbat. Why are they keeping him so long? What are they doing to his poor body?” She doubled over, moaning.

And now, I did feel a surge of compassion. I walked over to her and put my hand on her thin shoulder, but she pulled away. After a moment, she straightened up, folding her hands in her lap like a schoolgirl. I returned to my chair.

“This won’t take long,” Bill said. “I apologize. There’s no easy way to ask these questions, ma’am.”

“Ma’am,” she said with a thin smile. “Ma’am makes me feel so old. Please. Arlene.”

“First, and again, ma . . . Arlene, I apologize, but we have to ask. Can you tell me where you were late Wednesday night and early Thursday morning?”

She blinked. “I was, I was at a lecture at my temple on Wednesday night. Temple Beth Adel. It was a talk about redemption—Jewish Women and Redemption. I took Harper. Then, I went to bed early. A few hours later, Harper woke me up. She wanted to know when her father was getting home. I said I didn’t know. Late.” Arlene’s voice faltered. She licked her lips. “She said she needed his signature for something, umm, some school trip coming up.” She smiled a little smile. “She’s doing so much better at her new school,” she repeated.

I was glad. She needed to be doing better.

Bill was jotting down Arlene’s information for later corroboration.

“Anyway,” she said, “I went right back to sleep. The next thing I knew, it was light out, and those two detectives were ringing the doorbell. That’s when I realized Marv never came home.” A small “oh” escaped her mouth, and she curled tighter, around the pain.

“And where did your husband say he was?” Bill said.

“Some sort of business meeting, he said. I really don’t know.”

“Did your husband seem preoccupied in any way? Worried about something, maybe?”

“No. No, in fact he’s seemed much happier lately. Excited about his new movie, of course. And he loves awards season, all the parties and premieres. Especially now that he feels successful again. He’s been out almost every night. It’s that time of year.”

Bill scribbled a few more things. He looked up from his notebook.

“Right. Now, Arlene. You were given some details by Officers O’ Sullivan and Mack, concerning an . . . injury to your husband’s body, yes?”

A rush of blood turned her throat pink. “They said someone took his skin,” she whispered. “Is that how he died?”

“We’re still not certain how he died, I’m afraid.”

She waited, anxiety coming off her in waves.

“The piece of skin was removed from your husband’s inner forearm. Someone seems to have cut something off of there. Do you know what it might be?”

Her flush deepened, staining her pale skin. How odd. She looked ashamed.

She made a small choking sound and started to gasp for breath. Bill shot me a “do something, we’re losing her” look.

I squatted in front of her, a little awkwardly, as if she were a small child. “Breathe, Mrs. Rudolph. Breathe.” I took a deep inhale and exhale, hoping it would prove contagious, like a yawn.

It seemed to work. Arlene, too, took a deep shaky breath, and let it go. We breathed together for a few moments. I should have quit while I was ahead, but I decided to go one step further.

“That’s right,” I said. “Just feel what you’re feeling.”

She stiffened, aiming her words at the floor like darts. “How am I supposed to know what I’m feeling? One day I’m sitting here doing what I’ve done every day forever, and then my doorbell rings and I’ve got some strangers telling me my husband’s dead, maybe murdered, and now I’ve got another one saying somebody defiled him, tore off his skin!” She met my eyes, a wild-eyed look. “Can you imagine that?” Her voice rose. “Can you?”

“No,” I said. “There’s no way I could ever know how that felt.”

She ignored me and turned to Bill.

“Somebody cut his tattoo off his arm? Is that what you’re saying?”

Bill and I met eyes. Bingo.

“I’m afraid that’s it,” Bill said. “Please, Arlene, can you tell us about the tattoo?”

“Numbers,” she said. “Numbers.”

“Numbers? Do you happen to know what they were?”

“No,” she whispered. “No. I, I can’t . . . “ She started to twist the heavy gold wedding band on her finger. “It was wrong of Marv to violate his body like that. Terribly wrong. I told him so, but he wouldn’t listen.”

“Was this recent?”

“Two years ago.”

“And you’re sure you don’t remember the numbers?”

Her face cleared. “I wrote them down.” She excused herself and hurried upstairs.

“Violate his body? That seems a little harsh,” I said.

“I think tattoos are taboo for Jewish people,” Bill answered. “Same reason they don’t want autopsies . . . “

Arlene came back downstairs, a piece of lined note paper in her hand. She gave it to Bill. He copied some numbers off of it and handed the paper to me. I wrote them down as well: 481632.

She took back the paper and stared at the numbers. “Now I remember,” she said. In a singsong voice she recited, “Double four, makes eight. Double eight, makes sixteen. Double sixteen, makes thirty-two. I used to be a whiz at numbers when I was Marv’s bookkeeper, back in New York. When we were happy.”

She’s losing it, I thought.

“What do the numbers refer to?” Bill asked.

“I don’t know,” she said. “He wouldn’t tell me. He got angry that I didn’t already know. Know what? Know what?”

Bill studied her with the flat unsentimental gaze only acquired by being lied to a few thousand times. He turned to me and flared his eyes. I knew the look: I think she’s telling the truth. What do you think?

I nodded slightly to him. I agreed.

Mrs. Rudolph stared off into space. “Marv wasn’t the same after the tattoo. Something in him got . . . hard. I mean, he was always ambitious, but after that, there was no getting in. Pretty soon, all he thought about, cared about, was Hagar.”

Bill stiffened, on high alert. “I’m sorry? Hagar?”

I knew that name. Why did I know that name?

Arlene’s eyes flashed.
“Loving Hagar! Loving Hagar!
He was obsessed.”

“Who is Hagar?” Bill’s voice was gentle, but there was steel underneath.

Arlene said nothing.

“Ma’am, are you saying Marv was having an affair?”

She stared at Bill.

“You don’t know anything, do you?” she said, and that’s when the penny dropped for me.