She moved forward and took my arm. “Hold on. I don’t know about you, but I’m starving. And it’s still early. Call the cantor after dinner, and then you can track him down.”
Sharon: sensible as ever. I didn’t know for sure if I loved her, but it sure looked that way.
Three hours later, I found Cantor Cohen in the middle of a poker game. He was not happy to see me.
“And why should I interrupt this game to talk to you?”
There were two other men, both scowling at me in such a way that I should be scared. I wanted to laugh; I’d spent far too much time around crackheads to be scared of some upper middle-class types — especially those who had their poker night in the synagogue’s basement.
“You don’t have to interrupt,” I said. “I could wait till you’ve finished this hand, and then we can talk.”
“Better idea,” said the cantor. “Our regular fourth man dropped out at the last minute. And I might like you better if you play a few rounds.”
You mean you might like me if I lose some money and let you win, I thought. Which, to be honest, was a strong possibility. I never won very much at poker.
But I accepted. Luckily, they weren’t playing Texas Hold ’Em, but the more traditional game. Maybe they hadn’t caught on to the fact that no one played with full closed hands anymore, thanks to the books and TV shows that flooded the airwaves. So the first hand, I won. Then the next one. But when the overall mood shifted from collegial to surly, I folded on round three, even though it looked like I was well on my way to a straight flush.
Cohen won, and he seemed thrilled to collect the mounting spoils. “I knew fortune would swing my way!” he cried.
The other two guys probably begged to differ, because after round four, they each claimed they had to be elsewhere and took off.
Cohen seemed confused by their behavior.
“Why did they have to leave so fast?”
I shrugged. “Guess it wasn’t their night to win.”
“I suppose you’re right. So what can I do for you? Am I a suspect?”
What was with these guys asking straight out if I thought they killed Kranzman? I felt like my skills needed sharpening, like I wasn’t subtle enough.
Inexplicably, Cohen laughed. “Forget it. I have a bit of a problem, as you might have noticed.”
“Which is?”
“I’m too blunt for my own good. But Jack warned me you’d be coming—”
“He did?” Shit. Then I remembered something Sam said months ago. That there could never be secrets within a Jewish community, let alone a synagogue. Everyone knew everyone else’s business.
“Of course. I admire Jack greatly, and vice versa. We’re in constant communication.”
I leaned forward, resting my elbows on the table. “So does that mean you think the same things about people?”
“Not necessarily,” Cohen shot back. “But when it comes to Rabbi Kranzman, the answer is yes.”
“And does that constant communication extend to contract negotiations?”
I could see the wheels turning behind Cantor Cohen’s eyes as he considered the question.
“There are some things that aren’t anyone’s business,” he said evasively.
“Come on, you’re saying you didn’t know how much Kranzman was making?”
“Of course I did. Seventy-five thousand dollars a year; I was making five thousand more than he was.”
So much for constant communication.
“That’s not what Jack Reichstein told me the other day.”
The wheels turned some more. I could tell that Cohen didn’t know how to react. Call the president a liar, and it reflected badly on him. Accept it as truth, and he would have been played. And if he knew all along, it gave him enough motive to kill.
Cohen chose not to say anything at first.
“So you found out about the salary difference. And then you found out Kranzman wasn’t actually quitting—”
“You think that was a surprise to me? I knew that all along.”
“Kranzman told you?”
Cohen got up without warning. He went to the back of the room, and when he returned he held a piece of paper.
“This,” he said, thrusting it at me, “is a note Rabbi Kranzman sent me the night before he was murdered.”
I took it and began reading. I tried not to give away the shock I felt, but Cohen noticed.
“Exactly,” he said, crestfallen. “Kranzman couldn’t have quit the shul because he had no reason to do so.”
“Not when you were paying him five thousand a month to keep things quiet,” I added. “But how’s this supposed to prove that you weren’t involved in his death?”
“I’m as culpable as every other person he sent such notes to.”
Now this was interesting. “So he was blackmailing several people?”
“Oh yes,” said Cohen. “Rabbi Kranzman had a knack of finding things out. And then using them to further his standing.”
“But I don’t get it. People loathed him. And he resigned in person. Why would he do that?”
“Because he wanted certain people to believe he’d be crazy enough to do it. He couldn’t fool me. Find the person he did fool, and that will be your suspect.”
The next week was one of the worst I’d experienced in a long time. Sam was out on bail — on the aforementioned bond of a hundred thousand dollars — but he still refused to talk to me. I would call the house several times a day and he’d never answer. It was the strangest thing: Here I was trying to find any way possible to clear him of the charges, and he wouldn’t tell me anything at all.
There were aspects of Sam’s personality I’d never understood before, chalking it up to past remembrances and old wounds. But this hurt. We’d grown even closer in the months since my mother had died, and I viewed Sam as far more than just my boss and mentor. It was in no small part due to him that I could leave my old life behind and embrace the one I’d started anew.
Sharon tried to cheer me up, but I couldn’t shake the grumpy mood.
“He’s hiding something,” I said.
“You’re probably right,” she agreed, “but how are you going to get it out of him?”
“I wish I knew. Sam — well, you’ve met him, you know what he’s like.”
“A stubborn old bastard who likes to meddle but keep himself out of it to some degree,” Sharon said.
“Exactly. So what do I do?”
Sharon laughed. “You keep asking me that. Am I really supposed to know all the answers?”
I smoothed out a stray hair that had fallen in front of her eyes. “Except maybe how you ended up with me...”
With Sam staying silent, Rebecca remained our go-between, insisting on hearing any updates I had when she walked back into the store the following Monday morning. I hadn’t expected her to show up so early, but it made things a lot easier.
“Blackmail?” she said, after I’d told her what Cantor Cohen had said. “Are you serious?”
“Well, it’s pretty logical if you think about it. Kranzman, from all accounts, liked to know everything about everyone and judge them accordingly. So why wouldn’t he get the idea to use all that information to further himself?”
The strangest expression crossed Rebecca’s face, almost like a shadow. “Did you talk to any other people he supposedly blackmailed?”
“Cohen said there were five others. It didn’t take long for me to find them, though none were willing to say much to me.”
“Why not?” The shadow was gone.
“Embarrassment, I think. Nobody wants to admit they were paying off a rabbi with several thousand bucks a month to keep his trap shut.”
“But shouldn’t you have pried more details out of them?” she cried. “They could know something important!”